About Olivier Fehr

Data analyst, translator and social media expert

The Elderberry Bush and the Ad

Recently, a video was published titled ‘2nd episode: The Elderberry bush’, in which it is argued that a video, having so far been presented as key evidence of a BUK being transported in Makiivka on July 17, 2014 could not possibly have been filmed on July 17, 2014.

The reason: The BUK video shows a ‘Elderberry bush’ in blossom and these bushes do only blossom in this region beginning to mid of June.

The video in question (2nd episode: The elderberry bush) is making this argument convincingly):

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Fire at Salman Tower Mashhad, Iran

On July 10, at around 20 hours local time, a fire started at Salman Towers commerical center in Mashhad, Iran.
The fire quickly engulfed most of the building.

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Salman Tower, Mashhad, Iran before the fire (image taken from Facebook)

Two videos showing the extent of the fire:

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On Self-Determination of Peoples

I continue to be amazed at the hypocrisy of certain people. They want a state for their ethnic group (aka nationality) and claim land as theirs because their ethnic group allegedly forms the majority of the population there. How can they then lay claim on pieces of land in which their ethnic group is not the majority?

Human rights are guaranteed to individual people not to groups, and as such ‘a people (ethnic group, nationality) cannot have a right to self-determination, only individuals can have that right.

Unfortunately, since Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points this non-sense is the basis of Western policies and nowadays also part of the UN charter and this double-standard leads to problems all over the world.
You have Kosovars being allowed to form their own ethnic state and secede from Serbia, but the Serbs in Kosovo are denied same right to self-determination an stay with Serbia. You have Azeris claiming their own state ethnic state and secede from the Soviet Union, but Armenians in Azerbaijan are denied the right to self-determination and form their own state based on ethnicity. And in many other places.

In general, West is trying to create states based on ethnicity all over the world, except in Western hemisphere, where it tries to or dissolve destroy states based on ethnicity. Thus Germans cannot be Germans, French not French, Scots or Catalonians cannot be independent, but Croatians, Bonians and Serbs or Ukrainians are supported in forming their own state based on ethnicity – at least until they can be absorbed by and dissolved in the EU.

Western policies don’t make any sense in terms of human rights, but they make a lot of sense in terms of hegemony, power, control and geopolitics.

Where are the Ukrainian Gold Reserves?

ukrainian-gold

Yesterday the first rumours started appearing, that the gold reserves of Ukraine had been transferred in its entirety to the USA.

The source of this unconfirmed Information are Ukrainian journalists from Iskra-News, which rely on employees of the Borispol (Boryspil) Airport of Kyjiv. According to those the transport took place on March 7, 2014 around 2 o’clock in the morning using a non-scheduled flight.

The information the employees gave to journalists from Iskra-News in Zaporozhye is that 4 money transporter and 2 VW vans without registration plates arrived at the airport from which 15 men with black garment and masks, some of them carrying machine-guns descended to haul more than 40 heavy boxes into the airplane, which left soon afterwards.

Iskra-News says that they had as well received a phone-call from a “responsible collaborator from the former ministry of income and taxes”, who claimed, that according to his information, in this night according to orders of the new government the entire gold-reserves of Ukraine had been transferred to the US.

The estimated gold reserves (Estimation of 2013) were around 36 tons, which made Ukraine one of the top 50 gold holders in the world. It seems unlikely to me, that with the observed number of cars and boxes all of the gold could have been transferred. But maybe the airport employees did not see all…the whole thing so far is not more than a rumour – but an interesting one, if true.

 

RT correspondent recalls events of Feb. 20

RT correspondent Alexey Yaroschewssky describes how he witnessed the events at Euromaidan on February 20, 2014.

The first scence shows him while preparing his live-broadcast, which had to be cancelled, since he all at once was surrounded by “opposition” demonstrators and the police started throwing grenades in his direction. The team changed location to the hotel.

In his hotel a shot was fired through the window. The bullet found, was of “calibre 7.62”, quite standard calibre, that would match the ones used in Kalashnikovs. However, it is unclear who fired that shot.

On the images he made with his mobile phone, one can hear something that sounds like shots and one sees a group of policemen fleeing and members of the “opposition” with shields and clubs, but otherwise unarmed, who move towards the police line. One can see as well, a person who runs away from the police line, holding something that looks like a rifle. The question of the reporter: “Who told those people to move towards the police line?”, because all of them were shot and died that day.

Does one see the sniper, who fired on the police and the canon-fodder, that was sent forward to serve as victims, so that the “revolution” would have its heros?

Let’s remember that these events happened after the cease-fire, but before the accord between “opposition” and government was signed on the February 21, 2014.

Let’s also remember in this context the phone call between Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton, from February 26, 2014 in which Ashton was informed by Paet that there was mounting suspicion, that the snipers were hired by the “opposition” and not by Yanukovych.

Peaceful demonstrators in Kiev – February 2014

The following Video was posted on youtube on February 23, 2014, however it is not visible from when the actual footage ist (probably from December 2013).

In any case personally, I have never seen such peaceful SECURITY as these. No batons, no water canons, no teargas, no rubber bullets. The violence emanates exclusively and solely from the rioting mob utilising almost everything. Iron bars, bricks, fireworks, including an excavator. Democracy EU-style, my ass:

Watch the peaceful demonstrators in action – January 2014

The following video was posted on January 24, 2014 and shows “opposition” in action while storming the city council building in Vinnytsia, which is the capital of Vinnytsia Oblast, which is located in central-western Ukraine:

320px-Winnyzja-Ukraine-Map

It’s clearly visible, that police forces are not the ones using force. In fact I have seen more aggressive police action against more peaceful demonstrators in Western countries like Spain and Switzerland:

I also recall the anti-globalisation demonstration in Genoa, Italy in 2001, where Carlo Giuliani was shot by police for doing less than this guys did. Police in Italy had nothing to fear, as it was judged that the acted in self-defense.

 

Ukrainian Activists try to recruit in Russia

Once again, I am not quite satisfied with the performance of our mass-media, who don’t seem quite able or willing to actually investigate stories before they post their articles. It’s not as bad as in the case of Syria, but still, they could do better. So I reopened this blog to post some information I find, that are hardly mentioned in western mass media. One of such topics is the right-wing elements active in Ukrainian protests.

According to lifenews.ru citing Russian security forces there are currently around ten Ukrainian activists from the movement of ukrainian nationalists have travelled to Russia and are trying to recruit fighters for the Maidan demonstrations.

A source said to lifenews.ru – “According to our information, their goal seems to be recruitment of followers for reinforcements in the ranks of protestors on Maidan”.

Law enforcement have identified one of the cells called “Pravyi Sektor” (Right Sector, a right-wing extremist group in Ukraine) in Kursk. There the activists under supervision of a certain Tatyana P. are helping in furthering and organising voyages to Kiev.

(Source: lifenews.ru)