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By John Scales Avery

 

Many traditional agricultural societies have an ethical code that requires them to preserve the fertility of the land for future generations. This recognition of a duty towards the distant future is in strong contrast to the shortsightedness of modern economists. For example, John Maynard Keynes has been quoted as saying “In the long run, we will all be dead”, meaning that we need not look that far ahead. By contrast, members of traditional societies recognize that their duties extend far into the distant future, since their descendants will still be alive.

Here is an ethical principle of the Native Americans: “Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children.” They also say: “We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren, and children yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who cannot speak for themselves, such as the birds, animals, fish and trees.”

Here is a quotation form “The Land of the Spotted Eagle” by the Lakota chief Standing Bear (ca. 1834-1908): “The Lakota was a true lover of Nature. He loved the earth and all things of the earth… From Waken Tanka (the Great Spirit) there came a great unifying life force that flowered in and through all things: the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals, and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred and were brought together by the same Great Mystery.”

In some parts of Africa, a man who plans to cut down a tree offers a prayer of apology, telling the tree why necessity has forced him to harm it. This preindustrial attitude is something from which industrialized countries could learn. In industrial societies, land “belongs” to someone, and the owner has the “right” to ruin the land or to kill the communities of creatures living on it, if this happens to give some economic advantage, in much the same way that a Roman slave-owner was thought to have the “right” to kill his slaves. Preindustrial societies have a much less rapacious and much more custodial attitude towards the land and towards its non-human inhabitants.

Buddhists recognize the unity of all life on earth, and the duty of humans to protect all living things. They also recognize our duty to future generations.

On April 22, 2010, the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, adopted a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. Here is a link: http://therightsofnature.org/universal-declaration/ Contrast this expression of the deep ethical convictions of the world’s people with the cynical, money-centered results of various intergovernmental conferences on climate change!

Our economic system is built on the premise that individuals act out of self-interest, and as things are today, they do so with a vengeance.There is no place in the system for thoughts about the environment and the long-term future. All that matters is the bottom line. The machine moves on relentlessly, exhausting non-renewable resources, turning fertile land into deserts, driving animal species into extinction, felling the last of the world’s tropical rainforests, pumping greenhousue gasses into the atmosphere, and sponsoring TV programs that deny the reality of climate change, or other programs that extol the concept of never-ending industrial growth. But the economists, bankers, bribed politicians and corporation chiefs who destroy the earth today, are destroying the future for their own children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Does it make sense for them to saw off the branch on which they, like all of us, are sitting?

Recently an extremely grave danger to the long-term future of human civilization and the biosphere has become clear. The latest observations show that Arctic sea ice is melting far faster than was predicted by the IPCC. It now seems likely that the September Arctic sea ice will vanish by as early as 2016 or 2017. It will, of course, refreeze in the winters, but its average total mass will continue to rapidly decrease.

The rapid and non-linear vanishing of Arctic sea ice is due to a feedback loop involving albido, i.e the high reflectivity of white ice compared with dark sea water which absorbs most of the radiation that falls onto it. As Arctic sea ice disappears more radiation is absorbed, the Arctic temperature rises still further, still more ice melts, and so on in a vicious circle.

At present Arctic temperatures are roughly 4 degrees C higher than preindustrial levels, and this has led to increasingly rapid melting of the Greenland ice cap. It is now observed that during the summers, lakes of melted water form on the surface of the Greenland inland ice. These lakes feed rivers that run for some distance along the surface of the ice cap, but which ultimately fall through fissures to the bottom of the sheet, where they lubricate its flow. Through this mechanism, the Greenland ice cap is flowing more quickly and calving into massive icebergs much more rapidly than climate scientists expected.

Complete melting of the Greenland ice cap would raise ocean levels by 7 meters. Antarctic sea ice is also breaking up much more rapidly than expected. When it is totally gone, the disappearance of Antarctic sea ice would add another 7 meters to ocean levels, making a total of 14 meters. It is hard to predict how soon this will happen, but certainly within 1-3 centuries.

However, by far the most worrying threat to our long-term future comes from the danger of an out-of-control and exponentially accelerating feedback loop involving methane hydrates. When rivers carry organic matter into the ocean, it decays, forming methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. At the temperatuures and pressures currently prevaling on ocean floors, the methane combines with water molecules to form stable crystals called methane hydrates. The amount of carbon stored in methane hydrates is immense: roughly 10,000 gigatons. By comparison, the amount of carbon emitted by human activities since preindustrial times is only 337 gigatons.

Geologists have observed that life on earth has experienced 5 major extinction events, the largest of which was the Permian-Triasic event, when 96 percent of all marine species and 70 percent of all terrestrial vertebrates disappeared from the fossil record. Predictions based on current CO2 emission rates predict that early in the 22nd century, global temperature increases will have reached 6 degrees C, the temperature that is thought to have initiated the Permian-Triasic extinction event. These dangers are eloquently discussed in a short, important and clear video prepared by Thom Hartmann and his coworkers. It is available on www.lasthours.org

Must there be a human-initiated 6th geological extinction event? Is it inevitable that the long-term future will witness the disappearance of human civilization and most of the plants and animals that are alive today? No! Absolutely not! It is only inevitable if we persist in our greed and folly. It is only inevitable if we continue to value money more than nature. It is only inevitable if we are afraid to queustion the authority of corrupt politicians. It is only inevitable if we fail to cooperate globally. It is only inevitable if we fail to develop a new economic system with both a social conscience and an ecological concience.

We are living today in a time of acute crisis. We need to act with a sense of urgency never before experienced. We need to have great courage to meet an unprecedented challenge. We need to fulfil our duty to future generations

John Avery received a B.Sc. in theoretical physics from MIT and an M.Sc. from the University of Chicago.

11 May, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Mike Head

With the open support of Washington and its European allies, the regime installed by Washington and Berlin in last February’s fascist-led putsch is now extending its reign of terror against all popular resistance in Ukraine. That is the significance of the events in the major eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol yesterday.

After tanks, armoured personnel carriers and heavily armed troops were unleashed on unarmed civilians in the city, the Kiev regime claimed to have killed some 20 people. The Obama administration immediately blamed the violent repression on “pro-Russian separatists.”

The violence bore all the hallmarks of a calculated provocation on the 69th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Soviet Red Army. “Victory Day,” long a day of celebration and pride among Russian and Ukrainian workers, who made immense sacrifices to end the Nazi war of extermination in the east, is hated and despised by the neo-Nazi gangs that propelled the US puppet regime in Kiev into power. These admirers of Hitler and his Ukrainian collaborators are now serving, with Washington’s full support, as the regime’s shock troops against popular opposition centred in the industrialised east of the country as well as in Russian-speaking centres such as Odessa in the south.

