Posted on 09/22/2013 7:09:56 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
The Kremlin warned Ukraine that a free trade agreement with the EU would cause inevitable financial catastrophe and possibly the collapse of the state.
Russia is pushing to derail the integration agreement. Instead, Moscow wants Ukraine to enter its own customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, which critics call a reincarnation of the Soviet Union. Russia has made it clear that Ukraine cannot sign both agreements.
At a discussion forum in the Black Sea resort of Yalta over the weekend, European politicians gathered to pepper Ukraine's president and political elite with encouragement to cement the country's turn from Moscow towards Brussels.
Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine's trade minister, gave Sergei Glazyev, adviser to Vladimir Putin, a public dressing down. Glazyev was faced with jeering and catcalls for demanding that Ukraine abandon the EU pact and turn to Russia. Poroshenko said the Kremlin's heavy-handed tactics and threats of a trade war made European integration inevitable.
"For the first time in our history more than 50% of people support European integration, and less than 30% of the people support closer ties with Russia," said Poroshenko. "Thank you very much for that Mr Glazyev."
Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, accused Russia of a "19th century mode of operating towards neighbours". He added that only when Ukraine is allied with Europe will Russia begin to respect the country. "Poland's relations with Russia are better now that we are a member of the EU and Nato," said Sikorski. "When the question is open people feel entitled to exert pressure; when the question is closed they have to live with a sovereign country."
Glazyev said the exact opposite is true: "Ukrainian authorities make a huge mistake if they think that the Russian reaction will become neutral in a few years from now. This will not happen."
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Same argument people here use against unfettered trade.
So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority. You know, I’ve always believed that old Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the Church. So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride–the temptation of blithely..uh..declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
Good ole Putin, such a nice dictator.
The Russians tried (and almost succeeded) to poison the President of Ukraine. How 30% could want to ally with someone any sane people would be shooting at is a mystery to me.
You have that backwards. WE are supporting the moslem insurgents who decapitated the girl. The Russians are supporting the side of the Christians in Syria.
The eastern half of the country votes very strongly pro Russian. The eastern half is pro EU. Electoral maps there are quite stark in the differences.
make that the WESTERN half votes vey strongly EU. There are very few Oblasts that are mixed.
Thanks DeaconBenjamin (and Olog-hai).
Russia warns Ukraine against EU deal [threats]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3069539/posts
Russia hits at Ukraine with chocolate war
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3054417/posts
Clintons Urge Ukraine to Spurn Russian Pressure, Sign Deal with European Union
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3069797/posts
The ultimate solution may very well be to split the country....Ukraine could become a huge powder keg if both sides are careless.
Yes free trade is for idiots and losers. For nations with a suicide death wish. Next question?
How is that a solution? You into the Clintoon old-world-empire-building too?
On the Syrian-Lebanese-Iranian alliance.
Lebanon Is NOT Innocent (David Horowitz Slams The Lebanon “Innocent Bystander” Myth Alert)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1671142/posts
Maronites are the predominant Christian population in Lebanon.
Harb pledges to be forceful president [Maronite "ready to fight" Israel, "protect Hezbollah"]
Lebanese Lobby (Lebanon) ^ | 11SEP07 | Francis Matthew
Posted on Wed Sep 12 03:12:26 2007 by familyop
"Beirut: Boutros Harb, long-serving Maronite Lebanese Member of Parliament, is standing for president and reaching out to the Shiite Hezbollah, across the political divide in the country.
[...]
"I have proposed that the Lebanese army and government must be in control of declaring war, and that we should find a way to incorporate Hezbollah's forces into the army. But this has to be on the condition that the Lebanese government and army accept the full duty of being ready to fight and protect Hezbollah if Israel attacks," he said, adding that it was also important that Lebanon had to liberate the occupied territory of the Sheba'a Farms from Israel."
Lebanese leaders call for unity [All of them support the terrorists. ...always have.]
