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Wednesday, 21 January 2015

Charlie Hebdo's Zionist agenda and its anti-Gentile allies


In the wake of the terrorist attack against the French satirical newspaper «Charlie Hebdo», it has become apparent that the magazine's editorial chiefs killed in the attack on its headquarters in Paris and groups such as FEMEN and Pussy Riot are all connected in a campaign to disparage Islam and Christianity. In the aftermath of the terrorist attack, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu used the occasion of the memorial service in Paris attended by a number of world leaders to admonish France's parliament for having recently recognized the independence of Palestine and urge France's large Jewish population to emigrate to Israel.

It was also reported that French President François Hollande specifically did not invite Netanyahu to Paris but that the Israeli Prime Minister appeared nevertheless just so he could insult his French hosts and politicize the memorial service for the 17 victims for his own selfish political purposes. Netanyahu's antics in Paris were followed by a visit to French Prime Minister Manuel Valls by members of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, which represents 50 national Jewish groups in the United States, to urge France to withdrawal its recognition of Palestine in the wake of the attacks on the «Charlie Hebdo» offices and the Hyper Cacher Jewish supermarket in Paris.


The entire «Charlie Hebdo» affair has laid bare the inner workings of a newspaper that began as a left-wing counter-culture mocker of the establishment in the aftermath of the Paris Spring uprising of 1968. «Charlie» is a reference to French President Charles De Gaulle who was forced out of office as a result of the Paris student riots of 1968.


The assassination by two Franco-Algerian brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi, of «Charlie Hebdo» chief editor Stephane Charbonnier, known as «Charb» to his readers, and three of his top cartoonists, was no surprise to Henri Roussel, the magazine's founder and original editor whose pen name is Delfeil de Ton. In an interview with «,» Roussel said he warned Charb against provoking Muslims with repeated cartoons, some gratuitously sexual, of the Prophet Mohammed. Roussel said that one of the slain cartoonists feared that the cartoons would come back to «haunt» the newspaper, which suffered an arson attack in 2011. The attack came after the magazine published a Mohammed cartoon on its front cover. Roussel said of the 2011 cartoon: «He [Charb] shouldn't have done it, but Charb did it again a year later, in September 2012.»


Roussel also accused Charbonnier's predecessor, Philippe Val, of turning «Charlie Hebdo» into a Zionist and Islamophobic publication. Roussel cited Val's firing in 2009 of longtime «Charlie Hebdo» cartoonist Maurice Sine for drawing a cartoon lampooning Jean Sarkozy's marriage to the heiress of a Jewish electronics store chain and his subsequent conversion to Judaism. The cartoon suggested that the son of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy married the heiress of the Darty store chain in order to further his political career. The cartoon bore the notation: «The lad will go far.» Val considered the cartoon to be «anti-Semitic.» Sine told Val that he would «rather cut off [his own] balls» than accede to Val's demand for an apology to Jewish groups that were offended by the cartoon. Sine began his own publication «Sine Hebdo» with the money he was awarded by a French court for wrongful dismissal by «Charlie Hebdo.» «Hebdo» is the French word for «weekly.»


«Charlie Hebdo's» new editor, Gérard Biard, told NBC News that «Charlie Hebdo» was an «atheist» publication and that religion should stay out of politics. However, based on the revelations of Roussel and Sine, it appears that «Charlie Hebdo» is far from atheist but a periodical that defames Islam and Christianity while avoiding any real criticism of Judaism. This modus operandi is mirrored by the feminist pressure groups Pussy Riot and FEMEN, the latter largely underwritten before its move from Kiev to Paris by Jed Sunden, the wealthy American Zionist and former publisher of the «.» While both groups have committed heinous acts at Orthodox Christian and Roman Catholic cathedrals and Islamic mosques they have never conducted protests at misogynistic Orthodox Jewish and Hasidic synagogues. FEMEN and Pussy Riot have never criticized Israel even though domestic Israeli feminist groups have condemned Judaism's misogynistic practices at Jerusalem's Western Wall among other locations.