The same forces have been given free rein to attack anyone in the west of the country who dares to oppose the fascistic government in Kiev.

Outraged accounts from residents of Mariupol, verified by journalists on the ground, make it clear that many of those targeted by the Ukrainian National Guard and associated fascist elements on Friday had been participating in a Victory Day rally commemorating the anniversary.

Participants in the rally came to the defence of police officers who were barricaded inside the local Interior Ministry building after refusing to fire on civilians. Kiev’s armed forces then assaulted the building, using heavy weaponry and tanks, and turned their weapons on residents who flocked to the scene. Later, in scenes reminiscent of last week’s massacre in Odessa, the building was torched. Government troops then evacuated the city along streets lined with incensed and jeering residents.

Video footage, photos and eye-witness accounts appearing on social media show tanks and armoured personnel carriers rampaging through city streets and parks, and troops confronting residents.

Other postings document Ukrainian forces setting fire to the police building in which officers were barricaded and opening fire on unarmed protesters.

At yesterday’s US State Department press briefing, responding to a reporter’s question about the “worrying escalation of the violence” witnessed in Mariupol, spokeswoman Jen Psaki blamed opponents of the Kiev regime, declaring: “Well, we condemn the outbreak of violence caused by pro-Russia separatists this morning in Mariupol, which has resulted in multiple deaths.”

Her remarks, underscoring Washington’s support for the repression, came after Ukraine’s interim interior minister, Arsen Avakov, gloated on his Facebook page that security forces had killed about 20 “terrorists”—the regime’s term for all those who have opposed the Kiev putsch.

According to Mariupol health officials, at least seven people were killed and 39 injured, some seriously.

Once again, as with last week’s atrocity in Odessa, the US and Western media sought to obscure the facts of what happened on the streets of Mariupol, a large working class port city of half a million people. Vague reports of “clashes with separatists” whitewashed the escalation of the unelected Kiev regime’s military-fascist offensive in eastern Ukraine.

CNN, for example, cited Ukrainian authorities for its report that “at least seven people were killed and 39 others were injured in clashes between separatists and Ukrainian government forces in the flashpoint southeastern city of Mariupol.”

Such reports stand in stark contrast to the multitude of social media postings of the military violence and the involvement of fascist elements. “The National Guard went to war with local police,” local anti-fascist committee representative Pyotr Komissarov told the Russian media outlet RT. Neo-Nazi Right Sector elements were identified, he said, and described the attackers as “volunteers, mercenaries” from central and western parts of the country.

Ukrainian MP Oleg Lyashko, who represents the ultra-nationalist Radical Party, claimed on his Facebook account that Kiev’s forces had orders “not to take anyone alive.” During the assault on the Interior Ministry building in Mariupol, he wrote: “Terrorists are barricaded inside and are now returning fire. An order has been issued not to take anyone alive.”

Earlier in the week, Lyashko posted photographs on his blog of him personally interrogating Igor Kakidzyanov, the self-proclaimed defence minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic, who was captured by Ukrainian forces on Tuesday. Kakidzyanov had been stripped to his underwear and had his hands tied behind his back.

None of this naked military-fascist killing and terror would be possible without the protection and immunity provided by Washington and Berlin. Kiev’s bloody crackdown began after visits and discussions with the regime by CIA Director John Brennan and US Vice President Joseph Biden.

In her State Department briefing, Psaki revealed that Secretary of State John Kerry held a phone call yesterday morning, just as the events in Mariupol were unfolding, with acting Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. According to Psaki, “Prime Minister Yatsenyuk provided an update on the security situation on the ground, efforts to maintain calm, and preparations for the election”—a reference to the presidential poll planned for May 25 to try to legitimise the regime.

The US is overseeing and directing the crimes being carried out in Ukraine by its puppet regime in Kiev.

Psaki’s State Department briefing underscored Washington’s patent double standard. The Obama administration hailed as heroes of democracy the fascist Right Sector and Svoboda party forces who mounted armed protests, seized government buildings and fired on security forces to destabilise and overthrow the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych last February. The White House declared at the time that Yanukovych had forfeited his legitimacy by mobilising police and security forces against the armed demonstrators.

Now, Washington denounces anti-government protesters who have seized official buildings in the east as Russian agents, echoing the Kiev government’s attack on them as “terrorists.” It backs the government’s use not just of police, but of tanks, troops, helicopter gunships and fascist thugs organised in the “National Guard” and “special units” to murder the regime’s opponents.

This is the second time in a week that the Obama administration has defended the role of the Kiev government in the murder of anti-government demonstrators, having done so following the Odessa killings (see: “US defends role of Kiev regime and fascists in Odessa massacre”).

Desperate to reach an accommodation with Washington, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday urged pro-Russian eastern Ukrainians to abandon planned separatist or autonomy referenda set for Sunday. But these efforts have been rebuffed by Washington.

Putin is unable to control the resistance that has spread across eastern Ukraine, with separatist spokesmen denouncing him as a “coward” and “traitor” for issuing his call.

It is clear, despite the non-stop flood of propaganda and lies from the Western governments and their compliant media, that the opposition to the Kiev regime in the east is broadly based and indigenous. There is deep hostility, particularly in the working class, to the resurgence of the fascist threat, which is associated with the deaths of millions during World War II. And there is widespread anger over appalling levels of unemployment and poverty throughout the industrial centres of Ukraine two decades on from the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

“We are on the brink of an uprising of poor against rich, of chaos, of a terrifying rebellion,” Sergei Chertkov, a regional administration official in the eastern town of Konstantinovka, told the Guardian. “America, Russia, Europe, the politicians in Kiev, everyone has tried to play their games here, and they have played so hard that now we are on the brink of catastrophe.”

Fearful that Ukraine’s descent into civil war could trigger a working-class movement against his own oligarchic regime, Putin is resorting to Russian nationalism and chauvinism to shore up his position, fueling precisely the divisions in the working class upon which the stooge regime in Kiev and its imperialist backers rely.

Appearing in Moscow and the Crimean port city of Sevastopol yesterday for Victory Day parades, Putin sought to associate the liberation of Ukraine from the Nazis with the supposed glories of the Russian Tsarist empire, declaring that 230 years ago Russian Empress Catherine the Great gave Sevastopol its name.

In response to Putin’s appearance in Sevastopol, Washington and Berlin stepped up their threats against Russia. German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned Putin’s visit and the White House said it would exacerbate tensions.

