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America's European "Allies" Desert Obama, Join China-led Infrastructure Bank
It appears the sea of de-dollarization has reached the shores of Europe. With Australia and UK having already moved in the direction of joining the China-led AIIB, The FT reports that France, Germany, and Italy have now all agreed to join the development bank as 'pivot to Asia' appears to be Plan B for Europe. As Greg Sheridan previously noted, "the saga of the China Bank is almost a textbook case of the failure of Obama’s foreign policy," but as The FT concludes, the European decisions represent a significant setback for the Obama administration, which has argued that western countries could have more influence over the workings of the new bank if they stayed together on the outside. As Forbes notes, this leaves Obama with 3 uncomfortable options...
As The FT reports,
France, Germany and Italy have all agreed to follow Britain’s lead and join a China-led international development bank, according to European officials, delivering a blow to US efforts to keep leading western countries out of the new institution.
The decision by the three European governments comes after Britain announced last week that it would join the $50bn Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a potential rival to the Washington-based World Bank.
...
The European decisions represent a significant setback for the Obama administration, which has argued that western countries could have more influence over the workings of the new bank if they stayed together on the outside and pushed for higher lending standards.
The AIIB, which was formally launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping last year, is one element of a broader Chinese push to create new financial and economic institutions that will increase its international influence. It has become a central issue in the growing contest between China and the US over who will define the economic and trade rules in Asia over the coming decades.
This follows Australia and UK...
Australia, a key US ally in the Asia-Pacific region which had come under pressure from Washington to stay out of the new bank, has also said that it will now rethink that position.
When Britain announced its decision to join the AIIB last week, the Obama administration told the Financial Times that it was part of a broader trend of “constant accommodation” by London of China. British officials were relatively restrained in their criticism of China over its handling of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong last year.
Britain tried to gain “first mover advantage” last week by signing up to the fledgling Chinese-led bank before other G7 members.
Britain hopes to establish itself as the number one destination for Chinese investment and UK officials were unrepentant.
* * *
Which, as Forbes explains, leaves Obama with three options...
1) Continue to press its allies not to join the AIIB until governance procedures for the bank are assured;
2) Join the AIIB itself; or
3) Drop the issue.
Option one is clearly a losing proposition. There is no sense expending further political capital trying to persuade regional and other actors not to join the bank. It is a small-potato issue that is making the United States look weak at a time when U.S. influence in the region is otherwise quite strong.
Option two, which I—along with virtually every other China analyst outside the U.S. government—supported back in October is that the United States join the AIIB. There are several reasons why this is a good idea. It would allow the United States a seat inside the tent where it could be both a positive force for best governance practices and an internal critic if things go awry. It also would likely help ensure that U.S. companies have fair access to the bidding opportunities that will arise from the AIIB’s investment financing. Joining now will be hard to accomplish in a face-saving manner, but the United States could begin by publicly recognizing the need for the financing capabilities in Asia that the AIIB can provide and by moving quickly to work with Australia, South Korea, and Japan to work out common principles of accession.
Option three is for the United States to back away from the AIIB, release other countries from any pressure they might feel from the United States not to join, and let the AIIB rise or fall on its own merits. Chinese-led resource and infrastructure investment has encountered significant difficulty in a number of countries, including Zambia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Brazil, and Sri Lanka, among others. If the AIIB does not do a better job than China’s own development banks, it will be a stain not only on Beijing but also on all the other countries that are participating. If it does operate at the same standard as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, then it will be a welcome addition to the world of development financing. The United States does not have to be in every regional organization in the Asia Pacific; it is not in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, for example, and it is only an observer in the Conference on Interactions and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. It can sit out the AIIB or assume observer status as well.
Washington’s priority should be on advancing U.S. ideals and institutions through the pivot or rebalance rather than blocking Chinese initiatives unless absolutely necessary. (Let’s not confuse China’s effort to develop the AIIB with its push to implement an Air Defense Identification Zone, for example.) Opposition to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has become a millstone around Washington’s neck. It is time to remove it one way or another.
* * *
De-dollarization continues... As Simon Black recently concluded, now we can see words are turning into action...
[The Allies] might be too polite to tell the US straight up– “Look, you have $18.1 trillion in official debt, you have $42 trillion in unfunded liabilities, and you’re kind of a dick. I’m dumping you.”
So instead they’re going with the “it’s not you, it’s me” approach.
But to anyone paying attention, it’s pretty obvious where this trend is going.
It won’t be long before other western nations jump on the anti-dollar bandwagon with action and not just words.
* * *
Bottom line: this isn’t theory or conjecture anymore. Every shred of objective evidence suggests that the dollar’s dominance is coming to an end.
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Let's see who will become the first target of CIA terrorists group.
yep - something big is about to blow up somewhere - duck and cover
Is the FED going to keep them swap lines open? If not then the US is going to be in the same position to the world as Germany is to Greece.
Obama found about this by reading ZH.
Valerie Jarrett let him watch TV last night
ST. PETERSBURG -- Last May, Tatiana N decided she wanted a higher salary than the average journalist can expect.
After responding to an advertisement in the popular HeadHunter job-search website, she became a Kremlin-paid Internet troll. Tatiana -- who, like others interviewed for this story, asked that her last name not be used -- worked out of a 2,500-square-meter warehouse in the suburbs of St. Petersburg.
The job paid 40,000 rubles a month, significantly more than the 25,000-30,000 most journalists make. But it came, she said, "with pain."
Tatiana joined a round-the-clock operation in which an army of trolls disseminated pro-Kremlin and anti-Western talking points on blogs and in the comments sections of news websites in Russia and abroad.
The operation, Internet Research, is financed through a holding company headed by President Vladimir Putin's "personal chef," Evgeny Prigozhin.
"So you write, write, write, from the point of view of anyone," Tatiana, ?22, says.
"You could be [posing as] a housewife who bakes dumplings and suddenly decides: 'I have an opinion about what Putin said! And this action by Vladimir Vladimirovich saves Russia."
The roughly 400 employees work 12-hour shifts and are split into various departments. Some focus on writing up themes and assignments, others concentrate on commenting, and others work on graphics for social media.
READ the original Russian-language version of this storyOne department is devoted entirely to maintaining blogs on Livejournal that intersperse banal posts with rough-edged pro-Kremlin propaganda.
The daily assignments -- shown in a document first published on March 11 by independent St. Petersburg newspaper My Region -- are usually drawn directly from pro-Kremlin media and go into sometimes excruciating detail about the message the bloggers and commenters are supposed to relay.
One assignment instructed trolls how to frame the February 27 assassination of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov: Either it was orchestrated by Ukrainian oligarchs to frame Russia and harm Moscow's relations with the West, or it was carried out by Nemtsov's supporters as a "provocation" ahead of opposition protests.
Lena N, another former employee, says she stopped working at Internet Research after refusing to blog the company line about Nemtsov's killing.
"It was necessary to bring people to believe that the killing of Boris Nemtsov was a provocation before the march and a murder carried out by his own [supporters]," she says.
The Kremlin's footprint in the Russian Internet has grown considerably since massive antigovernment protests broke out in Moscow in 2011-12 -- protests that were largely organized online.
Although, with some notable exceptions online news is still largely uncensored, a growing array of voices -- many suspected of being trolls -- sometimes cloud online conversations with disinformation.
Internet Research, which is officially run by a retired police colonel named Mikhail Bystrov, was first exposed as a "troll farm" by the Independent Novaya Gazeta weekly newspaper in late 2013.
The hierarchical structure, former employees say, is as opaque as the makeup of the Russian bureaucracy itself.
"The underlings not only aren't allowed to approach management," says Tatiana. "But they don't even know who they are. They know only the little boss -- the so-called team leader."
Stress, former company associates say, is also high.
Video posted on the My Region website shows what it says are employees sprinting into the building in the St. Petersburg suburb of Olgino. Apparently being late comes with a 500-ruble fine.
"In the information war, every second counts," the paper writes.
http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-trolls-headquarters-media-internet-i...
Several dozen of the Puutie Paid Puppies must be assigned to ZH.
40,000 rubles a month would be about $700. I guess it makes the payment on the mobile home for them.
you really persist in being a twit, don't you. lol
You've got a new job eh?
/yawn
the US has been doing this for DECADES
P < P + I
Good. I like organized efforts to promote propaganda for peace, instead of what the USSA and Israel does, which is furiously lie and shit out of their mouths for war. Been doing it for years and sadly no one notices, they just get swept up in the "Demon of the Week" propaganda. Blather, rinse, repeat.
How is trolling for peace bad while USSA trolls for war are good? I don't think so.
I wish Russia would pay me to counter AmeriKan war propaganda. I could use the money.
The Kremlin has a lot of catching up to do.
please contrast your erudite 'cut and paste' with western MSM, please.
Thanks to the MISDIRECTION .. David "Brooks . Sorcha Faal does have another life on ZH. Am more worried about US govt. trolls than from the Russians .. I know the USSA is busy at it . there is an entire unit in the military devoted to misdirection and misinformation .. .
Mission Accomplished!
Option 4
Sanctions against UK, Australia, Germany, India
and anybody else
who financially cooperates with China.
A US naval fleet should also be sent through the English Channel,
"to reassure" remaining allies.
Sanctions, sanctions, more sanctions.
If nonetheless they continue to "threaten US interests",
Nuland and Brennan will need to get busy.
If worse comes to worse, McCain and Graham can also be sent.
+1. That's some pretty awesome snark there. Of course, who is China's biggest trading partner? We'd better slap some serious sanctions on them, too. Reminiscent of Cleavon Little in "Blazing Saddles," shouting "Nobody move or the Nigger gets it!"
/s
fixed it for you.
Should be a great opportunity for a solution to the Greek financial stress situation. Send them a membership application.
