Vladimir Putin confirms Russian military involvement in Syria's civil war

Russia is providing “serious” training and logistical support to the Syrian army, Vladimir Putin has said, in the first public confirmation of the depth of Russia’s involvement in Syria's civil war.  Commenting on reports that Russian combat troops have been deployed to Syria, the Russian president said discussion of direct military intervention is “so far premature,” but did not rule out that such a step could be taken in future.

“To say we're ready to do this today - so far it's premature to talk about this. But we are already giving Syria quite serious help with equipment and training soldiers, with our weapons,” the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency quoted Mr Putin as saying when asked about Russian intervention in Syria during an economic forum in Vladivostok.

"We really want to create some kind of an international coalition to fight terrorism and extremism," Mr Putin said. "To this end, we hold consultations with our American partners - I have personally spoken on the issue with US President Obama."

More at the Telegraph

Crazy Right-Wing American Preacher Says Confederates Will March On The North And Win This Time

Oh, Pastor James Manning, you’re the gift that just keeps on giving. This guy is the one who put up a sign telling black women that gays would take their men. That Obama has released the “homo demons.” That Starbucks was putting semen in their lattes. I seriously worry about this man’s mental state. Perhaps if he acted on those gay urges he’s admitted to, he’d get it all out of his system.

This time the head of the ATLAH World Missionary Church in the Harlem area of New York City is gearing up for a new Civil War. Not metaphorically. No, he means a real, honest-to-god, marching-Confederate-troops-in-uniforms Civil War. To “rescue the North.” Yeah.

“Surely the Confederates and the South will win this time. There’s no doubt about it. They will win this time. Now the nation must be rescued from the liberal God-haters and Constitution-haters and those that are pushing this sodomy agenda. America will be rescued and the rescuers will be the Confederates, the Southerners, those that have been the blood-washed, Bible-believing, locked-and-loaded. I’m James David Manning and I want to be one of them. I’m the Lord’s servant.”

Addicting Info

South Sudan Pushed Toward Famine

The World Food Program warns fighting and lack of access to the displaced in South Sudan are pushing that country towards a hunger catastrophe. WFP says this humanitarian disaster still can be prevented, but time is running out. 

Before fighting erupted in mid-December between the government and rebels, 140,000 people in South Sudan were suffering from severe food shortages. Now, World Food Program spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs says that number stands at 1.3 million.
“WFP is concerned about the food security situation and about the possibility of the food catastrophe or even famine developing over the coming year.  But, we can prevent this if we act now…This disaster can be prevented.  This is what I would like to point out.  We can prevent, but it is absolutely critical to stop fighting," said Byrs.
But, that seems unlikely. A second truce enacted between the warring factions on May 9th broke down not long after it was signed. 

VOA News

Saving South Sudan

Late last year, South Sudan's president, Salva Kiir, accused his former vice president, Riek Machar, of attempting a coup d'état amid accusations of rampant corruption within the government. Infighting immediately broke out within the presidential guard, sparking what has now become a brutal tribal and civil war that has pitted Machar's ethnic Nuer loyalists against the majority Dinka, who have sided with Kiir. Machar narrowly escaped assassination, fleeing to the deep bush as Kiir's troops razed his home and killed his bodyguards. And now the world's newest sovereign nation is in imminent danger of becoming a failed state.

Read the entire issue devoted to South Sudan at Vice

Ukraine moves towards civil war

Two days of chaos and violence in east and south-east Ukraine appeared on Saturday to be pushing the country ever closer to civil war, as the death toll rose to 42 following a military counter-offensive launched by authorities in Kiev against pro-Russia rebels.

An angry crowd confronted police outside the trade union building in Odessa where dozens of pro-Russia activists died on Friday night in a blaze started during clashes with pro-Ukraine protesters. Fighting continued in the east as the Ukrainian army continued to oust pro-Russia rebels.

