GERMANY'S SYMBOLIC MOVE - CANCELLED $165M RHEINMETALL RUSSIAN DEFENCE DEAL

Germany just cancelled a defense deal with Russia—who’s next? By Devjyot Ghoshal @DevjyotGhoshal August 5, 2014 As European countries try to balance their economic dependence on Russia with their desire to punish president Vladimir Putin for meddling in Ukraine, Germany has stepped ahead of the pack to poke the bear in the eye, canceling a €123 million ($165 million) defense deal (paywall) with Moscow earlier this week. In response, the Kremlin has said it will sue Rheinmetall, the German defense firm that was to supply parts for a military training facility for the Russian military. The deal, signed in 2012, was suspended by Berlin shortly after the annexation of Crimea in March; this week’s move permanently bars the delivery of the equipment. Last week the European Union banned all arms exports to Russia, but that only covers future deals. Germany’s decision may inspire other European nations to cancel previously agreed defense deals with Moscow. Here are Russia’s other big suppliers in the EU: France Europe’s second-largest arms exporter after Germany is under intense pressure (paywall) to cancel its €1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) deal with Russia for two Mistral-class warships. But the French have a long-standing relationship with Russia, ... Italy Italy sold Russia about €15 million ($21 million) worth of military equipment in 2012—and over €51 million ($69 million) between 2001 and 2012, according to European Union and CAAT data. In 2010, when Russia began to greatly increase defense purchases from Europe (including the order for the French Mistrals), Italian exports soared to €14 million ($19 million), from just about €640,000 ($800,000) the previous year. United Kingdom British prime minister David Cameron has been one of the most vocal European leaders calling for the cancellation of deals with Moscow, calling France’s insistence on delivering warships to Russia “unthinkable.” At the same time, the British prime minister has recently taken heat from parliament to definitively scrap the country’s many arms export licenses to Russia. The UK’s defense exports to Russia, according to EU documents, were worth about €10 million ($13.4 million) in 2012, the most recent year for which figures are available. British exports consisted of small arms, naval vessels and aircraft, and related equipment.  [UK's running out of energy options, by the look of it] Czech Republic Prague has sold Russia planes, ammunition, light weapons, small arms, explosives and more—amounting to about €34 million ($46 million) of exports in the past 10 years. Exports in 2012 were about €5.5 million ($7.3 million), dominated by light transport aircraft and ammunition. As these numbers indicate, Moscow’s military imports from Europe—barring those Mistrals—are mostly small-bore. They certainly pale in comparison with Russia’s own exports worldwide: $13.2 billion in 2013. But Germany’s cancelled deal was meant to be symbolic, and other European governments will likely come under pressure to stand with Berlin. http://qz.com/245193

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Germany cancelled

€123 million ($165 million) defense deal (paywall) with Moscow

Kremlin has said it will sue Rheinmetall, the German defense firm

German's deal is 'symbolic'

Russia does more exporting than it does importing of arms

 

CARNAGE UNLEASHED ON PALESTINIANS DEPENDS ON WESTERN SUPPORT

Gaza is a crime made in Washington as well as Jerusalem The carnage unleashed on the Palestinians is part of a decades-old routine that depends on western support Seumas Milne The Guardian, Thursday 7 August 2014 ... while the overwhelming majority of Palestinian dead are civilians – 430 of them children – and 64 of the Israeli dead are soldiers, it is Hamas that is branded terrorist, rather than the Israeli armed forces armed with the most sophisticated targeting technology in the world. It’s only necessary to consider for a moment what the reaction would have been if the death toll had been the other way round to realise how loaded are the scales of western moral outrage and selective the appetite for action. And it’s only by ignoring the entire history of the conflict that it can be portrayed as the result of some wearisome ancient ethnic hatred. This week’s centenary of the outbreak of the first world war should help. David Cameron claims it was fought for freedom. In reality, it was a savage industrial slaughter perpetrated by a gang of imperial powers to carve up territories, markets and resources. Far from defending democracy or the rights of small nations, Britain and France ended the war divvying up the defeated German and Ottoman empires between them, from Iraq to Palestine. A century on, we’re still living with the consequences. ... a British foreign secretary had signed the Balfour declaration, which on behalf of one people promised to a second the land of a third. Palestine would be a “home for the Jewish people” provided that nothing would prejudice the rights of the “existing non-Jewish communities”, as the Palestinians were described. So began its full-scale colonisation by mainly European settlers – something that could have happened only under colonial rule – which three decades later would lead to the establishment of Israel and the dispossession or expulsion of the majority of the Palestinian people. Four Arab-Israeli wars on, the 44% of Palestine allocated to the Palestinian majority under the 1947 UN partition plan had been entirely occupied by Israel – and the Palestinians were fighting a guerrilla war for self-determination and the refugees’ right of return. The other day I came across a copy of Newsweek magazine from March 1978, with a picture of an Israeli tank on the cover under the headline “Israel strikes back”. Then it was south Lebanon that Israel was punishing, not Gaza – and the “terrorists” of Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation, not Hamas, that its forces were targeting. Israel staged an even larger-scale invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and occupied the south for another 18 years. Since the Oslo agreement of the early 1990s failed to produce the Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza it was supposed to, Israel has colonised, bombed and reinvaded the Palestinian territories it illegally occupies (along with Syria and Lebanon) time and again: in 2002, 2006, 2008 and 2012. The justification is always the same: the security of the occupier must be upheld against the resistance of the occupied and blockaded population. And at every stage Israel has had the military, financial and diplomatic support of the west, the US above all. Despite the hand-wringing, that backing has been unwavering throughout the past month’s devastation of Gaza. Not only is Israel’s right of “self-defence” in a territory it illegally controls upheld, while the same right is denied to the Palestinians, but the US, whose military aid to Israel runs to $3bn a year, has been re-supplying it with weapons as its troops and aircraft pulverised and massacred their way through an impoverished territory from which its captive people are unable to escape. Europe is in the same game. Britain has licensed the sale of a startling £8bn worth of military or dual-use equipment since 2010, and £42m of direct arms sales – including parts for drones and tanks used in the destruction of Gaza. ... EXTRACTS ONLY - FULL @ SOURCE http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/06/gaza-crime-washington-jerusalem-carnage-western-support

Wow, good article from The Guardian.

Well worth a read.

Also gratified that the imperialist aims of WWI participants was mentioned.

Nothing has changed since WWI.  

US and its allies are bound to go to war for territories, market and resources -- just watch Ukraine.

UK - NEEDS EUROPEAN LNG - FRACKING - ENERGY DRYING UP

Government data hints at future challenges for curbing natural gas emissions 05 August 2014 ... As a consequence, the UK's main LNG supplier, Qatar, is sending increasing amounts of LNG south east rather than to the UK, which isn't willing to match Asia's price. In 2013, 62 per cent of Qatar's LNG was exported to Asia, with only 30 per cent going to Europe. ... If the UK is going to use gas as a bridging fuel while curbing its emissions, it will need to continue to import as much as possible from the continent rather than alternative sources. Shale gas could potentially play a role, but only if fugitive methane emissions are constrained. Finding alternative low emission gas sources will get ever more pressing as North Sea wells dry up and Norway's resources become increasingly depleted. http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2014/08/government-data-hints-at-future-challenges-for-curbing-gas-demand/

Wow!

This would indicate that UK has a vested interest in supporting the Obama/US incursions into Eastern Europe ... and that UK would be fully behind the energy rape of Ukraine, the replacement of infrastructure ... and snatch of Russia's market etc.

UKRAINE - US & CO - GRAB FOR OIL, GAS & COAL and PIPELINES

Naked Goals of Ukrainian Genocide – Part I  ... What does it all this have to do with Ukraine, Novorossia and the re-shaping of the world? Just look at the picture and try to imagine that all the US senators and congressmen, Obama and Merkel, and others all over the world are doing the same. And it is not important how accurate the picture is — those people will be making decisions with this picture in mind. The picture is clear: it’s essential to grab the sources of oil, gas, coal immediately (before 2030), as well as the ways and means to transport them (specifically gas and oil pipelines). And the one who succeeds in taking possession of as much as possible is sure to become a leader and ride the tide of the energy crisis expected in 2030. That is just some 15–16 years off. It has long been said, you should never boast about your gas and oil, or you’ll call a democracy down upon your head. They were warned but didn’t hear; better to just thumb one’s nose at Moscow. And now let’s read carefully how the Yuzivska shale gas field (southern Kharkov and northern Donetsk region) shows up in terms of statistics: estimated deposits, 4 trillion m3; planned production capacity (so far), 10 billion m3 a year; and, planned investments in the development of the Yuzivska and Odessa (whoa!) gas fields in the 30 years to come – on the order of 50-70 billion dollars. That’s assuming the price of gas in Europe remains the same – $400 for 100 m3. After a simple calculation we see that the bowels of the earth at Donetsk and Kharkov contain an estimated 4 x $400 billion = $1600 trillion. Annual income at current prices may reach, at a minimum, 10 x 400 million = $4 billion. Let me ask you, what might one do to Ukraine in order to get 1.5-2 trillion bucks? Anything one chooses, in the most perverted fashion. And this is the Yuzivska field only! http://slavyangrad.org/2014/08/05/naked-goals-of-ukrainian-genocide-part-i/

Check out this guy's article.


Had no idea there was so much at stake!

Turkey - No freedom of press / freedom of speech

Turkey Deports Journalist for Criticizing Government on Twitter

By SEBNEM ARSU and ROBERT MACKEY

February 8, 2014 8:29 pmFebruary 10, 2014 6:16 pm

ISTANBUL — Turkey deported an Azerbaijani journalist on Friday for “posting tweets against high-level state officials,” according to an Interior Ministry order obtained by his newspaper, the English-language daily Today’s Zaman.

The journalist, Mahir Zeynalov, was “put on a list of foreign individuals who are barred from entering Turkey,” the newspaper reported, one month after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan filed a criminal complaint against him for tweeting links to articles about a corruption scandal involving Mr. Erdogan’s government. According to the complaint, Mr. Zeynalov “committed a crime by exceeding the limit of criticism.”

As his followers on Twitter observed the drama in real time, Mr. Zeynalov and his wife, the Turkish national Sevda Nur Arslan, appeared at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport early on Friday and surrendered to immigration officials. The couple had decided to leave the country on their own terms before the police showed up at their home. 

FULL @ SOURCE

SOURCE - here.

Deported?  OMG.  Over tweets?

Turkey's not big on press freedoms then.



 

PERSIA

Zoroastrianism Zoroastrians believe that there is one universal, transcendent, supreme god, Ahura Mazda, or the 'Wise Lord'.(Ahura means 'Being' and Mazda means 'Mind' in Avestan language). Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta (Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds) are the basic tenets of the religion. Zoroastrianism ... also called Zarathustraism, Mazdaism and Magianism, is an ancient Iranian religion ..  once the state religion of the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian empires. Zoroaster's ideas ... have influenced other later religions including Judaism, Gnosticism, Christianity and Islam. Zoroastrians usually pray in the presence of some form of fire (which can be considered evident in any source of light), and the culminating rite of the principle act of worship constitutes a "strengthening of the waters". Fire is considered a medium through which spiritual insight and wisdom is gained, and water is considered the source of that wisdom. Present-day Iran Many aspects of Zoroastrianism are present in the culture and mythologies of the peoples of the Greater Iran, not least because Zoroastrianism was a dominant influence on the people of the cultural continent for a thousand years. Even after the rise of Islam and the loss of direct influence, Zoroastrianism remained part of the cultural heritage of the Iranian language-speaking world, in part as festivals and customs ... SOURCE  EXTRACTS - WIKIPEDIA

If I've got this straight, there appears to be an ancient connection between the people of Iran and people of northern India:

The early Iranians are commonly identified with the descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans ... and their homeland with an area of the Eurasian steppe that borders the Ural River on the west, the Tian Shan on the east. 

Historical linguists broadly estimate that a continuum of Indo-Iranian languages probably began to diverge by 2000 BC ... preceding both the Vedic and Iranian cultures.

[wikipedia]

The early Persian's religion and traditions appear to pre-date and to influence modern religions.

Here's a bit of background on Persia (Iran):

The name of Iran is .. Modern Persian .. from the Proto-Iranian term Aryānā, meaning "Land of the Aryans", first attested in Zoroastrianism's Avesta tradition.  

...

Historically Iran has been referred to as "Persia" or similar (La Perse, Persien, Perzië, etc.) by the Western world, mainly due to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis  ... meaning land of the Persians. 

Zoroastrianism, was the state religion of the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian empires. It was an ancient Iranian religion, the first monotheistic religion in the world, and has influenced other later religions including Judaism, Gnosticism, Christianity and Islam. Zoroastrians in Iran are the oldest religious community of the nation, with a long history continuing up to the present day. After the fall of the Sasanian Zoroastrian empire by the Muslim conquest of Persia, Zoroastrians have periodically faced extreme religious oppression including forced conversions, massacres, harassment, and other forms of discrimination.

Today, religion in Iran is dominated by the Twelver Shia branch of Islam, which is the official state religion and to which about 90% to 95% of Iranians belong.

Check out this link to see the wiki on the ancient city of Persepolis - here - it's so beautiful and haunting.

It's almost as if you can reach out and touch the ancient world.

IRAQ - ISLAMIC STATE - ISIS - KURDS - SINJAR

TWITTER New Yorker link - here.

Noticed this appears to be Carnegie Endowment retweeted.

Imagine Carnegie Endowment aren't friends of Palestine.

Carnegie Endowment is a foreign policy 'think tank'.  Would you believe they've got a Moscow centre?

Don't know about these NGOs (or is it a GO ... haven't checked funding).  Who would want foreign influence in their countries?

Sinjar is a town on the Iraq-Syria border.

Like what's happening anywhere else in the world changes what's happened in Gaza!

Gaza's like shooting fish in a bucket.

Sinjar's either Iraq or Kurd.

ISIS has a fair bit of weaponry by the sound of it.  Hey, they've also changed their name, I think.  Now they're the Isamic State, as far as I know.

The New Yorker writes:

Yesterday, a senior U.S. official told me that the Obama Administration is contemplating an airlift, coördinated with the United Nations, of humanitarian supplies by C-130 transport planes to the Yazidis hiding in the Sinjar mountains. There are at least twenty thousand and perhaps as many as a hundred thousand of them, including some peshmerga militiamen providing a thin cover of protection.  The U.N. has reported that dozens of children have died of thirst in the heat. ISIS controls the entrance to the mountains. Iraqi helicopters have dropped some supplies, including food and water, but the refugees are hard to find and hard to reach.

ISIS rolls over local forces and consolidates power. ISIS is not Al Qaeda. It operates like an army, taking territory, creating a state. The aim of the Sinjar operation seems to be control of the Mosul Dam, the largest dam in Iraq, which provides electricity to Mosul, Baghdad, and much of the country. According to one expert, if ISIS takes the dam, which is located on the Tigris River, it would have the means to put Mosul under thirty metres of water, and Baghdad under five.

One way to protect the innocent and hurt those who are terrorizing them would be for the U.S. to launch air strikes on ISIS positions. That option has been discussed within the administration since the fall of Mosul, in June, but it runs against President Obama’s foreign-policy tendencies. “The President’s first instinct is, ‘Let’s help them to do it,’ ” the official told me. “The minute we do something, it changes the game.” This time, unlike in Syria, it isn’t hard to figure out how to “help them to do it”: send arms to the Kurds, America’s only secular-minded, pluralistic Muslim allies in the region, and the only force in the area with the means and the will to protect thousands of lives.  

It seems delusional to imagine that there is such a thing as an Iraqi central government that should be given priority over stopping ISIS and preventing a massacre. That dream of the American project in Iraq is gone. But perhaps the Obama Administration is being more realistic. Yesterday, I also learned that the U.S. is, in fact, sending arms to the Kurds—just not openly. This was even more welcome news, though it’s too bad that the weapons didn’t reach the peshmerga in time to defend Sinjar. The U.S. Joint Operation Center in Erbil is helping peshmerga ground troops and the Iraqi air force to coordinate attacks on ISIS, providing intelligence from the sky. It’s a breakthrough that the Kurds and the Iraqis are cooperating at all. “For the moment,” the senior official said. “And it could all fall apart, because it’s lightning in a bottle.”

*Yazidi is Kurdish people linked to Zoroastrianism.  I think Zoroastrianism was the original faith in Iran (Persia).  How cool's that!  Didn't think there were any beyond India, where they fled to centuries ago, I think it was.  Find them interesting.

That sounds pretty full on.

If ISIS/IS operate as an army, what do al-Qaeda do?

It would seem odd to overtake territory and then to just leave it, which I'm guessing is what happens.