💭 Since 1453, when the Turks took Constantinople, patriarch of that city has been a puppet for the government. In our own time, the Turkish government used the Patriarch, Bartholomew, to permit the Ukrainians to have their own church independent of the Moscow Patriarchate. The story showed that the war between Russian and Turkey is not just over territory, but religion. Turkey wants to be the Vatican of the Eastern Orthodox world and to undermine the religious influence of the Moscow Patriarchate.
“They and their henchmen who are killing our people will never be forgiven. We will speak to them in the language of violence if they don’t understand otherwise. And produce more modern weapons. With these weapons we will grind up the Nazi scum that the West has produced in the 21st century. We will take revenge on every criminal for every murdered citizen of our country.”
President Zelensky stripped the 13 priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of their citizenship late last month and this week stripped several prominent opposition politicians of their Ukrainian citizenship as well, among them Viktor Medvedchuk, who was given to Russian authorities as part of a prisoner exchange in September of last year.
“I have decided to terminate the citizenship of four persons,” Zelensky stated earlier this week, with former MPs Andriy Derkach, Taras Kozak, and Renat Kuzmin also having their citizenship revoked by the government.
Medvedchuk had fled his home in the early days of the conflict with Russia and was arrested in April, accused of treason and attempting to leak military secrets to the Russians.
Derkach, Kozak, and Kuzmin have also been alleged to have ties to Russia or have supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Derkach, in particular, was also accused of smearing U.S. President Joe Biden regarding Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine, which involved work for the energy company Burisma for as much as $83,000 a month.
The stripping of citizenship of the opposition politicians comes after Zelensky stripped 13 Ukrainian Orthodox Church clergy of their citizenship, including the Metropolitan Archbishop of Tulchin and Bratslav, Ionafan, announcing the move last Saturday.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova did not mince words following the move by Kyiv: “And this is on Orthodox Christmas! This is pure Satanism.”
The move by the Zelensky government comes after it set its sights on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), a branch of Orthodoxy which retained links to the Patriarch of Moscow after the rival state-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was formed, heavily restricting the church late last year.
Since then, Ukrainian intelligence authorities have raided several Orthodox churches, leading to former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to comment: “The current Ukrainian authorities have openly become enemies of Christ and the Orthodox faith.”
Ukraine has claimed that the raids uncovered various materials, including pro-Russia literature and Nazi symbols.
The Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the state-backed church, “reclaimed” the Dormition Cathedral and the Refectory Church of the nearly 1,000-year-old Pechersk Lavra last week after the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was forced to give it up by the government.
Moscow’s Patriarch Kirill released a statement following the handover of the historic cathedral
asking believers to pray “for our brothers in Ukraine, who are being expelled today from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, that Lavra, which for centuries has been the guardian of true, undistorted Orthodoxy.”
💭 This, of course, will set off catastrophic supply chain collapse for the western world.
BASF has said it will have to downsize “permanently” in Europe, with high energy costs making the region increasingly uncompetitive.
“The European chemical market has been growing only weakly for about a decade [and] the significant increase in natural gas and power prices over the course of this year is putting pressure on chemical value chains,” chief executive Martin Brudermüller said on Wednesday.
Brudermüller said the European gas crisis, coupled with stricter industry regulations in the EU, was forcing the company to cut costs in the region “as quickly as possible and also permanently”.
There’s no way to sugar coat that. It’s a permanent downsizing of BASF. And according to additional sources, this is just the beginning of BASF’s abandoning Germany for good. The downsizing will continue to the point where there’s hardly any production happening in Europe at all.
After all, what choice do they have? With natural gas pipelines destroyed (by the USA), economic sanctions against Russia still in place, and lunatic greenie cultists demanding an end to human civilization, BASF has concluded it can no longer operate in Europe, a continent dominated by an actual death cult of climate lunatics and power-hungry political zealots.
Europe dies from this day forward
Today is the pivot point. Europe dies from here forward, and it doesn’t recover for generations. It’s done. Almost nobody realizes this yet, but the dominoes are already falling.
Europe is rapidly plunging into a continent on a collision course with total collapse: no industry, no supply chains, no energy, no metals, no fertilizer and no food. The “first world” status of Europe will be a distant memory after just 2-3 winters without food and energy, and once Europe’s industrial infrastructure is shuttered, there’s no easy way to bring it back online.
This is going to end in mass civil unrest, famine, pandemics and WAR. It will also see revolutions and the toppling of governments, currencies and entire economies. The house of cards is coming down.
💭 Two Dead, Four Missing after Explosion Rocks German Chemicals Site
One person is dead and four are missing after an explosion rocked an industrial park in the western German city of Leverkusen on Tuesday, sending dark plumes of smoke into the sky.
