Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Obama, Putin fail to agree on Assad’s fate

News | 29.09.2015 | 10:20
 
PressTV - President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have discussed the crisis in Syria, but failed to reach an agreement on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fate.
The two leaders met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday in a meeting which lasted 90 minutes.
A senior US official described the meeting as "business-like back and forth," while Putin called it "constructive and business-likes" and said the discussion was "very constructive and surprisingly open."  
"In my opinion there is a basis to work on shared problems together," but “disputes remain," Putin told reporters following the meeting.
"We have a lot in common," he said, adding "we have sound grounds to work on the points of concern together."
The US official said the two leaders decided that conversations between the American and Russian military officials should continue over the crisis in Syria, but added that Obama and Putin "fundamentally disagreed" on the role of Assad in Syria.
"I think the Russians certainly understood the importance of there being a political resolution in Syria and there being a process that pursues a political resolution," the official said.
However, "we have a difference about what the outcome of that process would be," he added.
Before the meeting, both Obama and Putin delivered speeches to the United Nations General Assembly, during which the two leaders expressed completely different views on Assad.
Putin said Assad is the only option in campaign against the Daesh (ISIL) terrorists, noting he is “valiantly fighting terrorism face to face."
As part of a plan to fight against Daesh Takfiri terrorists, Russia has been beefing up its military presence in Syria, equipping Damascus with advanced military aircraft such as the Mikoyan MiG-31 fighter jets and other sophisticated equipment.
Putin has said that Russia's support for the Assad government was in accordance with the UN Charter, since "we have been providing assistance to legitimate government entities only."
Moscow’s military support for Assad, however, goes against the current US policy, which calls for the Syrian president’s ouster.
Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since March 2011. According to reports, the United States and its regional allies - especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - have been supporting the militants operating inside Syria since the beginning of the crisis.

Der Tod lässt alle Differenzen zurück: Wir trauern um Peter Strutynski

Peter Strutynski starb im Alter von 70 Jahren

Der Friedensforscher Peter Strutynski, hier 2013. (picture-alliance / dpa / Uwe Zucchi)Der Friedensforscher Peter Strutynski ist tot. (picture-alliance / dpa / Uwe Zucchi)
Im Alter von 70 Jahren ist der Friedensforscher Peter Strutynski gestorben. 
Dies teilte der Bundesausschuss des Friedensratschlages mit, der seit 1994 jährlich in Kassel stattfindet. Strutynski, der auch an der Universität Kassel lehrte, habe es wie kein anderer vermocht, einen Brückenschlag zwischen Friedensforschung und wissenschaftlicher Analyse herzustellen.
http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/friedensforscher-peter-strutynski-starb-im-alter-von-70.447.de.html?drn:news_id=529330Quelle:

ks_P5091337Einer der bekanntesten Friedensaktivisten Deutschlands, der Friedensforscher und engagierte Pazifist Dr. Peter Strutynski, ist im Alter von 70 Jahren in Kassel gestorben. Der Politikwissenshaftler, langjährige Vorsitzende des Kasseler Friedensforums und zuletzt Sprecher des Bundesausschusses Friedensratschlag Kassel, starb nach langer schwerer Krankheit in der Nacht zu Sonntag. Die Trauerfeier findet am Freitag, 9. Oktober, ab 12.15 Uhr in der Kapelle des Westfriedhofs statt.
Schlagwörter: 

HISTORIC NEWS: Finally, EU Breaks Away from U.S.

