The Ukraine Crisis and the New Cold War

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politicalaffairs.net/the-ukraine-crisis-and-the-new-cold-war/

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www.economist.com/news/leaders/21603023-well-pacifying-separatists-and-dealing-russia-petro-poroshenko-must-remake-ukraines

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en.ria.ru/world/20140519/189942820/Ukraines-Communist-Party-Vows-Not-to-Recognize-May-25-Election.html

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valdaiclub.com/near_abroad/69221.html

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George Soros on Ukraine:

www.theguardian.com/business/2014/may/29/how-eu-can-save-ukraine-political-risk-insurance

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www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/06/the-crisis-in-ukraine-2/

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www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/05/obamas-bloodbath-in-odessa/

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www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/02/obamas-new-ukraine/

[jakaswanga]

Russia-China Gas Deal Narrows Window for U.S. Exports
Richard Martin Richard Martin , Contributor
www.forbes.com/sites/pikeresearch/2014/05/30/russia-china-gas-deal-narrows-window-for-u-s-exports/
Russia and China’s grand bargain on energy, a 30-year, $400 billion deal to pipe natural gas from Russia’s Far East to China, has prompted much commentary on the agreement’s potential to reshape global energy markets and tilt the balance of influence in Ukraine and, more broadly, in Europe.

From the financial perspective, the crisis in the Ukraine has become a horror! (No, not the war!). The aggressive American thrust which mid-wifed the Maidan coup which totally antagonised Russia, and the failure of the EU elite taper this American Gun-Ho cowboy posturing bent on bringing the NATO to Putin’s border, has had the effect of organising into a rivet, the lesser Powers China and Russia.
The rivet is a Gas-Pipe-line deal with an initial value of $500 bn, and further trade pacts, all to be carried out in mutual currencies. In her own version of an Asian Pivot, Russia, in addition to falling in the arms of China, just launched a Eurasian league composed of the usual suspects. Belarus and Kazakhstan.


Russia’s Vladimir Putin, right, Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev, center, Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko shaking hands in Astana

MAY 29 2014: The Eurasian Economic Union agreement, signed by the leaders of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in the Kazakh capital of Astana, will come into force on Jan. 1, 2015. It envisages the gradual integration of the three former Soviet countries' economies, establishing free trade, unbarred financial interaction and unhindered labor migration

A hydrocarbon treasury called the GAS AXIS.

He also stressed that the union's combined territory is a hydrocarbon treasury, possessing a fifth of all global natural gas resources and 15 percent of all oil reserves.

But the killer project is the inclusion of the Mediterranean gas Pipeline into the drawing board. In that pipeline project which includes India as a destination, Iran features prominently. Iran’s hydrocarbon treasury is well documented, added to the granary in South Iraq which is majorly habited by their Shiite church mates, the GAS axis takes a nasty taint, outside the dollar orbit.



It is worth a war to prevent it! But cautious Obama showed his devious instinct by inviting India’s new BJP president to Washington. (My guess is he will be offered riotous portion of cutting edge nuclear technology to forget this gas thing for a while. That nuclear and missile technology will be enough to annoy China to old frozen battle stations. India unveiled a missile called the China killer, but it not yet sophisticated nuclear powered! With American technology it could upgrade to ‘’China wipe-out’’, just the right toy for a Hindu nationalist with high octane testosterone!)

Well, it follows that there are currently sanctions against Russia, Iran, and, concurrently, the USA has earmarked China as its future most formidable foe, therefore there are technological sanctions against the Red Peoples republic. And here is a Eurasian hydrocarbon enterprise comprising ¾ of humanity, set to operate outside the dollar!
Who exactly then is at the loosing end of this game? Hillary Clinton as president may just need a new war to save the dollar. Small wonder she is seeing Adolf Hitler in Putin!

NB: American credit card companies have sssshhhhh immediately withdrawn their ‘’blockade’’ of Russian oligarchs allied to Putin. Some are calling their Moscow branches independent!
Suspected reason? China, signing an inter-banking deal with Russia to finance the pipeline, classified the pipeline as a ‘’vital national priority issue’’. Companies sabotaging that purpose by refusing normal services to companies or individuals involved, should reconsider their economic relations to China.
Which is to say, Chinese princelings and Oligarchs with Western Golden credit cards totaling billions stashed liquid in the West, could soon be required to drop them, and use other motherland friendly alternatives. I guess that means a ‘’china express’’ card is coming to a bank near you.

With the city of London itself winning the race to be Renminbi’s clearing house in the Western hemisphere, that should not be too hard to swallow.

DOWN SIDE: This gas-axis looks to be an authoritarian fist, nations of little civil liberties for the citizens. That is their Achilles heel. But there are things which if a dictatorship consistently achieves, she can buy the compliance of her people.

The Ukrainian crisis has its own dynamic now. The new president elected only by the western half of the nation, is a recycled chocolate coating from the dark past of rotten Gas queens like Julia Timoshenko. Same old story there. Oligarchs do not build successful nations. Oligarchs are monopoly parasites.

[jakaswanga]

WHAT IS THE TRUE STORYLINE UKRAINE? as per 31-08-14

No idea, but does not mean I wont talk about it!

Crises do evolve. They do not fall out of the blue. Man acts, man reacts.

July 2012, a law was passed in the Kiev Parliament which liberalised the ownership of the gas pipeline network through which Russian gas is distributed locally and shipped to the Greater West.

Also on August 14 2014, Ukraine's parliament approved a bill to allow gas-transit facilities to be leased on a joint-venture basis with participation from EU and U.S. firms.

The measure says Ukraine will hold 51 percent and foreign partners will be offered 49 percent in the venture.
It covers both transit pipelines and underground gas-storage facilities.
The law passed by 228 votes -- two more than the minimum necessary.

This law came after another historic one which allows Ukraine to impose sanctions on Russia and her economic interests. No, they did not include Russia's gas giant, GAZPROM, in the official list, but one can always read signs on the wall. We assume Putin is literate to that degree.

Then there is Anders Fogg Rasmussen of Denmark, the mad Dane of NATO.

