Hizballah has got hold of chemical weapons

For the first time in many years, voices in the US administration were criticizing the Israeli defense forces for under-reacting and, in this case, also underestimating the chemical weapons threat emanating from Syria and neglecting to pursue counter-measures. This is what visiting Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak heard when he met US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon Tuesday, March 5, as the new defense secretary’s first foreign visitor.

DEBKAfile’s military and Washington sources disclose that Barak was berated for “inadequate and cursory” military preparations which failed to take into account that a chemical attack on Israel would make it necessary for the IDF to enter Syria – most likely for an offensive operation coordinated against the common threat with the Turkish and Jordanian armies.

Present at the meeting between Hagel and Barak were also Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff and Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. Our sources add that the conversation ranged over the Syrian crisis with no reference to a nuclear Iran.
From the defense secretary, Barak heard intelligence estimates confirmed for the first time by an American official that Hizballah has been able to procure a quantity of chemical weapons from Syria – a development which Israel’s leaders have vowed to prevent.

The proliferation of chemical weapons to HIzballah and other armed bands on Israel’s borders was apparently in the mind of Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin, UN Security Council president for March, when he cautioned Monday that trouble was building up between Israel and Syria.
Read DEBKAfile’s earlier report:

At UN Center in New York, Israeli and Russian delegates separately warned Monday, March 4, of a dangerous situation developing in the area of separation on the Golan captured by Israel in the 1967 war. Syrian troops were forbidden to enter this area under a ceasefire formalized in 1974 between Syria and Israel.

Israeli UN Ambassador Ron Prosor complained to the Security Council about five shells fired from this very area which landed in Israel Saturday, March 2. "Israel cannot be expected to stand idle as the lives of its citizens are being put at risk by the Syrian government's reckless actions," Proser wrote in a Note to the council. "Israel has shown maximum restraint thus far."

Russia’s UN Ambasador Vitaly Churkin then spoke of “a very new and dangerous phenomenon” of armed groups operating in the Golan area of separation. “It’s something which potentially can undermine security between Syria and Israel,” said Churkin, who is acting Security Council president for March. He pointed out that the UN peacekeeping force is unarmed and unable to cope with this new situation. Israel and Syria are technically in a state of war.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources note that the exchange of warnings between Israel and Russia touched two sensitive nerves:

1. It occurred the day before definitive talks open in Moscow between the Syrian government and opposition. The Russians fear Israel might embark on military action in response to the round of shells fired from the Syrian Golan Saturday, and force a delay in the talks. The last time this happened, in late January, Israel reacted with a cross-border attack on Syrian military installations.
2. Saturday, too, DEBKAfile exposed the no-man’s lands unfolding along Syria’s borderlands with Israel and Jordan following the withdrawal of the bulk of Syrian forces from these areas. Moscow fears additionally that Israel’s armed forces will seize strategic points in the abandoned territory to clear out armed bands of the pro-al Qaeda Jabhat al Nusra, which are believed responsible for the latest round of shelling into the Israeli Golan.
Churkin’s warning referred to “armed groups” as the potential troublemakers, but he was also cautioning Israel to desist from fighting back so as not to upset Moscow’s diplomatic initiative for resolving the Syrian civil war.

DEBKAfile

Russia and Israel each warn trouble building up on Golan border

At UN Center in New York, Israeli and Russian delegates separately warned Monday, March 4, of a dangerous situation developing in the area of separation on the Golan captured by Israel in the 1967 war. Syrian troops were forbidden to enter this area under a ceasefire formalized in 1974 between Syria and Israel.

Israeli UN Ambassador Ron Prosor complained to the Security Council about five shells fired from this very area which landed in Israel Saturday, March 2. "Israel cannot be expected to stand idle as the lives of its citizens are being put at risk by the Syrian government's reckless actions," Proser wrote in a Note to the council. "Israel has shown maximum restraint thus far."