10 May, 2014
WSWS.org

 

By Ismail Salami

In the midst of a crisis which has in recent weeks created a political chasm between Russia and the United States, there is an ongoing carnage in the name of combating terrorism against Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia.

The story of the CIA-led killer drones which are killing women and children on a daily basis is a tale accorded inexcusably scant attention in media. Indeed it is being ignored.

Just recently, the US director of national intelligence James Clapper ordered US senators to remove a provision from a major intelligence bill that would require the president to publicize information about drone strikes and their victims.

The bill originally required the president to release a yearly report clarifying the total number of “combatants” and “noncombatant civilians” killed or injured by drone strikes in the previous year.

Reports clearly indicate the number of drone attacks on Muslim countries has increased tremendously since Barack Obama took office in 2009. Quite ironically, the man who was initially compared to Martin Luther King won the Nobel Peace Prize nine months later.

I for one always presumed that George W. Bush was a political retard who thought he was burdened with a messianic mission and that he felt he had to save the world. Quite naturally, the election of a colored president in the US engendered some false hope that there might appear tangible political upheavals in the country in its approach towards the world in general and toward the Muslim world in particular.

To the dismay of many, this dream was however shattered altogether to be ensued by an era of apocalyptic darkness and escalating mass murders in the international arena.

According to the New America Foundation, a Washington-based public-policy institute, Obama authorized 193 drone strikes in Pakistan alone from 2009 to 2011, that is, over four times the number of attacks that President George W. Bush authorized during his two terms.

To date, the liar-in-chief has only acknowledged that the United States has killed four Americans in drone strikes. According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Obama has launched over 390 covert drone strikes in his first five years in office and thousands of civilians have been killed in the strikes.

The drone warfare is indeed a war in disguise, a form of war meant to lull American public who are manifestly fed up with their government’s military interventions on the one hand and to vindicate their gory policies through a mechanism of invisibility on the other.

Contrary to their claims that the drones are only used to wipe out the al-Qaida elements in different parts of the Muslim world, their strikes have however proven to kill civilians. Women and children are unfortunately among the routine victims of their ‘targeted’ assassinations.

For the US government, war has taken a new shape, ranging from cyberwar to drone strikes, from assassinations to other forms of covert operations.

It is agonizingly sad to see that certain governments including Pakistan and Yemen have been even collaborating with the CIA, providing them with the space for their inhumane intrusion.

A known victim of the assassination drones attacks is Pakistan which had long declined to admit that it had been aware of the attacks and that it had even helped the US government. In 2011, ex-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged that his government clandestinely signed off on US drone attacks. It was actually part of a deal by Washington to help retain the Pakistani strongman in power.

A cable sent in August 2008 and later posted online by Wikileaks, then-US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson mentioned a discussion about drones during a meeting that also involved Malik and then-Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

“Malik suggested we hold off alleged Predator attacks until after the Bajaur operation,” Patterson wrote. “The PM brushed aside Rehman’s remarks and said, ‘I don’t care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it.’ ”

Yemen’s president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has also confessed that he “personally approves every US drone strike in his country and described the remotely piloted aircraft as a technical marvel that has helped reverse al-Qaeda’s gains.”

Further to that, there are third-party governments which are aiding and abetting Washington in carrying out its massacre of the civilians in Africa by allowing them to use their military sites in the country. According to a report by the German Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, the Stuttgart-based supreme command of the United States Africa Command (US Africom) and the Air Operations Center (AOC) at the US air force base in Ramstein, in the state of Rhineland Palatinate, are directly involved in the drone attacks.

With a morbid mind, former US president George W. Bush, who was incapable of truth, commenced a series of invasions and military expeditions in the Muslim countries, caused inconceivable human losses and left a legacy of horror and bloodshed which came to be followed by his successor Barrack Obama. Then in order to keep up appearances and beguile the American public, Obama who was essentially expected to behave differently took the wars from the battlefields to the towns and exacted an irretrievable toll on the civilians under the banner of fighting terrorism.

By all standards, Obama is a brazen criminal and those who collude with him in perpetrating these acts of atrocity are no better. All of them are indeed under the watchful eyes of God and they shall meet their dismal reckoning.

As Noam Chomsky once said, “Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.”

Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian writer, Middle East expert, Iranologist and lexicographer.

06 May, 2014

Countercurrrents.org

By Countercurrents

A German press report said: CIA and FBI agents are in Kiev and they are assisting the Kiev authority

The German newspaper Bild revealed: Numerous US CIA and FBI agents are helping the coup-appointed government in Kiev to “fight organized crime” in the south east of the country.

According to the daily, the CIA and FBI are advising the government in Kiev on how to deal with the ‘fight against organized crime’ and stop the violence in the country’s restive eastern regions.

John Brennan, the CIA head, met the acting Kiev prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and first vice-president Vitaly Yarema to discuss a safer way to transfer US information to Ukraine during his mid-April Kiev visit.

However, Jen Psaki, spokeswomen for the US department of state, said that there was nothing to read into Brennan’s visit to Kiev, and that the head of the CIA did not offer support to the coup-appointed government in the country to help them conduct tactical operations within Ukraine.

Following the CIA chief’s Kiev visit the toppled Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovich linked the CIA chief’s appearance in Kiev to the first stage of the new government’s crackdown in Slavyansk.

Brennan “sanctioned the use of weapons and provoked bloodshed,” Yanukovich said.

Bild’s reports comes as US president Barack Obama rules out that Washington will interfere in the situation in Ukraine.

“You’ve also seen suggestions or implications that somehow Americans are responsible for meddling inside Ukraine. I have to say that our only interest is for Ukraine to be able to make its own decisions. And the last thing we want is disorder and chaos in the center of Europe,” he said speaking in the White House after meeting the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, just two days ago.
06 May, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Floyd Rudmin

The crisis in Ukraine is serious. At some point soon, reality needs to become the priority. No more name-calling. No more blaming. If there are any adults in the room, they need to stand up. The crisis in Ukraine is going critical, and that is a fact.

The first fact. The Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors loaded with a 1000 tons or more of radioactive fuels. The largest nuclear reactor in Europe is on the Dneiper River, a little north of Crimea. Plus, there are the 4 Chernobyl reactors, still leaking radiation, still needing constant attention. A rational world cannot tolerate chaos, or a collapsed economy, or a civil war, or any kind of war, in a region with nuclear reactors. If the power grid fails, if workers are unable or unwilling to show up for their shifts, if there is an act of sabotage, an act of war, if something happens to a nuclear reactor, then the Ukraine, Europe, Russia, and the rest of the world will receive heavy doses of radioactive fallout. There is now no government in Ukraine with the resources to manage a nuclear catastrophe.

The second fact. The ability to start a war has now been distributed across hundreds of relatively low-ranked individuals, on both sides. NATO nations, including Canada, have moved military aircraft to front-line states and have begun armed missions along the Russian border. Russia has been matching these with deployments of interceptors and missile batteries along its borders and in Byelorussia. Accusations of border violations are already appearing. New NATO warships have entered the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. The Ukraine and Russia have both moved military units to their border. Thus, there are now hundreds of armed and ready military personnel on both sides, any one of whom, for any reason, can cross a border, can shoot a missile, can start a war. In the Ukraine, large numbers of anti-Russia militia are eager to provoke Russia to invade Ukraine, and equal numbers of anti-Kiev militia are also eager to provoke Russia to invade Ukraine. War now waits on hair-triggers, hundreds of them. If an incident turns into a war, it would quickly turn into a missile war, and maybe into a global nuclear war.

In 2014, on the one century anniversary of World War I, European nations are again mobilizing for war. As in 1914, so in 2014, war is not for repelling an attack, but for loyalty to an alliance, even when some members of the alliance are belligerent. The 1914 war was supposed to be over by Christmas, but went on and on and on for years, killing 9 million people. The 2014 war, if its starts in earnest, will be over in one week, maybe less, and could kill a 100 million people depending on how many nuclear reactors break open and how many nuclear missiles are launched. The 1914 war was called “the war to end all wars”. The 2014 war will be that.

We need proposals that have some prospect of resolving the Ukraine Crisis. Here is my list:

1) Settle the Crimean secession. War is on the ready as long as NATO says the Crimean secession was an act of Russian aggression, and Russia says that it was an act of democratic self-determination. All sides, including the acting government in Kiev, should agree to a second referendum run by the electoral commissions of several small, non-aligned nations, for example, Switzerland, Ireland, and Costa Rica. If the referendum votes majority for secession, then the Ukraine, US, EU, and UN accept that act of democratic self-determination. If the referendum votes majority against secession, then Crimea reverts to its former status as an autonomous region of Ukraine, and Russia gets perpetual lease of its naval base modeled on the US lease of Guantanamo. All sides should accept a throw of the dice of democracy to decide the fate of Crimea.

2) Deploy non-aligned peace keeping troops. The acting government in Kiev is illegitimate in the eyes of many Ukrainians because it came to power by unconstitutional means and includes right-wing neo-fascists who have publicly voiced violence against Russian-speaking Ukrainians. The methods of Maidan Square are now being copied in eastern cities. The acting government in Kiev has mobilized neo-nazi militia into national guard units, and has started conscripting western Ukrainians to join attacks on eastern Ukrainians. Demonstrators are being denounced and targeted as “terrorists”. Both sides are accusing the other of having foreign advisors and support. Neo-nazis from across Europe are reportedly coming to Ukraine to join in the mayhem. If this continues and escalates, then civil war is unavoidable. There is need for international, non-aligned military forces in eastern Ukraine and in Kiev, so that Ukrainian military units need not attack Ukrainian cities, so that citizens can feel secure, and so that militia can be disarmed. I suggest that Brazilian and Argentinian army units, wearing blue UN helmets, would be good. They are non-aligned nations far from the conflict, and the football reputations of those two nations might make their soldiers welcomed and accepted by Ukrainians. The costs of UN peace keeping troops would be paid by the US, EU, and Russia, in equal parts. Though expensive, it would be much cheaper than war.

3) Form an interim government of national unity. It may take months to organize national elections, perhaps delayed until a new national constitution can be written and approved. In the meantime, if the nation of Ukraine is to survive as one nation, then there is need for immediate representation and power in the government for all regions of the Ukraine. This could perhaps be achieved by empowering a “Council of Cities” comprised of representatives appointed by the elected mayors of the capitol cities of each of Ukraine’s 24 “oblasts” (provinces). Such a nationally representative council could be empowered as a “senate” in Kiev, or could be the pool from which ministers and deputy ministers of the government must be drawn. Without urgent action to include all of Ukraine in national decisions, especially military and economic decisions, then Ukraine might shatter and be unlikely to ever again exist as a coherent nation.

4) Grant immediate economic aid, without conditions. The Ukraine’s economy was poor and is now collapsing. The EU, US, and Russia, in equal parts, should implement an economic aid package to get the Ukraine through the next few months, until a legitimate government can be elected and accepted by all regions of Ukraine. The EU, US, and Russia should give preferential status to Ukrainian exports. The EU, US, and Russia should accept Ukrainian refugees, in approximately equal numbers, as long as ethnic attacks, anti-Semitism, and militia wars force Ukrainians to flee their home communities. Although such actions may seem expensive, they are far less expensive than war, especially war that risks nuclear reactor meltdowns and risks nuclear missile launches.

5) Investigate all oligarchs for financial crimes. The motivation for many of the original Maidan Square protesters was to rid Ukraine of corrupt government run by oligarchs, for oligarchs. The 2012 Transparency International Corruption Index ranked Ukraine as 144 out of 176 nations, tied with Syria and the Central African Republic. European and US financial crime units and tax authorities should investigate all Ukrainian oligarchs. All of them. Pro-European oligarchs, pro-Russian oligarchs, and ordinary gangster oligarchs. The acting government of Ukraine is again in the hand of oligarchs. For example, Igor Kolomoysky was given Dnepropetrovsk to govern, and Sergey Taruta was given Donetsk to govern. Both are billionaires. Even Arseniy Yatsenyuk, acting leader of Ukraine, has explained that he himself had €47,000 ($65,000) of bank interest income. Presuming a high return of 3% interest, then he has around €16 million ($23 million) in bank deposits. That is not counting real estate or other investments. How did a civil servant in a poor nation acquire that kind of wealth? Someone should inquire. All financial crimes, by any of the oligarchs, no matter what their positions of power or where they have stashed their cash, should be prosecuted. Stolen money and unpaid taxes should be recouped to Ukraine’s national budget.

6) Investigate the Maidan Square snipers. The foreign minister of Estonia, Urmas Piet, after his trip to Kiev, reported to EU Foreign Policy Chief, Catherine Ashton, that “all the evidence shows, that people who were killed by snipers, from both sides, among policemen and people on the streets, that they were the same snipers, killing people from both sides.” Ashton replied that this should be investigated, and Piet explained that the new government refuses to investigate this because it was members of the governing coalition who hired the snipers. To date, the EU has not investigated the snipers that caused the fall of a constitutional government, caused the rise of neo-fascists to positions of power, and caused the start of a civil war, maybe regional war, maybe global nuclear war. It is not a minor matter. If the NATO nations and their media truly believe that a government that shoots demonstrators is illegitimate, then the present government in Kiev is illegitimate if it came to power by shooting demonstrators. The Maidan murders are acts of political terrorism, and should be referred to the criminal court at The Hague, with support from national police forces to the degree possible.

7) Audit the $5 billion spent by the US in Ukraine. Victoria Nuland, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, has gone on record saying that the US has invested $5 billion in NGO activities in Ukraine. That does look like covert operations to destabilize Ukraine and impose a new government, especially considering that the Ukraine was destabilized by demonstrations organized by NGOs and considering that it was the same Victoria Nuland who selected the new leadership in Ukraine. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) should do a public auditing of that money, reporting which NGOs got which amounts of money, under what authorization, disbursed by whom. Misappropriations and unlawful disbursements should result in criminal prosecutions.

The pieces of the Ukraine crisis all come from the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union 25 years ago: a) oligarchs controlling and corrupting the government, b) regions that are predominantly Russian-speaking, c) neo-fascists with a hatred of Russians and other minorities, and d) NATO nations investing in chances to imperil Russia. It will be difficult for Ukraine, EU, and Russia to escape horrific outcomes unless concerted actions are taken to change the course of events. People need to press their governments to start acting for the well-being of the region’s societies, and stop acting out historical bad habits and loyalty to alliances.

Floyd Rudmin is Professor of Social & Community Psychology University of Tromsø, Norway

06 May, 2014
Countercurrents.org

By Habib Siddiqui

There is little doubt that BJP leaders’ xenophobic speeches have catalysed targeted pogrom in Assam. Justice demands that they be held accountable for their criminal role, writes Dr Habib Siddiqui from Pennsylvania

DOES Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader, have a hand in the latest killing of Bengali-speaking Muslims in western Assam’s Baska and Kokrajhar districts since Thursday evening of May 1? Union minister Kapil Sibal believes so, and so does Assam Youth Congress president Piyush Hazarika.

Addressing media, the law minister said the BJP leaders were fanning violence in Assam using morphed pictures as part of its ‘communal propaganda’ on social media. Targeting the Gujarat chief minister, the Congress leader said, ‘Modi is a model of dividing India. This is the policy of the BJP since 1984 of dividing India. The Rath Yatra, Babri Masjid demolition and all this has been a part of the communal strategy of the BJP.’

Raha MLA Hazarika said, ‘On April 1, immediately after Narendra Modi’s rally in Biswanath Chariali, a local BJP leader, Bhavdev Goswami, told a TV channel that the BJP had the support of the NDFB [National Democratic Front of Bodoland] rebels. At Sri Rampur on the Assam-West Bengal border, Modi said he would drive out all Bangladeshis after May 16.’ [The relevance of May 16 is that the BJP expects to win the marathon election held now, which ends on May 12, whose results will be declared on May 16, 2014.]

It is worth noting here that the NDFB is an armed separatist outfit which seeks to obtain a sovereign Bodoland for the Bodo people in Assam, India. It is designated as a terrorist organisation by the government of India.

According to the Assam police, the NDFB’s Sangbijit group is behind the killings in the massacre of Muslims since May 1, though the group has denied its role in a press statement.

The published reports from Assam show that on April 1, Bhavdev Goswami claimed in front of a television camera that he along with some other party workers had a meeting with members of two NDFB factions — Sangbijit and Ranjan Daimary — at Bhalukpung and they had pledged support to the BJP for the Lok Sabha polls. The BJP candidate from Tezpur constituency, RP Sarma, also reportedly told the TV channel that he was aware of the meeting. The BJP’s Sonitpur West district president Ritubaran Sarma later denied that any such meeting took place.

‘When Rahul Gandhi had a rally at Biswanath Chariali on March 27, the NDFB had declared a bandh. What more evidence do you need that the BJP is hand in glove with terror groups? Modi wants to repeat in Assam what he did in Gujarat in 2002,’ Hazarika said.

Meanwhile, the Assam minister of state for border areas development, Siddique Ahmed, has claimed that extremist elements in Bodoland People’s Front, an alliance partner of Tarun Gogoi-led state government, are involved in the recent violence in Bodoland Autonomous Territorial Districts. The BPF is also in power in the BTAD. Congress leader Abdul Khaleque has sought BPF leader Pramila Rani’s arrest for her ‘incendiary’ comment on April 30 that Muslim migrants did not vote for her party candidate from Kokrajhar seat Chandan Brahma. Chandan Brahma is currently transport minister in the Gogoi cabinet.

he All Assam Minority Students’ Union Abdur Rahim said the BTC administration had planned the mayhem after the votes were cast.

An umbrella group of 21 non-Bodo organisations has also attributed the violence to BPF legislator Pramila Rani Brahma’s view on April 30.

Opposition parties have also sought immediate resignation of chief minister Gogoi, who is also in charge of the home ministry. Badruddin Ajmal, president of Assam’s largest opposition party All India United Democratic Front, has demanded the imposition of the president’s rule in the state.

Muslims are a major constituent of this group that fielded Naba Kumar alias Hira Sarania, a former United Liberation Front of Asom rebel, as an independent candidate in Kokrajhar. Non-Bodos including other tribes have never won this seat despite constituting two-thirds of the population. ‘BPF chief Hagrama Mohilary is responsible for instigating his cadres to attack non-Bodo villagers, particularly Muslims, because his party has realised it could lose the Kokrajhar seat,’ Sarania said.

According to government officials, hundreds of Muslims and other minority groups have fled their villages to safer locations fearing a rerun of the 2012 communal clashes that took the lives of 108 people. According to India Today, indefinite curfew has been clamped in Baska and Kokrajhar districts. The union home ministry has sent 10 companies of central paramilitary forces to Kokrajhar and Baksa.

As I have noted elsewhere in a 2012 article, at the heart of Assam’s troubles is a debate over the ‘infiltration’ by outsiders, which has led to ethnic tension between the state’s so-called indigenous population and Bengali-speaking people who have settled there for generations. Overlooked in this debate is the fact that all these territories were once part of British India with people — both Assamese and Bengali — living on either side of today’s border that separates Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan/East Bengal) from the state of Assam in India.

The Assamese were mostly illiterate people and so many Indians (mostly from the province of Bengal) were brought in to work as engineers, doctors, administrators, clerks, railway workers and other government related jobs. Many of the Bengali-speaking famers were also brought in to boost rice production in the area, especially around the ‘chars’ (river islands). Having lived there for generations, these so-called migrants are as Indian (in today’s parlance) as the ethnic Assamese or the tribal people are in the state.

