Politics in Europe > 3 attacks on Democracy in Europe - Slovakia fears Maidan Coup being planned; Romania's Georgescu takes shocking lead in poll; Germans lied to on Ukraine Aid

 

Slovakia's PM warns of new ‘Maidan’

Slovakia’s Robert Fico has claimed his political rivals are preparing a Ukraine-style coup with help from abroad

That broad's name could be Ursula

FILE PHOTO: Barricades in central Kiev during the Maidan protests in 2014. © Sputnik / Andrey Stenin

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has accused the political opposition of preparing a ‘Maidan’ in the country, referring to the violent Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 that led to the overthrow of democratically-elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Bratislava on Tuesday, Fico based his accusations on a report prepared by the Slovak Information Service (SIS) intelligence agency.

“I cannot disclose the content of the report, but I can say in all seriousness that the opposition is preparing a ‘Maidan’. It is gearing up to thwart the government from exercising its powers and it will do this in cooperation with foreign actors,” he said.

Fico said his opponents have failed to notice that the “global state of affairs has changed significantly,” apparently referring to Donald Trump replacing Joe Biden as US president.

The Slovak prime minister, who has long advocated for a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine conflict and the restoration of ties with Russia, claimed that the pro-Western opposition will try to push his country towards an early election, “based on some type of event, for instance, if security forces took action against protest activities violating the law.”

Read more

 This small European country is defying the Western establishment: How long can it last?

Fico presented the SIS report earlier on Tuesday during an extraordinary no-confidence vote in parliament called by his political rivals. After the prime minister argued that the document was confidential and should be discussed behind closed doors, the opposition withdrew its no-confidence motion in protest, saying it would stage a new vote soon.

Opposition MPs described the report as “nonsense” and “a clear conspiracy theory,” claiming there was nothing confidential about it as it contained “information anyone can find on Google.”

“We are not the ones preparing a ‘Maidan’, but I have serious concerns that this government is. It would not be difficult for someone to stage a provocation at an otherwise peaceful demonstration, providing an excuse to claim they’re protecting the state… while beginning to detain individuals based on some list,” Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) lawmaker Frantisek Miklosko claimed.

In a Facebook post later in the day, Fico warned his rivals that he would not allow them to hold another no-confidence vote unless they had a parliamentary majority. The ruling coalition in Slovakia holds 76 seats in the legislature, only two more than the opposition.

READ MORE: EU member pledges to veto future Ukraine aid

“If you believe that you submit another motion to oust the government tomorrow and expect me to ask the government and the governing coalition to accommodate your whims, then you are dead wrong,” he stressed.

Frontrunner of EU state’s scrapped presidential election

tops latest poll

Romanian right-wing candidate Calin Georgescu is leading the field ahead of new ballot in May, a new survey suggests

FILE PHOTO. Calin Georgescu. ©  Getty Images / Andrei Pungovschi

The right-wing frontrunner in November’s first round of Romania’s presidential election that was annulled, has topped the latest opinion poll in the country, ahead of a new ballot scheduled for May. According to the Avangarde survey, Calin Georgescu is expected to actually perform better than during the scrapped election. 

A critic of NATO and the EU and a staunch opponent of sending aid to Ukraine, Georgescu topped the now-annulled first-round vote in November with 22.94%, beating liberal leftist and social democrat candidates. Romania’s Constitutional Court suddenly cancelled the election ahead of the second-round vote, citing intelligence documents alleging ‘irregularities’ in Georgescu’s campaign performance.

The candidate is now projected to get 38% of the vote – against some 23% he secured last time. Georgescu’s approval in the survey is followed by Crin Antonescu, the likely single candidate of the pro-EU coalition government, who is projected to get 25% of the vote, and, with some 17% of respondents favorable, Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan, who said he could end up running as an independent.

READ MORE: Thousands protest in NATO state against coup d’etat

It remains unclear whether Georgescu would be actually allowed to run for office again in the May polls.

His shock November win caused a political meltdown in Romania, prompting a barrage of assorted allegations against the right-wing hardliner. The 62-year-old, who ran his campaign largely through TikTok, also faced false allegations that his bid was funded by foreign actors, presumably Russia.

None of the claims, however, were backed by any solid evidence, while preliminary findings of an investigation into the election scandal found the campaign “irregularities” were bankrolled by the pro-Western National Liberal Party (PNL).

On Tuesday, The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rejected an appeal lodged by Georgescu, who demanded that it overturn the domestic court decision to annul the election results. The ECHR threw out the case altogether, ruling the issue was outside of its remit.

The poll sampled some 1,354 Romanians, representing various social and age groups, and was conducted between January 10 and 16.

Germans ‘being lied to’ on Ukraine aid – Scholz

The chancellor has pushed back against critics who accuse him of blocking a €3 billion assistance package for Kiev

FILE PHOTO: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz attends a campaign event in Frankfurt on January 20, 2025. ©  Boris Roessler / dpa

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has accused his critics of deceiving voters about his reluctance to approve a proposed €3 billion ($3.1 billion) assistance package for Kiev. Senior officials have blamed Scholz for delaying the emergency aid, which was proposed by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.

The chancellor has claimed that those backing the deal are not being transparent about how it would be financed. 

“The German people are being lied to” by those who refuse to address how the package would be funded, Scholz claimed in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper on Monday. 

The issue of Ukraine aid is a focal point of political debates ahead of the general election in Germany next month. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) has nominated Scholz as its candidate to form the next government, after Pistorius declined to seek the party’s nomination despite his popularity exceeding the chancellor’s in some polls.

Read more

 German FM’s dispute with Scholz becomes meme fuel

Baerbock, a senior member of the Green Party, complained last week about unnamed officials prioritizing national interests over “responsibility for securing Europe’s peace” to appeal to voters. Her party was part of the ruling coalition which collapsed last year over a conflict with the SPD and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) over spending priorities.

Furthering the war in Ukraine is anything but securing Europe's peace, it is the very opposite.

Friedrich Merz, the chancellorship candidate from the opposition Christian Democrats, has likewise criticized Scholz for not providing more aid to Ukraine. Merz is currently seen as the frontrunner for chancellor, with the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union alliance leading in opinion polls.

Alternative for Germany (AfD), an anti-immigration party, stands out among major political players in its opposition to funding Kiev’s fight against Moscow, and has called for the resumption of purchases of cheap Russian energy to kickstart the ailing German economy. It currently trails the Christian Democrats in the polls, as MPs reportedly mull banning it for allegedly being a threat to German democracy.

Banning it would, of course, be an attack on democracy along with preventing the only way to rescue Germany's economy and cultural heritage from Islamization.

Despite disagreements within the ruling coalition over future Ukraine aid, Germany remains second only to the US among military donors to Kiev, having provided around €11 billion from January 2022 to October 2024, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

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Ukraine > The Maidan Revolution, Corruption, and the Illusion of Independence

 

Maidan Revolution protesters lament enduring

corruption in Ukraine, 10 years on

Ukraine is marking the 10th anniversary of the shooting of dozens of protesters in Kyiv during the Maidan Revolution, which toppled the country's Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovych and led to Russia's annexation of Crimea and a pro-Russian separatist movement in the east. FRANCE 24's Gulliver Cragg spoke with Denys Tarakhkotelik, a protest leader during the revolution who runs Yanukovych’s former estate as a museum, and Oleh Symoroz, an activist and war veteran, about how Ukraine is tackling corruption a decade after Maidan.

Issued on: 22/02/2024 - 09:47

1 min

By:FRANCE 24Follow|FRANCE 24

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Tarakhkotelik is not impressed with Ukraine’s effort to tackle corruption. "The sums involved are not as large as during Yanukovych’s time, but to be honest, if you look at the recent case of embezzlement from the defence ministry, to me that’s an even worse crime because now we’re at war."

Symoroz is also concerned about corruption in Ukraine. But he doesn’t feel that the Maidan Revolution was a failure. "We chose freedom of speech, we prevented our country from being turned into another Belarus or Russia. We see how all opposition there were shut down. We’re still able to speak out when things go wrong."

Amid Russia's heightened offensive in Ukraine's east and south, President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a message on Facebook on Tuesday to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Maidan.

"It has been 10 years since the attempts to destroy us and our independence," he said. "But we stood firm 10 years ago and continue to do so today." 

Your independence is an illusion, sir. You are thoroughly dependent upon NATO and America to survive even another day. And you survive another day in order to use up NATO made armaments at the cost of thousands of Ukrainian lives. Ukraine will be bombed back into the Middle Ages if this continues and NATO and American munitions oligarchs will laugh all the way to the bank. 

Military Madness > Joe Biden acting like a paid lobbyist for Iran; Sarkozy's Ukraine Solution - Common Sense or Criminal Logic?

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Biden Regime’s $6,000,000,000 Ransom for Hostages Payment

to Iran Will Lead to More Hostages

AUG 13, 2023 12:00 PM BY DANIEL GREENFIELD

“Our naval forces should take 10 or 20 Americans as hostage every month. For each one of them, we should get $1 billion.”

