Putin has lost control of events in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has lost control of events in Ukraine, according to UK foreign secretary William Hague:

“There is every indication that the Russians have lost control of what they started in Ukraine,” said Mr Hague in an exclusive interview with The Telegraph. “President Putin seems to have unleashed forces that he cannot control. Armed thugs with modern weapons are stirring old tensions and stoking new hatreds. The deaths in Mariupol, Slavyansk and Odessa are a stark warning that this plan is spiralling out of control.” --

Mr Hague was particularly concerned by briefings he received from Ukrainian security officials in Kiev who presented him with credible evidence that Russian forces had been involved in stirring up anti-government protests in eastern regions of the country.
He was told that Ukrainian special forces had been surprised by the professional military tactics used by pro-Russian paramilitary groups, which have so far managed to shoot down a number of Ukrainian helicopters using shoulder-launched missiles – a feat that requires a high level of military training.
Ukrainian forces have also detained a number of Russian passport holders while attempting to regain control of territory held by pro-Russian militants.
“It is not just pro-Russian activists who are stirring up trouble in Ukraine – we actually have Russian forces in the territory,” he said. “We are seeing the same tactics that were used in Crimea, and we need to see changes in Russia’s behaviour if we are to avoid a deeper conflict.”

Time for the West to get tough on the mafia state dictator!

Finland's military officers ready to join NATO

The overwhelming majority of Finland's military officers are in favour of Finland joining NATO:

Finnish military officers are concerned about Russia’s intentions, according to a survey published in the leading newspaper Helsingin Sanomat on Saturday. Four out of five officers who responded to a poll by the daily believe that the military threat from Russia has increased.
A majority of those interviewed said that Russia’s foreign policy has become more aggressive since Vladimir Putin was re-elected as president in 2012.
Helsingin Sanomat and the Finnish Officers’ Union carried out a joint, anonymous survey of union members’ views on security policy around Eastertime. Of the union’s 6,000 members, 2084 responded to the poll. Two thirds of them are on active duty.
More than 40 percent of those who replied said that Finland’s political leadership should have acted more firmly in regard to the Ukrainian crisis. The results also indicate an increase in support for NATO membership, with nearly two in three saying this would be the best security option for Finland.

Finland's real security experts have made their position clear. Unfortunately, the country's laeading politicians, including president Sauli Niinistö, are far less clear. They still appear to be caught in the legacy of Finlandization.

University of Oslo professor: "the IPPC has decided that the fear of the future is currently their most powerful weapon in the battle for public opinion"

Dr. Ole Humlum, professor of geoscience at the University of Oslo, has written another excellent article about some of the things the global warming establisment does not want to discuss. The article is in Danish, but I have translated these excerpts:

There have been many good effects of the observed warming until 2000, and a possible future warming (if it ever comes ) is also likely to have many positive effects. However, this aspect of climate change rarely gets any attention. According to the UN FAO, agriculture has increased its productivity as temperatures and CO2 have increased, partly because plants generally grow better with more CO2 in the atmosphere and at the same time increase their resistance to drought. FAO reports that global food production on this basis is expected to increase by about 55-60 % by 2050 with the IPCC predicted climate changes. If the temperature would not rise, or if it would actually sink, the results will unfortunately not be as good. Past climate history clearly shows that. However, from the IPCC - well backed up by various news media - we have heard an endless stream of potential climate threats, altough often without backing in the report's scientific section. It seems to me that the IPCC has decided that the fear of the future is currently their most powerful weapon in the battle for public opinion. --

There are many more oddities related to the AR5. In this new report the IPCC for example almost totally ignores the lack of temperature rise during the last 16-17 years. Objectively speaking, this is very strange, since it is supposedly the fear of continued warming, which since the IPCC's creation in 1988 has been the main argument for the large apparatus, which in many countries has been initiated to address a continued increase in temperature. In particular, this apparatus has been directed against atmospheric CO2 that the IPCC considers as the main cause for the rise of the global temperature after 1975.

The fact that the temperature has not risen should therefore logically result in great joy with the IPCC. But it certainly has not been the case. Rather, it is my personal experience that the highlighting of this joyous situation often triggers irritation and anger, or at least a swarm of explanations of where the 'missing ' heat may hide. There is no will to discuss that the climate models could be wrong, even if that really should be the first question to be raised, when nature does something else than what the models predicted. At the same time, it is clear that climate models generally are not able to reproduce important natural climate variations, which according to the IPCC itself may be responsible for up to almost half of the past - but now stopped - temperature rise.

 

The US global warming establishment is cynically using children in their latest propaganda effort

In spite of years of government and MSM supported ecofundamentalist brainwashing campaigns, an overwhelming majority of Americans do not see global warming as a serious threat. The more and more desperate global warming establishment is now cynically using children in their latest propaganda effort:

Young people across the country are suing several government agencies for failing to develop a climate change recovery plan, conduct that amounts to a violation of their constitutional rights, says their lawyer Julia Olson.
Their futures are at stake, say the young plaintiffs.
“Climate change is the biggest issue of our time,” said 13-year-old Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez, a member of nonprofit Kids vs. Global Warming, a plaintiff in the suit.
“It’s not every day you see young people getting involved politically, but the climate crisis is changing all that. Every generation from here on out is going to be affected by climate change,” added Roske-Martinez, who founded environmental nonprofit Earth Guardians and organized successful actions in his hometown of Boulder, Colorado.
The federal suit, which has made its way to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, is part of a groundbreaking nationwide legal campaign spearheaded by youth and backed by some of the world’s leading climate scientists and legal scholars.
The case, filed by five teenagers and two nonprofits — WildEarth Guardians and Kids vs. Global Warming — representing thousands more youth, relies on the public trust doctrine, which requires government to protect resources essential to the survival of all generations.
“With the United States as the largest historic emitter of carbon dioxide, the atmospheric resource cannot be restored without government action,” Olson told Al Jazeera.
Supported by more than 30 environmental and constitutional professors, the young plaintiffs name six federal agencies in their suit — the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Energy and Defense departments.

