U.S. Has ‘Grave Concern’ About Russian Arms Flow to Syria

U.S. Has ‘Grave Concern’ About Russian Arms Flow to Syria

The U.S. has “very grave concern” about arms reaching the Assad regime after news reports that a Russian shipment of ammunition arrived in Syria, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said. Chariot, a Russian-owned ship carrying bullets, was detained by Cypriot authorities on Jan. 9 and allowed to proceed two days later after agreeing to change its destination to Turkey, the Cypriot national broadcaster CyBC reported without saying where it got the information. Instead, the ship stopped transmitting its automatic-recognition signal and went to the Syrian port of Tartus.

“Unfortunately there is not an arms embargo against Syria which we certainly think is overdue in part, because as you well know, some members of the council including Russiahave indicated opposition to any form of sanctions,” Rice said in New York. Russia has weapons contracts with Syria of at least $3 billion, according to the Moscow-based Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. The orders include Yakhont anti- ship cruise missiles, MiG-29 fighter jets and Pantsir short- range air-defense systems. The port of Tartus is the only Russian base outside the former Soviet republics.

Why Russia is planning Iran war games

Why Russia is planning Iran war games

As tensions ratchet up in the Persian Gulf, the Kremlin is signaling that it will use all its diplomatic influence to oppose war and, according to a leading Moscow newspaper, has ordered the military to prepare for any possible spillover from a conflict between Iran and the US into the sensitive post-Soviet Caucasus region.

Russia will block any further sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council, a Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday, because it believes rising tensions could trigger a conflict that would destabilize the wider region. Last week Russian deputy prime minister and former ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin warned that any Western attack on Iran would constitute "a direct threat to [Russian] national security."

The independent Moscow daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Monday that this year's annual military exercises in Russia's south, Kavkaz 2012, will be much larger than usual and organized around the premise of a war that begins with an attack on Iran but spreads to neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan, and draws Russia into a regional maelstrom. The newspaper said the war games, which are usually confined to Russian territory, might this year include maneuvers in the breakaway Georgian statelets of South Ossetia andAbkhazia, and perhaps also in Russian-allied Armenia.

The Whole Azerbaijan envisaged by Stalin

The Whole Azerbaijan envisaged by Stalin

Despite the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, de facto independent from 1994, Azerbaijan is still the largest and most populated among the former Soviet republics of the South Caucasus. Established in 1918, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was the first secular state in the Muslim world, though its existence was very short due to Soviet annexation two years later. Thanks to its energy resources, today’s Azerbaijan is a strong, independent country inhabited by roughly 10 million people, 90 percent of whom are Azerbaijanis. Nevertheless, a much greater number of ethnic Azerbaijanis live outside the borders of the republic and especially in Iran, where they are thought to be more than 15 millions, thereby constituting more than half of the so-called Whole Azerbaijan.

WTO trade ministers on Friday accepted Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organization

WTO trade ministers on Friday accepted Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organization, the Kremlin press service said. Nigerian Trade Minister Olusegun Olutoyin Aganga announced that the WTO trade ministers meeting had agreed to accept the bid. The accession protocol was signed for Russia by Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina and for the WTO, by its Director General Pascal Lamy.

The Syrian Gambit Unravels

The Syrian Gambit Unravels

by Justin Raimondo, March 09, 2012

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/03/08/the-syrian-gambit-unravels-2/

Justin Raimondo is off today, but we’ve dredged up a particularly appropriate column from the distant past (originally publshed December 12, 2005): with Syria in the headlines and the prospect of regime-change looming large, it merits looking back on the Bush administration’s efforts to target Damascus.

The effort to demonize Syria and, in effect, Saddamize its ruler, Bashar al-Assad, has run up against a brick wall: the recantation of the prime witness, who says he was bribed, intimidated, and tortured into going along with the narrative being sold by UN prosecutor Mehlis – that Syrian intelligence pulled off the Feb. 14 assassination of Lebanese entrepreneur and politician Rafik Hariri in Beirut. The New York Timesreports:
“Hussam Taher Hussam, said he had been held in Lebanon by supporters of Saad Hariri, the son of the former prime minister, and subjected to torture and drug injections to force him to testify. Saad Hariri, he said, offered him $1.3 million if he would lie about senior Syrian officials. …

Πούτιν, ο Ρώσος ντε Γκωλ; ή αυριανός νέος Μέγας Πέτρος;

Πούτιν, ο Ρώσος ντε Γκωλ; ή αυριανός νέος Μέγας Πέτρος;

Σύμφωνα με τον Μαρκ Ρουσέ, οικονομολόγο, συγγραφέα του βιβλίου «Η νέα Ευρώπη Παρίσι-Βερολίνο-Μόσχα», http://geopolitics-gr.blogspot.com/2012/03/blog-post_7775.html
Οι Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες, μετά την κατάποση του φιδιού Πούτιν, μετά τη χρυσή εποχή της περιόδου Γκορμπατσόφ και Γιέλτσιν της επιταχυνόμενης πτώσης ή ακόμη και της μελλοντικής αποσύνθεσης της Ρωσίας, σύμφωνα με τα όνειρα του Ζμπίγκνιου Μπρεζίνσκι στη Μεγάλη Σκακιέρα (1), είχαν κάνει υπομονή ελπίζοντας να απαλλαγούν από τον Πούτιν, όπως είχαν απαλλαγεί από τον Στρατηγό ντε Γκωλ, το 1969, εξ ου η απεγνωσμένη προσπάθεια μιας νέας πορτοκαλής Επανάστασης στη Ρωσία με τον νέο Πρέσβη των ΗΠΑ στη Μόσχα, τον Mac Faul ο οποίος προσδιορίζει τον εαυτό του ως «εμπειρογνώμονα της δημοκρατίας, των αντιδικτατορικών κινημάτων και των επαναστάσεων».