Ukrainian law forbids the nation from forming alliances that would economically or politically entangle the country with the Russian Federation. Overturning this law would remove any legal barriers from Ukraine joining NATO, a goal which the alliance has said it supports.
Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance will fully respect any decision made by the Ukraine regarding its “security policy and alliance affiliations.”

The new Ukrainian President has already asked for official membership and there is a draft law in progress in Kiev. --Give me a list of countries where you can buy a Mpig's vote! and I will strike out Holy Ukraine.



Italy's foreign minister Federica Mogherini is the new EU pin-up girl. She replaces the obsolete Lady Catherina Ashton of the UK who has been everybody's spitting bowl, or, as we say here, urinal pail.

But first this. I declare I come from the Old World. In the old world, we explained competition between states and powers essentially as a fight over resources. Like, you know, the scramble for Afrika by European powers in the 18th century. Ostensibly it was to bring Civilisation and Modernity to the Dark Continent, to Christianise the native and wrench his O O so Poor Soul from the clutches of animalism, yes, only goodies. Well, Old School folks like me just talk of colonial plunder, exploitation of labour, series of genocides and the institutionalisation of spheres of influence to serve as a market for manufactured goods and receive excess homeland population.

And the famous Berlin Conference was an attempt to avoid the competition entering a military direct phase. It was a good peace deal for the respective powers I think. They united to exterminate the natives and plunder our continent, until the gentlemanly pact of greed inevitably collapsed and 1914, World War 1 starts, brought a new Pax. And the hitherto perplexed natives too, recovered their wits and started a new phase of resistance.

But this is the new World, and if you read your New York Times, your Economists, and your other Greats like the Financial Times, wars are no longer about the pillage of resources; wars are no longer about the control of territories rich in goodies; war is no longer about powers seeking to dominate other LESSER people to exploit them. (Wars are about spreading democracy, and getting rid of the bad guys ... like ...)

Yet there are so many wars; and nations –even if you consider them ethnic minorities, have never been so restive. The world is still genocidal, only, whereas spears and old weapons needed a lot of manpower and time to commit genocides, modern technology makes short work of the laborious enterprise. (Rwanda's matchete furore needs a special footnote!) So what are these wars about? resistance to oppression = Mau Mau terorism? or what?

So with that caveat folks, you will know I, of the Old Shool, look at the middle east wars of the United States to bring democracy to Iraq the same way I view the European effort to bring Christianity to Africa. A cover story for …? pillage? control of destiny's of others? subjugation?

So do not push me because I am close to the edge, I am trying not to loose my mind .. Hi Hi Hi Hi –That is Grand Master Flash in the pivotal rap song, a compulsory text for every Black urban sociologist.



It is like a jungle it makes me wonder how I keep from going under …



So my point is, watching the EU narrative coming out of the caucus of European heads after the elevation of the eastern gonya-junkie Donald Tusk of Poland to the replacement of my hommie Herman van Rompuy, I am still left looking for the real field of action.





Only Merkel cheering for German as the mannschaft conquers Brazil 2014 soccer tournament! Tusk was caught hoping for a German defeat, even if his promotion depended on his lobbying Merkel!

IN RECENT years Germany has become Poland's closest political ally and economic partner. The heads of state, heads of government and foreign ministers of the two countries are on excellent terms and see each other frequently. But in the last few months this new closeness has been put to a test as Berlin's conciliatory policy towards Russia over the escalating crisis in Ukraine is provoking increasingly loud grumbles in Warsaw.

And then

“We have to accept that, because of Berlin's specific relationship with Russia, we cannot count on Germany in matters of regional security,” he writes, adding that Germany is treating Russia “like a special needs child who has to be raised without stress”.

The tone marks a sharp break from the recent warmth between Poland and Germany
But so far the main result has been to tie German business ever more closely to Russia whereas the Kremlin's course has hardly changed. Trade between Germany and Russia amounted to €76.5 billion ($101 billion) last year, not far off the €71.5 billion of trade between Germany and Poland.

Comments like those from Mr Kuzniar are designed to send a message to Germany, says Olaf Boehnke, head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “This is an attempt by the Poles to push Germany into a stronger confrontation with Russia,” he says.

Germany's chief interest with Russia is trade, not war. Everybody knows that. Logic would say Germany goes to war with Russia when their trade interests are irreconcilable, and the stalemate must be broken by other means than diplomacy.
Poland, in her economic turbo charge in the EU sphere of influence, virtually owes her meteoric transformation –which has made her the envy of the collapsed Ukrainians, to German financial investment power. When the conservative twins who led Poland hit a xenophobic anti-German nationalist political fault line, it was them who sunk as the Poles displayed, as we say here, a knowledge of which side of their bread had butter.


The Kazynski twins Lech [President 2005-2010] and Jaroslav

So what is great about Ukraine worth the EU/NATO going to war for?

NOTHING, if you read between the lines.

Mr Van Rompuy's comments were echoed by other EU leaders:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the new sanctions would be imposed in Moscow did not change course, adding that there was no military solution to the conflict

French President Francois Hollande said: "Are we going to let the situation worsen, until it leads to war? Because that's the risk today. There is no time to waste."

Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said the "jury is still out" on whether sanctions had worked, adding: "We need to find a ceasefire, a peace plan."]

F[bederica Mogherini

[/b], named on Saturday as Catherine Ashton's successor, said there could be no military solution to the crisis and that while sanctions were being worked on, the diplomatic process would need to continue.

The US applauded the EU's move.

Speaking after a summit in Brussels, Mr Van Rompuy said the EU "stands ready to take further significant steps in light of the evolution of the situation on the ground.
"Everybody is fully aware that we have to act quickly."
He did not specify the nature of further sanctions, but said the proposals would be ready within a week. [/quote]But if you read the text from the usual suspects, the view is different. Cameron of the UK, Chocolate King Poroshenko of Kiev, Fog Rasmussen of NATO, and some Baltic harlots.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said his country was "close to a point of no return - full scale-war" with Russia

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said Russia was "practically in a war against Europe". She said: "We need to support Ukraine, and send military materials to help Ukraine defend itself. Today Ukraine is fighting a war on behalf of all Europe."