Bare-breasted FEMEN activists have tried to steal the baby Jesus figurine from a Christmas nativity scene at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, urinated on the altar of La Madeleine Catholic church in Paris, masturbated with crucifixes on St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, physically assaulted the Roman Catholic archbishops of Brussels and Madrid, vandalized property inside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and sawed down a Christian cross in a park in Kiev. FEMEN also staged a topless protest at a mosque in Stockholm. Pussy Riot conducted an obscene prayer ceremony at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. Amina Sboui, a Tunisian feminist, quit FEMEN after suggesting the group is financed by Israel. Sara Winter, the Brazilian organizer of FEMEN, later charged that the group was largely corrupt. Through his byzantine network of non-profit organizations and non-governmental fronts, George Soros's financial largesse eventually ends up in Pussy Riot's coffers.


Muslims protesters in the main Muslim city of Marawi in the Philippines obviously saw a connection between «Charlie Hebdo» and Israeli interests when they burned posters of «Charlie Hebdo's» front page bearing a photograph of Netanyahu and the headline of «Zionist Conspiracy.» The first issue of «Charlie Hebdo» after the massacre at its headquarters bore a cartoon of Mohammed with the comment «Je suis Charlie» («I am Charlie») and that «all is forgiven» («Tout est pardonne») .


The aftermath of the «Charlie Hebdo» attack also resulted in another professional casualty within the ranks of the corporate news media, the ever-diminishing ranks that are not beholden to Israeli propaganda and diktats from the Israel Lobby.


A Twitter message from CNN's longtime international correspondent Jim Clancy about «Charlie Hebdo» depicting the Prophet Mohammed in a manner that was meant to mock those Muslims who distort his teachings resulted in an exchange of tweets between the veteran newscaster and an operative of the neo-conservative and pro-Israeli Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD). When Clancy suggested that the operative was a «hasbara» troll, that is, an online Israeli propagandist, the CNN reporter became the subject of a character assassination campaign by the same Israel Lobby career-destroying buzz saw that claimed the careers of CNN's Octavia Nasr and Rick Sanchez and almost capsized that of CNN's Middle East correspondent Ben Wedeman. All three journalists were attacked for their critical views of Israel's policies. The same attack mechanism was used against the doyenne of the White House Press Corps, Helen Thomas, who was fired by Hearst Newspapers for her views on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. She subsequently lost her senior position in the White House Press Briefing Room.


There is little doubt that what Messrs. Roussel and Sine have called the Zionist editors of «Charlie Hebdo» and the tramps, trollops, and whores of FEMEN and Pussy Riot are working hand-in-glove to attack and mock two of three Abrahamic tradition religions: Christianity and Islam. Meanwhile, the third, Judaism, hides its «anti-Gentilism» behind such facades as «Charlie Hebdo» and FEMEN and other groups while proclaiming the importance of free speech.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Terrorism is simply inevitable payback, we're seeing it all wrong

john sawers



The only way to stop terror is to watch everyone all the time. So says MI6 stooge John Sawers.



In this globalised world, if we launch weapons of great destructive power into communities abroad, incinerating and shredding women and children, we cannot avoid the fact that those who identify with those communities - ethnically, culturally and religiously - will take revenge on people here. If we are lucky it will be revenge on combatants. If we are unlucky it will be on our innocents. But either way, the truth is this. We caused it.

We caused it by our invasions, occupations and bombings of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, none of which had ever attacked the UK. We caused it by all the dead women and children that British bombs, missiles or bullets killed accidentally. We caused it by the terrible deaths of the people we killed deliberately, who were only defending their country from foreign invaders, just as most of us would do. We caused it by the detainees killed or tortured. As a country, the United Kingdom caused it.


This is not the 19th century. Imperialist aggression now brings a danger of retaliation from empathetic communities embedded in western societies. This is so obvious as not to need stating. The danger of terrorism from Islamic sources would be much reduced if we just minded our own business on the international scene.


All that is very obvious. It does not, however, seem to have occurred to John Sawers, immediate past head of MI6, who has no sensible thoughts at all of the of terrorism. The right wing like to think that anyone opposed to the West is, by definition, spontaneously evil. If only they could look in the mirror sometimes and ask why people hate us, that would be a major psychological breakthrough. I have known John Sawers a great many years, and he is somebody who looks in the mirror very often. Sadly, not for that purpose.




At least he has the intellectual honesty to admit an open advocacy of the extreme big brother society. Abandoning the notion of smart intelligence, he has come out with a justification of the mass surveillance society which Snowden revealed. We cannot prevent terrorism without spying on innocent people, he declares.

In a sense, that is a truism. I have very often argued that it is impossible to prevent all evil and daft to try. You have a far, far higher chance of being murdered by a member of your own family than you have by a terrorist. Over the last 10 years terrorists have been responsible for almost exactly 1% of all murders in the UK. Let me type that again. In the last ten years terrorists have been responsible for almost exactly 1% of all murders in the UK. And about 0.007% of woundings. It remains true that the most likely person to kill you is in your own family. It is worth remembering that the number of people who died in the atrocity was the same number murdered in France on average every week.

Now assuming the aim is to prevent murder rather than make propaganda, let us concentrate for a moment on - don't worry, you will never in your life be asked to do this again, unless by me - let us concentrate on the 99% of murders which are not by terrorists. To take the John Sawers system, if we had permanent CCTV monitoring of every kitchen in the UK, we could probably prevent quite a few of those murders and a vast amount of non-fatal violence. It would take an enormous police and security service, of course, but we are getting there anyway. Sawers' point is completely correct in logic - you cannot prevent all murders without massive surveillance of the innocent. It would have been even more correct if you just stopped the sentence at you cannot prevent all murders. Precisely the same is true of the tiny risk to individuals that is murder by terrorism.

The surest way to reduce the terrorist threat in the UK is to stop bombing or invading other countries. That simple fact needs to be screamed from the rooftops. The next thing you can do is solid old fashioned evidence-based police and intelligence work. The least effective thing you can do is simply trawl the email and online chat of millions of people. That clogs up the intelligence system with a vast mound of undigestable information, and results in the conviction of fantasists and boastful men who, while unpleasant, are guilty of nothing but thought crime. It is exactly the same result as if you tackled murder by arresting everyone who in an email or chat wished harm to their husband or wife. It is wrong to express that, but the percentage who would have really gone on to murder would be vanishingly small.


The great worry is the presumption which is sneaking in to the mainstream media narrative that it is the responsibility of the state to prevent all crime before it happens. It is not, and that is not an achievable goal. The restrictions on liberty it would entail would do more damage to society than crime itself, which mankind has managed to live with since civilisation began. The entire debate around terrorism needs to be recalibrated. The answer is not the ultimate Big Brother surveillance state. The answer is to stop our hideous violence towards communities abroad.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Pesticide drift: USDA says "Yes" to Dicamba -tolerant crops


Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved the sale and planting of Monsanto's genetically engineered dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton. This approval follows that of 2,4-D tolerant soybeans and corn, billed as the next generation of herbicide-tolerant crops to tackle glyphosate (Roundup)-resistant weeds. Dicamba-tolerant soy and cotton are simply the latest example of USDA's allegiance to the biotechnology industry and dependence upon chemical solutions. This continues the disturbing trend of more herbicide-tolerant crop approvals taking place under President Obama's watch.

Once again, the USDA has neglected to look at the full range of impacts associated with these GMO herbicide-tolerant crops. Instead the agency has opted for a short-term solution to superweeds that have become resistant to herbicides because of previous approvals of GMOs, thereby perpetuating and escalating chemical use.


The USDA's Environmental Impact Statement predicted that dicamba use will increase 88-fold and 14-fold for soybeans and cotton, respectively, compared to current levels. Dicamba-tolerant crops will allow for wider windows of spraying throughout the season at unprecedented levels. Now that dicamba will be used in larger quantities, Monsanto has petitioned the EPA to increase the tolerance level of dicamba on cottonseed 150-fold. Higher levels of dicamba in the environment and our food pose unacceptable risks to human health and a wide variety of flora and fauna.


The USDA has ignored pleas from organic farmers and other specialty crop growers asking the agency not to approve these crops that will increase applications of this incredibly drift-prone herbicide. Farmers of nearby non-tolerant crops will pay the price for USDA's short-term weed management fix in the form of diminished or completely destroyed harvests caused by dicamba drift.


There are currently at least 70 million acres in the United States afflicted with Roundup-resistant weeds. It is only a matter of time before those weeds become resistant not just to Roundup, but to a mix of other herbicides, as their associated herbicide-tolerant crops are being planted and sprayed with chemical cocktails. Instead of taking action to address the long-term superweed problem in agriculture, the USDA has chosen the status quo.


Unfortunately, the collateral damage of today's USDA decision will be felt by organic and specialty crop farmers across the United States who have no defense against the use of this errant herbicide.


