Masterchef Australia: Judge finds out he is axed by social media

2019/07/31

Masterchef Australia: Judge finds out he is axed by social media

The channel hosting the popular Australian Masterchef, has managed to lose its main asset, the three judges which gave life and soul to the party

Matt Preston, along with Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris, constituted the panel of judges for eleven long years of sheer entertainment on Australian Masterchef, undeniably the best of all the Masterchef, and arguably all current cooking programs on television. But despite dedicating eleven years of their lives to the show, making it what it is, Matt Preston found out that his contract would not be renewed from the social media rather than a face-to-face, man-to-man talk.

So what? Well, so Network 10 has just shot itself in the foot by failing to agree on new terms for season 12 because far more than judges, Matt, Gary and George were the face of Australia, epitomising a multicultured society, showing empathy yet seriousness, coaching the contestants and telling them how to improve rather than humiliating them as in other shows, giving the viewers countless cooking tips over the years (I have taken hundreds of pages of notes as I watched the show over the last eleven years and my cooking has improved vastly as a direct result of watching it).

And more than that, they were a collective face of decency, good-naturedness, humility, yet wisdom, inspiring the contestants and consoling them when they got stressed; they were the face that Australia would like to show of itself.

And Matt Preston writes that he found out not in a face-to-face discussion, but via the social media as he was driving to a radio show. What a typical example of how low it gets. Preston, Mehigan and Calombaris did not just present Masterchef, they ARE Masterchef and as for axing them without telling them first, what a snide, underhanded, cowardly way of operating, what an imbecilic act of sheer stupidity, nastiness, spite, pig-headedness and shitfaced arrogance.

This is the world we live in. People don't bother answering their emails any more, people don't send birthday cards, they just download an e-card and send it with a click, people prefer to make a bank transfer rather than buy a present. People are depersonalized. People are not speaking to one another, they are texting; people are losing the art of eloquence and debate, instead they just grunt, at best. People are not cooking, they are buying frozen crap and throwing it into the microwave. People are not having family meals any more, each one sits in a different space in front of a different screen.

People are not enjoying nature, they are slumped in front of a screen. Children are not talking at the table, they are distracted with a tablet and a smartphone and the television at the same time.

People are losing people skills, society is becoming dehumanized. Soon we will be buying friendship from dial-a-friend and paying someone to sit beside us for an evening, soon people will be marrying robots and taking them to parks, holding their hands and telling them we love them so much, soon people will stop shopping altogether and get a home delivery once a week. Gone will be the marketplace, the home of the fishmonger, the greengrocer, the butcher, the baker, the home of countless conversations about food, about the local community, about life. Gone will be the assistant at the check-out, people will have to fend for themselves and do the job that the supermarket is supposed to do.

People are not buying newspapers and books, they are reading less and less, and more and more summarized texts online; gone is the communication, gone are the communication skills and no wonder than TEN, apparently, axes the best asset it has and in so doing destroys Australian Masterchef, the best show on TV for over a decade.

To Gary, Matt and George, thank you very much for your constant good-naturedness, your skills as cooks/food critics and presenters, thanks for representing the face of modern Australia, a multicultured society breathing and living the diversity of its many cultures, enjoying its synergies, bringing everyone together into a happy rainbow nation with common principles and values, in which different communities support each other and come together as one. This is Australian Masterchef, this is Gary, Matt and George and this is what they presented for eleven long and happy years.

So congratulations to Network Ten for showing us all a prize example of spinelessness, short-sightedness, sheer stupidity and miserly perry-mindedness. I am sure Network Ten will enjoy great success with what follows, for sure it will not deserve the name Australian Masterchef and hopefully Matt, Gary and George will pen together their own version for another channel.

Guys if you want some ideas, I am brimming with them and I'll give them to you for free.

Photo: By Unknown - This image was released by the National Cancer Institute, an agency part of the National Institutes of Health, with the ID 2397 (image) (next)., Public Domain, https://ift.tt/331SSZL

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Twitter: @TimothyBHinchey

timothy.hinchey@gmail.com

Masterchef Australia: Judge finds out he is axed by social media. 63720.jpeg

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey works in the area of teaching, consultancy, coaching, translation, revision of texts, copy-writing and journalism. Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru since 2002, and now Co-Editor of the English version, he contributes regularly to several other publications in Portuguese and English. He has worked in the printed and online media, in daily, weekly, monthly and yearly magazines and newspapers. A firm believer in multilateralism as a political approach and multiculturalism as a means to bring people and peoples together, he is Official Media Partner of UN Women, fighting for gender equality and Media Partner with Humane Society International, promoting animal rights. His hobbies include sports, in which he takes a keen interest, traveling, networking to protect the rights of LGBTQI communities and victims of gender violence, and cataloging disappearing languages, cultures and traditions around the world. A keen cook, he enjoys trying out different cuisines and regards cooking and sharing as a means to understand cultures and bring people together.

Join the most international forum on the Net

http://engforum.pravda.ru/

Pravda.Ru 

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Beauty blogger killed in Moscow, then packed into suitcase

2019/07/31

Russian law enforcement agencies investigate the murder of Ekaterina Karaglanova, a 24-year-old model and beauty blogger, a participant of Miss Maxim 2018 contest, whose body was found in a suitcase in her apartment on the outskirts of Moscow last week.

Ekaterina disappeared on July 22. Her landlord found her body on July 27. According to one version, the woman was killed by one of her lovers. Ekaterina took part in photoshoots as a model, she had a travel blog and was addicted to a luxurious style of living. She would very often use "luxury" hashtag in her posts on social media sites. She had many fans, but the woman was keeping her men out of sight for her friends.

Two years ago, Ekaterina was going to marry a 52-year-old businessman, but the couple broke up. She recently broke up with another man, and was planning to celebrate her 25th birthday with another 52-year-old man on July 30 in the Netherlands. Investigators believe that one of those men could be in the woman's apartment on the day when she was murdered.

A CCTV camera in the apartment building, where the woman lived, recorded a moment when a man wearing a baseball cap and shorts entered the building on the day of the murder. Four hours later, the same man, wearing trousers, could be seen leaving the building. The man was carrying a gray suitcase in his hand, on which he was wearing a black glove.

According to investigators, there are several suitcases in this murder case. One of them is large and black  - Ekaterina's body was found in that suitcase in her apartment. The murderer put her body into the black suitcase before he left. She was found there naked; the victim's throat was slit.

The murderer obviously packed something into the gray suitcase that he took out of the apartment building. Investigators believe that he could use the suitcase to dispose of blood-stained clothes of the victim.

Investigators believe that Ekaterina could work as an escort girl for wealthy male clients. Her friends told the police that Ekaterina was never short of money.

Shortly before her death, Ekaterina posted the following message on her page: "Luxury is not about restaurants, lipstick or stilettos. Real luxury is about living your life the way that you like it. Wearing comfortable underwear. Wearing comfortable shoes. Wearing the color of lipstick that you like, or without lipstick at all. Eating the food that you like, being friends with someone you feel warm with, being together for love, rather than for commitment."

Ekaterina's last photo that she posted on her page was a photo taken during her trip to Corfu, from where she returned a week ago.

According to most recent updates to the story, the murderer has been found and arrested.

A 33-year-old man named as Maxim Gareev has already admitted that on July 26 of this year he murdered the beauty and travel blogger in Moscow.

When asked for what reason he killed the woman, the young man replied that Ekaterina had repeatedly insulted and humiliated his sexual dignity and diminished his financial capacity. "I could not stand it and inflicted at least five stab wounds to her neck and chest," the detainee told the police.

Gareev came to Karaglanova's home and found out that she was going to fly to the Netherlands with her new 52-year-old boyfriend to celebrate her 25th birthday on July 30. In a fit of anger, Gareev stabbed the woman several times and then tried to pack the body into a suitcase to subsequently dispose of the body. The body was too big for the bag, and the man simply decided to leave the bag in the apartment. He packed Ekaterina's blood-stained clothes into another suitcase and then burnt them in the woods.

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Masterchef Australia: Judges find out they are axed by social media

2019/07/31

Masterchef Australia: Judges find out they are axed by social media

The channel which hosts the most popular cooking program, Australian Masterchef, has axed the three judges without bothering to tell them face to face

So says Matt Preston, who along with Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris constituted the panel of judges for eleven long years of sheer entertainment on Australian Masterchef, undeniably the best of all the Masterchef, and arguably all current cooking programs on television.

