Putin will be pleased.

Svoboda and the thugs of Right Sector are dangerous. Svoboda garnered some 10% of the vote in 2011, which is to say most Ukrainians didn’t want them, but they form part of a broad right-wing union. In May Ukraine will go to the polls, and the EU needs to make sure that these elections are fair, or its credibility is shot. I think it unlikely that the pro-EU movement translates directly into support for the far-right even if they do make a platform of it, but until we find that out the EU must be extremely tough on this. The hornets’ nest has hardline Nazis.

bbc.co.uk

Ukraine’s military says an officer has been killed in an attack on a base in Crimea, the first such death since pro-Russia forces took control in February.

Ukraine has now authorised its troops to fire in self-defence.

The attack came shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of Crimea signed a bill to absorb the peninsula into Russia.

Western powers condemned the treaty and a G7 and EU crisis meeting has been called for next week in The Hague.

The Ukrainian crisis began in November last year after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned an EU deal in favour of stronger ties with Russia. He fled Ukraine on 22 February after protests in which more than 80 people were killed.

‘Military stage’
An eyewitness told the BBC that armed men arrived in two unmarked vehicles, storming the base in Simferopol and firing automatic weapons.

The Ukrainian government said a junior officer who was on duty in a park inside the base had been killed and another officer injured. A third serviceman had leg and head injuries after being beaten with iron bars, it said.

The government said the commander of the unit was captured by men wearing Russian uniforms.

Defence ministry spokesman Vladislav Seleznyov told Reuters the attack was by “unknown forces, fully equipped and their faces covered”.

The Ukrainians had had their IDs, weapons and money confiscated, he said.

Interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told an emergency government meeting: “The conflict is shifting from a political to a military stage.

“Russian soldiers have started shooting at Ukrainian military servicemen and that is a war crime.”

Reports from the Crimean news agency, Kryminform, said a pro-Russia defence force member had been shot dead.

Crimean police later said both Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces had been fired on from a single location and that one Ukrainian was killed and one injured, and one pro-Russian was killed and one injured.

None of the accounts can be independently confirmed.

The BBC’s Mark Lowen, in Simferopol, says up until now only warning shots have been fired amid a truce - but it appears the tension has boiled over and there are fears that further clashes could follow.

source: BBC

At the game tomorrow between Man Utd and Olympiakos, I will be backing one red army in the shadow of another. Gazprom is the sponsor of the UEFA Champions League, and TV stations are contractually obliged to show their snazzy advertising throughout. The umbrella body of world football is no better. It is embarrassing enough to be promoting Russia’s key interest by way of the world’s most popular sport. It will be more embarrassing yet if come 2018 Russia is bleating about excluding America (and they are, btw), perhaps hosting teams from countries whose occupations we oppose, and if we all go into Russia’s World Cup without a word of objection to football’s governing body.

The night before the announcement that Russia would host in 2018 and Qatar in 2022, the BBC aired a stinging investigation into FIFA’s opaque culture of bribery and fraud. Putin, who supposedly did not know who had won, refused to attend the ceremony stating:

“We have unfortunately witnessed a campaign against members of the Fifa executive - filth and compromising material has been poured over them,” he told ministers in Moscow.

“I see this as unscrupulous competition ahead of the vote.

“I would love to represent our entry in person. However, under these circumstances, I think it would be best not to go out of respect for the members of the Fifa executive committee, so that they can make their decision in peace and without any outside pressure.”
source: BBC

Hmm. That’s strange. Why would Putin defend the integrity of this body which might yet grant the world cup to someone else?

The Washington Post puts it well:

“We have no proof that Fifa is corrupt, the same way that we have no proof that Barry Bonds took steroids. What we do know is that Fifa makes some very strange decisions and that they hate transparency… Congratulations to Qatar’s one million people … You will burn an ungodly amount of fossil fuels air-conditioning 12 stadiums, but the one thing you have is an ungodly amount of fossil fuels.” source: Guardian

But now we do have proof that FIFA is corrupt. Deeply corrupt.