Food & Water Watch works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainable. So we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of where their food comes from, keep clean, affordable, public tap water flowing freely to our homes, protect the environmental quality of oceans, force government to do its job protecting citizens, and educate about the importance of keeping shared resources under public control.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Rickards and Powell: Lid on the gold price is for China


In May 2006 the economist R. Peter W. Millar of Value-Trac Research in Scotland published a study, "The Relevance and Importance of Gold in the World Monetary System," arguing that central banks would need to revalue gold upward by from seven to 20 times "to raise the monetary value of the world monetary base and hence reduce the burden of debt" and avert a deflationary depression. GATA published that study here:

http://bit.ly/15Atoo3


In May 2012 the U.S. economists and fund managers Paul Brodsky and Lee Quaintance postulated that central banks were suppressing the gold price while surreptitiously redistributing the world's gold among themselves in preparation for a resetting of the world financial system and a substantial upward revaluation of the monetary metal.


Brodsky and Quaintance wrote:



"The key to a successful transition is a credible monetary reset. Gold is the default collateral for money because it has a long and established precedent in this role.


"All that would be needed would be a fairly equitable distribution of gold among global monetary authorities (taking place now?), and an agreed-upon exchange rate vis-a-vis baseless paper. It would have to be an exchange rate at which central banks could successfully monetize assets by tendering for physical gold with newly manufactured paper money, an exchange rate high enough to attract enough gold to cover unreserved credit held in the banking system. It's a high figure.


"The relative cost of holding physical gold today is minimal (above-ground bullion or in-ground bullion through mining shares), against the negative real returns offered by the preponderance of financial assets in float.


"We suggest that one keep identities straight; invest with central banks, not against them; and consider as a gift the hollow rhetoric of the establishment that may temporarily suppress gold's paper price. They are working for physical gold holders, not against them."



GATA published the Brodsky-Quaintance study here:

http://bit.ly/1JhbB1o


In November 2013 your secretary/treasurer speculated that China and the United States were probably working together to control the gold price so China could gradually hedge its insane U.S. dollar surplus against the dollar's inevitable devaluation, and that China was almost certainly complicit in the gold price smash of April 2013:


http://bit.ly/15Atoo6


Now investment banker and geopolitical strategist James G. Rickards, writing for the Daily Reckoning, comes to a similar conclusion as he promotes his new financial letter, "Strategic Intelligence."


Rickards writes:



"If you took the lid off and ended the gold price manipulation and let gold find its level, China would be left in the dust. It wouldn't have enough gold relative to the other countries, and because their economy is growing faster and because the price of gold would be skyrocketing, they could never acquire it fast enough. They could never catch up. All the other countries would be on the bus. The Chinese would be off the bus. ...


"So the global effort is to keep the lid on the price through manipulation, which is very obvious. I tell people, if I were running the manipulation, I'd be embarrassed because it's so obvious at this point.


"So the price is being suppressed until China gets the gold they need. Once China gets the right amount of gold, then you can take the cap off. It doesn't matter where gold is because all the countries will be in the same boat. But right now they're not, so China has this catch-up."



Rickards' commentary is headlined "Gold Price Manipulation Is Now a Global Effort" and it's posted at the Daily Reckoning here:

http://bit.ly/1JhbB1r


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Men and women process emotions differently


© MCN, University of Basel

Red and yellow indicates the more active areas of the brain when images are rated as highly stimulating. Green indicates the areas that specifically become more active in women.



Women rate emotional images as more emotionally stimulating than men do and are more likely to remember them. However, there are no gender-related differences in emotional appraisal as far as neutral images are concerned. These were the findings of a large-scale study by a research team at the University of Basel that focused on determining the gender-dependent relationship between emotions, memory performance and brain activity. The results will be published in the latest issue of the

It is known that women often consider emotional events to be more emotionally stimulating than men do. Earlier studies have shown that emotions influence our memory: the more emotional a situation is, the more likely we are to remember it. This raises the question as to whether women often outperform men in memory tests because of the way they process emotions. A research team from the University of Basel's "Molecular and Cognitive Neurosciences" Transfaculty Research Platform attempted to find out.


With the help of 3,398 test subjects from four sub-trials, the researchers were able to demonstrate that females rated emotional image content -- especially negative content -- as more emotionally stimulating than their male counterparts did. In the case of neutral images, however, there were no gender-related differences in emotional appraisal. In a subsequent memory test, female participants could freely recall significantly more images than the male participants. Surprisingly though, women had a particular advantage over men when recalling positive images. "This would suggest that gender-dependent differences in emotional processing and memory are due to different mechanisms," says study leader Dr Annette Milnik.


Increased brain activity


Using fMRI data from 696 test subjects, the researchers were also able to show that stronger appraisal of negative emotional image content by the female participants is linked to increased brain activity in motoric regions. "This result would support the common belief that women are more emotionally expressive than men," explained Dr Klara Spalek, lead author of the study.


The findings also help to provide a better understanding of gender-specific differences in information processing. This knowledge is important, because many neuropsychiatric illnesses also exhibit gender-related differences. The study is part of a research project led by professors Dominique de Quervain and Andreas Papassotiropoulos at the University of Basel, which aims to increase the understanding of neuronal and molecular mechanisms of human memory and thereby facilitate the development of new treatments.


Story Source:


The above story is based on materials provided by Universität Basel .


Journal Reference:



  1. Klara Spalek, Matthias Fastenrath, Sandra Ackermann, Bianca Auschra, Xdavid Coynel, Julia Frey, Leo Gschwind, Francina Hartmann, Nadine Van Der Maarel, Andreas Papassotiropoulos, Dominique De Quervain and Annette Milnik. Sex-Dependent Dissociation between Emotional Appraisal and Memory: A Large-Scale Behavioral and fMRI Study. , January 2015 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2384-14.2015


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Gilad Atzmon: A personal note on Jewish statistics


The British political establishment is in a state of panic. A poll revealed last week that "a quarter of Jews in Britain have considered leaving the country in the last two years and well over half (58%) feel they have no long term future in Europe." This could be a potential disaster for British political parties. Eighty per cent of the Tories are members of the pro Israeli lobby, The Conservative Friends Of Israel (CFI), and a similar percentage of Labour and Libdem MPs have vowed their allegiance to Israel through their respective Jewish Lobby groups. The Jews are clearly a vital source of funding for British politicians. In fact, it has become hard to imagine what British politics would look like without Jewish Lobby's money. Though the vast majority of British MPs are friends of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, it has not been established how many of our MPs are friendly with Manchester and Hartlepool.

Apparently a recent poll found that anti-Semitic beliefs are widely prevalent among the British public with 45 percent of Britons agreeing with at least one of these 'anti-Semitic' sentiments: a quarter of Britons believed "Jews chase money more than other British people," one in six agreed that "Jews think they are better than other people" and "Jews have too much power in the media."


However, if Jewish leaders want to focus on statistics, they surely know how to scientifically verify whether there is an element of truth in these bizarre baseless arguments that apparently 45% of Brits hold about their Jewish citizens. It would be simple to determine whether, in fact, Jews are over represented in the financial sector or in the media or politics. If Jewish leaders are concerned about the safety of their community members, it would be a good idea to examine these questions closely and think about how to address the issue. Clearly, labeling 45% of the Brits as 'anti Semites' is not going to make Jews feel safer in Britain.


I have lived in London, one of the most diverse cities on this planet, for about 20 years. I am surrounded by people from all over the world. Some communities occasionally prefer to voluntarily segregate themselves. Many communities are subject to harsh and manifested hatred but, somehow, it is always the Jewish community that measures statistically how unlovable the Jews are. Not the Portuguese, not the Afghans, not the Albans, not the Iranians or the Colombians. It is the Jewish leaders who choose once a month to shove in our faces the 'numbers' that reveal that anti Semitism is on the rise. I believe that this happens for a reason.


Jews are obsessed with measuring their unpopularity because Jews are involved collectively, and sometimes against the will of many individuals, with some very unpopular acts. The crimes committed repeatedly by the Jewish State are a problem for the Jews. The overwhelmingly forceful Jewish lobby in Britain and America is a problem that reflects badly on Jews. Even the Epstein/Dershowitz/Prince Andrew's minor sex scandal makes Jews feel uncomfortable because Alan Dershowitz has been the prime Zionist mouthpiece for the last four decades in the USA.


I was born in Israel in the 1960's, I am a product of a patriotic Israeli education and I am confused by all of it. In Israel in the 1970's we were taught that Jews being despised and hated by their neighbours wasn't something to brag about. Jews being hated filled us with shame. We believed that Jews could be reformed and become subject of admiration. We didn't need Home Secretary Theresa May to vow to fight our haters. We believed that we could earn genuine respect through our own merits.


It took me thirty years to understand that this adventure in reform wasn't simple at all. Israel and Zionism failed to rescue the Jew or Jewishness; quite the opposite. It took me a long time to grasp that I couldn't become a better person unless I dropped the Jew in me and started a lifetime journey to Goy-zone. I mention my own choice because I realised that there was no collective answer to the Jewish Question. If Jews want to save their souls and their ethics, if they want to look in the mirror with pride, they must leave the collective and find their own personal way toward liberation.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Annual address and press conference: Russian Foreign Minster Sergey Lavrov

Lavrov

© Sputnik/ Evgeny Biatov



Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to our annual meeting on Russia's diplomatic performance.


The situation last year was more complicated than previously, as new dangerous seats of tensions complemented several smouldering chronic conflicts. Especially alarming was the situation in the Middle East and North Africa, where extremist and terrorist threats were growing and spreading to other regions and to which Russia consistently tried to attract the attention of its partners. The risk that religious and societal divides will grow has not diminished. The global economic situation is far from clear.


We believe that the developments of the past few years show convincingly that global security issues can only be resolved through concerted efforts. But cooperative actions by the international community are hindered by a number of negative trends. The most important of them are fundamental differences between the objective process of the decentralisation of power in the world and the development of a more democratic polycentric world order on the one hand, and persistent attempts by the "historical" West to preserve global leadership at all costs and to enforce its approaches and values, including through the use of force on the other participants of international relations, on the other hand. The situation in Ukraine is a perfect reflection of this policy.


[embedded content]




I won't speak in detail about our views of what happened in this neighbouring fraternal state, because you know them very well. I will only say that Russia has been firmly advocating a comprehensive and exclusively peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. The Minsk agreements, which were achieved in part thanks to the proactive stance of President Vladimir Putin, offer practical grounds for settlement. The current urgent need is to start an inclusive dialogue in Ukraine to discuss in detail and coordinate the constitutional system of Ukraine as a stable and safe country for all Ukrainian citizens without exception. We are pleased that our Western partners are coming to see, as far as I can tell, that this scenario has no alternative. I hope that our future contacts at different levels and in various formats will promote movement towards this goal.

Only the people of Ukraine without any foreign interference must determine their future. Direct contact between Kiev and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics are of fundamental importance in this context and taking into account the acute crisis in southeast Ukraine. All other formats involving external players, including the Normandy and many other formats, as well as the OSCE activities, must be aimed at assisting a direct and sustainable dialogue on issues that need to be resolved to settle the crisis. For its part, Russia will continue to assist the creation of favourable conditions to settle Ukraine's formidable problems in this spirit.


Our Western partners have said repeatedly that they need to continue to contain Russia. US President Barack Obama said as much in his state of the nation address yesterday. But these attempts will fail. Despite this policy of our Western partners, President Vladimir Putin clearly said in his address to the Federal Assembly that Russia would never enter the path of self-isolation, suspicion and the search for enemies. We are pursuing an active foreign policy and are consistently upholding our national interests. However, we are not set on confrontation but are willing to make reasonable compromises based on a balance of interests. We have been trying to influence the international situation in order to improve it and to strengthen security, and we have been advocating a peaceful and future-oriented agenda. We firmly believe that only collective efforts will produce answers to the threats and challenges facing all of mankind. But while doing this we should rely on international law and the central coordinating role of the UN.


Last year, Russia worked actively in different formats, including the G20, BRICS and the SCO, which will hold their summits this year in the Russian city of Ufa. We will use the opportunities offered by Russia's presidency to give a fresh impetus to these formats. The focus in BRICS will be on coordinating crucial economic documents such as a strategy for economic partnership and a roadmap for institutional cooperation. There are plans to sign an agreement on cultural ties and to open new cooperation tracks. We will also inaugurate a virtual secretariat for BRICS.


The signing of the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which became effective on 1 January 2015, was a major step towards closer integration in the post-Soviet space. Armenia became a full member of the EAEU on 2 January. Kyrgyzstan will complete the accession process in the near future. The interest of many of our partners in this process is truly indicative. We welcome the intention of many countries to cooperate with the EAEU. A score of countries have expressed a desire to start consultations on the possibility of signing a free trade agreement with the union.


Last year, Russia as the CSTO president focused on strengthening the efficiency and the quality of response mechanisms and the peacekeeping potential of the organisation.


