The Raw Story

Friday, 13 February 2015

Outcome of Minsk: Poroshenko given chance to rein in Kiev war faction, but will it work?

Imagine yourself as Petro Poroshenko for a minute: you fly in for a meeting, and you discover everyone is against you, the Europeans, the Russians, even the clever Belorussian with his little smile. The ally and patron is somewhere far away, behind an ocean. You have to run to make a phone call and get instructions. People are openly chuckling when you tell them there is no encirclement at Debaltsevo. They even ask you to leave the room so that Putin, Merkel, and Hollande can speak. You can't believe in the outcome of the negotiations, and even tell the media that "all is lost." A disaster.

But you still remember that your victory can easily be transformed into treachery, and you yourself can be deprived of power and even life. You have to save face, since you are not independent and don't have any genuine power. Your competitor in Dnepropetrovsk already opened a parallel General Staff, and the efforts to disperse the Aidar failed completely. You even destroyed the coalition when you tried to make your friend/godfather the Prosecutor General.

So it's better not to return at all without an agreement. It's even more important not to return without an advantageous agreement. But there isn't one. Because they put in front of you a compromise, and you had to sign on.

Holland and Merkel are beaming, because the plan worked and they believe in its implementation.

But only Lukashenko and Putin, and the DPR/LPR representatives understand what's really going on.

Can you imagine how Poroshenko is supposed to issue orders to the Debaltsevo group after many of its officers had fled? If even Poltorak says that there is no encirclement. How are the Ukrainian soldiers to return to the demarcation line if they are encircled? Breaking out - means violating the ceasefire, staying put means death and capitulation.

You break the ceasefire and Minsk-2 collapses. But try to imagine how these measures are to be implemented.

First. Are the radicals going to agree to pay salaries to the "supporters of terrorism" on Donbass? For them salary non-payment is a victory over Putin.

Second. How do you intend to resurrect the Donbass special status law, after it was voided by the radicals in the Rada?

Third. How is Poroshenko going to command the territorial battalions and volunteer battalions, which are not under his control?

Fourth. How is he going to force his artillerymen to stop shelling Donbass cities?

Fifth. How is Poroshenko going to explain the troop withdrawal?

The answer is simple. He won't. The provisions of the Minsk agreement are impossible to fulfill.

Incidentally, neither Kiev nor the republics plan to cancel their mobilizations. Units will be brought back to strength, and the republics' mobilization is going somewhat better than Kiev's. The war will inevitably continue, but the republics are in a better starting position than Kiev.

Therefore the outcome will be as follows: the ceasefire is temporary and will be violated. It only extends the death throes of the Kiev regime and of Ukraine as a state.

J.Hawk's Comments: Lizan outlines Poroshenko's quandary quite well, but in fact the situation is even worse for him.

For starters, Poroshenko clearly expected that the Minsk meeting would consist of The Leaders of the Free World (Poroshenko included) bringing "Putler's aggression" to heel.

Instead it turned out to be Vlad and Friends putting the hurt on Poroshenko. From just observing the facial expressions and the body language, it was clear that he was on the receiving end of some serious pressure. Lavrov's comment that the negotiations were going "better than super" was an early indication that Poroshenko walked into an ambush. What was the ambush intended to accomplish?

It would appear that Vlad's Friends want Poroshenko to deal firmly with the Party of War in Kiev. It must have dawned on Merkel and Hollande (though the latter probably suspected this already) that the Kiev junta's survival plan consists solely of hoping to provoke a large-scale conflict with Russia that would trigger a new Cold War on the European continent, and result in Ukraine being an "advanced forpost of the Western civilization", an Israel of Eastern Europe of sorts, which in turn would mean billions and billions of dollars of economic and military aid. And the junta has no other plan. It never had any other plan. Its objective from the start was to provoke Russia (starting with "FSB snipers on the Maidan" and the moves to transfer the Sevastopol naval base to the US Navy) into doing something.

Well, they succeeded. Russia "did something". It was only then that they discovered their miscalculation—the West does not have billions laying around to spend on cleptocratic Ukrainians with delusions of grandeur. Undaunted, they continued to escalate the situation, until the Europeans finally decided to step in, lest a full-scale great power war erupt on the European continent. First they apparently successfully convinced the Biden administration to kindly butt out by categorically ruling out deliveries of weapons to Ukraine. Then they pulled the plug on Kiev.

