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Putin Pans Ukraine’s Debt Moratorium As “De Facto Default”, Threatens Court
Putin Pans Ukraine’s Debt Moratorium As “De Facto Default”, Threatens Court
In exactly a month, Ukraine will owe Russia a $75 million debt coupon payment. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters in Moscow today that “if they miss the payment, we will use our right to go to court.” Then it got serious, as Vladimir Putin instructed Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to assume control of Ukraine’s repayment of its $3-billion debt in Eurobonds that Russia bought in 2013, slamming Ukraine’s bill allowing them to impose a moratorium on foreign debt repayments as a de facto announcement of default. As one market participant warned, “I would wait until after June 20 to go forward with” any moratorium, as “if Russia takes Ukraine to court, that might be an incentive for other creditors to go down the same route.”
As we previously noted, on Tuesday, Ukraine’s parliament adopted a bill allowing Ukraine to freeze repayments of its foreign debt. As RT notes,
Experts agree that Tuesday vote meant a technical default for the country and would impede Ukraine’s ability to raise private investment from the EU and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), a European source told TASS on Wednesday.“Suspension of debt payments not coordinated with creditors results in a technical default, and in the case of Ukraine, it threatens to undermine Kiev’s ability to attract private investment through EU programs,“ the source said.As part of the underpinning of Kiev’s bailout plan, the International Monetary Fund said in March that Russia would not receive the $3 billion bond repayment from Ukraine this year.
IMF is looking for cooperation from creditors to accept a restructuring on Kiev’s debt. That includes Russia.
The Choice Before Europe
The Choice Before Europe
Washington continues to drive Europe toward one or the other of the two most likely outcomes of the orchestrated conflict with Russia. Either Europe or some European Union member government will break from Washington over the issue of Russian sanctions, thereby forcing the EU off of the path of conflict with Russia, or Europe will be pushed into military conflict with Russia.
In June the Russian sanctions expire unless each member government of the EU votes to continue the sanctions. Several governments have spoken against a continuation. For example, the governments of the Czech Republic and Greece have expressed dissatisfaction with the sanctions.
US Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged growing opposition to the sanctions among some European governments. Employing the three tools of US foreign policy–threats, bribery, and coercion–he warned Europe to renew the sanctions or there would be retribution. We will see in June if Washington’s threat has quelled the rebellion.
Europe has to consider the strength of Washington’s threat of retribution against the cost of a continuing and worsening conflict with Russia. This conflict is not in Europe’s economic or political interest, and the conflict has the risk of breaking out into war that would destroy Europe.
Since the end of World War II Europeans have been accustomed to following Washington’s lead. For awhile France went her own way, and there were some political parties in Germany and Italy that considered Washington to be as much of a threat to European independence as the Soviet Union. Over time, using money and false flag operations, such as Operation Gladio, Washington marginalized politicians and political parties that did not follow Washington’s lead.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Truth Has Been Murdered
Truth Has Been Murdered
The Obama regime and its neocon monsters and European vassals have resurrected a Nazi government and located it in Ukraine. Read this statement by Elena Bondarenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament: http://slavyangrad.org/2015/04/18/statement-by-elena-bondarenko-peoples-deputy-of-verkhovna-rada-of-ukraine/
The Western media has created a fictional account of events in Ukraine. The coup organized by the Obama regime that overthrew the elected democratic government in Ukraine is never mentioned. The militias decked out in Nazi symbols are ignored. These militias are the principle source of the violence that has been inflicted on the Russian populations, resulting in the formation of the break-away republics. Instead of reporting this fact, the corrupt Western media delivers Washington’s propaganda that Russia has invaded and is annexing eastern and southern Ukraine. British and European politicians parrot Washington’s lies.
The Western media is complicit in many war crimes covered up with lies, but the false story that the Western media has woven of Ukraine is the most audacious collection of lies yet. Truly, truth in the Western world has been murdered. There is no respect for truth in any Western capital.
The coup in Ukraine is Washington’s effort to thrust a dagger into Russia’s heart. The recklessness of such a criminal act has been covered up by constructing a false reality of a people’s revolution against a corrupt and oppressive government. The world should be stunned that “bringing democracy” has become Washington’s cover for resurrecting a Nazi state.
When Did We All Become Murderers?
When Did We All Become Murderers?
Appalled doesn’t cover it. Disgusted won’t do either. Angry doesn’t come close. Maybe I have yet to learn of a word that would express my feelings on the following topic. There’s a disease, an epidemic, that spreads through out the western world. We are all turning into accomplices to murder. And I still believe we are better than that. Just perhaps not all of us.
The US, and the rest of the west, have made plenty enemies already without needing to create their own out of thin air – as if there were ever a need to create enemies. But that’s still what we’ve been doing in many places in the world, including Ukraine. And there’s an entire multi-billion machine working just to make us think what someone else wants us to think about these ‘enemies’.
These days, when you call someone ‘pro-Russian’, that’s about on on the same level as ‘murderer’, rapist, things like that. And that must be why the western press once again resorts to ‘pro-Russian’ as a swear word, or even curse, in reporting on the murders of at least 10 people in Ukraine over the past 3 months. As far as we can see, all were considered ‘allies’ of former President Yanukovych (whatever ‘allies’ may mean in this context) and 2 were journalists (of whom at least 1 was also a historian).
Yanukovych was (or is, actually) not a saint. He was the utterly corrupt president of a country that has been utterly corrupt for a very long time. It still is today, and it’s getting worse, fast. Whereas Russia didn’t feel it had the right or need to interfere in the country, the west did. Its interference culminated in the ouster of Yanukovych in late February 2014, and the introduction of a ‘government’ that is extremely pro-western and extremely anti-anything-’that has anything to do’-with Russia (including the language).
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Nationalist Group Takes Responsibility for Murders in Ukraine
Nationalist Group Takes Responsibility for Murders in Ukraine
The Spate of Mysterious Deaths Continues
We have previously reported on a series of mysterious “suicides” of former members of Viktor Yanukovich’s Party of the Regions in Ukraine (see “Mysterious Deaths in Ukraine” for details and the list of the dear departed as of March 26). At the time it wasn’t quite clear whether this was a falling out among thieves, or what seemed more likely, a politically motivated series of murders which the government duly neglected to investigate by declaring even quite obviously suspicious deaths suicides. After we posted the article, yet another former Party of the Regions politician died of a gunshot wound – Oleg Kalashnikov (aptly named for the occasion). Spinning this one as a suicide was difficult, but the authorities were nevertheless curiously reluctant to call it a murder, preferring to simply say nothing instead.
However, when a government-critical journalist, Oles Buzyna was recently murdered by two sharp shooters while jogging near his home, it became altogether impossible to call it a suicide again. A few hours later, yet another journalist critical of the government, Sergey Sukhobok, was killed in Kiev. Sukhobok was born in Donetsk and vehemently opposed to the government’s use of force in Eastern Ukraine. Buzyna, while a severe critic of extremist nationalists and the government, was not simply “pro Russian” either, as Justin Raimondo notes here. Rather, he was in favor of Ukrainian independence, without wanting the country to be subsumed in the EU’s superstate monstrosity.
Raimondo also points to a number of other things the government in Kiev has done in recent months that are not exactly compatible with the fairy tale of Ukraine’s new leadership representing converts to “Western values”:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Political Murders in Kiev, US Troops to Ukraine
Political Murders in Kiev, US Troops to Ukraine
Last week two prominent Ukrainian opposition figures were gunned down in broad daylight. They join as many as ten others who have been killed or committed suicide under suspicious circumstances just this year. These individuals have one important thing in common: they were either part of or friendly with the Yanukovych government, which a US-backed coup overthrew last year. They include members of the Ukrainian parliament and former chief editors of major opposition newspapers.
While some journalists here in the US have started to notice the strange series of opposition killings in Ukraine, the US government has yet to say a word.
Compare this to the US reaction when a single opposition figure was killed in Russia earlier this year. Boris Nemtsov was a member of a minor political party that was not even represented in the Russian parliament. Nevertheless the US government immediately demanded that Russia conduct a thorough investigation of his murder, suggesting the killers had a political motive.
As news of the Russian killing broke, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce (R-CA) did not wait for evidence to blame the killing on Russian president Vladimir Putin. On the very day of Nemtsov’s murder, Royce told the US media that, “this shocking murder is the latest assault on those who dare to oppose the Putin regime.”
Neither Royce, nor Secretary of State John Kerry, nor President Obama, nor any US government figure has said a word about the series of apparently political murders in Ukraine.
On the contrary, instead of questioning the state of democracy in what looks like a lawless Ukraine, the Administration is sending in the US military to help train Ukrainian troops!
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How Reliable Is Reuters?
How Reliable Is Reuters?
People see their own nation, and foreign nations, through the filter of the press that’s available to them; so, if that filter is systematically distorting (distorting in ways that most of the others similarly do), then democracy cannot function, public opinion can be manipulated and warped; and wars might even start that shouldn’t — something Americans have tragically been experiencing lots of, during recent decades, such as when we invaded Iraq in 2003 (just to cite the most famous of many examples).
A typical Reuters ‘news’ report will be examined here, in order to determine how high the journalistic standards of the Reuters ‘news’ organization actually are. Reuters is an internationally respected ‘news’ organization, as reliable as any major ‘news’ organization in the U.S. and Europe — thus, it’s a good source to provide a case-example.
The particular report, dated Thursday, April 16th, is titled “Russia blames U.S. for security crises and turmoil in Ukraine.”
Its first sentence is a simple and true statement of fact:
“Top Russian officials accused the United States on Thursday of seeking political and military dominance and sought to put blame on the West for international security crises, including the conflict in east Ukraine.”
The second sentence is anything but factual: it is instead contemptuous of the Russian speakers and of what they said, yet offering no evidence that what they said was false, nor is it offering evidence in support of the report’s own contemptuous attitude toward them:
“Evoking Cold War-style rhetoric, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said a drive by the United States and its allies to bring Kiev closer to the West was a threat to Moscow and had forced it to react.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Hope on the Horizon and It Comes from Greece
Hope on the Horizon and It Comes from Greece
Washington in its arrogance, seeing itself as “indispensable,” poses a continuing threat to the lives of hundreds of millions of people. The extraordinary number of dead that Washington has murdered in the 21st century–”The American Century”–is dismissed as “collateral damage” in the “war on terror.”
The war on terror is a hoax. It is a creation of the evil neoconservatives who intend Washington’s world hegemony and Israel’s hegemony from the Nile to the Euphrates. The rest of mankind has realized that Washington’s drive for world hegemony means the entire human race will be dismissed as “collateral damage” as Washington establishes itself as the “exceptional, indispensable country.” The country whose will is above the rule of law and whose morality is non-existent.
The stark reality is that America, which wore the White Hat during the Cold War, now wears the Black Hat, and Russia and China have traded the Black Hat for the White Hat. The hope for mankind no longer resides in the West, which has entered a militarized gestapo existence conducting war against its own citizens and the world at large.
Aggression is the hallmark of 21st century Washington and its captive European vassal states. There has not been a 21st century year without slaughter of innocents by “Western civilization.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
No Longer Quiet on the Eastern Front (Part 3)
No Longer Quiet on the Eastern Front (Part 3)
Writing a short series of articles about geopolitics carries some risks – namely, that current events can unfold faster than I can hit the ‘send’ button on my next edition. It appears that I am releasing this missive in the nick of time, as the coming days promise more dramatic developments in the Greek economic crisis and, of particular interest, that country’s growing closeness with Russia.
Let us quickly review what has been covered thus far in this series. In part one, we focused on economic tensions between the European Union and Greece, and how the past five years of austerity and hardship may compel the new Greek government to seek stronger ties with Russia. Part two reviewed last year’s disintegration of Ukraine, and the chain of events that sparked its ongoing civil war.
Civil unrest in Kiev. Photo courtesy: The Times of London
In this final segment, we will attempt to view both of these conflicts from the Russian perspective, and to provide some insight into (if not a defense of) the Greek point of view. I do not consider myself to be a “Kremlinologist”, or even an expert on Russian political affairs. That being said, I do believe that I can offer a relatively informed perspective that comes from living in both Athens and Moscow over the past ten years, at times when both countries were facing economic crises. I also believe that mainstream Western media outlets have thoroughly and utterly failed in their duty to provide a balanced perspective on the causes behind the growing chasm between Russia and the West.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Is This the Start of WW III?
Is This the Start of WW III?
On the Friday before Russian Orthodox Easter, the Poroshenko-Yatsenyuk U.S-coup-installed Ukrainian Government attacks on all fronts on April 9th, to continue their extermination–campaign against the residents of the area, Donbass, that refuses to accept the coup-government that was installed by the U.S. when the Ukrainian President whom 90% of those residents had voted for was overthrown by the U.S. This bare-faced violation of the Merkel-Hollande-arranged Minsk truce would not happen without Obama’s approval. He is choosing to have this done on Russian holy days in order to intensify the provocation against Russia. Obama is thus going all-out now to provoke from Russia a sending-in of Russian army troops and air power in order for Obama to have a pretext to go to war against Russia, his real target “in order to defend an ally” (which has been trying to exterminate the residents in the area that won’t accept Obama’s imposed rule).
The following reposts from Fort Russ:
http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/04/kiev-junta-launches-large-scale-attack.html
Kiev junta launches a large scale attack on Novorossia right in time for Russian Orthodox Easter
April 9, 2015
Translated by Kristina Rus
Based on reports from Rusvesna
Ex-Minister of Defence of DPR Igor Strelkov:
“In general, we can say that the ceasefire is over – the entire front is under fire, including artillery. Shock troops of the enemy moved to the forefront.”
War correspondent “Step” reports:
Shells are whistling again over the cities of Donbass. In Donetsk the sirens of ambulances and emergency services are heard. Under fire: Kievsky district, Oktyabrsky village, Panfilov mine village, Gladkova, Severny, Putilovka.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Germany Orders 100 Tanks To “Ensure Troops Are Ready To Respond To Russian Assertiveness”
Germany Orders 100 Tanks To “Ensure Troops Are Ready To Respond To Russian Assertiveness”
With Jean-Claude Juncker demanding a Unified European Army, it appears Germany is wasting no time in simultaneously boosting its own economy with warfare spending and comforting a ‘fearful populace’ with more military might. As Reuters reports, Germany plans to procure more than 100 additional Leopard 2 tanks, increasing its total Leopard 2 tank inventory by a whopping 45% a government spokesman said on Friday, as it seeks to ensure its “troops are ready for action in response to concerns over recent Russian assertiveness.”
Germany plans to procure more than 100 additional Leopard 2 tanks, a government spokesman said on Friday, as it seeks to ensure its troops are ready for action in response to concerns over recent Russian assertiveness.The decision to restock its military comes as NATO tries to hasten the response time of its rapid reaction force following Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year and conflict in Ukraine.
“The ministry has decided to raise the upper limit for the future to 328,” a defense ministry spokesman told a regular government news conference on Friday, confirming a report by German magazine Spiegel.
Just before the end of the Cold War, in the 1980s, the then West Germany had more than 3,500 tanks. Now, seventy years after World War Two, it has just 225. As a result soldiers have to share tanks and heavy equipment across different units.
Given NATO’s new goals on flexibility and rapid reaction time,Germany has to ensure that it can deploy troops with the correct equipment to the right place in a short period of time, the spokesman said. “This can only succeed if the equipment does not need to be first moved around through the country,” he said.
The Leopard tanks are made by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW).
So harbinger of S&P algos euphoria-inducing WWIII? Or just another Keynesian public works spending project?
NATO Conducts First Test Of “Russia Rapid Response Force”
NATO Conducts First Test Of “Russia Rapid Response Force”
As Russia decries Washington’s “anti-Russian” foreign policy and alleged efforts by the US to undermine the global nuclear power balance — and as Congress and NATO do their best to confirm Moscow’s fears by voting to provide lethal aid to Kiev and by conducting military exercises along the Russian border, respectively —NATO is now set to test a new “Very High Readiness Joint Task Force,” which will see soldiers from the Czech army ready for deployment within two days. The latest NATO sabre rattling also involves German and Dutch forces and, as APreports, is set to ramp up in the coming months:
NATO is completing a first testing of its new force created to face new challenges from Russia.Some 150 soldiers from the Czech army’s 43rd airborne battalion have been training to be ready for deployment within 48 hours “as NATO reevaluates the risks,” Maj. Gen. Jiri Baloun said Thursday. The previous NATO standard times for that were between 10 and 80 days, Baloun said.
In the Netherlands, 900 German and 200 Dutch soldiers have been doing the same. The units will be moved for further trials to Poland in June while some 25,000 NATO troops will complete the exercise of the new force in Italy, Portugal and Spain in October and November.
The units belong to NATO’s new Very High Readiness Joint Task Force.
And here’s what NATO itself has to say about the endeavor:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Ukraine Blocks 10,000 Websites, Confiscates a Newspaper
Ukraine Blocks 10,000 Websites, Confiscates a Newspaper
As I reported yesterday, the Security Bureau of Ukraine, on April 7th, had seized and disappeared two Odessa bloggers, who were trying to get an independent investigation, and ultimate prosecution, of the individuals who participated in the 2 May 2014 massacre of regime opponents, and who burned, shot, and clubbed to death perhaps over 200 in the Odessa Trade Unions Building — the event that precipitated the breakaway of Donbass from the rest of the former Ukraine, the country’s civil war.
And I also reported that April 7th saw the official announcement that, “The security service of Ukraine … has discontinued operation of a number of Internet sites that were used to perpetrate information campaigns of aggression on the part of the Russian Federation aimed at violent change or overthrow of the constitutional order and territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine.”
The follow-up to that story is the news on April 9th, which was reported in the courageous independent Kiev newspaper, Vesti, that “SBU has blocked more than 10,000 websites.” It says that, “Law enforcers seized the servers,” and that one SBU official told the newspaper, “‘We have made the decision of the court and confiscated equipment.’ He promised to return the servers in two months.”
Another news report on April 9th in Vesti tells of seizures of that day’s edition of newspapers by far-right toughs at news stands throughout the city, and the story even shows a video of Right Sector toughs raiding and emptying a Vesti delivery van headed out for distribution. The report also said:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Ukraine ‘Disappears’ Regime Opponents
Ukraine ‘Disappears’ Regime Opponents
In Odessa — the same city where the Ukrainian civil war started on 2 May 2014 with a massacre of opponents that had been carefully planned by a team connected to the U.S. White House — there are reported to be two bloggers for the “Voice of Odessa” political site who were seized by the Security Bureau of Ukraine on April 7th, and whose “whereabouts are unknown.” This report appeared in the local Odessa News.
The “Voice of Odessa” site was formed right after the massacre, in order to get an independent investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators of that massacre, in which officially 46 people were burned, shot and clubbed to death, but unofficial estimates run over 200, all victims who have not been heard from since, and some of whom had allegedly even been abducted from hospitals after the massacre.
This report’s translated headline reads “SBU Detained Activists at Kulikov Field.” Kulikov Field is the square or plaza in front of the former Odessa Trade Unions Building, which is the building where the massacre-victims, who had been printing and distributing pamphlets opposing the newly installed government, were murdered, by Right Sector troops in plain clothes, and also by mercenaries in the private army of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, who had allegedly announced in advance that he would pay $5,000 per corpse. (There has been no reported follow-up, regarding whether he actually paid everyone who participated, or how he paid them.)
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Canadian orchestra drops Ukraine-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa over anti-Kiev posts
Canadian orchestra drops Ukraine-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa over anti-Kiev posts
A Ukrainian-born pianist was barred from playing at Canada’s Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) for expressing views on the situation in Ukraine via Twitter, according to the soloist herself. The move led to a social media storm tagged #LetValentinaPlay.
READ MORE: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi leader becomes top military adviser, legalizes fighters
The orchestra has officially announced its decision to drop pianist Valentina Lisitsa from its Rachmaninoff Concerto #2 program earlier this week. TSO President and CEO Jeff Melanson cited “ongoing accusations of deeply offensive language by Ukrainian media outlets,” adding that Lisitsa’s “provocative comments” had allegedly “overshadowed past performances.”
In the statement, Melanson seems to be referring to Lisitsa’s Twitter posts, in which she expresses her views on the situation in Ukraine.
Lisitsa turned to Facebook on Monday with a plea, asking her fans for support to “tell Toronto Symphony that music can’t be silenced.”
“Someone in the orchestra top management, likely after the pressure from a small but aggressive lobby claiming to represent Ukrainian community, has made a decision that I should not be allowed to play,”she wrote, referring to her TSO performances on Wednesday and Thursday. “I don’t even know who my accusers are, I am kept in the dark about it.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
