Monday, November 11, 2013

Mike Nova comments: This hysterical little hoodlum has just as much of a voice and a sense of music as his master has a sense of diplomacy and depth of politics. "Spelis": They sing well together: apparently the criminal mentality that they have in common, helps somewhat... - A Russian pop star honored by President Vladimir Putin works as a money courier for the international crime syndicate known as the Brothers’ Circle, according to the U.S. Treasury Department

Bloomberg News

Pop Star Honored by Putin Named Mafia Courier by Treasury

October 31, 2013

Pop Star Putin Honored Named Mafia Courier by U.S. Treasury
Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a ceremony to hand over the diplomatic credentials at the Kremlin in Moscow, on October 23, 2013. Photographer: Maxim Shemetov/AFP via Getty Images
A Russian pop star honored by President Vladimir Putin works as a money courier for the international crime syndicate known as the Brothers’ Circle, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
Grigory Lepsveridze, who goes by the stage name Grigory Leps, is one of six people and four entities the U.S. blacklisted yesterday for acting on behalf of the Brothers’ Circle, the Treasury said in a statement on its website. It prohibits U.S. citizens from conducting transactions with those identified and freezes any assets they may have under U.S. jurisdiction.
“If Treasury executives think I’m a criminal, they should dig up Frank Sinatra and send him to jail,” Leps, 51, said on his website. “That’s as absurd as the charges against me.”
The Brothers’ Circle, operating in the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, is one of four organized crime groups targeted in executive order 13581, which President Barack Obama signed in 2011. The others are Mexico’s Los Zetas drug cartel, Italy’s Camorra mafia and Japan’s Yakuza syndicate.
“The key to targeting transnational criminal organizations, such as the Brothers’ Circle, is exposing the network behind the group’s leaders,” Treasury Under Secretary David Cohen said in the statement. “We remain determined to continue our systematic effort to disrupt these networks in order to protect the U.S. financial system.”

‘Aortic Rupture’

Leps performed at a Putin campaign rally at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium last February that drew more than 100,000 people. Putin sent a telegram to the crooner five months later to congratulate him on his 50th birthday and to thank him for his “special energy.” In 2011, then-President Dmitry Medvedev awarded Leps the Russian Artist of Merit title.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Kremlin is monitoring the situation and seeking more detailed information from the U.S. about Leps, Life News reported.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said a citizen’s guilt should be established by the Russian legal system, according to a statement on its website.
“Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples where our countrymen were subjected to blatant discrimination, including unwarranted visa and financial sanctions,” the ministry said.
Leps is the highest paid entertainer in Russia after Mariinsky Theater chief Valery Gergiev, earning $15 million last year in performances and royalties, according to Forbes Russia. A native of Sochi, the Black Sea resort that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics, Leps now lives in Moscow, though the Treasury listed his main residence as Phuket, Thailand.
On his website, the ethnic Georgian says he has a “powerful voice, rich in overtones,” and sings to the point of “aortic rupture.” One of his most popular hits is a ballad called “Glass of Vodka on the Table.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Stepan Kravchenko in Moscow at skravchenko@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net

Uploaded on Aug 25, 2010
Рюмка водки на столе, 2002.
Автор песни: слова и музыка - Евгений Григорьев.
Создатели клипа: режиссёр - Александр Солоха; оператор - Сергей Дандурян.

Mike Nova comments: This hysterical little hoodlum has just as much of a voice and a sense of music as his master has a sense of diplomacy and depth of politics. "Spelis": They sing well together: apparently the criminal mentality that they have in common, helps somewhat... 

MOSCOW — The leader of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot, whose protest performance at a Moscow cathedral led to prison terms for three of its members, appears to be lost in the nation's vast penal system, her husband said Sunday.

Pussy Riot leader lost in Russia's prison system, husband says

Pyotr Verzilov says he has had no news about or from his wife, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, for more than three weeks.

