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Russia is no longer interested in pursuing further reductions in nuclear arms, announced Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said, during a press conference in Moscow, reported TASS yesterday. "I don't see grounds to raise in the practical sphere an issue of continuing dialogue with
U.S. on controlling nuclear weapons and reducing them in the future," Ryabkov said, while stressing that both sides are continuing to implement New START "flawlessly." He noted that the resolution of this issue depends not on who will become the next U.S. President, but rather on "U.S. admitting that the matter of nuclear disarmament cannot be considered separately from other factors affecting strategic stability," Ryabkov said. "The number of such factors does not decrease. On the contrary, it is only growing."

Ryabkov was explicitly referring to the missile defense issue as one of the
factors affecting strategic stability. He said, as Moscow has been saying now for
weeks, that there's no reason for the U.S. to continue the NATO missile defense
program in Europe in the aftermath of the Iran nuclear deal. "For the Russian
Federation, the situation with use of medium-range ballistic missiles for targets
in Europe is impossible," he said. "Thus, we believe Washington is attracting
artificial reasons to continue establishment of the European ABM system."
"We have been saying at advanced stages this effect [from ABM in Europe]
will have certain devaluating effect for Russian strategic armaments," Ryabkov
said. "As the issues around the Iranian nuclear program are settled, the U.S.
administration has been experiencing problems with reasons, and we shall
continue paying attention to this."

The Obama administration responded that it has no intention of changing,
with Shannon Quinn, a spokeswoman for the U.S. delegation to NATO,
repeating that "the successful resolution of the nuclear deal does not obviate the
need for ballistic missile defense to counter the Iranian ballistic missile defense
threat."

East Ukraine Situation Is Explosive, Says Steinmeier

Aug. 16 (EIRNS)-Reacting to the growing violence in East Ukraine, instigated
by the U.S. and NATO to provoke Russia, German Foreign Minister Frank-
Walter Steinmeier, in an interview with Bild am Sonntag that appeared today,
expressed great concern over the complete breakdown of the Minsk Agreement
leading to a potential military conflict involving Russia and the West, reported
Reuters.

"The situation in eastern Ukraine is explosive," he told Bild am Sonntag, the
Sunday edition of Germany's mass-circulation Bild. "The level of threat is high
enough. If both sides don't hold negotiations, a new round of military escalation
can be started at any time," vestnikkavkaza.net Caucasus news website reported,
citing his interview with Bild am Sonntag.

Steinmeier's warning comes following the growing drumbeat coming out of
the U.S./NATO-installed Kiev regime for war in the Donbass. The escalation of
fighting this week, in the region about halfway between Mariupol on the coast
and the city of Donetsk, followed the failure of the Kiev regime to sign the
document at Minsk, last week, that would have solidified the agreement to
withdraw heavy weapons of up to 100mm caliber from the line of contact on
both sides.

Instead of signing the document, Kiev's representative demanded numerous
changes unacceptable to the two self-proclaimed republics in the east. The
shelling on both sides, from Horlivka, northeast of Donetsk, all the way down to
the coast, has been much more intense than was recorded the previous week.
Thus, one of the most likely triggers for the outbreak of full-scale war
between Russia and the United States is the Ukraine front, where the Nazi Right
Sector has been on a full mobilization for weeks to break the Minsk Agreement
ceasefire between the coup-installed Kiev government and the respective
Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in Donbass, or overthrow the
Poroshenko government.

Stephen Lendman (in thepeoplesvoice) and Julia Embody (in The National
Interest) this week joined Russia expert Dr. Stephen Cohen, in warning that a
"second civil war" is brewing in Ukraine, with the Right Sector trying to
overthrow Kiev, and even a full invasion of Donbass.

In a recent book review, James Carden, editor of the newsletter of the prodiplomacy
American Committee on East-West Accord, recognized that "the war
in eastern Ukraine still threatens to metastasize into a full-blown war between
Russia and the West."

LaRouche Speaks on the Corbyn Option in U.K.

Aug. 14 (EIRNS)-Lyndon LaRouche was asked this week by U.S. institutional
circles, if, in his view, Jeremy Corbyn was qualified to be the Labour Party's
next leader. The question was located in the context of Tony Blair's latest
screech in a letter to the Guardian, that the Labour Party risks "annihilation," if
Jeremy Corbyn wins the party's leadership contest, and that the party was
walking "over the cliff's edge," in his words.

Mr. LaRouche's answer, conveyed by EIR Editorial Board member Jeffrey
Steinberg on LaRouche PAC's Friday Night Webcast, started from the fact that
Jeremy Corbyn has said that one of his first priorities upon taking office would
be a full-blown Glass-Steagall policy for Britain: total bank separation. This
policy is in very clear parallel with the fact that Martin O'Malley, one of the
Democratic candidates for President, has said the very same thing: that Glass-
Steagall is the defining issue for the 2016 Presidential elections.

The City of London is flapping Tony Blair's jaws, LaRouche commented,
because it is facing a policy that would represent the annihilation of those in the
financial establishment, particularly those aligned with the British Monarchy,
who want to keep the British people suppressed, looted, bankrupted, ignorant,
for the sake of bailing out a bankrupt financial system.

England is a very class-conscious place, and the privileged layers of society
want to protect their own interests, LaRouche said. Steinberg reported that
LaRouche emphasized that "the situation has reached the point where unless
you're prepared to sustain the whole of the people, of the United Kingdom,
which is not just England, but includes Scotland-which is obviously in a very
restive mood right now, virtually in a state of secession from the United
Kingdom; what happens in Scotland clearly spills over into Ireland and Wales.
"So, you have a situation where what's urgently required is the principle of
equity, where the interests of the common man and common woman of England,
are clearly put in the category of priorities.

"Right now the British system doesn't supply this kind of assistance, and this
kind of policy, to benefit all. Average households need this kind of equitable
protection, and this is a primary responsibility of government, to assure these
kinds of equitable arrangements. So, in effect, Corbyn is proposing those kinds
of policies and therefore is eminently qualified to be able to actually take over
charge of the Labour Party, and go beyond that to perhaps become very near in
the future, a Prime Minister."

Mr. LaRouche pointed also to the other problems that are coming up in the
British situation, most prominently that of the stupefied British Monarchy due to
the obvious senility factor.

Vigorous reform is urgently needed, and LaRouche said that the Corbyn
option, an equitable approach to the economics of the entirety of the United
Kingdom, and take the senility factor out of the Monarchy, in fact, dump the
Monarchy altogether and this can be not only a very positive development from
the standpoint of Britain, but can have a dramatic effect in Europe as a whole,
where Britain is trying to renegotiate its entire relationship with the European
Union.

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