Russia’s UN Ambasador Vitaly Churkin then spoke of “a very new and dangerous phenomenon” of armed groups operating in the Golan area of separation. “It’s something which potentially can undermine security between Syria and Israel,” said Churkin, who is acting Security Council president for March. He pointed out that the UN peacekeeping force is unarmed and unable to cope with this new situation. Israel and Syria are technically in a state of war.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources note that the exchange of warnings between Israel and Russia touched two sensitive nerves:

1. It occurred the day before definitive talks open in Moscow between the Syrian government and opposition. The Russians fear Israel might embark on military action in response to the round of shells fired from the Syrian Golan Saturday, and force a delay in the talks. The last time this happened, in late January, Israel reacted with a cross-border attack on Syrian military installations.
2. Saturday, too, DEBKAfile exposed the no-man’s lands unfolding along Syria’s borderlands with Israel and Jordan following the withdrawal of the bulk of Syrian forces from these areas. Moscow fears additionally that Israel’s armed forces will seize strategic points in the abandoned territory to clear out armed bands of the pro-al Qaeda Jabhat al Nusra, which are believed responsible for the latest round of shelling into the Israeli Golan.
Churkin’s warning referred to “armed groups” as the potential troublemakers, but he was also cautioning Israel to desist from fighting back so as not to upset Moscow’s diplomatic initiative for resolving the Syrian civil war.

DEBKAfile

You only think you know what's coming...EXO-VATICANA (Part No15)

Last Sunday, Pope Benedict stood before a crowd of 50-thousand people and announced: “The time of testing is here.” This oblique reference to the start of great tribulation reflects our previous work, Petrus Romanus, in which we carefully detailed a prophecy by Malachy O’Morgair, or “Saint Malachy” as he is known to Catholics, having to do with “the last pope.”

The Prophecy of the Popes, hidden for hundreds of years inside the highly guarded vaults of the Vatican library contains a list of Latin verses predicting each of the Roman Catholic popes from Pope Celestine II to the final pope, Petrus Romanus or “Peter the Roman,” whose reign assists the rise of Antichrist and ends in the destruction of Rome. According to this nine-hundred-year-old prophecy, the pope following Benedict XVI is this final pontiff. The last segment of the prophecy reads:

In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit Peter the Roman, who will nourish the sheep in many tribulations; when they are finished, the City of Seven Hills will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The End.[i]

While investigating this mysterious prophecy, we learned of the long line of other Roman Catholic leaders who, down through time, also foresaw Rome being destroyed after becoming an engine of the Antichrist. A remarkable example of this was Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, who delivered a series of lectures in 1861 under the title, “The Present Crises of the Holy See Tested by Prophecy,” in which he predicted a future crisis in the Roman Catholic Church resulting in apostasy and the rise of the False Prophet and Antichrist. Of the prophecy in the book of Revelation (chapter 18) concerning the end-time destruction of Mystery Babylon, Manning wrote:

We read in the Book Apocalypse, of the city of Rome, that she said in the pride of her heart, “I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and sorrow I shall not see. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day: death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be burned with fire, because God is strong who shall judge her.” Some of the greatest writers of the Church tell us that…the great City of Seven Hills…the city of Rome will probably become apostate…and that Rome will again be punished, for he will depart from it; and the judgment of God will fall.[ii]

Manning continued, explaining how Catholicism’s greatest theologians agreed with this point of view:

The apostasy of the city of Rome…and its destruction by Antichrist may be thoughts so new to many Catholics, that I think it well to recite the text of theologians, of greatest repute. First, Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject, states as the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Viegas, Suarez, Bellarmine, and Bosius, that Rome shall apostatize from the faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ, and return to its ancient paganism. Malvenda’s words are:

But Rome itself in the last times of the world will return to its ancient idolatry, power, and imperial greatness. It will cast out its Pontiff, altogether apostatize from the Christian faith, terribly persecute the Church, shed the blood of martyrs more cruelly than ever, and will recover its former state of abundant wealth, or even greater than it had under its first rulers.

Lessius says: “In the time of Antichrist, Rome shall be destroyed, as we see openly from the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse;” and again: “The woman whom thou sawest is the great city, which hath kingdom over the kings of the earth, in which is signified Rome in its impiety, such as it was in the time of St. John, and shall be again at the end of the world.” And Bellarmine: “In the time of Antichrist, Rome shall be desolated and burnt, as we learn from the sixteenth verse of the seventeenth chapter of the Apocalypse.” On which words the Jesuit Erbermann comments as follows: “We all confess with Bellarmine that the Roman people, a little before the end of the world, will return to paganism, and drive out the Roman Pontiff.”

Viegas, on the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse says: “Rome, in the last age of the world, after it has apostatized from the faith, will attain great power and splendor of wealth, and its sway will be widely spread throughout the world, and flourish greatly. Living in luxury and the abundance of all things, it will worship idols, and be steeped in all kinds of superstition, and will pay honor to false gods. And because of the vast effusion of the blood of martyrs which was shed under the emperors, God will most severely and justly avenge them, and it shall be utterly destroyed, and burned by a most terrible and afflicting conflagration.”[iii]

With the forthcoming election of Petrus Romanus on everybody’s mind and not yet knowing who the Final Pope that leads Rome into destruction and great tribulation described by Catholic seers above will actually be, we should remind readers of the 61-year old codex we uncovered in our book Petrus Romanus (this book in French and English comes free on the data DVDs that will be given away with Exo-Vaticana - read more here). It was written by Jesuit academic Rene Thibaut in 1958 and contains an intriguing suggestion that the next pope will either be named ‘Pius’ or will somehow be related to a pope of that name from the past. Commenting on just one of the hidden anagrams he discovered in the Prophecy of the Popes, he observes, “Note that this way of dividing the words to sort various meanings is a method dear to the ancient Irish.”[iv] A simple example of an anagram is seen in the Latin text “Peregrinus apostolicus”[v] which was the prophecy for the ninety-sixth pope on the list, Pius VI. The anagram not only reveals the papal name, it does it twice: PeregIinUSaPostolIcUS. That’s right! The name “Pius” is rather transparently embedded in the original Latin text twice, which is rather astounding considering we have a published copy of the Prophecy of the Popes dated almost two hundred years before Pius VI was elected. Furthermore, Thibaut argues the encrypted couplet within “Apostolic pilgrim” signifies both Pius VI and the very next pope Pius VII who were both forced into foreign exile (i.e., pilgrims). He also suggests that the repetition serves as a poetic refrain. In other words, “Pius! Pius!” is similar to the excited binary “Mayday, Mayday!” that sailors cry out in dire circumstances.[vi]

With this in mind, we pointed readers last year to the electrifying visions of another pope named Pius—Pope Pius X who served as pope from 1903 to 1914 and who saw a papal successor carrying the same name Piusfleeing Rome over the bodies of dead priests at the onset of the end times. Pius X is widely reported to have said:

What I have seen is terrifying! Will I be the one, or will it be a successor? What is certain is that the Pope will leave Rome and, in leaving the Vatican, he will have to pass over the dead bodies of his priests! Do not tell anyone this while I am alive.[vii]

In a second vision during an audience with the Franciscan order in 1909, Pope Pius X appeared to fall into a trance. After a few moments, he opened his eyes and rose to his feet, announcing:

I have seen one of my successors, of the same name [a future pope named Pius], who was fleeing over the dead bodies of his brethren. He will take refuge in some hiding place; but after a brief respite, he will die a cruel death. Respect for God has disappeared from human hearts. They wish to efface even God’s memory. This perversity is nothing less than the beginning of the last days of the world.[viii]

The third part of the Secret of Fátima, which was supposedly released in total by the Vatican June 26, 2000, seems to echo the visions of Pius X. A section of the material reads:

…before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions.[ix]

The conceptual framework of these visions and their validity is volatile among many Catholics who believe Rome is complicit in an intentional cover-up involving the true Third Secret of Fátima as well as other suppressed Catholic foresights that are rife with wildly different predictions concerning the future prophetic role of the Roman Catholic Church. Marian apparitions, visions by popes, interpretations by cardinals of the apocalypse, and approved mystical prophecies often stand at odds with recent Vatican publications. Even the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” approved by the Church and promulgated by Pope John Paul II (released in English in 1994, the first catechism in more than four hundred years), which draws on the Bible, the mass, the sacraments, traditions, teachings, and the lives of the saints, states under the section The Church’s Ultimate Trial:

675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the mystery of iniquity in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the Truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in the place of God and his Messiah who has come in the flesh.[x]

Recent Catholic priests have confirmed these visions of destroyed apostate Rome, some pointing to the conclave and the inevitable danger of the False Prophet rising from within the ranks of Catholicism. These were also discussed in the 2012 book, Petrus Romanus as:

Father E. Sylvester Berry, whose book The Apocalypse of Saint John foretold the usurpation of the papacy by a false prophet; Father Herman Bernard Kramer, whose work The Book of Destinypainted a terrifying scenario in which Satan enters the church and assassinates the true pope (possibly during conclave) in order that his false pope can rise to rule the world; as well as similar beliefs by priests like Father John F. O’Connor, Father Alfred Kunz, and Father Malachi Martin.… In a two-hour presentation (available on DVD), Father O’Connor gave a homily titled “The Reign of the Antichrist,” in which he described how changes within [the Roman Catholic] institution were already at work before his death to provide for the coming of Antichrist. (brackets in original)[xi]

 

O’Connor’s worst fears have certainly been realized. An associate of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI who is considered one of the most important Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, Hans Urs von Balthasar, wrote a provocative essay, “Casta Meretrix,” (“Chaste Harlot”)that not only identified the Roman Catholic Church as the Great Harlot, but embraced it:

The figure of the prostitute [forma meretricis] is so appropriate for the Church…that it…defines the Church of the New Covenant in her most splendid mystery of salvation. The fact that the Synagogue left the Holy Land to go and be among the pagans was an infidelity of Jerusalem, the fact that “she opened her legs in every road in the world.”

But this same movement, which brings her to all the peoples, is the mission of the Church. She must unite and merge herself with every people, and this new apostolic form of union cannot be avoided.[xii]

While the embrace of whoredom is astonishing, the convicting words of prophecy, “Come out of her, my people, That ye be not partakers of her sins, And that ye receive not of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4), seem to forecast such apostasy. In the next entry we will re-examine what was happening around the Fatima prophecies and whether Pope Benedict himself—and the man that wants to be Petrus Romanus—have, all along, held deep secrets concerning the upcoming conclave toward world-spanning ramifications.

Raidersnewsupdate.com

Obama Gives $250 Million To Muslim Brotherhood

CAIRO (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday rewarded Egypt for President Mohammed Morsi’s pledges of political and economic reforms by releasing $250 million in American aid to support the country’s “future as a democracy.”

After meeting Morsi and his defense and intelligence chiefs on Sunday, Kerry flew to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and planned later stops in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, where his focus is expected to be the crisis in Syria and Iran. source – AP

With Passover Approaching, a Plague of Locusts Descends Upon Egypt

Just like in the bible, imagine that

“And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievouswere they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such.” Exodus 10:14

As if we hadn’t already seen enough Biblical events this year, a plague of over 30 million locusts swarmed over Egypt’s cities and farms just three weeks before Passover begins.


A plague of locusts hit Egypt March 2013

But put your apocalyptic fears to rest. This happens every year as part of the locusts’ natural migration pattern, though this year’s swarm is especially large.

That doesn’t mean Egyptians aren’t freaked the heck out by millions of nasty bugs buzzing through the air at all hours of day and night, possibly descending upon the agriculture fields where they’re known to destroy entire crops, just like in the actual Passover story.

The crops are so far safe, Egyptian officials assured the public. As the plague made its way from the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia at the end of last week and this weekend, though, Egyptian Agricultural Minister Salah Abdel Moamen explained the situation to the country in a calmly worded statement.

“The current inspection teams at areas targeted by locusts did not witness swarms damaging a single inch of crop,” said Moamen. He added that the locusts are “sexually immature and do not depend on plants for energy since they mainly rely on fat stores.”x



That said, these plages can be unpredictable. Egyptian officials didn’t expect the plague to pass by the country’s capital, until Sunday when the locusts unexpectedly arrived in Cairo. The government denied reports that the locusts had started devastating crops as well as a report from United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) that the Ministry of Agriculture cleared 11,000 hectares of land in an attempt to save the harvest. When they get hungry, a one-ton hoard of locusts can eat the same amount of food in one day as 2,500 humans, according to the UN. Egypt knows this too. Less than a decade ago, a plague of locusts nearly 40 miles wide swept over Egypt damaging crops at the majority of the country’s farms. That’s a picture of it, to the right.

Conflicting reports aside, Moamen insists that the government has everything under control. “Egyptian armed forces and the border guards are attempting to fight the swarm with the means at their disposal,” the agriculture minister said. “I ask the families living in the locust-plagued areas not to burn tires. This does not chase away the locusts, but only causes damage and could ignite large scale fires that would cost in lives.” Also, that smoke isn’t doing Egypt’s grandchildren any favors. Scientists anticipate that, as global warming worsens, plagues like this will also get worse. source – The Atlantic Wire

Iran is No. 1 threat in Middle East

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East told Congress on Tuesday that Iran is the top threat to prosperity and stability in the region.

“Despite significant economic sanctions and increased diplomatic isolation within the global community, Iran continues to export instability and violence across the region and beyond,” Marine Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Gen. Mattis noted Iran’s potential nuclear threat, its maritime threat to regional sea lanes, its cache of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, its network of illicit activities throughout the Middle East, and its growing malicious cyberactivities.

He also warned any potential enemy against trying to take advantage of the United States’ reduced aircraft carrier presence in the Middle East. The Pentagon has opted to keep one carrier, instead of two, in the region in order to meet budget demands.

“That would be very ill-advised,” Gen. Mattis said. “It would be their longest and their worst day.”

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/5/marine-gen-james-mattis-iran-no-1-threat-middle-ea/#ixzz2MiV3q3y5

Russians Conduct Huge Nuke Drill

Russian nuclear forces conducted a major exercise last month that tested the transport of both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons near Europe, according to United States officials.

The exercise raised concerns inside the Pentagon and with the U.S. European Command because it was the largest exercise of its kind in 20 years and involved heightened alert status of Russian nuclear forces.

The nuclear drills were part of other military maneuvers in Russia carried out between Feb. 17 and Feb. 21.

The exercises followed a recent surge in Russian strategic bomber flights that include a recent circling of the U.S. Pacific island of Guam by two Tu-95 Bear bomber and simulated bombing runs by Tu-95s against Alaska and California in June and July.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Wesley P. Miller sought to play down the nuclear exercise but declined to comment on the movement of nuclear weapons and whether nuclear forces went on a heightened state of alert. “We don’t comment on intelligence matters,” he said.

Miller said the nuclear forces maneuvers were “nothing to be concerned about because the Russians, like us, have routine exercises and inspections.”

However, a U.S. official said the exercise was a concern within the U.S. national security community because of the scale of the exercise and the number of weapons being moved. “Certainly it’s a concern when you have this kind of exercise going on,” this official said.

The official said another worry is that Russia appears to be increasing the readiness of its nuclear forces at a time when the U.S. nuclear complex is in urgent need of upgrading and the military is facing sharp automatic defense cuts that could affect U.S. nuclear forces readiness in the future.

Contractors and employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs the nuclear weapons complex, were notified of possible furloughs under automatic spending cuts that went into effect March 1, the Hillr eported Thursday.

Miller said the administration remains committed to a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent. “The administration will ensure continued focus on maintaining a strong nuclear deterrent as part of the president’s comprehensive approach to nuclear security,” under sequester, as the automatic spending cuts are called.

He quoted past Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as saying that no decisions on how cuts will be made but that “nothing will be off the table in our review of how best to proceed.”

According to the officials, the exercise involved Russia’s secretive 12th Main Directorate of the Defense Ministry, known by its acronym as 12th GUMO, the main military unit in charge of all nuclear weapons.

Details of the nuclear exercise are classified, but officials said the 12th GUMO transported a large number of nuclear arms from some of its nuclear munitions depots to storage sites during the exercises.

It could not be learned if the Russians provided advance notification of the strategic exercises.

Declassified U.S. intelligence reports have identified three large nuclear storage facilities near Europe, including one that is located miles from the intersection of the Rusisan, Latvian, and Belarusian borders. Two other nuclear storage complexes close to Europe are located at Zhukovka, near Belarus, and at Golovchino, near the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

The nuclear training coincided with the visit to Moscow by Rose Gottemoeller, acting undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, to discuss a new round of U.S.-Russian strategic arms talks.

The exercise did not come up during the meeting between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Berlin Feb. 26.

Arms control experts say the Russians are required to notify the United States under the New START treaty of major strategic nuclear exercises that involve bomber flights.

It is not known whether the nuclear weapons were transported by air, rail, or truck during the 12th GUMO exercise.

Chief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov mentioned the nuclear exercise Feb. 22 when he said a surprise inspection of both conventional and nuclear forces was held.

Gerasimov said the exercises involved the 12th GUMO and the Central and Southern military districts and that they were the largest maneuvers of its kind in 20 years.

The drills began with orders for forces to go to “higher states of combat readiness and carry out combat training missions,” the website Russian Defense Policy reported. The exercises were also reported by the Voice of Russia and the Russian Defense Ministry website.

Several hundred pieces of equipment, 7,000 troops, and 48 aircraft took part, the general said.

The drills also involved moving forces to exercise areas far from normal deployment locations.

Gerasimov said the 98th Air-Assault Division at Ivanovo and the 4th Air Forces and Air Defense Command near Rostov performed well.

The troops were transported in IL-76 jets to an area near Chelyabinsk, which has large nuclear facilities, in difficult weather conditions.

Forces of a long-range aviation group and air defense also conducted bombing exercises and performed well, Gerasimov said.

The general did not say how the 12th GUMO fared in the exercises but said that overall “a number of systematic deficiencies in the state of combat readiness and lever of personnel training” were uncovered.

A 2008 State Department cable described the 12th GUMO as one of several key military units with direct control over nuclear weapons. “An attack or exploitation of any one of these could leave elements of the arsenal vulnerable,” the cable said. “While the impact on the U.S. might not be immediate, the danger of such elements falling into terrorists’ or extremists’ hands could pose a serious threat to the national security of the United States.”

Washington Free Beacon

Right-wing parties sweep EU parliamentary elections

On the 5th of March 1933 the Nazi party of Germany managed to achieve a brilliant result in the parliamentary elections. They did not win the majority of the votes, only 45%, but that was the beginning which allowed Adolf Hitler to seriously change the course of world history later. At present the political state of affairs in European parliaments increasingly reminds of the situation 80 years ago.

More and more right-wing and ultra-rightist parties win seats there and the parliamentary majority has to reckon with their declarations and actions.

Parties on the right show high results in presidential and parliamentary elections in the EU countries. French National Front leader Marine Le Pen won 18% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election. The UK Independence Party won on average 14% in local elections. In the early parliamentary elections in Greece, 7% of citizens gave their votes to the ultra-rightist Golden Dawn party.

Some experts are already comparing the political state of affairs in European countries, as well as in the former republics of the Soviet Union, with the Weimar Republic. Right-wing parties have no majority in European parliaments so far but they can form coalitions and their own parliamentary groups. Like 80 years ago, this is happening against the background of an economic crisis. The crisis is responsible for the growth of radical moods, Assistant Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Zorin believes.

“The EU does not provide equal and fair development for all regions. So many countries, especially those that lost in WW2, crave for revenge. This revenge-seeking is the driving force of radicalism and attempts to revise history.”

Today, right-wing and ultra-rightist parties have made a gigantic breakthrough in such countries as France, Finland, Austria and Greece. They are supported by 10-15% of the population. Their electorate mostly consists of young people who are the most active part of society, Vice-President of the Centre of Strategic Communications Dmitry Abzalov says.

“A whole number of surveys shows that the European crisis is getting worse, which is followed by the growth of political parties with very radical views. To a large extent this is the result of double standards in the denouncement of Nazism. As a result of a fuzzy barrier, such parties’ chances to get into parliaments in North Europe or France have become much better, which was hard to imagine 5-10 years ago.”

The economic crisis gave nationalist parties a chance to receive serious support from the population. The crisis also became the reason for the failure of the idea of multiculturalism. No reciprocal influence of cultures and traditions resulted, on the contrary, confrontation came to the fore.

The understanding of Nazism has become blurred on the wave of right-wing ideas that are gaining popularity. Several politicians who are supported on the state level are even prepared to review the results of WW2, Vladimir Zorin believes.

“The world is standing on the threshold of new geopolitical changes. This also concerns the events in North Africa and the Arab world. Many parts of the world are troubled and restless. So some forces are trying to use the potential of nationalism and Nazism for solving contemporary problems. This is a very alarming fact which is also an important factor for further destabilization. For this reason, all forces that stand for the historical truth and the normal development of Europe and the entire world should be on the alert, Vladimir Zorin emphasizes.

The Voice of Russia

JOHN KERRY WARNS "THE CLOCK IS TICKING" ON IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM