Pro-Kremlin PM Declared Winner In Ukraine Vote

[maplesyrup]

Canada refuses to recognize Ukraine results

I hope that this will be settled in peaceful manner whatever the outcome. What are the chances of that?

And what constructive role can Canada play to help resove the iissue?

[maplesyrup]

Ukraine Liberal Calls for Strike Over Poll Result

What's bizarre about this situation is that the US is backing some "liberal" politician as opposed to the fascist regimes they usually support. Oh well, anything to piss off the Ruskies, eh!

[Stoker]

Or perhaps that the United States is supporting a pro western leader that the majority of Ukranines favor.

[maplesyrup]

Or perhaps that the United States is supporting a pro western leader that the majority of Ukranines favor.

United States is interested in one thing - protecting its own economic interests.

Article

[Stoker]

Where did it say that in the CBC "story"?

What channel are you on MS?

[maplesyrup]

U.S. Campaign Behind the Turmoil in Kiev

But while the gains of the orange-bedecked "chestnut revolution" are Ukraine's, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavory regimes.

    Funded and organized by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organizations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.

    Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.

    Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organized a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.

    That one failed. "There will be no Kostunica in Belarus," the Belarus president declared, referring to the victory in Belgrade.

    But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable in plotting to beat the regime of Leonid Kuchma in Kiev.

    The operation - engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience - is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people's elections.

So everything is not necessarily what it appears to be in most of the US and Canadian media, eh!

[maplesyrup]

Mystery surrounds Yushchenko ailment

Yushchenko poisoned just like Arafat. Maybe he has aids too, eh!

It is because of this ideological presupposition that Anglo-Saxon reporting on the Ukrainian elections has chimed in with press releases from the State Department, peddling a fairytale about a struggle between a brave and beleaguered democrat, Yushchenko, and an authoritarian Soviet nostalgic, the present Prime Minister, Viktor Yanukovych. All facts which contradict this morality tale are suppressed. Thus a story has been widely circulated that Yushchenko was poisoned during the electoral campaign, the fantasy being that the government was trying to bump him off. But no British or American news outlet has reported the interview by the chief physician of the Vienna clinic which treated Yushchenko for his unexplained illness. The clinic released a report declaring there to be no evidence of poisoning, after which, said the chief physician, he was subjected to such intimidation by Yushchenko's entourage - who wanted him to change the report - that he was forced to seek police protection.

[maplesyrup]

Poll row threatens Ukraine unity

Officials in eastern Ukraine say they will split their region from the rest of the country if opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko becomes president.

After meeting in the power base of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, governors vowed to hold a referendum if Mr Yanukovych's win was overturned.

Mr Yushchenko has already warned that this threatens the future of Ukraine.

Outgoing President Leonid Kuchma has urged both sides of the dispute to work to find a compromise.

The Russian government has suggested it might reverse its opposition to a new election. The European Union has already called for a new vote.

This situation is changing minute by minute it seems.

Check out the BBC map as it tells the tale. Shades of the US anyone!

Canada, as an excellent role model, needs to get involved and show those Ukrainian folks how English and French are able to co-exist in Canada in relatively peaeful way. I think some of our MPs are already heading over there.

[Choke]

One candidate wants to sell out to America and the EU, the other to Moscow...Moscow's closer so I'm betting that either Yanukovych will win, or his half of the country will rejoin Russia.

I did some research a few years ago and found that in almost all of the former SSRs Russians make up either a substantive minority or even, in the case of Kazahkstan a slim majority...it seems a little ridiculous that huge areas with Russian majorities remain outside of Russia proper, and I doubt Russia will tolerate it forever.

Also important, Russia has never before allowed Ukraine to fall under the influence of western Europe and I doubt they'll let it happen now. The EU has already engulfed Poland, traditionally controlled at least to some extent by Moscow and now they want Ukraine? It won't be allowed to happen.

[maplesyrup]

Couldn't disagree more.

Putin has made a major blunder, he is going to lose face, which is going to come back to haunt him in the years to come.

The "Orange Revolution" will win, probably via new elections.

‘Orange Revolution' Gears Up For Fight

[Choke]

I think you underestimate the Russian resolve on this issue. I wouldn't say Russian tanks in Kiev is completely out of the question here.