Remember Russia’s accusations of Georgia committing “genocide” in South Ossetia to justify invasion? Turned out to be a big fat lie:
Russian-backed leaders in South Ossetia have said that 2,100 people died in fighting in Tskhinvali and nearby villages. But a doctor at the city’s main hospital, the only one open during the battles that began late on Aug. 7, said the facility recorded just 40 deaths.
That explanation, that Russians were saving South Ossetians from total annihilation, undergirded Moscow’s rationale for the invasion.
A senior member of Russia’s parliament, Konstantin Zatulin also said that the Russian government intended to spend some $100 million on building a “Moscow district” in the city (Tskhinvali, Georgia); he did not explain what that would entail.
Georgia’s leadership maintains the war was launched by the Kremlin because of longstanding resentment about the former Soviet republic’s close ties with the West.
President Yushchenko has accused Prime Minister Tymoshenko of high treason by not speaking out against the Kremlin in the conflict and plotting to use a deepening crisis with Moscow to take over as president.
The Shaw Festival is a major Canadian theatre festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario founded in 1962 as a salute to Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. The Globe and Mail noticed how this year among others the lack of diversity among actors, which mirrored Shaw’s own beliefs:
After visiting the USSR in the 1930s where he met Stalin, Shaw became an ardent supporter of the Stalinist USSR. The preface to his play On the Rocks (1933) is primarily an effort to justify the pogroms conducted by the OGPU. In an open letter to the Manchester Guardian, he dismisses stories of a Soviet famine as slanderous and calls reports of its exploited workers falsehoods.[57] Asked why he did not stay permanently in the Soviet ‘earthly paradise’, Shaw jokingly explained that England was a hell and he was a small devil. He wrote a defense of Stalin’s espousal of Lysenkoism in a letter to Labour Monthly.
You can download the play here, it should be in the public domain in Canada.
Read Ukrainian!— an online course of interactive materials designed to support the acquisition of reading skills in Ukrainian. www.lww-cetl.ac.uk/ukrainian
I haven’t been able to keep up to date on the Georgia-Russia conflict, luckily Cyber Cossack hasn’t missed a beat. There has been a lot of news coverage despite the Olympics.
The number of schools using Russian as the language of instruction is rapidly diminishing even in Russian-speaking areas, and higher education is conducted in Ukrainian… Â Ukrainian state television only broadcasts in Ukrainian, and the presence of Russian in radio and television is minimal, though many still rely on broadcasts from Russia... The progressing Ukrainianisation of the country has left many Russian speakers uncomfortable, but for several decades it was Ukrainians who complained of language discrimination, and only slowly has the Slavic language begun to erase the ‘peasant language’ tag.
Tufts University graduate students have launched the Child’s Right to Thrive Student Group leading a grass-roots effort to improve the lives of children living in congregate care in Ukraine among other countries.
Kindness in Action, a nonprofit from Severna Park, MD, that sponsors an orphanage in Lviv, delivered 17 quilts during a visit from June 13 to July 3.
“Vitiayemo!” Welcome! The Tradition of Tryzub is the tradition of Excellence. Let our music and dazzling entertainment keep your feet tapping and your heart racing. Returning from recent performances in Mexico, New York and Las Vegas, Calgary’s world famous Tryzub Ukrainian Dance Ensemble will again provide breath-taking, gravity defying acrobatic dance ntertainment. Take advantage of a rare opportunity! Tryzub’s performing Ensemble will be available in full costume for photo opportunities with visitors of the Tryzub Ukrainian Pavilion where you’ll find displays and information on Calgary’s Premier Ukrainian Dance Organization.
Here is the menu for the pavilion:
Perogies w/ butter onions
Sausage on a bun
Tickets are $15 per day and $50 for the entire festival.
