Rick Rozoff - COLD WAR II: From the Balkans to Central Asia: U.S.-NATO Prepare for New Cold War

Though infrequently acknowledged if even given consideration, the current historical period remains what it has been for a quarter century, the post-Cold War era.

Beginning in earnest in 1991 with the near simultaneous disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - instantaneous in the first case, comparatively slower in the second, only complete with the independence of Montenegro in 2008 - the  bipolar world ended with the demise of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact and the nonaligned one with the fragmentation of Yugoslavia, a founder of the Non-Aligned Movement.

The dissolution of the two nations, the only both multi-ethnic and multi-confessional countries in Europe, was accompanied by violent ethnic conflicts often reinforced by religious differences. In Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, the South Caucasus, the Russian North Caucasus and on the east bank of the Dniester River.

In many instances, in Serbian-majority areas of Croatia and Bosnia and in Transdniester, memories of World War II gave rise to legitimate fears of revanchism among populations that recalled the death camps and pogroms of Adolf Hitler's allies in the early 1940s and witnessed the recrudescence of the ideologies, the irredentism and the political trappings that gave rise to them.

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http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30629

Why Did Russia Ban The Use Of Microwave Ovens?

Consumers are dying today in part because they continue to eat dead foods that are killed in the microwave. They take a perfectly healthy piece of raw food, loaded with vitamins and natural medicines, then nuke it in the microwave and destroy most of its nutrition. Humans are the only animals on the planet who destroy the nutritional value of their food before eating it. All other animals consume food in its natural, unprocessed state, but humans actually go out of their way to render food nutritionally worthless before eating it. No wonder humans are the least healthy mammals on the planet.

In Russia, microwave ovens were banned in 1976 because of their negative health consequences as many studies were conducted on their use. The ban was lifted after Perestroika in the early 90’s.Numerous documents can be found online relating to this topic.

The invention of the microwave and its mass adoption by the population coincides with the onset of obesity in developed nations around the world. Not only did the microwave make it convenient to eat more obesity-promoting foods, it also destroyed much of the nutritional content of those foods, leaving consumers in an ongoing state of malnourished overfeeding. In other words, people eat too many calories but not enough real nutrition. The result is, of course, what we see today: Epidemic rates of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, depression, kidney failure, liver disorders and much more. 

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http://zen-haven.dk/why-did-russia-ban-the-use-of-microwave-ovens/

Russia Stunned After Japanese Plan To Evacuate 40 Million Revealed

A new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Foreign Ministry on the planned re-opening of talks with Japan over the disputed Kuril Islands during the next fortnight states that Russian diplomats were “stunned” after being told by their Japanese counterparts that upwards of 40 million of their peoples were in “extreme danger” of life threatening radiation poisoning and could very well likely be faced with forced evacuations away from their countries eastern most located cities… including the world’s largest one, Tokyo.

The Kuril Islands are located in Russia’s Sakhalin Oblast region and stretch approximately 1,300 km (810 miles) northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many more minor rocks. It consists of Greater Kuril Ridge and Lesser Kuril Ridge, all of which were captured by Soviet Forces in the closing days of World War II from the Japanese.

The “extreme danger” facing tens of millions of the Japanese peoples is the result of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster that was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011.

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http://www.eutimes.net/2012/04/russia-stunned-after-japanese-plan-to-evacuate-40-million-revealed/

A Russian Flash Mob Dances to a Different Beat

Vladimir Putin on the ritz?

Karl Grossman - Russia's Radioactive Phobos-Grunt Space Probe Fell to Earth Sunday

Russia’s Phobos-Grunt space probe, with 22 pounds of radioactive Cobalt-57 on board, fell to Earth Sunday. The probe was launched in November to go to Phobos, a moon of Mars, but its rocket system failed to fire it onward from low Earth orbit.

There is some confusion as to where pieces of the 14.9-ton probe fell. The Associated Press reported Sunday that “pieces…landed in water 2,350 kilometers west of Wellington Island in Chile’s south, the Russian military Air and Space Defense Forces said in a statement.” The AP dispatch, datelined Moscow, quoted a spokesman, Colonel Alexei Zolotukhin, as saying that this “deserted ocean area is where Russia guides its discarded space cargo ships serving the International Space Station.”

But, the article went on: “RIA Novosti news agency, however, cited Russian ballistic experts who said the fragments fell over a broader patch of Earth’s surface, spreading from the Atlantic and including the territory of Brazil. It said the midpoint of the crash zone was located in the Brazilian state of Goias.”

“The $170 million craft was one of the heaviest and most toxic pieces of space junk ever to crash to Earth, but space officials and experts said the risks posed by its crash were minimal because the toxic rocket fuel on board and most of the craft’s structure would burn up in the atmosphere high above the Earth anyway,” said the article by Vladimir Isachenkov.

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/15-7

War Clouds Darken: Russia Warns of US Strike on Iran

UPDATE: The White House says President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked today amid tensions over the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran.  Iranian authorities blame Israel for the attack on the scientist, who was killed by a bomb attached to his car. The U.S. has denied any role.