The region has been rocked by unrest since the new government in Kiev came to power following demonstrations that ousted pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych at the end of February. Many in Ukraine's east, which has strong economic and cultural ties with Russia, say they now feel marginalised. What began as small-scale unrest rapidly escalated into an armed rebellion as pro-Russia militia groups seized government buildings. Kiev and its western allies have accused the Kremlin of orchestrating the chaos, which follows a Putin-backed putsch that resulted in Crimea's annexation last month.

More at The Observer

The Spanish Civil War

Documentary on the Brutal Reality of Spain's most Violent War

Media Disinformation and the Framing of the Syrian War

Months after the events took place, Pulitzer prize winning journalists and others are finally reporting about the lies and manipulations of the US government regarding the recent chemical weapons attack in Syria. Far from shining a light on the true situation in the country, however, these reports continue to avoid the underlying causes and explanations for what is happening in Syria, and the forces that are behind it.

Global Research TV

The Shift towards an Authoritarian Future: Why the West Slowly Abandons its Civil Liberties

Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic who construct an image of toughness – tough on crime, on terrorism, on humanistic-inspired idealism etc. – are tapping into a sensitive spot that blocks critical thought among the public. Obama’s brute and harsh reaction on Edward Snowden’s revelations is just another example. Somehow it seems like  “We, the people…”  lost track of ourselves. Four main reasons why we abandon our once hard fought civil rights.

Many countries in the West, like Britain, France, Spain the US and the Netherlands have experienced in recent years an exponential increase in technological surveillance and a resolute decline in parliamentary and judicial control over state police and secret service.

Issues like the ban on torture, the possibility of detention without charge, privacy and freedom of speech were in the public debate reframed in favour of state control. And everybody accepted it. To be fair, there was some opposition – but it lacked intensity. Why is this happening?

To give an example, under former British Prime Minister Tony Blair 45 criminal laws were approved creating 3000 new criminal offences. British writer John Kampfer argues that in the past ten years more criminal offences were made in his country than in a hundred years before. All this was legitimized by the idea that a ‘terroristic’ virus attacked Western civilization. Of course, there is some truth in it – but these risks were grossly exaggerated. Still, we fearfully went along with the proposed measures.

This cultural shift towards perhaps a more authoritarian future for the West is no coincidence of nature. It is manmade. If the opportunity is there, top down induced shifts happen only if politicians, corporations, media pundits and other cultural icons are able to find the right symbols and techniques to get a new message across.

Full article on Global Research

US are Preparing for Massive Civil War

The US government has declared it can lock anyone up forever or kill them without any proof or due process. The Department of Homeland Security has placed an order for 450 million rounds of Hollow Point ammo. Obama can now declare martial law during peace time.

7 Scandals That Reveal the Real Mitt Romney

People who start new businesses are always hungry for investors. But as Huffington Post reporters Ryan Grim and Cole Stangler found in their report, “ Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads ,” there was no possible way that anybody in 1984 could "check out" these families and be convinced this money was clean, as Grim told Democracy Now.  

“After initially struggling to find investors, Romney traveled to Miami in 1983 to win pledges of $9 million, 40 percent of Bain’s start-up money,” Democracy Now’s report began. “Some investors had extensive ties to the death squads responsible for the vast majority of the tens of thousands of deaths in El Salvador during the 1980s.”

6 other Scandals That Reveal the Real Mitt Romney on Alternet

Syria: the horror of Homs, a city at war

A French photojournalist reveals graphic pictures of what is happening to people in the under-siege e Syrian city of Homs.

Rival militias wage turf war near Libyan capital

One local official was killed and a militia base reduced to ruins in a clash between rival armed groups near the Libyan capital, the latest flare-up of tension between militias that is destabilizing the new Libya.

Two months after Muammar Qaddafi was killed, Libya’s new government is still unable to impose its authority on the ground, leaving security in the hands of militias which answer only to themselves and often wage turf wars with their rivals. The violence in Janzour, a town about 17 km (10 miles) west of the capital, demonstrated that these militias remain the biggest threat to Libya's security despite attempts by the newly-formed interim government to get them under control.

Rival militias wage turf war near Libyan capital

Syrian Uprising Becoming Civil War

Syria's uprising began with peaceful protests but with attacks by army defectors on government troops increasing, it is fast turning into a civil war. Dozens of soldiers loyal to the regime of President Bashar al Assad were reported killed in the latest clashes in the province of Deraa.

Every week new videos emerge on social networking websites showing men in Syrian army uniforms apparently declaring their allegiance to the opposition. These defectors are part of a growing force calling itself the Free Syrian Army. More on Sky News

The Libyan Civil War: Critical Views: The Tripoli Massacres

There are a multitude of aspects to what's going on right now in Libya, Tripoli in particular things I don't know well enough - but one aspect is emerging and grabs my attention - a side-effect of the near-total liberation of the capitol is literally blood flowing in the streets. At least one journalist has captured some of the horror of it as armed butchers from one side or another massacre fighters and civilians alike in growing numbers all across the city.

So far I have one rather stark, and detailed, article by Hadeel al-Shalchi, AP, Aug 26:
Fight 'the rats,' Gadhafi urges as rebels push on.

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — The streets where rebel fighters bombarded snipers loyal to Moammar Gadhafi were strewn with bullet-ridden corpses from both sides Thursday. Streams of blood ran down the gutters and turned sewers red.
By sundown the rebels appeared to have won the battle for the Abu Salim neighborhood, next to Gadhafi's captured Tripoli compound [...] Outside his Bab al-Aziziya compound, which rebels captured Tuesday, there was another grim scene — one that suggested mass, execution-style killings of civilians.
About two dozen bodies — some with their hands bound by plastic ties and with bullet wounds to the head — lay scattered on grassy lots in an area where Gadhafi sympathizers had camped out for months.
The identities of the dead were unclear, but they were in all likelihood activists who had set up an impromptu tent city in solidarity with Gadhafi in defiance of the NATO bombing campaign.
Five or six bodies were in a tent erected on a roundabout that had served as a field clinic. One of the dead still had an IV in his arm, and another body was completely charred, its legs missing. The body of a doctor, in his green hospital gown, was found dumped in the canal.

More on The Libyan Civil War Blog

More TRIPOLI HORRORS REVEALED on BBC and War Crime Claims After Bodies Found on SKY

Deadly Clashes in Hama, Syria

As protests continue in Syria, dramatic footage has been coming out of cities like Hama, where a number of protesters were reportedly killed earlier today. The playlist below contains clips uploaded today said to depict clashes between protesters and Syrian forces in that area Friday. The first shows a soldier firing directly toward the camera.

Warning: some of the videos contain graphic violence:

YouTube Trends

North Sudan army takes control of Abyei

North Sudan's army appears to have gained control of the main town in Sudan's disputed Abyei region after fierce fighting with the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), UN and rebel sources said.

UN officials saw 15 tanks of the Sudanese Armed Forces, the northern army, on Saturday in parts of the key town Abyei where earlier mortars slammed against a UN base, Hua Jiang, the UN spokeswoman said. One of those mortar rounds exploded, but there were no casualties among UN personnel, Jiang said.

"The SAF have entered (the town) Abyei, there is still fighting but they have come with tanks, they are shooting and shooting," Philip Aguer, SPLA spokesman, said. "Our police have been fighting but the SAF have sent many soldiers in," he added, speaking by phone from Juba, the capital of southern Sudan.

He said northern forces bombed at least four villages on Saturday afternoon in continuation of last week's attacks.

Aguer added that two of the bombed villages were Todach and Tagalei which had been already hit on Friday -  a reference to the southern army's allegations that the northern army had begun bombing Abyei that day after previous clashes on Thursday.

Full story on Al Jazeera