Nato’s military commander in Europe has issued a warning about the build-up of Russian forces on Ukraine’s border. Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen Philip Breedlove said Nato was in particular concerned about the threat to Moldova’s Trans-Dniester region. Russia said its forces east of Ukraine complied with international agreements. The build-up has been allied with Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, following the removal of Ukraine’s pro-Moscow president. Moscow formally annexed Crimea after the predominantly ethnic-Russian region held a referendum which backed joining the Russian Federation. Kiev and the West have condemned the vote as “illegal”.
Russian flags have now been hoisted at 189 Ukrainian military units and facilities in Crimea, the Interfax news agency reports. Moscow’s ambassador to the EU told the BBC the “reunification” had not been pre-planned but was the end of an “abnormality” which had lasted for 60 years. Vladimir Chizhov also said said Moscow did not have any “expansionist views” and that “nobody should fear Russia”.
Shooting and explosions have been heard as Russian troops backed by armoured vehicles stormed a Ukrainian airbase in Crimea. Reports say at least one person was injured during the assault on Belbek base, near Sevastopol. The base is now said to be under Russian control. Earlier, several hundred unarmed protesters seized a Ukrainian naval base at Novofedorivka, western Crimea. Pro-Russian militia have also been seizing Ukrainian navy ships. The BBC’s Ian Pannell, in Crimea, says the Ukrainian troops on the peninsula feel beleaguered and abandoned by their commanders in Ukraine. On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law formalising Russia’s takeover of Crimea from Ukraine, despite fresh sanctions from the EU and the US.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon have ordered the army to continue preparing for a possible military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities at a cost of at least 10 billion shekels ($2.89 billion) this year, despite the talks between Iran and the West, according to recent statements by senior military officers. Three Knesset members who were present at Knesset joint committee hearings on Israel Defense Forces plans that were held in January and February say they learned during the hearings that 10 billion shekels to 12 billion shekels of the defense budget would be allocated this year for preparations for a strike on Iran, approximately the same amount that was allocated in 2013.
Ukraine is drawing up plans to withdraw its soldiers and their families from Crimea, the security and defence chief in Kiev says. Andriy Parubiy said they wanted to move them “quickly and efficiently” to mainland Ukraine. Earlier, pro-Russian forces seized two naval bases – including Ukraine navy’s headquarters – in Crimea. It comes a day after Crimean leaders signed a treaty with Moscow absorbing the peninsula into Russia. A referendum in Crimea on Sunday, approving its split from Ukraine, came nearly a month after Kiev’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was replaced by Western-leaning interim authorities.
Mr Parubiy, in a news conference, set out more details on Kiev’s position in light of the events in Crimea. “We are developing a plan that would enable us not only to withdraw servicemen, but also members of their families in Crimea, so that they could be quickly and efficiently moved to mainland Ukraine,” he said. He also said the arrangements were now being set up to introduce visas for Russian nationals travelling to Ukraine.
(Reuters) – Russia signaled concern on Wednesday at Estonia’s treatment of its large ethnic Russian minority, comparing language policy in the Baltic state with what it said was a call in Ukraine to prevent the use of Russian. Russia has defended its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula by arguing it has the right to protect Russian-speakers outside its borders, so the reference to linguistic tensions in another former Soviet republic comes at a highly sensitive moment. Russia fully supported the protection of the rights of linguistic minorities, a Moscow diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, according to a summary of the session issued by the U.N.’s information department.
“Language should not be used to segregate and isolate groups,” the diplomat was reported as saying. Russia was “concerned by steps taken in this regard in Estonia as well as in Ukraine,” the Moscow envoy was said to have added. The text of the Russian remarks, echoing long-standing complaints over Estonia’s insistence that the large Russian minority in the east of the country should be able to speak Estonian, was not immediately available. But amid the growing Crimea crisis, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – which like Ukraine were all parts of the old Soviet Union – have expressed growing apprehension over Moscow’s intentions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared Crimea reunited with Russia. He and Crimean leaders have signed a treaty of accession, which they consider effective immediately. Putin stressed the peninsula on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast was historically special for Russia. He said Russia does not intend to absorb other parts of Ukraine. He highlighted Crimea’s Tatar historic Muslim minority, saying they had come back to their territory, and said all legislative and political decisions had to be taken to “bring to fruition the rehabilitation of the Tatars of Crimea.” The three-quarter-of-an-hour speech to an audience including members of both houses of parliament was delivered in St. George’s Hall in Moscow’s Grand Kremlin Palace. Framed with patriotic fervor, it doled out praise and rebuke. “Where Ukraine is concerned, our Western partners crossed a red line,” Putin said. “They behaved cruelly, without responsibility, without professionalism.”
