US designates Russia's Wagner military group an intl 'criminal organization'

 Yahoo - AFP, January 20, 2023 

The United States on Friday designated Russia's Wagner group as a "transnational criminal organization," raising pressure on the private Russian army fighting in Ukraine. 

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Wagner, controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman close to President Vladimir Putin, has about 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, 80 percent of them drawn from prisons. 

Kirby showed US intelligence photographs of North Korea supplying arms to Wagner for its Ukraine operations, and said the private army has become a rival to the formal Russian military. 

The photographs, from November 18-19, show Russian rail cars entering North Korea, picking up a load of infantry rockets and missiles, and returning to Russia, he said. 

He said the US Treasury was formally designating Wagner as a transnational criminal organization, putting it in league with Italian mafia groups and Japanese and Russian organized crime. 

The designation will allow the wider application of sanctions on the group’s sprawling global network, which includes mercenary operations as well as businesses in Africa and elsewhere. 

Wagner "is a criminal organization that is committing widespread atrocities and human rights abuses," Kirby said. 

"We will work relentlessly to identify, disrupt, expose and target those who are assisting Wagner," he said. 

Kirby also said the United States had presented its intelligence on Wagner's North Korean purchase to the UN Security Council's unit on North Korea sanctions. 

The arms transfers from North Korea are in direct violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, Kirby said. 

Kirby said there is evidence that Prigozhin's confidence in Wagner fighters' relative success in Ukraine has generated tensions in the Kremlin. 

"Wagner is becoming a rival power center to the Russian military and other Russian ministries," Kirby said. 

"Prigozhin is trying to advance his own interest in Ukraine and Wagner is making military decisions based largely on what they will generate for Prigozhin, in terms of positive publicity."

'Butcher' Putin 'cannot remain in power': Biden

Yahoo – AFP, Aurélia END, 26 March 2022 

US President Joe Biden, with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz (c) visiting Ukrainian
refugees in Warsaw on Saturday (AFP/Brendan Smialowski)

President Joe Biden on Saturday called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a "butcher" who "cannot remain in power" after meeting top Ukrainian ministers for the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

Within minutes of his comments during a visit to Warsaw, a White House official played down the remarks saying Biden "was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change". 

"The president's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region," the official said. 

Biden compared Ukraine's resistance against Russia to the anti-Soviet "battle for freedom" and said the world must prepare for a "long fight ahead". 

"We stand with you," he told Ukrainians in a sweeping speech at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, which he began with the words of late Polish pope John Paul II: "Be not afraid." 

He said Russia had suffered a "strategic failure" in Ukraine and told ordinary Russians they were "not our enemy", urging them to blame Putin for the heavy sanctions imposed by the West. 

He also warned Russia not to move on an "inch" of NATO territory, reiterating the "sacred obligation" of collective defence for alliance members. 

"We will have a different future, a brighter future rooted in democracy and principle, hope and light. 

"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power," he said, concluding his address. 

Russian missile fragment 

Biden earlier on Saturday met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who made a rare trip out of Ukraine in a possible sign of growing confidence in the fightback against Russian forces. 

The meeting took place at the Marriott Hotel in the city centre -- opposite a Warsaw train station where there has been a constant flow of Ukrainian refugees since the conflict started. 

Biden sat at a long white table between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, facing Kuleba and Reznikov, an AFP reporter saw. 

There were Ukrainian and US flags in the background. 

During the meeting Biden was flanked by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (far right, facing) and sitting opposite Kuleba and
Reznikov (front 3rd right) (AFP/Brendan Smialowski)

Kuleba gave Biden the fragment of a Russian missile that struck a base in Yavoriv near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv close to the Polish border. 

"The invincible character of Ukrainians and Western ones, especially US ones, are the recipe for our victory," Kuleba said after the meeting. 

Kuleba said he had discussed new sanctions that could be imposed against Russia and how to ensure the current ones are properly implemented. 

Blinken and Austin "pledged continued support to meet Ukraine's humanitarian, security, and economic needs", State Department spokesperson Ned Price said. 

Biden last met Kuleba in Washington on February 22 -- two days before Russia launched its assault. 

