New Cold War.org Information Bulletin, Vol 1 #2, Nov 23, 2016

New Cold War.org Information Bulletin, Vol 1 #2, Nov 23, 2016

Dear reader:

Welcome to the new, streamlined format of news and information posted daily to the New Cold War.org website. The New Cold War.org Information Bulletin will be compiled and mailed Monday-Friday to website subscribers.

Compared to the previous method of posting individual news and analysis reports to the website, there will be less footnoting, editorial comment and referencing to related readings. As well, the ‘category’ taggings will not be used as before. Henceforth, the ‘search’ function on the website will be needed by readers to find information previously tagged by subject category. Our publishing model is volunteer-based and is unable to sustain the previous, higher level of editing and publishing. Material posted until now on the website will retain its categorization by subject.

Articles that are published exclusively on New Cold War.org will continue to be published in their entirety and tagged in the relevant subject category. As well, articles from other publications will occasionally be re-posted here in their entirety, tagged by category and as ‘editor pick’. As always, the weblink to the original source will be provided.

Sincerely,
The editors, The New Cold War: Ukraine and beyond (New Cold War.org)

Ukraine:
Kiev forces attempt to break through southern border of Donetsk People’s Republic, five Ukrainian soldiers killed, seven injured, Donetsk News Agency, Nov 23, 2016

Syria and Donbass: Two sections of a united front against imperialism, by Alexey Albu, Nov 2, 2016. Published originally in Russian in Novorossiya News. Translated to English by Greg Butterfield on his blog Red Star Over Donbass; an abridged version of the translation is published in Workers World, Nov 21, 2016. Alexey Albu is a coordinator of the banned Ukrainian Marxist organization Union Borotba (Struggle). He participated in a recent international solidarity delegation to Syria.

Three years after Euromaidan, how young Ukrainians see the future, The Guardian, Nov 22, 2016 [In this feature, The Guardian assembles a collection of observations by young Ukrainians that are crafted to fit the newspaper’s fanatical support for the authoritarian, governing regime in Kyiv and NATO’s military offensive against Russia.]

Russia:

Putin slams detention of two Russian servicemen on Ukraine-Crimea border, TASS, Nov 23, 2016

‘At war with Russia’: EU Parliament approves resolution to counter Russian media ‘propaganda’, RT.com, Nov 23, 2016. In the Wednesday vote, 304 MEPs supported the resolution based on the report ‘EU strategic communication to counteract propaganda against it by third parties’, with 179 voting against it and 208 abstaining.

Turkey-Syria-Middle East and Caucasus:
Mosul’s front lines: Scenes of flight, news story and photo essay by Sergey Ponomarev and Tim Arango, New York Times, Nov 22, 2016

… The military campaign to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, is in its sixth week and bogged down in a grueling fight. Seeking to escape the fighting, more civilians than ever are taking the risk of evacuation, hoping to find help if they can make it past the militants’ gun range.

Iraq: The terrible battle for Mosul, by Joshua Hammer, New York Review of Books, Nov 10, 2016

Land mine casualties jump 75 per cent as funding for their removal declines, by Rick Gladstone, New York Times, Nov 22, 2016.

Despite a global treaty that bans land mines, casualties from those weapons and other unexploded munitions lurking in current and past war zones rose sharply last year to the highest point in a decade, a monitoring group said Tuesday in its annual report.

The group, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, also said that financial contributions toward efforts to remove land mines plunged by nearly a quarter last year. It was the third consecutive annual decline in funding, imperiling a pledge by treaty members to complete mine clearance by 2025…

Turkish airstrike kills six civilians in Manbij, Syria as clash shapes up over Al-Bab to the south, Kurdish Question, Nov 22, 2016

Ankara intensifies strikes against YPG, moves to arrest PYD leader, Al-Monitor, Nov 23, 2016

A Turkish court has issued a warrant for the arrest of Salih Muslim, the co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD). The court also issued warrants for 47 other people, including senior commanders of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), over their alleged involvement in a car bomb that hit a military convoy in Ankara earlier this year that left 37 people, both military personnel and civilians, dead.

Turkish government drops controversial bill on underage marriage, by Turkish Minute, Nov 23, 2016

U.S. House seeks Syria war escalation, by Rick Sterling, Consortium News, Nov 22, 2016

Moving to trap President-elect Trump into a war escalation in Syria, the House rushed through a resolution promoting a U.S.-imposed “no fly zone” that could spark World War III.

United States:
Trump’s tax plan: massive cuts for the 1% will usher ‘era of dynastic wealth’, by Rupert Neate, The Guardian, Nov 23, 2016

President Donald Trump is set to give America’s richest 1% an average annual tax cut of $214,000 when he takes office, while more than eight million families with children are expected to suffer financially under his proposed tax plan…

The fall and rise of the forgotten ‘deplorables’, by Greg Maybury, Consortium News, Nov 22, 2016

The political gamble that will be the Trump presidency traces back to the desperation of Americans who lost out in the social experiment of neoliberalism — and the Democrats’ candidate who personified those economic inequities.

Global warming:
Trump to scrap NASA climate research in crackdown on ‘politicized science’, by Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Nov 23, 2016. NASA’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding as the president-elect seeks to shift focus away from home in favor of deep space exploration

Clouds of filth envelope Asian cities: ‘you can’t escape’, by John Vidal, published in the ‘Global Health’ feature of The Guardian, Nov 22, 2016. This year has seen some of Asia’s worst urban smog episodes in nearly 20 years, as India’s air pollution soars above levels recorded in China