Protests against NATO in Montenegro

Protests against NATO in Montenegro

Ongoing mass protests in Montenegro against attempts by local Pro-Western elites to drag the Republic into NATO.  http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2438110.html  and since then, the situation is little that has changed - the authorities continue to attempt to drag the country into NATO, the people on this issue continues to fuss.  The desire to bring the issue of membership of Montenegro in NATO, people understandably want to submit to referendum, but no one to ask and is not going how it was say on the Ukraine, where the authorities tried to drag Ukraine into NATO despite the fact that the majority of the population was against it. The main problem the protestors were an inadequate number of. People enough their protest was noticeable, but still not enough to topple the government of Djukanovic (money to the Maidan, no one gives), or to compel authorities to make concessions. The best way to block the accession of Montenegro to NATO is to overthrow the current government and causing a political crisis to block current attempts to drag the country into an aggressive military bloc.

Erdogan Moves To Annexes Mosul


The wannabe Sultan Erdogan did not get his will in Syria where he had planned to capture and annex Aleppo. The Russians prevented that. He now goes for his secondary target, Mosul in Iraq, which many Turks see as historic part of their country:

At the end of World War I in October 1918, after the signature of the Armistice of Mudros, British forces occupied Mosul. After the war, the city and the surrounding area became part of the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (1918-1920), and shortly Mandatory Iraq (1920-1932). This mandate was contested by Turkey which continued to claim the area based on the fact that it was under Ottoman control during the signature of the Armistice. In the Treaty of Lausanne, the dispute over Mosul was left for future resolution by the League of Nations. Iraq's possession of Mosul was confirmed by the League of Nations brokered agreement between Turkey and Great Britain in 1926. Former Ottoman Mosul Vilayet eventually became Nineveh Province of Iraq, but Mosul remained the provincial capital.
Mosul, Iraq's second biggest city with about a million inhabitants, is currently occupied by the Islamic State.  On Friday a column of some 1,200 Turkish soldiers with some 20 tanks and heavy artillery moved into a camp near Mosul. The camp was one of four small training areas where Turkey was training Kurds and some Sunni-Arab Iraqis to fight the Islamic State. The small camps in the northern Kurdish area have been there since the 1990s. They were first established to fight the PKK. Later their Turkish presence was justified as ceasefire monitors after an agreement ended the inner Kurdish war between the KDP forces loyal to the Barzani clan and the PUK forces of the Talabani clan. The bases were actually used to monitor movement of the PKK forces which fight for Kurdish independence in Turkey.

The base near Mosul is new and it was claimed to be just a small weapons training base. But tanks and artillery have a very different quality than some basic AK-47 training. Turkey says it will increase the numbers in these camps to over 2000 soldiers.

Should Mosul be cleared of the Islamic State the Turkish heavy weapons will make it possible for Turkey to claim the city unless the Iraqi government will use all its power to fight that claim. Should the city stay in the hands of the Islamic State Turkey will make a deal with it and act as its protector. It will benefit from the oil around Mosul which will be transferred through north Iraq to Turkey and from there sold on the world markets. In short: This is an effort to seize Iraq's northern oil fields.  That is the plan but it is a risky one. Turkey did not ask for permission to invade Iraq and did not inform the Iraqi government.

The Turks claim that they were invited by the Kurds:
Turkey will have a permanent military base in the Bashiqa region of Mosul as the Turkish forces in the region training the Peshmerga forces have been reinforced, Hürriyet reported.
The deal regarding the base was signed between Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani and Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu, during the latter’s visit to northern Iraq on Nov. 4.

There are two problems with this
First: Massoud Barzani is no longer president of the KRG. His mandate ran out and the parliament refused to prolong it. 
Second: Mosul and its Bashiqa area are not part of the KRG. Barzani making a deal about it is like him making a deal about Paris.

Putin state of Nation address 2015





A food revolution
On the domestic front, Putin delivered a business and reform-orientated speech. He conceded that an “army of inspectors” (a post-Soviet hangover) interferes with business in Russia and promised change. He also highlighted Russia’s improving demographic situation. “More people are now having second and third children. This means they believe in the future of Russia,” he said. Given the shocking state of the Russian birth-rate in the 1990’s, this recovery is a very big deal. Government policy has been successful in that area and Putin extended current financial and social incentives for a further two years.

However, for this writer, the most notable element of Putin’s speech was when he turned his attention to agriculture. Readers who have flown over Russia will have noticed the almost complete absence of intensive farming when compared with Europe or North America. The only real exception here is the southern Krasnodar region which benefits from a very benign climate. There is little doubt that if Russian got its act together in this regard, it could probably feed the whole planet.

Problems in Russian agriculture have festered throughout history. Most infamously, former Soviet ruler Nikita Khrushchev, born to a farming family, fancied himself as something of an agricultural expert, but his disastrous ‘reforms’, allied to a terrible drought, almost led to a famine as recently as 1963. The ‘Virgin Lands’ campaign of the 1950’s was also spectacularly unsuccessful.

In the 21st century, Russian food production has improved. Now, Putin is proposing a major focus on the area.  “By 2020, Russia must provide itself with all food,” he implored. "We need to cultivate the millions of acres now idle.” The President suggested confiscating unused farmland and its sale to new owners willing to till it.

An organic dawn
As the Kremlin has rejected the idea of GMO food production, now a mainstay of American agriculture, Russia could become the world’s principal supplier of high-quality organic food. Meaning there is potential to dominate the “high-end” market in both the West and in other wealthy countries - like China and the Middle Eastern states.

"We are not only able to feed ourselves taking into account our lands, water resources – Russia is able to become the largest world supplier of healthy, ecologically clean and high-quality food which the Western producers have long lost, especially given the fact that demand for such products in the world market is steadily growing," said Putin. Of course, a major problem here is insufficient labor. However, with some European and Asian countries creaking economically, it mightn’t be so difficult to attract agriculture workers.

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The Virgin Lands Program in the  Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev