Tag Archives: ukraine

Ukraine Claims it Has Captured Russian Soldiers

by JasmineSeymour Posted on August 26, 2014

Mother Jones

Ukraine claims that it now has proof that Russian soldiers have been involved in fighting on Ukrainian soil:

Ukraine released video footage on Tuesday of what it said were 10 captured Russian soldiers, raising tensions as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia arrived in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, for talks later in the day with his Ukrainian counterpart, President Petro O. Poroshenko.

….The release of the videos and the high-level talks came a day after Ukraine accused Russia of sending an armored column across the border, prompting Geoffrey R. Pyatt, the United States ambassador to Ukraine, to express alarm on Twitter. “The new columns of Russian tanks and armor crossing into Ukraine indicates a Russian-directed counteroffensive may be underway. #escalation,” he wrote.

….“Everything was a lie. There were no drills here,” one of the captured Russians, who identified himself as Sergey A. Smirnov, told a Ukrainian interrogator. He said he and other Russians from an airborne unit in Kostroma, in central Russia, had been sent on what was described initially as a military training exercise but later turned into a mission into Ukraine. After having their cellphones and identity documents taken away, they were sent into Ukraine on vehicles stripped of all markings, Mr. Smirnov said.

This kind of thing represents a cusp of some kind. If it’s true, Putin has to decide pretty quickly whether to gamble everything on an outright invasion, or whether to back off. If it turns out to be a Ukrainian invention, Putin has to decide whether to use it as a casus belli. These are dangerous times.

UPDATE: Apparently Russia has admitted the soldiers are theirs:

Sources in Moscow have admitted that a number of men captured inside Ukraine were indeed serving Russian soldiers, but said they crossed the border by mistake….”The soldiers really did participate in a patrol of a section of the Russian-Ukrainian border, crossed it by accident on an unmarked section, and as far as we understand showed no resistance to the armed forces of Ukraine when they were detained,” a source in Russia’s defence ministry told the RIA Novosti agency.

Uh huh. I suppose Putin will now claim that detaining the soldiers is an act of war unless they’re immediately released.

Link: 

Ukraine Claims it Has Captured Russian Soldiers

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Ukraine Claims it Has Captured Russian Soldiers

Big Oil’s New Pitch: Fracking Means Never Having to Fear Putin

by Myrna Posted on July 29, 2014

Oil and gas companies want Washington to believe that fracking can save Ukraine from Russia. It can’t. A worker passes by natural gas compressing equipment near the village of Kovalivka, Ukraine. Iren Moroz/AP As Ukraine sinks deeper into crisis, the oil and gas industry is pressing the United States to deploy its abundant natural gas supply as a weapon against Russia—and lawmakers of both parties are lining up behind the proposal. “We have this natural-gas boom,” Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio) said last week, after the downing of a Malaysia Airlines jet, allegedly by pro-Russian rebels. “We can use this newfound energy as a diplomatic tool to give the European leaders some backbone in standing up to the Russians.” Their enthusiasm is understandable: Roughly half the natural gas Russia ships to Europe flows through Ukraine. During past disputes, Russia has clamped down on the nation’s gas supply, creating turmoil in European energy markets. Many US politicians fear this dynamic could dampen Europe’s response to the Ukraine crisis and have begun looking to the bounty of natural gas from the domestic fracking boom to counter Russia’s energy dominance. As House Speaker John Boehner put it in a March Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, ”The ability to turn the tables and put the Russian leader in check lies right beneath our feet, in the form of vast supplies of natural energy.” Washington has also seen a flurry of proposals to speed up natural gas exports. Last month, following a lobbying blitz by oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, Halliburton, and Chevron, the House passed a billrequiring the Department of Energy (DOE) to rule on proposed natural gas export terminals within 90 days. The Senate has weighed similar bills and amendments. While they haven’t managed to bypass the prevailing Senate gridlock, these measures have considerable bipartisan support, and backers are determined to push them through. The fight over expediting natural gas exports helped derail the popular Shaheen-Portman energy efficiency bill and bogged down negotiations over an aid package for Ukraine. As Congress prepares to adjourn for its August recess, opponents of expanding exports are bracing for a new onslaught. “We are on the lookout, particularly for amendments being slipped into must-pass funding bills,” says one senior Senate staffer. Read the rest at Mother Jones. Original article: Big Oil’s New Pitch: Fracking Means Never Having to Fear Putin Related ArticlesObama’s Coal-Leasing Program Is Costing Taxpayers More Than $50 BillionWhite House: Delaying Climate Action Will Carry Heavy Economic CostThis Huge Corporation Is Tackling Climate Change—Because It’s a Threat to the Bottom Line

View the original here: 

Big Oil’s New Pitch: Fracking Means Never Having to Fear Putin

Posted in alo, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, Monterey, ONA, OXO, solar, solar power, Uncategorized, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Big Oil’s New Pitch: Fracking Means Never Having to Fear Putin

Obama Levies New Sanctions Against Russia. Europe Ponders Whether to Follow Suit.

by Fay4232lippdzs Posted on July 16, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

We now have a response to Russia’s latest military provocations in eastern Ukraine:

President Obama is ratcheting up pressure on Russia with new sanctions aimed at large banks and defense firms in what administration officials say is the most significant crackdown on Russian individuals and businesses since the crisis in Ukraine began.

….The new penalties come in coordination with European leaders now meeting in Brussels to contemplate their own sanctions against Russia. Those efforts are expected to center on obstructing loans to Russian interests from European development banks.

I’ll be curious to see what the Europeans decide to do. For all the opportunistic griping from Republicans about Obama being too soft on Putin and inviting a new Cold War blah blah blah, it’s always been European leaders who have been the obstacle to harsher sanctions against Russia. And since Russia does very little business with the US but does lots of business with Europe, American sanctions just don’t matter that much unless the Europeans join in. Obama’s hands are tied.

Of course, the very fact that Europe does lots of business with Russia means that sanctions hurt them a lot more than they hurt us. It’s easy for Americans to be blustery and hawkish, safe in the knowledge that Russian retaliation can’t really hurt us much. It’s a lot less easy for Europeans.

That said, the fact is that Obama has been trying to take the lead on this for months. European leaders now need to decide if they’re willing to join in. The ball’s in their court.

Continued – 

Obama Levies New Sanctions Against Russia. Europe Ponders Whether to Follow Suit.

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Obama Levies New Sanctions Against Russia. Europe Ponders Whether to Follow Suit.

Eric Cantor Loses Primary to Tea Party Challenger

by MarylouBozeman Posted on June 11, 2014

Mother Jones

Holy cow. Eric Cantor has lost his primary race to tea party challenger David Brat.

So: does this mean that the tea party is alive and well? Or does it mean that the tea party has simply taken over the Republican Party and is no longer really a separate force? Regular readers know I vote for the latter. As I said a few weeks ago, “There may still be establishment types and Ted Cruz types in the GOP, but the Republican Party as a whole has adopted the tea party line lock, stock, and extremely smoking barrel. It’s been as total a victory as you’re ever likely to see in the real world.”

I think tonight is further evidence of this. Brat wasn’t an insurgent challenger so much as he was simply a mainstream Republican positioned a little bit to Cantor’s right. That’s where the mainstream of American conservatism is these days.

See the article here – 

Eric Cantor Loses Primary to Tea Party Challenger

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Eric Cantor Loses Primary to Tea Party Challenger

Housekeeping Note — Font Edition

by ErnestinaWrenn Posted on June 10, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

By the way: to all the people who wrote asking why the body font on the blog has changed, I don’t know. I was as surprised as you when I saw it after our weekly site update Thursday night. However, web designers, like God, move in mysterious ways, and I’m sure there were some deeply-considered aesthetic reasons for making the change. Unfortunately, I don’t know what those reasons are, since for excellent and obvious reasons,1 I’m not consulted about this stuff. Perhaps some member of our design team will see this and let us know in comments.

1Principally that I have approximately the artistic taste of a seven-year-old.

Link:  

Housekeeping Note — Font Edition

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Housekeeping Note — Font Edition

Campus Christian Groups Should Be Allowed to Remain Christian

by MonikaZakrzewsk Posted on June 10, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

I think I’m over the stomach bug that laid me up this weekend, so let’s get back to this blogging thing. Today, the New York Times informs me that university Christian groups are losing official recognition because they won’t agree to allow anyone, regardless of religious beliefs, to become a group leader:

At Cal State, the nation’s largest university system with nearly 450,000 students on 23 campuses, the chancellor is preparing this summer to withdraw official recognition from evangelical groups that are refusing to pledge not to discriminate on the basis of religion in the selection of their leaders. And at Vanderbilt, more than a dozen groups, most of them evangelical but one of them Catholic, have already lost their official standing over the same issue; one Christian group balked after a university official asked the students to cut the words “personal commitment to Jesus Christ” from their list of qualifications for leadership.

At most universities that have begun requiring religious groups to sign nondiscrimination policies, Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and mainline Protestant groups have agreed, saying they do not discriminate and do not anticipate that the new policies will cause problems. Hillel, the largest Jewish student organization, says some chapters have even elected non-Jews to student boards.

Apparently this was sparked by a court decision that ruled it was OK for public universities to deny recognition to student groups that exclude gays—including Christian groups. I’m fine with that. But requiring Christian groups to allow non-believers to lead Bible studies and prayer services and so forth? That seems pretty extreme. I have to admit that if I were a member of a campus Christian group, I’d have a hard time believing there were no ulterior motives at work here.

As for the Jewish/Muslim/Catholic/etc. groups that “do not anticipate” problems, I hope they’re right. But this is the kind of thing that’s ripe for mischief-making. I can easily imagine a bunch of campus halfwits who think it would be the funniest joke in the world to join a religious group en masse and then elect an atheist president. These are 19-year-olds we’re dealing with, after all.

But maybe not. Perhaps that requires too much sustained effort. Nonetheless, if it were up to me, I’d allow Jewish groups to remain Jewish and Christian groups to remain Christian if that’s what they want to do. It’s hard to see the harm.

More – 

Campus Christian Groups Should Be Allowed to Remain Christian

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Campus Christian Groups Should Be Allowed to Remain Christian

Friday Cat Blogging – 6 June 2014

by FlorrieAnglin Posted on June 6, 2014

Mother Jones

Today we have a stripey Domino. This picture required a bit of art direction: I had to pick up Domino and move her a few inches to the left to get her fully into the stripey shadows. Surprisingly, she allowed me to do this without complaint. This was never a problem with Inkblot. I could plonk him down anywhere I wanted and he’d obligingly lay there like a sack of potatoes. Domino is not normally so cooperative.

Anyway, I’m mentioning this because I don’t want a big scandal after I win my Pulitzer Prize for catblogging and somebody rats me out to the jury. They’re pretty strict about this kind of thing.

See the original post: 

Friday Cat Blogging – 6 June 2014

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Friday Cat Blogging – 6 June 2014

How Many Countries Have Direct Access to All Phone Calls?

by RoderickHaswell Posted on June 6, 2014

Mother Jones

Vodafone is one of the largest telecom companies in the world, with a strong presence in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Here’s what they told us today:

Vodafone said that it had received thousands of requests from 29 countries in the 12 months through March 31. But the report also said that governments in certain countries had direct access to its networks without having to use legal warrants.

In a “small number” of countries, Vodafone said in the report, the company “will not receive any form of demand for communications data access as the relevant agencies and authorities already have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link.”

Vodafone wouldn’t say which countries have this kind of unrestricted access, but the Guardian takes a guess here.

View original article:

How Many Countries Have Direct Access to All Phone Calls?

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Many Countries Have Direct Access to All Phone Calls?

Like it or Not, Guantanamo Is Here to Stay

by AntonyDodson Posted on June 6, 2014

Mother Jones

Praise the Lord. Max Fisher has taken on the thankless task of explaining to both left and right why the Taliban prisoner exchange isn’t either of the following:

The first step in a secret plan from the lawless despot Obama to close Guantanamo.
Proof that Obama could have closed Guantanamo all along and that he now he has no excuse not to.

Obama is not going to close Guantanamo. The legal loophole he used in the Bergdahl prisoner exchange—no matter what you think of it—flatly wouldn’t apply to shutting down the entire prison. Plus there’s the fact that Congress would go ballistic if he tried—including plenty of Democrats. Impeachment would go from a fever dream of the tea-party right to a very realistic bipartisan possibility. Finally, there’s frankly never been much evidence that Obama cares all that much. He’d obviously like to shut down Guantanamo, but he just doesn’t feel that strongly about it.

So give it up. Guantanamo will be here through the end of Obama’s presidency, and quite possibly until its last prisoner dies. It’s fanciful to think anything else.

Read this article – 

Like it or Not, Guantanamo Is Here to Stay

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Like it or Not, Guantanamo Is Here to Stay

The Scorecard in Ukraine Is Murkier Than Most Pundits Think

by VirginiaGwl Posted on May 28, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Doyle McManus says that Vladimir Putin has played a shrewd game in Ukraine:

Here’s the score card: Putin has pocketed Crimea, the first territory in Europe to be seized by force since World War II. (On paper, the United States and the European Union are still demanding that he give the peninsula back to Ukraine, but in private, their leaders concede that’s unlikely to happen.) He has forced the European Union to put the brakes on Ukraine’s progress toward membership in the Western economic club. He has kept most of Russia’s business with the West intact and signed a big new natural gas deal with China. Now all he has to do is wait for Western attention to Ukraine’s travails to wane, as it probably will.

….”Even Petro Poroshenko is saying it’s time for normalization with Moscow,” she noted. “He knows who’s going to call the shots over Ukraine’s future: not Brussels, not Washington. It’s Moscow.”

This isn’t a ridiculous read of the situation, but I think it’s missing something key: compared to what? Sure, Putin might have found a way to salvage his disastrous intervention in Ukraine, but the right way to look at this is to compare Russia’s situation now to its situation in, say, October of last year. It’s true that Putin scuttled Ukraine’s free-trade deal with the EU, but look at the fallout. In order to turn things around after his incompetent diplomatic efforts failed, Putin was forced to intervene so clumsily that it inspired the Maidan protests that ended up causing Ukraine’s president to flee. He massed troops on Ukraine’s borders and used Russian special forces—again, disguised so clumsily that no one was fooled for even a second—to try to force a secession of the east. When that failed, Putin was forced to back down. He can pretend that he never had any intention of using military force in the first place, but no one takes that seriously and he knows it. His threat failed because the Russian military is weak and the American/EU sanctions had already begun to bite. He was hoping for a bloodless takeover, but he miscalculated badly and failed to get it.

So what’s the scorecard? On the plus side, Putin has Crimea. Maybe all by itself that was worth it—and if he’d been smart enough to stop there he might have come out ahead. But on the downside, Putin has demonstrated once again that Russia isn’t a reliable supplier of natural gas and will use it as a club whenever it feels like it. He’s earned the enmity of most of his neighbors. He’s gained nothing in Ukraine except the end of the EU association agreement, which was never a huge threat in the first place and will probably end up being implemented piecemeal over the next few years anyway. He’s damaged the Russian economy and set back relations with Europe. And sure, Poroshenko is saying it’s time for normalization with Moscow, but Putin had that back when Viktor Yanukovych was president.

So….Crimea. And possibly a slowdown in the pace of Ukraine’s integration with the West. That’s about it. But I wouldn’t underestimate the cost of this to Putin. Threats of military force are flashy, but unless you’re willing to back them up regularly, they do a lot more harm than good. I’m not sure why so many people who are generally clear-sighted about the drawbacks of military action suddenly get so smitten by it when it’s wielded by a thug like Putin. Hell, he doesn’t even use it well.

When the dust settles, it’s hard to see Putin gaining much from all this in the places that count. Regardless of the brave face they put on it, I’ll bet there aren’t many people in the inner sanctums of the Kremlin who think of the past six months as much of a triumph for Russia.

Link – 

The Scorecard in Ukraine Is Murkier Than Most Pundits Think

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Scorecard in Ukraine Is Murkier Than Most Pundits Think