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POPSSarkozy Calls Crisis EU Summit on Georgia, Russia German Chancellor Angela Merkel seems to supportive of this view. In a telephone conversation with the French President, she suggested that the EU convene a regional conference to address Georgia's reconstruction and wider stability issues in the region. But the conference would not include Russia, according to Merkel, who will explain her views in an article to be published in Der Spiegel on Monday. Earlier, while on a visit to Tbilisi on 17 August, the German Chancellor had lent her support to Georgia's NATO membership, moving away from a previously more cautious stance about the countries' affiliation to the North Atlantic military alliance. US officials have warned that the conflict in Georgia could affect Russia's membership of international organisations such as the Group of Eight industrialised nations and could undermine its bid to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
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POPSHuge Train Blast as Russia Faces New Pressure to Leave Georgia But it added that international monitors would not replace Russian troops as a statement from the French presidency asserted. "During the telephone conversation between the Russian and French presidents, there was no discussion about replacing Russian peacekeeping troops by an OSCE mission in the buffer zone," said a Kremlin spokesman. The West sees the presence of OSCE monitors as critical to ensuring the success of the ceasefire. The speedy military victory over Georgia, which is pressing for membership of NATO, stunned Western powers and plunged relations between Russia and the West to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War. The latest focus of international tension was the Black Sea, where NATO naval exercises are taking place. A US destroyer arrived on Sunday in Georgia with what the Pentagon says are humanitarian aid supplies.
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POPSThousands of Georgians Demand Russian Troops Leave
U.S. Destroyer, Laden With Relief And Cruise Missiles, in Port On Sunday, a U.S. Navy warship carrying humanitarian aid for Georgia anchored in the southern Georgian port of Batumi. It was the first of five American ships scheduled to arrive this week with supplies. The McFaul is loaded with 72 pallets of humanitarian aid, and is also outfitted with an array of weaponry, including Tomahawk cruise missiles. U.S. Air Force flights that have brought in more than 1 million pounds of humanitarian relief. “There are very specific requirements for Russian withdrawal. Putting up permanent facilities and checkpoints are inconsistent with the agreement. We are in contact with the various parties to obtain clarification,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office said he had pressed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during a phone conversation Saturday to quickly remove Russian troops from an axis between the Georgian towns of Poti an
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POPS NATO Has Acquiesced To The Kremlin Writing in the Times of London, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband even opposes expelling Russia from the G-8 -- a perfectly calibrated and long-overdue measure. And a German diplomat says the Georgia issue should not have been brought to NATO in the first place, but instead to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a completely toothless consultative body, and to the United Nations, where inaction is guaranteed by the Russian veto. To their credit, the French tried to do something. Unfortunately, President Nicolas Sarkozy was snookered by Moscow. Article V of the cease-fire agreement he brokered, allowing Russia the right to "implement additional security measures" within the borders of Georgia, is a blank check for Russian occupation. Eastern Europe understands the stakes in Georgia. It is the ultimate target. Russia's aims are clear: (1) sever South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia for incorporation into Russia;
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POPSThe End of The Fairy Tale by Ralph Peters Putin went to war and the American president went to a basketball game--reinforcing the Kremlin's conviction that it could do as it pleased and get away with it. (Bush's gravest flaw is that he's a dreadful judge of character, stubbornly trusting undeserving men, from Iraqi schemer Ahmed Chalabi , through the incompetent Alberto Gonzales , to Vladimir Putin , who played Bush for a fool.) French president Nicolas Sarkozy, well-intentioned and inadequate The Putin regime was perfectly willing to let Monsieur le President return to Paris with a signed piece of paper. The Russians have drawn the lesson from Western efforts to negotiate with Iran and other rogue states that Europe can be narcotized with empty agreements and nebulous promises and that Europe has become a continent of bureaucrats who much prefer paperwork to reality. And there are no penalties when the agreements prove worthless.
