Ukraine update - 11/22/2014

Official - China Recognises Crimean Referendum

by Alexander Mercouris

"OFFICIAL - CHINA RECOGNISES CRIMEAN 

REFERENDUM"

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.ru/2014/11/official-china-recognises-crimean.html

This is the clear meaning of the statement TASS reports that a senior official of the Chinese Foreign Ministry has made.

The fact that China recognises the Crimean referendum means that de facto (and surely before long de jure) China has recognised Crimea's unification with Russia. Note also that the official has expressed support for Russia's Ukrainian policy.

http://en.itar-tass.com/world/760944

This is the clearest statement from an official source (as opposed to the news media) of China's position viz the Ukrainian crisis that China has made to date. Because it is made by an official rather than a minister it has gone almost unnoticed. However that is how China works: statements of this sort are first floated in the media, then made formally but at a relatively low level, following which they become uncontested policy. Suffice to say that it is inconceivable that the official in question would have spoken out in this way without clearance from the very highest levels of the Chinese government and the fact that in his conversation to TASS he actually quotes comments made by Xi Jinping in telephone conversations with Putin puts that question beyond doubt.

I have always felt that the Chinese dimension in influencing Russia's Ukrainian policy is consistently underestimated. I am sure that every single step Moscow has taken since the start of the Ukrainian crisis has been discussed and coordinated with Beijing at the highest possible level. We should not make the mistake of thinking that the only conversations between Putin and Xi Jinping are those that are officially or publicly reported. The Chinese do not want to be seen taking an active or public role in the Ukrainian crisis - which formally speaking has nothing to do with them - but given the importance of China's support for Russia and the importance of Russia to China, it is a certainty that the two sides have been working closely together with each other and that they are discussing every aspect of this crisis all the time. Knowledge that he has China's support is one reason for Putin's confidence in his dealings with the US and the Europeans.

The need to coordinate with Beijing does however place certain constraints on Moscow's actions. Again I am sure that one reason amongst many why Russia has been wary of intervening actively in the Donbas or of formally recognising the various votes there is because it knows that doing so too obviously or too hastily would not be welcome in Beijing.

China is traditionally very wary of independence declarations (a policy restated with specific reference to the Ukraine by the official quoted by TASS) not because it is worried about Xinjiang or Tibet (where the situation is fully under control) as the west alleges but because it does not want to create a precedent for Taiwan.

Again I do not think many people especially in the west but also in Russia understand what a sensitive issue for China Taiwan is. Suffice to say that a key reason for the Sino Soviet split of the 1960s was precisely Mao Zedong's anger at what he correctly saw as a lack of support from Moscow over Taiwan.

That does not mean Novorossian independence will not happen or that either the Russians or indeed the Chinese are reconciled to the results of the Maidan coup or to the survival of the present regime in Kiev. Both countries perceive the sort of staged US backed "revolutions" that the Maidan coup was, as a direct challenge and threat to themselves. Both countries are almost certainly agreed that the results of the coup in a key Eurasian state must be reversed. Note how the official, in the clearest possible sign that he is speaking on behalf of the Chinese government, quotes a previously unreported but very revealing remark Xi Jinping said to Putin in one of their telephone conversations, that "there is no smoke without fire". No guesses who or what that refers to.

However the joint policy of reversing the effects of the Maidan coup is going to be done incrementally, step by step, for many reasons of which China's concerns about Taiwan are just one.

Anyway, to those who think there is some division between Beijing and Moscow both over the Crimean issue and over the Ukrainian crisis generally, this statement from an official of the Chinese government should finally and once and for all put that question to rest: there is one.

The US, Canada and the Ukraine refuse to condemn the heroization of Nazism

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.ru/2014/11/the-us-canada-and-ukraine-refuse-to.html

It is often argued whether the Ukrainian junta is Nazi or not.  I would strongly argue that even though Poroshenko did not come out, make a Nazi salute and declare "I am a Nazi" all the signs point to the conclusion that the regime in Kiev has its ideological roots in the Nazi past.  The latest example of that "filiation" can be found in this absolutely amazing event last week:  only three countries - the US, Canada and the Ukraine voted against a UN Resolution condemning the heroization of Nazism.  The EU was not much better: it abstained.  This development is so crazy, so insane, that it is important to have access to the original document which was voted on.