Forgotten also in this charged-up xenophobia is the mere fact that Muslim inhabitation in Assam can historically be put at least in the early 13th century. The descendants of those early Muslims continue to live in Assam, and are mixed with other Muslims whose ancestors had moved to the territory ever since.

Unfortunately, the ensuing change in demography, rivalry for land, dwindling natural resources and livelihood, and intensified competition for political power between the ruling party and the separatists has added a deadly force to the issue of who has a right to Assam. It is all about xenophobia. Successive governments have used Assamese/Bengali Muslims as little more than a vote bank without recognising their due rights.

The latest massacre in the tea-growing Assam state comes towards the end of a marathon election in which the Hindu fascists of the BJP have been able to stoke ethnic and religious hatred. The sad fact in today’s India is: xenophobia and bigotry sells, especially if it is against the minority Muslims. Modi and Swamy’s recent visits of the troubled northeast — a copycat of (now dead) Ariel Sharon’s visit of the holy Muslim precincts of Jerusalem just before the Israeli election — where they sold the poisonous pills of communalism and intolerance provided the necessary backdrop to bring the worst amongst the Bodo people. They became the BJP’s willing executioners.

As we have seen before, in this latest pogrom, too, entire Muslim villages have been burnt down while the police and army came too late to stop the massacre of Muslims. Like chief minister Modi of Gujarat a dozen years ago, Assamese chief minister Gogoi cannot evade his culpability for the massacre of Muslims — both then in 2012 and now in 2014.

Assamese Muslims now live in fear. The Reuters reported that Anwar Islam, a Muslim who had come to buy food in Barama, a town about 30 kilometres from the villages in the Baksa district where the violence erupted on Thursday and Friday, was heard saying, ‘We are scared to live in our village, unless security is provided by the government.’ He said men armed with rifles had come to his village, Masalpur, on bicycles and had then fired indiscriminately and set huts on fire.

As I write this article on Sunday, 32 people have died, all Muslims, as a result of the latest pogrom in the BATD of the state of Assam. The district administration in the adjoining Dhubri district has opened up two relief camps. The death toll is expected to go up with many reported missing.

Targeted massacre of minorities has no place in our time, especially in a state that touts itself as a model of democracy and secularism. Such crimes only strengthen the dark forces on all sides, and often have ramifications that go beyond the sources of the trouble. The Indian government owes it to its people to rein upon such evil fascist forces that have managed to thrive unscathed, often fattened by the local government that is supposed to protect the victims.

The Indian Election commission should also look into the matter of hate speech delivered by chauvinist politicians whether such speeches had violated rules during the election time.

There is little doubt that BJP leaders’ xenophobic speeches have catalysed targeted pogrom in Assam. Justice demands that they be held accountable for their criminal role. Otherwise, all those bloated claims about Indian secularism are mere hogwash and nothing else.

Dr Habib Siddiqui is a peace and rights activist.

5 May 2014

http://newagebd.net/

By Akbar E. Torbat

Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani (formerly Fereidon Sorkhei) “does not have any political or social base of his own at home.” That was a statement by Ahmad Pournejati , a reformist and a former member of the Iranian parliament. [1] According to Pornejati, Rouhani did not comply with the demands of his reformists’ allies who made the ground for him to become president. Losing reformists’ supports, Rouhani now depends on the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Western Powers for support. Rohani’s political-base is strong in London and in Washington. This can be understood from the support he is getting from the Western media and lobby organizations.

Rouhani’s secret dealing with the US to settle Iran’s nuclear dispute has raised a lot of criticisms in the Iranian political circles, including the Iranian parliament. Because Rouhani does not have people’s support, he is seen as a West’s stooge who tries to abandon Iran’s nuclear program. His dealing has to do more with getting support from the West to preserve the clerical rule in Iran than to defend Iran’s nuclear rights in the dispute.

Rouhani pretends his secret nuke deal was not Iran’s outright yield but instead was surrendering of the Big Six powers to Iran. [2] When some academics criticized his secret deal, he called them uneducated, while he has given himself a doctorate title since he served in the Iranian Parliament more than three decades ago. A British university (Glasgow Caledonian) tried to legitimize his “doctorate” title by publishing a one-page summary of a paper supposedly written by Hassan Fereidon dated July 1998. But that turned out to be an embarrassment to the university and Rouhani himself as the main idea and expressions in the summery were from a book titled Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence written by an Islamic Scholar Mohammad Hashim Kamali, which had been originally published in 1989. [3] Despite all that, President Barack Obama praised Rouhani and his election in a television message he sent on March 20, 2014, for the occasion of Iranian New Year day Norooz. He said “Last year, you—the Iranian people—made your voice heard when you elected Dr. Hassan Rouhani as your new president. During his campaign, he pledged to strengthen Iran’s economy, improve the lives of the Iranian people and engage constructively with the international community—and he was elected with your strong support”. [4] It was a surprise that a country founded on the basis of separation of religion and state to view the clerical oligarchy in Tehran as the rightful government of Iran.

Rouhani came to office by the motto of “prudence and hope”. However, his promise of transparency became secrecy, his promise of political participation for all turned out to be purging his critics from the government institutions, his promise of freedom of the press turned out to be shutting down critical newspapers and giving warning notices to others. [5] Being afraid of worker revolt against the regime, he did not approve a permit for a march on the May 1 st Labor Day celebration requested by the state labor organization “Khaneh Kargar”.

Despite his promises, Rouhani has made no progress on promoting and protecting freedom of speech. In late March, it was announced that some prisoners had been pardoned or their sentences were reduced by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, but it was not indicated whether any political prisoners were among them. The number of political prisoners in Iran is quite large. According to Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, there are currently about 900 political prisoners in Iran. Imprisoning political dissidents and executions have continued under Rouhani’s watchful eyes. In fact, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, whose one of his brothers is heading the judiciary and another one is heading the parliament, has loudly said the world should stop complaining about Iran’s executions and instead “be grateful for this great service to humanity”. [6] Rouhani’s justice minister, Mustafa pour-Mohammadi, has blood on his hands for executing thousands of Iranian political prisoners in 1988. [7] As a matter of formality, both the US and EU officials have publicly criticized Iran’s human rights records, but at the same time they have restarted their commercial business with Iran in exchange for Iran dismantling its nuclear program.

