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Ukraine: Cui bono? - Lauren Johnson - 22-05-2014

[URL="http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2014/05/british-interests-ukraine/"]British Interests in Ukraine
[/URL]
By Golem XIV on May 15, 2014 in latest
What are we doing in Ukraine, who is doing it, why are they doing it and for whose benefit? Simple questions but to answer them, even to begin to answer them, we have to take a step back from the official drivel of championing democracy, respecting the will of the people and protecting the integrity of established national borders. We are always told, these days, that our interventions in other countries are motivated by the purest of concerns. Sometimes mention might be made of national interests'. But are the interests that we intervene to protect really national', that is pertaining to and benefiting us all as a nation? Or are they more likely to be the interests of a smaller group of people?

When we in the West look at other countries, especially those we assume are corrupt, such as Russia or Ukraine, we have no trouble seeing through the customary claims of being democratic' and respecting the rule of law', and clearly perceive that in reality it is the shady coalitions of wealthy men and their political allies who shape what goes on and for whose material benefit policies are formed, actions are taken, people are arrested and wars started. We all think we know an Oligarch when we see one. We understand that the sudden appearance of hugely wealthy men, out of the creaking bureaucracy of a dysfunctional country, is that special form of corruption that fosters the incest of power and wealth, such that the wealthy can buy the political favour that will guarantee they will become even wealthier, and those who bestow that political favour can then line their pockets with some of their lord's money for as long as they remain in favour.

Such factions do, of course, exist in places like Russia and Ukraine. The question is, do they exist, perhaps in a slightly more nuanced form, in our countries? Can we ever catch sight of them at work? And if so, is this evidence that our countries are actually similarly dysfunctional? Are our national' policies and actions swayed by the interests of a coterie of the wealthy and the powerful in too close contact? Of course it is easy to proclaim that the answer is obvious. And sometimes it is obvious. Halliburton under the W' regime was a case in point and Chaney is, in my opinion at least, undoubtedly an American Oligarch. But generally, especially in Europe it is harder is to catch actual sight of them. Particularly because ours are less obvious, more litigious, and usually operate within the wonderfully permissive laws they have often had a hand in framing. What we are looking for are unofficial groupings' of wealthy people, in close association with those in political power, who together have access to money and either the official or the less official organs of State power. Such grouping are not illegal and to find them does not indicate any wrong doing. But I think it is always prudent to know about them because when power and wealth do associate too intimately it is always a danger.

Business Clans
One Russian analysis of Ukraine by Andrei Fursov of the Centre of Russian Studies at the Institute of Fundamental and Applied Research of Moscow University for the Humanities, described the coalitions in Ukraine as "Business clans". I like the name. It suggests groupings which are more than purely business, there being some sort of one-of-us' -ness about them.

So do we too have Business Clans of wealth and political influence, and are their interests a hidden part of what decides what our State does?

It turns out Ukraine is not a bad place to look.

Let's first briefly look at the Ukrainian clans. According to Fursov there are four though confusingly he describes more than four. According to Fursov there are:
1) The Donetsk Clan. Wealthiest member is Rinat Akmetov worth $16 billion from Steel and heavy industry. Much of his empire involves European trade.
2) The Yanukovych Clan. A long time political clan whose main sponsors have been Rinat Ahkmetov (see no.1 above) and Dimtry Firtash ( See no. 4 below).
3) The Privat Clan whose owner' is Ihor Kolomiosky. Privat is Ukraine's largest bank and Mr Kolomiosky is one of its two owners.
4) The Firtash Clan. The main man is Dmytro Firtash. He owns the Ukrainian half of RosUkrEnergo (which controls the flow of Russian gas to and through Ukraine to Europe) and Centragas as well as many, many other companies. He is very much more closely tied to Russia.

Fursov also mentions Victor Pinchuk. Pinchuk is another billionaire who, along with Firtash has come recently to support and fund Ukraine's new president, Mr Yatsenyuk. (Although Fursov's description of the clans and their political front men is more detailed, it does cross reference nicely with briefer, more Western based analyses from Germany's Speigel and America's Foreign Affairs.)

So these are the business clans to which the politicians we hear about on the news belong and the Godfather's who run them. To give you an idea of the relationship between these oligarchs and their money on the one hand and the politicians and political' events in Ukraine on the other, let's look at recent changes of government in Ukraine in relation to these men.

In 2007 Yulia Tymoshenko became Prime Minister of Ukraine for a second time, beating and replacing Firtash's man, Yanukovych. As this article in Quartz relates,
When Tymoshenko came to power, she did away with Rosurkenergo's sweetheart deal in a new natural gas arrangement with Russia. It is that transaction for which she was imprisonedin a scripted trial, she was accused of cutting a bad deal for Ukraine. Once Yanukovych won the 2010 presidential election, Firtash was back in a powerful, behind-the-scenes role in charge of the country's natural gas industry.
Did Firtash have an interest in what happened? Of course he did. Would elements within Russia have been interested and pleased? Most certainly. Did either have an actual hand in it? Who can say. It is certainly a striking a coincidence of interests.

More recently Yanukovych himself fell from power. Of course his fall was due to a popular uprising. and had nothing to do with the fact that he had just refused to sign an economic association' deal with the EU. Here is how that event was reported in the Telegraph,
European Union leaders have lashed out at Russia after missing a major opportunity to spread its influence deep into eastern Europe and bluntly accused Moscow of pressuring Ukraine from signing a landmark deal on closer association.
Even if the EU extended its geopolitical reach eastward by initialing association agreements with Georgia and Moldova, the belated refusal of Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych to sign up to a similar deal largely spoiled the two-day summit with the EU's eastern partners.

Most EU leaders accused Russia of using threats and bullying to keep Ukraine in step with Moscow.
The EU clearly saw the refusal, of the until then fairly compliant Mr Yanukovych, as a clear indication of Russian meddling'. What about Mr Yanukovych's sudden fall at the hands of a well organized uprising? Would that be European or American meddling. Or are we above that sort of thing? I personally think the meddling was primarily American. The Americans had the most to gain by Yanukovych's departure and had the least invested if you'll pardon the expression in his survival. The British had much more invested in Yanukovych and the clans which supported him, indeed had created him. Yanukovych was once a car mechanic who had been convicted of robbery and assault. But he met Mr Akhmetov and a little later Mr Firtash and those men made Yanukovych who and what he became.

The British position has therefore been a balancing act. They were well integrated with Yanukovych and his wealthy protectors and thus not keen to see him go, but when he seemed to back off from cooperation with Europe in favour of Putin's Russia they might well have thought it better to look for a new man. And of course the American's had already chosen one in Yatsenyuk. Among the Europeans the Germans and Austrians would have had to tread very carefully in any meddling that might upset Putin. My reasoning is the delicate position of German and Austrian banks in regards to Russian and Turkmenistan Oligarch money.