Obozo has a sign on his back saying
Fvck America
And more economy news.: Moscow Exchange launches trading in futures contract on yuan-ruble currency pair.
why are you continually painting this as obama... I know the Tyler's know better... or is Matt Drudge another Tyler too?
click bait I guess, but anyone wiht a clue.. knows.. POTUS is a ceremonial sock puppet role.. Obummer is merely Bush3. Impotent. Managed.
this crap is scripted theater.
Standard clergy / bankster cosplay... for they are the parasite on the productive capacity of the world...
P < P + I
Alternative financial systems have been in the works for years. Many smart people here foretold it. Many trolls came here to tell them they were traitors and everything else. I know many here want the whole system to blow up, I do not. Having said that three years ago I came to my senses and being a historian looked at how empires fell and the USA is headed in the same direction. We cannot continue to bully the world because we can print fiat currency and implode other countries in this currency war. We are no longer the world policemena but are considered the world bully by most of the countries we deal with. Germany and France (well Germany, France was along for cover) brokered a deal with Putin without the USA or Englans because they are tired of our meddling in Ukraine and did not want another war on their continent.
This administrations foreign policy is a fiasco and I wonder at times if this is being done deliberatly to undermine the USA in the end. Social Justice you know and all!!! We need to be brought down a few notches by our president because he leads a country his father dispised. Ok enought tin hat stuff. I fully expected this to happen as our currency is destroying countries and our politicians continue to tell the world what they will do, and yet the USA is in worse financial shape then most countires in the PIIGS. The world is tired of war and Putin outplayed the USA.
What scares me is this administration is trying to get the OK to make war anywhere in the world, violate sovereign nations all in the name of the war on terror. We are being boiled slowly and isolated by all of this rhetoric coming out of Washington D.C. politicians and this administration. When Obama fucked with the neutral SWIFT system the road to replacing the dollar was bound to happen. There is a reason European nations want their gold back!
I''m a historian as well. But I see it as Europe looking to diversify their portfolios because it is obvious the train is coming off the rails for the US
-belligerent foreign policy, demanding Europe expand defense while forcing them into Cold War II which won't work against Russia while Europe bears the brunt of the sacrifice
-2016 means either more of the same (or worse) with Cankles or Bush . So America will continue to pile debt and sow more chaos that once again will blowback in Europe with domestic terror attacks from Enraged Muslims
-if the dollar collapses, it is better to be in a multi polar world instead of letting the banksters take it down again
-fallback if the Euro collapses
-emerging markets and customers for their products and services. If you can't beat 'em join 'em
Why go down with a sinking ship. America is rudderless at every turn
@ GCT and Anunnaki: Agree with both of your analyses, with an addendum: America has been going off the rails for more than 20 years. When we began to abuse derivatives and let banks keep them off their balance sheets (1980s, anyone?), that was when the downhill slide took a sharp bend in a bad direction. We are now out of financial capital, and as you pointed out, political capital too. Last thing left is military capital, and that will not last us long.
BK: Agree completely. The US is the victim of the totally foreseeable, and indeed widely predicted, internal contradictions of our system of debt-based corporate finance capitalism. Our system requires infinite energy, markets, resources, and money. Now that we've discovered all the continents we're going to discover, only money can be considered infinite, and that only by making it abstract and basing it on debt. Debt at interest requires the economy and the supply of money to always expand. Otherwise, who would take on debt, if they didn't think they'd have more money next year than this year, to pay down the debt? When physical limitations on energy, markets and resources are encountered, it's all over but the open warfare. In the interim between hitting the limits and atavistic violence, rampant cheating and constant re-arrangement of the rules has to run its course first. No elites have ever voluntarily walked away from their advantages, even when the outcome was hopeless.
What Bankster Kibble said. It might interest you that...
Many Americans and Canucks (ZH readers and others) with 6-7 figure in cash to spare, have already voted with their feet: I know for fact that they've used/leveraged guys like Simon Black to invest privately in Asia.
E.g. My (late) father, up north of the 'Rio Fraser' was one of them. That panned out a hell of a lot better than the tons of cheap RE in "De(s)troyit" Michigan that he had and dumped at a loss. In hindsight (coulda, woulda, shoulda)... I wish he'd put it all into Asian investments. Was also advised by Simon's friends to get into BTC at $20 and out at $400, but he missed/passed that joyride. Too late now.
I would not invest in any/many US companies these days (WAY overpriced), but would consider the right Short Sales or Auctions in RE, in right parts of the country. I'd also cash in California RE and buy elsewhere, if I had that situation. A tiny % of CA people are doing that (more out of job necessity than foresight), but most are not and will not.
Moral: Diversify Globally in various asset classes -- after you've done your due diligence. All else is speculation/gambling, or denial/Ostrich politics.
The US if fucked, Americans getting invested in shit like #racetogether because a racist Jew like Schultz tells them to, all the while their country is getting raped and abused.
"It would allow the United States a seat inside the tent where it could be both a positive force for best governance practices and an internal critic if things go awry."
I'll admit I'm not at all sophisticated concerning the workings of international finance but I'm guessing a flight from the present day world reserve currency doesn't have anything to do with the 'positive force for best governance practices' the US uses to influence it's so called allies.
i can only LOL in real life when I see new posters here using the word communism. LOL wtf.. seriously?
the evil socialist commies comin for ya!!! rar!!1! or islamofacists? rar!!1!
marx and engals themselves were SPONSORED by capital. all fundie religionists.. xtian, islam, etc.. sponosred by capital.
hmmm
grow up, K?
the various isms are vehicles. short lived. tools. means to an end
the threat has always been.. Monopoly
totalitarian monopoly. research west viriginia coal mines, 1900. thats the biz model wall st exported to china.. see co dorms etc.
inevitable, as long as P < P + I
So true. Worth noting that the Schiff and Warburg baking families were the main financiers of Lenin's Bolsheviks.
No doubt they were. But here's food for thought (if you don't mind shifting your paradigm)...
Not being Christian, and being tightly knit, their personal and worldview was: "If these dumb Goyim want to exploit, screw and kill each other, who am I to get in the way? Might as well make good money on what will happen anyway. I may be egging them on, but it's nothing they're not doing freely and happily anyway, so it's really their own stupidity and folly that they have to blame."
As I've said many times before: You might blame/credit those Tribesmen for being opportunistic and predatory to a fault, but in the final analysis... They at least stick together and do in fact merely exploit the folly of those outside their Circle/Tribe. Note that Christians and Muslims have been busy killing each other and their own kind for centuries, and are still at it. "Dumb Goyim!" is right.
No more needs to be said, other than the Parable of Jesus (Matthew 7:3) "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" http://biblehub.com/matthew/7-3.htm
I don't know how anybody could support the US, its spying, its agressive and deadly military, its black ops, or its fascist corporatism and banking structures. Only threat of force or financial extortion is keeping the western alliance together. It's doomed to fail at this rate.
Obama govt followed Bush with a retard's plan of making us look like the biggest assholes possible.
"If you ain't got no money, take your broke ass home..."
We're gunna' need uh' bigger island
China's rampant money printing needs new ground for bridges to nowhere and empty mega-cities to keep its people employed and to call the Keynesian and MMTers bluff that "defecits don't matter". After all - look how well Japan and the US are holding up. The race for global currency devaluation is entring a new phase of print and spend - this time we are all together.
Moving steadily toward another world war similar to the last two - Europe, East Asia, and maybe a South Asia or Southwest Asia component this time.
Note to Paul Wolfowitz:
America's Europen Allies have grown tired of being fucked in the ass by DC's warmongering neocon sociopaths.
Positive force for good governance practices????
There is no better way to start off your morning than to have a good laugh. The only "governance practices" the US believes in is to use finance as a weapon.
This, of course, is all by design.
Obama, Bankster Puppet Exraordinaire that he is, is merely playing out the end game of a process that began 227 years ago. The American Constitution, flaws and all, is the SINGLE BIGGEST THREAT to the psychopathic, parasitic, nationless Pharisees who see themselves as gods, and intend to grind all of humanity under their bootheel by any means necessary.
The Chinese are in on the game, as well. For those who can't connect the dots for themselves, I would suggest reading up on the doctrine of The Middle Kingdom - including its GENETIC underpinnings - and then comparing it to Zionism. If you want to put the cherry on top, look up the "Tiger Mom," note her message - and her heritage - and then look at the heritage of the man she's married to. They are a perfect microcosm of what's wrong with the people in charge.
There is a centuries-old alliance, based upon mutual delusions of Deity, being brought to fruition before our very eyes. An alliance that seeks to own and operate the entire world and everyone in it, because they're the next step in human evolution - Man 2.0, if you will - and the scumbags DESERVE it, you see. Obama, eaten up with Marxist-fueled hatred for WHITEY (and utterly psychopathic himself) is merely a tool, happy to do the bidding of those who will exterminate his long-despised foe.
Meanwhile, millions of Jewish and Chinese people, who want nothing to do with this psychopathy, these ancient tribal bigotries, are going to be left holding the bag while the nationless Pharisees disappear behind their castle walls and bulletproof glass.
At least, that's their plan. The question is: what are gonna do about it?!
There is the European countries' answer to "fuck the EU".
Breaking News: Here's Victoria Nuland's memo to Obama, which I was able to obtain from hacking into her computer: "If Netanyhu somehow wins, we don't need Europe- Hell, let's invade them - or as an alternative, send in the CIA Al Quada, Al Nusra, ISIS division to rain hell upon them. Goddam Europeans. Fuck the EU. We kicked the germans ass twice - we never should have stopped at Berlin in 1945. We had forces in France and other countries in Europe. We should have finished them all off. I am recommending an immediate $20 billion to begin the destabilization of Europe."
20 billion is exagerated. Much less is sufficient but 'advisers' of course also need to make some money.
Europe is weak and easy to divide.