Since then, Kuleba has also met Blinken in Poland, next to the border with Ukraine on March 5. 

'He's a butcher' 

The US leader later visited a refugee centre at the National Stadium in Warsaw where he met several refugees, including some from the city of Mariupol which has suffered the worst of Russia's assault. 

Asked by reporters what he thought of Putin's actions, Biden responded simply: "He's a butcher." 

"I remember what it's like when you have someone in a war zone and every morning you get up and you wonder, you are just wondering, you are praying you don't get that phone call," said Biden, whose son Beau served in Iraq before dying of a brain tumour. 

He also said he was "not sure" that Russia had changed its strategy in Ukraine after assertions by Russian officials that they were altering their war aims to concentrate on the eastern Donbas region. 

During his visit, Biden also told Polish President Andrzej Duda that NATO's collective defence was a "sacred commitment" for the US, adding: "You can count on that... For your freedom and ours." 

Duda told him that Poles felt a "great sense of threat" from the conflict in neighbouring Ukraine.

Whistleblowers: What does US law say about them?

Yahoo – AFP, October 6, 2019

Acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire told Congress he was acting
within the law when he opted not to forward a whistleblower complaint to lawmakers
(AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

Washington (AFP) - At least two, and possibly more, US officials with knowledge of the impeachment allegations against President Donald Trump have formally sought the protections that US law affords whistleblowers, according to their lawyers.

Both whistleblowers are said to be members of the US intelligence community, which has its own strict set of requirements to obtain protected status.

A narrow legal path

Passed by Congress in 1998 and amended in 2010, the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act established specific procedures for employees to follow in reporting conduct that relates to classified information.

The whistleblower is protected from retaliation, including firing, provided that he or she follows the narrowly defined protocol.

Any whistleblower must signal his or her complaint to the inspector general of the intelligence community, who has 14 days to review it.

If it is deemed credible and of "urgent concern," the complaint is then forwarded to the director of national intelligence, who oversees the nation's intelligence services.

"Urgent concern" is defined as "a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of law or executive order, or deficiency relating to the funding, administration, or operation of an intelligence activity ... involving classified information, but does not include differences of opinions concerning public policy matters."

The DNI then has a week to forward the complaint and any additional information to the House and Senate intelligence committees.

The Ukraine call

On August 12, a member of the intelligence community -- a CIA officer, according to The New York Times -- filed a complaint about a July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The complaint signaled an issue of "urgent concern" -- namely, that the "President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US election."

Inspector General Michael Atkinson deemed the complaint credible and forwarded it to acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire.

But after consulting with the Justice Department and White House attorneys, Maguire -- recently named to his post by Trump -- concluded that he was not obligated to inform Congress, saying the complaint fell short of the bar.

Atkinson did inform lawmakers of the complaint's existence, however, but not its content, setting off a struggle between the House Intelligence Committee and the administration.

On September 25, that struggle was resolved when the complaint was released by the director of national intelligence to the Intelligence Committee, which made it public the following day.

A second whistleblower has since come forward, according to their lawyers, who said on October 6 that this one has first-hand knowledge of the events in question.

"They also made a protected disclosure under the law and cannot be retaliated against," Mark Zaid, the informant's lawyer, said on Twitter.

The second complaint has not been released.

Executive privilege

The president's right to withhold information on the basis of executive privilege has been a sticking point between Congress and the White House since the intelligence whistleblower law first took effect in 1998.

Former president Bill Clinton, who signed the law, said at the time that it did not "constrain" his "constitutional authority" to review and control disclosure of classified information to Congress, noted Robert Litt, a former general counsel to the Office of the DNI, on the Lawfare blog.

Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith, a former White House counsel, has said that executive privilege should prevail in these circumstances.

But after initially resisting, the White House has opted for disclosure, releasing a rough transcript of the president's Ukraine call on September 25, the day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched an impeachment inquiry.

The original whistleblower complaint was made public on September 26.

Interpol issues wanted notice for Ukraine's former President Yanukovych

Interpol has issued a global "red notice" for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The 64-year-old is accused of financial wrongdoing. Russian sources have indicated Moscow would be unlikely to extradite him.

Deutsche Welle, 12 Jan 2015

International police network Interpol said on Monday it had placed Yanukovych on its international wanted list on charges of embezzlement and financial wrongdoing.

Ukrainian authorities said Interpol's publication of the "red notice" - authorizing Yanukovych's arrest - empowered any police force to hand him over to Ukraine.

However, Russia - where Yanukovych has taken refuge since he was ousted from power in February 2014 - is unlikely to extradite him, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Probe into 'The Family'

Yanukovych fled to Russia in February after months of street protests in Kiev over his decision to withdraw from an association agreement between Ukraine and the EU. Yanokovych was said to have been intent instead on strengthening Kyiv's economic and political ties with Moscow.

Pro-Western authorities have accused Yanukovych - as well as a group of relatives and close allies known as The Family - of accumulating huge wealth by robbing state funds and plundering national assets.

Yanukovych, who Russia claims was the victim of a coup, denies that he or members of his family were involved in corruption.

rc/tj (AF, Reuters)

Thirst for democracy catches world powers off guard

Google – AFP, Nicolas Revise (AFP), 1 March 2014

Thai anti-government protesters carry a large national flag as they parade

during a rally in Bangkok on January 25, 2014 (AFP/File, Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

Washington — Time was, overturning a freely-elected government would have earned a sharp US rebuke. But as people power revolts sweep some countries, Washington is increasingly giving its blessing to ousting leaders accused of betraying democracy.

From Egypt, where the nation's first democratically-elected president Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi was toppled in July by the army, to Ukraine where Viktor Yanukovych, brought to power in 2010 polls, fled his post after months of street protests, the US has had to fine-tune its response.

Indeed US Secretary of State John Kerry said bluntly this week: "A democracy is not defined solely by an election."

"You can have a democratically-elected government, but you don't have democratically-instituted reforms that actually give you a democracy, a full, practicing, functioning democracy," Kerry told reporters.

"And what you have in many places is a general election, a popular election, absent reform, present with great corruption, great cronyism and a huge distortion of democratic process."

While at first glance protests in Thailand and Venezuela may have nothing in common with the demonstrations against the elected leaders in Ukraine and Egypt, analysts and diplomats argue there is often a common core.

It is "an incredible yearning for modernity, for change, for choice, for empowerment of individuals that is moving across the world, and in many cases moving a lot faster than political leadership is either aware of or able to respond to," Kerry said.

-'People must act'-

French intellectual Jacques Attali, once an advisor to former president François Mitterrand, asked "what are the people supposed to do when democracy has been betrayed by those they brought to power?"

People stand on the awning outside the regional government building

in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on March 1, 2014 (AFP, Sergey Bobok)

"The people have to act, demonstrate, remind the leaders of their promises. And if they don't succeed in convincing them, they have to bring them down," wrote Attali in his blog for the French magazine L'Express.

Despite accusations from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro that the US is fomenting unrest in his country, analysts see little direct involvement by Washington in triggering revolts even if later on, such as in Ukraine, there is an open eagerness to help the struggle towards democracy.

Top US diplomat for Europe, Victoria Nuland, even visited the protestors on Independence Square in Kiev in December to hand out bread in a high-profile show of support for their desire to move closer to Europe and away from the clutches of the communist authorities in Moscow, which since the end of the Cold War has had difficult ties with the US.

"It is accurate to say that where regimes violate human rights, move in that direction or are involved in corruption, that those patterns of behavior are viewed negatively by the US, the UK and other countries," said Mark Schneider, senior vice president of the International Crisis Group.

"But I think that it is rare that they move from that judgment to support in any way violent activities. I think they are almost always somewhat surprised by the depth, power, determination to accept sacrifice by people in certain circumstances."

The situation in Thailand, a constitutional monarchy since 1932 where the king is highly revered, is somewhat unique.

Protestors have been pressing for Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to step aside in favor of an unelected "people's council" to introduce vaguely defined reforms such as tackling alleged corruption.

- A new 'class conflict'-

An anti-corruption panel is now pressing negligence charges against Yingluck that could lead to her removal from office and a five-year ban from politics.