A fire at the Chempark site, which includes chemicals companies Bayer (BAYGn.DE) and Lanxess (LXSG.DE), had been extinguished after an explosion at 9.40 a.m. local time (0740 GMT), park operator Currenta said.
“We are deeply shaken by the tragic death of one colleague,” Chempark chief Lars Friedrich said in a series of tweets, adding that four more people were missing.
Emergency services have rescued 12 injured people and a further four who were seriously injured, said the city of Leverkusen, which lies north of Cologne. In addition, five people were missing, it said.
Welt TV, citing the city’s security authority, reported that one person was dead. It was unclear whether that was one of the missing.
The area around the site was sealed off and surrounded by emergency vehicles.
Police asked residents living nearby to stay indoors and shut doors and windows. Currenta said they should also turn off air conditioning systems while it measured the air around the site for possible toxic gases.
Currenta said it was not clear what had caused the explosion and subsequent fire. More information will be available at 1200 GMT.
Sirens and emergency alerts on the German civil protection agency’s mobile phone app warned citizens of “extreme danger”.
Leverkusen is less than 50 km (30 miles) from the region that was hit last week by catastrophic floods which left at least 180 people dead.
Several nearby motorways were closed, and police said drivers should take detours to avoid the area.
More than 30 companies operate at the Chempark site in Leverkusen, including Covestro (1COV.DE), Bayer, Lanxess and Arlanxeo, according to its website.
Bayer and Lanxess in 2019 sold Chempark operator Currenta to Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MQG.AX) for an enterprise value of 3.5 billion euros ($4.12 billion).
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 26, 2021
💭 Tigray conflict: Joint Statement by HR/VP Borrell and Commissioner Lenarčič on massacres in Axum
Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the Commission and Janez Lenarčič, Commissioner for Crisis Management, issued the following Joint Statement:
“Amnesty International issued a report today on atrocities that took place in Axum, Ethiopia, in November 2020. The report concludes that indiscriminate shelling and mass execution may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is another harrowing reminder of the violence that civilians in Tigray have been suffering since the onset of the conflict. We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, all crimes against civilians and call for the perpetrators to be swiftly brought to justice. We recall the obligation under International Humanitarian Law for all parties to ensure the protection of all civilians, including refugees and those internally displaced.
Hostilities must cease immediately and immediate, full and unfettered access to the whole of Tigray for all humanitarian actors and the media allowed. Since the outbreak of the conflict more than 100 days ago, thousands of civilians have lost their lives and reportedly 80% of the population remain cut off from external assistance, facing rising food insecurity and malnutrition. The level of suffering endured by civilians, including children, is appalling. This must cease immediately. Full access is essential to assess the situation on the ground and provide adequate protection and assistance to those who desperately need it.”
“Witnesses could easily identify the Eritrean forces. They drove vehicles with Eritrean license plates, wore distinctive camouflage and footwear used by the Eritrean army and spoke Arabic or a dialect of Tigrinya not spoken in Ethiopia. Some bore the ritual facial scars of the Ben Amir, an ethnic group absent from Ethiopia. Finally, some of the soldiers made no secret of their identity; they openly told residents they were Eritrean.”
Amnesty International interviewed 41 survivors and witnesses to mass killings in November
Troops carried out extrajudicial executions, indiscriminate shelling and widespread looting
Satellite imagery analysis shows evidence consistent with new burial sites
Eritrean troops fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray state systematically killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in the northern city of Axum on 28-29 November 2020, opening fire in the streets and conducting house-to-house raids in a massacre that may amount to a crime against humanity, Amnesty International said today in a new report.
Amnesty International spoke to 41 survivors and witnesses – including in-person interviews with recently arrived refugees in eastern Sudan and phone interviews with people in Axum – as well as 20 others with knowledge of the events. They consistently described extrajudicial executions, indiscriminate shelling and widespread looting after Ethiopian and Eritrean troops led an offensive to take control of the city amid the conflict with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in mid-November.
Satellite imagery analysis by the organization’s Crisis Evidence Lab corroborates reports of indiscriminate shelling and mass looting, as well as identifies signs of new mass burials near two of the city’s churches.
“The evidence is compelling and points to a chilling conclusion. Ethiopian and Eritrean troops carried out multiple war crimes in their offensive to take control of Axum. Above and beyond that, Eritrean troops went on a rampage and systematically killed hundreds of civilians in cold blood, which appears to constitute crimes against humanity,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa.
“This atrocity ranks among the worst documented so far in this conflict. Besides the soaring death toll, Axum’s residents were plunged into days of collective trauma amid violence, mourning and mass burials.”
The mass killings came just before the annual celebration at Axum Tsion Mariam, a major Ethiopian Orthodox Christian festival on 30 November, compounding the trauma by casting a pall over an annual event that typically draws many pilgrims and tourists to the sacred city.
Large-scale military offensive
Overview image of damage & debris around the city of Axum, in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, following an offensive by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces in November 2020.
On 19 November 2020, Ethiopian and Eritrean military forces took control of Axum in a large-scale offensive, killing and displacing civilians with indiscriminate shelling and shooting.
In the nine days that followed, the Eritrean military engaged in widespread looting of civilian property and extrajudicial executions.
Witnesses could easily identify the Eritrean forces. They drove vehicles with Eritrean license plates, wore distinctive camouflage and footwear used by the Eritrean army and spoke Arabic or a dialect of Tigrinya not spoken in Ethiopia. Some bore the ritual facial scars of the Ben Amir, an ethnic group absent from Ethiopia. Finally, some of the soldiers made no secret of their identity; they openly told residents they were Eritrean.
‘All we could see were dead bodies and people crying’
According to witnesses, the Eritrean troops unleashed the worst of the violence on 28-29 November. The onslaught came directly after a small band of pro-TPLF militiamen attacked the soldiers’ base on Mai Koho mountain on the morning of 28 November. The militiamen were armed with rifles and supported by residents brandishing improvised weapons, including sticks, knives and stones.
Sustained gunfire can be heard ringing out across the city in a video recorded early that day from several locations at the bottom of the mountain.
A 22-year-old man who wanted to bring food to the militia told Amnesty International: “The Eritrean soldiers were trained but the young residents didn’t even know how to shoot… a lot of the [local] fighters started running away and dropped their weapons. The Eritrean soldiers came into the city and started killing randomly.”
Survivors and witnesses said Eritrean forces deliberately and wantonly shot at civilians from about 4pm onwards on 28 November.
According to residents, the victims carried no weapons and many were running away from the soldiers when they were shot. One man who hid in an unfinished building said he saw a group of six Eritrean soldiers kill a neighbour with a vehicle-mounted heavy machine-gun on the street near the Mana Hotel: “He was standing. I think he was confused. They were probably around 10 metres from him. They shot him in the head.”
A 21-year-old male resident said: “I saw a lot of people dead on the street. Even my uncle’s family. Six of his family members were killed. So many people were killed.”
The killings left Axum’s streets and cobblestone plazas strewn with bodies. One man who had run out of the city returned at night after the shooting stopped. “All we could see on the streets were dead bodies and people crying,” he said.
On 29 November, Eritrean soldiers shot at anyone who tried to move the bodies of those killed.
The soldiers also continued to carry out house-to-house raids, hunting down and killing adult men, as well as some teenage boys and a smaller number of women. One man said he watched through his window and saw six men killed in the street outside his house on 29 November. He said the soldiers lined them up and shot from behind, using a light-machine gun to kill several at a time with a single bullet.
Interviewees named scores of people they knew who were killed, and Amnesty International has collected the names of more than 240 of the victims. The organization has been unable to independently verify the overall death toll, but consistent witness testimonies and corroborating evidence make it plausible that hundreds of residents were killed.
Burying the dead
Most of the burials took place on 30 November, but the process of collecting and burying the bodies lasted several days. Many residents said they volunteered to move the bodies on carts, in batches of five to 10 at a time; one said he transported 45 bodies. Residents estimate that several hundred people were buried in the aftermath of the massacre, and they attended funerals at several churches where scores were buried. Hundreds were buried at the largest funeral, held at the complex that includes the Arba’etu Ensessa church and the Axum Tsion St Mariam Church.
Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab geolocated a video showing people carrying a dead man on a stretcher in Da’Ero Ela Plaza (14.129918, 38.717113), towards Arba’etu Ensessa church. High-resolution satellite imagery from 13 December shows disturbed earth consistent with recent graves around the Arba’etu Ensessa and the Abune Aregawi churches.
Intimidation and looting
In the days following the burials, the Eritrean army rounded up hundreds of residents in different parts of the city. They beat some of the men, threatening them with a new round of revenge killings if they resisted.
Axum residents witnessed a surge in the Eritrean army’s looting during this period, targeting stores, public buildings including a hospital, and private homes. Luxury goods and vehicles were widely looted, as well as medication, furniture, household items, food, and drink.
International humanitarian law (the laws of war) prohibits deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate attacks, and pillage (looting). Violations of these rules constitute war crimes. Unlawful killings that form part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population are crimes against humanity.
“As a matter of urgency, there must be a UN-led investigation into the grave violations in Axum. Those suspected of responsibility for war crimes or crimes against humanity must be prosecuted in fair trials and victims and their families must receive full reparation,” said Deprose Muchena.“We repeat our call on the Ethiopian government to grant full and unimpeded access across Tigray for humanitarian, human rights, and media organizations.”
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