Lavrov: Time to decide if we want UN focused & effective or on the sidelines — RT News

The UN would be effective in settling international disputes, if some member-states didn’t try to use it for dominating world affairs, Russian Foreign Minister believes, adding that such efforts led to bombings in Serbia, war in Iraq and chaos in Libya.

Sergey Lavrov has called for the UN, about to celebrate its 70th anniversary, to be an independent and effective leader in global decision-making, despite attempts by some of its members to usurp the organization’s functions.

“It’s time to answer the question: do we really want the see the UN an effective and influential instrument of preserving peace and security or are we ready to allow it turn into the arena of propagandist struggle, with the UN being excluded from the process of finding key solutions to international problems,” Lavrov said, at the open debate for the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), held on Monday in New York.

Lavrov listed episodes in recent history, which he sees as violations of the UN charter, caused by a will to dominate world affairs.

“It’s enough to remember the bombings of Serbia, the occupation of Iraq under a false pretext... and the rude manipulation of the Security Council mandate leading to destruction and on-going chaos in Libya,” the minister said.

Complete story at - Lavrov: Time to decide if we want UN focused & effective or on the sidelines — RT News

Mariupol Attack- Motive, Method and Madness- Demand Justice for Kiev's War Crimes - Washington's Blog

The UN is calling the attack on Mariupol a War Crime. Now that the evidence is pointing to Kiev will the UN show enough conscience to pursue it?

Motive, method, and opportunity are the key facts needed to establish guilt in any criminal trial. In a shooting murder when you add in ballistics that locates the weapon to the shooter, its called a slam dunk, case closed. When known criminals with heavy weapons are willing to brag publicly on prime-time news that they are about to murder someone, and after the fact go on record about how much joy this event brought them- its time to call SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics group).

The attack in Mariupol came after Ukraine failed twice in one week to get a UN and Western government declaration that DNR (Donetsk People’s Republic) and LNR (Lugansk People’s Republic) are terrorist entities. Is the third time the charm? Ukraine thinks so.

Before delving into the evidence, look at who doesn’t benefit. Benefit is a key factor in determining motive.

The militia near Mariupol is comprised of local city residents. Like soldiers in Donetsk and Lugansk, the city is their home town. Its where there family and friends live. Its where they grew up, went to school, and work. Their own children go to school there. Is there a benefit to firing rockets at your own neighbors and family?

Opportunity

The base problem with using Grad rockets to provoke outrage is that locating the source of the attack isn’t rocket science. Unguided rockets have a straight flight path. The rocket is a contact explosive which means it explodes when it lands. The crater points in the direction of the origin usually with a part of the nose cone left from the rocket itself inside inside the crater.

The OSCE gave their direction of origin north-north-east based on the sampling of rocket impacts they inspected.

Evidence also shows rockets striking from the north-west. The impacts were captured on cameras facing due west which showed the direction as the strike occurred on video as north-north-west.

Complete story at - Mariupol Attack- Motive, Method and Madness- Demand Justice for Kiev's War Crimes - Washington's Blog

Frustrated Relatives of MH17 Victims Demand UN Take Over Investigation / Sputnik International

The families of the victims of Flight MH17, frustrated with what they see as the failure of Dutch authorities to investigate the disaster, are demanding that the UN take over the investigation and launch an international inquiry into the tragedy.

MOSCOW, December 6 (Sputnik) — The relatives of those died in the July, 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine are frustrated with what they see as a Dutch mishandling of the investigation into the tragedy.

They are now demanding that the UN take over and launch an international inquiry into the disaster.

Reuters obtained a copy of a letter written by Van der Goen Attorneys on behalf of 20 relatives from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the US, which was sent Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Friday, accusing Dutch officials of having failed to build a case.

The letter demanded that inquiries by the Safety Board and prosecution service be handed over to the UN, and that Rutte ask the UN to appoint a special envoy to take over.
It said the Netherlands "has completely botched" the fact-finding investigation and the legal framework of the case.

Complete story at - Frustrated Relatives of MH17 Victims Demand UN Take Over Investigation / Sputnik International

UN report documents torture, police violence in US

The United Nations Committee Against Torture issued a lengthy report today assessing the performance of the 156 countries whose governments have ratified the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which took effect two decades ago.

The report subjected a major country to a wide-ranging critique, indicting it for a long list of human rights violations including:

• Refusal to prosecute officials who engage in or sanction torture of prisoners
• Detaining prisoners indefinitely without trial or other judicial proceeding, or any hope of release
• Kidnapping individuals overseas and torturing them in secret prisons
• Approving a manual for interrogation of prisoners that includes methods classified as torture under the Geneva Conventions
• Imprisoning immigrants under degrading conditions and refusing to acknowledge their claims as refugees fleeing persecution
• Imposing the death penalty on hundreds of prisoners, many of them from oppressed racial and ethnic minorities, many of them demonstrably innocent or unfairly tried
• Widespread use of solitary confinement, considered a form of torture, at all levels of the prison system
• Severe abuse of juveniles, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups both in police custody and in prisons
• Maintaining a regime of police violence, particularly against young men from racial and ethnic minorities, and refusing to restrain or punish police who kill, wound or torture

It will not come as any surprise to readers of the WSWS that the country named is not China, or Russia, or Iran, or some other target of the American ruling class, but the US itself. The government that claims the right to bully, blockade, and attack any country in the world in the name of “human rights” and “democracy” is guilty of the most heinous crimes.

The language of the report is both cautious and bureaucratic, and there are strained efforts to congratulate the Obama administration on alleged improvements, compared to the Bush administration, on such practices as extraordinary rendition and waterboarding. But the overall impact of this indictment is damning.

There are some significant revelations. The committee notes that the US government had filed reservations to the Convention on Torture at the time of ratification, indicating that some practices condemned by the treaty would continue, and that the Obama administration has refused to alter this “restrictive interpretation” of the anti-torture treaty or introduce a prohibition of torture into federal law.

The Obama administration has revoked Bush administration legal opinions declaring that waterboarding and other forms of torture were permissible, but it has not done the same to Bush-era claims that the US is obliged to observe international norms only at facilities within US borders, not at detention facilities on the soil of other countries. In other words, the legal basis for torture at secret CIA and military prisons still remains fully in effect.

Complete story at - UN report documents torture, police violence in US

The Slow-Motion Collapse of the Ukrainian State and the Rada’s Capitulation | Oriental Review

Acting Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk recently announced his resignation from the government amidst parliamentary infighting in the Rada, supposedly over none of the factions wanting to take the fall for the upcoming suicidal IMF stipulations. (His desire to leave off the hook ahead of the coming economic and social collapse of Ukraine has apparently come into collision with the interests of Western power groups seeking to establish control over the Ukrainian gas trasportation system first – OR). The withdraw of the nationalist party Svoboda and Klitschko’s (German) project Udar continues the chain reaction of institutional collapse that began in late-November with the EuroMaidan Color Revolution. If a new Rada isn’t formed within 30 days, elections will have to take place. It has already been forecasted that this is nothing more than a ploy to solidify Poroshenko’s power base (Udar is a close ally) and expand the reach of the Svoboda nationalists. These risky and Machiavellian calculations will likely have far-reaching implications, continuing to push Ukraine ever further towards full-scale collapse and spreading the black hole of chaos that has begun to emerge in the country.

Nearing the Precipice

In the run-up to the most recent stage of institutional collapse, Kiev had found itself in a conundrum. After revving up the population for so-called Western integration and signing the EU Association Agreement and receiving IMF loans, the Rada realized that none of its members wanted to be responsible for implementing the brutal economic ‘tweaks’ that both of them necessitate. This is the immediate cause of the current Rada crisis – everyone wanted to ‘join the West’, but no one wanted to take electoral responsible for what that truly means.

Concurrent to this, Ukraine also banned one of its consistently largest political parties, the Communist Party, which polled 15% at the last legitimate election in 2012. For a country trying to ingratiate itself with ‘Western values’, it is contradictory that it would carry out such a policy, however, it cannot be said to be unexpected. After all, there had been loud calls for lustration ever since the February coup against legitimate president Yanukovich. This policy of political (and therefore, social) exclusion has been aided by the nationalist and fascist forces that have swept to power and influence in Ukraine in recent months.

All of this is to say nothing of the enormous humanitarian catastrophe ongoing in the Donbass region, where the UN officially estimates that at least 1,000 people have been killed and over 3,500 injured since the start of punitive operations against Federalist supporters in mid-April. 500,000 refugees have fled to Russia since then, with over 34,000 of them currently being housed by the state.

Complete story at - The Slow-Motion Collapse of the Ukrainian State and the Rada’s Capitulation | Oriental Review

Consider me a separatist | liva.com.ua

If there is a violation of the principle of territorial integrity, the apocalypse will come, the sky will fall, and the fish will walk on the land. These are the statements of most Ukrainian media and politicians over the breakaway of Donetsk and Lugansk People Republics. Territorial integrity is the overriding principle of international law, as they try to convince us. Those who violate it are separatists, and will be damned forever and ever, amen.

But let us imagine that the "fundamental principle" was never violated. In such a case Kiev would still be, if not the administrative center of Genghis Khan’s empire, or a province of the German Reich, then certainly the capital of the province of a “Anti-Soviet Union of Capitalist Republics”. Instead of such countries as the U.S., India, Pakistan, Canada, and Australia (the very existence of which is a flagrant violation of the territorial integrity of the British Empire) - the map would look like the indivisible possession of the British crown. The list goes on. Just to say that there would be no such countries as Norway, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Albania, Finland, all African countries ...

And what about international law?

Speaking seriously, without violating territorial integrity, modern nation-states (whose establishment was a great achievement compared with the feudal and capitalist empires) would not exist. There would be no independent states that emerged as a result of the national liberation struggle against colonialism and imperialism in the twentieth century. Just look at the political map of the world to understand the falsity of Kiev’s interpretation of "territorial integrity" and "separatism.”

The very principle of territorial integrity was adopted by the United Nations after the Second World War not to hold small or large nation under foreign oppression, but to effectively oppose the annexation policy, political grabs. According to the provisions adopted by the countries that gained victory over fascism in 1945, the desire of the people, whose rights are violated in a particular state, is above the "principle of territorial integrity."

This, incidentally, is recorded in the United Nations Declaration on Principles of International Law, that was signed also by Ukraine:

"All peoples have the right to freely determine, without external interference, their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and every State has the duty to respect this right".

Complete story at - Consider me a separatist | liva.com.ua

Russia: Other Points of View: Russian Federation SitRep (Situation Report)

The Future of Ukraine. The Ukraine of six months ago no longer exists; it has been destroyed by the scheming of Brussels and Washington. If there is to be something on the map named “Ukraine” at the end of the year that in anyway resembles what was there six months ago, Moscow’s plan must be adopted. Autonomy for the regions so that one half can’t bully the other half; minority language rights; neutrality, neither NATO nor Russia. As to Crimea, it is part of Russia; that is done. If it offends you to call this the Moscow plan, you may call it the Kissinger plan. If these principles are not accepted, and fairly soon, then by the end of the year south and east Ukraine (known as Novorossiya – New Russia – for two centuries) will be independent or part of Russia while rump Ukraine will be in full economic collapse and even civil war (and eventual absorption by Poland?). The only thing left undetermined will be the border of Novorossiya and rump Ukraine. None of this was necessary; all of it was predictable. (Here I am in December. But I claim no special prescience: everyone who knew anything about Ukraine knew it was fatal to the project to force an all-or-nothing choice. The West did this twice: ten years ago with NATO and now with an exclusive EU trade relationship, with NATO in the background). So here we are: hard times ahead for the citizens of any conceivable future Ukraine.

Russia’s invisible army. Much about how Russia is “massing” its army along the Ukrainian border. These reports are so confused as to be valueless – read this one carefully for example, noting contradictions; note the rag-bag elements tossed together of this one. No “massing Russian troops” were found in a 200 mile trip by Daily Telegraph reporters; nor in a 500-mile trip by NBC reporters. But it’s still hyped by NATO. (Once upon a time I believed NATO over Moscow. No more. Kosovo wounded it; Libya killed it; Ukraine has buried it. From now on my base assumption is that NATO is lying.) There is no need for “massing”: Russian troops in Crimea (already there, which is why US int couldn’t find them) were welcomed by an enormous majority and 90% of the Ukrainian forces either joined them or quit. There is every reason to expect that the reception of the Russians would be the same in Novorossiya, as we should perhaps get used to calling it.

UN vote. A General Assembly vote saying the Crimea referendum was unlawful passed 100-11 allowing various organs to trumpet that Russia was isolated. But closer scrutiny adds 58 abstentions and 24 who didn’t vote at all to the 11: a total of 93. Given that established states strongly disapprove of secession, a 50-50 split is a sign that Russia is not isolated at all. By now many know they might be on the list for a “humanitarian intervention” and they are happy to see the West humbled in an attempt.

(Many embedded links in the original, at the link below)

Complete story at - Russia: Other Points of View: RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP