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Thursday, September 4, 2008 |
TimesOnline: "The most frightening sight in recent weeks has not been the media's metamorphosis of Russia from genial, if rather uncouth, bear into snarling wolf, but the knee-jerking of British politicians.
In Kiev and Tbilisi, David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and David Cameron, the Tory leader, displayed their lack of historical perspective, posturing on politico-economic faultlines of which they appear to have barely schoolboy understanding. Russia is a huge country not as far away as we would like, about which our politicians know far too little. That is most acute when it comes to the 'near abroad', the former Soviet republics to which George W Bush - and now Miliband and Cameron - would like to extend the Nato membership that the West refused Russia.
It has been said that Russia fears a new encirclement. It does, but it is more than that: for Nato forces to enter Ukraine would for most Russians be tantamount to invasion. For Cameron to equate Estonia and Ukraine, as he did last week, is stupidity.
Georgia in Moscow's eyes is merely a testing ground - from which it emerged victorious. If Ukraine is invited into Nato, the risk is not just a crisis over the Black Sea port of Sebastopol, leased until 2017 to the Russian navy, but also a Russian annexation of the whole Crimean peninsula. That is no more improbable than it would be difficult. Access from Ukraine proper is by a narrow causeway over marshland that could be taken by one battalion of paratroops. Meanwhile, the city of Kerch in the east is less than three miles across water from Russian soil.
Russian annexation would be locally popular. Crimea was not part of Ukraine before 1945. Ninety per cent of its population speaks Russian.
That would invite a Ukrainian civil war, almost certainly bringing in the pro-Moscow breakaway region of Transdnistria in neighbouring Moldova.
This is a minefield over which Miliband and Cameron are trampling without a map.
This is a turf war. Russia no longer challenges America for global hegemony but that doesn't mean it's going to sit quietly while Uncle Sam parks tanks on what it considers to be its front lawn. To borrow a line from a new John le Carré book: 'To ignore history is to ignore the wolf at the door.'"
11:00:20 AM 
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BBC: "Iraq says it plans to rebuild the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, which was closed in 2006 after a scandal over the abuse of prisoners by US troops.
... part of the new site would be given over to a museum showing the crimes committed under the former regime of Saddam Hussein.
However, no mention will be made of the facility's more recent history."
GlobalResearch: "While people around the world begin to celebrate George W. Bush's January 20, 2009 departure from the White House, senior administration officials are crafting legislation, rule changes and executive orders that will make permanent the worst excesses of this criminal regime."
And Cheney is making his last round to the US satellites around Russia, probably to incite them to more provocations.
AFP: "The United States and Russia squared off Wednesday as Vice President Dick Cheney said Washington had a 'deep' interest in the ex-Soviet Caucasus, a key energy corridor he said must be developed.
Moscow meanwhile suspended visas for Georgian citizens and said it would pull troops out of Georgia only when a French-brokered peace plan was fully implemented.
Speaking in the oil-rich former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, Cheney said: 'President Bush has sent me here with the clear and simple message for the people of Azerbaijan and the entire region.'
'The United States has a deep and abiding interest in your wellbeing and security.'"
The criminal Bush regime has a deep interest in oil and world power and is not concerned about the people of Georgia or wherever at all.
ICH: "President Dimitri Medvedev criticized the European Union for having a biased approach in regards to the Georgian conflict. Medvedev however stated that the EU acted in a rational manner by not implementing sanctions against the Russian Federation. F William Engdahl believes the EU response mirrors its dependence on Russian oil and gas. Engdahl goes on to further state that the US provoked Russia to respond militarily and the US as the dominant power is beginning to stumble and 'to look desperately for ways to hold on to that power'."
PressTV: "Georgia permitted Israel to use two military airfields for 'a potential pre-emptive strike' against Iranian nuclear sites, a report says.
Israel, in return, has been providing Georgia's pro-Western government with considerable amounts of training and armament for its military."
10:52:44 AM
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EarthTimes: "Thousands of Solidarity labour union members marched in the capital on Friday demanding better pay, better retirement pensions and improved worker's rights. Workers from all over Poland gathered in Warsaw's Pilsudski Square, then marched across the city towards Prime Minister Donald Tusk's office.
There they left a petition calling for 'dignified work and retirement' and threw firecrackers at his office. Others burned tyres, or chanted, 'Solidarnosc, Solidarnosc', waving red and white union flags."
SocialistWorld: "Two thousand trade unionists took to the streets of Warsaw, on 20 June, to protest against the government's proposed changes to the Labour Code. The demonstration was organised by the Committee for the Defence and Aid of Repressed Workers (KPiORP), under the slogan, 'Enough repression and exploitation! Hands off the Labour Code!' Apart from a sizeable delegation of miners and steelworkers from the trade union August 80, there were also delegations from Workers' Initiative, Solidarnosc '80, Solidarnosc and OPZZ unions. The demonstration was also supported by groups of tenants and pensioners."
SocialistParty: "Warsaw came to a standstill for many hours as over 50,000 workers demonstrated in torrential rain last Friday (29 August).
During the day's protest, the Solidarity leadership offered no lead whatsoever. When the demonstrators got to the end of the route there was no rally and no speeches - the delegations were just told to turn around and go home. In the special edition of the Solidarity paper, handed out during the demonstration, the head of the Solidarity's Gdansk region was quoted stating they are fighting for the quicker privatisation of the three shipyards which are going bankrupt!"
These demonstrations did not make it into the mainstream media. There was a lot more interest though in Polish workers' strikes a few decades ago.
Poland: "The historic Gdansk Accord signed on August 31, 1980 between striking shipyard workers under yard electrician Lech Walesa and Poland's communist party gave birth to the first and only independent trade union in the entire Soviet bloc. On Saturday a ceremony took place in front of the Szczecin Shipyard, western Poland, one of the other plants to lead the strike action in the summer of 1980."
M&M: "Former trade union leader and Polish president Lech Walesa boycotted Sunday the annual commemoration of the founding of his Solidarity trade union over differences with the country's President Lech Kaczynski.
'There will be a time for tribute and prayer, but not in the company of those who want to hijack our victory and history,' Polish radio reported Walesa as saying."
Oh well, what the heck, it is a bit cynical, but here it is:
TheSpoof: "There was a tense standoff in Eastern Europe yesterday, as Russia and Poland stood face-to-face, well, face-to-back-of-head, over the siting of American Missile Shields within Polska.
Russian minister Vladimir Putin warned the Polsh government it risked being 'wiped off the map' if it persisted with its plans to allow the US to use its territory.
Poland, which never wins wars, immediately reacted by calling a dock strike, and putting its entire population on a 3-day week. Ex-Polskan President Lech Walesa told a man in the street in Warsawa:
'We must strike at Russia. We are the world's best strikers!'"
10:37:03 AM
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© Copyright 2008.
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