CNN International ^ | 20JUL06 | CNN
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1668991/posts
"The ship is sinking and all of us, the Lebanese, should stick together and work together to stop the Israeli aggression," Amin Gemayel, a Maronite Christian who served as president from 1982 to 1988, told the Arabic-language TV station Al-Jazeera . . . Michel Aoun, a one-time commander in Lebanon's 15-year civil war who now serves in parliament, said . . . "I don't think that Israel has the capability to destroy Hezbollah militarily because Hezbollah is not a group of armed men," Aoun said. "Hezbollah is a major part of the Lebanese social fabric."
Lebanon Turns to the Vatican to Halt Israeli Offensive
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1668754/posts
Vatican Condemns Israel for Attacks on Lebanon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1665678/posts
Commencement Address at Boston College (Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Boston, Massachusetts, May 22, 2006. US Department of State)
Excerpts:
As a student of a Catholic high school, the Sisters of Loretta taught me, I am pleased to be at an institution of higher education with such strong and celebrated Catholic and Jesuit traditions . . . You see, I got my Master's Degree at Notre Dame. (Boos.) I acquired a passion for the fighting Irish . . . and my family has been college educated and Presbyterian ever since. (Laughter and applause.) . . . I wandered into a course on international politics taught by a Czech refugee who specialized in Soviet studies, a man who had a daughter by the name of Madeleine Albright. With that one class, I was hooked. I discovered that my passion was Russia and all things Russian.
Russian Orthodox 15-20%, Muslim 10-15%, other Christian 2% (2006 est.) note: estimates are of practicing worshipers; Russia has large populations of non-practicing believers and non-believers, a legacy of over seven decades of Soviet rule
Muslim 47%, Russian Orthodox 44%, Protestant 2%, other 7%
Muslim 75%, Russian Orthodox 20%, other 5%
Sunni Muslim 85%, Shi'a Muslim 5%, other 10% (2003 est.)
Religions: Muslim 88% (mostly Sunnis), Eastern Orthodox 9%, other 3%
Eastern Orthodox 80%, other (including Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim) 20% (1997 est.)
Armenian Apostolic 94.7%, other Christian 4%, Yezidi (monotheist with elements of nature worship) 1.3%
MOSCOW, Russia, July 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Russian nationalist youth group is encouraging youth to have more sex in an effort to combat the nation's devastating demographic crisis, reports the Daily Mail.
In a lengthy special report the Daily Mail documents the activities of the Nashi youth movement, which is sponsoring a summer camp attended by some 10,000 Russian youth this summer. Not only are Nashi organizers encouraging the youth to have more sex, but they have designated a special area at the dormitories, the Love Oasis, for young men and women to engage in sexual intercourse. According to the Mail, condoms are unavailable in the camp.
"They [The pre-historic mammoths] became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia," said a Nashi organizer to a group of assembled campers.
The nationalistic camp involves two weeks of lectures, reported by some Western sources as being little more than anti-Western "propaganda," as well as a strenuous regimen of physical exercise. Numerous young couples have also been married at the camp, with 25 couples being married at the beginning of the first week, and ten to be married at the beginning of the second.
While many people, especially in the West, are finding in the Kremlin-initiated, and Kremlin-loyal Nashi youth group a disturbing image of similar groups started up in Nazi-era Germany, the camp's approach to sex is further evidence that the Russian government is not unaware that a demographic crisis is leading the entire Russian nation towards an early grave.
The war in Georgia has provoked unprecedented levels of patriosm in Russia. The majority of the population supported their army's actions in the Caucasus. And even the fiercest critics of the Kremlin have now become proud Russians.
Members of the Kremlin-loyal youth organisation "Nashi" wave flags and hold a banner during a protest in front of the US embassy in Moscow during the Georgia war.
Russia's president devoted the largest part of his annual State of Russia speech to reversing Russia's population decline.
If Russian couples have a third child, they will get a baby bonus, better health care, and free land to build a house or dacha, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev promised in his annual State of Russia speech.
Political analysts were hoping to hear about missiles or democracy. Instead they got babies.
[...]
What he did not say is that Russia compensates for its aging workforce by importing about 10 million laborers a year from Central Asia. After the United States, Russia is now the second-largest importer of workers. This influx of overwhelmingly Muslim workers creates tensions in Russia, where the population is largely Orthodox Christian.
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