The Islamic takeover of Iran was built on taking hostages. But until the Obama and Biden administrations began paying huge ransoms for hostages, Americans weren’t constantly being taken hostage.

Iran takes Americans hostage to make money. If you doubt that, here’s a top terror leader saying it.

A top political strategist and Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps officer told supporters that Iran should kidnap hostages and ransom them back to the United States for “blood money.”

“Here’s how the IRGC generates funds. The IRGC detains a spy like Jason Rezaian,” Hassan Abbasi can be heard saying in a video that surfaced on Wednesday. “The U.S. pleads for him to be released, and we ask them to pay for him. Our government gets paid $1.7 billion to hand over this spy. By detaining one spy, the IRGC earns the $1-2 billion, which it was supposed to receive from the government budget.”

“Do you want to solve the sanctions problem?” he continued. “Our naval forces should take 10 or 20 Americans as hostage every month. For each one of them, we should get $1 billion. If we get $1 billion per week, and the year has around 50 weeks. That’s at least $50 billion.”

They’re up to $6 billion for this round of hostages. That’s 5 hostages for $6 billion (plus the release of some Iranians from U.S. custody) which comes out to $1.2 billion per hostage.

So Iran is overperforming.

The Biden administration and its media apologists are spinning this as “humanitarian aid”. We already know that’s nonsense. Iran will get access to money through its Qatari allies. And that money will be used to finance terrorism and its nuclear program.

We now know why the Biden administration’s political and media allies were hyping an imaginary Israel-Saudi deal ahead of this shameful ransom payment. A payment that, like Obama’s ransom payments, is illegal.

Americans are barred from financing terrorists. Yet Obama and Biden have been able to bend the law and get away with it.

But that’s no surprise from an administration headed by a longtime ally of the Iran Lobby.

After September 11, Biden proposed, “this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran.” At a 2003 Senate hearing, he suggested that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons because it felt “isolated”.

In 2007, Biden became one of only 22 senators to vote against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and warned that if President Bush took action to stop Iran, he would impeach him. A year later, he told Israelis that they would have to accept Iran’s nuclear program and proposed reopening a US diplomatic presence in Tehran. He also suggested cutting off Radio Liberty broadcasts that provided a voice for Iranian dissidents.

Sounds like a paid lobbyist!

Beyond the campaign cash, Iran became the second largest enemy state to intervene in the 2020 election when its hackers conducted a false flag operation in Florida pretending to be Republicans and tried to hack sites reporting election results. What was Iran getting in exchange for all of this? Biden offered billions in indirect sanctions relief and put the Iran Lobby in charge of restarting the Iran Deal that would let the terror state build up its nuclear program.

We could put an end to this by ending the ransom payments and criminalizing further travel to Iran. But the hostage-taking is a convenient way for certain special interests to send money to Iran in an endless chain of arms for hostages.

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France's ex-president Sarkozy slammed for call

to ‘compromise’ with Russia

France's former president Nicolas Sarkozy has stirred outrage in Kyiv and Paris by suggesting 

Russia's invasion of Ukraine could be ended with new referendums in occupied territories.

Issued on: 17/08/2023 - 13:14, 2 min

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy (L) claimed he 'convinced Putin to withdraw his tanks' from Georgia in 2008.

© Sergei Chirikov, pool/AFP/file photo

"The Ukrainians... will want to reconquer what has been unjustly taken from them. But if they can't manage it completely, the choice will be between a frozen conflict... or taking the high road out with referendums strictly overseen by the international community," Sarkozy told conservative newspaper Le Figaro on Wednesday.

Speaking particularly about the Crimean peninsula, which Russia claimed to have annexed in 2014, the former French leader said that "any return to the way things were before is an illusion".

"An incontestable referendum... will be needed to solidify the current state of affairs," he added.

The ex-president insisted that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was "not irrational" and could be reached with the right kind of diplomacy from Europe, harking back to Moscow's 2008 invasion of Georgia when Sarkozy said he "convinced (Putin) to withdraw his tanks".

"Russia is Europe's neighbour and will remain so," he said. "Diplomacy, discussion and talks remain the only way to find an acceptable solution. Nothing is possible without compromise."

Sarkozy added that Ukraine should remain "neutral" and had no place in the EU or NATO.

The remarks drew an immediate response from Kyiv, with Mykhailo Podolyak -- a senior aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky -- saying they were based on "criminal logic".

"You cannot trade other people's territories because you are afraid of someone or because you are friends with criminals," Podolyak added.

While in office, Sarkozy had "deliberately participated in a criminal conspiracy for Russia's seizure of Ukrainian territories," he charged.

I don't know what he is referring to here because Sarkozy left office 2 years before Russia took the Crimea from Ukraine, and Putin did that, without firing a shot, because of the American-sponsored coup in Ukraine - the Maidan revolution, which would have left Russia's Black Sea Naval Base at Sevastopol at the mercy of NATO.

The ex-president -- who has spent much of his time since leaving office battling a slew of legal cases -- was also attacked at home in France.

Sarkozy "should be considered a Russian influencer," said Julien Bayou, a senior Green Party MP, telling broadcaster LCI the interview was "lunatic" and "shocking".

Bayou recalled an ongoing investigation into Sarkozy's lucrative ties to a Russian insurance company on suspicion of influence peddling and concealing crimes.

Sarkozy's former intelligence advisor Jerome Poirot told LCI that the ex-president's words were "shameful".

"He has no perspective on what's happened or on what he did" during his 2007-2012 term, Poirot said, recalling that Sarkozy was one of the key voices against Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO in 2008 -- which did not prevent Russia's later invasions of both countries.

"What were President Sarkozy's red lines? What was his vision for France's security? Just giving in to whatever Vladimir Putin wanted?" he asked.

(AFP)

What is Poirot's vision of Europe's security? Does he think a forever war in Ukraine is a good thing? Does he think pushing Putin into a corner where he could possibly do something unimaginable is better than talking to him or settling for peace? That's criminal thinking. 

Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. the Maidan Coup did nothing to change that. The Russian invasion was provoked by NATO and the USA because Ukraine is a good place to move weapons inventories and is dispensable to both Europe and America. It is also a good excuse for weapons manufacturers to sell weapons systems and other war inventories to European countries that were never in any danger to begin with. 

Military Madness > Ukraine - The Masks of the Revolution; Myanmar Military Torturing Children, Raping Women; Nuclear War Could Starve 5 bn People to Death

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Documentary: Ukraine - The Masks of the revolution

by Paul Moreira, 

English Subs

Ukraine’s authorities have urged a French broadcaster to take a documentary titled 'Masks of Revolution' off the air. They claim the movie misrepresents Maidan events, and have a list of their own suggestions for what needs to be shown. 

Ukrainian authorities say that Moreira’s Masks of Revolution is “deception” and not an example of “media pluralism,” as it provides a “misrepresented view on the situation in Ukraine.”

"The version of events in the Ukraine offered in the film is pleasing to the ears of conspiracy theories’ supporters and of pro-Russian propagandists. This pamphlet is a documentary made in the worst tradition of misinformation,” the statement adds.

The diplomats went on to urge Canal+ “to reconsider the possibility of airing the film on TV.”

Also, the embassy gave a list of suggestions about what the French broadcaster should show about 2014 Maidan events, “hoping that one day these movies will be presented on Canal +”

The filmmaker, Paul Moreira, has responded to the accusations, saying his film was “contrary to the commonly accepted narrative” but the reaction still shocked him.

It seems obvious from the very beginning of this documentary that Moreira is no friend of Russia, but a friend of the truth.

This video published for the viewers opinion ONLY! No propaganda here!

U.N. report: Myanmar military targeting women and children

in 'gravest' crimes

By Thomas Maresca

   

Myanmar's military junta has committed systematic crimes against humanity including the abuse and torture of women and children, a new report by U.N. experts said. File Photo by EPA-EFE

Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Myanmar's military is torturing children and sexually assaulting women, United Nations investigators said in a new report that outlines evidence of what it calls "systematic crimes against humanity."

The report, released Tuesday by the U.N.'s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, documents accounts of children being tortured, conscripted and arbitrarily detained, sometimes as proxies for their parents.

Attacks on civilians by the military junta, which seized power in a coup in February 2021, have also targeted women with sexual violence including rape, the report said.

"Crimes against women and children are amongst the gravest international crimes, but they are also historically underreported and under-investigated," Nicholas Koumjian, head of the IIMM, said in a statement.

"Our team has dedicated expertise to ensure targeted outreach and investigations so that these crimes can ultimately be prosecuted," he said.

The IIMM, which began operations three years ago, has collected more than 3 million pieces of information from almost 200 sources including interviews, videos, photographs, geospatial imagery and social media content.

Myanmar's military overthrew the elected civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi on widely debunked charges of voter fraud.

Civil disobedience and nationwide protests sprung up immediately after the coup, which the junta brutally suppressed and have since hardened into an internal conflict that some describe as a full-fledged civil war.

Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community have also been severely impacted by the ongoing conflict, which has "exacerbated their already vulnerable situation," the IIMM report said.

"Since the military takeover in February 2021, crimes have been committed in Myanmar on a scale and in a manner that constitutes a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population," the report said.