Demonstrators stand next to car on fire during a protest against the

 government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in San Cristobal, capital

 of the western border state of Tachira, Venezuela, on February 22, 2014 

(AFP/File, Luis Robayo)

But Paul Chambers, director of research at the Institute of South East Asian Affairs at Chiang Mai University, harked back to the radical philosophers of the early 20th century to draw parallels with a new "class conflict."

"Dominant parties which continue to benefit from such (elite) systems are seen by mostly middle and upper classes as impediments to freedom and facilitators of corruption," argued Chambers, while lower classes have a more basic desire for empowerment found just by casting a vote.

"These clashing concepts of democracy and democratic legitimacy threatens to rapidly destabilize the political essence of mostly young democracies, reducing nations to potential civil war, a rebirth of tyranny and economic malaise," argued Chambers.

Kerry called late Friday for an investigation into "politically-motivated" attacks which have left 23 people dead in Thailand, including four children, but renewed assurances that Washington is not taking sides in the upheaval.

He had the same message for Venezuela urging dialogue and revealing that the United States is working with its allies in South America to find an acceptable third party to help mediate an end to three weeks of often violent protests against Maduro's lefist government.

"Unlike in Ukraine, right now in Venezuela there is no an alternative power strong enough to initiate regime change," said political professor Carlos Romero from the Universidad Central de Venezuela.

He bemoaned that so far there had been no international effort to end the violence, unlike the diplomatic flurry around Ukraine and Egypt, an absence he attributed to his country's lack of geopolitical significance.

Related Article:

"Fast-Tracking" - Feb 8, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - New

Protesters hail freed Tymoshenko but Ukraine leader defiant

Google – AFP, Dmitry Zaks (AFP), 22 February 2014

Newly freed Ukrainian opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko speaks at Independence

 Square on February 22, 2014, moments after parliament voted to hold early

presidential elections in May (AFP, Bulent Kilic)

Kiev — Ukrainian protesters seized control of the capital Kiev on Saturday in a historic cascade of events that saw jailed opposition icon Yulia Tymoshenko walk free while marginalised President Viktor Yanukovych defiantly claimed to still wield power.

The situation in the ex-Soviet nation -- deeply divided between aspirations towards the European Union and loyalty to Russia -- was still fluid and uncertainty reigned over whether the opposition had definitively triumphed over Yanukovych on a day of high drama exactly three months into the country's crisis.

But there was clearly no more evidence of the brutal violence that had charred the heart of Kiev for much of this week and left nearly 100 people dead.

Yulia Tymoshenko leaving hospital in

 Kharkiv (Batkivshchyna Party Press

Service Pool/AFP, Inna Petrikova)

The tens of thousands of protesters who had occupied the city's central Independence Square discovered that security forces had all but abandoned government and presidential buildings and that anyone was now free to enter unchallenged.

They and other city residents gawped in awe and anger at the ostentatious luxury Yanukovych had built up inside a private estate that featured everything from a private zoo to a replica galleon floating on an artificial waterway.

Yanukovych gave a television interview from the pro-Russian eastern bastion city of Kharkiv denouncing the "coup" against him and branding his political foes "bandits" -- comments that won firm support from his backers in Moscow.

But the army issued a statement saying it "will in no way become involved in the political conflict" and the police force declared itself in support of "the people" and "rapid change".

British Foreign Secretary William Hague sounded an encouraging note about the "extraordinary developments" in Ukraine.

"Events in the last 24 hours show the will of Ukrainians to move towards a different future, and ensure that the voices of those who have protested courageously over several months are heard," Hague said in a statement.

The parliament in Kiev stepped into the power vacuum left by Yanukovych's departure by voting to oust the embattled president and setting new elections for May 25.

Lawmakers followed that up with an equally dramatic move ordering the release of Tymoshenko -- a former premier and stalwart supporter of close EU ties who remained Yanukovych's nemesis even when she was sent to prison in 2011 on a seven-year sentence for "abuse of power".

Anti-government protesters react after the

 vote of the Ukrainian Parliament as they

rally outside the parliament building in 

Kiev on February 22, 2014 (AFP, 

Bulent Kilic)

The fiery 53-year-old co-leader of the 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution then appeared in a wheelchair on Independence Square's main stage to a rapturous welcome from a 50,000-strong crowd.

"You are heroes, you are the best of Ukraine," she said before breaking down in tears.

Priests conducted a religious ceremony for one of the protesters killed this week before she arrived, and many in the crowd lit up their mobile phones to create a sea of light.

The US government welcomed Tymoshenko's release and wisher her "a speedy recovery as she seeks the appropriate medical treatment that she has long needed and sought" while incarcerated.

The developments showed the balance of power in Ukraine swinging in the opposition's favour and seemingly superseding a Western-brokered pact Yanukovych had signed just a day earlier with the opposition to resolve the country's bloodiest conflict since its independence in 1991.

The crisis had erupted in November when Yanukovych had dumped a pact promising closer ties with the European Union in favour of hewing closer to Soviet-era master Russia.

- Yanukovych refuses to resign -

"This is a political knockout for Yanukovych," charismatic former-boxer-turned-opposition-leader Vitali Klitschko said in a statement Saturday.

"Yanukovych is no longer president."

But Yanukovych vowed flatly to fight any attempt to topple him.

Anti-government protesters stand guard in

 front of the parliament building in Kiev on

February 22, 2014 (AFP, Bulent Kilic)

"I am not leaving the country for anywhere. I do not intend to resign. I am the legitimately elected president," the 63-year-old leader, who took office in 2010, said in a firm voice.

Yanukovych added with a hint of outrage that "everything happening today can primarily be described as vandalism, banditry and a coup d'etat".

Yet the president's grasp on power appeared limited on Saturday. Government buildings stood without police protection and baton-armed protesters dressed in military fatigues wandered freely across his once-fortified compound.

"We have taken the perimeter of the president's residence under our control for security reasons," Mykola Velichkovich of the opposition's self-declared 'Independence Square defence unit' told AFP.

Thousands of mourners meanwhile brought carnations and roses to dozens of locations across central Kiev at which people were shot dead by police in a week of carnage.

Coffins draped with Ukraine's blue-and-yellow passed from shoulder to shoulder through the crowd before being taken outside the city for burial.

Thousands of residents also took their first-ever tour of Yanukovych's lavish private residence just north of Kiev, gaping at a zoo, a galleon and other extravagances the leader had enjoyed behind high walls.

"I am in shock," a retired military servicewoman named Natalia Rudenko said as she inspected the president's rare pheasant collection and a banquet hall built inside the galleon replica.

"In a country with so much poverty, how can one person have so much?"

- Russia unsettled -

People cheer in front of the parliament

 building in Kiev on February 22, 2014

(AFP, Bulent Kilic)

The months of Ukrainian protests had escalated into a Cold War-style confrontation, pitting attempts by the Kremlin to keep reins on its historic fiefdom against EU and US efforts to bring the economically struggling nation of 46 million into the West's fold.

Russa's foreign ministry accused the opposition of "submitting itself to armed extremists and looters whose actions pose a direct threat to the sovereignty and constitutional order of Ukraine".

Yanukovych's ruling Regions Party, that had previously pushed Ukraine closer toward Russia, stood in disarray amid mass defections by lawmakers to opposition ranks.

More than 40 lawmakers had already quit the Regions Party -- once in control of 208 votes in the 450-seat Rada -- since the deadly unrest first erupted on Tuesday.

Deputies also named Tymoshenko ally Arsen Avakov as interior minister in place of Vitaliy Zakharchenko -- a figure hated by the opposition who is blamed for ordering the police to open fire on unarmed protesters.

Related Articles:

Ukrainian opposition calls for elections by May 25

Tearful Ukrainians win Sochi gold for grieving nation

"Fast-Tracking" - Feb 8, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - New

US under fire in global press freedom report

Google -  AFP, 12 February 2014

Protestors hold up placards featuring a picture of former NSA contractor Edward

 Snowden and with the world Asylum on it during a march against the spying methods

 of the US in Hamburg, northern Germany on December 28, 2013 (DPA/AFP/File,

Bodo Marks)

Paris — Conflicts continued to weigh heavily on the media last year but press freedom was also under increasing threat from abuses by democracies like the United States, Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday.

In its annual World Press Freedom Index, the Paris-based media rights watchdog warned of the "growing threat worldwide" from the "tendency to interpret national security needs in an overly broad and abusive manner".

The United States was singled out for its pursuit of intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, the conviction of WikiLeaks informer Bradley Manning and the secret seizure of phone records from the Associated Press.

The group, known by its French acronym RSF, said the United States had suffered "one of the most significant declines" in press freedom last year, dropping 13 places to 46th in the 180-country index, wedged between Romania and Haiti.

"Countries that pride themselves on being democracies and respecting the rule of law have not set an example, far from it," RSF said.

Syria remained especially deadly for journalists last year, with RSF reporting nearly 130 media professionals killed in the country since its conflict began in March 2011.

Syria's overall ranking of fourth from the bottom was unchanged, but RSF has raised concerns about a surge in kidnappings.

Armed conflicts hurt press freedom elsewhere, with Mali falling 22 spots to 122nd and the Central African Republic dropping 43 places to 109th.

The top-ranked countries were Finland, The Netherlands and Norway, unchanged from last year.

At the bottom again were Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan, described by RSF as "news and information black holes and living hells for the journalists who inhabit them".

Britain dropped three places in the ranking to 33rd, with RSF blaming the "disgraceful pressure" it put on newspaper The Guardian over its reporting of Snowden's revelations of widespread spying by the US National Security Agency.

In Asia, Japan dropped five spots to 59th, with RSF criticising the adoption late last year of a new "intelligence protection" law that stiffens penalties for those who spill state secrets.

China, which dropped one spot to 175th, "continues to censor and jail dissident bloggers and journalists", RSF said.

Bulgaria remained the lowest-ranked European Union country in the index, but was "closely challenged" by Greece, which is ranked 99th after years of financial pressure on the media and some violence against journalists.

The report also highlighted "noteworthy rises" in countries where "violence against journalists, direct censorship and misuse of judicial proceedings are on the decline" -- including in Panama, Ecuador, Bolivia and the Dominican Republic.

Here are some selected rankings from the index:

1. Finland

2. The Netherlands

3. Norway

...

14. Germany

16. Ireland

18. Canada

23. Belgium

28. Australia

33. Britain

39. France

42. South Africa

46. United States

59. Japan

109. Central African Republic

111. Brazil

112. Nigeria

122. Mali

127. Ukraine

140. India

148. Russia

152. Mexico

154. Turkey

158. Pakistan

159. Egypt

...

177. Syria

178. Turkmenistan

179. North Korea

180. Eritrea

Related Article:

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“…  Government

Let us speak of government. We're not speaking of your government, but of any government - the way it works, how it survives, how it has survived, the way it campaigns, and how it elects leaders. It's going to change.

Years ago, I told you, "When everybody can talk to everybody, there can be no secrets." Up to this point on this planet, government has counted on one thing - that the people can't easily talk to each other on a global scale. They have to get their information through government or official channels. Even mass media isn't always free enough, for it reports that which the government reports. Even a free society tends to bias itself according to the bias of the times. However, when you can have Human Beings talking to each other all at once, all over the planet without government control, it all changes, for there is open revelation of truth.. …”

Ukrainians in the Netherlands show solidarity with Kiev protestors

DutchNews.nl, Sunday 08 December 2013

Ukrainians demonstrate in Amsterdam. Photo: Fay Gardner

Some 70 Ukrainian nationals, friends and supporters gathered on Amsterdam’s Dam square on Saturday to show support for the ongoing anti-government protests in Kiev.

Thousands of people have joined the protests in the Ukrainian capital after president Viktor Yanukovich suspended talks with the European Union last month.

‘We have to keep calm, carry on and be European,’ Amsterdam protestors Alina and Irina told DutchNews.nl.

The mother and daughter have lived in the Netherlands for 13 years and say Saturday’s demonstration was to show solidarity with friends and family back home. Some of the demonstrators had come from as far away as Enschede.

Related Article:

Tymoshenko urges Ukraine president's resignation as protest swells