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Pussy Riot leader's whereabouts unknown
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, left, pictured in a courtroom cage last year with Pussy Riot bandmate Maria Alyokhina, has not been heard from for three weeks, her husband says. (Sergei L. Loiko / Los Angeles Times / July 30, 2012)
MOSCOW — The leader of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot, whose protest performance at a Moscow cathedral led to prison terms for three of its members, appears to be lost in the nation's vast penal system, her husband said Sunday.
Pyotr Verzilov said he had not received any news from or about his wife, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, for more than three weeks after authorities said she was being transferred to another penal colony from the corrective labor camp in Mordovia, east of Moscow.
Tolokonnikova, 24, wrote an open letter Sept. 23 charging violations of human rights in the Mordovia camp and declared a hunger strike in protest. The musician accused the camp administration of pressing convicts to work long hours and threatening her life.
Tolokonnikova was first transferred to a prison hospital, where she ended her strike after nine days. Then in mid-October she was reportedly transferred to another colony.
Tolokonnikova's lawyer, Irina Khrunova, said Sunday that prison system sources told her last week her client had been transferred to Colony IK-50 near the town of Nizhny Ingash, about 200 miles east of Krasnoyarsk in central Siberia.
"They can't officially tell us where she is now and where she is heading for security reasons," Khrunova said in an interview. "As long as she is in transit, her whereabouts is a white spot on the map, and there is nothing we can do about that."
As soon as Khrunova passed the information about Tolokonnikova's alleged destination, Verzilov traveled to Nizhny Ingash to talk to the colony's administration chief. Verzilov said the administrator told him Saturday that he knew from media reports that Tolokonnikova was coming to his colony and that she was not there yet.
"I am terribly worried about Nadezhda as we don't know where she is or how she is," Verzilov said in a phone interview from Krasnoyarsk on Sunday. "My understanding is that such a long transit with all additional deprivations it bodes for Nadezhda is the way the system is taking its revenge on her for her rebellion against its lawlessness. They are deliberately torturing her right now by such a long transit."
Tolokonnikova and bandmates Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich were arrested in March 2012 and sentenced by a Moscow court to two years in prison each on a charge of hooliganism committed out of religious hatred.
The trial drew worldwide attention because the three women had challenged Russian leader Vladimir Putin in February 2012, at the height of Putin's campaign for the presidency, when they entered Christ the Savior Cathedral in downtown Moscow dressed in long gowns and hoods and performed what they called a punk prayer begging Mother Mary to drive Putin away.
Samutsevich, 31, was later given a suspended sentence after authorities said she had not been directly involved in the actions. Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina were sent to prison camps.
Verzilov said Sunday that he had no option but to stay in Krasnoyarsk and wait for his wife's arrival in the colony.
Human rights activists, meanwhile, demanded that the authorities provide information on Tolokonnikova's whereabouts and well-being.
"The system demonstrates that at any given moment it can behave like [Josef] Stalin's gulag," Lev Ponomaryov, head of the Moscow-based For Human Rights movement, said in an interview with The Times. "The system has not undergone any serious changes since those dark times as it continues to demonstrate that for them public opinion and human rights don't mean a thing."
Ponomaryov said he was planning to discuss the situation Monday with Vladimir Lukin, Russia's presidential human rights envoy.
Alyokhina, 25, who is serving her term in the Nizhny Novgorod region, complained that she was beaten by guards in July when she first refused to be transferred to a new colony from the Perm region.
Both young women are expected to go free in March.

In the excitement just after the announcement, the tiara fell off Isler's head as she was being crowned by Miss Universe 2012, Olivia Culpo of the United States. Isler caught the crown laughing

Venezuelan Crowned As Miss Universe 2013


  • Gabriela Isler 2.jpg
    Miss Universe 2012 Olivia Culpo, from the United States, right, places the crown on Miss Venezuela Gabriela Isler during the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2013. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)
A 25-year-old Venezuelan who appears on TV in her country and is an accomplished flamenco dancer is the new Miss Universe.
Gabriela Isler was crowned Saturday night in the pageant at a sprawling exhibition hall on Moscow's outskirts.
In the excitement just after the announcement, the tiara fell off Isler's head as she was being crowned by Miss Universe 2012, Olivia Culpo of the United States. Isler caught the crown laughing.
Patricia Rodrigues of Spain was the runner-up.
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Miss Universe 2013: Miss Venezuela, Gabriela Isler, Wins, Drops Crown - Us Magazine (Nov 10, 2013 11:36) 
Miss Universe 2013: Miss Venezuela, Gabriela Isler, Wins, Drops Crown Us Magazine Miss ...

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Nationalist Israeli Foreign Minister Returns

» Nationalist Israeli Foreign Minister Returns
10/11/13 10:32 from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
The Israeli cabinet has approved the reinstatement of ultranationalist politician Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister nearly a year after he resigned to fight corruption charges

Man Nails Testicles to Red Square Cobblestones: "A naked artist, looking at his balls nailed to the Kremlin pavement, is a metaphor for the apathy, political indifference, and fatalism of contemporary Russian society," Pavlensky wrote in a statement explaining the performance.





