Yup, its been stolen from peace loving people. I think the origin of the symbol was to represent good life and good luck, or something along them lines.
the EU have already been reducing gas imports from Russia anyway - 50% or so in 2000 to under 26% today and: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/czech-mini...-build-nuclear-160017499--sector.html#gacvqem and so it begins
I suppose the Ukranians will have to give them Crimea then at the point of a gun. Will that be all he wants then? What other neighbouring countries will they consider they have the right to invade if thye don't liek the government? Latvia has a large russian Minority. Can he have some of that too?
The good news is, the black sea fleet have denied any offensive tomorrow morning. The bad news is, the ships in question are not under control of the black sea fleet. Rather strange game of semantics going on... The UK will not impose any sanctions they said on the radio earlier. The US has just said stop. Not much else and the Russians have told J Kerry to go look in the mirror.
I'll play devil's advocate here and ask you: What was Putin supposed to do? What with all the political, military and social provocation against Russia in the last months? Please do not think that I agree with the way Moscow has handled the crisis so far, because I don't. Still this whole affair leaves a sour taste in my mouth. First we have the US-EU missile defence system that has put a lot of pressure on Russia in the last few years. The Crimea is of great strategic importance as you know, and would allow the EU a foot in the door as so to speak. Then there is the Anti-Russian propaganda that has been spread in the EU and US in the last months. Why so much anger over this Pu**y Riot scandal? Why do we care about gay or feminist rights in a country that is not our own? This been blown up even bigger during the Socchi olympics. Don't get me wrong, gay acceptance is a big issue. - Which is why we should try to further acceptance in our own countries first, everything else is hypocrasy. This 'February Revolution' has if not started at least been supported by the EU. Unfortunately I did only find this link in English. This site seems to be quite politicaly motivated so beware but still offers a different view to the one showed in the Media of EU=good, Russia=bad. IF this is true are we not meddling in the affairs of a foreign country we have no business in for strategic advantages. Also at least the US and UK have no right to tell Russia that they are wrong after waging an illegal war on an Eastern nation for more than a decade. Again, I do not like Putin's sabre rattling and understand the Ukrainian people's motivation to overthrow it's corrupt government. However I am at least uncertain that joining the EU and confronting Russia would be a huge benefit for the average Ukrainian. (Please don't ban me. If I should be wrong I'll be more than happy to admit it. This whole thing frightens me though.)
1) There was no US-EU missile defense. It was a NATO defense system. Ukraine is not going to be a NATO member. Plus it has been cancelled in 2009. Half a decade ago. 2) Why do we care about those groups ? Because human rights. 3) I am sure you are from the "former western part of Germany", or you would have never said these things if you would have been living in the eastern half. And especially from someone from Germany it seems... ironic. As if history didn't teach us, that this is exactly the kind of things we need to stop. If someone would have stopped Hitler in Jewish seggregation. If someone would have stopped Hitler before they annexed Sudeten. If someone would have stopped Hitler before they attacked/occupied Poland based on faked attack. The rest of story we all know. What if someone would have stopped Puting in attacks on homosexuals and political opponents (Khodorkovsky and others). What if someone would have stopped Putin before they pretty much annexed/controlled South Osetia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh. If someone would have stopped Putin before they attacked/occupied Crimea based on fake reports of attacks on Russians. History doesn't repeat itself at all. I wonder what is next in the Russian version of the story, but if it follows the German version, we will have few bad years now.
1) You seem to be correct. My mistake. 2) Human rights, sure. Because we care about them so much in our own country. I don't know how it is for you, but in western Europe this whole thing has been blown out of proportion. There is enough political tension as it is, why does it have to be blown out of proportion for the sake of a minority? Again I do not agree that military intervention is the right way to handle things. But was it not to be expected? And what does the Ukraine expect of us now? Yet another war with Russia? I am sure living Standards would improve then. Call me paranoid, but the way the Media is reporting this affair is making me suspicious. There is no critical commentary with the way things are handled at all. 3) I am living in the "West" due to my job and I am not old enough to remember the separation anyway, but my family is from eastern Germany, or at least the part I care about is. However are you sure the standards of living will improve with the EU? Did it for your country? This is an honest question, I am curious.
Yes, the standards improved a lot. Sure, the buying value of the salary dropped a lot in beginning of '90s because the collapse of economy after communism, but since then we are comming closer and closer to EU average. That is a GDP per capita compared to EU average. As you can see, HU, SK, PL were all around 40-50% of EU average in '95. We all joined EU in 2004. Now, Slovakia is around 70% of EU average, HU/PL around 60%. So somewhere around Portugal and Greece. Average salary increased from somewhere around 400€ in '90s to current 800€+. Sure, it doesn't sound like a lot to a citizen from Western Europe, but there are big differences in living costs, and well, it is a price we pay for 40 years of communism. It's enough to look at Austria and see the result of "what if" scenario.
looking at the English version of Pravda gives you anidea of Putin's idea of the role of the press in society http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/1/ And they are reporting that Yanukovych has died, which might be convenient for them.
