3
POPSstrange bridges i like to look at funny bridges to nowhere-but fear of heights keeps my feet of firmer more stable ground- especially if you can see through the darn thing- lol.....where doodle dare not tread! skiffs work well- and they eliminate the need for screaming
1
POPS"Clergyman says church has vanished" continues: A survey of the large, two-storey church a few months ago found that it was structurally sound, but now all that remains are the foundations and sections of walls, the statement said. Thieves routinely make off with church property in rural Russia, where unemployment, petty crime and alcoholism are widespread. Criminals target religious icons stored in churches because they can fetch a good price, and church buildings are dismantled to provide building materials. "This is not an isolated case," said Father Vitaly. "In many villages in central Russia sites of historical interest are being dismantled and people suffer by being deprived of their cultural heritage."
1
POPSObama's First Big Foreign Crisis - Denials Already
The Polish Prime Minister says he said: Yes. Obama's advisors say: He made no comittment. Ah! -- Foreign diplomacy has begun. This specific issues -- an issue that could lead to a nuclear exchange in Europe (!) -- started one day after Obama's great victory. While all over the world many people were dancing in the streets and in rural villages, leaders sending messages of congratulations, etc. --- while this was going on -- The Russians announced they were sending nuclear missiles to their border with Poland. Why? -- In respond to the USA building a missile base in Poland (on the Russian border) That -- I would say -- is rather a rude awakening the day after your greatest public success. Now, two days later, we have political leaders from two countries (ours and Poland) playing the game of he said, she said, he didn't say that, who said what? I don't want to get all 'fanatical,' about this but I feel a certain 'responsibility,' to tell Europeans your lives are i
2
POPSGeorgia accused of targeting civilians Revenge The BBC saw evidence of the cycle of revenge since the war, with the demolition of most houses in the former ethnic Georgian villages on the northern outskirts of Tskhinvali. Zaur Gagloyev (photo: Alan Tskhurbayev, Institute of War and Peace Reporting) No, it wasn't ethnic cleansing... we just let them go from our land Zaur Gagloyev The houses, whose occupants fled during the war to other parts of Georgia, were burnt by Ossetians immediately after the fighting.
3
POPSRussia’s Armed Forces Advancing, Blindly Russia makes some good equipment, such as air-defence systems. The infusion of money helps it exercise its atrophied military muscles. A growing proportion of soldiers are volunteers (known as kontraktniki), who are more disciplined than much-abused conscripts. The slow move to a smaller, all-professional army in place of the million-strong, largely conscript force is made more urgent by Russia’s demographic decline. The forces that invaded Georgia were largely made up of professionals. Despite problems in keeping them supplied, they were for the most part better behaved than the South Ossetian militiamen who looted and destroyed Georgian villages. The Russian army seems to have fought better in Georgia than it did in either of the post-Soviet wars in Chechnya, the now-subdued breakaway province across the border from Georgia. Indeed, the forces sent into Georgia included the Vostok battalion, made up of pro-Kremlin Chechens. .....continued
10
POPSMoscow’s Plan is to Redraw the Map of Europe: Mikheil Saakashvili
Since Russia’s invasion, its forces have been “cleansing” Georgian villages in both regions – including outside the conflict zone – using arson, rape and execution. Human rights groups have documented these actions. It hopes the west will forget ethnic cleansing in Abkhazia drove out more than three-quarters of the local population – ethnic Georgians, Greeks, Jews and others – leaving the minority Abkhaz in control. Last week Vaclav Havel, the former Czech president, put us on alert: “Russia does not really know where it begins and where it ends.” He noted that the Moscow regime is “a lot more sophisticated” than the Soviets under Leonid Brezhnev. He should know – he was on the front line the last time Russia invaded a European country. Backing Georgia with Europe’s political and financial institutions is a powerful response. The most potent western response to Russia is to stay united and firm by providing immediate material and political support.
2
POPSGeorgia breaks ties with Russia Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said Moscow regretted Tbilisi's decision. "The possible end of diplomatic relations with Georgia is not the choice of Moscow, and Tbilisi will have to bear the entire responsibility," the state-controlled Tass news agency reported him as saying.
4
POPS'Ethnic cleansing continues' All the while Europe and the rest of the World stand by and do nothing...except condemn and talk. Inaction only emboldens Putin. Where will he move next? I wonder what John Bolton would do?
4
POPSCluster bombs used by Russians in Georgia “We were playing with them, as were the Georgian soldiers,” said Tatrishvili. “It was only when one of the bombs exploded after a soldier threw it that we understood that they were dangerous.”
0
POPSGeorgians tell of ethnic cleansing But a dozen interviews with those who fled the fighting, and a trip through seven Georgian villages just south of the fighting, indicated the killing this month was not that systematic, nor on that scale — based on what is known so far.
6
POPSGeorgian Villagers Recount Tales Of Marauders The violence was much worse in ethnic Georgian villages in the separatist territory of South Ossetia. Displaced persons told stories of how they hid in basements while Ossetian and Chechen irregulars rampaged through their villages. They recounted tales of neighbors being shot and of homes being torched. Events happened so fast that many, especially the elderly, didn’t have enough time to escape. "They poured gasoline on houses and lit them on fire everyday," says 84 year-old Alexi Datashvili, one of about two dozen elderly and feeble residents from the Georgian villages In Gori itself, Russian officials have impeded Georgian television broadcasts, replacing them with Russian programming. The recently modernized Georgian army base in Gori has been thoroughly ransacked. Several hundred meters north of the base, Russian forces are digging new artillery positions – an indicator that Russian troops are not intending to pull out soon.
6
POPSInvading Georgia Was Easy, Mr. Putin Will Pay A Political Price The Russians said their General Prosecutor's Office would undertake a "genocide probe" in South Ossetia, and they called for putting President Saakashvili on trial at the Hague for "war crimes." As it happens, Chapter 1, Article II of the U.N. Charter, signed amid the smashed borders of World War II, forbids Members from the "use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." The U.S. and France should force Mr. Putin's U.N. ambassador to veto a Security Council resolution describing his week-long mockery of those words. Additionally, a genuinely independent prosecutor investigating war crimes might examine the Russian bombing runs over Georgia and the looting of Georgian villages by Ossetian militias. An intriguing article by Pavel Felgengauer in Novaya Gazeta, the Russian newspaper, argues that an examination of the movement of the ground equipment and ships used in the strike against Georgia required planning that predated August
10
POPSEditorial from the President of Georgia "I have staked my country's fate on the West's rhetoric about democracy and liberty. As Georgians come under attack, we must ask: If the West is not with us, who is it with? If the line is not drawn now, when will it be drawn? We cannot allow Georgia to become the first victim of a new world order as imagined by Moscow. "
5
POPSGeorgian Villages Being Burned and Looted, Children Kidnapped! "Behind them (say eyewitnesses) is a whole column of irregulars who locals say are Chechens, Cossacks and Ossetians. "Eyewitnesses say they are looting, killing and burning. These irregulars have killed three people and set fire to villages. They have been taking away young boys and girls," said Harding, watching smoke rise from another village, Karaleti. Earlier, Georgia said its troops had pulled out of the separatist region of Abkhazia today after the Kremlin laid down humiliating peace terms as the price for halting the Russian invasion and its four-day rout of Georgian forces. Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, signalled his partial assent to the terms, announcing with Sarkozy that he accepted the ceasefire. But Saakashvili raised questions about a continuing Russian military presence in Georgia and the prospects for any durable settlement looked uncertain.
3
POPSRussian media None of this is or should be about Russia or the Russian people. All of it stinks of Soviet propaganda, Soviet brutality, Soviet morality, and Soviet nostalgia. It is the handiwork of the siloviki clique that currently monopolizes power in Russia through authoritarian politics, kleptocratic economics, and media manipulation. This clique must be shown that war crimes do not pay. The Russian people, too, need to learn that nostalgia for Soviet imperialism is a dead end for Russia.
2
POPSSaakashvili Orders Full Mobilization Against Rebel Region At least 15 people, primarily civilians, were killed in heavy shelling and airstrikes of the capital Tskhinvali, news agency Interfax cited South Ossetian officials as saying. Georgia accused three Russian Sukoi SU-24 aircrafts of bombing Georgian villages, and a short time later, sent out five of the same jet to carry out attacks on South Ossetia. Russia denied it had sent out bombers Friday. 'A full-scale military aggression has been launched against Georgia,' Saakashvili said in his speech, calling on Russia to 'immediately stop bombardment of the Georgian towns.' But Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin blamed Georgia with initiating the 'aggressive action' in televised comments from Beijing and said that Russia would be compelled to retaliate. But the United States is a close ally of the pro-Western Saakashvili, and it is its backing of Georgia's bid to join NATO in April that is seen to have escalated tension in the region.
0
POPSS.Ossetia claims Georgia plans to attack Kokoity said Georgian authorities have been issuing warnings to residents of Georgian villages in South Ossetia that Tbilisi will seize the areas by September. However, he said 'volunteers' from abroad will flood into South Ossetia and defend the province in the event of an all-out Georgian attack.
10
POPSShipbreakers of India and Bangladesh ShipBreakers live in hovels built of scrap, with no showers, toilets or latrines.They have come from poor villages on the other side of India, lured by wages that start at $1.50 a day, to work at dangerous jobs, protected only by their scarves and sandals. They suffer broken ankles, severed fingers, smashed skulls, malarial fevers, chol-era, dysentery and tuberculosis. Some are burned and some are drowned. Nobody keeps track of how many die here from accidents and disease. Ship breaking is done from 7 AM to 11 PM (same crew) with two half hour breaks and an hour for lunch (supper is eaten after they go home at 11); 14 hours a day, 6-1/2 days a week (off half day Friday for Muslim observations).
1
POPS Quake wipes out Russian villages; relief sent Why the media is so silent about the Kamchatka quake that hit the region on Friday? It is said that 1500 people live in three villages that the 7.9 quake levelled. Rescue teams yet to reach those villages. Temperatures are said to be -20C and another quake of magnitude 7.4 is expected within a week. Kamchatka quake may be the harbinger of more fresh quakes and volcanic activity not only in Siberia but in Alaska as well.
1
Pops
Newest Clips
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Print
Save
Turn on live update