The U.N. investigators noted that the scope of the junta's crimes have also expanded with the execution last month of four anti-coup activists, including a former lawmaker.

"Perpetrators of these crimes need to know that they cannot continue to act with impunity," Koumjian said. "We are collecting and preserving the evidence so that they will one day be held to account."

The IIMM is sharing its evidence to support proceedings at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, it said.

According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, the junta has arrested more than 15,000 civilians and killed 2,171.

Earlier this month, the military announced that it would extend a state of emergency in the country for another six months, claiming that it must stabilize the country before holding elections next year.

The country was stable before the coup. Now, it's not! The military is too stupid to see that they are the cause of the unrest. Either that or they don't care.

Nuclear war between the US and Russia would cause a global famine

and kill more than 5 BILLION people, study finds

By SAM TONKIN FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 12:07 EDT, 15 August 2022 

A nuclear war between Russia and the US would trigger a global famine that would wipe out almost two-thirds of the world's population, a new study suggests.

More than five billion people would die of hunger during the fallout from a full-scale conflict, researchers say, with computer simulations showing that firestorms would release soot into the upper atmosphere and block out the sun.

This would in turn spark crop failure across the world. 

Lead author Professor Lili Xia, of Rutgers University in New Jersey, said: 'The data tell us one thing. We must prevent a nuclear war from ever happening.'

Of course, America and NATO know this already, but they still push Russia to the brink because there is money to be made.

Catastrophic: A nuclear war between Russia and the US would trigger a global famine that would wipe out almost two-thirds of the world's population, a new study suggests

Dreadful: More than five billion people would die of hunger during the fallout from a full-scale conflict, researchers say, with computer simulations showing that firestorms would release soot into the upper atmosphere and block out the sun. These graphs show how air and sea surface temperatures would change in the immediate aftermath of nuclear war

Russia warns Europe will 'disappear' in a nuclear apocalypse

if the West gives Ukraine missiles

Last month, Russia warned that Europe would 'disappear' in a nuclear apocalypse in the Kremlin's latest doomsday threat for supplying Ukraine with missiles.

Viacheslav Volodin, the head of the State Duma, lashed out after Poland's former foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Western allies could send more weaponry to besieged Kyiv.

Sikorski claimed Vladimir Putin had violated the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances of 1994, which justifies the Western delivery of nuclear weapons.  

He told Ukrainian channel Espreso TV the supplies would 'give Ukraine the opportunity to defend its independence'.

Ukraine agreed to give up all its nuclear weapons left over from the fall of the Soviet Union, and joined the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons.  

Volodin slammed the remarks, writing on Telegram: 'With such deputies, the Europeans will have much more serious problems than those they have already faced today (refugees, record inflation, energy crisis).

'Sikorski is provoking a nuclear conflict in the centre of Europe.'

The modelling sheds fresh light on what would happen under six war scenarios — five smaller India-Pakistan conflicts and a large US-Russia war. 

Such threat has been brought to the fore following Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Researchers based their calculations on the size of each country's nuclear arsenal. Nine nations, including the UK, currently control more than 13,000 nuclear weapons.

Even a clash between new nuclear states would decimate food production and result in widespread starvation, the experts found. 

A climate forecasting tool called the Community Earth System Model enabled effects to be estimated on maize, rice, spring wheat and soybean country-by-country.

The researchers also examined projected changes to livestock pasture and marine fisheries.

In the event of a localised war between India and Pakistan, the global average caloric production decreased seven per cent within five years under the modelling.

In the worst case scenario – involving the US and Russia – this would rise to 90 per cent three to four years after the fighting ended.

The experts said crop declines would be the most severe in the mid-high latitude nations, including major exporters such as Russia and the US.

It could also trigger restrictions and cause severe disruptions in import-dependent countries in Africa and the Middle East, which would induce a catastrophic disruption of global food markets. 

Even a seven per cent decline would exceed the largest since records began in 1961.

Under the largest war scenario, more than 75 per cent of the planet would be starving within two years and more than five billion people would die. 

The world's current population stands at around eight billion. 

Using crops fed to livestock as human food or reducing waste would have minimal benefits, the researchers wrote.

Prof Xia said: 'Future work will bring even more granularity to the crop models.

'For instance, the ozone layer would be destroyed by the heating of the stratosphere, producing more ultraviolet radiation at the surface, and we need to understand that impact on food supplies.'

Climate scientists at Colorado University are creating detailed soot models for specific cities — such as Washington DC. Inventories of every building will provide a more accurate picture of how much smoke would be produced.

There is more to this story at Mail Online.

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