New Canadian movie sheds light on horror of Stalinist Holodomor famine.

New Canadian movie sheds light on horror of Stalinist Holodomor famine. (Kievpost).

“Bitter Harvest,” the first major movie about the genocidal artificial famine engineered by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in the 1930s, comes to cinemas in Ukraine and the U.S. in February 2017.

“Bitter Harvest” tells the story of two villagers, Yuri and Natalka – lovers, whose peaceful life is destroyed by the Soviet authorities, and who battle to survive the artificial famine, known in Ukraine as the Holodomor.


In times when a person could go to jail just for stealing a single ear of corn, Yuri becomes a key figure in the resistance against the Soviet oppressors.

The film shows how Ukrainian villagers were forced to give their whole harvest to the Soviet authorities, being left with no food at all. Those who kept any food were imprisoned or exiled to Siberia. People were also banned from leaving the rural areas so they couldn’t escape the famine.

The estimated number of people in Ukraine who starved to death in 1932-1933 varies from 2 million to 10 million.

Most Ukrainian historians believe that the Holodomor was Stalin’s attempt to strangle Ukraine’s nationalist movement and anti-Soviet protests by villagers.

Despite taking the lives of millions of people, the famine was kept secret by the Soviet authorities and only came to light after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

“This would mean the death of millions,” a Soviet official says in the movie trailer, planning the starvation.“Who in the world will know?” Stalin replies.

The Ukrainian parliament declared the Holodomor an act of genocide in 2003. The same year, the United Nations issued a declaration that the Holodomor was a Ukrainian national tragedy caused by the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union. Read the full story here.

Video - Next time you complain that there is nothing to eat.

Next time you complain that there is nothing to eat. pic.twitter.com/zPuyPDiaTN

— ﷽ |Mirnes Basic| (@BasMirnes) October 9, 2015

'It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.' - Albert Einstein 

NO This is not GAZA But Syria, Already now some Palestinians are using this as a means to ask for aid, shows what kind of 'people' they are.

  Source     HT:

Sweet God - look at this video: whilst the world is playing its power games...... https://t.co/iDpa1t5xFR

— TRACterrorism.org (@TRACterrorism) October 9, 2015

Next time you complain that there is nothing to eat. pic.twitter.com/zPuyPDiaTN

— ﷽ |Mirnes Basic| (@BasMirnes) October 9, 2015

Ecosystem crisis: Bees dying by the millions in Canada – cause unknown?

Ecosystem crisis: Bees dying by the millions in Canada – cause unknown?(ThePost).

ELMWOOD - Local beekeepers are finding millions of their bees dead just after corn was planted here in the last few weeks. Dave Schuit, who has a honey operation in Elmwood, lost 600 hives, a total of 37 million bees.

“Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions,” Schuit said. He and many others, including the European Union, are pointing the finger at a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc. used in planting corn and some other crops. The European Union just recently voted to ban these insecticides for two years, beginning December 1, 2013, to be able to study how it relates to the large bee kill they are experiencing there also.
Local grower Nathan Carey from the Neustadt, and National Farmers Union Local 344 member, says he noticed this spring the lack of bees and bumblebees on his farm. He believes that there is a strong connection between the insecticide use and the death of pollinators.

“I feel like we all have something at stake with this issue,” he said. He is organizing a public workshop and panel discussion about this problem at his farm June 22 at 10 a.m. He hopes that all interested parties can get together and talk about the reason bees, the prime pollinators of so any different plant species, are dying.