So what? Well, so Network 10 has just shot itself in the foot by failing to agree on new terms for season 12 because far more than judges, Matt, Gary and George were the face of Australia, epitomising a multicultured society, showing empathy yet seriousness, coaching the contestants and telling them how to improve rather than humiliating them as in other shows, giving the viewers countless cooking tips over the years (I have taken hundreds of pages of notes as I watched the show over the last eleven years and my cooking has improved vastly as a direct result of watching it).

And more than that, they were a collective face of decency, good-naturedness, humility, yet wisdom, inspiring the contestants and consoling them when they got stressed; they were the face that Australia would like to show of itself.

And Matt Preston writes that he found out not in a face-to-face discussion, but via the social media as he was driving to a radio show. What a typical example of how low it gets. Preston, Mehigan and Calombaris did not just present Masterchef, they ARE Masterchef and as for axing them without telling them first, what a snide, underhanded, cowardly way of operating, what an imbecilic act of sheer stupidity, nastiness, spite, pig-headedness and shitfaced arrogance.

This is the world we live in. People don't bother answering their emails any more, people don't send birthday cards, they just download an e-card and send it with a click, people prefer to make a bank transfer rather than buy a present. People are depersonalized. People are not speaking to one another, they are texting; people are losing the art of eloquence and debate, instead they just grunt, at best. People are not cooking, they are buying frozen crap and throwing it into the microwave. People are not having family meals any more, each one sits in a different space in front of a different screen.

People are not enjoying nature, they are slumped in front of a screen. Children are not talking at the table, they are distracted with a tablet and a smartphone and the television at the same time.

People are losing people skills, society is becoming dehumanized. Soon we will be buying friendship from dial-a-friend and paying someone to sit beside us for an evening, soon people will be marrying robots and taking them to parks, holding their hands and telling them we love them so much, soon people will stop shopping altogether and get a home delivery once a week. Gone will be the marketplace, the home of the fishmonger, the greengrocer, the butcher, the baker, the home of countless conversations about food, about the local community, about life. Gone will be the assistant at the check-out, people will have to fend for themselves and do the job that the supermarket is supposed to do.

People are not buying newspapers and books, they are reading less and less, and more and more summarized texts online; gone is the communication, gone are the communication skills and no wonder than TEN, apparently, axes the best asset it has and in so doing destroys Australian Masterchef, the best show on TV for over a decade.

To Gary, Matt and George, thank you very much for your constant good-naturedness, your skills as cooks/food critics and presenters, thanks for representing the face of modern Australia, a multicultured society breathing and living the diversity of its many cultures, enjoying its synergies, bringing everyone together into a happy rainbow nation with common principles and values, in which different communities support each other and come together as one. This is Australian Masterchef, this is Gary, Matt and George and this is what they presented for eleven long and happy years.

So congratulations to Network Ten for showing us all a prize example of spinelessness, short-sightedness, sheer stupidity and miserly perry-mindedness. I am sure Network Ten will enjoy great success with what follows, for sure it will not deserve the name Australian Masterchef and hopefully Matt, Gary and George will pen together their own version for another channel.

Guys if you want some ideas, I am brimming with them and I'll give them to you for free.

Photo: By Unknown - This image was released by the National Cancer Institute, an agency part of the National Institutes of Health, with the ID 2397 (image) (next)., Public Domain, https://ift.tt/331SSZL

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Twitter: @TimothyBHinchey

timothy.hinchey@gmail.com

Masterchef Australia: Judges find out they are axed by social media. 63716.jpeg

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey works in the area of teaching, consultancy, coaching, translation, revision of texts, copy-writing and journalism. Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru since 2002, and now Co-Editor of the English version, he contributes regularly to several other publications in Portuguese and English. He has worked in the printed and online media, in daily, weekly, monthly and yearly magazines and newspapers. A firm believer in multilateralism as a political approach and multiculturalism as a means to bring people and peoples together, he is Official Media Partner of UN Women, fighting for gender equality and Media Partner with Humane Society International, promoting animal rights. His hobbies include sports, in which he takes a keen interest, traveling, networking to protect the rights of LGBTQI communities and victims of gender violence, and cataloging disappearing languages, cultures and traditions around the world. A keen cook, he enjoys trying out different cuisines and regards cooking and sharing as a means to understand cultures and bring people together.

Join the most international forum on the Net

http://engforum.pravda.ru/

Pravda.Ru 

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Russia does not mind another arms race with USA

2019/07/31

Moscow does not intend to offer the United States any guarantees for not deploying weapons after the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF) has been terminated.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia was interested in conducting negotiations on the subject of the INF Treaty, albeit "not more than opponents, not more than our colleagues at NATO, including in the USA." "What legal guarantees can we offer to someone as an idea, if even the most obvious move with a counter moratorium is rejected in this situation?" Ryabkov said.  

Earlier, the United States reminded that Washington would officially withdraw from the INF Treaty on Friday, August 2, 2019. At the same time, US President Donald Trump noted that Moscow and Washington would conclude an arms control agreement. He did not give any details, though.

Spokespeople for the Russian Armed Forces previously stated that without the INF Treaty, the Russian side would have to focus on maximum capabilities of the American side, rather than on the real state of affairs. This would lead to an increase in mistrust and eventually develop a "new round of the missile arms race."

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the decree suspending the implementation of the INF Treaty on March 4. The decision became Russia's mirror response to Washington's similar announcement made in October 2018, when US President Trump accused Russia of violating the INF Treaty.

The INF Treaty concluded in 1987 between the USSR and the USA prohibits the parties from owning ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles with a range from 500 to 5.5 thousand kilometers. Moscow and Washington regularly accuse each other of violating the terms of the treaty.

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Russia's Tu-160 White Swan bomber leaves US competitors behind

2019/07/31

Russia's Tupolev Tu-160 aircraft, also known as the White Swan, is truly an iconic work of aviation technology. This majestic and beautiful aircraft created in the USSR is a supersonic strategic missile carrying bomber that has a swing-wing design. This is the largest and most powerful supersonic aircraft in the history of military aviation.

Not that long ago, two Russian Tu-160 bombers flew to Venezuela. The flight caused quite a commotion in Washington. The USA even threatened to invade Venezuela if Russia was going to open its air base in the Latin American country. Why such a reaction?

To this day, strategic bombers remain the most important aspect of the nuclear triad. Russia and the United States still remain world leaders in the field of military aircraft making.

USA's main strategic bomber is the supersonic B-1 Lancer, as well as the heavy and stealthy B-2 Spirit bomber. However, even though the B-2 was considered the best strategic bomber in the world for a long time primarily due to its stealth technology, facts speak for themselves.

The B-2 can fly at a speed of 0.95 Mach, whereas its maximum range of combat radius makes up 5, 000 km. The White Swan can fly at a speed of 1.84 Mach, whereas its maximum range of the combat radius is 7,300 km.

The American aircraft is inferior to the White Swan in terms of the combat payload as well: 23 tons for the B-2 and 45 tons for the Tu-160.

The White Swan does not have the stealth technology. However, the Russian strategic bomber carries cruise missiles on board. First and foremost, it goes about X-101 cruise missiles. This is a strategic missile that is capable of striking targets at a distance of up to 5,500 km. The missile has a technology to reduce radar visibility. There is also a nuclear version of this missile - X-102. To crown it all, the Tu-160 can cover a distance of 13,000 km without refueling. One may conclude that the White Swan aircraft can overcome any air defense system.

It was reported that Rostec State Corporation develops a unique composite material, which would be applied to glass cockpit windows of the Tu-160. The technology will reduce the radar visibility of the aircraft significantly.

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World War Three will break out when American empire collapses

2019/07/30

The United States did not stay on top of the world for too long. Bipolar times are coming again. The world will be different in the future, and everyone understands it already today. What kind of the world will it be? What centers of power will the new world have? What price do we have to pay for this change? Inna Novikova, Pravda.Ru editor-in-chief asked these questions to Leonid Krutakov, Russian political scientist, journalist, analyst, associate professor of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.

"The world has been getting bipolar, and the USA has been losing its role of the global supremacist state. However, an alternative to today's world order has not been formed yet. What forms can it take and how can this change happen?"

"Indeed, we are actually entering the bipolar period again. There are interests of one group of countries and there are interests of another group of countries. During the previous bipolar era, it was the USSR that was acting as the locomotive. These days, it is obvious that China will take the role of the USSR instead. This peculiarity has its own pluses and minuses for Russia.

"Not too long ago, Russia had found itself within the Washington Consensus, where we were not even third class passengers, but rather firemen, whose role was to throw coal into the oven of the  big ship.

"It is clear that China's role and position is closer to Russia unlike to the role of theWest. Russia had been trying to open that door to the West, but the West never let us enter. Russia eventually turned its back on that door to see a giant on the other side. This giant is China, and this giant told us that it was ready to work with us.

"We are creating a new format. We develop political cooperation, we hold joint military drills, we conduct economic cooperation, we build pipelines together. There is a new project for the development of the Arctic, where China and India will be key stakeholders, because the Northern Sea Route will be used targeting only Asian markets.

"The economic and political consolidation of Eurasia as a continent is underway. In the past, Eurasia was divided into two different markets - Europe and Asia. Russia was something like a black hole, the Trans-Siberian Railway was hardly ever used. These days, we can eyewitness the formation of joint Eurasia.

"For China and Eurasia, Europe is a small peninsula, not the center of the world. China is a 1.5-billion-strong nation, while Europe has a population of 500 million, which is only a third of the population of China. India is a 1.3 billion-strong country. The population of the Earth is seven billion. If we combine China, India and Indochina, we will have a half of the population of the planet.

"If you look at the map of China's "One Belt - One Road" initiative, you will see several ways there. There is a ground way, a way through the Suez Canal, and the Northern Sea Route was also included in this project. We can see all of Eurasia integrating, and the process is taking place under new conditions.

"All of this comes as a catastrophe for the island civilization of the Anglo-Saxons, who cannot help but wonder what their role will be in all that. They still control the sea and supplies by sea, they still set the rules. What if other countries take over? What will be the point of the Sixth Fleet in the Persian Gulf then?

"The United States is witnessing a decline of the American empire now. Therefore, they start yelling more, they threaten more, they intimidate others more, but they do all that against the background of the growing influence of China and Russia."

"Well, it has always been the same. This is natural. Some countries become great powers, but empires rise and fall."

"Of course, but for those who rise, this is a prospect, and for those who fall - this is a disaster. Therefore, they will resist and fight. They still have enough force, they can still control a lot. However, I have a feeling of a serious threat, a global cataclysm looming. Those who have been cornered, they can attack to kill in order to survive."

"Unfortunately, you are not the first to say this, although we would like to hope that reason will prevail. After all, it is very true that after the Third World War, the next war will be fought with batons and sticks."

"This is true, but for the elite, the main issue is not even money. They want domination and power. If in order to preserve their power, they will have to exterminate a half of the population of the Earth, they will go for it, without a second thought."

"Even if they survive, how are they going to live amid total destruction afterwards?"

"I think they have their bunkers ready. The key issue here is not about the loss of money, because power converts into money, and money converts into power. Yet, it is power that comes first, but not money. Money is a tool to use power. This is their standpoint."  

Also read:

Why the West can never end its conflict with Russia

The West still does not know what the Russian way of warfare is like

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Russian Airborne Forces to hold largest drills since 1980s

2019/07/30

This year, Russian Airborne Forces will conduct the largest exercises in recent history. According to the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation, the military maneuvers will be part of strategic exercises "Center-2019." As part of the drills, Russian troops will practice strengthening of the groups of troops, actions of light forces and landing operations in mountainous terrain. During the operations, the troops will have to capture and destroy targets of conditional enemy, in particular, an airfield.

The landing operations will be carried out "blindly" for the first time since 1981, when the country was led by General Secretary of the CPSU, Leonid Brezhnev. The military will not be told where they are going until the last moment.

Operational and strategic exercises of the army and navy of the USSR were held from 4 to 12 September 1981. More than 100 thousand people from almost all kinds of troops of the Soviet army took part in the drills.

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India buys 1,000 aircraft missiles from Russia

2019/07/30

Russia will supply about 1,000 aircraft missiles to India.

According to the Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation, Moscow and New Delhi signed "fairly large contracts" some time ago. They stipulate for the the supply of about 1000 missiles for various purposes. The agency did not specify either the cost or the dates of the deal.

On July 29, ANI News reported that India was going to purchase air-to-air missiles from Russia worth over $200 million. It goes about R-27 missiles, which will be used for Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighters of the Indian Air Force.

Earlier in July it became known that the shipments of S-400 Russian anti-aircraft missile systems to India would be completed by April 2023. The contract for the supply of complexes was concluded on October 5, 2018 during Putin's visit to New Delhi. The contract was evaluated at more than $5 billion dollars.

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Man carrying 14 gold bars in his stomach arrested at airport

2019/07/29

Customs officers detained a man at the airport of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, who tried to smuggle more than 400 grams of gold worth $17,000 in his stomach.

According to the press service press service of the State Customs Committee of Uzbekistan, the man was trying to depart from Tashkent to Delhi. At one point of airport inspections, customs officers decided to hold an additional inspection for the passenger. They established with the help of scanning equipment that the detained man was carrying 14 small gold bars in his own stomach. The bars weighed the total of 434 grams. Their cost made up more than 150 million soms (currency of Uzbekistan, equivalent to about 17,000 USD).

Employees of the customs service of Uzbekistan say that such incidents take place in the country on a regular basis. In March, two women were detained at the airport in Tashkent after it was found that they were trying to smuggle hand-made gold bars worth more than $15,000 to Amritsar, India, in their stomachs.

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Fighters of another Russian PMC killed in Syria

2019/07/29

In June of 2019, Russian private military company (PMC), known as Shield, suffered losses in Syria.

It was reported that three PMC fighters were subjected to mortar fire as they were advancing to a car bombing site. In Syria, the fighters were protecting the facilities of JSC Stroytransgaz, a Russian natural gas company.

It was also said that two of the killed men were born in Russia. In 2014, they had been fighting on the side of the so-called People's Republic of Luhansk and then started working for a private military company. Relatives of one of the killed men said that they received their son's body from Syria in a zinc coffin along with a death certificate written in Arabic and translated into Russian. The address on the stamp is supposedly associated with a group of the Russian Armed Forces stationed in Syria.

Reports about PMC Shield first appeared in mass media in 2018. Nothing is known about the structure of the organization. The PMC allegedly provides security services to companies and, unlike PMC Wagner, does not have heavy military equipment at its disposal.

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Protests in Moscow: Russia on the way to another revolution

2019/07/29

It did not make any sense to analyze the Saturday rally in Moscow as soon as it happened, but Monday appears to be just the right time to do it. 

No one talks about the roots of the protest actions that took place in Moscow over the weekend. Most likely, they are not about the registration of certain individuals by the Moscow City Duma as candidates.

The issue of the protest itself is broader. People took to the streets during the arrest of journalist Ivan Golunov, during the construction of an Orthodox temple in Yekaterinburg, etc. All those stories are symptoms of one and the same disease.

One could see this disease spreading throughout Western Europe and the United States during the 1960s, but the causes of it were different. In the US, it was the Vietnam War and the killing of Martin Luther King. In Europe, there were protests against events in Czechoslovakia and other internal problems.

But we remember that it was violation of social justice that defined all those protests. We also remember that many of those protests became "social elevators" for many politicians, who started coming to power in 15 or 20 years.

For a very clear understanding of the situation, one may refer to two graffiti that students of the Sorbonne left in the streets of Paris in 1968: Since 1936 I have fought for wage increases. My father before me fought for wage increases. Now I have a TV, a fridge, a Volkswagen. Yet my whole life has been a drag. Don't negotiate with the bosses. Abolish them." "One cannot fall in love with industrial growth!" It appears that the Russian youth could chant the same slogans today, if the education system in Russia has not degraded since the years after the Soviet power.

It was not only education that has degraded. The qualification of people who are responsible for the moderation of internal political processes has gone down the toilet as well.

Kiriyenko's 'social elevators' serve primarily managers of large corporations, but in case of social upheavals they will humbly step aside to observe. Mass youth movements of Mr. Surkov, the Reaction newspaper and the Yoki website have been disposed of. If one looks at what  presidential grants are allocated to, one will see that they are not needed today, but could be good during the "lush" times.
The United States eventually decided to pull out troops from Vietnam, abolish mandatory conscription and promote the PlayBoy technology (the protests are also known as 'sexual revolution' for a reason). Other countries had their own recipes.

It is the internal essence of protests that plays the main role in the struggle that one can see in Russia developing today. If one doesn't know the essence, any struggle with external manifestations of protests will be useless.

We know one thing. If the authorities remove all problems with the elections to the Moscow City Duma, the public protest will persist. The protest sentiment began to actively develop during the beginning of the pension reform, so it primarily involves the children of those people, whom the authorities have betrayed shamelessly. It has started snowballing for various reasons afterwards getting an increasing amount of citizens involved.

It is 's time to open a tender for a team that would replace Sergei Kiriyenko with new ideas. The current political administrators under his leadership lack qualification to solve the issue of stability in the society.

