Mark Ames -- Scott Horton Antiwar Interview from The eXiled on Vimeo.

Former president [of Ukraine] (1994-2005) Leonid Kuchma considers acting president's Victor Yushenko's main mistake to be a sharp change in foreign policy course during the time of his incumbency. (1) He claimed so in an interview given to the radio Ekho Moskvy.

'The main mistake - sharp change of foreign policy course...The second - internal [policy]. Instead of uniting the country (2), [instead of] asking everyone for forgiveness for the filth that was spilled during pre-election campaign, to come in the first place to the East where most of the Gross Domestic Product is made (with an address): 'Look guys, I'm sorry, let us live by our laws, and work on common goals.' This did not happen.' -said Kuchma.

He [Kuchma] is convinced that Ukraine does not have a future without close ties with Russia. 'Ukraine does not have a future without the most closest cooperation with Russia. I am absolutely convinced by this and I always spoke about it. We need to have closest ties with Europe. Yes Europe - it is democratic values and so on (3), we can name a lot of things. Yes in Europe there are investments, in Europe there are high technologies. We certainly need to cooperate with them.' - the ex-president mentioned. (4)

He also said that he does not support the obligatory withdrawal of Russian Black Sea Fleet after 2017. 'I don't support such a position and understand well that Russia has nowhere to go...Building bases in Novorosiysk, the bays there are not well adjusted for a fleet. (I consider it inevitable) in our mutual interests to construct an extension of the sojourn of the Russian fleet' -Kuchma said.

He also said that is not planning a return to high politics.

1) каденции I sense I made a mistake here.

2) This reminds me of Misha the tiemuncher's recent ranting.

3) I would not be so sure about that.

4) Having very close ties with Russia and Europe is difficult task requiring agile diplomatic manoeuvring, I am not sure anyone in Ukraine's top political circles is up to the challenge. 

Chief rabbi of Ukraine and Kiev Moshe Reuben Asman is getting ready to return his Honourary Order 'for accomplishments of III degree' because of awarding Stepan Bandera the title hero. This he disclosed to the newspaper Сегодня (Segodnya) (1), Itar-Tass reported.

'I am angered by these events, in the five years of his rule Viktor Andereyevich did not decide to make such a move, he only did so when it became apparent that he has no political future' said rabbi.

'This is a terrible blow to Ukraine's international image and unfortunately resolving this issue will be up to the new government. I am a holder of the Order of Ukraine for accomplishments of III degree but because of Yushchenko's decree I am planning, in the near future, to return the Order back to the government' rabbi stated.

On 22 January Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the title Hero of Ukraine (posthumously). Yushchenko underscored that this high ranking title was awarded to Bandera  for 'fervently supporting (2) the [Ukrainian] national idea and fight for an independent Ukrainian state.'

Between the years 1941-1959 Bandera managed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (ОУН-OUN).  Many crimes hount the conciosness of ОУН-УПА (OUN-UPA) fighters which, after their leader were started to be called Banderists. (3) For example they killed more than one hundred Poles, Czechs and Jews in Western Volhynia. Horendously (4) murdered thousands of Ukrainians who refused to collaborate with OUN.

In the years of his presidency, Yushchenko pardoned the veterans of UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army). [Yushchenko also] posthumously awarded the title hero of Ukraine to UPA commander Roman Shukhevych.

1) Meaning 'Today'

2) отстаивание

3) бандеровцами I know that in Czech they are known as 'banderovci' but am not aware of the term used in Anglo-Saxon literature. I admit I completely invented the term while translating

4) 'Зверски' -literally meaning 'bestialy' 

An atheist organization is blasting the U.S. Postal Service for its plan to honor Mother Teresa with a commemorative stamp, saying it violates postal regulations against honoring 'individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings.'

The Freedom from Religion Foundation is urging its supporters to boycott the stamp — and also to engage in a letter-writing campaign to spread the word about what it calls the 'darker side' of Mother Teresa.

Whether the principal achievements of Mother Teresa are of religious nature is debatable. Character assassination is such a wonderful tactic isn't is? The only problem Freedom from Religion Foundation has with Mother Teresa is that she was a nun, if she was entirely secular they would keep quiet...

...Freedom from Religion Foundation spokeswoman Annie Laurie Gaylor says issuing the stamp runs against Postal Service regulations.

'Mother Teresa is principally known as a religious figure who ran a religious institution. You can't really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did,' Gaylor told FoxNews.com.

Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts expressed surprise at the protest, given the long list of previous honorees with strong religious backgrounds, including Malcolm X, the former chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

'In fact we honored Father Flanagan in 1986 for his humanitarian work. This has nothing to do with religion or faith,' 

It could help Mother Teresa, if she was not an Albanian Catholic working in far away India but a civil rights campaigner in the US...

Gaylor said the atheist group opposed Father Flanagan's stamp but not those for King and Malcolm X, because she said they were known for their civil rights activities, not for their religion.

Martin Luther King 'just happened to be a minister,' and "Malcolm X was not principally known for being a religious figure," she said.

'And he's not called Father Malcolm X like Mother Teresa. I mean, even her name is a Roman Catholic honorific.'

Gaylor said Mother Teresa infused Catholicism into her secular honors — including an 'anti-abortion rant' during her Nobel Prize acceptance speech — and that even her humanitarian work was controversial.

You see these cowards would not dare to raise their voices against civil rights leaders. Besides Malcolm X was principally known as a religious leader and as Brother Malcolm. And of course don't you dare touch the topic of abortion that's sacred. Or should I say untouchable since we are speaking about atheists?

Note how the organisation is not called 'Freedom of Religion', 'Freedom of Religion' is enshrined in the US constitution and therefore is none-issue. What people like these are concerned with is the very presence of things religious in their midst.

The Foundation is encouraging its supporters to purchase the new stamp honoring the late actress Katharine Hepburn, who was an atheist, instead — or any of the other 2010 stamps, which include cartoonist Bill Mauldin, singer Kate Smith, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, painter Winslow Homer and poet Julia de Burgos.

The best choice organised atheist have is to shut up. Atheists often time reiterate that atheism means disbelief in God. As this case shows, only decent sceptics adhere to this. The front line of Atheism is an iconoclastic movement attacking everything associated with religion. 

French court apparently upheld Russian states claim to the St. Nicholas Cathedral in Nice which is currently used by the Paris Jurisdiction (AKA Rue Daru where its central Cathedral is located), an emigre group that split from the main of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1930's, during the period of Stalinist repressions, when it joined the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate and never returned back to its Mother-Church. Many of its representatives still seem to live in the days of Stalinism as you will see further below. Here is some background on the case... 

The Nice Russian Orthodox Cultural Association (ACOR), which managed the church under a 99-year lease it signed with the czarist regime in 1909, had maintained that it effectively inherited the cathedral when Russia's royal family was executed during the revolution. But the court upheld the Russian government's position that since the czarists had bought the land and built the church using state money, the cathedral remains the property of the Russian government, meaning that Moscow could legally reclaim it now that ACOR's lease has expired. Decades of Soviet uninterest in the property, the court decided, did not undermine Russia's entitlement to it today.

There would be nothing wrong with Russian state wanting to reclaim its cultural possessions abroad, the case is pretty logical. Only this would have to be in somewhere else than the wacky world named Rue Daru.

It's a tradition that goes back to Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, in which political leaders used symbols of Russian grandeur — including an entirely submissive church — to create greater support for the regime,' says Jean Gueit, rector of the Nice cathedral. 'Russian society has been so disoriented and adrift following the changes of the past 20 years that Putin is playing the old nationalist game to snap people out of it by responding to simplistic messages and emotions. Part of that is rebuilding the equally shattered Russian Orthodox Church and help it snatch up all these parishes abroad

Oh yes Putin is Ivan the Terrible first and Peter the Great second. I guess Putin should be murdering Metropolitans and abolishing the institution of Patriarchate right about now. Jean Gueit who is the only voice in the article might also explain how rebuilding of the Russian Orthodox Church is responding to simplistic messages? Why is it wrong to bring estranged parishes back into the Mother-Church they once belonged to?

Indeed, the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas is not the only prize catching Moscow's eye. Last year Italy agreed to cede ownership of a similarly spectacular cathedral in Bari to the Russian Orthodox Church, and the year before that, Paris did the same with a cathedral there. And last October, Israel agreed to turn over a building in Jerusalem known as 'Sergei's Courtyard' that was constructed in 1890 to accommodate Russian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Moscow is also currently in a legal battle over control of London's St. Andrews Cathedral, home to a large Orthodox congregation.

It would be joy if Rue Daru was awarded to Moscow and its sectarian occupants removed, but this paragraph has holes in it which make it dubious. For instance the legal battle is not over London's St. Andrews Cathedral. St. Andrews Cathedral is a Greek Orthodox institution in Kentish Town which has no relation to Russia. If they had such a high profile dispute with Russia they would have no doubt publicised it on their website, which they don't. Google which the 'smart' journalists should have used doesn't produce any such results either. What it does however produce is that a the dispute is over the Cathedral of the Dormition and All Saints and that a group of schismatics that joined Rue Daru in 2006 [see here for more info] now congregates in a rented Anglican church of St. Andrew. I would not even quote the paragraph that follows this one since it is totally hopeless.

The Nice congregation isn't planning to rejoin the Russian church anytime soon. In fact, Gueit says the congregation wants to stake out an independent, pan-Orthodox position by breaking with the Constantinople Patriarchate too. He hopes to then attract other congregations to his nonaligned movement — whether he has a cathedral to use as his base or not.

I wish them good luck with that, unfortunately for them it was the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate that had so far provided them with legitimacy.