The day after a young Iranian scientist was assassinated, US President Barack Obama and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone Thursday, January 12, 2012. The White House said Obama "reiterated his unshakable commitment to Israel’s security." (AFP/Menahem Kahana) A White House statement on Thursday's phone call didn't say whether they discussed the scientist's death. It said Obama and Netanyahu "discussed recent Iran-related developments," including efforts to hold Iran accountable for failures to meet international obligations. "The President reiterated his unshakable commitment to Israel’s security, and the President and the Prime Minister promised to stay in touch in the coming weeks on these and other issues of mutual concern."

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/12-5

Benjamin Schett - Russia's Elections. Who is Calling the Shots at the Duma?

By Benjamin Schett

Global Research, December 22, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28317

The Russian elections this month held some unwelcome surprises for the nation’s ruling party, "United Russia". Administered in tandem by current president Dmitri Medvedev and prime minister Vladimir Putin (soon to be president once again), United Russia found itself receiving significantly lower-than-normal parliamentary results. This, combined with the protests that ensued quickly thereafter, seems to have sparked the corporate media’s hopes for a "colour revolution".

The situation echoes the Serbian, Georgian and Ukrainian models; in these and several other countries, the governments had to step down after mass protests were organised with the support of US think tanks including the National Endowment for Democracy. These actions, led by the US and several EU countries, were geared toward the installation of leaderships that were more in line with Western agendas than their predecessors, and not necessarily in the interest of the Russian population.

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Global Research - The Real Dangers of War: New Russian Strategic Missiles Can Penetrate U.S. Missile Shield

The Real Dangers of War: New Russian Strategic Missiles Can Penetrate U.S. Missile Shield

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28234

Stop NATO

December 16, 2011

New Russian strategic missiles invulnerable - RVSN commander 

-"It seems to me that as long as a stable mechanism of nuclear deterrence based on a threat to use nuclear weapons exists in the world, it should not be undermined, provoking a strategic offensive arms race. Should it happen, any strategic stability would be out of the question. I do not think that such a situation will benefit anyone."

MOSCOW: Nearly all of the silo-based and mobile missile systems belonging to the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN) are equipped with warheads capable of overpowering missile defense shields, RVSN Commander Lt. Gen. Sergei Karakayev said.

"The capabilities of such combat means were demonstrated to U.S. technical control means during the trials of the Yars ground-based mobile missile system and the Bulava sea-based missile system. It also concerns hypersonic warheads capable of performing altitude and trajectory maneuvers," he told journalists.

"The new missiles have characteristics that allow them to stay invulnerable at all sections of their flight," Karakayev said.

"Today we have to vigorously respond to America's missile defense build-up because the U.S. has chosen to ignore Russia's concerns over it," the commander said.

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Israel Shamir - Russia and the Return of the Repressed

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/13/russia-and-the-return-of-the-repressed/

December 13, 2011

by ISRAEL SHAMIR

Moscow saw its biggest demo in a decade last Saturday. It was a feel-good, peaceful manifestation of youthful Facebook users, and it was already nicknamed the Likes Parade, as the prospective participants had clicked on “like” in response to the call to demonstrate. The predictions were dire: some expected clashes and bloody martyrdom, others hoped for a conquest of the Kremlin and revolution. However things went smoothly. Police were friendly too; riot police were stationed far away near the Kremlin gates so as not to annoy the people. The speakers stressed their desire to avoid revolutionary upheaval; there were speakers from diverse groups including nationalists, the far left, liberals and the far right.

The big winners of the elections (the communists of KPRF and Fair Russia) sent some token representatives but stayed away en masse, leaving the ground to small opposition groups. Crowd assessments varied from 30,000 to 90,000; not too many for a city of 15 million inhabitants, but undoubtedly impressive.

It could also serve as a wakeup call to the Putin administration: for too long a time, they banked on their hold on the mainstream media and on the passivity of the people. Now they have begun to act: the state-owned TV broadcasted pictures of the demo and provided overwhelmingly conservative commentary. Until now, this TV network had preferred to show non-political entertainment, completely blocking out real current events.

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Miriam Elder - 50,000 Demonstrate Against Putin's Election in Russia; Leaders Try to Calm Anger as More Rallies Planned

By Miriam Elder, The Guardian

Posted on December 12, 2011, Printed on December 13, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153410/50%2C000_demonstrate_against_putin%27s_election_in_russia%3B_leaders_try_to_calm_anger_as_more_rallies_planned

 The Russian leadership has sought to calm tensions following an unprecedented protest against Vladimir Putin that brought tens of thousands of demonstrators on to the streets of Moscow.

The prime minister has yet to comment on the protest, but his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said: "We respect the point of view of the protesters. We are hearing what is being said. We will continue to listen to them."

Up to 50,000 people demonstrated in Moscow on Saturday following the disputed parliamentary election in which Putin's United Russia party won nearly 50% of the vote amid widespread allegations of fraud.

Protests took place in more than 50 cities, with a reported 7,000 people gathering in St Petersburg and up to 4,000 in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, despite the temperature of -20C.

Protesters have promised to gather again in two weeks' time if the Kremlin refuses to annul the result, which was confirmed by the election commission on Friday.

Peskov said: "In the past few days, we also witnessed demonstrations by other segments of the population who were supporting those results." United Russia is rallying supporters for a protest on Monday in support of Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev.

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