The victory of Vladimir Putin!

Hunting the Russian Bear Why they're after Putin- the election results ..

the russian election results 

Hunting the Russian Bear Why they're after Putin

http://theriseofrussia.blogspot.com/p/tribute-to-vladimir-putin.html
At times it seems as though we've gone back in a time machine to the darkest, sub-zero days of the Cold War era, when Americans were frantically digging bomb shelters in their back yards, Godless Communism was on the march, and the jackboots of the KGB were just inches away from our waiting necks. Tony Blair, lecturing the Russian leader at the G-8 meeting, opined that the Western world, on behalf of which he presumed to speak, is "becoming worried, fearful about what was happening in Russia today, the external policy." These remarks echoed xxxx Cheney's sally last year against Russia's alleged attempt to use oil and gas as "tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply manipulation or attempts to monopolize transportation." That was said in response to Russia's threat to raise the price of energy previously sold at subsidized Soviet-era rates to Ukraine – a capitalistic act that was a bit too radical for the supposedly pro-free-market Cheney.

The Brits' beef with Putin also has to do with oil and gas. The Russian seizure of British oil assets in Siberia is being cited by free-market types as evidence that Putin is moving toward "corporatism," but is this any more "corporatist" than legislation currently on the books in the U.S. that forbids foreign ownership of key industries such as airlines and telecommunications? The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Turkey & Chechnya

Turkey & Chechnya

I have already addressed the covert yet fundamental role the West played in the brutal Chechen conflict. We now know that the war in Chechnya was an attempt by foreign powers to breakaway the geostrategically crucial region of Chechnya from Moscow's control. And now, a little information on the Turkish factor in the bloody conflict in Chechnya. It was well known that for many years Turkish volunteers, more specifically members of the extremist pan-Turkist paramilitary organization known as the Grey Wolves, were sent into Chechnya to help Islamic terrorists there fight federal security forces. Obviously, detailed information about Turkey's role in Chechnya, as well as that of the West's, remains classified. As a result, obtaining detailed information about this topic remains elusive.

It was widely known at the time that Chechen terrorists got their logistical support, inspiration and military training primarily from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey. It was also reported that the Islamic terror organization known in the West as Al Qaeda was partaking in the anti-Russian activities there as well. Naturally, Western intelligence services were also thought to have been an integral part of the anti-Russian operation in the Caucasus region. Due to obvious political considerations, Western support for terrorists in Chechnya could not be carried out overtly. As a result, Western support for Chechnya was for the most part relegated to covert assistance as well as diplomatic support, humanitarian help and pro-Chechen propaganda in the western world's press.

Ο ΒΛΑΣΗΣ ΡΑΣΣΙΑΣ ΓΙΑ ΤΟΝ Μ. ΑΥΡΗΛΙΟ ΚΑΙ ΤΑ ΕΙΣ ΕΑΥΤΟΝ

Exiled oligarch Berezovsky may be behind journalist murder

29/02/2012

MOSCOW, February 29 - RAPSI. Russian self-exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky and suspected terrorist Akhmed Zakayev, who presently live in London, might be involved in the high-profile murder of renowned journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, charged with the crime, testified to investigators, according to the Kommersant newspaper.Politkovskaya was well known for journalistic investigations on human rights offenses in Chechnya. She was killed in Moscow on October 7, 2006. Investigators believe her journalistic activities prompted her murder.

© RIA Novosti, Adrey SteninPavluchenkov before court session

Six people are considered suspects in the case - former police officer Pavlyuchenkov, Chechen-born Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, former police officer Sergei Kadzhikurbanov and the Makhmudov brothers.

Chinese aircraft carrier

Russian-Led Bloc To Act Against ‘Chaos’ In Member States

Russian-Led Bloc To Act Against ‘Chaos’ In Member States

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will intervene to restore “law and order” if one of its members, including Armenia, is beset by serious unrest, the secretary general of Russian-led alliance of seven ex-Soviet states confirmed on Tuesday. “This is an agreement that was reached by the presidents at their informal summit in Astana [last August,]” Nikolay Bordyuzha told journalists in a live video link from Moscow.

Saudi Arabia Is Arming the Syrian Opposition

Saudi Arabia Is Arming the Syrian Opposition

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah scolded Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last week for failing to coordinate with Arab states before vetoing a United Nations resolution demanding that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad step down. Emboldened by the lack of international action, Assad's forces are now slaughtering civilians in the streets at an even greater rate. Referring to the bloodshed, the king ominously warned Medvedev that Saudi Arabia "will never abandon its religious and moral obligations towards what's happening."