As for Russia's relations with Europe, Brussels has adopted a stance regarding the Ukrainian crisis that has resulted in a substantial decline in relations with the EU, as a number of challenging political and economic issues emerged on our agenda. We believe in systematic efforts to overcome these issues based on equality and mutual respect. We remain committed to the idea of progressively advancing, equal and mutually beneficial cooperation with the European Union. We have been calling on our partners for several years now to begin work on promoting the "integration of integrations initiative," by which we mean taking consecutive steps to establish a single economic and humanitarian space from the Atlantic to the Pacific based on the principles of indivisible security and broad cooperation. We submitted this proposal to the OSCE as part of its second basket and did not see any opposition. I hope that we will be able to begin working along these lines. It is our belief that agreeing on such strategic objectives will ensure the harmonious development of all countries within Greater Europe, regardless of whether they participate in various integration organisations or not. The first step in this direction would be to launch talks on the creation of a free-trade zone between the EAEU and the EU. President Vladimir Putin put forward an initiative to this effect in January 2014 during the EU-Russia Summit in Brussels, and this proposal remains relevant.


On the American "frontline," relations between Moscow and Washington have come under serious strain. The US administration has withdrawn from bilateral dialogue on most issues. We call on our US partners to resume constructive relations both on bilateral, as well as global issues, where our countries bear special responsibility. Equal footing and taking into account each other's interests are prerequisites for making such a dialogue possible.


Following in the US' footsteps, a confrontational stance has prevailed within NATO. The Alliance has taken an absolutely political decision to suspend cooperation on military and civil projects, and almost all projects have been frozen. This was not our choice. We do not want and won't allow a new cold war to unfold. Our Western partners should understand that in today's world it is impossible to ensure security by taking unilateral actions and pressuring partners, which undermines joint efforts.




We are continuing efforts to further promote Russia's integration with the Asia-Pacific region. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated on numerous occasions that Russia views relations with the APR as a strategic priority in the 21st century, which is important, among other things, for developing regions in Russia's Far East. At the same time, we have always stressed and still reiterate that these efforts are not meant to be an alternative to relations with Europe and the West in general, but to go hand in hand with stepping up ties with our European partners, if they are willing to engage in such relations, naturally.

Russia's relations with China have also been expanding consistently. During the visit by President Vladimir Putin to China in May last year, some 50 agreements were signed, and you have received extensive information on all of them. Russia's partnership with China has become a major factor in international relations for ensuring global and regional stability and security.


Russia has also stepped up strategic partnerships with India, Vietnam and other APR countries, expanded Russia's involvement in the APR's multilateral mechanisms. We continued to promote relations with the Latin American and African countries, emerging regional integration bodies and regional organisations.


Russia was proactive in facilitating a settlement in various conflicts. Syria's demilitarization has been successfully completed with active input from Russia - there was actually a Russia-US initiative to this effect, which proves that guided by basic interests, not opportunistic considerations, it is / and find ways to ensure productive joint efforts. We undertook consistent efforts to bring about political settlement of the Syrian crisis by creating conditions for facilitating direct dialogue between representatives of the Syrian government and all major opposition groups.


The Islamic State has been the biggest threat in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Russia views counterterrorist efforts as one of its priorities, and we proposed to have the UN Security Council conduct a comprehensive analysis of the threats the MENA region is facing. No one opposed this proposal. We will continue to implement this crucial initiative.


Russia's efforts within the P5+1 contributed to certain advances in the settlement of the Iranian nuclear program issue. Although certain difficulties have yet to be addressed, the work goes on and we have every reason to expect these efforts to yield results.


Protecting the rights and interests of our compatriots living abroad, as well as expanding international humanitarian and cultural ties remain among Russia's priorities. We were proactive in assisting Russian businesses operating on foreign markets, attracting new exporters of goods and services, and bringing Russian products to new markets. We also paid special attention to media efforts by developing contacts with media outlets and foreign publics to shed light on Russia's foreign policy.


All in all, we did our outmost to facilitate Russia's comprehensive development and make Russian citizens more prosperous - these are priority objectives according to Presidential Executive order No. 605 dated 7 May 2012 On Measures to Implement Russia's Foreign Policy and Russia's Foreign Policy Concept. Under these instruments, the Ministry of Foreign affairs is required to create the most favourable environment for facilitating all-round development of the country, making its population more prosperous and secure at the international level.


With this, I would like to complete my opening remarks. I'm ready to take questions.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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