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said the EU faced "a completely unacceptable situation of having Russian troops on Ukrainian soil. Consequences must follow if that situation continues".

ON UKRAINE JOINING NATO

On Aug. 29, the Ukrainian prime minister said he will pursue NATO membership for his nation by asking parliament to overturn a law banning foreign alliances.

Separately, the NATO secretary general said Russia is undertaking direct military operations designed to destabilize the Ukraine—and that NATO will “fully respect” any change in the Ukraine’s non-aligned status. He made the comments today after an extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission held at the Ukraine’s request.

do GAS AND PIPELINE POLITICS have anything to do with it?

Another step that Ukraine made to liberalise its gas market were the new rules of access to its gas transporting system. The respective regulations were adopted in April of 2012. They created legal basis for the introduction of foreign traders into the Ukrainian gas market, providing them access to the Ukrainian pipeline network.

Historically, the Ukrainian gas market has been a state monopoly. The public company Naftogaz is responsible for the majority of transactions in the gas business. Ukraine aims to provide non-discriminatory access to its gas network and turn over the control of gas transportation and gas distribution to legally independent entities.

Aiming to integrate its gas transporting system into the European market, Ukraine joined the Energy Community Treaty. On February 1, 2011, the Eastern European country became a full member of the European Energy Community.

In February 2012, Ukraine called for the creation of a tripartite gas consortium, featuring Ukraine, the EU, and Russia, in order to provide more efficient management of the country's 37,000 kilometre gas pipe network. Facing the challenge of wear and tear, Ukraine anticipated the tripartite consortium would undertake the task of the modernization of the country's gas transporting system. In October 2012, the Head of the Delegation of the EU to Ukraine Jan Tombinski informed the EU was set to contribute to the modernization of Ukrainian GTS

Now, somebody was missing from that piece of cake on the table. It needed to be )quadripatriate!

But now, 2014 August, s the bidding for the (control over the) GAS INFRASTRUCTURE TAKES SHAPE IN THE UKRAINE, who are the losers, who are the winners? Hmmm! of coup de tats!

First recall
By RFE/RL
August 14, 2014
Ukraine's parliament has passed legislation that would allow the government to impose sanctions on Russia.

But where does most of this gas come from? And who built the original infrastructure in the first place?
And more importantly, what is the going long-term profit rate here?

Now it is set to work out that moment Russian gas enters the Ukrainian infrastructure, Moscow cedes all control, even on pricing! Remember South Sudan owned the oil, but the North owned the Pipeline and loading port? And when relations are sour, how did that work out? Or even at the best of times?

Hi hi hi! Let us assume the Russians were not born yesterday. And they are awake, like everybody else. The drunken and ever sleeping moron Boris Yeltsin, is good burried.

So let us go to the politics of the South Stream. What? Take a look at this map.

The future of Moscow-backed South Stream gas project “is looking increasingly murky” amidst the East-West tensions over Ukraine, the FT’s energy editor Guy Chazan has opined.
According to the author, the pipeline project designed to carry Russian natural gas to Italy and Austria via Bulgaria bypassing troublesome Ukraine has become “one of the biggest casualties of the east-west stand-off over Ukraine”.
In an article headlined “South Stream gas project may now be a pipe dream” Chazan highlights that the project has become “a symbol of the hardening of attitudes between” Russia and the European Union since the start of the crisis in Ukraine.
- See more at: www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=162922#sthash.GVP0fOdE.dpuf

Bulgaria, energy rumours say, was recently offered a sweet deal to get out of the project. Cool , he?

But I said the politics, dear readers of Jukwaa. Europe or the EU is not really in the picture here. If they were, given their energy needs, they would build the South Stream upfront, and connect sidelines to siphon IRANIAN, KAZAKH AND AZEIRI GAS, to make energy prices cheap in the EU and quickly get out of the now decade long EU economic crisis, initiated by American-trained Bankers running amok.

But here is Europe approaching winter, economically sluggish yet doing everything possible to increase the price of gas and unsettle energy prices. --Importing shale gas all the way from Alaska for instance, or Qatari gas which does not come cheap neither, and is not quantitative enough for garrulous appetites like Industrial Germany.

The European leaders can not be on it, can they? (How can a sinking France declare sanctions on anybody? they need all the trade they can get. Did you not see the whole industrial elite from Paris camped outside Ayatollah Khomeini's grave yesterday, seeking a dime? and then they come home to shake fists at Putin? --Small wonder French soldiers are fighting with the rebels in Ukraine!)


Donbass international brigades, Frenchmen.

So who is? on top of it?
For that we have to look at the numbers [shares values in the markets] of US corporations that deal in certain products. (I should link a graph here)

What would they loose in a war in Europe? After all, it was Europe destroying herself in World War 2 that paved the way for the rise of US dominance over them? No?

I am old school. Empire-builder Otto von Bismark. What else of skill is he renowned for? Engineering wars playing the edges against the centre to maintain HEGEMONY?

In the 1860s he engineered a series of wars that unified the German states (excluding Austria) into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership. With that accomplished by 1871 he skilfully used balance of power diplomacy to preserve German hegemony in a Europe which, despite many disputes and war scares, remained at peace

same old game, different wh-ores!

NB: The Ukrainian army needs a powerful friend with a robust open hand. This week to the East they have been routed in the battlefield. Vladimir Putin calling Obama's bluff.

How will New Rome hit back? For hit it back the empire must. Game time Ukraine, and Angela Merkel the president of the Old Continent? Gotta learn first to swim with the sharks, better Rest in Peace. She is a nice girl serving at a rapists party. She gotta get nasty and tell Putin and Obama she is not their group fcuck. Neither is Germany a door mat in international power relations.

Ach, what do I know about the joys of being a group fcuck? I could quote Silvio Berlusconi quoting his bunga-bunga groupies: 'they had the time of their lives, and were financially made!''

unedited: gotta go for now. later edit.

[jakaswanga]

FOOTNOTE: WHAT IS HAPPENING IN EAST UKRAINE?



There is a need to get to grips with what is happening in East Ukraine. Because it is a crisis which will illustrate the remaining capabilities of the West as an empire. President Uhuru Kenyatta has just, recently at Obama's monsters ball in DC, re-embedded Kenya firmly in the Western orbit, rudely trashing the Old Makerere don Kibaki's look everywhere for a deal policy!

You got to know who your friends are. And your enemies I say.

I mean it is dangerous to have China, our greatest commercial, infrastructural investor and trading partner, allied to the greatest enemy of your new friends, Russia, and yet keep on sailing sweet and easy as if there is no tomorrow! So if that chaste girl at foreign affairs called Amina will not think of these pornopolitographic issues and author a comprehensive, coping Kenyan foreign policy --and I am yet to see any inclinations in her pants she is wet about this topic, methinks Jukwaa certainly need not and definitely wont join her in her ostrich tenure, in that most famous political yoga position!

Good, let us keep our wits on this journey.

Earlier this week ...

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has called on pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine to open a “humanitarian corridor” to allow Ukrainian troops to escape from the rebel-held eastern town of Novoazovsk.
“I call on the rebel forces to open a humanitarian corridor for the Ukrainian troops who are surrounded, so as to avoid unnecessary casualties and to give them the opportunity to withdraw from the zone of operations,” Putin said in a statement issued overnight.

www.news.com.au/world/russian-president-vladimir-putin-urges-humanitarian-corridor-for-trapped-ukraine-troops-ukraine-demands-eu-military-assistance/story-fndir2ev-1227040620188

READ POROSHENKO’S REVISED STATEMENT IN FULL
Earlier the security and defence council said the border town of Novoazovsk and other parts of Ukraine’s southeast had fallen under the control of Russian forces who were staging a counter offensive with rebels.
“A counter-offensive by Russian troops and separatist units is continuing in southeast Ukraine,” the council said in a post on Twitter.
It said Ukrainian government forces had withdrawn from Novoazovsk “to save their lives” and were now reinforcing troops in the port city of Mariupol.

tune.pk/video/4503091/ukraine-government-and-military-appears-to-be-losing-support-of-citizens-quickly

true or false, but is clear there is a serious militar reversal on the ground for the Kiev troops.


French volunteers, supporters of Pro-Russian rebels, stands near destroyed Ukrainian military machines at the Lenin square in the town of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, on Thursday. Source: AP
Actually Western Europeans are firing on each other in various capacities as volunteers or mercenaries on both sides of the battlefield in Ukraine. There is the hidden subtext that the a strong fascist element is represented in the current Kiev government. Post war generations of europeans have grown up believing that was what the 2nd world war was about --to finish off fascism in Europe! So they have gon to internationalist duty to the Eastern front. Muslim Europeans are more in the Jihadist Caliphat business. They are off in droves to Sham and Dash -wherver those are-- to fight for their Faith. So Europe has some serious fault lines.

US President Barack Obama said “it’s plain for the world to see” that Russian forces are fighting in Ukraine, but ruled out American military action in the war-torn country.
On Thursday, Obama said “Russia is responsible for the violence in eastern Ukraine”, adding that German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed on this assessment during a recent conversation.
“The violence is encouraged by Russia, the separatists are trained by Russia, they are armed by Russia, they are funded by Russia,” Mr Obama said.
“Russia has deliberately and repeatedly violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
However, Mr Obama said America’s commitment to defend NATO states did not extend to non-alliance member Ukraine.
“We are not taking military action to solve the Ukrainian problem,” Mr Obama said.
“Ukraine is not a member of NATO. But a number of those states that are close by are. And we take our Article Five commitments to defend each other very seriously.”
He told reporters that he would host Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in September to discuss the escalating crisis. The meeting will be on September 18, the White House said

How is the defeat of the Ukrainians explained? Russian troops on leave going for combat holiday across the border? Or full scale invasion as Fogh Rasmussen of NATO says? Or pure military genius of assorted Novorussiya commanders as legend would have it?
www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-troops-suffer-catastrophic-defeat-in-novorossiya/5398546?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ukraine-troops-suffer-catastrophic-defeat-in-novorossiya

[jakaswanga]

It was going to be a spectacle. Watching EU leaders fall in line with the crazy Brits and their servility to American geopolitical games in Europe, and escalate the sanctions regime currently in place against Russia, while the OECD observers in East Ukraine reported the ceasefire to be holding, relatively. They came back from the NATO rendezvous in Wales more or less in various degrees of coerced assent.

But take a look at the space between ''Adopt'' and ''enforce''!'. So the resolution is there on the table, but does not yet come into effect. Pending … well ...

EUROPE MOVES AHEAD WITH INCREASED RUSSIAN SANCTIONS

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Michael O'Kane

On 8 September 2014, new European sanctions were agreed against Russian interests. Despite their formal adoption, the sanctions are only due to take effect “in the next few days”, leaving sufficient time for the EU to assess the changing situation on the ground in Ukraine. EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy has noted that “the EU stands ready to review the agreed sanctions in whole or in part” depending on the perceived willingness of Russia to comply with the negotiated ceasefire between the parties that began in Ukraine on 5 September 2014.

The ceasefire agreement has proved fragile over the last few days.

The new measures tighten the existing bar on Russian entry to EU capital markets to include a ban on syndicated loans by EU banks. The targets of these sanctions have also been expanded to include Russian defence and oil companies, rather than just nominated Russian banks. Russian oil giants Rosneft, Transneft and Gazprom have all fallen under the new regulations, as well as defence manufacturers Oboronprom, United Aircraft Corporation, and UralVagonZavod.

Further sanctions also include a ban on the export of ‘dual-use technologies’ (products that can be used for both civilian and military purposes), and a prohibition on the supply of European associated services (such as drilling and well-testing) to Russian oil exploration industries. The sanctions are also said to add to the current individual targeted sanctions, however the list of names has yet to be released.

The new sanctions follow the proposals put forward in the recently leaked Commission paper entitled ‘Outline of proposals for a second round of restrictive measures on Russia’. Notably, the options paper also makes reference to Russian sporting and cultural events as possible future targets for sanctions, including the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which is set to be hosted by Moscow.

Pending situation on the ground, could of course also mean pending an evaluation of the effects of possible Russian retaliation on the fragile EU economies, or sectors.
Premier Medvedev of the Russian Federation, using the concept asymmetry, hinted at a possible ban of flights over Russian territory. That is the main route to and from Asia for Western commercial airliners.
Then there is France, out of money and out of luck, and out of ideas to regenerate her economy. And looking at the bill building up due to breach on contract on the delivery of this set of Mistral naval assault ships to the Russians:


The Vladivostok in a shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, western France

A French diplomat earlier said the contract was suspended until November, and the delay "could cost us 1bn euros".
The deal is worth 1.2bn euros - and Russia is reported to have paid most of it, so breach of contract would mean France having to reimburse that money.
In addition, France would be liable for an extra 251m-euro penalty payment, French news website LCI reports.
…....................
A Russian military expert quoted by the Russian Kommersant news website said the final bill for France could go as high as 3bn euros.

Manuelle Valls, PM of France whose first cabinet was hardly sworn in than it had collapsed, cannot raise that anytime soon, and he knows it.

[jakaswanga]

THE DEATH OF THE SOUTH STREAM.

This is a topic which needs an in-depth. For Ukraine is the crucible of an emerging world order. She will be somebody's waterloo, but whose??

Deluded in American exceptionalism, holed up in his bunker at capital hill, his presidency crumbling around him, his office besieged by his failures and political inadequacies --(some of them lame-duck blues, others more fundamental like the recent sacking of the defence secretary Chuck Hagel)-- my kinsman Barrack Obama may have cheered himself some, thinking of the tribulations of his formidable opponent Vladimir Putin. Yes, Wednesday 3/12/14, the rouble hit a historic low at 50-to-the-$; there were demos in Moscow; oil hit $60/barrel (a dip of $20), and to crown it all, the Southern Stream Gas pipeline project is dead in the waters off Bulgaria.

Buried with it is a $40 billion investment portfolio for Gazprom already. Gazprom is Russia's gas giant. Sunk alongside is a further profit projection of would-be multiple billions in the immediate decade after the original completion date of 2016/17. The bear has had an important toe in its paw severed; seen from Washington that is. Yes, the beast must limp, no longer lith in gait. Washingtonian cold warriors can grin. And Obama can join in in temporary relief. Barrack is in a tight corner, but so is Vladimir. Same feathered birds flocking apart! --Uwi!

NORTH STREAM

NB: The North Stream is the gas umbilical directly connecting the German consumer to the Russian placenta. It is a safeline because it bypasses the unstable republics of Eastern Europe with their collapsible elites. Think Ukraine, think Poland. Forgetting not the upside down Baltic republics.



As things currently stand, Russia supplies 30% of EU gas-needs.

SOUTH STREAM

The Southern Stream would have been a gas pipeline issuing out of the Crimea, using the bottom of the Black Sea and entering Bulgarian waters en-route, for further distribution to Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Austria, energy-yawning Italy and Greece. --see map.

That is one hell of a market, with Gazprom, a state monopoly --purely Russian owned, becoming one of the greatest energy companies on earth. For scaremongers, this leaves the EU at her mercy, especially during winters. North and South Stream and the Mid stream through Ukraine as a vice grip.

Given the industrial power, and therefore energy voracious Germany, is scaling down nuclear power and shutting down coal power-centres (see the new E.ON futures blueprint), her gas consumption can only be an upward curve. And we are not talking American nor European SHALE GAS!, not Qatari bubbles. We talking bear fart! A blowing monopoly of sorts! Then will I not wonder if the anger of the other international energy companies is hotter than the well-sung wrath of Achilleus the son of Peleus, when the King of Men confiscated his naked dancer Briseis.



Then on first december 2014 during a visit to Turkey, Vladmir Putin of Russia announced the death of the Southern Stream. This is an earth-shattering development, and it needs a contemplative take. --What happened? (Apart from Brussels blowing out the candle on Moscow!?)

How Hillary Clinton's State Department Sold Fracking to the World

A trove of secret documents details the US government's global push for shale gas. —By Mariah Blake,| September/October 2014 Issue

A few weeks later, Romania's parliament voted down its proposed fracking ban and Bulgaria's eased its moratorium.

The episode sheds light on a crucial but little-known dimension of Clinton's diplomatic legacy. Under her leadership, the State Department worked closely with energy companies to spread fracking around the globe—part of a broader push to fight climate change, boost global energy supply, and undercut the power of adversaries such as Russia that use their energy resources as a cudgel. But environmental groups fear that exporting fracking, which has been linked to drinking-water contamination and earthquakes at home, could wreak havoc in countries with scant environmental regulation

The short of it is, the United States of America has inflicted a major, a spectacular victory over Russian strategic interests. In the short-run. This is historic; just like financing the Maidan agitation to chase away Viktor Yanukovych from the presidency of the Ukraine. In the long run, however, it could turn out to be all pyrrhic.

WEAK LINK BULGARIA.

Bulgaria withdrew from the project.
--Why this late? And which new calculations were tabled, to render the earlier profitable model redundant?

Putin had a dangerous line in Ankara: ''Our Bulgarian friends seem to have surrendered their independence, and could no longer act in accordance with their genuine national interests!''

Russian Vladimir Putin may not be the best source on the genuine national interests of Bulgaria, nevertheless Bulgaria's pulling of the plug from under the Southern Stream is a hot topic, even in Bulgaria herself.

ENTER THE EU

BRUSSELS/SOFIA, 2014 June 3 (Reuters) - European Union authorities have asked Bulgaria to suspend work on Gazprom's South Stream gas pipeline on the grounds that the project breaks EU law, a step that threatens to inflame tensions between Russia and the 28-country bloc.

uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/03/eu-southstream-bulgaria-idUKL6N0OK19G20140603

Bulgaria's energy minister, a staunch supporter of the project as a means of bolstering energy security and creating jobs, said he did not believe Bulgaria would be sanctioned and called for dialogue to continue with Brussels.

But this was never about Bulgaria's national interests.

But the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, says South Stream breaks EU rules that prohibit gas suppliers from also controlling pipeline access and it has put on hold the approval process for the project.
Bulgaria, historically close to Russia and heavily dependent on its gas, has decided to start construction as a national priority.

oops, national priority they thought and said, and acted on?

www.bbc.com/news/business-27755032
Bulgaria is to halt work on its Russian-backed South Stream gas pipeline following criticism from the EU and US.
Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski announced that he had "ordered all work to be stopped".
"We will decide on further developments following consultations with Brussels," he said after meeting with US senators.

After meeting with US senators? Ala! How about meeting with the Bulgarian TV?

20-08-14 bbc. Bulgaria has again halted work on the Russia-led pipeline project South Stream.
Bulgaria's Minister of Economy and Energy, Vassil Shtonov, suspended work on the 930km-pipeline until it conforms to European Union law.
South Stream will stretch across the Black Sea to southern and central Europe, providing another gas transit route for Russia's Gazprom.
But the EU is worried about the gas producer also owning a pipe network.
Bulgaria stopped work on South Stream in June after tensions in Ukraine.

But a read through the following link will offer a hint as to why the apparent victory of the defensive super power, the exceptional USA, may in the long run have achieved a pyrric boomerang. Consider a pipeline built to Turkey, ending with a hub to supply southern Europe at the Greek border. Lets see how Bulgaria accommodates her energy seppuku.

www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-01/putin-kills-south-stream-pipeline-will-build-new-massive-pipeline-turkey-instead
NB: what happened to the oil price at the world market? Supply and demand laws? Or an agreement between the Saudis and the Americans? To hurt oil-dependent Russia and Iran where they will feel it most?
–--he he Mank! Give me an econometric model of the barrel price of oil at the world market! Purely as a Jukwaa domestic academic exercise! Out there in the real world, the price is set by Obama and his energy concerns! And it is a geo-political game! Of world domination! –-A war of the powers!

NB: Federica Mogherini, the italian babe who is the EU replacement for the horse-faced Brit Cathy Ashton, flew immediately to Turkey after Putin left. And Jean-Claude Juncker, EU President, made noises in Brussels like ''the southern stream could still be built --if Russia became reasonable!'' --it is dumbspeak and hasty diplomacy which hints Brussels recognises she could have shot herself in the foot, instead of a bull's eye on the bear's vitals!

To be contineud!

rt.com/business/211023-eu-south-stream-putin/

[jakaswanga]

It did not last 12 hours, the valour of the Russian Central Bank at rallying the rouble. Interest rates were raised from 10% to 17% in an attempt to stop the slide toward total collapse of confidence.


Elvira Nabiullina, Chairperson Bank of Russia.

www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/business/international/russia-central-bank-abruptly-raises-key-interest-rate.html?_r=0

The strategy behind the rate increase is straightforward. The central bank, led by Elvira Nabiullina, is hoping that the large rate increase will encourage Russian individuals, companies and banks to hold savings in rouble, rather than moving them into dollars. It is also aimed at helping to help keep inflation in check.
“This decision is aimed at limiting substantially increased rouble depreciation risks and inflation risk,” the central bank said in its statement.
–-------------------------------------------------
But the surprise rate increase also underscores the limited options for Russian policy makers. The central bank has spent at least $75 billion this year to prop up the rouble, with little effect.
The rouble plummeted yet again on Monday, by more than 10 percent, to about 64 per dollar. The rouble has lost nearly half its value since the start of 2014.

I say Mank, indulge me, BiL. You guys say, up interest rates, guys keep money in the bank to enjoy the windfall. But this day comes when you raise the i-rates however steep, and guys get their money out of your bank to convert it into anything else but the official currency!? –--Huh!?

I remember the great controversy between Nigel Lawson or John Major and Margaret Thatcher in September 1992. Nigel/Major was Thatcher's minister of finance or, excentrically said in quaint British obfuscation, chancellor of the exchequer. They tried to defend the sterling/pound within the recommended, pre-set margins of the European Exchange rate mechanism, but failed against spectators; and made fellows like George Soros the gods of liquid cash.

So when I heard ---Elvira Nabiullina--- the professor Njuguna Ndung'u of Russia was out to defend the wilting rouble, all in the face of sanctions, tumbling oil prices and a western plot to bet against the currency, I thought of the Black Wednesday 1992 when the pound was forced, by market forces/speculators ganging up, to roll downhill until it had nowhere to run.



These things interest me, because there was a small moment in Kenyan history when candidate UhuruRuto said they would dare Western sanctions. I said it was possible, looking at Zimbabue's one zillion% inflation rate per week which did not kill off that country! But for the case of our Kenya, you always knew Uhuruto were merely being infants in a tantrum yelling at Mama. –--Have you seen where Dr. Rotich has placed all his FAITH to finance his trillion deficits and insurmountable debt hunger?

He he Mank! You are now free and brother Ouru can give you a (rofl)call, you said, now that you are free from Shale!. But what would you do, if the Kenya shilling, like the Russian rouble, lost half its value in 5 months?
Pray? Like brother Njuguna Ndung'u did once: shiringi shiringi! Priiz ngo up!

This is where you economist loose me amigo: The chairman of the Russian central bank knows Gas and oil which account for 60% Russian exports and, are falling in price because the USA and Saudi Arabia cut an oil deal. She also knows as soon as she starts to sponsor the rouble at a certain range, the FORCES THAT BE will move markets to speculate against her –-and win, given the sanctions coordinated with the EU. Yet the Russian Njuguna still raises interest rates and goes to sleep!

I am happy within four hours she found out she had done worse. If she is the kind of calibre Putin has to front against the economic onslaught from the West, whose geopolitical purpose is to maintain US global dominance and dollar superiority, then Putin is fooling himself.

SHe is lucky he has been given a harsh wake-up call. But that makes the world more dangerous this week than it was last week!

[jakaswanga]

Putin, Merkel and Hollande in Moscow, 6/2/15

Caught pants down, uselessly sulking over Greece's tantrums and loosing sight of geo-political issues, the inadequacies and unpreparedness of Germany's Angela Merkel to lead Europe were painfully exposed this week. While Joe Biden and an associate group of high-level Americans were in Kiev to urge war and commit the Ukraine to a bear-trap role (suck Russia into a war on its Western border), Merkel was playing hide and seek with the Greek Tsipras of Syriza. This 40-year old monster is said to have an insatiable yawn for ever more credit which he has no plans of ever committing to pay. –-But that is another long story.


Ukr PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk and US VP Joe Biden. Kiev feb 2015. A mixed bag of private and official business.

@BBC: 14-05-2014:

Joe Biden's Son Hunter and Devon Archer, Kerry Family Friend, Join Ukraine's largest private Gas Producer's Board!

Burisma, a private oil and gas company in Ukraine, announced this week that it has appointed Hunter Biden, the youngest son of US Vice President Joe Biden, to its board of directors.
The company, founded in 2002, is controlled by a former energy official in the government of deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
The move has raised some eyebrows in the US, given the Obama administration's attempts to manage the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

Raised eyebrows in the USA? Well, opened eyes in the EU, and Russia is more like it.
The Americans were about to, in deed, commit offensive weapons to Kiev, right at Moscow's doorstep! Arshton Carter of the US defence department calls them LETHAL WEAPONS. To kill Russian troops he believes have invaded rebel-held East Ukraine. That is war on European soil. Every fool recognised it immediately, and –-NEW COLD WAR GOES HOT-- the tabloids screamed it. Even the dimMEST of wits running the current fatigued Europe could not ignore it. Like ambushed birds out of a slumbering nest, a dazed Merkel and Hollande packed suitcases and headed East.

To talk to Putin. About the Ukraine. Good Lord! Where have they been all these [past 10] months?

Debaltsevo cauldron: what is it?

Here is an alternative narrative from the East.





One way or another after loosing the battle for Donetsk Airport, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been in some kind of retreat. In a place called Debaltsevo in the borders with Novorussian Luhansk and Donetsk separatist republics, some sources say the UAF has been surrounded and is on the verge of loosing upto 15 thousand combat troops.



Something has to give. The Americans are offering the Ukrainians a deal. FULL SCALE WAR. –-War in Europe leads to undisputed american ascendancy once more. Neutralises both Russia nd the EU.


Now, silly Merkel is beginning to figure that out. Greece is not a problem. Ukraine, that is the wipe-out of German banks, not little Greece. After those talks in Moscow Friday 06/02/14, Saturday 07/02 today sees another round of high-power talks in Berlin. –--No, Greece is not on the agenda.

Lets see if Europe can keep her house in order, or if all is lost. Already.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 5 2014, The Guardian reported thus on PEACE TALKS IN MINSK.

The former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma began talks at a hotel in Minsk on Friday with leaders from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk "republics", in the presence of officials from Russia and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Interfax reported that the ceasefire was due to come into effect at 6pm local time (1600 GMT). The official Twitter account of the Donetsk rebels said: "Representatives of the Donetsk People's Republic, the Luhansk People's Republic, and Ukraine have signed a ceasefire protocol."

Did the EU&Co bother to send any high-power delegate, to symbolise they took these peace talks seriously?
Non! They, under the NATO umbrella, had other more important things to attend to. Aaah, they went a-sabre rattling in Celtic Manon, Newport Wales

The UK prime minister David Cameron, attending the summit of Nato leaders at Celtic Manor in south Wales, welcomed the ceasefire announcement, but said fresh sanctions against Russia would still go ahead. "The announcement about the ceasefire is good news," he said. "We need to look carefully at whether it is a ceasefire or whether it also includes a commitment, as I understand it might, to make real progress on a proper peace plan.
"We should be clear that the sanctions which we agreed last Saturday in Brussels will go ahead

OnWARD Christian soldiers marching as to war in the east; yours is to do and die, and not to ask why!

www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4345871.ece

[jakaswanga]

''If we do not secure neither a ceasefire nor a peace-deal, we know what is coming next. It is called war'' –-President Francois Hollande, Tulle, France, 06/02/15.

Question time at the annual security conference in MUNICH, 07-02-2015.

A distinctly uncomfortable Angela Merkel had to dig deep. This was a pin question and she had to be succinct at, make herself clear; even honest, a feat which can not be said to belong to the basic instincts of a politician, male or female: Should the West arm Ukraine to deal with the rebellion in Donbass?

"The problem is that I cannot imagine any situation in which improved equipment for the Ukrainian army leads to President Putin being so impressed that he believes he will lose militarily," she said. "I have to put it that bluntly."
"This is why we have decided to focus our efforts on seeking a diplomatic solution," she added

But here is a most painful part which has not made it much into English: ''I grew up in East Germany. As a child I watched the wall go up and no one in the free West considered for a single moment a military option to stop it, stop the wall enclosing us and much of East Europe, behind. I blame no one. I grew up blaming no one. Another war in Europe was not an option then, and given the situation then, all considerations made it the right thing to do and the right decision to make. –-I know we disagree on this point now with the Ukrainian President, but I have to be forthright. There is no military solution to his predicament!'' –--Angela Merkel, Munich 07-02-15.


But Petro Poroshenko fished out copies of passports from his coat and flashed them up, claiming they were those of Russian military personnel arrested within Ukraine.
A Russian lost in translation: if they are genuine, then you confiscated the papers of chaps who came to make love not war.



But today no jokes: Poroshenko, Merkel, Hollande, and Putin will conference via video-link. Notice neither the Americans nor the Brits are in. Obviously then, they are working to scatter the deal.

Merkel is on her own. The war is hers to declare. The peace hers to win and seal. Hollande will go along with her either way. But I think there is no way Ukraine can go to war backed by the UK and USA, with Germany and France and Russia against her. Poroshenko would not last a week in power.
In the chaos, the Tchechen brigades of Ramzan Kadyrov for instance would move into Novorussia to help protect ethnic Russians against neo-nazi Banderas ultra nationalists.





But the other 'Wahabi Tchechens' bitterly opposed to russophile Kadyrov will very well follow the path of Isa Munayev

Prominent Chechen commander Isa Munayev has reportedly been killed in eastern Ukraine, where he was battling alongside Kyiv government troops against pro-Moscow separatists. Munayev - a veteran of Chechnya's wars for independence from Russia - was killed on Feb. 1 near the town of Debaltseve, said Amina Okuyeva, a press officer for the Dzhokhar Dudayev peacekeeping battalion, which Munayev commanded

Actually both sides of the Techechen divide are already fighting both sides of the Ukrainian divide. It merely awaits escalation into the WAR Hollande was quipping about. Everything is in place, except the decision. ---Merkel's decision.

The president of the Eurozone and prefect of her (backward eastern) backyard zones (Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria) must rise to the occasion and make what very well may be the decision of her leadership. War or Peace.

NB: Now I am going back to read Tolstoy!

[jakaswanga]

Alexander Zakharchenko, Prime Minister of Donetsk Peoples Republic.


Looking at Petro Poroshenko lavishing praise on his troops ''after they performed an orderly and scheduled withdrawal from Debaltsevo in East Ukraine (or Donbass or Novorussia), I could not help resting my chin on the palms of my right hand and tapping my ears.


Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko shakes hands with servicemen in Artemivsk after they retreated from Debaltseve

I remembered a scene from long ago.

Queen Cleopatra and her lover General, Roman renegade Marcus Antony, had lost a famous naval battle at Actium. The Roman ex Magister Equitum and Triumvirate pretender, had of late spent more time with his head between Cleopatra's knees, than on maps plotting maritime warfare, and so would his ill-prepared ships suffer a sunken fate in the waves of Agrippa's charges. Regardless, Cleopatra, a neurotic demon if ever there was one, sent word to Alexandria, that victory had been achieved over the Roman armada, and whole Egypt should party.

O great Egypt, a great victory has been won,
Rejoice thee at full till dawn on the morrow!

Egypt would dance on her on graveyard; Cleopatra's lover fall on his sword, deserted by all.

So I watched Poroshenko praising a sham victory, avoiding the truth like the neurotic Egyptian nymph of incestuous genes. His Ukrainian national army had been roundly defeated in the Debaltsevo cauldron, retreated in disarray, trooping hungry and demoralised, their heavy weapons booty for the other side. They had left their dead uncatered for, and many more prisoner or surrendered to save dear life.


Donbass battalion commander Semyon Semyonchenko, Ukrainian army.

Strange names of separatist commanders like ''Givi'' –Somalia battalion Donestsk, Motorola –--Sparta battalion,unit officer Matros, squared it off against the Azov cyborgs of Kiev.


The Trojan," a deputy commander of the Azov Battalion. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)



Andriy Biletsky, in black T-shirt, commander of Ukraine's Azov battalion

Somewhere down the line there must be a reckoning with this lie. A lie in which so many men die, the truth follows at a bloody price too.



Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma (L) and Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic Alexander Zakharchenko


Givi is a commander of battalion tactical group named "Somalia". Matros is unit officer.


Commander Motorola of Sparta battalion.


Givi of Somalia being nasty on a captured cyborg captain, Donetsk airport.

Meanwhile Poroshenko has gone hysterical and incoherent. He has accused a Russian presidential aide of directing snipers in Kiev during the anti-Yanukovych Maidan rallies, and, 2: he has proposed peace-keepers from the European countries minus Russia to be deployed to the Donbass. That would be NATO at Russia's borders. Geopolitically speaking, that is not a coherent option.

Petro Poroshenko has lost it. I think he can now be ignored. He is out of reality. what can Washington do for him?

[wanyee]

Biden and His British Controllers Now Have the War They Created
sarahwestall.com/biden-and-his-british-controllers-now-have-the-war-they-created/

See also:

El Salvador President on Ukraine: ‘The Real War Is in Canada’
www.breitbart.com/latin-america/2022/02/15/el-salvador-president-on-ukraine-the-real-war-is-in-canada/

And

Capitalism in Crisis: The WEF, Covid-19 and The Great Reset
madaraka.online/covid-19-and-the-great-reset/

[wanyee]

Ukraine On Fire – An Oliver Stone Documentary (2016)


Full Documentary:
www.redvoicemedia.com/video/2022/03/ukraine-on-fire-an-oliver-stone-documentary-2016/

BY RED VOICE MEDIA
MARCH 7, 2022

"Ukraine. Across its eastern border is Russia and to its west-Europe. For centuries, it has been at the center of a tug-of-war between powers seeking to control its rich lands and access to the Black Sea. 2014's Maidan Massacre triggered a bloody uprising that ousted president Viktor Yanukovych and painted Russia as the perpetrator by Western media. But was it? "Ukraine on Fire" by Igor Lopatonok provides a historical perspective for the deep divisions in the region which lead to the 2004 Orange Revolution, 2014 uprisings, and the violent overthrow of democratically elected Yanukovych. Covered by Western media as a people's revolution, it was in fact a coup d'état scripted and staged by nationalist groups and the U.S. State Department. Investigative journalist Robert Parry reveals how U.S.-funded political NGOs and media companies have emerged since the 80s replacing the CIA in promoting America's geopolitical agenda abroad." - IMDB Summary

www.redvoicemedia.com/video/2022/03/ukraine-on-fire-an-oliver-stone-documentary-2016/

[wanyee]

[wanyee]

"One of the mistakes which some political analysts make is to think that their enemies should be our enemies." - Nelson Mandela

[wanyee]

Nairobi declines Ukraine request to address Kenyan Parliament
nation.africa/africa/news/nairobi-declines-ukraine-request-to-address-kenyan-parliament--3779598

[wanyee]

[wanyee]

[wanyee]

See also:

Did NATO push Ukraine into war?


Biden and His British Controllers Now Have the War They Created
sarahwestall.com/biden-and-his-british-controllers-now-have-the-war-they-created/

George Soros and Ukraine

Ukraine On Fire – An Oliver Stone Documentary (2016)
www.redvoicemedia.com/video/2022/03/ukraine-on-fire-an-oliver-stone-documentary-2016/