Nevertheless there has been a lot of meddling in Ukraine from all sides. Within the Ukraine, the clan which Yanukovych's refusal to sign tehe European accord, would have hurt most was the large, rich and powerful Donetsk/Akhmetov clan whose businesses are oriented towards Europe. Might Mr Akhmetov have helped or funded a popular uprising that his European and, I suspect, in particular his American friends, would have been delighted with? It would have been in his interests. But again we don't know. It is another striking coincidence of interests.
It might be worth noting at this point that Mr Firtash has been arrested in Austria at the bidding of the Americans on grounds of all sorts of alleged economic irregularlties'. While Mr Akhetov has remained at his ease. My oligarch is a business genius. Yours is a crook.

British interests in Ukraine a very British clan?
It was with this picture of Ukrainian economics and politics in mind that I wondered what interests my country's wealthy and powerful clans' might have in Ukraine. If indeed we could be said to have that sort of clan' at all. I leave it to you to decide the answer to that question. Here is what I found.

You might not know it, I didn't, but there is a British Ukrainian Society (BUS). It's aim, to "strengthen relations".
[Image: firenzie_promo.png]It turns out that its board is just full of interesting people: Lord Risby, Lord Oxford , Robert Shelter-Jones, John Wittingdale MP, Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill and Mr Anthony Fisher .

Now before looking at any of these people in more depth it is perhaps worth noticing that Lord Risby has been a Conservative MP since 1992, till he joined the Lords in 2010, has served in the Treasury and the Ministry of Defense, and from 2005 to 2010 was Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party with special responsibility for business links to the City of London. John Wittingdale is a also very senior Conservative being vice chair of the key, 1922 committee. Robert Shelter-Jones is a Conservative Party donor via his company Sythian Ltd. As the Indepedent Newspaper reported,
The money from Mr Shetler-Jones has gone to the highest echelons of the party. Dame Pauline Neville Jones, the career diplomat who is now the shadow security minister, revealed in the latest Register of Members' Interests that she receives £5,000 a quarter or £20,000-a-year from Mr Shetler-Jones.
Another senior Tory, the former armed services minister Nicholas Soames, also declares on the register that he receives an undisclosed sum as a strategic adviser to Scythian Limited, which has had listed assets of no more than £2 since 2006 and has given a total of more than £27,000 to Conservative Central Office.
When Lord Risby was at the ministry of Defense Nicholas Soames was the Minister.

The odd one out at the British Ukrainian Society is Baroness Smith (listed as a patron) who was married to the former leader of the Labour party. Despite her presence, having strong ties to the Conservative party does seem to be quite a common theme at the BUS. Just an inocent coincidence of course. But we do already seem to have quite a grouping of political power. Likewise it may be just a coincidence that another common theme among BUS board members is having close ties to Mr Firtash of RosUkrEnergo gas company. Robert Shetler-Jones was the former CEO of Group DF which is Mr Firtash's main holding company. Mr Shelter-Jones is now on Group DF's supervisory board. Lord Oxford is also on Group DF's supervisory council. While Mr Anthony Fisher is a former director of the Firtash Foundation. And one more BUS board member, Vladimir Granovski, is also on the board of Mr Firtash's television company.

So I think it is fair to say that the BUS is not a cultural organisation. It has no artists or poets on its board, nor any human rights activists either. It has mainly people who are interested in business (which businesses I will come to shortly), are closely associated with Mr Firtash, and many of whom are members of or donors to the Conservative party. There are two other things which link three of the BUS members which are not emphasized on the BUS web site.

Both Lord Risley and Lord Oxford are non-executive board members of Oil and Gas companies whose main interests lie in Ukraine. While both Lord Oxford and Richard Shetler-Jones have been reported as having links (in Lord Oxford's case very senior links) with MI6.

So now we have a group of people who are linked by interests in Ukrainian gas, close ties to Ukrainian oligarch Mr Firtash as well as two other Ukrainian business clans, close and senior connections to the Conservative party, ditto for MI6 and they are members of the British Ukrainian Society. If this grouping were in Ukraine and the people were all members of the Ukrainain British Society, with business interests in the UK, ties to Ukrainian intelligence and many of them were senior members of one politcal party as well, would we have difficulty seeing them as on their way to being a business clan?

Gas companies
Lord Oxford, or as he is known to his friends, Raymond Benedict Bartholomew Michael Asquith, 3rd Earl of Oxford and Asquith, is an hereditary peer and was a senior British diplomat stationed at one time in Moscow. In fact, according to the Telegraph newspaper he was the MI6 Station Chief in Moscow. He is now a non-executive Director of JKX Oil and Gas which has large oil and gas rights in Ukraine.
According to its Wikipdia entry,
JKX is the dominant private enterprise in exploration and production, accounting for over three-quarters of all oil and almost half of all gas produced by non-state-owned companies.
So along side Mr Firtash's RosUkrEnergo, JKX is a pretty big player in Ukraine. The Russian state bank VTB owns 6.4% of JKX while Ihor Kolomoyski (see clan no. 3 above) who is co-owner of Pivat Bank, which is Ukraine's largest private bank, owns 27%. So JKX has ties to the Russian state, to Ukraine and one of its business clans, via Ukraine's largest bank, and Lord Oxford is, as mentioned, also on the board of one of Mr Firtash's ( Clan no.4, co-owner of RosUrkEnergo which handles all the state owned gas, and who was just arrested in Austria at the behest of the Americans on charges of corruption) companies.

Lord Risbey is also on the board of an oil and gas company operating in the Ukraine. He is a non-executive director of Hawkley Oil and Gas. Which is a very interesting company.

Hawkley Oil and Gas is small and relatively new. It's birth was, in my opinion, rather odd and worth looking a little into. Back in 2010 an immunology company called Inceptive announced that,
While the Company [Inceptive] has historically focused on its science/ biotechnology business, the Company has reached an agreement to acquire a private BVI oil and gas exploration company, Hawkley.
An obvious development, I am sure you'll agree, immunology to gas exploration. The three board members of Inceptive were replaced with new men.

The private BVI (British Virgin Island) company mentioned was Janita Global Ltd which was trading as Hawkley. And when Incitive said it was going to acquire, it was actually,
…an agreement to merge with Janita Global Limited (Janita), an oil and gas company, with assets in the Dnieper-Donets Basin in the Ukraine. The merger was treated as a reverse acquisition by Janita of the Company [Incitive] which results in Janita being the in substance acquirer.
So actually Incitive didn't buy anything in the ordinary sense. But of course Janita now traded as Hawkley and so Hawkley emerged as a new company now based in Australia in the shell of what used to be Incitive minus everyone who ever worked for Incitive. The question is why? Why not simply create a new company rather than merge with and then gut an old one? Creating a new company costs pennies. The merger and creation of the new Hawkley, according to their own filings, created a loss for the company, for the twelve months ending 30th June 2010, of just over $6 million! The only person who is a constant in all this, from Janita and Incitive to Hawkley is a Mr Richard Reavley who is one of the founding members of Janita and then became and still is, the CEO of the new Hawkley Oil and Gas. Clear? Don't worry these sorts of things, one gets the strong impression, are not meant to be clear.

As all these mergers and name changes were happening and a $6 million loss was being accumulated, nevertheless lots of shares were bought and sold from and between a whole nest of UK shell companies, and other private companies registered in BVI and the Bahamas. Why invest in a company earning little and with a large loss is not quite clear. However, names that pop up as investors included Ballure Trading Ltd which is a UK shell company that lists Darion Ltd as its sole director and Sultan Services Ltd as its secretary. Darion has previously appeared in filings for and resigned as director or secretary of other companies 23 times. Sultan services has also resigned from companies 23 previous times. If I have read the filings properly, and I am not an expert so I may have misunderstood, I think these companies and a host of others listed have even acted for each other as secretary or director in the past. The result is that no one, not even Companies House, the tax man nor the police know who is the actual beneficial owner of any of these companies.

Two other tax-haven companies also appear in the listings for Hawkley, which are Avenger Investment and Acetone Ltd, at one point owning nearly a quarter of Hawkley between them. These companies too don't make it clear who owns them. But in what are called 601 filings the names of their directors do appear. On the filing for Avenger Investments we find the signatures of Claudio Buhler and Kin Chui Tang as directors.
[Image: avenger-1024x438.jpg]




The odd thing is that Claudio Buhler and Kin Chi Tang are also listed as the directors of Acetone Ltd and Avenger is listed as the named company on Acetone's filing. Which suggested that perhaps Acetone and Avenger too are just shell companies for whoever Mr Buhler and Kin Chi Tang are representing.

Buhler and Tang were actually both partners in Caldwell & Partners. They are now both founder members of CKP fiduciaries along with Philip Caldwell which offers fiduciary services to high net worth individuals. Mr Buhler is, quite interestingly, also on the board of Georgia Oil and Gas Company Ltd. Another BVI company operating in the gas fields of the former Soviet Union. Kin Chui Tang is listed as a UK citizen but the listed address is in Zug in Switzerland.

So much for Hawkley's murky origins. What about now? Well if you look at how it is doing now you find statements like this one from investment site MacroAxis
The company has return on total asset (ROA) of (68.02) % which means that it has lost $68.02 on every $100 spent on asset. This is way below average. Similarly, it shows return on equity (ROE) of (104.79) %meaning that it generated substantial loss on money invested by shareholders.
So we have a company whose origins were …odd, involved lots of shell companies and a multi million dollar loss and the company is now…making a loss. Though it is still solvent due to the money it raised from its investors. It does have assets but there is something distinctly…odd about the company. Nothing illegal just odd.

Put together Lord Oxford's interests and those of Lord Risley and between those interests in gas, the ties of various British Ukrainian Society members to Mr Firtash, to MI6 and to the Conservative party and is there anything we should be asking ourselves?

Oh one last thing Lord Risley is not only a member of the British Ukrainian Society but also of the British Syrian Society. Two countries where we are involved in changes of regime and both central to struggles over gas and gas pipelines.

Ukraine: Cui bono? - Lauren Johnson - 22-05-2014

Just to get a more vivid picture of what is going on, Saker reports on an attack on Ukrainian National Guard soldiers manning a checkpoint who have refused to carry out atrocities as order. The attackers are from Ihor Kolomiosky's Privat Bank militia, according to multiple witnesses. That's free enterprise at work!

Quote:

Ukraine SITREP May 22th, 19:32 UTC/Zulu: Ukie death squad murders conscripts


Something really weird has just happened in the Ukraine. Everybody agrees that an attack took place on a checkpoint of the Ukrainian national guard near the city of Volnovakha (see map). 35 soldiers were wounded, 15 died (other figures quote 8 confirmed dead and an unknown number of evacuated bodies of attackers who got killed; one source says "13-20 fatalities"). The surviving soldiers say that out of 53 men, only 7 survived.

 So far all the sources point to the same sequence of events. Here is what I pieced together:

 A Ukrainian national guard unit (according to one source the 51st motorized brigade which had been hastily made up with middle-aged reservists) brought in from the city of Vinnitsa. For three days were were told to man a checkpoint, but today they were given the order to attack civilians in a nearby village. The unit refused and the commander announced that he would withdraw because "there were no terrorists here, only civilians". At around 5AM a black sedan, two jeeps and several vehicles (vans and armored) of the company Privat Bank (belongs to the Jewish oligarch Kolomoiski) carrying members of the "Donbass" and "Azov" death-squads drove to the checkpoint and opened fire with everything they had. The soldiers fired back as best they could. The attack lasted 15min after which the attackers put on some Saint George ribbons and beat up the surviving and wounded soldiers while telling them that they were from the Donbass Resistance forces. Not a single solider believed them.

About one hour later two or three more helicopters were seen shooting at the destroyed vehicles of the attackers in an apparent attempt to conceal their origin (Privat Bank). Still, witnesses have categorically identified the vans used by Privat Bank. There is also video footage confirming this.

 This is a video showing the attack helicopters and the explosion of what was either an ammo dump or the ammo load of an infantry fighting vehicle.

VIDEOS

This version of events was confirmed in a telephone conversation by the commander of the Ukrainian army brigade to whom the attacked unit belonged. It was also confirmed to the BBC, off the record, by a Major of the same brigade. Officials of the Donetsk People's Republic categorically deny that their forces were involved in the attack.

 Furthermore, wounded Ukrainian soldiers interviewed in the local hospitals declared that they had a non-aggression agreement with the local Donetsk Resistance forces. They also confirmed that the attackers were from the Privat Bank.

In other words, the Ukrainian soldiers were murdered for refusing to execute an order which amounted to a war crime. Just as in the case of the bloodbath in Odessa, this latest atrocity was ordered by Igor Kolomoiski.

 Interestingly, the Ukie media is now reporting a wave of attacks on Privat Bank vans which, the media claims, "could be used by terrorists".

 This is not the first time that such a massacre is committed by the neo-Nazi junta: this is also what happened during the recent massacre of all the members of a police station in Mariupol who had refused to shoot at civilians: they were also all murdered.

 In the meantime, in Lugansk heavy fighting is taking place and 24 Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered to the Resistance forces near the city of Rubezhnaia. The Ukrainian soldiers did not come empty handed: they brought several trucks and an anti-air gun with them.

 The resistance estimates the total strength of the Ukrainian forces in the Lugansk area at 6'000 soldiers. Lugansk is bracing for an imminent assault, administrations and schools are now closed.

 What we can say today is that so far the situation is close to catastrophic for the junta in Kiev. Clearly most conscripted soldiers are refusing to obey as for the death squads, they are only good to terrorize civilians or, at best, lightly armed folks.

 The current attack will probably continue - at least this is what the freaks in Kiev have announced - but unless the Ukies have some hidden card up their sleeves, this operations most unlikely to succeed.

 I wish that somebody in the Ukrainian military realized that this is the perfect timing for a coup. No need to be a Chief of Staff or anything like that. One well-connected and respected Colonel would do.

 I am not holding by breath though.

 Kind regards,

 The Saker



Ukraine: Cui bono? - Magda Hassan - 23-05-2014

Thanks for posting the excellent Golem article. I've been wanting to put some thing together like that but haven't had the time t do it and now I wont because his article is perfect. No need to reinvent wheels.

Ukraine: Cui bono? - Lauren Johnson - 23-05-2014

Magda Hassan Wrote:Thanks for posting the excellent Golem article. I've been wanting to put some thing together like that but haven't had the time t do it and now I wont because his article is perfect. No need to reinvent wheels.

Thanks, I knew somebody would like the article.

Coupled with the Saker Sitrep, we see a vision of a world in which the super wealthy anxious to preserve their wealth and seeing the collapse of the state, hire very powerful and ruthless mercenary militias to carry out their wishes.

Ukraine: Cui bono? - Paul Rigby - 23-05-2014

Magda Hassan Wrote:Thanks for posting the excellent Golem article.

Seconded. MI6 up to its neck in it - the British deep state in all its glory.

Ukraine: Cui bono? - David Guyatt - 23-05-2014

This article needs checking further, I think. I can't find a modern Lord Risley in the House of Lords. Quite possibly he is known by another name.

Ukraine: Cui bono? - Magda Hassan - 23-05-2014

David Guyatt Wrote:This article needs checking further, I think. I can't find a modern Lord Risley in the House of Lords. Quite possibly he is known by another name.

Yes, I found a Richard Spring, Baron of Risley. Gets around does Richard. Current British Trade Envoy to Algeria. Working relationship with John Major and looks like he has energy and fracking interests. PPS to Minister for Northern Ireland PPS to Defence Minister.

Quote:Richard John Grenville Spring, Baron Risby (born 24 September 1946) is a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bury St Edmunds from 1992 to 1997, and for West Suffolk from 1997 to 2010. He joined the House of Lords in 2010 and is currently the British Trade Envoy to Algeria.
Contents



Parliamentary career

Spring contested Ashton-under-Lyne at the 1983 general election. He was first elected as an MP at the 1992 General Election, representing Bury St Edmunds. Spring served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir Patrick Mayhew as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (199495), to Tim Eggar as Minister for Trade and Industry (199596) and to Nicholas Soames and James Arbuthnot as Ministers of State at the Ministry of Defence (199697).[SUP][1][/SUP] In 1997, Spring was elected as MP for West Suffolk. He was Opposition Spokesman for Foreign Affairs between 2000 and 2004 and Shadow Minister for the Treasury between 2004 and 2005.[SUP][2][/SUP] On 23 November 2009, Spring announced that he would stand down at the 2010 general election.[SUP][3][/SUP] Between 2005 and 2010 he was a Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party, responsible for business links in the City of London. He was also Director of the British Syrian Society between 2003 and 2011, and featured on a 2012 Dispatches program on the Assad regime.[SUP][4][/SUP]
In December 2010, Spring was created a life peer as Baron Risby of Haverhill in the County of Suffolk. Lord Risby sits as a Conservative in the House of Lords.[SUP][5][/SUP]
In September 2011, Risby was elected as the Vice-Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for East Asian Business

. In November 2012, Lord Risby was announced as one of nine prime ministerial trade envoys, with responsibility for Algeria.[SUP][6][/SUP] Outside Parliament

Lord Risby is currently the Chairman of the British Ukrainian Society, a post that he has held since 2007.[SUP][7][/SUP] He is also one of two patrons of the business organisation City Future, along with Sir John Major.[SUP][8][/SUP] Risby is a director of several businesses and organisations, including Hawkley Oil and Gas Ltd and Minexco Petroleum Inc, and is the president of the Combined Heat and Power Association.[SUP][9][/SUP] He is also the Deputy Chairman of the Small Business Bureau.[SUP][10][/SUP]
Personal life

Spring was born in 1946 in Cape Town, South Africa where he attended Rondebosch Boys' High School and Cape Town University. As a child he lived in the picturesque suburb of Fresnaye. He subsequently studied at the University of Cambridge. Spring then entered the City, and was a vice-president of Merrill Lynch.[SUP][11][/SUP] He married Hon. Jane Henniker-Major, daughter of John Henniker-Major, 8th Baron Henniker, in 1979 in Westminster. They divorced in 1993, having had two children.[SUP][12][/SUP]
He was widely reported to have enjoyed a three-in-a-bed romp with a friend and a Sunday School teacher in 1995.[SUP][13][/SUP]
He is a descendant of the Suffolk merchant Thomas Spring and a relation of Kenneth Spring. In 1992 he became the sixth member of the Spring family to represent a Suffolk constituency in the House of Commons, although the first for over 300 years.[SUP][14][/SUP] Spring is also a descendant of George Grenville, the Whig statesman who served as British Prime Minister in the eighteenth century.
References


External links



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Spring,_Baron_Risby


Ukraine: Cui bono? - Magda Hassan - 18-08-2014

What Do the World Bank and IMF Have to Do With the Ukraine Conflict?

Sunday, 17 August 2014 00:00 By Frédéric Mousseau, Inter Press Service | News Analysis

Frédéric Mousseau argues that IMF and World Bank aid packages contingent on austerity reforms will have a devastating impact on Ukrainians' standard of living and increase poverty in the country.
Mostly unreported as the Ukraine conflict captures headlines, international financing has played a significant role in the current conflict in Ukraine.
In late 2013, conflict between pro-European Union (EU) and pro-Russian Ukrainians escalated to violent levels, leading to the departure of President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 and prompting the greatest East-West confrontation since the Cold War.
A major factor in the crisis that led to deadly protests and eventually Yanukovych's removal from office was his rejection of an EU association agreement that would have further opened trade and integrated Ukraine with the European Union. The agreement was tied to a 17 billion dollars loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Instead, Yanukovych chose a Russian aid package worth 15 billion dollars plus a 33 percent discount on Russian natural gas.
The relationship with international financial institutions changed swiftly under the pro-EU government put in place at the end of February 2014 which went for the multi-million dollar IMF package in May 2014.
Announcing a 3.5 billion dollars aid programme on May 22, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim lauded the Ukrainian authorities for developing a comprehensive programme of reforms, and their commitment to carry it out with support from the World Bank Group. He failed to mention the neo-liberal conditions imposed by the Bank to lend money, including that the government limit its own power by removing restrictions that hinder competition and limiting the role of state control in economic activities.
The rush to provide new aid packages to the country with the new government aligned with the neo-liberal agenda was a reward from both institutions.
The East-West competition over Ukraine, however, is about the control of natural resources, including uranium and other minerals, as well as geopolitical issues such as Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The stakes around Ukraine's vast agricultural sector, the world's third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat, constitute a critical factor that has been overlooked. With ample fields of fertile black soil that allow for high production volumes of grains, Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe.
In the last decade, the agricultural sector has been characterised by a growing concentration of production within very large agricultural holdings that use large-scale intensive farming systems. Not surprisingly, the presence of foreign corporations in the agricultural sector and the size of agro-holdings are both growing quickly, with more than 1.6 million hectares signed over to foreign companies for agricultural purposes in recent years.
Now the goal is to set policies that will benefit Western corporations. Whereas Ukraine does not allow the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture, Article 404 of the EU agreement, which relates to agriculture, includes a clause that has generally gone unnoticed: both parties will cooperate to extend the use of biotechnologies.
Given the struggle for resources in Ukraine and the influx of foreign investors in the agriculture sector, an important question is whether the results of the programme will benefit Ukraine and its farmers by securing their property rights or pave the way for corporations to more easily access property and land.
By encouraging reforms such as the deregulation of seed and fertiliser markets, the country's agricultural sector is being forced open to foreign corporations such as Dupont and Monsanto.
The Bank's activities and its loan and reform programmes in Ukraine seem to be working toward the expansion of large industrial holdings in Ukrainian agriculture owned by foreign entities.
Amid the current turmoil, the World Bank and the IMF are now pushing for more reforms to improve the business climate and increase private investment. In March 2014, the former prime minister ad interim, Arsenij Yatsenyuk, welcomed strict and painful structural reforms as part of the 17 billion dollars IMF loan package, dismissing the need to negotiate any terms.
The IMF austerity reforms will affect monetary and exchange rate policies, the financial sector, fiscal policies, the energy sector, governance, and the business climate.
The loan is also a precondition for the release of further financial support from the European Union and the United States. If fully adopted, the reforms may lead to significant price increases of essential consumer goods, a 47 to 66 percent increase in personal income tax rates, and a 50 percent increase in gas bills. These measures, it is feared, will have a devastating social impact, resulting in a collapse of the standard of living and dramatic increases in poverty.
Although Ukraine started implementing pro-business reforms under president Yanukovych through the Ukraine Investment Climate Advisory Services Project and by streamlining trade and property transfer procedures, his ambition to mould the country to the World Bank and IMFs standards was not reflected in other realms of policy and his allegiance to Russia eventually led to his removal from office.
Following the installation of a pro-West government, there has been an acceleration of structural adjustment led by the international institutions along with an increase in foreign investment, aimed at further expansion of large-scale acquisitions of agricultural land by foreign companies and further corporatisation of agriculture in the country.
The experience of structural adjustment programmes around the developing world foretells that it will increase foreign control of the Ukrainian economy as well as increase poverty and inequality. As Western powers get ready to impose sanctions on Russia for its transgressions in Ukraine, it remains unclear how programmes and conditionalities imposed by the World Bank will improve the lives of Ukrainians and build a sustainable economic future.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25616-what-do-the-world-bank-and-imf-have-to-do-with-the-ukraine-conflict

Ukraine: Cui bono? - Magda Hassan - 18-08-2014

The Ukraine, Corrupted Journalism, and the Atlanticist Faith

By Karel van Wolferen August 14, 2014 4,000 Words 104 Comments



The European Union is not (anymore) guided by politicians with a grasp of history, a sober assessment of global reality, or simple common sense connected with the long term interests of what they are guiding. If any more evidence was needed, it has certainly been supplied by the sanctions they have agreed on last week aimed at punishing Russia.
One way to fathom their foolishness is to start with the media, since whatever understanding or concern these politicians may have personally they must be seen to be doing the right thing, which is taken care of by TV and newspapers.
In much of the European Union the general understanding of global reality since the horrible fate of the people on board the Malaysian Airliner comes from mainstream newspapers and TV which have copied the approach of Anglo-American mainstream media, and have presented news' in which insinuation and vilification substitute for proper reporting. Respected publications, like the Financial Times or the once respected NRC Handelsblad of the Netherlands for which I worked sixteen years as East Asia Correspondent, not only joined in with this corrupted journalism but helped guide it to mad conclusions. The punditry and editorials that have grown out of this have gone further than anything among earlier examples of sustained media hysteria stoked for political purposes that I can remember. The most flagrant example I have come across, an anti-Putin leader in the (July 26) Economist Magazine, had the tone of Shakespeare's Henry V exhorting his troops before the battle of Agincourt as he invaded France.
One should keep in mind that there are no European-wide newspapers or publications to sustain a European public sphere, in the sense of a means for politically interested Europeans to ponder and debate with each other big international developments. Because those interested in world affairs usually read the international edition of the New York Times or the Financial Times, questions and answers on geopolitical matters are routinely shaped or strongly influenced by what editors in New York and London have determined as being important. Thinking that may deviate significantly as can now be found in Der Spiegel, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Zeit and Handelsblatt, does not travel across German borders. Hence we do not see anything like a European opinion evolving on global affairs, even when these have a direct impact on the interests of the European Union itself.
The Dutch population was rudely shaken out of a general complacency with respect to world events that could affect it, through the death of 193 fellow nationals (along with a 105 people of other nationalities) in the downed plane, and its media were hasty in following the American-initiated finger-pointing at Moscow. Explanations that did not in some way involve culpability of the Russian president seemed to be out of bounds. This was at odds right away with statements of a sober Dutch prime minister, who was under considerable pressure to join the fingerpointing but who insisted on waiting for a thorough examination of what precisely had happened.
The TV news programs I saw in the days immediately afterwards had invited, among other antiRussian expositors, American neocon-linked talking heads to do the disclosing to a puzzled and truly shaken up audience. A Dutch foreign policy specialist explained that the foreign minister or his deputy could not go to the site of the crash (as Malaysian officials did) to recover the remains of Dutch citizens, because that would amount to an implicit recognition of diplomatic status for the "separatists". When the European Union en bloc recognizes a regime that has come into existence through an American initiated coup d'état, you are diplomatically stuck with it.
The inhabitants and anti-Kiev fighters at the crash site were portrayed, with images from youtube, as uncooperative criminals, which for many viewers amounted to a confirmation of their guilt. This changed when later reports from actual journalists showed shocked and deeply concerned villagers, but the discrepancy was not explained, and earlier assumptions of villainy did not make way for any objective analysis of why these people might be fighting at all. Tendentious twitter and youtube news' had become the basis for official Dutch indignation with the East Ukrainians, and a general opinion arose that something had to be set straight, which was, again in general opinion, accomplished by a grand nationally televised reception of the human remains (released through Malaysian mediation) in a dignified sober martial ceremony.
Nothing that I have seen or read even intimated that the Ukraine crisis which led to coup and civil war was created by neoconservatives and a few R2P ("Responsibility to Protect") fanatics in the State Department and the White House, apparently given a free hand by President Obama. The Dutch media also appeared unaware that the catastrophe was immediately turned into a political football for White House and State Department purposes. The likelihood that Putin was right when he said that the catastrophe would not have happened if his insistence on a cease-fire had been accepted, was not entertained.
As it was, Kiev broke the cease-fire on the 10th of June in its civil war against Russian speaking East Ukrainians who do not wish to be governed by a collection of thugs, progeny of Ukrainian nazis, and oligarchs enamored of the IMF and the European Union. The supposed rebels' have been responding to the beginnings of ethnic cleansing operations (systematic terror bombing and atrocities 30 or more Ukrainians burned alive) committed by Kiev forces, of which little or nothing has penetrated into European news reports.
It is unlikely that the American NGOs, which by official admission spent 5 billion dollars in political destabilization efforts prior to the February putsch in Kiev, have suddenly disappeared from the Ukraine, or that America's military advisors and specialized troops have sat idly by as Kiev's military and militias mapped their civil war strategy; after all, the new thugs are as a regime on financial life-support provided by Washington, the European Union and IMF. What we know is that Washington is encouraging the ongoing killing in the civil war it helped trigger.
But Washington has constantly had the winning hand in a propaganda war against, entirely contrary to what mainstream media would have us believe, an essentially unwilling opponent. Waves of propaganda come from Washington and are made to fit assumptions of a Putin, driven and assisted by a nationalism heightened by the loss of the Soviet empire, who is trying to expand the Russian Federation up to the borders of that defunct empire. The more adventurous punditry, infected by neocon fever, has Russia threatening to envelop the West. Hence Europeans are made to believe that Putin refuses diplomacy, while he has been urging this all along. Hence prevailing propaganda has had the effect that not Washington's but Putin's actions are seen as dangerous and extreme. Anyone with a personal story that places Putin or Russia in a bad light must move right now; Dutch editors seem insatiable at the moment.
There is no doubt that the frequently referred to Moscow propaganda exists. But there are ways for serious journalists to weigh competing propaganda and discern how much veracity or lies and bullshit they contain. Within my field of vision this has only taken place a bit in Germany. For the rest we must piece political reality together relying on the now more than ever indispensable American websites hospitable to whistleblowers and old-fashioned investigative journalism, which especially since the onset of the war on terrorism' and the Iraq invasion have formed a steady form of samizdat publishing.
In the Netherlands almost anything that comes from the State Department is taken at face value. America's history, since the demise of the Soviet Union, of truly breathtaking lies: on Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela, Libya and North Korea; its record of overthrown governments; its black-op and false flag operations; and its stealthily garrisoning of the planet with some thousand military bases, is conveniently left out of consideration. The near hysteria throughout a week following the downed airliner prevented people with some knowledge of relevant history from opening their mouths. Job security in the current world of journalism is quite shaky, and going against the tide would be almost akin to siding with the devil, as it would damage one's journalistic credibility'.
What strikes an older generation of serious journalists as questionable about the mainstream media's credibility is editorial indifference to potential clues that would undermine or destroy the official story line; a story line that has already permeated popular culture as is evident in throwaway remarks embellishing book and film reviews along with much else. In the Netherlands the official story is already carved in stone, which is to be expected when it is repeated ten-thousand times. It cannot be discounted, of course, but it is based on not a shred of evidence.
The presence of two Ukrainian fighter planes near the Malaysian airliner on Russian radar would be a potential clue I would be very interested in if I were investigating either as journalist or member of the investigation team that the Netherlands officially leads. This appeared to be corroborated by a BBC Report with eyewitness accounts from the ground by villagers who clearly saw another plane, a fighter, close to the airliner, near the time of its crash, and heard explosions coming from the sky. This report has recently drawn attention because it was removed from the BBC's archive. I would want to talk with Michael Bociurkiw, one of the first inspectors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to reach the crash site who spent more than a week examining the wreckage and has described on CBC World News two or three "really pock-marked" pieces of fuselage. "It almost looks like machine gun fire; very, very strong machine gun fire that has left these unique marks that we haven't seen anywhere else."
I would certainly also want to have a look at the allegedly confiscated radar and voice records of the Kiev Air Control Tower to understand why the Malaysian pilot veered off course and rapidly descended shortly before his plane crashed, and find out whether foreign air controllers in Kiev were indeed sent packing immediately after the crash. Like the "Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity", I would certainly urge the American authorities with access to satellite images to show the evidence they claim to have of BUK missile batteries in rebel' hands as well as of Russian involvement, and ask them why they have not done so already. Until now Washington has acted like a driver who refuses a breathalyzer test. Since intelligence officials have leaked to some American newspapers their lesser certainty about the American certainties as brought to the world by the Secretary of State, my curiosity would be unrelenting.
To place European media loyalty to Washington in the Ukraine case as well as the slavish conduct of European politicians in perspective, we must know about and understand Atlanticism. It is a European faith. It has not given rise to an official doctrine, of course, but it functions like one. It is well summed up by the Dutch slogan at the time of the Iraq invasion: "zonder Amerika gaat het niet" (without the United States [things] [it] won't work). Needless to say, the Cold War gave birth to Atlanticism. Ironically, it gained strength as the threat from the Soviet Union became less persuasive for increasing numbers among European political elites. That probably was a matter of generational change: the farther away from World War II, the less European governments remembered what it means to have an independent foreign policy on global-sized issues. Current heads of government of the European Union are unfamiliar with practical strategic deliberations. Routine thought on international relations and global politics is deeply entrenched in Cold War epistemology.
This inevitably also informs responsible' editorial policies. Atlanticism is now a terrible affliction for Europe: it fosters historical amnesia, willful blindness and dangerously misconceived political anger. But it thrives on a mixture of lingering unquestioned Cold War era certainties about protection, Cold War loyalties embedded in popular culture, sheer European ignorance, and an understandable reluctance to concede that one has even for a little bit been brainwashed. Washington can do outrageous things while leaving Atlanticism intact because of everyone's forgetfulness, which the media do little or nothing to cure. I know Dutch people who have become disgusted with the villification of Putin, but the idea that in the context of Ukraine the fingerpointing should be toward Washington is well-nigh unacceptable. Hence, Dutch publications, along with many others in Europe, cannot bring themselves to place the Ukraine crisis in proper perspective by acknowledging that Washington started it all, and that Washington rather than Putin has the key to its solution. It would impel a renunciation of Atlanticism.
Atlanticism derives much of its strength through NATO, its institutional embodiment. The reason for NATO's existence, which disappeard with the demise of the Soviet Union, has been largely forgotten. Formed in 1949, it was based on the idea that transatlantic cooperation for security and defense had become necessary after World War II in the face of a communism, orchestrated by Moscow, intent on taking over the entire planet. Much less talked about was European internal distrust, as the Europeans set off on their first moves towards economic integration. NATO constituted a kind of American guarantee that no power in Europe would ever try to dominate the others.
NATO has for some time now been a liability for the European Union, as it prevents development of concerted European foreign and defense policies, and has forced the member states to become instruments serving American militarism. It is also a moral liability because the governments participating in the coalition of the willing' have had to sell the lie to their citizens that European soldiers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan have been a necessary sacrifice to keep Europe safe from terrorists. Governments that have supplied troops to areas occupied by the United States have generally done this with considerable reluctance, earning the reproach from a succession of American officials that Europeans do too little for the collective purpose of defending democracy and freedom.
As is the mark of an ideology, Atlanticism is ahistorical. As horse medicine against the torment of fundamental political ambiguity it supplies its own history: one that may be rewritten by American mainstream media as they assist in spreading the word from Washington.
There could hardly be a better demonstration of this than the Dutch experience at the moment. In conversations these past three weeks I have encountered genuine surprise when reminding friends that the Cold War ended through diplomacy with a deal made on Malta between Gorbachev and the elder Bush in December 1989, in which James Baker got Gorbachev to accept the reunification of Germany and withdrawal of Warsaw Pact troops with a promise that NATO would not be extended even one inch to the East. Gorbachev pledged not to use force in Eastern Europe where the Russians had some 350,000 troops in East Germany alone, in return for Bush's promise that Washington would not take advantage of a Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe. Bill Clinton reneged on those American promises when, for purely electoral reasons, he boasted about an enlargement of NATO and in 1999 made the Czech Republic and Hungary full members. Ten years later another nine countries became members, at which point the number of NATO countries was double the number during the Cold War. The famous American specialist on Russia, Ambassador George Kennan, originator of Cold War containment policy, called Clinton's move "the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era."
Historical ignorance abetted by Atlanticism is poignantly on display in the contention that the ultimate proof in the case against Vladimir Putin is his invasion of Crimea. Again, political reality here was created by America's mainstream media. There was no invasion, as the Russian sailors and soldiers were already there since it is home to the warm water' Black Sea base for the Russian navy. Crimea has been a part of Russia for as long as the United States has existed. In 1954 Khrushchev, who himself came from the Ukraine, gave it to the Ukrainian Socialist Republic, which came down to moving a region to a different province, since Russia and Ukraine still belonged to the same country. The Russian speaking Crimean population was happy enough, as it voted in a referendum first for independence from the Kiev regime that resulted from the coup d'état, and subsequently for reunification with Russia.
Those who maintain that Putin had no right to do such a thing are unaware of another strand of history in which the United States has been moving (Star Wars) missile defense systems ever closer to Russian borders, supposedly to intercept hostile missiles from Iran, which do not exist. Sanctimonious talk about territorial integrity and sovereignty makes no sense under these circumstances, and coming from a Washington that has done away with the concept of sovereignty in its own foreign policy it is downright ludicrous.
A detestable Atlanticist move was the exclusion of Putin from the meetings and other events connected with the commemoration of the Normandy landings, for the first time in 17 years. The G8 became the G7 as a result. Amnesia and ignorance have made the Dutch blind to a history that directly concerned them, since the Soviet Union took the heart out of the Nazi war machine (that occupied the Netherlands) at a cost of incomparable and unimaginable numbers of military dead; without that there would not have been a Normandy invasion.
Not so long ago, the complete military disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan appeared to be moving NATO to a point where its inevitable demise could not to be too far off. But the Ukraine crisis and Putin's decisiveness in preventing the Crimea with its Russian Navy base from possibly falling into the hands of the American-owned alliance, has been a godsend to this earlier faltering institution.
NATO leadership has already been moving troops to strengthen their presence in the Baltic states, sending missiles and attack aircraft to Poland and Lithuania, and since the downing of the Malaysian airliner it has been preparing further military moves that may turn into dangerous provocations of Russia. It has become clear that the Polish foreign minister together with the Baltic countries, none of which partook in NATO when its reason for being could still be defended, have become a strong driving force behind it. A mood of mobilization has spread in the past week. The ventriloquist dummies Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer can be relied upon to take to TV screens inveighing against NATO member-state backsliding. Rasmussen, the current Secretary General, declared on August 7 in Kiev that NATO's "support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is unwavering" and that he is looking to strengthen partnership with the country at the Alliance's summit in Wales in September. That partnership is already strong, so he said, "and in response to Russia's aggression, NATO is working even more closely with Ukraine to reform its armed forces and defense institutions."
In the meantime, in the American Congress 23 Senate Republicans have sponsored legislation, the "Russian Aggression Prevention Act", which is meant to allow Washington to make the Ukraine a non-NATO ally and could set the stage for a direct military conflict with Russia. We will probably have to wait until after America's midterm elections to see what will become of it, but it already helps provide a political excuse for those in Washington who want to take next steps in the Ukraine.
In September last year Putin helped Obama by making it possible for him to stop a bombing campaign against Syria pushed by the neocons, and had also helped in defusing the nuclear dispute with Iran, another neocon project. This led to a neocon commitment to break the Putin-Obama link. It is hardly a secret that the neoconservatives desire the overthrow of Putin and eventual dismemberment of the Russian Federation. Less known in Europe is the existence of numerous NGOs at work in Russia, which will help them with this. Vladimir Putin could strike now or soon, to preempt NATO and the American Congress, by taking Eastern Ukraine, something he probably should have done right after the Crimean referendum. That would, of course, be proof of his evil intentions in European editorial eyes.
In the light of all this, one of the most fateful questions to ask in current global affairs is: what has to happen for Europeans to wake up to the fact that Washington is playing with fire and has ceased being the protector they counted on, and is instead now endangering their security? Will the moment come when it becomes clear that the Ukraine crisis is, most of all, about placing Star Wars missile batteries along an extensive stretch of Russian border, which gives Washington in the insane lingo of nuclear strategists first strike' capacity?
It is beginning to sink in among older Europeans that the United States has enemies who are not Europe's enemies because it needs them for domestic political reasons; to keep an economically hugely important war industry going and to test by shorthand the political bona fides of contenders for public office. But while using rogue states and terrorists as targets for just wars' has never been convincing, Putin's Russia as demonized by a militaristic NATO could help prolong the transatlantic status quo. The truth behind the fate of the Malaysian airliner, I thought from the moment that I heard about it, would be politically determined. Its black boxes are in London. In NATO hands?
Other hindrances to an awakening remain huge; financialization and neoliberal policies have produced an intimate transatlantic entwining of plutocratic interests. Together with the Atlanticist faith these have helped stymie the political development of the European Union, and with that Europe's ability to proceed with independent political decisions. Since Tony Blair, Great Britain has been in Washington's pocket, and since Nicolas Sarkozy one can say more or less the same of France.
That leaves Germany. Angela Merkel was clearly unhappy with the sanctions, but in the end went along because she wants to remain on the good side of the American president, and the United States as the conqueror in World War II does still have leverage through a variety of agreements. Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, quoted in newspapers and appearing on TV, repudiated the sanctions and points at Iraq and Libya as examples of the results brought by escalation and ultimatums, yet he too swings round and in the end goes along with them.
Der Spiegel is one of the German publications that offer hope. One of its columnists, Jakob Augstein, attacks the "sleepwalkers" who have agreed to sanctions, and censures his colleagues' finger-pointing at Moscow. Gabor Steingart, who publishes Handelsblatt, inveighs against the "American tendency to verbal and then to military escalation, the isolation, demonization, and attacking of enemies" and concludes that also German journalism "has switched from level-headed to agitated in a matter of weeks. The spectrum of opinions has been narrowed to the field of vision of a sniper scope." There must be more journalists in other parts of Europe who say things like this, but their voices do not carry through the din of vilification.
History is being made, once again. What may well determine Europe's fate is that also outside the defenders of the Atlanticist faith, decent Europeans cannot bring themselves to believe in the dysfunction and utter irresponsibility of the American state.

Karel van Wolferen is a Dutch journalist and retired professor at the University of Amsterdam. Since 1969, he has published over twenty books on public policy issues, which have been translated into eleven languages and sold over a million copies worldwide. As a foreign correspondent for NRC Handelsblad , one of Holland's leading newspapers, he received the highest Dutch award for journalism, and over the years his articles have appeared in The New York Times , The Washington Post , The New Republic , The National Interest , Le Monde , and numerous other newspapers and magazines.

http://www.unz.com/article/the-ukraine-corrupted-journalism-and-the-atlanticist-faith/

Ukraine: Cui bono? - Magda Hassan - 26-08-2014

Ukraine now has a brand new 24 hour English speaking TV station. English, of course, being the primary language of all the Ukrainians.

Quote: By RFE/RL
August 24, 2014

A new 24-hour English-language television channel called "Ukraine Today" began satellite and internet broadcasting from Kyiv on August 24 with news stories about developments in Ukraine.

The channel uses a "UT" logo and is part of Ukraine's 1+1 Media Group which includes eight Ukrainian television channels and five online news platforms.

Oleksandr Tkachenko, the general director of the 1+1 Media Group, says Ukraine Today is challenging "a large-scale information war" by Russian state media, which he accuses of broadcasting "lies and distortions" about Ukraine to support of the agenda of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The new channel is headed Ukrainian journalist Tetyana Pushnova, a former editor for the 1+1 Media Group's TSN website.

The channel reportedly plans to start satellite broadcasts to the United States in the future and to eventually broadcast in the Russian language.

Editor of the new TV channel Ukraine Today is former head of Jewish News (JN1) a TV station owned by Ukrainian oligarchs Igor Kolomoisky and Vadim Rabinovich.

Quote:

'JN1 won't become a propaganda station'

The TV news channel dubbed 'the Jewish al-Jazeera' hopes to attract a global audience with its independent stance


[Image: JN1-Tel-Aviv-vox-pops-007.jpg] JN1 surveys Israeli opinion on the streets of Tel Aviv

The world's first Jewish 24-hour TV news channel has launched with the aim of offering not just "news for Jews" but attracting viewers interested in world events from a Jewish perspective as an alternative to leading networks such as the BBC, CNN, Sky News and al-Jazeera.
"Since the beginning of the world, everything with the word 'Jewish' in it has been news," said Alexander Zanzer, Brussels bureau chief of Jewish News 1 (JN1). "So we thought it was about time someone created a 24-hour rolling TV news channel that looks at global events through Jewish glasses."
Broadcasting in Europe began via satellite last Wednesday. The channel will be rolled out across North America and the Middle East in cable and satellite packages over the coming weeks, and an internet live stream will be up and running within a month.
"We don't look at our channel as just being 'news for Jews'," said JN1's editor-in-chief Peter Dickinson, based in Kiev. "It's a much wider enterprise than that and I'm confident we'll get a lot of non-Jewish viewers coming by for the variety of our voice.
"If you look at the news market over the last 20 years, the real development has been diversification. A lot of channels have gotten a lot of kudos by being different and we hope to do the same by offering our own unique perspective on global affairs".
JN1 has already opened bureaux in Brussels, Tel Aviv and Kiev, and further studios are planned for Washington, Paris, London, Berlin and Moscow, with both Jewish and non-Jewish correspondents being signed up.
The channel a not-for-profit venture currently broadcasts in English, but plans to expand and provide current affairs coverage in Russian, French, Spanish, Hebrew, Italian and German, said Zanzer.
Its owners are Ukrainian oligarchs Igor Kolomoisky and Vadim Rabinovich, president and vice-president respectively of the European Jewish Union (EJU), a Brussels-based umbrella body of Jewish communities and organisations in Europe.
Both are prominent philanthropists in the international Jewish community, financing civil society events in Israel and Ukraine. The pair have reportedly invested $5m in the channel because, said Zanzer, "they now want to do something that resonates on an international level".
The Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations dominated the channel's output in the last week, but it also broadcast other Jewish-themed international news items, such as a call for fans of the football team AFC Ajax to bring Israeli flags to their next home match in protest against calls from antisemitism campaigners to ban the club's supporters from singing pro-Jewish chants.
Eytan Gilboa, a communications professor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, said that JN1 was part of a growing trend of independent global news channels set up by governments and non-state organisations dissatisfied with coverage offered by leading international TV news networks of their countries and interests.
"France has France 24, Russia has Russia Today, China has CCTV news," he said. "Israel should have had a channel like this long ago, though I'm glad JN1 is a private venture because government channels have no credibility."
Coverage of Israel by existing news networks like BBC World and CNN International as well as al-Jazeera was biased against the Jewish state, said Gilboa. The point was echoed by Zanzer, who said JN1 would "give more voice to Israel". "Journalists want good guys and bad guys when they write a story, and when they write about Israel they've already made up their minds," he added.
But Zanzer was keen to point out that the channel was independent from the state of Israel and "will not necessarily be pro- or anti-Israel; we'll let the public hear the Israeli perspective and it'll be up to the viewers to decide whether they're right".
The channel's Israeli bureau chief, CNN and ABC News veteran Jordana Miller, was also adamant that JN1 will not become a "propaganda station", saying "there's nothing about this network that will exclude, diminish or cut off the Palestinian narrative when it comes to the conflict here".
Gilboa claimed it was too soon to say whether channels such as JN1 could be successful but pointed out that success was relative and dependeent on the goals and expectations of the people backing them.
"None of these channels are profitable, they lose money," he said. "It's like foreigners buying football teams in Britain they don't buy them to make a profit."
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/27/jn1-tv-news-channel