Oh dear. Did you really just write that? I'm disgusted. Is that what you truly think? What about our other rights? So it's okay to gay-bash foreigners and jail female protestors? What about forced rape? Slavery? Forced sterilisations? Death penalty? Are they things we shouldn't care about if they are in a country that is not our own. So basic fundamental rights only matter if the people being persecuted live within the same geo political regions as us? I'm gay and while I wouldn't class myself as a 'feminist' I tend to believe that term is basically reserved by misogynistic guys who think girls should be chained to the kitchen (or bedroom). I'll take any label you care to give me though, for I will stand up for my rights... as I will stand up for everyone's rights... even yours. So I'm gay and I'm also in a different country to you, does that mean you don't care if my rights to live my life were taken away? Being a gay parent I'm in a fairly small minority. I'm glad that your way of thinking (That the rights of minorities are less important than the rights of the majority) is generally regarding as being an antiquated belief that isn't fair.
Putin thinks we are really retarded... These are 'not' the droid you are looking for... He means, there aren't Russian, even if the whole difference between a Russian soldier and this one is a missing name and country tag : Then after Putin says those aren't Russian soldiers, but local militia, we see this showing up : Yeah, sure Mr. Putin, we are retarded. And i guess this car with Russian army licence plates isn't Russian at all, it belongs to those nice friendly non-soldier chaps from Ukraine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Russia
Let's take one sentence out of context and judge me on that. Thanks I guess. Did I trigger a button there? You know what: I do not have anything against homosexual people. At all. That is until they try to be married in Church. But that's another story. So let's talk about homosexuals in Germany, my country, first, okay? I think they have every right of (state-approved) marriage, family and children and to be left alone and not judged on their way of life, same as everyone else. The only thing I wish is that they'd leave the Church in pace, but we can discuss that in PM. However not everyone agrees with that, and I know there is a lot of homophobia and judgement in society and everyday live. Which has to change, no question about that. The same counts for Russia. But there are a lot of things there that have to change. Things like poverty, distribution of wealth and many other things. And as we are talking about a foreign country Germany cannot criticise all those problems and expect improvement. We can tackle maybe one or twopoints. Not all of them. So if I can help a minority or a majority first I will choose the majority and worry about the minority later. Also I do not think that the political tension resulting from the countinuous meddling in foreign affairs - gay rights in this case - was worth the trouble. I will stand by this point, judge me if you wish. To clarify the point I wanted to make above: What did western Europe expect would happen? I think what Russia does is wrong. There, I said it. As are many other things that are going on in Russia. But it was to be expected.
The EU proposed a Trade Agreement, not EU membership (wildly unlikely for many reasons), not anything whasoever about NATO membership which has never been discussed. No I didn't expect Russia to invade to stop that. The Protestors were mostly complaining about the corruption and incompentence of the regime. Unfortunately for them Putin preferres to have a weak corrupt, dependant, client state similar to Belarus.
It's a valid question to ask though, regardless of what you and I may think the answer is. I mean, evidently we don't care about many other rights that much, given that we've stood by and watched a nation be invaded, so what makes LGBT rights in particular more important than say, the sovereignty of a country or property rights?
What can i, as a person do about this invasion in Ukraine? nothing. I don't see the relevance with a Russian invasion and Gay rights/abuse. But as a single person we can all make a difference trying to make homophobia history by becoming more accepting in our daily life's. And not saying things like why should we care if gays get killed and tortured in other country's. Of course we should care. Homosexual or not id feel pretty sh!tty that the people i share this community think its ok that horrible things like that happen to people because of who they are attracted too.
It becomes an issue when the minority starts to dictate and impose itself onto the majority, this is something the progressive left are experts at. But I digress so let's get back to the issue at hand...
And can we honestly say that the LGBT community is treated equally in our own countries? Both in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of the public. It's certainly fair to ask why we're bothered about other countries when we're still making baby steps at home.
Umm, gay marriage was voted to be legalised in the UK so I'm going to go with yes, in the eyes of the law, and one can not force anything in public opinion, but we should not worry about that so long as legal protection exists. We're hardly making "baby" steps. 30 years ago Transgenderism essentially didn't exist openly and was a mental condition, and gay people had to hide their lifestyle from everyone.
