Category Archives: Europe

Arab Elections, Egypt, Europe, Syria

Tale of Two Funny Elections: European Union Congratulates Al Sisi but not Al Assad……..


      


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“Declaration on behalf of the European Union
on the presidential elections in Egypt
The holding of the presidential elections marks an important step in the imp
lementation of
the constitutional roadmap towards the transition to democracy in Egypt. The Europe
an
Union expresses its willingness to work closely with the new authorities in Eg
ypt in a
constructive partnership with a view to strengthening our bilateral r
elations.
The EU congratulates Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, as the new President of Egypt
, and trusts that
he will tackle the serious challenges faced by the country and the new governm
ent, among
them the dire economic situation, the deep divisions within society, the security sit
uation,
and the respect of the human rights of all Egyptian citizens in line with inter
national
obligations and guaranteed by the new Constitution adopted last January.
On the basis of the preliminary statement of the EU Election Observat
ion Mission the EU
takes good note of the overall peaceful and orderly conduct of the elections……………….”
Yadda, yadda, yadda in European bureaucratese.

The EU congratulated Generalissimo Field Marshal Al Sisi for winning his rigged Egyptian election with 97% of the vote. Effectively they congratulated him for overthrowing the elected president of Egypt, Morsi and taking over the state. They did not congratulate Bashar Al Assad for winning the other funny Arab election, the Syrian election. Perhaps because Bashar won only 88% of the vote and did not reach the required Arab majority of 90%. 
Economics, Europe, NATO, Russia, Sanctions, SCO Shanghai Cooperation Organization, US Foreign Policy

Ukraine Fallout on an Arizona Gas Station: Union of Sanctioned Pariah States……

      

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“Even as the crisis in Ukraine continues to defy easy resolution, President Obama and his national security team are looking beyond the immediate conflict to forge a new long-term approach to Russia that applies an updated version of the Cold War strategy of containment. Just as the United States resolved in the aftermath of World War II to counter the Soviet Union and its global ambitions, Mr. Obama is focused on isolating President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world, limiting its expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood and effectively making it a pariah state………………”

A pariah state: it sounds ominous. The list is already long and can get longer. Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, etc. Now the mother of all sanctions: a possible creeping economic blockade of the huge Eurasian mass of Russia, with spillover into other countries. Mr. Putin may be excused if someday he makes a famous Reagan-esque speech outside the IMF building, with a great sound bite: “Mr. Obama (or Mrs Clinton or Mr. Bush III) tear down this blockade………” 

Provided he can get a visa to get to the IMF building. And it would be more effective if he could keep his shirt on during that speech.


Yet a blockade against Russia invites blockades against many others, if the Iranian example is to be imitated. Russia is huge; it is still that ‘other’ world (bigger than an Arizona gas station). Many countries, from Asia through Latin America and Africa, and even Europe, will not go along with sanctions against (Mother) Russia. But even if they do, we will have two new definitions of nations. Now we have: First World and Third World, Developed World and Underdeveloped World, Industrial and non-Industrial World (the last one is not as sharp anymore). SCO (Shanghai) countries are highly unlikely to comply. Countries like India and China and Brazil may straddle the two as they are partially blockaded by the “international community”, meaning by the Western powers of North America and Europe. Of course, India and China represent many more people than all of the “international community” of North America and Europe.  


Soon we may have new blocs of nations: Sanctioned or Blockaded Nations and Non-blockaded Nations; Blockading nations and Blockaded Nations, etc. Sounds almost like a new Cold war of “beggar they neighbors across the vast oceans”.

Cheers
mhg

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Corruption, Europe, Russia

Sanctions and Corruption: From Ukrainian Oligarchs to Pure Princes………

      

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Speaking of Russia and Ukraine and imposing selective sanctions on select individuals. The Western power (the U.S. and maybe the EU) will basically do the following: they will sanction and freeze the assets of former (corrupt) Ukraine officials in order to support current (corrupt) Ukraine leaders who used to be former (corrupt) Ukraine officials. Cute, no? So what about the assets of certain Middle East princes and potentates who have accumulated ill-gotten fortunes that dwarf anything some Ukrainian or even Russian oligarchs could boast about? How come they don’t get sanctioned for selective corruption as well?

Cheers
mhg

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Europe, Finance, Russia, Sanctions, US Congress, US Foreign Policy

Bipolar Economics and Hypocrisy in Pусский язык: Sanctions on Putin’s Minions?……….