Here is the full text of the Resolution:http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N14/604/26/PDF/N1460426.pdf

You can also get this text from here:http://www.mediafire.com/view/94n40m3x00dr355/N1460426.pdf 

Here is the official voting record:http://www.un.org/en/ga/third/69/docs/voting_sheets/L56.Rev1.pdf

To me, this is disgusting beyond belief.  Here we have two countries who try to positions themselves as the most pro-Israeli on the planet (the US and Canada) and the EU which has even passed laws making not only Nazi propaganda illegal, but jailing those who would dare investigate the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis (the so-called 'Holocaust').  And yet these putatively anti-Nazi and "democratic" countries are now refusing to condemn the heroization of Nazism not so much because they particularly like Nazis, but because they want to "protect" the Ukrainian junta.  As for the Ukrainians themselves, they have suffered more from Nazis then any other country or ethnic group, and yet they also refused to condemn the heroization of Nazism.  This makes a mockery not only of all their so-called principles and values, it also is an act of obscene disrespect for the millions of Ukrainian murdered by the Nazis.  There is one good thing about all this: it shows clearly and unequivocally how much the western elites truly hate Russia and that this hate clearly trumps any other considerations or values.

Russian disgust

For the past few days, or weeks, really, I have seen more and more signs of total Russian disgust with the West.  If, in the past, Russian diplomats and politicians were mostly trying to sound polite, now they are openly expressing their disgust.  For example, they are now openly saying the Europe does not have a foreign policy or an opinion, that Europe is just a subservient colony of the US.  As for the US, the Russians are now openly saying that this entire Ukrainian crisis was just a pretext and that the US are really out there to submit Russia.  Putin said that openly last week, adding that nobody had every succeeded in subduing Russia and neither would the USA.  This goes further than words, Russia has already announced that she was going to boycott the 2016 Summit on Nuclear Security.  This became known when the Russian informed the other members of this Summit that Russia would not participate in its preparatory work.

Sergei Lavrov also made a remarkable speech today, but since the pathetic website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not even bother providing a translation on the same day,  we will have to wait before I can post it here.

The Saker

Україна - це Європа (the Ukraine is Europe)!

First Maidan anniversary (the Ukraine is Europe indeed)

Observations on President Putin’s call upon US not to meddle in Russia affairs

by Peter Koenig 

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.ru/2014/11/observations-on-president-putins-call.html

Press TV reports on 22 November 2014 that President Putin, speaking at a forum of the All-Russia Peoples' Front in Moscow on 17 November, said “They [the US] want to subdue us, want to solve their problems at our expense. No one in history ever managed to do this to Russia, and no one ever will.”

This is certainly no exaggeration. Russia has not only a solid trade and monetary alliance with China which already today bypasses the western dollar dominated western system, Russia is also one of the key members of the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which met last September in Dushanbe, Tajikistan to expands its current membership (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) by including India, Pakistan, Iran and likely also Mongolia. Turkey, hosting a strategically crucial NATO base, wavering between east and west, has wanted to become an SCO member for quite a while. Turkish-speaking SCO governments would likely to support their petition. This would clearly be a huge conflict and blow to the western powers, particularly Washington – and may not go ‘unpunished’.

The expanded SCO would control some 20 percent of the world’s oil and half of all global gas reserves. On top of that, the bloc would represent about half of the world’s population. The SCO and BRICS together would cover more than half the world’s population and control about a third of the globe’s GDP.

The issuance of a joint new global currency either by these countries at once or step by step is almost a certainty. The question is when. Given the disastrous course of western economies, such a new currency and monetary system is not far off. It would gradually replace the (petro) dollar for world trading as well as a reserve currency. The latter has already started. Ten years ago about 90% of world reserves consisted of dollar denominated securities. Today this proportion has shrunk to 60% - and – to the ignorance of most of the world – is steadily declining.

According to the IMF, reserves in other currencies in emerging markets have shot up by 400% since 2003. From August 2013 to February 2014, South Korea increased its yuan holdings 25-fold.

So – Mr. Putin’s seemingly ‘bold’ statement is very much supported by facts. The western predatory economic system is decaying fast. Russia and China are already today prepared with an alternative. They are working actively with the other BRICS and SCO countries to prepare a solid larger scale alternative currency and monetary system, free from the FED, Wall Street, the IMF and the BIS (Bank for International Settlements).

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Epidemics and Pandemics 

On a seemingly unrelated matter, a new phenomenon is emerging. From the outset it looks like detached from the east-west economic power struggle. But it may be all but detached from the western faltering economy.

