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West ignores humanitarian crisis in east Ukraine: Analyst

The West is turning a blind eye to the current humanitarian crisis in east Ukraine, a political analyst tells Press TV as thousands of people are reportedly fleeing their homes amid Kiev’s military operations. “The international response [to the humanitarian crisis] has been a total failure, and it appears to me that it has been very organized because these attacks on the civilians to get them to run have been perpetrated primarily to try to create its mass punishment again,” Jim W. Dean, an editor and columnist with Veterans Today, said in an interview with Press TV on Saturday. He added that the West and media’s silence regarding the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine are considered as an approval for having “terror used as a weapon against east Ukrainian people for them to achieve some geopolitical goal that they have.” The analyst also noted that the shelling by the Ukraine army is “nothing more than a terror weapon to get people to flee.” On Friday, the Office of the United ...

China probed 25k people for graft in 2014′s first half: Report

China has investigated more than 25,000 people for corruption in the first half of 2014 amid a nationwide crackdown on graft, state media reports. The investigation of major corruption cases has increased by nearly 14 percent over the corresponding period last year, China’s official Xinhua news agency said on Friday. Approximately 85 percent of the cases involved bribes of over USD 8,000 or embezzlement of at least twice that amount, the news agency said, citing the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP). “The SPP will set up a leading … [task] group to retrieve bribery funds from overseas, enhance its supervision over major cases, and build a database of information about fugitive officials,” the news agency said. The statement comes as the Chinese government embarks on a wide-scale campaign against deep-rooted graft since President Xi Jinping kicked off an anti-corruption campaign two years ago. Since then, several high-profile lawmakers have been expelled from the ruling Com...

Company In Which Joe Biden's Son Is Director Prepares To Drill Shale Gas In East Ukraine

Recall what we said earlier today: the proxy Ukraine war just like that in Syria preceding it, "is all about energy." Recall also the following chart showing Ukraine's shale gas deposits, keeping in mind that the Dnieper-Donets basin which lies in the hotly contested eastern part of the nation and where as everyone knows by now a bloody civil war is raging, is the major oil and gas producing region of Ukraine accounting for approximately 90 per cent of Ukrainian production and according to EIA may have 42 tcf of shale gas resources technically recoverable from 197 tcf of risked shale gas in place. Finally, recall our story from May that Joe Biden's son, Hunter, just joined the board of the largest Ukraine gas producer Burisma Holdings. From the press release : R. Hunter Biden will be in charge of the Holdings’ legal unit and will provide support for the Company among international organizations. On his new appointment, he commented: “Burisma’s track record of ...

Under Military Plan, U.S. Could Help Ukraine Target Rebels’ Missiles

The Pentagon and American intelligence agencies are developing plans that would enable the Obama administration to provide specific locations of surface-to-air missiles controlled by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine so the Ukrainian government could target them for destruction, American officials said. But the proposal has not yet been debated in the White House, a senior administration official said. It is unclear whether President Obama , who has already approved limited intelligence sharing with Ukraine, will agree to give more precise information about potential military targets, a step that would involve the United States more deeply in the conflict. Already, the question of what kind of intelligence support to give the Ukrainian government has become part of a larger debate within the administration about how directly to confront President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and how big a role Washington should take in trying to stop Russia’s rapid delivery of powerful we...

Ex-Chief of C.I.A. Shapes Response to Detention Report

WASHINGTON — Just after the Senate Intelligence Committee voted in April to declassify hundreds of pages of a withering report on the Central Intelligence Agency ’s detention and interrogation program, C.I.A. Director John O. Brennan convened a meeting of the men who had played a role overseeing the program in its seven-year history. The spies, past and present, faced each other around the long wooden conference table on the seventh floor of the C.I.A.’s headquarters in Northern Virginia: J. Cofer Black, head of the agency’s counterterrorism center at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks; the undercover officer who now holds that job; and a number of other former officials from the C.I.A.’s clandestine service. Over the speakerphone came the distinctive, Queens-accented voice of George J. Tenet. Over the past several months, Mr. Tenet has quietly engineered a counterattack against the Senate committee’s voluminous report, which could become public next month. The effort to discredit the r...

Can Putin Survive?

By George Friedman There is a general view that Vladimir Putin governs the Russian Federation as a dictator, that he has defeated and intimidated his opponents and that he has marshaled a powerful threat to surrounding countries. This is a reasonable view, but perhaps it should be re-evaluated in the context of recent events. Ukraine and the Bid to Reverse Russia's Decline Ukraine is, of course, the place to start. The country is vital to Russia as a buffer against the West and as a route for delivering energy to Europe, which is the foundation of the Russian economy. On Jan. 1, Ukraine's president was Viktor Yanukovich, generally regarded as favorably inclined to Russia. Given the complexity of Ukrainian society and politics, it would be unreasonable to say Ukraine under him was merely a Russian puppet. But it is fair to say that under Yanukovich and his supporters, fundamental Russian interests in Ukraine were secure. This was extremely important to Putin. Part of the reason ...

Iraq Is Divided but Not Fractured

The ability of Iraq's various ethnic and sectarian political actors to elect a president and a parliamentary speaker in just nine days, despite the ongoing Sunni insurrection and Islamic State offensive, belies claims of the demise of the Iraqi nation. However, Iraq is not exactly a single political entity. The Kurds are seeking as much autonomy as they can get and the Sunnis are in rebellion, meaning that Iraq -- a federal entity on paper -- will largely behave as a confederation over time. On July 24, Iraqi lawmakers elected senior Kurdish leader Fouad Massoum as the country's new president. Massoum's election comes a week after lawmakers chose Sunni leader Salim al-Jubouri as parliamentary speaker. Deciding which Shiite leader will become prime minister , the most powerful position in the post-Baathist republic, is the next step in forming a government following the April 30 elections. Understanding the tensions within and among Iraq's three main communal groups is ...

Nicaragua: Political Attacks Pose No Imminent Threat to Government

Supporters of the Sandinista National Liberation Front fly party flags at the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution in Managua on July 19.(Inti Ocon/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Two ambushes of buses carrying political supporters of Nicaragua's ruling party signal a notable escalation in political violence in the country. The attacks, conducted by gunmen on July 19 and 20, mark the deadliest instances of political violence since the end of Nicaragua's Contra insurgency, which lasted from 1979 to 1990. The incidents suggest the presence of small, politically motivated militant groups operating against the government. A group calling itself the National Salvation Forces-Popular Army claimed responsibility. However, guerrillas operating in the country likely lack the popular and financial support that would be needed to pose an immediate threat to the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front. Analysis The gunmen targeted two buses in Matagalpa department...