Moderator: Peak Moderation
Yes more often then I like to think about.That's a subjective statement. There are plenty of occasions where direct lies have come straight from the that authoritative source.
I should add that I do not consider the White House or the US state department "authoritative sources".
Aug 14 (Reuters) - Ukraine's parliament approved a law on Thursday to allow gas transit facilities to be leased on a joint venture basis with participation from firms in the European Union or United States.
Ukraine will hold 51 percent and foreign partners will be offered 49 percent in the venture, which would manage both transit pipelines and underground gas storage facilities.
...
If South Stream is built, it threatens to deprive Ukraine's badly strained budget of the transit fees that it currently receives from Russia for gas heading towards Europe.
The latest from Dimitry Orlov accurately sums up the current state of play:PS_RalphW wrote:The media are making a big potential flash point out of the Russian aid convoy. Ukraine has refused entry, there does not appear to be any agreement with the Red Cross, and the BBC are reporting that military vehicles have been seen accompanying the convoy.
Now that the US/UK has declared the Iraq humanitarian emergency over, just as the UN declares Iraq a humanitarian emergency, I am strangely reminded of an old Peter Ustinov comedy, Romanov and Juliet.
Anyone remember it?
I wish life was that simple, not that it ever was.
Dimitry Orlov wrote:The various Ukrainian conditions have to do with something quite different than countering the threat of a clandestine invasion. First they asked that the convoy pass through Kharkov instead of rolling straight toward Donetsk, making for a big detour. Then they demanded that the goods be offloaded at the border and loaded onto Ukrainian trucks, but they couldn't come up with enough trucks. Then they demanded that the Russian trucks cary Ukrainian license plates and that each truck carry a Ukrainian representative. Next it will be something else.
You may be confused at what might be behind all of these fairly ridiculous conditions and stalling tactics, so let me explain. The Ukrainians are doing their best to figure out how they can steal the goods from the convoy. Until they can find a way to do that, nothing will move, because nothing ever moves in Ukraine until everybody gets their piece of the action. During their two-decade-plus experiment with Western-style “freedom and democracy,” by which I mean oligarchy and prostitution, Ukraine has bred a subspecies of survivors adept at answering just one question: “Where's my piece of it?”
Tyler Durdan wrote:While today's trading session was marked by news which at first blush correlated with what may be the 2014 equivalent of the Archduke Ferdinand shooting, in retrospect the newsflow made painfully little sense. Let's recap:
A couple of years back, I remember a politician defending the Overseas Development and Aid budgets as a way of projecting "soft power". Can't remember who it was.biffvernon wrote:It comes to something when the UK ambassador at the UN objects to humanitarian aid being delivered to those needing humanitarian aid.
Not in my name.
(I think I said that a few years ago).
There was a whole House of Lords Committee looking into that very subject last year: http://www.parliament.uk/business/commi ... influence/Tarrel wrote:A couple of years back, I remember a politician defending the Overseas Development and Aid budgets as a way of projecting "soft power". Can't remember who it was.
Er... yeah. Just 'great'.The EU’s eastward expansion is one of the examples that are held up as a great soft power success. It was not just access to a large single market; it was former Communist countries signing up to western values of a capitalist market and western political institutions. It is a good recent example of soft power versus hard power. Moldova and Ukraine are just concluding association agreements and free trade agreements with the European Union, and they are doing this against some pretty hard threats from Russia, which is trying to create a Russian-driven Eurasian customs union. This is a really great example of soft power triumphing over hard power, over coercion.
"Move those trucks (that you're already moving) or I'll give you a parking ticket!"The move marks an escalation in a conflict over a region embroiled in war between Ukraine's central government and pro-Russian separatists
Updated 5:57 p.m. on Aug. 22
Artillery units being operated by Russian soldiers have crossed into Ukraine and are firing on Ukrainian forces, Western officials said Friday, in an apparent escalation of the ongoing conflict along the border.
“We have seen the use of Russian artillery in Ukraine in the past days,” U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters Friday, calling it part of “a pattern whereby we’ve seen firing from within Russia into Ukraine, and we’ve seen a disturbing movement of Russian artillery and military equipment into Ukraine as well.”
Rhodes also called on Russia to remove a convoy of trucks that recently entered Ukraine, which Moscow says are bringing aid but whose arrival was not coordinated with the International Committee of the Red Cross. Ukraine has called the entry of the trucks a “direct invasion.”
“Russia should take the opportunity to remove this convoy from within Ukraine,” Rhodes said. “If they don’t, they will face additional costs and consequences from the United States and our partners in the international community.”
Nail on head there. It was David Cameron himself IIRC, defending the overseas aid budget in the teeth of his own right-wing back-benchers.Tarrel wrote:A couple of years back, I remember a politician defending the Overseas Development and Aid budgets as a way of projecting "soft power". Can't remember who it was.biffvernon wrote:It comes to something when the UK ambassador at the UN objects to humanitarian aid being delivered to those needing humanitarian aid.
Not in my name.
(I think I said that a few years ago).
Presumably, as this particular batch of humanitarian aid doesn't further UK (or should I say US) foreign policy objectives, it is regarded as a Bad Thing, irrespective of its need.
So it was bollocks, then.The chorus of allegations about a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has President Poroshenko calling for an emergency meeting of the country’s security and defense council, while the Prime Minister Yatsenyuk is calling for a Russian asset freeze.
"I have made a decision to cancel my working visit to the Republic of Turkey due to sharp aggravation of the situation in Donetsk region, particularly in Amvrosiivka and Starobeshevo, as Russian troops were brought into Ukraine," Petro Poroshenko said in a statement on his website.
The Russian representative to the OSCE Andrey Kelin has given a firm response to the allegations, saying that “We have said that no Russian involvement has been spotted, there are no soldiers or equipment.”
“Accusations relating to convoys of armored personnel carriers have been heard during the past week and the week before that,” he said. “All of them were proven false back then, and is being proven false again now.” Yet, Ukraine is going to call for a meeting of the UN Security Council, said Poroshenko.
"The world must provide assessment of sharp aggravation of the situation in Ukraine," he added.
Poroshenko added that on Thursday there will be a meeting of Security and Defense Council to elaborate the plan for further action...
'Setbacks' like... Novoazovsk? Mariupol?PS_RalphW wrote:Recent set backs for the separatists have forced his hand into open and undeniable military intervention, that is all.
