This event may yet save us from nuclear war. Nevertheless..."The US president, Barack Obama, has faced rising calls at home to send military aid to Ukraine." Why and by whom the rising calls? Answers: Because the U.S. government in now controlled by neocons determined to start a nuclear war with Russia, and their claim that Russia has attacked Ukraine has been a blatent lie promolgated by the despicable "mainstream media." The slogan of the New York Times used to be "All the News That's Fit to Print." Now it might be "All the Faux News the Neocons want the American Public to Believe." Three cheers for Merkel, Hollande, and Putin!

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Ukraine ceasefire deal agreed at Minsk talks

Ceasefire will come into force on Sunday, but Hollande and Merkel say much work still to be done after marathon overnight negotiations.                                                                                Original Here


Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, says fighting will end at midnight on 15 February and that both the Ukrainian government and separatist rebels will withdraw heavy weapons from the front line

The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany have reached a ceasefire deal after 17 hours of talks in Minsk, Belarus, on the Ukrainian conflict.

The ceasefire will come into force on Sunday as part of a deal that also involves the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line.

Russian president Vladimir Putin was the first to announce the deal, saying: “We have agreed on a ceasefire from midnight 15 February.”

Putin added: “There is also the political settlement. The first thing is constitutional reform that should take into consideration the legitimate rights of people who live in Donbass. There are also border issues. Finally there are a whole range of economic and humanitarian issues.”

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who helped to broker the deal alongside the French president, François Hollande, said “we now have a glimmer of hope”, but added that the leaders were under no illusions and that “there is very, very much work still to do”.

Merkel also confirmed that Putin put pressure on the separatists to agree a truce.

Hollande said the deal covered all the contentious issues, including border control, decentralisation, and the resumption of economic relations, but also warned that much more needed to be done to resolve the crisis.

Hollande and Merkel will ask the European Union to support the agreement later on Thursday.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini sounded a note of caution, saying the Minsk agreement was important but not definitive. She added that she did not expect EU leaders to discuss sanctions against Russia at their summit on Thursday after the deal.

The main points of the agreement are:

Ceasefire to begin at midnight on 15 February Heavy weapons withdrawn in a two week period starting from 17 February Amnesty for prisoners involved in fighting Withdrawal of all foreign militias from Ukrainian territory and the disarmament of all illegal groups Lifting of restrictions in rebel areas of Ukraine Decentralisation for rebel regions by the end of 2015 Ukrainian control of the border with Russia by the end of 2015

The participants also agreed to attend regular meetings to ensure the fulfilment of the agreements, a Russian-distributed document said. 

Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, said: “The main thing which has been achieved is that from Saturday into Sunday there should be declared without any conditions at all a general ceasefire.”

Speaking after the talks, Donetsk rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko called the treaty a “major victory for the Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics”. Luhansk leader Igor Plotnitsky said they would “give Ukraine a chance, so that the country changes its constitution and its attitude”.

But despite the celebratory words, the fledgling peace process remained very fragile. Zakharchenko warned that all “responsibility will be on Petro Poroshenko”, and that the peace process would fall through if Kiev violated the new agreements, Russian news agency Interfax reported.

“All the points require additional approval, and for this reason there will be no meetings and new agreements if any violations take place,” Zakharchenko said.

http://youtu.be/_vGK63sbiks

Residents of Donetsk, where civilians have continued to be killed by shelling this week, greeted the news of the peace agreement with cautious optimism. A small group of people rallied outside the rebel government’s headquarters in the Donetsk regional administration building, and a woman on stage declared that “today is a holiday.”

More hardcore supporters of the rebels were disappointed with the new agreement. The popular Russian nationalist publication Sputnik i Pogrom called the Minsk treaty a “betrayal of all that the rebels fought for, including some of our readers” and derided the “clownish half-autonomous status” offered to the breakaway republics.

Earlier, Ukraine had played down speculation about a possible ceasefire agreement, accusing Russia of imposing “unacceptable” conditions.

At one point during the negotiations Putin signalled his apparent frustration at the lack of progress by snapping a pen or a pencil.

More than 5,300 people have died since April in the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists in two eastern provinces, and the bloodshed rose sharply in recent weeks.

Although the Minsk agreement represents a breakthrough in a long-frustrated peace process, several key points will be difficult and time-consuming to achieve.

It remained unclear what actions were to be taken in Debaltseve, the current major point of contention between the warring sides in eastern Ukraine. Pro-Russian fighters have been trying to take the town and its railroad junction from Ukrainian forces in weeks of heavy fighting, with violence escalating in the buildup to the peace talks.

The rebels have said they have Debaltseve surrounded, while the Ukrainian military has repeatedly denied this. But a volunteer battalion commander said on Thursday morning that Kiev’s forces were storming Lohvynove, a town located along the only highway leading out of Debaltseve to Ukrainian positions, suggesting that the troops really were surrounded.

Speaking to Russian channel RT, Putin said he had ordered “military experts” to look into how to solve the situation in Debaltseve peacefully. The Minsk agreement stipulates that the rebel republics withdraw their forces from the demarcation line laid down in the September ceasefire, and that Kiev withdraws its forces from the current de facto frontline.

“If it really is surrounded, then according to the normal logic of things, those who are surrounded will make attempts to break out, and those who are outside will make attempts to organise a corridor for the surrounded troops to leave,” Putin said.

“Look what the Russians are now bargaining for,” tweeted Ukrainian foreign ministry representative Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday, with a link to rebel claims that they had Debaltseve surrounded. “Without Debaltseve, the [Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics] are in a transportation bind.”

Another particularly difficult point to implement will be re-establishing Kiev’s control of the border, through which Russian volunteers, arms and allegedly troops have been coming to the rebels’ aid. Many of the border crossings with Russia are under rebel control, and the boundary between the two countries is notoriously porous anyway. Poroshenko said Kiev will only restore full control of the border by the end of 2015.

The US president, Barack Obama, has faced rising calls at home to send military aid to Ukraine, but European leaders fear it would only aggravate the violence. Russia, meanwhile, faces a severe economic downturn driven in part by sanctions the west has imposed for supporting the separatists with troops and equipment, which Moscow vehemently denies it is doing.

The urgency felt by all sides appeared to be underlined by the extraordinary length and discomfort of the talks between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany. They sat down with each other Wednesday evening in the Belarusian capital and the talks continued as sunrise neared on Thursday.

In a diplomatic blitz that began last week, Merkel and Hollande visited Kiev and Moscow to speak to Poroshenko and Putin, paving the way for the marathon session in Minsk.

Paul Craig Roberts: "Suspicions are growing that the French shootings are a false flag operation." "My recommendation is that you not believe the print and TV media, but think. The failure of Americans to think is why they are 13 years into war and live in a police state."

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Suspicions are growing that the French shootings are a false flag operation

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January 11, 2015 | Original Here                                            Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

Suspicions are growing that the French shootings are a false flag operation

I do not know these sites or their credibility. I do know the mainstream media, and it has no credibility.

http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/01/10/new-twist-charlie-hebdo-lead-investigator-turns-up-dead-suicided/

http://sgtreport.com/2015/01/paris-siege-false-flag-analyzing-the-cop-shooting-footag

http://zeeklytv.com/video/13910/SLOW-MOTION-FAKE-PARIS-SHOOTING-MISS-7-1-15-FRENCH-SATIRE-YT-banned-with-120000-views

Considering the number of real journalists on war fronts, not cartoonists in Paris, killed by Washington funded and organized ISIS, including filmed beheadings, the uproar over the cartoonists’ deaths has the appearance of orchestration. Whether or not it is a false flag operation, the shootings are being used for a wider purpose or purposes.

Among these purposes is bringing France back into Washington’s orbit. The French president had recently said that the sanctions against Russia should be terminated.

Hollande was allying himself with French economic interests instead of with Washington’s hegemonic foreign policy.

Another purpose is to stifle the growing European sympathy for the Palestinians and to realign Europe with Israel.

Another purpose is to counter the rising opposition in Europe to more Middle Eastern wars. The American neoconservatives have not completed their agenda. Syria, Iran,
Hezbollah, and Saudi Arabia are still standing.

And there can be other purposes not apparent to me.

My recommendation is that you not believe the print and TV media, but think. The failure of Americans to think is why they are 13 years into war and live in a police state.

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For my French friends and relatives: Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman hadn't "...paid much attention to François Hollande, the president of France, since it became clear that he wasn’t going to break with Europe’s destructive, austerity-minded policy orthodoxy. But now he has done something truly scandalous."

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The Opinion Pages | OP-ED COLUMNIST

Scandal in France

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JAN. 16, 2014

I haven’t paid much attention to François Hollande, the president of France, since it became clear that he wasn’t going to break with Europe’s destructive, austerity-minded policy orthodoxy. But now he has done something truly scandalous.

I am not, of course, talking about his alleged affair with an actress, which, even if true, is neither surprising (hey, it’s France) nor disturbing. No, what’s shocking is his embrace of discredited right-wing economic doctrines. It’s a reminder that Europe’s ongoing economic woes can’t be attributed solely to the bad ideas of the right. Yes, callous, wrongheaded conservatives have been driving policy, but they have been abetted and enabled by spineless, muddleheaded politicians on the moderate left.

Right now, Europe seems to be emerging from its double-dip recession and growing a bit. But this slight uptick follows years of disastrous performance. How disastrous? Consider: By 1936, seven years into the Great Depression, much of Europe was growing rapidly, with real G.D.P. per capita steadily reaching new highs. By contrast, European real G.D.P. per capita today is still well below its 2007 peak — and rising slowly at best.

Doing worse than you did in the Great Depression is, one might say, a remarkable achievement. How did the Europeans pull it off? Well, in the 1930s most European countries eventually abandoned economic orthodoxy: They went off the gold standard; they stopped trying to balance their budgets; and some of them began large military buildups that had the side effect of providing economic stimulus. The result was a strong recovery from 1933 onward.

Modern Europe is a much better place, morally, politically, and in human terms. A shared commitment to democracy has brought durable peace; social safety nets have limited the suffering from high unemployment; coordinated action has contained the threat of financial collapse. Unfortunately, the Continent’s success in avoiding disaster has had the side effect of letting governments cling to orthodox policies. Nobody has left the euro, even though it’s a monetary straitjacket. With no need to boost military spending, nobody has broken with fiscal austerity. Everyone is doing the safe, supposedly responsible thing — and the slump persists.

In this depressed and depressing landscape, France isn’t an especially bad performer. Obviously it has lagged behind Germany, which has been buoyed by its formidable export sector. But French performance has been better than that of most other European nations. And I’m not just talking about the debt-crisis countries. French growth has outpaced that of such pillars of orthodoxy as Finland and the Netherlands.

It’s true that the latest data show France failing to share in Europe’s general uptick. Most observers, including the International Monetary Fund, attribute this recent weakness largely to austerity policies. But now Mr. Hollande has spoken up about his plans to change France’s course — and it’s hard not to feel a sense of despair.

For Mr. Hollande, in announcing his intention to reduce taxes on businesses while cutting (unspecified) spending to offset the cost, declared, “It is upon supply that we need to act,” and he further declared that “supply actually creates demand.”

Oh, boy. That echoes, almost verbatim, the long-debunked fallacy known as Say’s Law — the claim that overall shortfalls in demand can’t happen, because people have to spend their income on something. This just isn’t true, and it’s very much not true as a practical matter at the beginning of 2014. All the evidence says that France is awash in productive resources, both labor and capital, that are sitting idle because demand is inadequate. For proof, one need only look at inflation, which is sliding fast. Indeed, both France and Europe as a whole are getting dangerously close to Japan-style deflation.

So what’s the significance of the fact that, at this of all times, Mr. Hollande has adopted this discredited doctrine?

As I said, it’s a sign of the haplessness of the European center-left. For four years, Europe has been in the grip of austerity fever, with mostly disastrous results; it’s telling that the current slight upturn is being hailed as if it were a policy triumph. Given the hardship these policies have inflicted, you might have expected left-of-center politicians to argue strenuously for a change in course. Yet everywhere in Europe, the center-left has at best (for example, in Britain) offered weak, halfhearted criticism, and often simply cringed in submission.

When Mr. Hollande became leader of the second-ranked euro economy, some of us hoped that he might take a stand. Instead, he fell into the usual cringe — a cringe that has now turned into intellectual collapse. And Europe’s second depression goes on and on.

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on January 17, 2014, on page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: Scandal in France. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe