BREAKING NEWS - Russia's Answer To New US Sanctions: Moscow Ready To Respond To Any Attack

Russia is apparently ready to respond adequately to every hostile attack, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday in reaction to the new US sanctions list.

     "We have repeatedly warned that the use of sanctions is a double-edged practice and will strike back at the USA. However, the American side, it seems, continues to blindly believe in the effectiveness of such methods taken from the arsenal of the past, and does not want to admit the obvious: residents of Crimea voted for unification with Russia in a democratic way and in full accordance with the international law and the Charter of the United Nations, and Russia respects and accepts this choice," the statement says.
      "One may like or dislike this decision, but we are talking about the reality that must be reckoned with. There should be no doubts: we will respond adequately to every hostile attack," the statement of Russian Foreign Ministry defines.

Voice of Russia, RIA

SHAME - Gov't Pulls Back On New Controversial Immigrant Measure

First it was in, then it was out. Then it was in again, now it's out again (for now). The government appears confused and divided over a highly controversial article which would threaten illegal immigrants who accuse authorities of racist abuse with deportation. The article was included in draft legislation to reform immigration policy which is currently being debated in parliament.

Late on Tuesday night, the Alternate Interior Minister, Leonidas Grigorakos, submitted an amendment to the draft law which would see immigrants face deportation in the event that they made allegations of abuse by organs of the state which were then established to be falsehoods by a ‘preliminary investigation’.

Official opposition party SYRIZA, as well as members of PASOK - a partner in the coalition government - condemned the amendment and as a result Mr Grigorakos withdrew the controversial article acknowledging that the opposition to it was based on substantive arguments. However only a few hours later the Interior Minister,Yiannis Michelakis, resubmitted the article provoking furious reactions from the opposition, and indicating disarray and a possible rift in the coalition government between New Democracy and PASOK over the issue.

SYRIZA parliamentary spokesperson Panagiotis Lafazanis said that the Minister had ‘negated and disappeared’ the Alternate Minister.

Mr Michelakis, on reintroducing the measure, claimed that it was necessary to protect forces such as the Coast Guard and the police from immigrants making baseless allegations of abuse.

      “The measure is based on the self-evident obligation of every organised state to protect its organs as they carry out their duties. Our Coast Guard is a characteristic example...Who would want them to be prey to baseless, scurrilous and targeted accusations made against them from people who traffic unfortunate souls in our country? You know well that they advise them on arriving in our country to accuse members of the Coast Guard of abuse and attempts to drown them,” Mr Michelakis said. 

     “I realize that some people have a problem with uniforms,” he said in a barb directed at the left.
Mr Michelakis’s move was supported by New Democracy parliamentary group leader Makis Voridis (who used to be a member of the far-right party LAOS before joining New Democracy) and who accused SYRIZA of protecting people traffickers.

SYRIZA claimed that the measure was racist and was designed to help cover-up incidents of abuse and violence by the authorities against irregular immigrants attempting to enter Greece by often risky means. Such an incident allegedly occurred recently near Farmakonisi when 12 immigrants, eight of whom were children drowned when their boat capsized. Survivors of the tragedy claimed that the boat capsized during an illegal push back operation by the Coast Guard attempting to return the immigrants to Turkey. The Greek authorities deny the allegations while the United Nations Refugee Agency as well as the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe have called for an investigation into the incident.

     “It is an unprecedented provision to intimidate the victims who accuse an Organ of the state of a racist crime. Who are you trying to protect? Certainly not a state based on justice,” said SYRIZA MP Vasiliki Katrivanou. SYRIZA parliamentary spokesperson also angrily denounced the measure saying, “The racists are legislating. Why don’t you hang them all instead?”

In the latest twist, Mr Grigorakis withdrew the article - again - on Thursday afternoon. He said that the reason was the controversy created by the measure had given the wrong impression. “We want to assure people that we do not have any desire to dissuade allegations of racist violence and for that we are withdrawing it,” he said.

Angeliki Panagiotou - Press Project

(*Editor's Note: Too bad, the ND party once again showed signs of weakness in the face of Soros-backed progressive forces. The Samaras government should set its priorities straight, and halt Leftist wannabe progressive forces in Greece who support modern slavery and human trafficking.)

Greek Employers Now Obligated To Submit Payroll Data Since 1943

Were you a shop employee or involved in brewing during the second world war in Greece? If so, the authorities are looking for evidence that you've been paying into your pension fund for the past 70 years.

Accountants in a number of business sectors are baffled by a demand from a newly established pension fund to submit payroll data from as far back as 1943, when the country was under wartime occupation and the government apparatus under the control of a collaborationist regime in Athens.

As reported in Eleftherotypia, the United Supplementary Pension Fund (ETEA) says it wants details on total payroll information and associated contribution payments from 1943 to November 2013 for all those who paid into the old supplementary pension funds for shopkeepers, winemakers and brewers, preschool owners, naval employees and employees in the chemical industry,

The fund, which has asked for the payroll data to be submitted in electronic form, says it wants to ensure that the supplementary pension payments to individuals are in line with what they contributed during their working lives.

During a meeting between a group representing accountants and the ETEA's director, it emerged that information from the banks on payments into the shop employees fund is kept in large sacks.

EnetEnglish

US Pulls Back, Agrees To Russian Demands on Issue of Ukraine

While Washington and Moscow are posturing and affirming that nothing in Ukraine will be relinquished, John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov have concluded an oral preliminary agreement to get out of the crisis: a federal reform of the Ukrainian constitution. The question is whether the United States will honor their word this time, after having reneged on the 21 February agreement half a day after signing it and perpetrating a coup d’état.

There was another phone call today between Secretary of State Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. The call came after a strategy meeting on Ukraine in the White House. During the call Kerry agreed to Russian demands for a federalization of the Ukraine in which the federal states will have a strong autonomy against a neutralized central government. Putin had offered this “off-ramp” from the escalation and Obama has taken it.

The Russian announcement:
    Lavrov, Kerry agree to work on constitutional reform in Ukraine

    (Reuters) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed on Sunday to seek a solution to crisis in Ukraine by pushing for constitutional reforms there, the Russian foreign ministry said.It did not go into details on the kind of reforms needed except to say they should come “in a generally acceptable form and while taking into the account the interests of all regions of Ukraine (…)
    Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry agreed to continue work to find a resolution on Ukraine through a speedy launch of constitutional reform with the support of international community,” the ministry said in a statement [1].

The idea of a “constitutional reform” is from the Russians documented in the following russian document :

It describes the process of getting to a new Ukrainian constitution and sets some parameters for it. The Russian language will be again official language next to the Ukrainian, the regions will have high autonomy, there will be no interferences in church affairs and the Ukraine will stay politically and militarily neutral. Any autonomy decision by the Crimea would be accepted. This would all be guaranteed by a “Support Group for Ukraine” consisting of the US, EU and Russia and would be cemented in an UN Security Council resolution.

It seems that Kerry and Obama have largely accepted these parameters. They are now, of course, selling this solution as their own which is, as the “non-paper” proves, not the reality.

Kerry suddenly “urging Russia” to accept the things Russia had demanded and which Kerry had earlier never mentioned:

    Secretary of State John Kerry called on Moscow to return its troops in Crimea to their bases, pull back forces from the Ukraine border, halt incitement in eastern Ukraine and support the political reforms in Ukraine that would protect ethnic Russians, Russian speakers and others in the former Soviet Republic that Russia says it is concerned about.In a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, their second since unsuccessful face-to-face talks on Friday in London, Kerry urged Russia “to support efforts by Ukrainians across the spectrum to address power sharing and decentralization through a constitutional reform process that is broadly inclusive and protects the rights of minorities,” the State Department said [2].

As it looks now Obama has given up. The U.S. plot to snatch the Ukraine from Russia and to integrate it into NATO and the EU seems to have failed. Russia taking Crimea and having 93% of the voters there agree to join Russia has made the main objective of the U.S. plans, to kick the Russians out of Sevastopol and thereby out of the Middle East, impossible.

The Russian (non public) threat to also immediately take the eastern and southern provinces from the Ukraine has pushed the U.S. into agreeing to the Russian conditions mentioned above. The only alternative to that would be a military confrontation which the U.S. and Europeans are not willing to risk. Despite the anti-Russian campaign in the media a majority of U.S. people as well as EU folks are against any such confrontation. The U.S. never held the cards it needed to win this game.

Should all go well and a new Ukrainian constitution fit the Russian conditions the “west” may well be allowed to pay for the monthly bills Gazprom will keep sending to Kiev.

It will take some time to implement all of this. What dirty tricks will the neocons in Washington now try to prevent this outcome?

Moon of Alabama via voltairenet