Malaysian Airlines lost its second Boeing 777 this year on July 17, when flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was apparently hit by a missile over war-torn Eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
The incident happened while the Ukrainian army was carrying out a huge land and air offensive to crush breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine, over whose territory the plane was shot down.
Most passengers were Dutch, but 38 Australians were also killed.
Russia
Left forces from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus held a two-day anti-war conference near Minsk on June 7 and 8. The conference was organised by participants of internet project 鈥淧rasvet鈥 with the support of the Belarus web journal Left.
The aim of the conference was to help coordinate the internationalist, Marxist left forces of three countries under circumstances of military-nationalist hysteria and the outburst of violence and repression in Ukraine.
A Spy in the Archives
By Sheila Fitzpatrick
Melbourne University Press, 2013
346 pages, $32.99 (pb)
When Sydney University Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick was doing some crafty archival sleuthing as a British PhD student in the late 1960s in Moscow, it was not unexpected that any state guardians might suspect a female spy at work.
Fitzpatrick could see some justification. 鈥淎ny suspicious archives director who thought I was trying to find out the secrets of Narkompros was dead right鈥, she notes in Spy in the Archives.
The United Nations general assembly voted on March 27 鈥 with 100 votes for, 11 against and 58 abstentions 鈥 to not recognise the results of the March 16 referendum in Crimea. In the poll, most voted for the territory to leave Ukraine and join Russia.
The resolution was put by Ukraine and sponsored by the United States, the European Union and other Western powers, including Australia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced legislation on March 18 accepting the formerly Ukrainian Republic of Crimea and City of Sevastopol into the Russian Federation. The legislation was passed by the Russian Duma (parliament) on March 20.
Crimea and Sevastopol had voted in a March 16 referendum to leave Ukraine and join Russia. This was the culmination of a process that began after the February 21 overthrow of unpopular Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich by protesters in the capital Kiev.
Jean-Luc Melenchon is co-president of France's Left Party and a member of the European parliament. Melenchon is also leader of the broader Left Front, involving other parties such as the French Communist Party, on whose ticket he won about 11% of the vote in the 2012 presidential elections.
Below, Melenchon gives his perspective on the crisis in Ukraine 鈥 from Russia's actions in Crimea, to the West's saber rattling, to the mass protests that brought down an unpopular government and the new regime, featuring fascist forces, that has taken its place.
The February 21 collapse of the government of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich in the face of anti-corruption protests has led to the most serious confrontation between the US and Russia since the end of the Cold War.
The governments of the United States, Europe and Canada are working furiously to help consolidate the conservative and rightist government that has come into office in Ukraine after the overthrow of the authoritarian regime of Victor Yanukovych 10 days ago.
The overthrow of the regime came about through a confluence of mass protests against its authoritarian rule and retrograde social and economic policies, and a very active intervention by right-wing and fascist political forces.
Since their founding in 1896, every Olympics has arrived with the promise to unite the world.
One can still hear the lyrical words of the man who presided over the 1936 Berlin games, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, who said that he hoped his Nazi Olympics could help 鈥渒nit the bonds of peace between nations鈥.
Hitler鈥檚 dreams of using the vessel of what is known as 鈥渢he Olympic Movement鈥 to create a harmonious world has tragically never come to pass, despite the best efforts of the aristocrats in the International Olympic Committee.
There are few people in the sports world I respect more than Cyd Zeigler, the founder of the website Outsports, which deals with the sporting lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender athletes.
I tweeted Zeigler's excellent article titled 鈥淒on鈥檛 Boycott Olympics Ban Russia From Competing Instead鈥 precisely because it was incisive and made me think. I do, however, feel that on principle I need to state that I strongly disagree with his central premise.
A Russian judge sentenced three members of Pussy Riot to two years each in prison on hooliganism charges on August 17.
The judge said the three band members, who have already been detained for five months, committed hooliganism driven by religious hatred and offending religious believers.
The women smiled sadly at the testimony of prosecution witnesses accusing them of sacrilege and 鈥渄evilish dances鈥 in church.
They remained calm after the judge announced the sentence and someone in the courtroom shouted: 鈥淪hame!鈥
In Russia, the winter of 2011-2012 was unusually stormy in the political sense. The results of both the parliamentary and presidential elections were clearly worked out in advance, and everything went as foreseen.
President Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party were confirmed in power. But the meetings and demonstrations of tens of thousands of people that took place regularly in Moscow and elsewhere over months placed this order in doubt.
Still more significant was the fact that, even after Putin鈥檚 win, the political struggle continued. In May, it intensified.
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