Rouhani has filled his cabinet with very wealthy ministers. According to Elias Naderan, a member of Iran’s parliament, several ministers in Rouhani’s cabinet have about 800 to 1000 billion tomans ($265 to $330 million dollar) wealth. [8] While most Iranians are suffering from poverty, Rouhani’s wife gave a lavish party on April 19 in previous Shah’s Sadabad Palace, which raised strong criticisms in the Iranian media. [9] In February, Rouhani spent pennies of the approximately $ 4 billion returned to Iran (a part of the $100 billion Iran’s assets frozen by the West) to give food baskets to the poor hoping to build a political base among them. However, his action backfired as it was demeaning to the poor who were treated like beggars. The poor had to wait hours outside in frigid weather to get to front of the long line, at which time some found they were not qualified to get the foods. Two persons died in the stamped in the crowded lines while waiting to get the foods. Ultimately, Rouhani had to apologize on state television for the problems the food distribution had caused.

Rouhani urged the Iranian people in late April not to apply for monthly $15 cash subsidies. Contrary to his expectation, 73 million or 95% of the 77-million Iran’s population registered to receive the subsidy, which amounts to about $1,140 million per month. [10] In this year budget, he has increased the funding for clerical institutions while cutting the funds for essential subsidies. Under the clerical regime, the Iranian workers have become more and more impoverished while the clerics, their relatives and cronies have amassed enormous wealth.

Instead of speaking about what he has done to solve the country’s problems, Rouhani frequently criticizes his predecessor, former President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad gained people’s support for his promise to bring Iran out of the hands of the oil mafia led by cleric tycoon Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his sons. Rouhani has done just the opposite. His oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zangeneh, has been involved in a major oil corruption case. Zangeneh served as the oil minister in Mohammad Khatami’s cabinet (1997-2005). In 2001, Zangeneh signed the shameful Crescent oil contract through a middleman involving Rafsanjani family. Crescent Petroleum is a privately owned oil and gas company headquartered in the United Arab Emirates. Under the 25-year contract, the National Iranian Oil Company obligated Iran to sell oil to Crescent at a bargain price of $18 to $40 as compared to the current price of over $100 per barrel. [11] In 2006, Iran unilaterally canceled the Crescent contract. The case is now in the International Hague Arbitration Tribunal for corruption charges.

In the meantime, Rouhani wants to bring back the international oil companies and give them lucrative contracts. In late January 2014, he led a delegation that included Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif and Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Rouhani presented an outline of the new “Iran Petroleum Contract” to replace the former “buy-back” contract format in order to attract investment from the oil companies. To encourage the oil companies’ investments, he has proposed long-term contracts and faster production rate to the companies. While this is good for the oil companies, it is not good for Iran because it deplete Iran’s oilfield and will flood the market leading to lower oil prices. At Davos, Rouhani attended a meeting with oil companies’ executives including Christophe de Margerie, the Chief Executive Officer of the French oil company Total SA. De Margerie in an interview said, the oil contracts will be “more sexy than before”. [12]

Rouhani’s political base will be further tested as he has begun to implement the next phase of neoliberal reforms prescribed by the International Monetary Fund. While the Iranian economy is already in recession, It remains to be seen how the Iranians, 95% of whom have registered to get a monthly subsidy check, will react to Rouhani’s economic austerity program.

Akbar E. Torbat (atorbat@calstatela.edu) teaches economics at California State University, Los Angeles.

03 May, 2014

Countercurrents.org

 

By Countercurrents

Stephen Hawking has warned against the use of drones in warfare, with the world caught in “an IT arms race fuelled by unprecedented investment and building on an increasingly mature theoretical foundation”.

The physicist considered one of the greatest minds in today’s world said:

“Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks. In the near term, world militaries are considering autonomous-weapon systems that can choose and eliminate targets; the UN and Human Rights Watch have advocated a treaty banning such weapons. In the medium term, as emphasised by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee in The Second Machine Age, AI may transform our economy to bring both great wealth and great dislocation.”

He says that humanity should learn how to avoid the risks that artificial intelligence (AI) poses to mankind.

In an op-ed in the Independent (UK), Hawking describes a situation in the not-too-distant future where the intelligence of machines could outpace humans.

Stephen Hawking is the director of research at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge and a 2012 Fundamental Physics Prize laureate for his work on quantum gravity.

The pioneering physicist has said the creation of general artificial intelligence systems may be the “greatest event in human history” – but, then again, it could also destroy us.

The physicist said IBM’s Jeopardy! -busting Watson machine, Google Now, Siri, self-driving cars, and Microsoft’s Cortana will all “pale against what the coming decades will bring.”

We are, in Hawking’s words, caught in “an IT arms race fueled by unprecedented investment and building on an increasingly mature theoretical foundation.”

These investments, whether made by huge companies such as Google or startups like Vicarious, have the potential to revolutionize our society.

But Hawking worries that though “success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. … it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.”

So inevitable is the rise of a general artificial intelligence system that Hawking cautioned that governments and companies are not doing nearly enough to prepare for its arrival.

“If a superior alien civilization sent us a message saying, ‘We’ll arrive in a few decades’, would we just reply, ‘OK, call us when you get here – we’ll leave the lights on’? Probably not – but this is more or less what is happening with AI,” Hawking wrote.

The only way to stave off a societal meltdown when AI arrives is to devote serious research at places such as Cambridge ‘s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, the Future of Humanity Institute, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, and the Future Life Institute, he said.

03 May, 2014
Countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents

Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are the highest in 3 million years. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere averaged more than 400 parts per million throughout April, the first time the planet’s monthly average has surpassed that threshold.

The data from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California , San Diego , shows how world leaders are failing to rein in greenhouse gases that climate scientists say are warming the planet.

“We’re running out of time, but not solutions,” Ed Chen, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an e-mail. “The next big step is to limit, for the first time, carbon pollution being spewed by our power plants.”

The average value for April was measured at 401.33 ppm at the Mauna Loa monitoring station in Hawaii , according to an announcement on Twitter disclosing the finding by the institution’s Keeling Curve program. It was named for the scientist who began the measurements in 1958 and shows that temperatures are rising more quickly.

The finding adds to concerns that a buildup of carbon dioxide is damaging the atmosphere, making storms more intense, melting glaciers and putting at risk the future of seaside cities such as Miami .

The level of CO2 broke 400, as a daily average, for the first time last May. Less than a year later, the average for a month has exceeded a threshold not seen in the measured record dating back 3 million years.

Concentrations of CO2 are rising at about 2 to 3 ppm a year. The United Nations has said that in order to maximize our chances of limiting the global temperature rise since 1750 to the internationally agreed-upon target of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the concentration of all greenhouse gases should peak at no higher than 450 ppm this century.

That includes methane and nitrous oxide, gases not included in the Scripps measurement.

The atmospheric concentration of all greenhouse gases, including methane and nitrous oxide, was equivalent to a CO2 level of 430 ppm in 2011, according to the UN intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The annual average concentration of CO2 that year was about 391 ppm, according to the UN’s World Meteorological Association.

03 May, 2014

Countercurrents.org

 

By Mike Head

In what can only be described as a massacre, 38 anti-government activists were killed Friday after fascist-led forces set fire to Odessa’s Trade Unions House, which had been sheltering opponents of the US- and European-backed regime in Ukraine.

According to eye-witnesses, those who jumped from the burning building and survived were surrounded and beaten by thugs from the neo-Nazi Right Sector. Video footage shows bloodied and wounded survivors being attacked.

The atrocity underscores both the brutal character of the right-wing government installed in Kiev by the Western powers and the encouragement by the US and its allies of a bloody crackdown by the regime to suppress popular opposition, centered in the mainly Russian-speaking south and east of Ukraine.

As the Odessa outrage occurred, US President Barack Obama, at a joint White House press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, explicitly endorsed the military offensive being carried out by the unelected Kiev government against protesters occupying official buildings in eastern Ukraine.

Despite Western media attempts to cover up what happened in Odessa—with multiple reports stating that “the exact sequence of events is still unclear”—there is no doubt that the killings in the southern port city were instigated by thugs wearing the insignia of the Right Sector, which holds positions in the Kiev regime, along with the like-minded Svoboda party.

The Trade Unions House was set on fire by pro-Kiev elements after they surrounded and set fire to a tent camp of anti-government activists that had stood for several weeks in front of the building on Odessa’s Kulikovo Field Square. The building itself was torched after some of the anti-government protesters barricaded themselves inside it.

As the building was engulfed in flames, photos posted on Twitter showed people hanging out of windows and sitting on windowsills of several floors, possibly preparing to jump. Other images showed pro-regime elements celebrating the inferno. Some jeered on Twitter that “Colorado beetles are being roasted up in Odessa,” using a derogatory term for pro-Russian activists wearing St. George’s ribbons.

Thirty of the victims were found on the floors of the building, having apparently suffocated from smoke inhalation. Eight more died after jumping out of windows to escape the blaze, according to local police. Ukraine authorities said a total of 43 people died in Odessa Friday and 174 others sustained injuries, with 25 still in a critical condition.

The violence started as around 1,500 supporters of the Kiev authorities, who recently arrived in the city, gathered at Sobornaya Square in central Odessa. Armed with chains and bats and carrying shields, they marched through the city, chanting “Glory to Ukraine,” “Death to enemies” and “Knife the Moskals [derogatory for Russians].”

Odessa has been among the southeast Ukrainian cities swept by protests since the February coup. At the end of March, thousands rallied in the city, challenging the legitimacy of the coup-imposed government and demanding an autonomy referendum.

The Odessa massacre is the largest death toll so far since the Ukrainian regime, at the urging of the Obama administration, renewed its full-scale military assault on anti-government protests and occupations.

Earlier Friday, interim Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said many separatists had been killed in a government offensive in Slavyansk. Kiev officials said troops overran rebel checkpoints surrounding the city of 130,000 people in an operation launched before dawn, adding that the city was now “tightly encircled.”

Despite the use of helicopter gunships, the assault stalled, however, because of local resistance. By early afternoon, the Ukrainian troops were halted in the villages of Bylbasovka and Andreyevka, where residents flocked to their lines to argue with them and urge them not to fight.

In Andreyevka, about 200 people formed a human chain to stop armoured personnel carriers and trucks. In Bylbasovka, residents chanted “Shame! Shame! Shame!” In the nearby town of Kramatorsk, people blocked roads with trolley cars and buses in an attempt to prevent the army from entering.

At his press conference with Merkel, Obama seized on reports that two Ukrainian helicopters had been struck by ground fire. He cited unconfirmed allegations by the Ukrainian intelligence agency SBU that one was hit by a heat-seeking missile as proof that Russian forces were involved. By the evening, however, even the New York Times admitted that no evidence had been produced of heat-seeking missiles.

Along with Obama’s incendiary claim, his backing for Kiev’s military onslaught points to a drive by the US and its European partners to create civil war conditions and goad Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration into intervening, in order to provide the pretext for crippling economic sanctions and a NATO confrontation with Russia.

Washington pushed for the renewed offensive just days after the Kiev regime appeared to back away from an all-out military assault, saying it was “helpless” to stop the occupations of buildings, which have spread to at least 17 cities and towns.

Putin sought to forestall the US-led push by signing a so-called peace agreement with the US, the European Union and Ukraine two weeks ago, which provided for ending the building occupations and halting plans for a military crackdown. This pact has been swept aside by Kiev and its backers. Putin’s spokesman yesterday said the “punitive operation” mounted by Ukraine had destroyed the agreement.

Russia called another emergency UN Security Council meeting Friday to denounce Ukraine’s actions. Moscow’s ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, warned of “catastrophic consequences” if the military operation continued, only to be denounced by his US counterpart, Samantha Power, who called the attack “proportionate and reasonable.”

Power, who made a name for herself by championing US military interventions in Libya and elsewhere in the name of “human rights” and the “protection of civilians,” declared that Russia’s concern about escalating instability was “cynical and disingenuous.” In keeping with US government propaganda since the beginning of the crisis, she baldly asserted that Russia was the cause of the instability.

It was Washington and its allies, particularly the German government that orchestrated the ultra-nationalist February putsch in Kiev and then exploited the reaction of Moscow, and Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population, to accuse Russia of threatening Ukraine.

Having poured some $5 billion into the country to install the Kiev regime via violent paramilitary operations, it is now accusing Russia, without producing any serious evidence, of doing the very same thing.

Ukraine’s initial military assault last month began after CIA Director James Brennan surreptitiously visited Kiev. A second push followed a visit by US Vice President Joseph Biden.

There is evidence of ongoing US involvement. The Russian Foreign Ministry said English-speaking foreigners had been seen among the Ukrainian forces mounting the assault on Slavyansk on Friday, echoing its previous charges that Greystone, a US military contractor, is working alongside the Ukrainian military.

In part, the US operation seems directed at preventing an autonomy referendum planned by anti-Kiev opponents on May 11. In addition, a Ukrainian presidential election, scheduled for May 25, is seen by the Western powers as a means of lending legitimacy to the coup government in Kiev. The most widely-promoted presidential candidate, billionaire oligarch Petro Poroshenko, advocates NATO membership for Ukraine and the subordination of the country to the dictates of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

But with the Kiev regime failing to suppress the opposition, Washington appears intent on provoking a confrontation and then accusing Russia of preventing the presidential poll from proceeding. Meanwhile, on the pretext of training exercises, US troops are being deployed in the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, as well as Poland, bringing NATO forces right up to Russia’s borders.

03 May, 2014
WSWS.org