Think how many Muslims we could ship into Europe with $20 Billion... especially now with the Recession in Shipping Industry. Hell the Greeks would be glad to do it.
If he loses, he can spend more time in the US fundraising for the Zionists.
You want that?
Maybe that has always been the plan.
Would he live in NYC or LA?
He could have lunch with Savage and Kaplan.
The California desert will soon look like Israel.
What do you think the benchmark in value will be for the Bank of China? That would be an earthly gold standard tied to Earth, not some bankster fiat currency leveraged by debt to the moon with no earthly value other than unpayable and lasting debt to the banksters via austerity: New World Order.
You had it all corporate America with your graft and government welfare sucking out the American national treasury, but your own greed, that is never satisfied, did you in.
Also give credit to the war-mongering Israeli Firster Likudnik Republican Congress, who no doubt frightened the Europeans with their bellicose rhetoric and their desire for a European war with Russia. I hope when Netanyahu loses today and the Republican Congress freaks out over the new Israeli government (and their liklehood of being more pro-peace) that Americans will start thinking maybe it's time we had some real changes in our own Congress (not that the Democrats are any better)
Americans won't 'think' anything. They'll subliminally absorb whatever message the MSM deems appropriate.
Putin must be pleased.
It seems either:
1) the London branch of the banking mafia are detaching from the neocons independently
2) the New York banking mafia are detaching from the neocons but using the London branch to take the first step
3) the banking mafia / neocons are still on the same side but they heard the continental Europeans were planning to join the China bank and set the London branch of the banking mafia to sabotage the China bank from the inside
edit: whatever the case the last people China (or anyone else) should trust are the banking mafia.
4) The banking mafia are ready to let America collapse, and are also moving to infiltrate the Chinese bank. Can't have free humans anywhere on Earth, now can we?!
The "banking mafia" have been doing that for hundreds of years. Suck one host dry and leave the hollowed out husk and move on to the next host. Parasites all do that at every level of nature.
I agree the Neocons are probably out in front investing in the Chinese development bank AII.
And there are no US Capital Control to keep guys like Mitt Romney from transferring his wealth off shore.
What keeps US TBTJ Banks from shipping the major portion off shore for building it's Chinese, Australian, and Singapore Banking.
After all the Mafia is Writing the Legislation with support from the Chamber of Commerce, Neoliberals, Neocons, and others.
Well said. Like watching a 4 level chess game in some ways.. in the end no matter what the central banks and power structure .. wins.
Putin had been disappeared for a while. When he reappears, suddenly Australia folds to China. Now Italy, France, and Germany fold to China.
I wonder what he has been doing in the dark ....... Things that make you go Mmm......
I was thinking the same...weird not? and it looks like US intelligence agencies missed all these events.
Looks like the bunkers underneath the Denver airport are going to be the place to be come around 2020.
Bunkers?
What bunkers?
Archie and Edith of course.
Catherine Austin-Fitts gives an interesting perspective on the USD hegemony and from her view why it won't fail. This is from 2014, but it also reveals just how deep this rot is not to mention there is no US soveriegnty. She also alludes to the OKC, WTC, Rummy pentagram destruction to the cover-up of graft. It's 1:22:00 long. Given the de-dollarization, I'm curious as to any other perspectives from the enlightened here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0mimIp8mr8
She's very good and correct that this is not really about the US but about a coup d'etat mounted by the banking mafia.
UCLA joins China by default. Go get out of here NWO you're not wanted anymore.
"I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize."
Barack Obama
When French filmmaker Manon Loizeau arrived in Grozny several years ago to begin work on a new documentary, she didn't recognize the city.
Loizeau had traveled to Chechnya on numerous occasions and had already filmed four disturbing documentaries about the deadly impact of Russia's two wars against separatist insurgents in the republic, including Chronicle of a Disappearance.
But when she returned, she found a population that had seemingly forgotten the wars and a glistening new city of skyscrapers, shopping malls, and ubiquitous portraits of the man once seen as Enemy No. 1 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"It's absolute schizophrenia," says Loizeau. "I was there during the first war and then during the so-called restoration of constitutional order after the second campaign. At that time, Chechens still talked in terms of freedom or death. But now they've named a major road after Putin. They celebrate his birthday."
Loizeau explores this sense of schizophrenia in her latest documentary, Chechnya: War Without Trace, which looks at continuing violence and intimidation in peacetime Chechnya under leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
The film, which debuted at human rights film festivals in Geneva and Prague and aired March 3 on the French-German channel ARTE, comes amid mounting fascination with Kadyrov's close ties to Putin.
The Russian leader last week awarded the Chechen strongman the prominent Order of Honor even as militants close to Kadyrov were being blamed for the brazen murder of oppositionist Boris Nemtsov.
Loizeau dismisses as "unlikely" speculation that Chechens were to blame for Nemtsov's murder. Not that Kadyrov isn't up to it -- the 38-year-old leader commands a powerful security force that has been blamed for numerous atrocities, including continuing disappearances and the torture of members of the local population.
Loizeau, who had planned to live in Chechnya while shooting War Without Trace, quickly altered her plans when she realized she was being followed. She left the republic, returning a total of 12 times to snatch a few hours here and there where she could work undetected.
"It took a lot of tricks to shoot this film without putting people at risk," she says. Surveillance was only part of the problem. After years of intensifying repression, she adds, most Chechens -- even friends she had known for 15-20 years -- were now too afraid to speak to a journalist on camera.
"They're more afraid today than they were during the wars. Because now it's their own people who are killing them," says Loizeau. "There's no more Russian army bombing them or conducting mopping-up operations. But there are Chechens killing their own."
She adds, "Everyone is afraid that their neighbors or even their relatives will inform on them. Every night they're afraid that someone is going to knock on their door. That's why it's a war 'without trace.' The war is continuing even now."
In her film, Loizeau documents recent cases like that of two Chechen women, both mothers of small children, who were kidnapped in 2013 from the car wash where they worked.
The manager heard the women scream and found pools of blood, but no culprits were ever found. The women's brother, searching desperately for any trace of them, was warned he'd be jailed for their murder if he continued.
In another scene, she shows women looking for unmarked mass graves in Grozny. The territory of Chechnya is believed to be peppered with dozens of such sites, where hundreds of bodies were unceremoniously dumped after being tortured and killed by Russian forces.
The Committee of Chechen Mothers, one of the few groups still focused on the issue of missing people, says as many as 18,000 people disappeared during the wars. "These mothers told me they were the last ones to remember, and that they needed to pass it on to the next generation. They believe that once they're gone, no one is going to remember everything that happened here."
?Kadyrov, Loizeau says, is to blame for erasing Chechnya's recent history from the map as a service to "best friend" Putin. No public discussion of the Russian wars is tolerated; no memorials stand in Grozny to commemorate the dead; the "Chechenization" of the war, as she calls it, has effectively replaced Russians with local Chechens as the new element of fear.
Last year, Kadyrov went a step further in stamping out national memory, canceling the annual commemoration of one of the most symbolic dates in the North Caucasus, Stalin's 1944 deportation of hundreds of thousands of Chechens and Ingush to Central Asia.
The grim anniversary, marked on February 23, coincided with last year's Olympic Games in Sochi, a showcase moment that Putin did not want interrupted.
"Kadyrov's own family was deported!" Loizeau says. "But he even went so far as to say it was right for Stalin to organize the Chechen deportation. This offended many Chechens. I don't think that Putin asked Kadyrov to do this. Kadyrov did it himself, to show Putin what a good student he is."
Ruslan Kutayev, an activist who defied the ban, organizing a small conference to discuss the deportation, was later arrested, reportedly beaten, and sentenced to four years in jail. The Chechen Committee Against Torture, which organized Kutayev's defense and represented one of the last sources of support for families of the disappeared, was forced to close its operations in Grozny after its headquarters were deliberately set on fire.
Loizeau, who says she hopes her film will awaken Europeans to the continuing reality of torture and abuse in Chechnya, says she worries that the "darkest days are still ahead."
"One person in Chechnya said to me that [Putin and Kadyrov] are conducting an experiment on them, in order to see how it works, and then they'll spread it to all of Russia," she says.
"I don't think that's happened yet in Russia, but the methods are already in place. Anna Politkovskaya, who I knew well, said that the conflict in Chechnya has entered into all spheres of Russian society, it's everywhere. And what's going on in Ukraine is tied to it as well."
RFE/RL correspondent Daisy Sindelar contributed to this report. You can read the original interview on Kadyrov's Chechnya here (in Russian)
http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-chechnya-kadyrov-documentary-loizeau...
Save yourself the time - no one is reading your idiotic posts past the 1st paragraph.
ZH is NOT The Lobotomist.
Stop wasting space and go vomit your poison lies somewhere else.
More misdirection .. from the Baltic troll playbook . can't be USSA .. not even we are dumb enough to post the 'news outlet' .. or maybe this is Victoria Nulands intern having fun with us.
it is going to be tough to be american for the next generation as the world abandons the dimming light on the hill for the dancing chinese dragon.
i can only hope the millenials wake up and start designing ovens for the neocons.
The ZioCons/banksters/MIC have really done America in, haven't they? And the thing is, it's irreversible. The level of debt and the population replacement project have seen to that.
Yeah nothing says Empire like 13 years of War, Huge Global Footprint, greasing palms of like 700 countries for bases, and Exponential Federal Spending each year since 2002.
And nothing says failure of the Republic like having lost a Trillion in Retirement Savings, a Trillion in Home Equity, 150 Million taking some form of Welfare or Assistance, and Massive VICHY DC Cover for Massive Wall Street Fraud taking Americas wealth and funneling it into Executive Compensation and Wealthy Investors.
And nothing says Decay like having Individual and US Constitutional Rights Ignored, shunted aside, and justified by saying it is for State Security.