A senior Fifa official and his family were paid almost $2 million (£1.2m) from a Qatari firm linked to the country’s successful bid for the 2022 World Cup, The Telegraph can disclose.
Jack Warner, the former vice-president of Fifa, appears to have been personally paid $1.2million (£720,000) from a company controlled by a former Qatari football official shortly after the decision to award the country the tournament.
Payments totalling almost $750,000 (£450,000) were made to Mr Warner’s sons, documents show. A further $400,000 (£240,000) was paid to one of his employees.
It is understood that the FBI is now investigating Trinidad-based Mr Warner and his alleged links to the Qatari bid, and that the former Fifa official’s eldest son, who lives in Miami, has been helping the inquiry as a co-operating witness.
The awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar was one of the most controversial decisions in sporting history. The intense summer heat in the desert nation has raised the prospect of the tournament being moved to the winter for the first time
….
The document is dated December 15, 2010, two weeks after Qatar won the right to host the tournament, and states that the money is “payable to Jack Warner”.
Mr Warner’s two sons and an employee were paid a further $1 million (£600,000) by the same Qatari company.
One document states that payments are to “offset legal and other expenses”, but a separate letter claims that more than $1 million cover “professional services provided over the period 2005-2010”.
At least one bank in the Cayman Islands initially refused to process the payment amid fears over the legality of the money transfer. The money was eventually processed via a bank in New York - a transaction that is understood to have come to the attention of the FBI. A well-placed source said: “These payments need to be properly investigated. The World Cup is the most important event in football and we need to be confident that decisions have been made for the right reasons. There are lots of questions that still need to be answered.”

Source: The Telegraph (and there’s more!)

One answer The Telegraph proposes is to bring this to the attention of FIFA’s other advertisers. Not Gazprom but Coca Cola, Visa and Adidas. I really think they should cancel pending an independent review and a total overhaul of FIFA and its satellites, rather than associate with all these thieves and despots.

Some extracts from the interview:

We have not only appealed to the Crimean Tatars, but also to various other ethnic groups and denominations in Crimea. We’ve called on them to actively boycott the referendum, not to take part in the voting, because the referendum is illegal. It is against current Ukrainian law. It is being carried out even as foreign troops have occupied the whole of Crimea. People are in a state of fear about their future - and their present.
…
I’m not even going to talk about insignificant details like the fact that the referendum was announced 10 days before it was carried out, and the fact that there was no opportunity nor any provisions for people to calmly discuss the questions that are being put forward in the vote. We are sure that our position is the right one in this case, because the international community considers this referendum to be unlawful.
…
The forceful annexation by one government of parts of another country under the cover of a simulated referendum - especially since this is a simulation that is being carried out at gunpoint - is the most horrible act of political speculation that could take place in the 21st century. It is a threat to the entire world order.

dw.dk

Russia claims a very high turnout and a total landslide including votes from 40% of Tatars, who at least in Sevastopol supposedly backed Russia. They are satisfied to state these figures and attribute them to some Tatar spokesperson we never heard of, a Lenur Usmanov (rt.com).

NATO allies are not about to invade Crimea, and Ukraine is not about to win it back. So Ukraine’s friends should offer Crimea’s Tatars and other objectors asylum before it is too late. Please.

MOSCOW, March 17 (Reuters) - As Russian forces took control of Crimea in the last few weeks, Russian media started referring to a broad belt of land in southern Ukraine as Novorossiya, or New Russia.

The revival of the Tsarist-era name plays well with Russian voters and harks back to a remark in 2008 when President Vladimir Putin told NATO leaders the area contained “only Russians”. Six years on, Ukrainians are worried that comment is starting to look prophetic.

Reuters

Wikipedia

Just observing, or sharing my opinion, that the man who jails or assassinates his political opponents, equips and bankrolls rogue states and terrorist armies, cuts off Eastern Europe’s gas in a harsh winter if they don’t pay unfavourable prices, killed Poland’s leaders, blackmailed Belarus and annexed north Georgia - just what we know of that springs to mind - again has the world clucking about something that was months in the making, in broad daylight, and which is now over. They think it is brinksmanship. He knows Crimea is his. America and Europe look like a bunch of weak idiots. I think that is what they are. He has been doing this for years and long after Obama, Merkel, Cameron et al have moved on Russia will still be growing its Federation with the finesse of a sledgehammer, with impunity.

They can say what they like now. Putin has done it again. The apathy was breathtaking.

Global BBC Poll Shows Obama Preferred Candidate

A BBC World Service opinion poll has found sharply higher overseas approval ratings for US President Barack Obama than Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

An average of 50% favoured Mr Obama, with 9% for Mr Romney, in the survey of 21,797 people in 21 countries.

Full Article

Tonight and tomorrow are the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, when Jews, including many who are not religious, set aside all other business to fast and seek forgiveness from one another and from God. One of the most beautiful and sombre prayers in the service, that will be recited communally a number of times at the end of a list of transgressions and pleas for mercy, is Avinu Malkeinu, a request for grace and kindness.

Even as a secular Jew, atoning and making upstanding commitments as part of the community is a humbling tradition too worthy to pass up. This haunting melody, usually sung en-masse, brings back years of soul-searching and inspires me to get serious for a minute.