Photo: dw.com

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The United Kingdom needs to reinvent itself

2019/07/29

The United Kingdom needs to reinvent itself

Here we go again, the UK squaring up to another sovereign nation thousands of miles away, with a media campaign of lies to justify another murderous campaign

Is it just me or is anyone else starting to question whether the United Kingdom is indeed the bastion of good morals, freedom, democracy and friendly relations which it claims to be? Open the newspaper or turn on the TV and here we go again, this time squaring up to Iran thousands of miles away because Iran seized a tanker in retaliation for Britain seizing an Iranian tanker.

Sir Bruce Greatbatch, KCVO, CMG, MBE, governor of the Seychelles, ordered all the dogs on Diego Garcia to be killed. More than 1000 pets were gassed with exhaust fumes*

Now we have stories of Iranian terrorists tucked away in Europe ready to strike, including in the UK, according to "intelligence agencies". Wow, eh? The same ones which stated that Saddam Hussein was ready to strike within 45 minutes with his famous chemical arsenal which did not, in fact, erm... (cough) exist. Well it did on a dodgy dossier, sexed up by Number Ten Downing Street, which was based on a doctoral thesis from a decade before copied and pasted from the Net. Then the UK went to war with Iraq. Over what? A lie? And there is nothing in the media about Ayatollah Khamenei's attacks on terrorism as being an insult to Islam. The ones funding terrorists inside Iran are who exactly? The Iranians?

This was after the UK had taken part in the illegal act of international terrorism against the Republic of Serbia, aiding terrorists frok Ushtria Çlirimtare ë Kosovës, aka Kosovo Liberation Army or UÇK, a band of head choppers and organ traffickers whose leader, one Hashim Thaçi, admitted that they had carried out terrorist operations against Serbia's police force. There goes the high moral ground, eh what? They rightly complain when one of their emergency service workers or police get caught up in a terror attack but what do they do themselves overseas?

Sir Bruce Greatbatch, KCVO, CMG, MBE, governor of the Seychelles, ordered all the dogs on Diego Garcia to be killed. More than 1000 pets were gassed with exhaust fumes

The United Kingdom needs to reinvent itself. 63705.jpeg

Then came the terrorist strike afainst Libya, siding with thugs on the lists of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's proscribed groups, the UK involving itself in the internal conflict of a sovereign nation which it had helped to stir up, placing boots on the ground in direct breach of international law and turning what was once Africa's champion of development into a failed state crawling with terrorists.

Sterling job, eh? Now they have open slave markets, the Jamahiriya system, a delicate balance between tribes and central government, has been wiped away and the country and its people are in a mess. Hands on Hearts, let's all sing Rule Britannia!

We are speaking about the country which since the Second World War, has involved itself and stuck its unwanted nose into the Greek Civil War, the Indonesian National Revolution, the Korean War, the Egyptian War, a war in Kenya, a war in Oman, a war in Suez, a cod war in which it was defeated by Iceland,  another war in Oman, a war in Aden, the Nigerian Civil War, two more cod wars with Iceland and two more thrashings, the Falklands War, the Lebanese conflict, the Gulf War, the Bosnian War, Operation Desert Fox, the Kosovo War, the Sierra Leone Civil War, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria... among others.

Sir Bruce Greatbatch, KCVO, CMG, MBE, governor of the Seychelles, ordered all the dogs on Diego Garcia to be killed. More than 1000 pets were gassed with exhaust fumes

We are speaking about the country which evited the entire population of the Chagos Islands between 1967 and 1973, to then give the largest of the Islands to its bedmaster the USA, to build a military base on Diego Garcia. They they would not let the population return. Today they live in deplorable conditions in Mauritius. See this memo from the time from the Colonial Office head Dennis Greenhill, to the UK delegation at the United Nations:

The object of the exercise is to get some rocks which will remain ours; there will be no indigenous population except seagulls who have not yet got a committee. Unfortunately along with the Birds go some few Tarzans or Men Fridays whose origins are obscure, and who are being hopefully wished on to Mauritius etc.

I say tally ho, eh whatty what what? Deport the natives, what? If they complain about their dogs being gassed, shoot them in the whites of the eyes and Glory Glory allelujah! God Save the Queen! OK times change, and to be balanced, we have to let bygones be bygones. We cannot hold the people of Germany today responsible for the, horrors that went on in extermination camps nearly one hundred years ago, we cannot even hold the population of Germany at the time responsible. But Germany has not spent the last seventy years picking fights with practically everyone across the globe. And now the UK squares up to Iran, another problem, another victim, another conflict, another fight. What again??

Sir Bruce Greatbatch, KCVO, CMG, MBE, governor of the Seychelles, ordered all the dogs on Diego Garcia to be killed. More than 1000 pets were gassed with exhaust fumes

Like, WTF?

The history of the English especially and the British as a whole has been a deplorable record of imperialist exploitation, drawing lines on maps, massacring "natives", setting the psychopaths from the Black and Tans free in Ireland to murder, pillage and rape, leaving India with a three per cent literacy rate after three centuries. The English persecuted the Welsh for speaking their own language and practising their cultural traditions, they attacked the Scots for speaking Gaelic.

So it isn't a very proud history is it? And today we see the UK picking a squabble with the rest of Europe, we see a Minister recently appointed who had allegedly threatened Ireland with a shortage of food during the Brexit talks, the same one that lobbied for the tobacco and alcohol industries, we see the Uk with a Prime Minister who is getting ready for a No Deal Brexit, about to send the country into a catastrophic economic nosedive.

It is not the population, it's the government

This is not however where the British people as a whole are. Today's population probably has never heard of the Chagos Islands saga, and rightly so because the governments will have been ashamed to admit what they did. Today the English are welcomed in Wales, well more or less, and English people live in Scotland, more Scots live in England and the vast majority of them neither want Brexit nor have a problem with Iran. Most understand that if Israel has nukes, then... and to be fair the British have tried to make amends with the Chagossians by offering money, British citizenship, tours to their islands in pleasure boats and so on, but what they should do is to allow them to live where they were born. The Islands are the Chagossians', not Britain's.

So it is not the people of the United Kingdom that need to change, it is the political leadership. Coming up will be an election in which people have the ability to hold their representatives to account. Time to put an ethical foreign policy firmly on the ballot paper. Under what conditions would you go to war or use military personnel overseas? The answer is none because there is no need to. Does Portugal have a problem with half the world on the five continents and seven seas? Does Italy? Does Belgium? Does Norway? Does Finland? Does Hungary? Does Romania? Does Germany? Does the Netherlands? Does Luxembourg? Does Romania? Does Algeria? Does Mexico? Does Indonesia? No? Then for some reason Britain must change its attitude.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Chagossians

Photo 1: By Fleet Air Arm official photographer - This is photograph MH 23509 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums., Public Domain, https://ift.tt/2K2vqEj

Photo 2: By Edward Linley Sambourne (1844-1910) - Punch and Exploring History 1400-1900: An anthology of primary sources, p. 401 by Rachel C. Gibbons, Public Domain, https://ift.tt/2Yq3IoJ

Photo 3: The author in 2018

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Twitter: @TimothyBHinchey

timothy.hinchey@gmail.com

The United Kingdom needs to reinvent itself. 63706.jpeg

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey works in the area of teaching, consultancy, coaching, translation, revision of texts, copy-writing and journalism. Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru since 2002, and now Co-Editor of the English version, he contributes regularly to several other publications in Portuguese and English. He has worked in the printed and online media, in daily, weekly, monthly and yearly magazines and newspapers. A firm believer in multilateralism as a political approach and multiculturalism as a means to bring people and peoples together, he is Official Media Partner of UN Women, fighting for gender equality and Media Partner with Humane Society International, promoting animal rights. His hobbies include sports, in which he takes a keen interest, traveling, networking to protect the rights of LGBTQI communities and victims of gender violence, and cataloging disappearing languages, cultures and traditions around the world. A keen cook, he enjoys trying out different cuisines and regards cooking and sharing as a means to understand cultures and bring people together.

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Boris Johnson: Unelected Pied Piper leading his country into the worst nightmare

2019/07/27

Boris Johnson: Unelected Pied Piper leading his country into the gates of Hell

Open Letter to Boris Johnson, unelected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who is about to lead the UK into the worst kind of socio-economic nightmare

Dear Mr. Johnson,

As you go stomping up and down your country promising the Earth and more to those who gather to see you, you will probably somewhere along the line become convinced that the handshakes and smiles and the shouts of "Go Boris!" are genuine. They are. The problem is, the minority that turns out to see you are the same minority that would pay to go and see a freak show.

Remember one thing: you were not elected as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and therefore you represent nobody but yourself and your interests. As you promise high speed rail links, and to make the north of England the country's powerhouse, ask yourself why this has not been done before despite numerous promises by numerous politicians searching for votes somehow and somewhere. Then ask yourself how such things can be paid for.

Lies, lies, crass mistakes and more lies

Now before you answer that with some kind of lie (remember the 350 million pounds a week for the National Health Service? That was a good one wasn't it? Fooled them there, didn't you? Now perhaps you would like to pay the shortfall from your own pocket, or do you not place your money and your mouth in the sphere of ethics and good morals?) remember that you are about to embark on one of the most blatant exercises in self-destruction every undertaken by any politician anywhere in the world, second only to the idiotic campaign of Marcus Licinius Crassus (let us use an analogy from the classics which you enjoy) who marched his legions straight into the desert at Carrhae in 53 BC and saw his seven legions and a further  50,000 auxiliaries and cavalry decimated by the Parthian horsemen, who lost a total of 38 cataphracts (armed knights). The term "crass mistake" comes from there.  The losses you will incur for your country will be paramount in scale.

Maybe in the UK in some years' time if you get your way they will refer to a BoJo mistake made by the Dude himself. Now for the first time in your life, sit down, please, and listen.

Quite how the Conservative Party members voted for you and not Jeremy Hunt defies logic but then again, I suppose the people who voted for you have their heads in the sand, wake up to an orgasm of national pride as they tuck into their carcinogenic English breakfast, many of them over 60 years of age who get off on waving Union flags and bawling obscenities such as "Britannia rules the waves!" outside pubs as they drink that luke warm liquid you guys call beer and hold burping contests. With the girls.

They are the type of person who was fooled by the lies spoken during the Brexit campaign, who swallowed the hype hook. line and sinker.

And here is the rub. As a politician you do not have the right to mislead people, you do not have the right to lead your country to a very dark place and you do not represent the majority because every single opinion poll today puts the Remain vote ahead of the Brexit vote, and especially ahead of the idiotic No Deal Brexit that you threaten to deliver.

Your epitaph won't be pretty, Dude

If you knew anything about politics or democracy, as you claim to do, you would understand that saying you have to deliver Brexit because a few more people voted for something in 2016 than against it, when the campaign was based on lies and has been declared full of irregularities, and when today many of those who voted Leave have passed away and many more young people want to Remain, you are stating that in fact you are undemocratic and could not care a hoot about the futures of the country's youth. You will be dead by the time they reach your age and your legacy will be written clearly in the history book. It won't be pretty, Dude.

If you knew anything about economics you would realise that any form of Brexit spells disaster for the United Kingdom because this is a world of trading blocks, large trading blocks. You are part of one, in which you have access to a market of 450 million people, with whom you trade for free (after paying the administrative costs of course) and in which you have a vote and a say in the decision-making process. So much is obvious and you know this.

What you are proposing is to leave the block, pay for access to the markets, pay more to import their goods, sell fewer goods because yours will become more expensive, see Universities and research centers close, shedding thousnds of jobs at a stroke; with the uncertainty caused by this mess the pound will plummet, billions will be vaporized from the Stock Exchange, the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises which are the backbone of your economy will be forced to close if the margins are even minimally squeezed, which they will be, and a lot. This will involve massive unemployment, a growing social cost in benefits payments, so less money available for public services, worse hospitals, worse schools, no money for the extra 20,000 police you promised (cost 500 million for starters), and no money for high speed rail links from Manchester to Leeds.

Let's get real, Boris. If you cannot add up the sums to find out how to finance your promises, find someone who can. The trouble is you cannot because Brexit will empty your coffers.

Now, if you think that the feelgood factor is going to magically lead the UK into some kind of trading nirvana, and countries are going to flock to buy your goods, well it isn't happening, is it? Who is going to sign a trade deal with the UK when the reciprocal measures from the EU will mean that people have to choose between a market of 66 million and one of 450 million?

Trump uses treaties as asswipe

So you have Trump making noises about treaties. Wow, eh? Look what he does to treaties. He uses them as asswipe. And after Trump?

As for your claim that the EU will change tack when the UK says it is going to leave without a deal, I can assure you that this will certainly not happen and the fact that you think it might, and say so, means that you are dangerously out of your depth and I simply do not understand how someone like your good self could ever find himself inside Number Ten Downing Street, spouting such barefaced nonsense. Nobody says this to your face because they do not have the courage but it is a fact and everyone is saying it behind your back. The only ones with you are your tiny inner circle and when the heat is turned up they'll leave the kitchen like rats abandoning a sinking ship.

The other 27 EU members signed a treaty with the UK and that is the treaty they will expect the UK to respect. Or has the UK now become like its bedmaster, the country you were born in, meaning that its word is good for nothing? And anyway what pig-headed arrogance expecting 27 countries to bend over and lower their pants just because the UK wants to be stupid.

I will tell you what they say because I have heard it straight from their mouths: They say that if the UK wants to dig its own grave, then so be it. As for your No Deal idiocy, I will not tell you what they say.

Something dark has lunged behind the eyes of the British psyche

 And finally, I hold you personally responsible along with that bunch of po-faced twits that went on that stupid Brexit campaign with you from your party and that other guttersnipe who after years earning a fortune from Brussels bites the hand that feeds him and then says he is skint (he can't be very good at managing his money can he?), responsible for something nasty and sinister that has happened to the UK. Something dark has lunged behind the eyes of the British psyche.

The British people were famous for being reserved, but polite and gentlemanly, until the football hooligan tarnished the country's reputation. Then as more and more Brits could afford to travel, people saw them as fun-loving, kind, considerate and open-minded, just like everyone else. People flocked to the UK to work, to marry, to settle down and contribute to the country's well-being, just as foreigners have always been a part of Britain's fabric since Roman times. You will be aware of Bede's Ecclesiastical History in which he tells of the Britons asking the Romans for help against the English (Germanic tribes), you will be aware that the Belgae lived on both sides of the Channel as did the Parisi. And when the going gets tough the British Army likes to call on the Gurkhas, does it not?

But since 2016, the mood has changed. I hear stories of foreigners being insulted in the streets, in fact the social media is full of them, people say that the English people barely tolerate them and treat them with disrespect and contempt if they look different or speak differently. Many of the British people, visibly, have become racist, nasty and downright unpleasant. I myself was approached by some rude cow last year when visiting your country who told me to "spoik Inglish", in some dreadful kind of regional accent I could barely understand, because I happened to be speaking Portuguese in a supermarket. I asked her if she had been to Brazil. She had not. Portugal? Yes. Algarve. OK what language did you speak there? "Inglish". I said then you should have spoken Portuguese. Arrogant bitch. Silence.

Silence. Maybe more of you should put your thinking caps on before you destroy your country and ruin the futures of its youth. People get the idea of Brexit, nobody likes interference from Brussels but when you have to come together in a block you have to take the rough with the smooth, you have to give and take. It's called cohabiting. But you have to show political maturity and understand the world you live in, not some pie-in-the-sky idea of a Great Britannia gallivanting around the globe stealing resources, screwing up entire countries, leaving India with a literacy rate of three per cent after three centuries of rule, drawing lines on maps, massacring people, shooting natives in the whites of the eyes, eh whatty what what, and civilizing the rest with the Bible and the bullet? That sort of behavior got you guys hated a century and a half ago, don't go there again.

You're European, get used to it. The Romans put the Great in Britain

You're European, get used to it. As Prime Minister and as an intelligent and learned man, you should be aware of that and you should understand that castles built on the sand fall down because they are the work of foolish men. You are not a Cnut, or are you? (King Cnut tried to order the waves of the sea to recede and ended up being pulled from the water when it was up to his neck). You should understand that Britain got its name from the Romans who called you Prettani, or the tattooed ones, you should know that Great Britain was so named by the Romans because the other Celtic "Prettani" were the Bretons in Little Britain, and no I am not speaking of Matt Lucas and David Walliams. The Romans put the Great in Britain.

Your place is in Europe as an active member, not floundering around thrashing about on the sand waiting for a miracle. Do not lead your lemmings off the cliff. You are not a Don Quixote, you are a gifted and intelligent, cultured and educated man. Rather than playing the fool, show some courage and leadership. Cancel Brexit as a bad idea. Those who complain will be dead within two decades, most of them, the others will be retired and waiting for the day they meet their Maker within a decade. Britain's youth is with me on this and against you. They are the future, think of them and think of a vibrant United Kingdom within the EU working on the inside for change (many would be with you) but not bolting the door, throwing away the key and then seeing you are standing on the end of a branch that you have sawn off at the trunk.

Photo:  Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7387124

Photo 1: Pied Piper

Photo 2: The author in 2018

Best regards,

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Twitter: @TimothyBHinchey

timothy.hinchey@gmail.com

Boris Johnson: Unelected Pied Piper leading his country into the worst nightmare. 63703.jpeg

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey works in the area of teaching, consultancy, coaching, translation, revision of texts, copy-writing and journalism. Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru since 2002, and now Co-Editor of the English version, he contributes regularly to several other publications in Portuguese and English. He has worked in the printed and online media, in daily, weekly, monthly and yearly magazines and newspapers. A firm believer in multilateralism as a political approach and multiculturalism as a means to bring people and peoples together, he is Official Media Partner of UN Women, fighting for gender equality and Media Partner with Humane Society International, promoting animal rights. His hobbies include sports, in which he takes a keen interest, traveling, networking to protect the rights of LGBTQI communities and victims of gender violence, and cataloging disappearing languages, cultures and traditions around the world. A keen cook, he enjoys trying out different cuisines and regards cooking and sharing as a means to understand cultures and bring people together.

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America and Pakistan in Search of Peace and Conflict Resolution

2019/07/26

By Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.

Reflections on Today's World of Politics

President Trump and young looking Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan met this week at the White House. Trump is master to transform rhetoric into reality as he did to North Korean leader. Both were trying to overcome the historic indifference and prejudice to bridge the ever widening gaps between the reality and perceptions of relationship. If nation's relationships are based on the simplicity of truth, wisdom, national interest and integrity, one could foresee political compromises as a virtue to foster friendship.  Trump's body language signaled some positive overtures as America looks for foes and friends to end its occupation of Afghanistan. Pakistan is central to this strategy to facilitate a peaceful and face-saving outcome for America militarism in Afghanistan. Truth is unchanging as it was in 2001 that George W. Bush - an emotionally disturbed and intellectually imbalanced president embarked on military intervention to invade Afghanistan to strengthen his standing before the American masses after the 9/11 events. Truth is the same today as it was almost two decade earlier that America and its NATO allies displaced and killed millions for no other reason except a preposterous and distorted version of warmongering against the poor and helpless people of Afghanistan who had nothing to do with the 9/11 tragedies.  When false assumptions go unchallenged, it breeds more reactionary forces to entrench in violence and destruction.

Bertrand Russell and Alfred Einstein Manifest (1955) called "a war with H bomb might possibly put an end to the human race."  In 2017, America tested the Mother of Bombs in Afghanistan as if it was an American state. This is how America and NATO destroyed the ancient and peaceful culture of Afghanistan. All wars are dreadful and end up in calamities with ripple effects for centuries to come. It is an evidence of tragic human abnormality that American, Afghan and Pakistani could not unfold humanitarian approaches to resolve the enlarged conflict in Afghanistan. Now, Trump and Imran Khan have come to understand its reality and wisdom of reciprocal forbearance that could usher a just a viable settlement in Afghanistan. But no one should underestimate the prevalent optimistic skepticism linking Pakistan and Afghanistan to a new American policy and practice for change in southwest Asia. 

If America had the political, moral and intellectual capacity to honor its commitments, it could resolve the Afghan problems via a peaceful agreement with the people of Afghanistan and ensure a legitimate elected system of governance for Afghanistan. It is not the question whether Talaban or President Ashraf Ghani's party should govern Afghanistan, but the people of Afghanistan must have a participatory and final say in making the peace deal.  Rights of the people and political fairness must be the guiding principles to conclude a peace pact between the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Military interventions never deliver peace and social harmony but destroy all substance that should support the societal progress and future-making.

Imran Khan should be careful to assess Pakistan's own weaknesses and strength and learn from the past as to what mistakes were made in military collaboration with the US scheme of things in the region. The USAID gimmick or the loans from the IMF are not the viable strategies for national progress and development. Pakistan must strengthen its domestic socio-economic and political productivity, advancements and integration. Its progress is a key to international cohesion and services to the neglected masses. Khan does not appear to have expertise in political change, economic productivity and nation-building. Political corruption is a cancer in the society. He should encourage and engage new generation of educated and intelligent and honest people to participate for building new public institutions, new systems of participatory governance and political accountability in all domains of affairs. Imran Khan will be wise to enlarge his circle of governance by enlisting educated and proactive visionary men of ideas and strategic experts to deliver services to the people and ensure a progressive Pakistan.

Trump to Mediate Kashmir between India and Pakistan - Will He?

As a friendly overture to softening relationship with Pakistan, Trump offered to mediate the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan.  Immediately, Indian PM' spokesperson denied Trump's assertion of PM Modi ever asking him to discuss Kashmir with Pakistan.  In politics, argument and rebuttals could be pondered with varied logical scales. There is a contrast between what India claims to be and what Pakistan stands for and what the people of Kashmir valley aspire for. If we imply canons of rationality, it could clarify the core of fault lines between tense relationships of India and Pakistan.  If India and Pakistan are sincere to find a cure to the overwhelming cruelty, military tyranny and violations of the basic rights of the people of Kashmir, the global community will view them as leaders of peaceful future-making

For a change, Trump has sensed the rationality of restoring normal ties between the two nuclear rivals. It could help him to gain some numbers in political popularity as he did on North Korea - an unthinkable probability making it thinkable reality for normalization of mutual relationship. Both India and Pakistan and given their competing claims cannot deny the fact that Kashmir is the focal issue to a normal future for the masses in both countries. War is madness if there are people of reason to think about the societal future and wellbeing of the people. Kashmir was never part of India even under the British Raj. In 1947 and 1949 at the UN Security Council Resolutions, the people of Kashmir were promised a referendum (plebiscite) to decide about their future whether to join India or Pakistan.  It is not the domestic territory of India or Pakistan to undo the truth about Kashmir. There is no sense to shed human blood on a precarious experiment whether India administers Kashmir or Pakistanis do. The conflict must be resolved by addressing the humanitarian problems and sufferings of the people of Kashmir. If Trump along with Russia and China could persuade both India and Pakistan to resolve the problem, it could open-up new threshold of peace and harmony in Southwest Asia.

America Needs a Safe Exist from Afghanistan

In a changing world of global thinking and friendly relationships with others, American foreign policy experts should think critically how best they could communicate to a friend in Southwest Asia and enlist urgently needed moral and practical support to pave the ways for a peaceful settlement of the Afghanistan crisis. America is a military power but its legend of invincibility has been torn apart by small groups of fighters in Afghanistan. Much of this land of ancient tribal herdsmen is in ruins, its economy, political and civic infrastructures and productivity devastated by the insanity of war and civilian lives float between obsessed insecurity, daily bombings and extended graveyards. America cannot undo the history of its own ruthless engagement and strategic failure. This consequence is of its own failed strategy or no strategy at all, and not of the role of Pakistan or others. If American rational impulses are intact, its policy should focus on a multilateral approach including Pakistan, Iran, India, China and Russia to pool intellectual resources and work out negotiated settlements in Afghanistan and Kashmir. America needs to be rational and see the mirror of its prolonged involvement in a war that has consumed more than 4,000 lives of US soldiers and almost 15,000 wounded veterans. This is no excuse to reinforce aggression against the people of Afghanistan. America needs a safe exit from the prolonged self-engineered crisis.

Russia, China, India  and Pakistan Could Help America to Negotiate Peace in Asia

While individualism is a political trait, authoritarian absolutism is a political sickness and contrary to the principles of liberty and justice. America enjoins a moral and intellectual history of the making of the nation. "These are the times that try men's soul", wrote Thomas Paine in the Common Sense (1776), the political vision and reference for the independence of America from Britain as a nation. If global common sense is the hub of rational thoughts, America under Trump has open lines of communication with President Putin and Chinese President Xi Ping. It is rational to assume that Pakistan under PM Imran Khan could facilitate an international gathering inviting Russia, China, India and America to open a dialogue for political change and conflict resolution. This will be a magnanimous forbearance and proactive vision to dispel the notion of war and intransigence and to reshape a turbulent past, be it in Afghanistan or Kashmir and strengthen a legitimate purpose of peace, friendship and sustainable relationships without tyranny of wars and violations of human rights and dignity. Ferocity of wars and violations of human rights cannot be the intelligent hallmarks of a progressive society striving to harmonize the humanity and make sustainable peace as a reality for the future generations.

Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution and international affairs with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution: Approaches to Understand the Current Issues and Future-Making. Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany, October 2017.

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Iranian Foreign Minister Calls for Global Unity Against US Radical Unilateralism

2019/07/26

Iranian Foreign Minister Calls for Global Unity Against US Radical Unilateralism

by Stephen Lendman

US rage to control other nations, their resources and populations is the greatest threat to world peace, stability and security.

Its imperial agenda threatens everyone everywhere, risking potential destruction of planet earth to own it, all life forms endangered by its rage.

Bipartisan US ruling authorities, including congressional war party leaders, want pro-Western puppet regimes installed everywhere, sovereign independence of all nations eliminated.

They want ruler-serf societies everywhere they control, US-dominated NATO transformed into a global military on every continent - enforcing US interests, along with official narrative mind control, alternative views eliminated.

They want global societies unfit and unsafe to live in, US-headquartered masters of the universe enforcing the will of Wall Street; the military, industrial, security, controlled media complex; and other corporate predators.

Orwell's 1984 no longer is fiction. Big Brother watches everyone. Endless wars rage against invented enemies, planned new ones on the drawing board to be launched at the whim of the US ruling class.

The nation I grew up in long ago no longer exists. The American dream members of my generation enjoyed is gone. You have to be asleep to believe otherwise, the late George Carlin explained.

An increasingly totalitarian/tyrannical oligarchic plutocracy replaced the US of my youth - intolerant of democratic values and the rule of law everywhere, especially not at home.

Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif is participating in the July 20-21 Ministerial Meeting of the Coordination Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), taking place in Caracas - Venezuela the host country, enhancing the Bolivarian Republic's sovereign independence and prestige on the world stage.

Some 120 nations comprise the NAM, two-thirds of UN member states.

The organization was established in 1961, an initiative of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito.

In his 1979 Havana Declaration, Fidel Castro defined the organization's purpose, saying the following.

It's to insure "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of non-aligned countries (in their) struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony, as well as against great power and bloc politics."

NAM's founding Declaration said "(p)eace cannot achieved with separation, but with the aspiration towards collective security in global terms and expansion of freedom, as well as terminating the domination of one country over another."

The movement's five principles include:

Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Mutual non-aggression.

Mutual non-interference in domestic affairs.

Equality and mutual benefit.

Peaceful co-existence.

All of the above are contrary to the imperial aims of US-dominated NATO and partners.

NAM member state ministers are discussing international law principles, the right of sovereign independence for all nations, decolonization processes, Venezuelan and Iranian resistance against US aggression, along with other relevant topics.

Iran's Foreign Minister Zarif sounded the alarm about what he called a "new wave of US radical unilateralism," the world community of nations threatened by its rage for global dominance - pursued by economic, financial, trade, sanctions, and preemptive hot wars.

"This challenge is weakening the rule of law in the world and is threatening global peace and stability," Zarif stressed, adding:

"Even many US allies are being exposed to the unprecedented US interference in their internal affairs."

Zarif called for NAM member states to "resist this new (US) wave and push it back." He hailed Iran's "pioneering in resisting (US) economic terrorism."

"Our sincere efforts to respond to unfounded concerns about our peaceful nuclear program is one of the many victims of the new unilateralism," he stressed. 

He slammed the Trump regime's aim "to push the nuclear deal to the brink of collapse despite the world's investment in" preserving it, adding:

"Not only did the US violate the UNSC resolution, but also has sanctioned the countries that wanted to stick to the agreement" - namely Iran, Russia and China.

Zarif expressed solidarity with Venezuela's democratically elected and reelected President Maduro.

He denounced Trump and Netanyahu regime aims to deny Palestinians their universally recognized right of self-determination.

The US "brings insecurity and instability to anywhere it sets foot. Today it has taken insecurity to the Persian Gulf, Middle East, as well as South and Latin America by its presence," he stressed, adding:

"We don't know anywhere in the world to which US presence has brought stability. Anywhere they have set foot, they caused extremism and terrorism and put people under pressure."

While in Latin America, Zarif will also visit Nicaragua and Bolivia to express solidarity with their sovereign independence and leadership.

He warned Trump regime hardliners against "playing with Iran. We always respond...We say you may start a war, but you won't be the ones who end it" - adding loud and clear:

"We will survive. We will prosper long after...Trump is gone. Our time slots are in millennia."

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

By Edward H. Cree - Photo: https://ift.tt/311PHPJ, Public Domain, https://ift.tt/2LHNHbZ

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Why the West can never end its conflict with Russia

2019/07/26

Why do the United States and the UK invent fake news about Russia? Why does the USA still harbour plans to take Russia under control even at the time when the world changes so fast? Pravda.Ru editor-in-chief Inna Novikova asked these and other questions to Leonid Krutakov - Russian political scientist, analyst and associate professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.

"The USA and the UK work to prepare a portion of new explosive fake news about people close to President Putin. What is your assessment to this and to the international state of affairs in general?"

"The goals of the world supremacist state have not changed in recent years at all. The Americans have one main problem - Russia, because key resources for the development of the world economy are located in Russia. Today, the USA is unable to keep those resources under control, even though the United States is the main financier and investor in the world. This is the baseline to the conflict between the USA and Russia.

"As long as Russia was following the United States politically, the Americans were calm about the Russian resources. First and foremost, it goes about oil, gas, palladium, other rare earth metals and so on and so forth. Russia accounts for 30 percent of world mineral reserves - this is a key resource for economic growth in the future. The large political crisis started brewing when Russia started going out of America's control.

"John Maynard Keynes gave a clear definition to this issue: if you invest in assets in another territory, then sooner or later, the benefits that you receive from this will lead to enormous security problems. This is what we can now see around us now.

"There is another global conflict brewing - the confrontation between China and the United States, because these two countries are interdependent on final product. The USA is the main investor, and China is the main producer. China is a global factory, but without resources. Let's assume that a cement plant is China, the United States is its office, and a quarry is Russia.

"Now, if we take the quarry out from this model, it stops working. Therefore, Russia is a key element in the chain of world production. Everything depends on whom she will be friends with or who will take control of her. We have been witnessing this since the discovery of oil and the seizure of the world market by Standard Oil.

"The conflict persists, because the West does not need Russia as a centre of a different development model. For the West, there is no such thing as strong Russia. Russia is not even a country for the West - this is a territory for development. Yet, the territory resists, the population resists, political elites do not want to go into oblivion. That is why we can see the conflict developing."

"The West was controlling Russia almost completely only during the 1990s and in the beginning of the 2000s. Russia has not been following the USA for as many as 20 years now."

"That is true. Russia has always been a key player, as long as the world agenda was Eurocentric, and the European centre was the strongest. The longest periods of peace in the history of Europe were the periods when Russia would enter the political arena as a key player. This included the Holy Alliance, when Russia, Germany and Austria would ensure the absence of war or stop any war.

"Today, however, the agenda has moved overseas. Europe is a periphery for the United States, just like Russia and China are. The United States sees itself as the centre of the world. It is no coincidence that they have the Capitol. The Americans see themeless as the successor to the Roman Empire."

"How do you assess prospects for further sanctions against Russia? There are many countries in the world that already say that it is time to stop them and cooperate normally. Sanctions don't make sense, but still they keep them in effect. The new head of the European Commission, former Minister of Defense of Germany, Ursula von der Leyen, said that one should conduct a dialogue with Russia, albeit from a position of strength."

"It sounds ridiculous from the mouth of the chairperson of the European Commission. Well, there is no other agenda. They have only one agenda: to change the regime in Russia and force the new one  to follow their global project. Without this, the global project is stalled. We can see that global economy is not growing.

"Only two dollars out of every 100 used in global transfers concern real commodity supplies and services. All the rest account for speculative transactions. The world dollar supply has increased by 40 percent in ten years, but the world economy has not had such a growth during the same period of time.

"This is such a huge money bubble. To deflate it, one needs real assets. These assets are located in China, Russia and the Middle East. Resource assets are much more preferable than labor and industrial assets, because they can be included in the global value chain without the population.

"Oil that we have under our feet is there by itself, and it costs money by default. Natural gas, coal, palladium, copper, metals, aluminum - anything that can be found under the ground is already worth a lot of money natively. Russia's resources are supposed to fill the financial bubble of the West so that it does not burst. As a matter of fact, the world is already in a period like the Great Depression. We have great recession now - the global economy has not been growing since 2008.

Interview conducted by Inna Novikova

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The Trump Regime's Iran Strategy

2019/07/25

The Trump Regime's Iran Strategy

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Since its 1979 revolution, the US targeted Iran for regime change - for its sovereign independence, opposition to US wars of aggression, and support for Palestinian rights.