Man Nails Testicles to Red Square Cobblestones

» Man Nails Testicles to Red Square Cobblestones in Bizarre Protest
10/11/13 10:43 from The Moscow Times Top Stories
Tourists and locals alike witnessed an unusual scene Sunday as St. Petersburg performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky hammered a nail through his testicles and into the cobblestones of Red Square close to Lenin's Mausoleum.

Man Nails Testicles to Red Square Cobblestones in Bizarre Protest

The Moscow Times
Tourists and locals alike witnessed an unusual scene Sunday as St. Petersburg performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky hammered a nail through his testicles and into the cobblestones of Red Square close to Lenin's Mausoleum.
"A naked artist, looking at his balls nailed to the Kremlin pavement, is a metaphor for the apathy, political indifference, and fatalism of contemporary Russian society," Pavlensky wrote in a statement explaining the performance.
The performance coincided with the holiday, "Day of the Ministry of Internal Affairs." Policemen on Red Square quickly responded by first covering the naked artist with a blanket. The young artist was taken into custody and hospitalized after being removed from the pavement.
Pavlensky has a history of extreme performance pieces, beginning with a protest in July 2012 in which he sewed his mouth shut and carried a sign protest the imprisonment of the band Pussy Riot in front of Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg.
In May of this year, Pavlensky staged a second performance in which he was left, naked and wrapped in barbed wire, in front of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly Building, following which he spent several days in police custody and underwent psychiatric examinations that concluded that he was legally sane.
According to Interfax, Pavlensky will be given medical assistance and be interrogated by police before a decision is made about his legal competence.


Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/man-nails-testicles-to-red-square-cobblestones-in-bizarre-protest/489300.html#ixzz2kG30i9Le
The Moscow Times 



Parry quotes from a leaked diplomatic document relating to a stormy July meeting in the Kremlin between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prince Bandar bin Sultan

The Island.lk (subscription)
Parry quotes from a leaked diplomatic document relating to a stormy July meeting in the Kremlin between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The discussion was about Syria, Egypt and other regional issues. Prince Bandar was ...

An explosive Israeli-Saudi nexus has emerged!

TRADITIONAL FOES IN A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE . . .

 

article_image

"There they were, sitting around the dinner table, knocking off a bottle of Cotes-du-Rbone and blathering about the Middle East-you’ve never beard such shallow, simplistic reasoning in your life-and one of them turns to me and says, ‘And what do you think, Barney? What do you think we should do? and all I could come up with was ‘Woof.’ I felt like such an ass."

by Selvam Canagaratna

"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, / And he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere."

– Ali-Ibn-Abi-Talib (7th C.), Quoted in Emerson’s Conduct of Life.

If there was no mistaking Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s ‘charm offensive’ when he addressed the UN General Assembly in late September, there was also no mistaking his polite firmness on Iran’s long-held position on the crucial point of nuclear negotiations: that "equal footing and mutual respect should govern the talks."

Writing on the Rouhani performance, Pepe Escobar noted how the Iranian President cleverly set the stage for his very own freshly-minted punch line, laying the groundwork thus:"Of course, we expect to hear a consistent voice from Washington," he had said, adding, "the dominant voice in recent years has been for a military option." 

But now, said Rouhani, he had another idea: "It’s WAVE time," he announced. "WAVE as in World Against Violence and Extremism. Not in Farsi, lost in translation; in English."

"I propose as a starting step . . . I invite all states . . . to undertake a new effort to guide the world in this direction . . . we should start thinking about a coalition for peace all across the globe instead of the ineffective coalitions for war."

Commented Escobar: "So the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, has just invited the whole planet to join the WAVE. How come no ‘coalition of the willing’ leader ever thought about that?"

Addressing the General Assembly the next day, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose to completely ignore Rouhani’s boldly novel invitation, but could do no better than merely reach out once more for the ‘military option’, which Rouhani had already dubbed as "Washington’s dominant voice in recent years".

Netanyahu indulged in one continuous harangue against Iran, ending with the threat "to go it alone if necessary" in attacking Iran’s nuclear facility. [A ‘threat’ as transparently devoid of seriousness as was his entire address to the General Assembly.]

Natanyahu’s fulminations against Iran aside, his address to the General Assembly was only noteworthy for his allusion to Israel’s budding relationships in the region – a point largely missed by corporate media commentators but dwelt on by Robert Parry, Editor of the online Consortiumnews.com in his report on Netanyahu’s UN performance.

Parry recalled that his early disclosure, published on August 29 titled The Saudi-Israeli Superpower, and describing an "emerging odd-couple alliance between those two traditional enemies" had been met with skepticism in some quarters. Then on October 1st Netanyahu himself hinted broadly, in the midst of his broadside against Iran, thus: "The dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran and the emergence of other threats in our region have led many of our Arab neighbours to recognize, finally recognize, that Israel is not their enemy. And this affords us the opportunity to overcome the historic animosities and build new relationships, new friendships, new hopes."

One day later, Israel’s Channel 2 TV news reported that senior Israeli security officials met with a high-level Gulf state counterpart in Jerusalem – believed to be Prince Bandar ‘Bush’ bin Sultan – the former Saudi Ambassador to the United States during George W. Bush’s presidency [so nicknamed because of his cozy relationship with the Bush family, including Papa B]. Prince Bandar is now head of Saudi intelligence.

Wrote Parry: "Besides the shared Saudi-Israeli animosity toward Iran, the growing behind-the-scenes collaboration also revolves around mutual interests in supporting the military coup in Egypt that removed the elected Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi and in seeking to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria.

"In mid-September, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren even embraced the Saudi strategy in Syria when he announced that Israel would prefer to see the Saudi-backed jihadists prevail in Syria over the continuation of the Iran-backed government of President Bashar al-Assad."

In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Ambassador Oren was unusually forthright. "The greatest danger to Israel is by the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut. And we saw the Assad regime as the keystone in that arc. We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran."

In Parry’s view, the emerging Saudi-Israeli alliance also reflects a recognition that the two countries have complementary ‘soft power’ strengths that – when combined – could create a new superpower in the Middle East and arguably the world. "While the Israelis are masters of propaganda and political lobbying (especially in the United States), Saudi Arabia can pull strings through its extraordinary access to oil and money."

Indeed, Israel and Saudi Arabia showed how their new tag-team approach worked when they supported the Egyptian military in its bloody coup against the elected Morsi government in Egypt. While Saudi Arabia assured the coup regime a steady flow of money and oil, the Israelis went to work through their lobby in Washington to ensure that President Barack Obama and Congress would not declare the coup a coup, thus triggering a cutoff of US military aid. Parry quotes from a leaked diplomatic document relating to a stormy July meeting in the Kremlin between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The discussion was about Syria, Egypt and other regional issues.

Prince Bandar was seeking Russian cooperation with the Saudi position on Syria, and reportedly offered guarantees of protection from Chechen terror attacks on next year’s Winter Olympic Games hosted by Russia in the city of Sochi. Bandar reportedly said. Chechen groups that threaten the security of the Games are controlled by us."

According to this account, Putin responded, "We know that you have supported the Chechen terrorist groups for a decade. And that support, which you have frankly talked about just now, is completely incompatible with the common objectives of fighting global terrorism."

Comments Parry: "Bandar’s Mafia-like threat toward the Sochi games failed to intimidate Putin. Indeed, I was told that Putin’s anger fueled his decision to intervene in the Syrian crisis to head off a threatened US military strike designed to ‘degrade’ the Syrian military. The Saudi-backed rebels had planned to mount an offensive timed with the US bombing in a final drive to topple the Assad regime – and were furious when Russian diplomacy averted the US attack. As the near US intervention in the Syrian civil war shows, the Israeli-Saudi alliance can be problematic to US interests.

"Saudi oil billionaires can reach into both Wall Street boardrooms and the corporate offices of Texas energy giants, while Israel has unparalleled lobbying power with Congress and can deploy its network of neocon propagandists to shape any American foreign policy debate.

"The new Israeli-Saudi alliance can threaten US-Russian strategies for negotiating settlements to Middle East crises. When both Israeli and Saudi leaders say no, it’s hard to fashion an effective strategy for addressing the loss of democracy in Egypt, for instance, or pursuing negotiations to resolve the crises with Syria and Iran.

"The only possible counterforce strong enough to take on this new Israeli-Saudi powerhouse would be a coordinated – and determined – effort by the United States and Russia. Thus, the odd-couple bonding of Netanyahu and Bandar might have the ironic consequence of pushing together another odd couple, Barack and Vlad."

As Pepe Escobar noted about Iranian President Rouhani’s delightful ‘punch line’ in his United Nations address: "So yes, the stakes could not be higher. What the world needs now, is WAVE after WAVE after WAVE."

Putin and Putinism - News Review

Greenpeace ship the Arctic Sunrise - GS

Greenpeace ship the Arctic Sunrise - GS