Poroshenko's "mission impossible," as it was evidently communicated to him by Hollande and Merkel, is to rein in the "war party" in Kiev by any means possible and then get on with destroying, excuse me, reforming the Ukrainian economy, Greece-style. It's no longer self-evident that any violation of the ceasefire will be automatically blamed on Novorossia or Russia, as it was in the past. It is totally self-evident that no IMF credits will be forthcoming unless Poroshenko finally starts acting in a responsible manner. Moreover, considering what conditions are invariably attached to IMF credits, Ukraine's ability to wage war will likely quickly decline due to the draconian budget cuts. Whatever Yatsenyuk had planned for this year will likely be significantly reduced if Yaresko is to convince Western donors Ukraine is serious about cutting government spending, and at the moment defense is where most of the money is.

So yes, by all means, try to put yourself into Poroshenko's shoes at this point. His best chance is to convince the "war party" that their best chance is to help him stay in power. This line of argument has the benefit of having considerable merit to it, because should the Right Sector/Turchinov/whoever topple Poroshenko, would the new junta count on any support from the West?

Probably not, but do Yarosh and Turchinov realize it? The assumption Poroshenko and other sponsors of the Maidan made in unleashing the neo-Nazis on Ukraine's political scene was that billions of dollars of Western aid would improve the situation in the country to such an extent that these movements would be starved of popular support. Instead, due to the deteriorating situation and the two lost military campaigns, they are gaining in strength, and their main enemy no longer is located in Donbass.

Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Image shows woman paid to manipulate App Store rankings

An image posted to Chinese social media site Weibo allegedly shows a "ranking farm" of racks of iPhones that are used to manipulate ratings and reviews of apps in the App Store.

© Weibo.com

The photo shows a Chinese employee sitting in front of about 100 iPhones and apparently manipulating app store rankings.

The image shows a woman sat in front of a rack of over 50 iPhone 5Cs linked together in a tangled mess of cabling. There appear to be more iPhones surrounding her, with the App Store running on their screens.

Although the photos cannot be verified, The Verge reports that it is easy to find adverts for such services on Chinese e-commerce sites, leading to an indication that this is genuine.

It appears as though people are paid to download apps onto actual iPhones and then rate and review them, manipulating the natural state of the store with false "customer" experiences of products. The image is described on Weibo as a shot of a "hardworking App Store ranking manipulation employee."

The services are offered as an option to developers who are desperate to get an app into Apple's top 10 lists instead of succumbing to the fate of many apps. Such practices are allegedly common among Chinese developers. Apple has been implementing systems that prevent automated bots from changing the rating of apps by pretending to download them but combating those who use physical devices to continue the practice may prove trickier.

Although it is hard to say how many may be employed in the business, the number of iPhones illustrated shows at least that it isn't a small operation.

Another image being paired with the shot of a worker actively manipulating the store shows a "price list" for some of the services on offer. Getting into the top ten free apps list is listed at $11,200, plus $65,000 per additional week.

A lawsuit has been filed alleging that Austin police put a hood over a woman's head, restrained her arms and legs, put her in a choke hold until she went limp, and pinned her arm down with a boot, all to draw her blood over a DUI test.

Caroline Callaway is suing the city of Austin, Travis County, Austin police officers, county sheriff's officers, Pro-touch Nurses and one of its employees, alleging unlawful search and seizure, excessive force, assault and battery, negligence and medical malpractice, Court House News reports.

The scene painted by the lawsuit reads like the horror stories we hear from Guantanamo Bay, yet it took place here in Texas- over a would-be misdemeanor.

The woman, who suffers from an anxiety disorder that she uses prescription medications to manage, was arrested by Officer Patrick Oborski after refusing to submit to a breathalyzer test.

Callaway claims that upon arriving at the Travis County Jail she was taken into a small padded room and strapped into a chair with her legs, wrists, and shoulders restrained; all while surrounded by police officers. The situation caused the woman to tremble with fear, which she says prompted the officers to place a "protective hood" over her head. The bag covered her eyes, nose, and mouth and made it difficult for Callaway to breathe.

Callaway was still shaking during the first attempt at drawing blood, which reportedly caused the needle to pop out of her arm and blood to squirt onto one of the officers.

"(D)efendants continued the abuse determined to take Ms. Callaway's blood. In order to stop Ms. Callaway from trembling, one of the officers used choke hold pressure points on her neck, until her body went limp. Defendant Ramsey-Graham stabbed Ms. Callaway again while Ms. Callaway was limp. When the officer released her neck, Ms. Callaway gasped for air. She could not see because there was a bag over her head, but she felt the weight of a boot in the crook of her arm, which, along with the rest of her body, was still tied to the chair. Ms. Callaway was suspected of committing a misdemeanor," the complaint reads.

The woman claims she only passively and verbally resisted, and that none of these measures were necessary. Callaway was ultimately charged with a misdemeanor DWI based on the blood sample.

Just last month we reported on military police from the torturous Guantanamo Bay being recruited as cops here in our local police departments. Something tells us they will fit right in.

If you don't think this could happen to you, watch the video below; those people thought the same thing.

[embedded content]

Job stress can be fatal and contribute to the deaths 120,000 Americans a year. It can also lead to hypertension, cardiovascular disease and decreased mental health, a new study argues. It also costs tens of billions of dollars in healthcare.

On the bright side, the study also found that improving management practices could save lives.

The Harvard and Stanford Business School working paper published in the Management Science journal looks at why Americans spend $180 billion every year on healthcare yet experience average or subpar health outcomes compared to the rest of the world.

The study combined common job stressors - including layoffs and unemployment, lack of health insurance, shift work, long working hours, job insecurity, low organizational justice - with management choices such as long hours, lack of control, job insecurity and perceptions of unfairness in the workplace.

Job stress 'making staff unhealthy' http://bit.ly/1A53McY and will only get worse if Govt insist on low paid, insecure, poor quality work

— I'm a JSA claimant (@imajsaclaimant) February 12, 2015

Co-author Professor Joel Goh of Harvard Business School told Working Knowledge, "These factors affect health in two ways. They are both inherently stressful on the body, and also lead to unhealthy behaviors like alcoholism and overeating."

Researchers developed a mathematical formula that included these factors using data from four sub-populations of the US civilian labor force in 2010 - men, women, the unemployed and employed - and added data for negative health outcomes. They found that workplace stress contributes to at least 120,000 deaths a year.

In 49,000 of these deaths, the biggest contributing factor was a lack of health insurance. Unemployment contributed to 34,000 deaths, and job insecurity and high work demands contributed to 30,000 deaths.

"We have this body of research that shows workplace stress is very bad for health, and we have this other information that says our health costs are way above that of other countries," Goh said. "But traditionally in the US we have not placed a lot of emphasis on the role of workplace stress in the high cost of health care."

Two in five workers say that their job is very or extremely stressful: How to Create a Stress-Free #Workplace http://bit.ly/1AxmP1q

— Chantelle Jones (@JChantelle) February 4, 2015

The study's authors argued that employers can help address the problems by looking beyond health care programs to changes in management and operations.

"The workplace is where we spend a lot of the time - a third of our day," said Goh. "It's an avenue for stress and an avenue for ameliorating stress and by and large the costs are borne by employers."

The study showed when employees are working in downsizing firms there is a two-fold increase in sick absences. Giving employees some discretion over their work schedules has profound health benefits, researchers said, as low job control and high job demands contribute to poor health.

"Health care programs are no good if your guy is so stressed that he can't take advantage of them,"said Goh.

Possible Nova in Sco

Following the posting on the Central Bureau's Transient Object Confirmation Page about a possible Nova in Sco (TOCP Designation: PNV J17032620-3504140) we performed some follow-up of this object remotely through a 0.50-m f/6.8 astrograph + CCD + f/4.5 focal reducer) of iTelescope network (MPC Code Q62 - Siding Spring).

On our images taken on February 13.7, 2015 we can confirm the presence of an optical counterpart with R-CCD magnitude 8.6 at coordinates:

R.A. = 17 03 26.19, Decl.= -35 04 18.1

(equinox 2000.0; UCAC3 catalogue reference stars).

Our annotated confirmation image. Click on it for a bigger version:

An animation showing a comparison between our confirmation image and the archive POSS2/UKSTU plate (R Filter - 1991).

The European Commission (EC) will resume energy talks with Russia and Ukraine in hope of avoiding gas problems during the winter of 2015, EC President Jean-Claude Juncker told journalists.

His announcement comes a day after the Minsk agreement, backed by the Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine created a roadmap for peace in Ukraine.

"We will renew three-party energy talks in order not to run into the same problems during the 2015 winter as we encountered before," Juncker said at the end of the EU summit on Thursday.

In October Russia, Ukraine and the EC agreed on gas supply to Ukraine until March 2015. Under the deal, Ukraine pre-paid for Russian gas at $378 per 1,000 cubic meters.

The agreement ensured Ukraine and Europe would avoid a winter energy crisis, as was the case in 2006 and 2009, when gas disputes between Ukraine and Russia resulted in gas shortages across Europe.

Russia's s gas delivery on credit to Ukraine ceased in mid-June, and the taps were only turned back on in mid-December. Deliveries resumed after Ukraine began paying off some of the $5 billion owed to Gazprom.

Ukraine's gas import monopoly, Naftogaz, has paid off $3.1 billion in in two large tranches in November and December respectively.

Theresa May's Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill received royal assent on Thursday, meaning tough new measures to prevent suspected terrorists from traveling to Iraq or Syria will come into force within the next 24 hours.

The act of royal assent, where Queen Elizabeth II signs an act of law, is the final stage needed to pass any bill, and means the measures, which were announced by the Home Secretary in November last year, can come into force almost immediately.

They include bolstering existing powers for passport removal, and will allow police to "disrupt" individuals who are suspected of leaving the country to join terror cells abroad and prevent them leaving the country while investigations are carried out.

Some counter-terrorism and security laws will also impose a duty upon pubic bodies including police, schools and universities to address individuals they believe are at risk of radicalization. They are set to commence in the coming months, subject to Parliamentary approval of crucial secondary legislation before the end of March.

Last week MPs and peers told the Home Secretary that universities should be exempt from these new measures, as they would seriously impede academic freedom of speech.

A consultation paper published before Christmas said that universities "must take seriously their responsibility to exclude those promoting extremist views that support or are conducive to terrorism," and that staff will be expected to refer suspected students to anti-radicalization programs.

May said Thursday that passing the legislation was even more important following the attacks on the offices of satirical magazine in January, saying the prevention of terror was a "fundamental duty."

"The shocking attacks in Paris last month, in which 17 people lost their lives, and the many plots that the police and security and intelligence agencies continually work to disrupt, are clear evidence of the threat we face from terrorism."

"We have a fundamental duty as a government to ensure that the people who work to keep us safe have the powers they need to do so."

She added that in light of the Paris attacks, unity in the face of terror was "fundamental."

"The events in Paris also highlighted important lessons for the UK - that whatever our nationality, faith or background, we must all work together as a nation to confront, challenge and defeat extremism and terrorism in all its forms, and stand up and speak out for our fundamental values."

The Act will give security agencies the ability to find out which device is responsible for sending suspect communications or accessing an internet communications service used by terrorist organizations.

It will also widen the remit of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and create a separate board, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, to support them.

Prime Minister David Cameron previously announced additional funding of £130 million to aid and support counter-terror measures, including funding to monitor terrorist activity and resources for anti-radicalization programs.

The Raw Story

Focused on providing independent journalism.

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What I did after police killed my son

Emerging solar plants scorch birds in mid-air

Friday, 13 February 2015

Outcome of Minsk: Poroshenko given chance to rein in Kiev war faction, but will it work?

Image shows woman paid to manipulate App Store rankings

Police state will strap you down, choke you out, and draw your blood - without your consent

120,000 deaths per year in the U.S. caused by job stress

Possible Nova in Sco

Russia, Ukraine, and EU to restart energy talks

UK Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill passes final step with royal assent

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