EDITOR'S CHOICE | 12.09.2015 | 22:39
 
Simultaneously, the leader of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own Christian Social Union Party, Horst Seehofer, a man who, prior to his being appointed to be the Party-chief had been Chancellor Merkel’s Agriculture Minister, has now turned against Chancellor Merkel (who until now was the most powerful leader in all of Europe) and denounced her policy on the refugee crisis, and has now stated publicly that Germany should instead ally with Russia and against NATO on the entire Syrian war. 
This public statement, which is really a sea-change in history, was reported Friday night, 11 September, in Germany’s leading magazine, The Mirror, Der Spiegel, and it represents the breaking-point in Germany’s foreign policy, finally yielding now to the rapidly rising anti-Americanism within Germany that results from America’s prioritizing America’s war against Russia as being a more important goal than the global war against Islamic jihad, which is clearly the most pressing threat to national security not only within Germany, and not only within all Western countries, but even within Pakistan and many other countries that have majority-Islamic populations, as well as in India, China, and other nations around the world.
Seehofer’s statement simply cannot be ignored by the Chancellor, because it comes from the leader of her own Party (“Christian Social Union” is the Party’s name in Munich and throughout Bavaria, but elsewhere in Germany the Party is called instead the “Christian Democratic Union”). She has mainly ignored German public opinion thus far and cooperated with U.S. President Barack Obama’s war against Russia, which Obama is waging via his proxies in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and elsewhere. But Merkel now will have to bend; and this could end up breaking NATO itself, since NATO is the international military alliance that was originally against the Soviet Union and that then became against Russia as soon as the Soviet Union ended communism and broke up into Russia and the other nations of the former Soviet Union. That continuation of the Cold War, now against Russia alone, even without the former ideological excuse of there being communism, was initiated by U.S. President George Herbet Walker Bush himself. It was reluctantly picked up by then West-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, whose protégée was Angela Merkel. “Bush made his feelings about compromising with Moscow clear to Kohl: ‘To hell with that!’ he said. ‘We prevailed, they didn’t.’”  (This “compromise” was that NATO not expand “one inch eastward”; the promise that Bush’s own Secretary of State had made to the then-Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and on the basis of which Gorbachev allowed the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact to end and East Germany to be taken by West Germany.)
And so, the Cold War never really ended in the West (though Gorbachev was promised that it would); but, now, it might be finally forced to end, without a nuclear war (which continues to be the U.S. threat but becomes far less likely without there being allies for that on America’s side), because the current U.S. President’s intensification of the long-suppressed ongoing U.S. war against Russia is becoming too much for Germany, and for many other countries within the NATO alliance, to continue supporting. A serious international movement to destroy all nuclear weapons might even begin now.
The only NATO member-nations that are still highly supportive of America’s ongoing war against Russia are some former member-nations of the former Soviet Union and of the Soviet Union’s equivalent of NATO, the Warsaw Pact, which broke up in 1991 when the Soviet Union itself did. Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, are among the now-NATO, former Soviet and Warsaw Pact, nations that are as anti-Russian as is the American ruling class (which President Obama represents). However, America’s former allies when the United States used to be a democracy, the West-European nations, are now starting to abandon the U.S., and so too are some of the East-European nations that were formerly under the Soviet yoke, such as Czech Republic, and Hungary.
America’s deepest control extended especially into two nations: UK, and Germany. However, the decision that George Herbert Walker Bush made in 1990, and that has been adhered to by his successors, to continue the former Cold War until Russia itself is defeated and becomes added to the America Empire, is now being increasingly abandoned by America’s formerly obedient vassal-nations. The American Empire has reached its zenith, and is now breaking apart.
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Obama Handshakes China’s Xi, while Holding Cybercrime Stick in Other

Finian CUNNINGHAM | 29.09.2015 | 00:00

While there were several points of apparent accord reached between the US and China during President Xi Jinping’s state visit, the issue of cybercrime will continue to be a source of tension going forward. Tension that will be unilaterally and cynically exploited by Washington for its ulterior geopolitical aim of demonising and browbeating China.
The problem partly stems from Washington being able to propagate its sly, prejudicial attitude towards China. Smiles and handshakes aside, the United States’ official mentality harbours and projects a demeaning presumption of Chinese guilt over cybercrime.
That mentality is manifest in the arrogant way that the United States government during President Xi’s visit managed to appoint itself as «judge and jury» to arbitrate on this contentious issue.
Washington’s truculent attitude is quite a feat of reality-inversion considering its own proven global NSA spying operations, as revealed by Edward Snowden; as well as its known state-sponsored hacking operations against countries, such as when it ravaged Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities back in 2010 with the Stuxnet virus. That cyberattack was personally ordered by President Barack Obama, according to the New York Times.
Washington’s imperious attitude displayed last week also stands in contrast to Beijing’s efforts to find a mutual partnership on a range of issues, and on cybercrime in particular.
The Chinese leader showed grace and stoicism during his visit to Washington, in spite of the boorish hostility expressed in the American media before and during his stay.
In a six-point plan put forward by Xi on various aspects of strategic partnership, the Chinese president generously offered mutual cooperation and understanding with the United States.
For his part, President Obama reciprocated on initiatives for closer government communication and co-operation over climate change, cultural exchange, reform of the International Monetary Fund, trade and commerce.
However, a sour note – and a big one too – was Obama’s continued implicit insistence that China is the guilty party on the singular matter of cybercrime, allegedly involving corporate theft, intellectual property violation and government espionage.
The New York Times headlined: ‘Obama and Xi Jinping Agree to Steps on Cybertheft’. Though the newspaper added: «But Mr. Obama said that he had told the Chinese president during two hours of meetings at the White House that the escalating cycle of cyberattacks against American targets‘has to stop,’ warning Mr. Xi that the United States would go after and punish perpetrators of those offenses through traditional law enforcement tools and, potentially, with sanctions».
In other words, Washington is framing the issue as a one-sided problem, ostensibly of Chinese transgression against the US.
Over the past six months, the US media have been ramping up a campaign of vilification against China with numerous, and often sensationalist, allegations of cybercrime. Citing anonymous US officials, the American media have run endless articles claiming that Chinese hackers have invaded US commercial corporations and government agencies, harming American economic performance.
One of the biggest alleged violations was widely reported to have occurred at the Office of Personnel Management in which data on up to 22 million US federal employees had been hacked. Major US media outlets claimed that China was to blame, even though no verifiable evidence has ever been produced to substantiate that.
The Washington Post reported in June: «With a series of major hacks, China builds a database on Americans». Based solely on anonymous official briefings and on opinions of private internet security firms, the Post’s article accused China of using private information about federal employees and their families as a means of recruiting spies. With this kind of xenophobic and alarmist reportage in one of America’s supposedly quality media outlets, it is little wonder that an «anti-China» outlook has been fostered among the US public.
China’s government has flatly rejected those allegations as being «unscientific and unreasonable». Beijing also rebuked Washington for conducting foreign policy on the basis of unfounded suspicion.
Obama, speaking in the White House Rose Garden with President Xi at this side, announced that the two countries had now agreed to «rules of the road» to crackdown on cybercrime.
But still there was an insidious presumption in Obama’s words when he said: «The question now is, ‘Are words followed by actions?’» The implication from the American president is that China’s commitment to combatting cybercrime is suspect, and that future alleged Chinese transgressions are to be anticipated.
Obama then added with a sinister tone: «And we will be watching carefully to make an assessment as to whether progress has been made in this area.»
That gets to the heart of the problem. Obama’s words betray an attitude in which China is not being treated as an equal partner in dealing with a mutual problem. Rather, China is being treated as a miscreant whom the Americans are unilaterally putting on notice over future alleged misdemeanours.
«Neither country’s government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors», reported the New York Times.
That clip from the Times is, at least, tantamount to acknowledging that cybercrime is liable to be committed by criminal elements on both sides.
Nevertheless, it is Washington who is presuming to be the innocent victim, and the «all-knowing» party who alone will determine if China is guilty of any future cyber-transgressions.
Given the American media’s already reprehensible conduct of a lynch-mob campaign against China over cybercrime, we can be sure that more sensationalist allegations of «Chinese hacking» will be rolled out in the future and thereby presented as incriminating «facts».
Then we can expect Obama or his White House successor to intone that China’s actions have not matched its words, and therefore American sanctions are «justified» to penalise Chinese authorities or businesses.
The unproven, and frankly unprovable, American claims against China on the matter of cybercrime therefore appear to be used as a torque on US-China relations. For all we know, the supposed Chinese hack-attacks could actually originate from American agencies for the very purpose of demonising China.
It is a convenient way for Washington to twist, discredit and demonise Beijing. In order to always keep China on the back foot, as having to defend itself from allegations of wrongdoing and untrustworthiness.
Obama’s barely veiled supercilious attitude towards China shows that his words about America «welcoming» Chinese «friendly competition» are disingenuous. On the contrary, Washington sees China rise in global power as a threat to its hegemonic ambitions of control.
The American supposed concern about cybercrime is not on the basis of a mutual or genuine resolution. Instead, it is a contrived issue aimed at exerting control over China and an attempt by Washington to impose a dominant-subordinate relationship.
Washington’s presumption of «judge and jury» on the issue is the telltale evidence of a persistent hegemonic mentality towards China. That mentality will in turn prove to be the source of other conflicts on other issues, whether over territorial disputes or alleged currency manipulation.
Source:http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/09/29/obama-handshakes-china-xi-while-holding-cybercrime-stick-other.html

Putins wichtigsten Aussagen von der UN-Vollversammlun

Unipolare Weltordnung, Flüchtlingskrise und Demokratieexport: Putins wichtigsten Aussagen von der UN-Vollversammlung


Mit Spannung wurde heute die Rede des russischen Präsidenten Wladimir Putins auf der UN-Vollversammlung in New York erwartet. Wir liefern seine wichtigsten Aussagen, wie die zur unipolaren Weltordnung, zur „Demokratisierung“ anderer Staaten, zum IS, zur Lösung der Flüchtlingskrise, zur NATO-Osterweiterung und zur Ukraine-Krise im Wortlaut. 
Quelle: Kremlin.ru
Quelle: Kremlin.ru
Zur unipolaren Weltordnung:
„Wir wissen alle, dass nach dem Ende des Kalten Krieges, und dessen ist sich jeder bewusst, ein einziges Herrschaftszentrum in der Welt entstanden ist und diejenigen, die sich an der Spitze der Pyramide wiederfinden, versucht sind zu glauben, dass sie so stark sind und so außergewöhnlich seien, dass sie es besser wissen als andere und sich nicht mit der UN verständigen müssen, dass sie sozusagen automatisch autorisiert und legitimiert wären, ihre Entscheidungen durchzusetzen. Dem steht die UN entgegen. […] Aber die Versuche die Legitimität der Vereinten Nationen zu untergraben, betrachten wir als extrem gefährlich. Sie könnten zum Zusammenbruch der der gesamten Architektur der internationalen Beziehungen führen und dann blieben keine anderen Regeln mehr übrig als das Gesetz des Stärkeren. Wir hätten dann eine Welt, die von Egoismus, statt von gemeinsamer Arbeit bestimmt wäre. Eine Welt, die vom Diktat bestimmt würde, anstatt von Gleichheit zwischen den Nationen.“
„Demokratisierung“ anderer Länder verursacht Zerstörung und Leid:
„Es scheint so zu sein, dass anstatt aus Fehlern zu lernen, Fehler wiederholt werden. So ist also der Export von Revolutionen jetzt unter dem Deckmantel des Exports von Demokratien ein Versuch, der zum Scheitern verurteilt ist. […] Statt Reformen zu erzielen, hat die Einmischung von außen dazu geführt, dass nationale Institutionen und Unternehmen dieser Länder zerstört wurden, statt des Triumphes der Demokratie und des Fortschritts, erleben wir Gewalt, Armut und soziale Katastrophen und niemand schert sich im Mindesten um Menschenrechte inklusive des Rechts auf Leben. Ich frage diejenigen, die das verursacht haben, wird euch jetzt klar, was ihr angerichtet habt?“
IS eine Eigenproduktion und der Kampf dagegen gleicht einer Heuchelei:
„Man hat erst die sogenannte moderate Opposition bewaffnet und ausgebildet und dann sind sie übergelaufen zum „Islamischen Staat“. Der „Islamische Staat“ selbst, kam doch nicht aus dem Nichts. Er wurde auch ursprünglich als Truppe aufgebaut gegen ungewünschte säkulare Regimes. Hat man daran im Irak und Syrien gedacht? Dort ist der IS entstanden und dringt nun in andere Regionen vor und versucht die Vorherrschaft in der islamischen Welt zu erringen. Die Pläne gehen darüber hinaus. Die Situation ist mehr als gefährlich. Es ist reine Heuchelei jetzt über die Bedrohung des internationalen Terrorismus zu sprechen, während man gleichzeitig ein Auge zudrückt vor den Kanälen der Finanzierung dieses Netzwerkes von Terrorismus, auch durch Drogen- und Waffenschmuggel und so weiter.“

Zur Lösung der Flüchtlingskrise:
„Wir wollen eine Resolution verabschieden zur Koordinierung aller Kräfte, die den Islamischen Staat und andere terroristische Organisationen bekämpfen. Einmal mehr diese Koordinierung sollte auf den Grundsätzen der UN-Charta beruhen. Wir hoffen, dass die internationale Völkergemeinschaft in der Lage sein wird eine umfassende Strategie politischer Stabilisierung zu entwickeln, um auch die soziale und wirtschaftliche Erholung und den Aufschwung im Nahen Osten zu fördern. Dann werden keine neuen Flüchtlingscamps notwendig sein, denn diese Welle der Flüchtlinge hat ja zunächst die Nachbarländer und jetzt Europa überschwemmt. Hunderttausende, vielleicht noch Millionen, die kommen werden. Das ist eine neue große und tragische Völkerwanderung und eine harte Lektion für uns alle, einschließlich Europa. Ich möchte hier noch einmal betonen, dass Flüchtlinge zweifellos unser Mitgefühl und unsere Unterstützung benötigen und um das Problem an den Wurzeln anzugehen, bedarf es der Herstellung von Stabilität in den Heimatländern dieser Flüchtlinge, damit sie dort wieder Chancen auf ein würdiges Leben haben.“

NATO-Osterweiterung Ursache für Bürgerkrieg in der Ukraine:
„Indem wir den Frieden und weltweite Stabilität gewährleisten, führen wir die Aufgabe der Vereinten Nationen aus und sorgen für Gerechtigkeit, die es nicht nur für einige wenige auf dieser Welt gibt, sondern auch die Aufgabe für alle anderen ist. Dazu gibt es keine Alternative. Wir können nicht mehr in den Kriterien des Kalten Krieges denken. Bei manchen sitzt das noch immer in den Köpfen. Sie verfolgen noch immer ihre Politik der Ausweitung der Einflusssphäre, der NATO beispielsweise. […] Dadurch stellen sie uns vor eine falsche Wahl. Früher oder später wird diese Logik der Konfrontation in einer politischen Krise enden. Das ist genau das, was in der Ukraine geschehen ist und geschieht. Die Bevölkerung wurde missbraucht und das Militär in der Ukraine wurde missbraucht. Und was hat man nun davon? Einen Bürgerkrieg in der Ukraine. Nur durch die völlige Umsetzung des Minsker Abkommens können wir dem Blutvergießen ein Ende setzen.“
Die gesamte Rede auf Englisch im folgenden Video: