New Cold War.org Information Bulletin, Vol 2 #36, Feb 27, 2017
Ukraine-Russia-Europe: (* denotes also published in full on New Cold War.org)
* The flawed Maidan Massacre (Feb 2014) investigation by Ukraine: Interview with Ivan Katchanovski, longer version on Academia.edu of interview published in Telepolis (Germany) on Feb 20, 2017
Kyiv shells DPR territory 930 times over 24 hours, tanks spotted on south axis, Donetsk News Agency, Feb 27, 2017
Ukraine military seizes water purification plant in Donetsk region, TASS, Saturday, Feb 25, 2017
Four new, absurd, anti-Russia diatribes in mainstream media:
1. Don’t forget the Russia sanctions are Russia’s fault, by Daniel Baer, Foreign Policy Magazine, Feb 24, 2017
[“In addition to grabbing Crimea, Putin sought to foment a destabilizing conflict in Ukraine that would tear apart the country and teach its people a lesson.” Etc, etc.
[We read in another paragraph: “In the days that followed [January 16, 2014], there were a number of clashes between protestors and security services, many spurred by government-directed provocateurs. More than 100 Ukrainians lost their lives — many killed by snipers from rooftops of government buildings — as they stood up for freedoms that we take for granted.” Like the rest of the Western corporate press, Foreign Policy conceals from its readers the fact that the sniper shootings on Maidan Square in Kyiv on Feb 20, 2014 (more than “a few days” following January 16!) were conducted from buildings occupied by armed, pro-Euromaidan forces. See interview with Ivan Katchanovski, weblink above.]
2. Trump, Putin, and the New Cold War: What lay behind Russia’s interference in the 2016 election—and what lies ahead?, lengthy essay by Evan Osnos, David Remnick, and Joshua Yaffa, New Yorker Magazine, March 6, 2017 print issue
3. As Russia-U.S. ties strengthen, violence escalates in Ukraine, lengthy article by the Globe and Mail‘s senior, anti-Russia European correspondent Mark MacKinnon, written from Mariupol, Ukraine, Feb 27, 2017
[Headline says it all. And further, from the article: “Since Mr. Trump’s inauguration as U.S. President, thousands of articles – and millions of tweets – have been written about his alleged connections to Russia and Mr. Putin. But it’s the rising violence in Ukraine, and a parallel battle for political power in the capital, Kiev, that has also been reignited since the U.S. election, that are the strongest indication of how that new relationship might be working in practice.”
4. Trump just doesn’t just like Putin, he is Putin, by Sesan B Glasser, New York Times, Feb 18, 2017 [Headline says it all]
Thousands march in Moscow to commemorate Boris Nemtsov, murdered in Moscow two years ago, RT.com, Feb 26, 2017 [Reuters report here. ‘Some marchers chanted ‘Hands off Ukraine’. Report in The Independent report here. “Participants carried Russian flags, banners of opposition political parties and placards with quotes from Mr Nemtsov including ‘If there’s Putin, there’s no Russia’ and ‘Our only chance left is the street’.”]
Thirty Spanish cities march in solidarity with refugees, against ‘Fortress Europe’, RT.com, Feb, 2017 (with video)
In scenes reminiscent of the widespread protests that swept Europe a year ago, human rights groups and social activists marched in 30 cities across Spain to demand that the government do more to help migrants and refugees and end “Fortress Europe”.
… The crowds chanted “Europe, you scoundrels, open up the borders!”Counter-protesters from the far-right Hogar Social group were driven away from the marches with chants of: “Fascists, off our streets!”
Turkey-Syria-Middle East and Caucasus:
* Fifty people killed in terrorist bombings targeting Syrian military in Homs, news compilation on New Cold War.org, Feb 27, 2017
Russia to veto UNSC resolution imposing sanctions on Syria, TASS, Feb 24, 2017
U.S., Britain and France push resolution on chemical weapons in Syria at UN, Inside Syria Media Center, Feb 27, 2017
‘White Helmets helping rebrand terror groups to create Syrian no-fly zones’, interview with Vanessa Beeley on RT.com‘s ‘Op-Edge’ feature, Feb 27, 2017
World must address Saudi war crimes in Yemen urgently, Press TV, Feb 27, 2017
Seventy seven per cent of Germans polled oppose Erdogan’s plan for a ‘yes’ referendum rally in Germany, Turkish Minute, Feb 27, 2017
Residents of Syria’s Deir ez-Zor fear ISIS massacre, by Nour Samaha, Al-Monitor, Feb 24, 2017
As it loses ground in Mosul, the Islamic State is more determined than ever to gain ground in Deir ez-Zor, and its takeover could spell disaster for the civilians who have remained in the area.
United States:
New York Times, CNN, BBC among media outlets barred from White House briefing on February 24, by Justin Li, Tara Kimura, CBC.ca, Feb 24, 2017
Reporters for CNN, The New York Times, Politico, The Los Angeles Times and BuzzFeed were not allowed into the session in the office of press secretary Sean Spicer, a decision that drew strong protests…
Trump plans to skip White House press dinner, Reuters, Feb 25, 2017
‘U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he would not attend the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, a high-profile event that draws celebrities, politicians and journalists. He will be the first U.S. president to not attend the annual press dinner since 1981, when then-President Ronald Reagan was recovering from a gunshot wound.’
Making sense of the war between Trump and the press, by Anthony DiMaggio, CounterPunch, Feb 27, 2017
Trump to ask for sharp increases in military spending, officials say, by Glenn Thrush, Kate Kelly and Maggie Haberman, New York Times, Feb 26, 2017
President Trump will instruct federal agencies on Monday to assemble a budget for the coming fiscal year that includes sharp increases in Defense Department spending and drastic enough cuts to domestic agencies that he can keep his promise to leave Social Security and Medicare alone…
A day before delivering a high-stakes address on Tuesday to a joint session of Congress, Mr. Trump will demand a budget with tens of billions of dollars in reductions to the Environmental Protection Agency and State Department, according to four senior administration officials with direct knowledge of the plan. Social safety net programs, aside from the big entitlement programs for retirees, would also be hit hard…
NPR spins Trump’s ‘restrained’ foreign policy–ignoring threats, bans and escalation, by Adam Johnson, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), Feb 24, 2017
Arrests of journalists on Feb 22 at Dakota Access Pipeline conflict, by Reed Lindsay, FAIR, Feb 23, 2017
Muhammad Ali’s son detained at Florida airport, asked ‘Are you Muslim?‘, by Bruce Schreiner, Associated Press, Feb. 25, 2017
World:
Mexico tells U.S. it will refuse deportees from third countries, Associated Press, Feb 24, 2017
… A memo published by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this week suggested that U.S. immigration officials could deport immigrants in the country illegally to the contiguous country they had entered from, which in the vast majority of cases would be Mexico.
Mali: The world’s most dangerous UN mission, by Kevin Spieff, Washington Post, Feb 17, 2017
[Canada is contemplating Mali as the target destination of the 600-soldier expeditionary expedition it wishes to send to Africa to join with U.S.-led military forces in the continent. The following article was reprinted in the Toronto Star on February 26 as a friendly, cautionary warning by Star editors to Canada’s government.]
In 2012, Islamist radicals linked to al-Qaeda hijacked a [pro-autonomy] uprising by ethnic Tuareg people and went on to seize cities across northern Mali, holding on for nearly a year until they were forced out by a French military intervention…
If peacekeepers had a more aggressive counterterrorism mandate, she and others argue, that could hurt the United Nations’ ability to mediate between warring groups, which sometimes include violent Islamists. Already in Mali, the International Committee of the Red Cross has described the United Nations as a “party to the conflict.” …
Canada PM Trudeau pressured to tackle influx of asylum seekers over U.S. border, by Ashifa Kassam, The Guardian, Feb 26, 2017
[There are two, very different pressures operating on the Canadian government as a result of Donald Trump’s repression against immigrants and refugees. The pressure from the right wing is to support Trump by closing off Canada’s border to refugee claimants traveling from the U.S. The left-wing pressure is to open the border to refugee claimants, including exiting the 2004 ‘Safe Third Country Agreement’ between the U.S. and Canada whereby refugees in the United States cannot make a formal refugee claim when they present to a Canadian border station. They can only make a claim by crossing clandestinely into Canada and then presenting to authorities. The Canadian government is refusing to cancel the 2004 agreement.]
Labour Party right wing attacks Jeremy Corbyn following Feb 23 byelection defeat in northern England, anti-Corbyn news/commentary published by The Guardian, Feb 26, 2017
Global warming and climate change:
A new dawn for solar energy, by Nathan Vanderklippe, in Beijing, Globe and Mail, Aug 26, 2017 [Missing from this article and the following one is the fact that even if so-called renewable energies such as sun, wind and tidal replaced fossil fuel and nuclear generated energies, the world would still be producing and consuming itself into a global warming emergency. But the articles do confirm that science offers the opportunity for less polluting energy sources ]
… Once among the most expensive ways to produce power, the cost of solar cells has, after a year of extraordinary price declines, now come tantalizing close to a threshold where it is cheaper to generate electricity from the sun than coal, even without government subsidies. That threshold, known in the industry as grid parity, has long been an unattainable fantasy, even as the cost of new solar installations gradually eroded.
In 2016, that cost for solar tumbled an astonishing 27 per cent, enough to now tip some countries into a place where solar projects are winning open-bid electricity contracts over other forms of power…
UK tidal project could spark global revolution, by Richard Sadler, Climate News Network, Feb 22, 2017
… Ten lagoons are proposed around tidal hotspots in the Severn estuary and north-west England/north Wales. These would have the potential to generate 25,000MW of electricity – enough to provide 12% of the UK’s electricity needs.
Climate change shrinks Colorado River flow, by Tim Radford, Climate News Network, Feb 26, 2017
… “This paper is the first to show the large role that warming temperatures are playing in reducing the flows of the Colorado River,” said Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences and of hydrology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona.
“We’re the first to make the case that warming alone could cause Colorado River flow declines of 30% by mid-century and over 50% by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated.”
‘They cannot extinguish the fire that Standing Rock started’, by Andy Rowell, published on Oil Change International, Feb 24, 2017
… Once again Big Oil has been forced to rely on brutal militarized force to bludgeon, bully, beat and intimidate peaceful water protectors fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline. But in the face of such violence and intimidation, the growing movement against new fossil fuels will not be intimidated, it will only grow…
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