Putin must be smiling: Merkel's chief foreign policy expert was celebrating with him at the recent St. Petersburg mega party

The fact that - in addition to former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder - Angela Merkel's chief foreign policy expert Philipp Missfelder also attended the much criticised party with Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg speaks volumes about Germany's cosy co-operation with Putin's mafia state. Merkel is now faking "furiousness", but in reality she and her government believe that German business interests are more important than Putin's aggression against an independent country:

Angela Merkel "furious" after reports that her foreign policy expert attended Gerhard Schroeder's birthday party with Vladimir Putin

German media reports said Philipp Missfelder, the chief foreign policy expert for Mrs Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Party was also a guest at the controversial party held by a subsidiary of the Russian energy giant, Gazprom. --

Der Spiegel Online remarked that Mr Schroeder and Mr Putin were seen falling into each others' arms and embracing demonstratively, "in the middle of the most serious political crisis between East and West since the Cold War".
German MPs said Mr Schroeder's behaviour was "completely irresponsible". But subsequent reports that Mr Missfelder had also attended the party apparently caused " massive annoyance" not to say embarrassment within Christian Democrat Party ranks yesterday.
"Chancellor Angel Merkel is angry because she was not informed about the visit," Der Spiegel Online wrote.
Mr Missfelder, is known to be an ardent supporter of German business interests in Russia and has sympathised with the Kremlin's standpoint on Ukraine.

Read the entire article here

The New York Times editorial: "Some prominent Europeans are willing to ignore Mr. Putin's brutish ways"

The New York Times is right in pointing out that the European Union is to blame for the West's hitherto all too weak reaction against dictator Vladimir Putin's aggression in Ukraine:

Yet given Mr. Putin’s demonstrative disdain for the Geneva agreements, along with the aggressive behavior of Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s borders and the continued occupation of administrative and security buildings in southeastern Ukrainian cities by Moscow-directed secessionists, such targeted penalties are not likely to change Russia’s behavior. And the sort that would — coordinated United States-European Union sanctions on financial institutions, the energy sector or defense industries — have proved very difficult to construct, largely because of the substantial difference between American and European exposure to Russia’s economy.

 

About a quarter of the European Union’s gas supplies come from Russia, and despite years of talk about reducing this dependence, little has been done. European Union trade with Russia, moreover, amounted to almost $370 billion in 2012, compared with United States-Russia trade of $26 billion. This includes some huge sales, like the two helicopter carriers France is building for the Russian Navy as part of a $1.6 billion deal signed in 2011. What that means is that any sanctions that really bite will cost Europe a lot more than the United States.

But there will be other costs if Europe and America do not join in a unified response. Among other things, a weak and fragmented response would call into question a longstanding trans-Atlantic commitment to protect international law and democratic values against the kind of aggression Mr. Putin is engaging in. And optics here are important: The decision of Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor, to meet with Mr. Putin on Monday in St. Petersburg and embrace him in a bear hug sent an unacceptable signal that some prominent Europeans are willing to ignore Mr. Putin’s brutish ways.

 

This is another example of the fact that the European Union is once again unable to reach a common position on a matter of great importance. What kind of a member of NATO is e.g. France, which is selling helicopter carriers to a dictator with blood in his hands! Schröder is a hopeless case, but it is shameful that Germany's business leaders want to continue their co-coperation with Putin and his cronies as if nothing would have happened.

Putin's lapdog, ex Chancellor Schröder should be placed on the US sanction list!

No wonder Angel Merkel's government and German media distanced themselves from dictator Putin's lapdog, ex Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who on Monday embraced his master in St. Petersburg:

"Schroeder celebrates his birthday with Putin and makes Germany's foreign policy look absurd," wrote Roland Nelles in a commentary for Der Spiegel magazine's online edition, which published a series of pictures showing Schroeder first waiting for Putin's car to arrive and embracing the Russian president.
"The ex-chancellor is mistaken to think he can carry on with business-as-usual as if nothing has happened. The German government, which his party belongs to, is doing all it can right now to stop his friend Vladimir from pursuing power-hungry policies. In times like this, a former German government leader should keep his distance."
Heiner Bremer, senior political correspondent for Germany's N-TV news network, also condemned Schroeder.
"It shows Schroeder has no instincts and no taste for such a meeting at a time when Putin has annexed Crimea and is trying to redraw Eastern Europe's borders," Bremer said in a commentary. "He has lost all credibility."
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung online also criticised Schroeder, adding his SPD party in Germany was left speechless.
"There is something ghoulish to pictures of a smiling Schroeder as he hugs his friend Vladimir at the same time German army soldiers have been taken hostage by fanatic Putin admirers," wrote Thomas Holl of the FAZ in a commentary, referring to observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe who are being held in Slaviansk.

Schröder should of course be placed on the US sanction list as soon as possible!