Israel would consider releasing a fourth group of Palestinian prisoners to press the Palestinian Authority if the settlement negotiations come to a standstill; Israel’s public radio Kol Israel Reshet Bet reported a senior official saying. The official said: “If the settlement talks with the Palestinians came to a standstill; Israel will reconsider liberating more Palestinian prisoners. The interest of all parties requires extending the negotiations for another year; even without the American framework agreement drafted by US Secretary of State John Kerry.” However he pointed out that “the issue of recognising Israel as a Jewish state is essential. If the US-drafted agreement includes establishing the future Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with land swaps, why not include a clause on recognising Israel’s Jewishness?” Meanwhile, a US source said that Kerry did not give Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a formal framework document, pointing out that Kerry and his team will continue contacting all relevant parties in the coming days to develop a framework agreement which allows the continuation of the settlement process.
Egyptian security forces transferred 44 jailed children, out of 165, from Alexandria to a punitive detention centre in Cairo known by inmates as “the torture camp” in Tora. The children, all school students aged between 12-15, have been forcibly deported from the Kom Al-Deka detention centre in Alexandria to the Ekabia (Punitive) center in Tora prison. The punitive centre has been dubbed “the torture camp”, due the prevalence of physical and psychological torture usually suffered by its underage inmates. Police forces attacked the families of children with tear gas and birdshots when they protested in front of the Alexandria detention centre, appealing to prison authorities not to transport their children to the dreadful correctional centre. Police also arrested those who attempted to film the attack.
WASHINGTON — The United States on Tuesday formally notified the Syrian government that it must suspend operations at its embassy here and at its two consulates in Michigan and Texas, the State Department said. The move stops short of a formal break of relations, but it bars Syria envoys here from carrying out diplomatic and consular duties. “Syrian diplomats at the embassy and Syrian honorary consulates are no longer permitted to perform diplomatic or consular functions and those who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents must depart the United States,” said a statement by Daniel Rubinstein, who was named on Monday as the new American envoy for Syria. The move comes on the third anniversary of the conflict in Syria that has killed an estimated 140,000 people. Mr. Rubinstein said in his statement that the United States would maintain diplomatic relations with Syria.
Saturday’s protest in central Moscow against the war in Ukraine, started at Pushkinskaya square and moved to Sakharov’s prospect, brought together a wide range of Russians eager to protest not only Russia’s involvement in Crimea, but the state of Russian politics and the Kremlin’s recent move to tighten the reins on mass media. Although protestors of all political beliefs attended the march, including one young communist group chanting “there is no warfare but class warfare,” representatives from all sections of Moscow society were present. Hipsters with curled mustaches, grandmothers holding small Ukrainian flags, and families strolling with their children, gave the event a festive air, despite the many police present.
Olga Petropalevskaya started going to protests in 2012, when Russians came out in force to protest Putin’s election. “It’s not honest – they’re not letting in observers,” she said about the Crimean elections that will decide whether the peninsula will become part of Russia. Petropavlevskaya, who has fond memories of visiting Ukraine as a child, added: “they should live their lives, and we should live ours.” Alexei Bondarenko came to protest not only against the war, but “against the powers that be, to show our numbers.” He said, “I feel bad about what’s happening” in Ukraine, but for him, the greater issue is the number of Russians who believe in the propaganda of state-owned media. Bondarenko, who works at a technology firm, said his co-workers see the Crimea “as theirs.”
CAIRO – Prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah is to stand trial on March 23 for allegedly participating in a violent protest, state media reported Saturday. The announcement came as a court handed two-year prison sentences to 68 supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and opposition activists on the same charge, a judicial source said. Abdel Fattah was a well-known activist and blogger during the 2011 uprising that overthrew strongman Hosni Mubarak, and he supported the military’s ousting of Morsi two years later. But he and other activists have since clashed with the new government, which has waged an extensive crackdown on both Islamists and secular activists like him.
He had been hailed as an “icon of the revolution” by the military-installed presidency after Morsi’s overthrow, before he began protesting against the new regime. Abdel Fattah will face trial with 24 other defendants for a November protest against a clause in the constitution allowing the military to court martial civilians, the official MENA news agency reported. He is charged with assaulting a police officer during the protest, held in violation of a law that bans all but police-sanctioned demonstrations.
For the past three weeks, journalist David Sheen has brought the reality of Israel’s war on African migrants into classrooms and lecture halls on North American college campuses. The leading writer on the virulent racism engulfing African asylum seekers within Israel did the same on Tuesday night, delivering a blistering indictment of Israeli state racism to dozens of people at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. Sheen’s videos and reports have become the go-to source for those looking to understand how a state founded to protect refugees has become a state systematically targeting refugees for indefinite imprisonment and deportation. A Canadian citizen who first moved to Israel in 1999, Sheen gradually turned away from Zionism as a result of the state’s policies of occupation and aggression, as Max Blumenthal documented in his book Goliath: Life and Loathing In Greater Israel.The details Sheen presents on his tour are downright chilling and devastating. And as he notes, the climate for African asylum seekers has only gotten worse in recent months, with the passage of new laws authorizing indefinite imprisonment in a prison until they can be returned home. The Israeli public strongly supports the detainment and deportation of Africans.
Ballot paper placed outside one of the polling stations in Crimea shows the locals how to vote. The red tick indicates a vote for joining Russia now rather then the other option which is for Crimea to become independent and join Russia at a later date.
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