According to Voices from Russia where I came across this article thinks that what is behind these baseless proclamations is the fear of losing revenues from the 85, 000 turist visiting the church every year.

You might have already heard the name Pat Condell, an English icon of atheist youtube. Pat Condell won fame by his videos critical of Islam and was and is still posted on many anti-Islamic websites, many of which are of Christian provenance. To counter this and to retain his standing in the atheist community he made some videos directed against Christians, his rare instalment on the Jews makes some of the usual accusations. He says that Christians are happy with the Jews occupying a Muslim land because of their failed Medieval Crusades, not quite realising that Christian Zionism is a largely Protestant movement while the Catholics led the Crusades, and that many Palestinian Christians are in fact Catholics. Also not mentioned in his drivel is the opinion of Eastern and Orthodox Churches which had no part in the Crusades and who all have their adherents in Palestine. But deconstructing every piece of nonsense Pat makes would be a digression. I would like to here talk about one central line of thought he makes in the video.

He says that Jews happen to control Jerusalem at present and they hold on to it because of 'insane' religious scripture and divine proclamations. He also says that Jerusalem is an Arab town. And that if there was any justice in the world the Jewish state would be carved out of Germany.

Firstly Jerusalem belongs to whoever takes hold of it, it had many owners in its history (1). Zionism is a relative secular movement and in fact goes contrary to the views of many religious Jews. The attitudes of religious Jews to Israel range from passive support to outright hostility to the Jewish state. Their views are not informed by the Tanakh but by the Talmud. The Palestinian opposition to Israel was also fairly secular until the rise of Hamas. It is nationalism that started all this, not religion. To believe that removal of religion from the picture would change anything is foolish. Secular, Nationalist Zionism started in Austria-Hungary where there existed many Nationalist movements with often Anti-Semitic overtones and it started long before the Holocaust took place. The fact that the Israelis instrumentalised the Holocaust in their nation-building ideology is a completely separate matter because the Jewish immigration was happening even before the Nazis came to power in Germany and was from diverse places, such as the Hapsburg Empire and Russia.

The Zionists chose Palestine because it is the ancestral homeland of the Jews. The Old Testament is not only full of miracles and divine proclamations but also performs another function. That of political propaganda and history. To say that the Jews never lived in Judea because the Bible is full of miracles and divine proclamations which Pat does not believe in is stupid, because along side the Bible we have the Roman writers, Josephus Flavius and Israeli archeology. No text talks about Jews claiming part of Germany as their own. Therefore it was natural for Zionist to strive for the creation of Jewish state there, in Palestine. It has nothing to do with religion, other than the fact that religious texts are one of the primary sources where we learn of Jewish origins from.

If we were to remove religion from the picture we would still be left with Jews and Arabs. Ethnicity and language is much harder to abandon. Some might claim that in the wacky world of Hamas, Christian Zionism and West Bank settlers religion plays a great role. If we removed religion from the picture we would still be left with Arab nationalists, Western supporters of Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East and West Bank settlers of secular nature. The struggle is not religious, the struggle is over land. The conflict would not be going anywhere. In history we find a lot of wars in the name of religion, we can say that these wars were justified by religion. On contrary many of these wars had an economic and political agenda and religion served as a mobilising factor. The Ottoman Empire depended on territorial expansion and it began to crumble as soon as this expansion was halted. Of course this expansion was defended as 'jihad on the infidels' because it is much more convenient than 'we need to keep you lads busy or you will rebel against us.' In modern times, wars are justified by Human Rights or by some other secular ideology. It is much more convenient than telling the truth.

In their frantic effort to do away with religion for the sake of humanity's improvement the atheists do not seem to realise the tremendous role religion played in the history of many nations. For starters the Jews would probably not be around for 3000 years if they didn't hold on to their faith so firmly. The Armenians would not develop their own distinct system of writing without their conversion to Christianity. Without similar Christian codification of language in the Church Slavonic, Russian writers would have nothing to draw their style from. Historians would also have to abandon using the Medieval chronicles as their source of material because they are so tainted with religion, they even dare to begin with the creation of the World by the Almighty. Perhaps we should rewrite the US constitution because it claims that people are endowed with inalienable rights by their Creator. Cultural preservation, literature, constitutional rights all this is insanity and should be abandoned because there is a link with religion and scripture and prophecy and God knows what else.

Last time I checked the atheists had a trouble explaining why they celebrate Christmas and I found it rather amusing. They should accept that the cultures they live in were in greater part formed by religion. Their disbelief in God will not do away with this obvious fact. If they think that all wars would stop if only people let go of their beliefs they are gravely mistaken. Likewise ethnic and cultural attachements cannot be broken by abandoment of religion. Whether atheist or religious, Jews will still be Jews, the same goes for Armenians, Serbs and others. And their knowledge of history would revolve around texts written by men of the cloth because men of the cloth were practicaly the only ones to be writing anything back in the days.

1) This text is not about morality of Zionism or anything like that. The sole thing it is concerned with is reality of the present situation...