<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'>
<div><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">On Monday ST.</font></b></div>
<div><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><br>
</font></b></div>
<div><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Jaime</font></b></div>
<b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: large;"><font size="4">
<div><b style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: large;"><font size="4"><br>
</font></b></div>
United in Grief</font></b><br>
<div style="font-family: helvetica, arial; font-size: 10pt; color: black;">
<div id="AOLMsgPart_1_0426ab8d-8ee9-4229-8db9-81a7774a06bd"><font color="black" size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><b><font size="4"> </font></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is back before the
crowd in a Press Conference. The world
is united in grief, he said, this time over the downing of MH17, a 777-Boing
flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
Unfortunately, inclement weather re-routed its normal flight pattern and
was diverted instead over the war zone in Ukraine, on the eastern side
bordering towards Russia where pro-Russian separatist have declared their
independence from the Kiev government.</font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Ukraine since November of last year has been in
turmoil. It started over a trade
agreement it was ready to sign with EU that the then President Viktor
Yanukovych reneged to ink and turned to Moscow instead, for what he thought was
a more reasonable arrangement, given the countries dependence on Russia for its
gas. </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Ukraine west of Dnieper river is perceived to be pro-EU
(borders with Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova) while the
eastern part is pro-Russia, particularly Donets'k, Luhans'k, and Karkiv. Ukraine's capital Kiev sits astride the
Dnieper River that conveniently divides the State. Chernobyl, the site of the nuclear accident
in 1986 is northwest of Kiev near Belarus, from which the Dnieper comes from
originating in Smolensk of Russia. </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO actively tried
to get eastern European countries to join EU.
Many in Ukraine's west were eager to join. Russia's President Vladimir Putin is opposed
and had warned the west that there are certain parts of the former Soviet Union
that are none negotiable in terms of their membership in Moscow's sphere of
influence. Ukraine numbered amongst
them.</font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">When it was still the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic
within the Soviet Union, the State contributed Nikita Khrushchev who was born
in the small Russian town of Kalinovka on the border of Ukraine, and who later
became Ukraine's Commissar for Stalin after his involvement in the defense of
Russia in the Battle of Stalingrad vs. the German Nazis. It was Khrushchev who unilaterally attached
Russian Crimea into Ukraine. It is this
divide between the west and the east of Ukraine that has become the world's
headache in 2014.</font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">After President Yanukovych was ran out of Kiev by forces
friendly to EU, and sought asylum in Moscow, Russia took Crimea back and
pro-Russian separatist declared independence in Donets'k and Luhans'k. In the heat of an undeclared civil war,
pro-western Petro Poroshenko was elected President and had vowed not only to
regain the separatist regions of East Ukraine, but also, to get back Crimea
from Russia. The U.S. and NATO have
publicly declared their support of the Kiev government.</font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">In the last week, as Ukrainian armed forces battled
separatist groups, two ground-to-air missiles shot two Ukrainian planes from
the sky. Then an identified jet flying
at 32,000 was shot down, turning out to be a civilian plane. MH17 wandered into a war zone already avoided
by other commercial carriers for obvious reasons. Air controllers' diversion of MF17 to the war
zone from bad weather has now proved very costly. </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Here is a part of a transcript of an alleged intercepted
talk between Cossack Nikolay Kozitsin and a Russian intelligence adviser
released by Ukraine's government:</font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:31.5pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:27.0pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;color:#1E1E1E"><font size="4">“It has a Malaysia Airlines
logo on it, they say,” said the unidentified militant. “What was it doing in
Ukraine’s territory?”</font></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:31.5pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:27.0pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;color:#1E1E1E"><font size="4">To that,
Kozitsin is heard responding: “That means they were carrying spies, f**k them,
got it? They shouldn’t be f**king flying. There is a war going on.”</font></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:31.5pt;margin-bottom: 0in;margin-left:27.0pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;color:#1E1E1E"><font size="4"> </font></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Georgia;color:#1E1E1E">It
now appears that a ground-to-air missile struck MH17 and the </span>blame game
has flown thick ever since. Separatist
forces retrieved the plane's black box, have no way of deciphering it, nor are
they inclined to turn it over to Kiev, so it is believed to have been turned
over to the Russians across the border. </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">The manifest revealed 295 total passengers, listed as
citizens of the Netherlands (154), Malaysia (43), Australia (27), Indonesia
(12), UK (9), four each from Germany and Belgium, Philippines (3), Canada (1)
and 41 victims still unverified. All 15
Airline crew were Malaysians. </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Ironically, Mother Nature's fury added to the grief as
typhoon <i>Rammasun</i> (aka Glenda took 38
lives in the Philippines) ravaged the south of Manila, and raged ferociously
towards unprepared Hainan and Guangdong in southern China. Flights were grounded in Haikou and Hong
Kong. Boats at the Sanya port battened
down for the super typhoon, reputed to be the strongest so far to devastate the
region. Grief not only was on lost lives
but on the destruction of the region's economy and social structures, as well.</font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Meanwhile, Israel cleansed Hamas forces holed in tunnels in
Gaza. Israel does not recognize the U.S.
supported coalition government in Gaza that joined moderate Hamas led by Mahmoud
Abbas to the more radical jihadist combatants like al-Fatah.</font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Malaysia's PM Najib Razak was on the money when he said that
the world is again united in grief. In
Israel's case, it seems to have become endless.
In MH17, we are now looking for scapegoats.</font></div>
<br>
<div style="font-size: 18px; clear: both;"><i>j'aime la vie</i><br>
<a href="mailto:pinoypanda2031@aol.com">pinoypanda2031@aol.com</a><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
</div>
</div>
</font>
</div>
</div>
</font>