---------------------------
- decaying Failed Empire -
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Three books in three sentences. Could not have been said more eloquently, succintly and precisely. BRAVO
Ovens are a waste, didn't they say they made good lampshades and soap in their little horrorcaust tale?
Crimea was largely quiet during last year's Euromaidan antigovernment protests. But all that changed on February 23, a day after President Viktor Yanukovych's ouster.
Thousands of Crimean Tatars gathered outside the Council of Ministers in the local capital, Simferopol, calling for the parliament to be dissolved and the constitution rewritten to protect the rights of indigenous people.
The Crimean parliament responded by calling an extraordinary session three days later. Refat Chubarov, the head of the Mejlis, the Tatar governing council, said he feared a "dangerous" decision.
"I could feel how unusual the situation was," Chubarov said. "I immediately called the Mejlis, and once again we called on people to rally."
More than 10,000 people turned out on February 26, squaring off against a smaller group of pro-Russian separatists. Fisticuffs broke out inside and outside the parliament. But finally lawmakers agreed to the Mejlis protesters' most basic demand: postponing the session.
Ukrainian and foreign journalists portrayed the outcome as a victory over pro-Russian elements.
"We went home satisfied that we had saved ourselves, saved Crimea, and saved Ukraine," Chubarov said.
A year later, Crimea is under Kremlin control -- and Russia's Investigative Committee is treating the events of February 26 as a criminal case.
Chubarov has been barred from the peninsula together with Crimean Tatar figurehead Mustafa Djemilev. Akhtem Chiygoz, the deputy chairman of the Mejlis, has been taken into custody on suspicion of organizing the rally.
But as Russia this week continues its anniversary celebrations of the Crimean annexation, sealed by a controversial referendum on March 16, 2014 (which was declared illegal in an overwhelming vote in the UN General Assembly), Chubarov and others say many on the peninsula were fiercely opposed to the deal. The referendum was
The Kremlin, which portrays the annexation as a rosy reunion between long-lost kin, points as evidence to the referendum, where more than 95 percent of voters backed the Russia deal.
But critics like Ukrainian activist Konstantin Reutsky said the result was sharply skewed by a menacing mix of propaganda, intimidation, and the "little green men" -- later acknowledged to be Russian soldiers -- who quickly seized government buildings and carried out armed street patrols.
"People felt the danger; they were confused," he says. "But that's because [Russians] had artificially created an atmosphere of fear. Everywhere you looked there were these pro-Russian 'activists,' sometimes carrying automatic weapons and suggesting pretty unambiguously that pro-Ukrainian views weren't welcome."
Nonetheless, in early March, Crimeans distraught by the rising number of pro-Russian rallies again began to stage demonstrations in Simferopol and elsewhere.
The resistance reached its peak with mass protests on International Women's Day, March 8, when as many as 15,000 protesters -- mainly women and children -- lined roadways throughout Crimea waving Ukrainian and Tatar flags and holding posters calling for peace.
"Many Crimeans came out, no matter their nationality," said Andriy Shchekun, a Simferopol-based activist. "It was a consolidation, a demonstration of how all Crimeans felt. In principle it was the real majority, and we saw the real picture. We organized a major event without allocated money or political connections. It was a true civil protest against what was happening in Crimea."
Many of the protesters extended their activities to include aiding besieged Ukrainian soldiers and fighting off members of the so-called "Self-Defense" forces of pro-Russian youths harassing activists and others.
"We were always peaceful, but very often we were pushed or provoked to fight," said Simferopol activist Oksana Novikova, who ultimately fled with her children out of safety concerns. "The police would just stand there watching and do nothing."
Members of the Crimean intelligentsia also proved active during the protests. Halyna Dzhikayeva, whose Karman art center was known for staging politically provocative works, said a majority of her audiences were openly opposed to the Russian invasion.
"We cultivated our audience to think," she said. "Our performances weren't light entertainment. They forced people to think critically about the things going on around them. So the people who went to the theater, who came to see our performances, were independent-minded."
Dzhikayeva now lives on the Ukrainian mainland, where she fled last summer to avoid FSB questioning regarding her friend, Crimean film director Oleh Sentsov, who was arrested last May by Russia on suspicion of plotting terrorist acts.
"Nearly everyone has left," she said.
Many Crimeans say high-profile arrests like that of Sentsov have effectively silenced many protesters in the months since the referendum. So, too, has the threat of violence. At least seven people have vanished without a trace after being abducted in September 2014.
Written in Prague by Daisy Sindelar based on reporting in Kyiv by Ivan PutilovAnother, Reshat Ametov, was found dead, with signs of torture, on the day of the referendum, two weeks after being abducted from a protest against the military presence in Crimea.
Shchekun himself was kidnapped on March 9, 2014, and spent 11 days in captivity together with fellow activist Anatoliy Kovalskiy. Both men were brutally beaten and tortured with electric rods before finally being released. No one has ever been held accountable for any of the disappearances or Ametov's death.
One year after annexation, Shchekun says the atmosphere in Crimea has become so oppressive that even ethnic Russians who favored ties with Moscow have come to regret their zeal.