At the farm of Gary Kenny, south west of Hanover, eight of the 10 hives he kept for a beekeeper out of Kincardine, died this spring just after corn was planted in neighbouring fields.
What seems to be deadly to bees is that the neonicotinoid pesticides are coating corn seed and with the use of new air seeders, are blowing the pesticide dust into the air when planted. The death of millions of pollinators was looked at by American Purdue University. They found that, “Bees exhibited neurotoxic symptoms, analysis of dead bees revealed traces of thiamethoxam/clothianidin in each case. Seed treatments of field crops (primarily corn) are the only major source of these compounds.
Local investigations near Guelph, led to the same conclusion. A Pest Management Regulatory Agency investigation confirmed that corn seeds treated with clothianidin or thiamethoxam “contributed to the majority of the bee mortalities” last spring.
“The air seeders are the problem,” said Ontario Federation of Agriculture director Paul Wettlaufer, who farms near Neustadt. This was after this reporter called John Gillespie, OFA Bruce County president, who told me to call Wettlaufer. Unfortunately, Wettlaufer said it was, “not a local OFA issue,” and that it was an issue for the Grain Farmers of Ontario and representative, Hennry Vanakum should be notified. Vanakum could not be rached for comment.
Yet Guelph University entomologist Peter Kevan, disagreed with the EU ban.
“There’s very little evidence to say that neonicotinoids, in a very general sense, in a broad scale sense, have been a major component in the demise of honeybees or any other pollinators, anywhere in the world,” said Kevan.
But research is showing that honeybee disorders and high colony losses have become a global phenomena. An international team of scientists led by Holland’s Utrecht University concluded that, ”Large scale prophylaxic use in agriculture, their high persistence in soil and water, and their uptake by plants and translocation to flowers, neonicotinoids put pollinator services at risk.” This research and others rsulted in the Eurpean Union ban.
The United Church is also concerned about the death of so many pollinators and has prepared a “Take Action” paper it’s sending out to all its members. The church is basing its action on local research. The Take Action paper states among other things, “Scientific information gathered suggests that the planting of corn seeds treated with neonicotinoids contributed to the majority of the bee mortalities that occurred in corn growing regions of Ontario and Quebec in Spring 2012.”
Meanwhile Schuit is replacing his queen bees every few months now instead of years, as they are dying so frequently. “OMAFRA tells me to have faith. Well, I think it’s criminal what is happening, and it’s hard to have faith if it doesn’t look like they are going to do anything anyway,” Schuit says.

North Korea threatens pre-emptive nuclear strike.

North Korea threatens preemptive nuclear strike.(GM).North Korea on Thursday vowed to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States, amplifying its threatening rhetoric hours ahead of a vote by U.N. diplomats on whether to level new sanctions against Pyongyang for its recent nuclear test.

An unidentified spokesman for Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said the North will exercise its right for “a pre-emptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors” because Washington is pushing to start a nuclear war against the North.

Although North Korea boasts of nuclear bombs and pre-emptive strikes, it is not thought to have mastered the ability to produce a warhead small enough to put on a missile capable of reaching the U.S. It is believed to have enough nuclear fuel, however, for several crude nuclear devices.

Such inflammatory rhetoric is common from North Korea, and especially so in recent days. North Korea is angry over the possible sanctions and over upcoming U.S.-South Korean military drills. At a mass rally in Pyongyang on Thursday, tens of thousands of North Koreans protested the U.S.-South Korean war drills and sanctions.The UN Security Council is set to impose a fourth round of sanctions against Pyongyang in a fresh attempt to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, said the council will vote on the draft sanctions resolution Thursday morning.

Meanwhile North Korea is conducting a series of military drills and is getting ready for state-wide war practice of an unusual scale, South Korea's defence ministry said on Thursday, as tensions grow ahead of more sanctions being devised against Pyongyang. South Korea's military said in a rare warning on Wednesday that it would strike back at the North and target its leadership if Pyongyang launched an attack in response to what it says are "hostile" drills by the U.S. and South forces.Read the full story here.

North Korea bans flights, sailing off coasts, indicating possible drills.

North Korea bans flights, sailing off coasts, indicating possible drills.(Yahoo).SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has set no-fly and no-sail zones off its east and west coasts that indicates it will conduct major military drills, but test firing of short-to-medium-range missiles cannot be ruled out, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Wednesday.

"The North's military ... is preparing large-scale combined military exercises so it may have blocked off the areas for nautical firing or fighter jet firing exercises," Yonhap quoted a South Korean government source as saying."But the firing of missiles cannot be ruled out."

One of North Korea's top generals, in a rare appearance on state television on Tuesday, said Pyongyang had torn up its armistice deal with Washington and threatened military action against the U.S. and South Korea if military drills between the two countries continued. The military exercises began on March 1.

North Korea’s threat to scrap the cease-fire next Monday still matters because the armistice is the key document blocking hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, which technically has remained in a state of war for six decades.

If North Korea follows through on its threat to nullify the document that set up the heavily armed buffer zone between the rival Koreas, it could drive badly frayed relations even lower. The threat comes as diplomats at the U.N. negotiate sanctions aimed at punishing Pyongyang for its recent nuclear test and as allies Washington and Seoul plan massive war games set to start Monday. Here’s a look at what the North’s threat could mean for the Korean Peninsula’s fragile peace.Read the full story here, more here.

Video - North Korea video shows US city resembling New York, engulfed in flames after an apparent missile attack.

Video - North Korea video shows US city resembling New York, engulfed in flames after an apparent missile attack.(INN).North Korea, poised to conduct a nuclear test in the coming days, has posted a video on YouTube depicting a city in the United States, resembling New York, engulfed in flames after an apparent missile attack.

The footage was uploaded Saturday by the North's official website, Uriminzokkiri, which distributes news and propaganda from the state media.

The video is shot as a dream sequence, with a young man seeing himself on board a North Korean space shuttle launched into orbit by the same type of rocket Pyongyang successfully tested in December, AFP reported.

As the shuttle circles the globe -- to the tune of "We Are the World" -- the video zooms in on countries below, including a joyfully re-unified Korea.

The focus then switches to a city -- shrouded in an American flag -- under apparent missile attack on its skyscrapers, including what appears to be the Empire State Building, which appears to be either on fire or in ruins.
"Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing," runs the caption across the screen, as quoted by AFP.

"It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze with the fire started by itself," it added.

The video ends with the young man concluding that his dream will "surely come true"."Despite all kinds of attempts by imperialists to isolate and crush us... never will anyone be able to stop the people marching toward a final victory," it said.

The North is expected to conduct its nuclear test as a defiant response to UN imposed sanctions following its December rocket launch.Hmmmm......"Have Nuclear weapons capability, will Nuke for food?" Read the full story here.

North Korean Leader Seeks End to Confrontation with South.

North Korean Leader Seeks End to Confrontation with South.(Fars).The address by Kim, who took over power in the state after his father, Kim Jong-il, died in 2011, appeared to take the place of the policy-setting New Year editorial published in leading state newspapers, Reuters reported.
"An important issue in putting an end to the division of the country and achieving its reunification is to remove confrontation between the North and the South," Kim said.
"The past records of inter-Korean relations show that confrontation between fellow countrymen leads to nothing but war".
The New Year address was the first in 19 years by a North Korean leader after the death of Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-un's grandfather.
Kim Jong-il rarely spoke in public and disclosed his national policy agenda in editorials in state newspapers.
“(Kim’s statement) apparently contains a message that he has an intention to dispel the current face-off (between the two Koreas), which could eventually be linked with the North’s call for aid (from the South),” said Kim Tae-woo, a North Korea expert at the state-funded Korea Institute for National Unification.
“But such a move does not necessarily mean any substantive change in the North Korean regime’s policy towards the South.”
Last month, South Korea elected as President Park Geun-hye.Park has vowed to pursue engagement with the South and called for dialogue to build confidence.Hmmmm.......Winter he needs food. Read the full story here, more here.

N.Korea Executed at Least 3 Cannibals in Recent Years.

N.Korea Executed at Least 3 Cannibals in Recent Years.(YHN).North Korea has held public executions of at least three people on charges of cannibalism in recent years, a South Korean state-run institute said Thursday, the latest development that could support what has long been rumored in the isolated country. There have been accounts among North Korean defectors in the South that some North Koreans ate and sold human flesh during the massive famine in the late 1990s that was estimated to have killed 2 million people. A North Korean man in the northeastern city of Hyesan was executed in December 2009 for killing a preteen girl and eating her flesh, the Korea Institute for National Unification said in a white paper on human rights in North Korea, which is set to be released next week. The man committed the crime because of a lack of food following Pyongyang's botched currency reform in late 2009 that caused massive inflation and worsened food shortages, the white paper said, citing an interview with an unidentified defector in June last year. The institute held in-depth interviews with 230 North Korean defectors in the South last year as part of efforts to glean fresh information on the North's situation ahead of publication of its annual white paper. The interviewees account for just a fraction of the more than 23,500 North Korean defectors who have settled in the South since the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. The white paper, the gist of which was obtained by Yonhap News Agency, also said a father and his son were shot to death in the eastern town of Doksong in 2006 on charges of eating human flesh, citing an eyewitness account of a North Korean defector. The institute also said there was an account of cannibalism in the country's northeastern town of Musan in 2011, though it was not known whether any punishment was meted out. Last year, Caleb Mission, a small South Korean missionary group, unveiled a 2009 North Korean police document, which, among other things, chronicled several cases of cannibalism amid an acute food shortage in the communist country. In one account, a male guard who could not bear his hunger killed his colleague using an ax, ate some of the human flesh and sold the remainder in the market by disguising it as mutton, the North Korean police report said, without giving any further details such as when the alleged crime occurred. A former North Korean official who defected to the South 2001 said Thursday that he heard about more than a dozen cases of cannibalism from a North Korean intelligence official around 1999.Read the full story here.