      

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The media and halls of Congress are full of
talk about economic sanctions, talk of plans to impose American
sanctions against Russia. Sanctions
are in the cards for some Russians who are deemed responsible (or not) for ‘something’ in Crimea, but guess what? The man who ordered
the troops into Crimea will not be sanctioned. Putin is not being
sanctioned, just some hapless underlings. Now how do you spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y in русский язык?
There are some stronger threats from U.S. law-makers (a few of them like Senator Bob Menendez are also suspected of allegedly being law breakers themselves) to impose tougher sanctions on Russia and on (former) Ukrainian officials. But not on Putin. On the senate floor, Senator McCain even expressed a burning desire to ban select Russians from going to Las Vegas. LasFuckingVegas? That is what he said (minus the expletive). Is that the best these august men can come up with? And what happened to the wonders of unfettered unregulated unsanctioned free markets?

Europeans are deemed too hesitant, considered wimpy by U.S. senators and Obama bureaucrats already tested and blooded in the battles for media sound bites and in the battles of other sanctions. The EU itself is almost certainly threatening more punishment than it is willing to actually apply.

Just think of the company (some) Russians will be keeping among the targets of Western sanctions: Cuba, Iran, Syria, Iraq (once), Lebanon (a big chunk of it anyway), Russia, North Korea. A gaggle of West African leaders and warlords. Probably others I can’t recall.

And suppose India and China and Pakistan and Indonesia and Brazil and Argentina and Algeria and Egypt and several other countries refuse to respect these expanded Western global sanctions? Which they almost certainly will. Would new sanctions be applied to these countries as well? Then will we have two worlds? Those sanctioned by the Western Powers and those not sanctioned by Western Powers? And how will this impact the love affair between extremely patriotic U.S. corporations and cheap Chinese (and Indian) labor and possibly Russian oligarchs, among others?

And if half the world is ‘sanctioned’ how does this affect the effectiveness of the sanctions being bandied about?


Cheers
mhg

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Europe, Russia, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Another Crimea? USG and UN and Europe Set to Invade Oklahoma, Yeeeehaw………

      

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“With radical U.S. government and United Nations schemes such as “sustainable development” and UN Agenda 21 being quietly implemented across America at all levels of government under a variety of names and pretexts, lawmakers in the Oklahoma House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly this week for legislation to protect the unalienable rights to private property and due process in the state. The “Oklahoma Community Protection Act,” which would nullify Agenda 21 and other outside assaults on individual rights in the state, now goes to the Oklahoma Senate…………”

Sometimes nothing can be more fun than to follow than some red state legislatures. They can be even fun-ner than the United States Congress and all the hot greenhouse effects some of its members emit. I am always on the lookout for new gems from the legislators of what the snobbish elites of the East Coast and Left Coast arrogantly (and I mean this: arrogantly) dismiss as “the fly-over states”. Sometimes they even seem to be the only force that stands between the Bible-belt and the universal application of Islamic Shari’a laws.
So now Oklahoma lawmakers worry about the Federal government and, get this, the United Nations taking over local property. The United Nations used to be the bogeyman of the American right in the old days of the Cold War. There was fear that the UN will become a world government and rule the USA. Many are still upset because foreign leaders are allowed to fly into New York to attend the UN meetings. Remember the outrage that Ahmadinejad or Qaddafi could breeze into into the city? Many wanted to keep them away, which also meant they had to keep away the United Nations and all the expenditures and prestige (and the unsavory foreign characters) that come with it.
Like I said, many on the right feared a plot to establish a world government. Imagine a world government elected by a bunch of Chinese and Africans and Russkies? Now the Oklahomans have acted, a bit late, but they have overlooked a new potent world government: the European Union. The EU has unilaterally decided that the last elected president of Ukraine is illegitimate and that the unelected man whom they appointed in his place is legitimate. They even have John Kerry and Barack Obama and John McCain and Wolf Blitzer and Fareed Zakaria going around saying exactly that: the elected leader is not legal, but the unelected leader is legal. How so? Because the EU said so.
Now how is that for a powerful world government?
Cheers
mhg

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Culture, Europe, Lebanon

A Nordic Mystery: Stormy Seas, Animal Mutilations, Mutilated Lebanese Cows………

      

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“Fourteen dead cows that washed up on the beaches of Denmark and Sweden were probably dumped overboard by the crew of a Lebanese ship after it encountered bad weather, Danish police said Friday. “The police suspects that (the source is) a Lebanese ship that was transporting live cattle from a US port to Europe,” the South Zealand and Lolland-Falster Police said in a statement. “The ship ran into a storm in the Bay of Biscay, in which a number of cows died,” it added. The ship’s management may be prosecuted since dumping dead animals in the Baltic Sea is prohibited, it said. The puzzling appearance of nine cows on the beaches of south Sweden and five in Denmark has stunned the public, especially after it was revealed that some of them had been shot and had their ears mutilated…………….”

I am not touching this one, just linking to it. It might be cultural, a WTF. You figure it out.

Cheers
mhg

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Europe, Russia, Sanctions, US Foreign Policy

No Hypocrisy: Obama Administration Mulls Sanctions against Ukraine and Bahrain and Egypt and………

      

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                               Video:
A Kenny G Holiday

“The US raised the prospect of placing sanctions on Ukraine on Wednesday after riot police moved against anti-government demonstrators, seemingly violating its pledges of restraint. Baroness Ashton, the EU’s foreign affairs representative, all but accused Victor Yanukovich, Ukrain’s president, of misleading her in negotiations in Kiev that happened just hours before riot police launched a push to retake opposition-occupied areas of the city, including City Hall and Independence Square. The crowd resisted the police onslaught in temperatures of -11C but Baroness Ashton, who was in Kiev for crisis talks on Ukraine’s rejection of a strategic pact with Europe, said the authorities had crossed the line……………….”

Ukraine has crossed “one line”, has been doing it for a week. Just attacking protesters in the square, not raiding their homes and looting and arresting and torturing them. Bahrain’s regime has crossed many lines, has been doing it for almost three years: tear gassing, shooting, arresting, torturing, and killing. Raiding and looting homes of the majority of its rebelling people at midnight. Ukraine is mild compared to Bahrain. Someone forgot to tell the U.S. government that.

Cheers
mhg

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Blockade of Iran, Europe, Iran, Israel, nuclear Iran

Leap of Faith: Netanyahu Warns Europeans to Keep Heeding his Warnings of Twenty Years…………

      

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“PM warns Europe against Iran: ‘Don’t let them have enrichment’
Netanyahu holds interviews with European media outlets to warn against reducing sanctions to Islamic republic, urges world not to ‘let a radical regime have awesome power’. As Europeans are suggesting that economic sanctions against Iran may be reduced, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held several interviews with European media to stress the dangers of the Tehran regime. In interviews with representatives from the Frankfurter Allgemeine, the French daily Le Monde, the British Financial Times; as well as the the German ARD television station, the French France-24 and the British Sky News, Netanyahu addressed the issue of nuclear Iran………………”

Netanyahu is also quoted to have said to the Europeans: “Don’t say I didn’t warn you ……………”
He sure did warn them. He has been warning them for more than twenty years now that the Iranians are only six months away from a nuclear bomb. From way back in the 1990s, when he was fear-mongering to win his first election, he claimed that the mullahs were about to go ‘nuclear’. I am surprised Europeans still listen to him (American politicians are different, they have their own ‘compelling’ excuses for listening to him).

Over two decades, Mr. Netanyahu and his ministers have promised the world a lot of unrealized nuclear slam dunks about Iran. I am beginning to suspect they are not serious about their predictions, that they don’t do the necessary “due diligence”. Unless the Iranians pull back in time just to frustrate them.
I suspect Netanyahu has been programed to repeat this nuclear Iran mantra; he feels that it is his “raison d’etre”. And what would he do once it is gone? I can imagine him continuing, long after the nuclear issue is settled, picketing the UN headquarters, or the offices of the net Israeli prime minister, urging them not to ease their vigilance. I can imagine the NYPD arresting him for disturbing……… no I don’t think they’d do that. It is a thought.

Cheers
mhg

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Europe, Hezbollah, Israel, Terrorism

Free Bulgarian Army: Remember the Bulgarian-Israeli-US Evidence of Hezbollah Terror Attack?………………

         

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“Bulgarian investigators said Monday they will conduct test explosions to help move forward a probe into last year’s airport bus bombing that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian, as media reported dead ends in the case. Two buses were to be blown up using bombs that were similar in composition and strength to the one used in the July 18 attack at Burgas airport on the Black Sea, investigation chief Georgy Iliev told state BNR radio. The aim of the experiment is to find out where the still unidentified bomber stood at the time of the detonation and whether he was carrying the bag with the explosives on his shoulders, or whether it was placed in the bus’s luggage compartment. Iliev’s comments came as Bulgarian media reported that the probe had come to a standstill after investigators failed to obtain key information they had requested from Australia, Canada, Lebanon, the United States and Morocco………… Chief prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov told the newspaper that the evidence collected so far was not conclusive enough to stand up in court. On Saturday, Bulgaria’s caretaker prime minister Marin Raykov said it did not plan to initiate a procedure for blacklisting Hezbollah….. ………”

Remember all the immediate convictions that were issued in Western and Israeli media? And the secret intelligence officials who assured the New York Times of clear evidence that Hezbollah and/or Iran were behind the terrorist attack? Remember ‘intelligent’ Congressmen who assured us that the evidence was conclusive?

They rushed it to get the European Union to rush into listing Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. European right-wing politicians salivated. Many other Europeans ‘noticed’ that the conclusions were shoddy, that incomplete ‘evidence’ was being used to push them into making ‘certain’ political decisions quickly. Many in the Bulgarian opposition (Bulgarian dissidents? Bulgarian activists? Let’s call them the Free Bulgarian Army) accused the right-wing regime of politicizing the investigation (i.e. doing the bidding of fellow right-winger Netanyahu). Now that there has been some sort of regime change in Sofia, things have changed.
Odd, there were several anonymous officials who swore, swore cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die style, that the evidence against Hezbollah was clear. Just as they had agreed with Netanyahu a few months earlier that the evidence against the Iranians clear. That can’t be untrue: it was after all in the New York Times and all over CNN. Even some of the Arab media eagerly got into the act.
The jury is still out on this; it can go either way. Here are links to previous posts on this Burgas terror topic:

New Doubts Cast on Bulgarian Accusations in Terror Bombing

Bulgarian Terror Mystery: Hezbollah Today, Iran Yesterday, Syria Tomorrow, Girl Scouts of Arabia Next Year?

 Bulgaria: Did Hezbollah Go Stupid at a ‘Convenient’ Time?

Case for an Israeli Attack? a Boy’s Wolf, Michael Oren, Deep Throat II, Salacious Pun

About Netanyahu, the Mullahs, and all them Plots

Terrorism: Hallmarks of the Bulgaria Suicide Bomber with a “Shaved Head

N Y Times and Anonymous Deep Throat Certain Iran was Behind Bulgaria Terror Attack

Terrorism: Bibi Natanyahu with Bulgarian Egg on His Face, For Now

Terrorism in Iran and Bulgaria, Netanyahu and Hitler and Danzig and Sudetenland

Cheers
mhg

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Death Penalty, Europe, Saudi Arabia

A Quranic Myth? Middle East Facing a Drain on Swordsmen?……….

         

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“An official in the ultra-conservative kingdom said that sword-bearing executioners “are not readily available everywhere and on some occasions, executions were marred by confusion as the executioner was late in showing up at the designated public place”. The unnamed bureaucrat told the daily Al Youm that in the age of easy digital communication, executioners’ lateness was “causing confusion and sparking speculation and rumours through modern technology”, a remark that perhaps hinted at public opposition. A special inter-ministerial committee was examining the possible change to a method that has been used for centuries and which Islamic scholars in Saudi Arabia claim is based on the Koran.………….”

As for beheading being part of the Islamic Shari’a, and the claim of it being in the Quran, I
am not sure about that. I doubt it: there probably is nothing in the
Holy Quran about chopping heads (I haven’t seen anything about it, maybe I  missed something). I suspect they started doing that
because it was the easiest method. We did not have gallows or bullets in
the Middle East those days (to the best of my knowledge). The early
Arabs did not take kindly to the cruel barbaric European methods of burning
people alive or crucifying them or chopping them down with axes. The Gauls (ancestors of the French and Belgians) sometimes put people in wicker baskets and roasted them alive. In
those days, quickly chopping heads was a humane method.

Other countries have brain drains. The Saudis have their own kind of drain: a shortage of executioners who chop heads by the sword every Friday in various cities. Once I tweeted, flippantly, that they should recruit women to do the job. Best to end the death penalty worldwide, starting with Texas.

Cheers
mhg

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