"A year ago, they were shouting their support for Russia," he said. "Now they don't seem to be making such strong statements about what a good idea this was. They don't understand that the same misfortunes [I've experienced] are eventually going to darken their houses as well."
http://www.rferl.org/content/crimea-russia-annexation-fighting-back-tata...
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
If you don't like it.your team is free to launch an attack against Russia to get Crimea back
Put up or SHUT THE FUCK UP Mr Potatohead
This story is about China not East Euro Catholic losers
Why Crimea annexation is dangerous for the world.
RUS: https://youtu.be/uYd_hcq9Sd8
Crimea has been Russia's port for centuries. They leased it from Ukraine after owning it outright before. This is nothing new. If China Russia fomented a coup in Canada and tried help the Canadians annex Washington state and Bremerton/Bangor ports would we just sit back and masturbate? No. We'd be nuking people left and right without the slightest chess like movement.
I was wondering why the US doesn't desannexate from banksters. But hey, everybody has the right to make choices.
If there is one thing that perks my day up like nothing else it is to read an article like this that confirms that someone has swung giant lead boot and connected right on the fucking shriveled balls of an emasculated effeminate corrupt poncy little promiscuous faggot bath house trawling retarded Kenyan monkey cock squatter.
Love it, Love it, just love it
LOL Could not have said it better!
I was wondering where all those "birthers" had gone; now its all about effeminate promiscuous faggot...
You guys enjoy your silly, fantasy world soooo much.
Why don't to stick to facts and try to catch the ball on the fly of Pax Americana's Hobson's Choice....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson's_choice
Root causes of an imperial surge and then potential reversal of a karmatic, arthritic, inevitable knee jerk, as in Iran and maybe in Israel-- if Bibi gets marching orders from his powerful perch--; all a result of an unsustainable hubristic past play to control the Oil patch of world; could be closer to the truth than inane name sloshing and black dwarf armchair butt bashing.
If I read you correctly you don't like Mr. Obama. Am I right?
Who is Obama?
Soetoro never changed his name leaglly, while in US, to Obama, no evidence of changing the name, no documents even not falsified, like the birth ceritifcate, nothing, so once agaian, who is Obama?
Damn you are good ... the sensei of adjectives.
Cock squatter. Bravo!
After we squander their inheritance on financial speculation and political patronage, our grandchildren end up sucking Chinese dick for Chinese dollars.
Let's hope it's only our grand-daughters are forced to do that!
How's that Nudelman-Kagan/Wolfowitz NeoCON Full Spectrum Dominance working out?
Time to start rounding 'em up.
I'm just waiting for the cash squeeze and land prices to fall a little.
I'm not very "patient" at this point. Keep turning down deals for $$ and RE.
Waiting patiently...
Mexico and Canada next?
Sam's poodles South Korea and Japan still out. I bet Sam picks Door #2 without informing the east asian poodles, leaving them out in the cold in another Nixon goes to China shokku.
I have serious misgivings about the UK's inclusion into the Chinese system. The strong financial, military and cultural ties between the UK and the US govt/military/political systems would not allow this advancement by the UK. More likely, the UK has alternative motives if this surprising announcement proves correct.
@ Rubicon727
I was thinking the same thing. My conclusion is that the US has become a liability to it's parasites, they're onto their new host China.
Yup, something stinks.
Well anything for a Buck
This has nothing to do with Obama. Bankers call the shots, not the puppets.
The rise of the AIIB is the Chief Puppet's fault?
FT propagandameisters are working overtime.
speaking of banks...
pot meet kettle, we don't want no stinkin competition.
from Jesse's
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/business/international/banco-de-madrid-files-for-bankruptcy-protection.html?_r=0
The Washington-led international institutions established after WW2 will fade away pretty soon and the NWO promised by the NWO right after the end of the Cold War has become a pure illusion. Now another ruinous world war is upon us.
The last time Amerika elected an unamerican, college professor (Woodrow Wilson) we got WW1, Feral Reserve, IRS, and a host of bad shit. WWII was really an extension of WWI so you can blame WW1 and WW2 on WW.
Those warz were demanded by the International Bankers and that was what Adolf Hitler explained to his own people.
WoW, WWI WWII With WW.
.....force for best governance practices and an....
this is a style of Enron/Worldcom or a style of Goldman Sachs & Wall Street?
GREY STATE, The Rise By David Crowley JUST RELEASED FULL UNCUT MOVIE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=624JK9oiL48
Very strange: Under "Finance" at The Telegraph, there was an article about the AIIP and UK's application for membership. And now, 2 hours later..........it's gone.
Oops
So we're motoring on towards a new world fiat currency. Does this mean we going to get a satanic chiney to replace the satanic jew? Or is the jew hiding somewhere in the woodwork with his big bag of tricks? Nobody is trickier than the jew but nobody is warier than the chinese so we will have to see. But what about the gold standard, can't we can just get that and dispense with all the intrigue and focus on business.
Can Greece Join the Chinese bank?