It is the threat of deadly pandemics that seem to emerge at the same time – and all are under control of the UN and its specialized organization, WHO which is assisted and advised by a number of international laboratories whose identifications largely escapes common knowledge. Most of the epidemics, potential pandemics, started in Africa, which is home to about 60% of the world’s remaining natural unrenewable resources – and which are sought by the western and Northern Hemisphere’s elite for their continued comfort and well-being.

Ebola broke out a few months ago in West Africa – Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and has since spread to Mali and Nigeria. Ebola is not a new disease. It has been reported and observed in Central Africa and former Zaïre in the seventies. WHO disposes of antidotes or vaccines. However, the US Department of Defense – which incidentally also has a research program on biological warfare – has contracted a Canadian laboratory two years ago to test and develop an Ebola vaccine in specially built hospitals in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Since the new Ebola outbreak in July 2014, more than 5,000 people have been killed according to WHO.

A couple of days ago it was reported by WHO that in Madagascar a plague epidemic had claimed the lives of at least 40 people since August 2014. – The bubonic plague, also called Black Death, was considered to be basically extinct since it killed a third of the European population in the 14ht Century, although a less virulent form may still be present today. No major outbreaks have occurred since 1904, when a Plague epidemic killed about 3% of Bombay’s population, when antidotes where not yet available. Today’s version can apparently fairly easily be suppressed with antibiotics and pesticides. – So – why is it still killing people in Madagascar? And why has the news become available only now?

A few weeks ago the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus was newly discovered in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK. Out of seven recent cases of Bird Flu in Egypt, two died. In 2009 thanks to a WHO false flag alarm, Europe bought hundreds of millions of H5N1 vaccines – a bonanza for the pharmaceuticals – a scandal for WHO that has deeply tarnished the organization’s image. In countries like Switzerland, people who showed any indication of a cold were practically force-vaccinated.

Aids – the HIV virus, also a Pentagon biological warfare experiment –broke out in the 1980’s, likewise in Africa, spread to Haiti from where it was ‘imported’ to the US and the rest of the world. Today it is, though incurable, under control. But a new strain could easily be designed to make current drugs impotent.

All of this looks like a concerted effort by the power elite to (i) keep populations in check; justify Marshall law at a whim to oppress any potential uprising, for example against a new wave of organized theft of the western predatory greed economy; and (ii) to gradually help reduce world population – a target that the elite has strived for since the end of WWII – it’s also one of the key objectives of the Bilderberg Society as voiced by many power figures, like Bill Gates and on several occasions by Henry Kissinger, arguably the worst war criminal still alive.

People could be easily quarantined by Presidential Executive Order under the guise of protecting the population at large from a pandemic – for which most likely vaccines and antidotes have been clandestinely developed as part of the biological warfare program – to protect the elite – and other strains for the public at large possibly laced with the very disease they pretend to prevent. Once Washington gives the order, say for force-vaccination, or Marshall Law – the European lackeys would simply follow suit; an easy way to keep populations under control, while the western financial system could run their final deed – depredation of the remaining social safety nets and public savings.

Again – on the dismal western economic scenario and the pandemic threats to the world, Mr. Putin’s harsh words to the US, a warning against interference in Russia – are but a signal for Washington to reckon with a vigilant Russia (and China) – vigilant vis-à-vis the impending collapse of the western monetary system, and vigilant vis-à-vis the west’s massive military and biological warfare threats.

Worth a tought? – And worth massive publication, so people may connect the dots.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, the Voice of Russia, now Ria Novosti, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author ofImplosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. 

A BBC propaganda documentary from a once reliable programme

BBC Panorama Vladimir Putin's Gamble war against Ukraine BBC Full Documentary 2014

BBC Panorama Putin's Gamble BBC Full Documentary 2014 Vladimir Putin stands accused of launching an undeclared war against Ukraine. He has wrong-footed NATO .

Yatsenyuk's wall

Via Facebook 

In the photos you can see Yatsenyuk's PR promotion of the Kiev junta's defense fence/wall against Russia. The first photo is one of the official ones. The second is from the other deck, which reveals that Yatsenyuk is posing in front of a 15 m long fence. Furthermore, one cannot but note that the barbed wire is oriented INTO Ukraine--thus indicating that the fence is symbolically turning Ukraine under the Nazi junta into a prison: the Ukrainians or Ukrainian refugees are to be prevented from escaping. In this regard, one can appreciate the importance of perspective and knowing where one stands.

Right Sector raids Odessa Oil Refinery 22/11/14

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