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POPSRussia Nullifies French-Brokered Armistice With Georgia -- are implemented by Russia only in the sense that it no longer shoots or bombards Georgian troops and civilians. Russian troops, however, are blowing up bridges and other infrastructure on Georgian highways and railways, destroying Georgian military bases deep inside the country, and looting local Georgian civilian administrations at gunpoint -- all of this under the Sarkozy-brokered armistice. Point 3 in the agreement, “free access for humanitarian assistance and permission for refugees to return,” has also been torn apart. Access is impeded by Russia’s de facto naval blockade of Georgia’s coast and interdiction of cross-country transport in Georgia, continuing under this “armistice.” The few U.S. Air Force humanitarian assistance flights can not possibly cope with the magnitude of the task. The agreement’s 4th point, “Georgian troops are to return to the places of their regular stationing,” seems largely compromised by the devastation of those bases deep inside Georgia.......
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POPSRussians Defy Cease-Fire: Troops In Georgia Digging In Elsewhere in Georgia, it appeared very clear that Russian troops were staying put, building ramparts around tanks and posting sentries on a hill near Igoeti, a central Georgia town only 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Tbilisi. Russian troops still effectively control the main artery running through the western half of Georgia because they surround the strategic central city of Gori and additionally the city and air base of Senaki in the west. Both cities are on the main east-west highway that slices through two Georgian mountain ranges. Russia also confirmed Sunday that it had taken over a major power plant in western Georgia. Rice noted that the text of the cease-fire, negotiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the current leader of the European Union, outlined a very limited mandate for the soldiers that Russia calls peacekeepers who were in Georgia when hostilities escalated. She said these soldiers can go on limited patrols within the two separatist areas but in Georgia
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POPSPolish President Criticizes France, Germany For Being Too Soft On Moscow President Kaczynski accused them of being too soft on Moscow due to their commercial ties with Russia. The statement on the president's Web site also said Kaczynski assured Saakashvili that he would continue to "support Georgia's integration in Euro-Atlantic structures" — a reference to Georgia's NATO aspirations. Poland and the ex-Soviet republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia , all new EU members, have sharply condemned Russia for its military incursion into Georgia amid the conflict in South Ossetia. After the fighting broke out, the presidents of the four countries issued a joint statement calling Russia's policy "imperialist and revisionist" and urging NATO and the European Union to stand up to Moscow. Leaders from those four nations followed that up with a trip in recent days to Tbilisi, joined by Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko, to show their support to Georgia. Germany and France have been less critical of Russia. Sarkozy holds the EU's rotating preside
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POPSPeace In Georgia- For Now The conflict is going to continue- It will take generations to heal the past. From Stalin's birthplace and the cooperation of the southern region with the Stalinists to undermine Georgia's place 100 years ago
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POPSRussian Gulag Writer Alexander Solzhenitsen Dies At 89 "His intransigence, his ideals and his long, eventful life make of Solzhenitsyn a storybook figure, heir to Dostoyevsky. He belongs to the pantheon of world history. I pay homage to his memory." Born to a single mother in 1918 at Kislovodsk in the Caucasus amid the bloody aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Solzhenitsyn was initially a loyal Communist. But he went on to undermine the regime's moral foundations, his writings energizing dissent at home and in the West. First though he had to enter the living hell of the Gulag, a vast prison system that stretched from the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea to the steppes of Kazakhstan. Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to eight years in the camps in 1945 and was to go on to survive cancer and a KGB assassination attempt. He was released in February 1953, a few weeks before Stalin's death. He spent three more years in internal exile in Kazakhstan, contracted and overcame cancer. "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" 1962
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POPSIs Syrian President Assad Bluffing? something his country has always refused since it considered that Lebanon is just a Syrian province. This was a huge condition for the French who see it a pledge given by Damascus to Lebanese sovereignty. Fifth, Syria has, according to Arab sources, made a big "summer housecleaning" by eliminating dozens of prisoners at the Sidnaya prison. Among them, two leaders of Jund al-Sham, the Islamist organization linked to Syrian services. Sixth, according to the Kuwaiti daily Al-Seyassah, Syria also asked Hamas leaders based in Damascus to leave the Syrian territory. The latter could move into the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Hezbollah stronghold. Seventh, Syria is allegedly trying to break up Hezbollah. Al-Seyassah believes that Syria has resumed its contacts with the former secretary general of Hezbollah and one of its co-founders, Sobhi Toufaili. Syria wants to strengthen Toufaili's faction to weaken Hassan Nasrallah and divide the party.
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POPSShould Barack Obama Have Skipped Europe And Gone Home? Yes, he was treated as an equal by a world leader. t was great theatre but the Frenchman came off as - how can I put this delicately - a complete clown. We'll see what happens in London but it'll be Gordon Brown hoping a little bit of the Obama magic rubs off rather than the other way round. And then there was the unseemly dispute with the Pentagon over Obama's abandoned plan to visit wounded American troops - something he could have done without. Perhaps the Illinois senator - who drew giggles from the assembled press when he had to point out in Paris that he was not the US president - should have flown back direct from Israel. The Presumptive - and Presumptuous - Nominee By Toby Harnden http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/the_presumptive_and_presumptuo.html
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POPSNuclear So, our country isn't exactly the only one with issues...
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POPSOperation Brimstone Operation Brimstone boasts two striking features: 1. It will include for the first time units of the US Expeditionary Combat Command, who are trained to operate in shallow coastal waters and rivers, such as the coastal waters of the Persian Gulf and the small islands around its chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian Revolutionary Guards marine units are posted on these islands. The international force will have to control the islands to ensure oil shipping freed passage out to world markets. 2. The Roosevelt’s decks will for the first time host French Rafale fighter jets which will share space with US warplanes, while the only French carrier Charles de Gaulle undergoes maintenance.
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POPSPresident Sarkozy Hosts Bastille Day Ceremony Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Finnish President Tarja Halonen and Syrian President Bashar Assad attend the Bastille Day ceremony on July 14, 2008 in Paris, France. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attended the Champs-Elysees military parade, alongside other European, North African and Middle Eastern leaders, which has caused controversy due to Syria's tie to organisations classified as terrorist by the several countries.
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POPSMiddle East Minefield For Barack Obama But Israeli officials - with whom he's reportedly meeting on Tuesday - will press him to define his policies about nuclear power and Iran, experts said. "The Israelis are going to have real questions about Iran, and about how he views taking out nuclear facilities there - if they haven't done it already themselves by the time Bush leaves," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "That topic will come up, on both sides. He'll get asked about it," said former State Department Mideast analyst Graeme Bannerman. "He's got to remember he's speaking to Americans - he's in a campaign, after all - even if that means he has to say things that make the locals very nervous."
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POPSIsrael ENews Poll Result: Dial M for Murder! Maybe it was the misuse of an expendable to provide Sarkozy with a memorable end to his visit and divert attention away from the normal Israeli PM corruption charges now pressing on Olmert. No? Well I certainly don't believe he deliberately shot himself in the head in public and then jumped off a roof!!! One bullet in the head normal prevents subsequent high jinks.
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POPSIsrael and Palestians close to peace deal? It's hard not to be skeptical about this type of thing, but it sure would be amazing to see Israel and some of their neighbors find a peaceful way to co-exist. The implications for the world seem enormously beneficial.
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POPSIm so ashamed! God Ive got to get out of this country. Before this I just wanted to get out of California!
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POPSAnti-Americanism is Mostly Hype American liberalism is heavily invested in this narrative of U.S. isolation. The Shiites have their annual ritual of 10 days of self-flagellation and penance, but this liberal narrative is ceaseless: The world once loved us, and all Parisians were Americans after 9/11, but thanks to President Bush we have squandered that sympathy.... Indeed, in the Arab world of the future, there will be streets and shrines dedicated to George W. Bush, their liberator. Future generations will admire this American president who, against all odds and resisted viciously by rabid liberals, courageously held the line and in the end, prevailed.
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POPSPrime Minister Brown Admits EU Treaty Is Finished Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister, went further, stating that the Lisbon treaty provisions, which include the creation of a permanent EU president and the widespread abolition of national vetoes, could be implemented without Ireland. “Ireland for a period of time could leave the way free for the integration of the other 26 member states,” he said. In public, British ministers are insisting that a solution to the impasse can still be found. Jim Murphy, the Europe minister, yesterday told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Only those who previously wished to dance on the grave of this treaty, even before the Irish referendum, are declaring it dead.” However, at this week’s Brussels summit, Brown will refuse to agree to anything that could leave the Irish out in the cold, according to aides. The only EU leader so far to admit that the treaty is dead is Vaclav Klaus, the Czech president, who declared the entire project “finished”.
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