Two weeks after the Trump regime's illegal May 2018 JCPOA nuclear deal pullout, Pompeo delivered an address to the neocon Heritage Foundation titled "After the Deal: A New Iran Strategy."

He presented the Trump regime's plan to try replacing its government with pro-Western puppet rule - unjustifiably justified by a litany of bald-faced Big Lies.

He lied claiming the deal "failed to guarantee the safety of the American people from the risk created by the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Its ruling authorities seek cooperative relations with other countries - at war with and threatening none, polar opposite how the US and its imperial partners operate, Pompeo failed to explain.

The JCPOA is a landmark agreement, supported by the world community and UN. Pompeo lied saying it has "fatal flaws."

He falsely claimed it's structured to delay "the inevitable nuclear weapons capability of the Iranian regime" it doesn't seek and abhors. 

Np evidence suggests Tehran seeks a "quick sprint to the bomb." He lied saying its ruling authorities "lied for years about having had a nuclear weapons program."

He lied claiming "Iran entered into the JCPOA in bad faith." He lied saying Tehran "took great care" to conceal a secret nuclear weapons program that doesn't exist. It it did, IAEA monitors would have discovered it long ago.

He slammed Iran's legitimate ballistic and cruise missile programs, similar to what exists in scores of other countries. He lied claiming they're able to "deliver nuclear warheads." Not a shred of evidence indicates it.

He lied accusing Iran of waging regional proxy wars. Tehran hasn't attacked another country directly or indirectly in centuries. Invited by Damascus, its military advisors are helping Bashar al-Assad combat US/NATO/Israeli-supported terrorists.

Pompeo ignored endless US wars of aggression in multiple theaters, more nations on its target list for regime change by war by other means or naked aggression.

He falsely blamed Damascus, Iran, and Hezbollah for Obama's war in Syria, now Trump's. He lied accusing Tehran of supporting al-Qaeda regional terrorist groups, a US/NATO/Israeli specialty, not how the Islamic Republic operates.

He lied blaming Iran for endless war in Yemen and intermittent war in Iraq, the US and its imperial partners responsible for what's going on.

He lied accusing Iran of supporting Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, Russia falsely blamed the same way.

He lied claiming "the Iranian Quds Force conducts covert assassination operations in the heart of Europe" - a CIA/Mossad specialty, not how Iran operates.

He returned to the long ago debunked standby, calling Iran "the world's largest sponsor of terror," the designation far and away applying to the US, waging war OF terror worldwide, its imperial agenda posing the greatest threat to world peace.

Pompeo: "We'll continue to work with allies to counter the (Iran's nonexistent) destabilizing activities in the region, block their (nonexistent) financing of terror, and address Iran's (legal) missiles and other advanced weapons systems that threaten (no one). We will also ensure Iran has no path to a nuclear weapon" that doesn't exist.

Trump regime tactics include illegal "financial pressure (and) sanctions (that will be) the strongest...in history when we are complete," Pompeo roared - failing to explain these actions are flagrantly illegal, especially against a nation threatening no one.

The Trump regime will work with its imperial partners "to deter (nonexistent) Iranian aggression."

Pompeo laughably claimed "we will also advocate tirelessly for the Iranian people" Trump regime hardliners are going all-out to immiserate.

The US repeatedly blames nations it targets for high crimes committed against them. Pompeo recited a list of demands amounting to unconditional surrender to US authority no responsible leadership would accept.

Hostile US actions against Iran won't end as long as it refuses to subordinate its sovereign rights to US interests.

Along with its wars of aggression,  that's what the scourge of imperialism is all about.

Trump, Pompeo, Bolton, and their henchmen are unindicted war criminals multiple times over - threatening Iran, all other peace-loving nations, and ordinary people everywhere.

A Final Comment

In April testimony before Senate Foreign Relations Committee members, Pompeo repeated the Big Lie claim about an Iranian/terrorist connection, saying:

"There is no doubt there is a connection between the Islamic Republic of Iran and al-Qaeda. Period. Full stop (sic)." 

"The factual question with respect to Iran's connections to al Qaeda is very real (sic). They have hosted al Qaeda (sic). They have permitted al-Qaeda to transit their country (sic)."

Even establishment media Time magazine ridiculed the accusation, saying "there is no evidence (that) Shiite Muslim Iran and the Sunni extremist (al-Qaeda) group have carried out any joint operations against the US" or its allies, adding:

"(T)he Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, al Qaeda's direct descendant in Syria and Iraq, took credit for a 2017 attack on Iran's parliament building and the tomb of the Islamic Republic's founder, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which according to Iran's state media killed at least 12 people."

Former State Department official John Sloan Dickey said no Iran/al-Qaeda connection exists. Its authorities "want to know what (these jihadists are) up to, and they keep close tabs of them..."

Ahead of Bush/Cheney's aggression against Iran in 2003, false claims were made about a Saddam Hussein/al-Qaeda connection that didn't exist.

The US created and supports the terrorist group, along with its ISIS and al-Nusra offshoots, as well as other jihadist groups.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

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Poroshenko stands behind Russian tanker seizure - Russian senator

2019/07/25

The seizure of a Russian tanker by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in the port of Izmail is an obvious provocation organized by Poroshenko's appointees, Russian senator Andrei Klimov said.

On July 24, in the port of Izmail, Ukrainian security forces seized the NIKA SPIRIT tanker, which they identified as the NEYMA tanker that had participated in the detention of Ukrainian ships by Russian border guards in the Kerch Strait.

According to the SBU, Russian owners of the vessel allegedly changed its name to conceal the involvement of the tanker in the Kerch Strait incident. During the search, documents and logbooks, as well as records of radio communications made during the incident in November 2018 were withdrawn. The crew of the tanker were interrogated.

Andrei Klimov, deputy chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council, told Pravda.Ru, that the latest incident came as an obvious provocation organized by Poroshenko's appointees. "Poroshenko is doing everything to make the resolution of political issues more difficult for Zelensky. Zelensky, at least, spoke of the need for dialogue, he talked to Putin on the phone," said the senator.

It was Poroshenko who initiated the "Kerch adventure," the senator believes. "It is very beneficial for him the new authorities do not to investigate his high treason, because of which Russia was about to take some rash steps," Mr. Klimov said.

"Everything was calculated: it coincided with the time of the end of the elections to the Ukrainian parliament,  the failure of Poroshenko's party in the elections, which proved that his own failure at the presidential election was not incidental. He also wanted to disrupt the Minsk process and the possible humanitarian solution to the question of the Ukrainian military who, under Poroshenko's criminal order, turned out to be under investigation in Russia. Therefore, everything is not incidental here. There is an obvious provocation here, and it is very easy to figure out who is the architect of it," said Andrei Klimov.

"This, of course, is an act of piracy, but I believe that our specialists will manifest wisdom and professionalism in the liberation of the Russian vessel and its crew," he added.

Andrei Klimov noted that Russia still remains Ukraine's main trade partner, but Kiev blocks opportunities for the implementation of economic relations with Russia.

Also read:

Russia and Ukraine clash in Kerch Strait off Crimea. Ukrainian navy men wounded

Russia has every right to destroy Ukrainian warships

Arrested Ukrainian navy man admits Kerch incident was provocation

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Russia designs world's fastest helicopter that flies like airplane

2019/07/25

The development of the world's first-ever jet helicopter Kamov Ka-90 (also known as Ka-100) began in Russia in the early 2000s. The rotor will have a diameter of eight meters. With its own weight (together with fuel) of 7.5 tons, the helicopter can take four tons of cargo on board, or 24 passengers and two crew members. The new helicopter will thus replace the Mi-8 helicopter that gradually loses its relevance.

The super-fast Ka-90 will ensure a much more efficient delivery of cargo or military personnel in comparison with the Mi-8 that has a maximum speed of 250 km/h. The power unit of the vehicle can be used in two variations: the gas turbine engine for the rotor and the turbojet unit for horizontal flight, or one dual-circuit turbojet unit, which will rotate the rotor through the gearbox during takeoff.

The first option is much heavier, and it also takes more space, so engineers will most likely opt for the second configuration.

The Ka-90 takes off like a regular helicopter. When the vehicle gains required altitude, rotor blades form an arrow-shaped wing, and the helicopter starts flying as an airplane. In this form, the aircraft accelerates to 400 km/h. Afterwards, the blades fold completely backwards and the aircraft accelerates to 800 km/h. When landing, all actions are performed in the reverse order.

The model of the Ka-90 helicopter was first demonstrated in 2008 at HeliRussia exhibition in the Moscow region. The production of the new aircraft is set to begin in the next couple of years.

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