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UKRAINE’S DEFENCE CHIEF has accused Russia of sending 6,000 troops and 30 armoured personnel carriers into Crimea as the restive peninsula tries to gain broader independence from new pro-EU leaders in Kiev.
Defence Minister Igor Tenyukh told a cabinet meeting that Russia began sending these reinforcements yesterday “without warning or Ukraine’s permission, in defiance of the principle of non-infringement of state borders.”
The move comes as an AFP journalist said more than 10,000 people carrying Russian flags began protesting in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the stronghold of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych.
Protesters declared they supported “the aspirations of Crimea to rejoin Russia”, referring to Ukraine’s pro-Russia peninsula further south where Kiev has accused Moscow of launching an “armed invasion.”
The defence chief spoke as dozens of pro-Russian armed men in full combat gear patrolled outside the seat of power in Crimea’s capital Simferopol, a day after similar gunmen seized control over airports and government buildings in the territory.
The rugged peninsula jutting into the Black Sea — host to a Kremlin fleet and with an ethnic Russian majority — has now effectively been cut off from mainland Ukraine, with airports shut down and a pro-Kremlin militia establishing a tightly-controlled checkpoint on the main road from the mainland.
Crimea has come to the fore of a Cold War-style confrontation between the West and Russia over Ukraine, a faceoff that has also exposed the ancient cultural rifts between the pro-European west and Russian-speaking south and east of this country of 46 million.
Added to that, a referendum to determine whether residents in the flashpoint peninsula want greater autonomy has been pushed forward to March 30, the spokeswoman of the region’s newly-chosen prime minister Sergiy Aksyonov said.
The vote had originally been planned for May 25, on the same day as presidential elections set by parliament following the ouster of the pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych.
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Well done to asti they stood up to this evil government
Let’s hope they continue to do so.
Asking the membership to vote on the SAME issue for a third time in quick succession would be a disgrace & if it happens, many members will stop paying their union subs.
Listen to your membership, not this toxic government with their acts of coercion they call “agreements”
They should be ashamed of them selves lazy sods
To whom are you referring?
Never met a non lazy union member
Fire them 10 at a time until they mend their ways and egos
Probably just a bowel movement.
A1
ASTI realises it is out on a limb,looking at Quinner with the saw.
Hardly. Quinn wouldn’t know how to use a saw. A sledgehammer is more his style
These teaches sicken me and any other hard working person in ireland. They don’t even know how easy they have it.
Wbat plandt are you on?? imagine dealing with likes of you tines 30!
Why do I think this is the union leadership (clueless of the realities of teaching) are selling us down the river !!
Can’t see how they can change the croke park/ haddington road deal sufficiently to make me want to vote for it ! The ability to carte blanche changes to my contract on the future without negotiation is enough of a reason to say no – no private sector worker would accept it so why should I !!
If they try to re-ballot us yet again then that will signal the end of the Asti as a union because they will not have any members left
Kenneth’s obviously just a troll; don’t feed him!
A slave more like
Perfectly happy with the status quo. No to Haddington Road. No to pointless Croke Park hours. No to unpaid S and S. No to any further erosion of our terms of employment.
No escalation in industrial action by the ASTI members, yet Min Quinn has not introduced legislation to block supervision & substitution payments that TUI members no longer receive.
The “open-day season” has come and gone and complaints by irate parents seem to have died down.
All quiet on the Western Front?
If ASTI unwilling to perform their jobs to the required standard, they should all be replaced. Plenty if NQTs who can’t get a sniff of a job. I’m sure they would be willing to perform the tasks required of them. ASTI are out of touch with reality. Hiding behind this “out of concern for the children” rubbish. They are only concerned with feathering their own nests. Given that they have 4.5 months holiday, their pay per hour actually worked is one of the highest in the state, yet still they think they are entitled to be shielded from the recession. Why?……..because they have an Arts degree?
The ASTI members would have been better off renouncing the supervision-and-substitution payments and refusing to the Croke Park/Haddington Road hours.
Possibly, but then schools would have closed, something most teachers don’t want to see happen, I know I don’t.
They’ve imposed draconian measures on us, grand, now feck off and let us teach, unless they want meaningful conversation on JC reform & “extra hours”
@Liam H
“but then schools would have closed”
Not necessarily. What I meant is that they could do S&S without payment. S&S are hardly stressful tasks. Schools have a duty of care towards pupils.
Your being led into a dead end
By noise makers and lads that dont
Seem to grasp the reality of the situation.
If only the.private sector enjoyed the same protection. . But hey. .divide and conquer
If only the public sector could get the same wage increases as the private sector received!!
Here here Des !!!!!
Ill put it another way to these
Lads..enough faffing around
All out strike or take your bite
Of the huge shit sandwich
Like everybody else
have your say