200 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. Interview mit dem OMV-Chef Alfred Stern. Die OMV hat von der Energiekrise durch den Ukraine-Krieg profitiert, setzt internatiional auf Petrochemie im Joint Venture mit der Adnoc und sieht keine Veranlassung, russische Gaslierferungen nach Österreich zu stoppen. (Das österreichische Ministerium für Klimaschutz und Energie hat wegen der Kontrolle der ÖBAG durch das Finanzministerium und der gemeisamen Kontrolle der OMV durch ÖBAG und Adnoc offenbar kaum Einfluss.) https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article248647270/OMV-Chef-Ist-auch-vernuenftig-russisches-Gas-weiterhin-abzunehmen.html

    1. Im Interview mit Leonore Gewessler wird überdeutlich, dass Machtgruppen in Österreich – darunter die OMV und die ÖVP – den Ausstieg aus russischem Gas und eine mit den europäischen Regelungen konforme Klimapolitik (hier die rechtzeitige Vorlage des Nationalen Energie und Klimaplans zur Begutachtung durch die europäische Kommission) blockieren. https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000209031/russische-bombe-in-der-zib-2-gewessler-ueber-omv-gazprom-und-moralische-verpflichtungen

    1. Bericht zu der Diskussion bei Im Zentrum über die Abhängigkeit Österreichs von russischem Gas. Im Dezember kamen 98% des verwendeten Gases aus Russland. Elemente der Abhängigkeit sind der Vertrag der OMV mit der Gazprom, die Entscheidungen der Landesenergie-Lieferanten, die rechtliche und verfassungsrechtliche Situation, die es unmöglich macht die Lieferanten zu anderen Bezugsquellen zu zwingen, und der noch immer nicht gebaute WAG-Loop in Oberösterreich. https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000208010/im-zentrum-warum-wir-noch-an-der-russischen-gasleine-haengen

    1. Why don’t the Germans say: ”Look, guys, we give you money and weapons. Open up the valve, please, let the gas from Russia pass through for us.

      Indeed the Germans would earn more money for supporting the Ukranians but would pay some of these profits for the liquefied gas to their enemy state.

  2. Jan 2024
  3. Dec 2023
    1. Reclaim Finance zufolge ist 2022/23 die Finanzierung von 437 Öl- und Gasprojekte genehmigt worden. Beteiligt sind 200 Unternehmen in 58 Ländern. Die Projekte widersprechen der Roadmap der IEA zur Klimaneutralität von 2021, in der keine neuen fossilen Projekte vorgesehen sind. Eine Schlüsselrolle haben staatliche Firmen in Öl und Gas produzierenden Staaten. Bei der Zahl der Projekte liegen Russland und Norwegen vorne. Europäische Ölgesellschaften haben eine Reduzierung ihrer (unzureichenden) Dekarbonisierungsziele angekündigt. https://www.liberation.fr/environnement/437-nouveaux-projets-petroliers-et-gaziers-quels-sont-les-pays-moteurs-des-energies-fossiles-en-2023-20231130_QRXDTQKM7NBIZGXWUNFQ7QRSWM/

    1. Dichter und sehr gut dokumentierter Überblicksratikel über die Expansionspläne der Öl- und Gasindustrie. Aus unerschlossenen Feldern sollen 230 Milliarden Barrel Öläquivalent gefördert werden - im klaren Widerspruch zum Pariser Abkommen. Durch Ausbeutung neuer Lager werden bis 2025 voraussichtlich 70 Gt CO<sub>2</sub> und damit 17% des Budgets für das 1,5° Ziel ausgestoßen. Eingegangen wird auch auf den Ausstiegsplan des Tyndall Centre. https://taz.de/Run-auf-fossile-Brennstoffe/!5973686/

    1. 2023 Production Gap Report: Die USA, Russland und Saudi-Arabien planen wie die Mehrheit der 20 am meisten fossile Brennstoffe produzierenden Staaten, 2030 mehr Öl zu fördern als je zuvor. Indien will die Kohleproduktion bis 2030 verdoppeln, Kanada die Öl- und Gasförderung in 25 Jahren um 25% steigern. Brasilien will in 10 Jahren die Ölproduktion um 2/3, die Gasproduktion um 100% steigern. China, Deutschland, Großbritannien und Norwegen wollen die Produktion reduzieren. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/climate/coming-soon-more-oil-gas-and-coal.html

  4. Nov 2023
    1. https://web.archive.org/web/20231126095958/https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/11/russian-journalists-ukraine-war-wagner-group/676064/

      Journalist Anna Nemtsova on Russian public society decline and losing hope after the post-Soviet period optimism wrt change. Places the turning point in 2011/2012. I worked in Moldova briefly then, and they were aiming to divert their exports to anyplace else than Russia. Kyrgyzstan had just had a revolution in spring 2010 (both towards democracy and Russian influenced). 2014 I wasn't allowed to travel from Kyrgyzstan through Moscow as P had not been seen in public for a week or two, while the Donbas conflict took place (MH17 was shot down a few months earlier). Late 2012 Russia signed onto OGP to withdraw ealry 2013 https://www.opengovpartnership.org/stories/russia-withdraws-from-open-government-partnership-too-much-transparency/ faving a controlled openness (through registered entities) above individual rights. Russia's foreign agents law is also from 2012. So seems to chime with my own experiences.

    1. permanent security”
      • for: definition - permanent security, examples - permanent security

      • definition: permanent security

        • Extreme responses by states to security threats, enacted in the name of present and future self defence.
        • Permanent security actions target entire civilian populations under the logic of ensuring that terrorists and insurgents can never again represent a threat. It is a project, in other words, that seeks to avert future threats by anticipating them today.
      • example: permanent security

        • Russian-Ukraine war
          • Vladimir Putin reasons that Ukraine must be forcibly returned to Russia so that it cannot serve as a launching site for NATO missiles into Russia decades from now.
        • Myanmar-Rohingya conflict
          • The Myanmarese military sought to squash separatism by expelling and killing the Rohingya minority in 2017
        • China-Uyghur conflict
          • China sought to pacify and reeducate Muslim Uyghurs by mass incarceration to forestall their striving for independence forever
        • Israel-Palestine conflict
          • Israel seeks to eliminate Hamas as a security threat once and for all after the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel
        • US-Iraq-Afghanistan
          • The US sought to eliminate Saddam Hussein's nuclear capabilities and to eliminate Osama Bin Laden for his bombing of the World Trade center.
    1. Die Ukraine wird ab Anfang 2025 kein russisches Erdgas mehr in europäische Länder weiterleiten und sich auch selbst vom.russischen Pipeline-Netz abkoppeln. Sie wird ihre Versorgung aus der eigenen Gasförderung decken. https://taz.de/Transitstopp-fuer-Gas/!5967136/

    1. Die Pläne der Kohle-, Öl- und gasproduzierenden Staaten zur Ausweitung der Förderung würden 2030 zu 460% mehr Kohle, 83% mehr Gas und 29% mehr Ölproduktion führen, als mit dem Pariser Abkommen vereinbar ist. Der aktuelle Production Gap Report der Vereinten Nationen konzentriert sich auf die 20 stärksten Verschmutzer-Staaten, deren Pläne fast durchgängig in radikalem Widerspruch zum Pariser Abkommen stehen. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/08/insanity-petrostates-planning-huge-expansion-of-fossil-fuels-says-un-report

      Report: https://productiongap.org/

  5. Oct 2023
  6. Sep 2023
    1. According to YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan, 70 percent of views on YouTube are from recommendations—so the site’s algorithms are largely responsible for amplifying RT’s propaganda hundreds of millions of times.
    1. ce disinformation campaigns around vaccines?

      In an article published on March 7, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) accused the Russian intelligence services of trying to undermine faith in the efficacy of Pfizer-BioNTech and other Western vaccines with false information, such as that the US government had pressured the licenser authority - do you know the accusation? – that vaccines are not sufficiently effective and have too many side effects. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied the accusations:

      If we were to attribute all criticism of the Sputnik V vaccine to the American secret services, we would be crazy, since such criticisms appear in all Anglo-Saxon media at all hours of the day.

      According to a US State Department official, articles disguised as science target countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and the publications are under the influence of the SSR, Russia's foreign intelligence service. The publication New Eastern Outlook has been accused of calling the mRNA editing used by Pfizer a "radical experimental technique" that is not precise enough and claiming that the regulatory approval process was controlled by Bill Gates and the president's chief adviser , Anthony Fauci urged and pushed through. According to them, only hymns should be sung about the mRNA technology, which has never been used for vaccine production before, otherwise one will become a Russian agent. While Trump was president, the American papers were full of him being politicallicensing authorities are under pressure . Under Biden, this should no longer be raised.

      According to the WSJ, one of the publications, News Front, is the tool of the FSZB, the successor of the KGB. In January, for example, an article was published stating that people vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine can develop Bell's paresis - facial nerve paralysis - and in February they wrote about a Californian man who became infected with the coronavirus after being vaccinated with Pfizer. I did a bit of research: a combined search for Bell's palsy and Moderna gives two hundred and fifty-five thousand results on the Internet, including the prestigious medical journal The Lancet or the announcements of the American epidemiological authority. It occurs very rarely, seven times out of forty thousand vaccinated, which is exactly seven times that of the control group. The case in California also happened .In these examples, coverage was simply classified as intelligence disinformation.

      On March 12, however, the Russians came forward with the claim that the Americans were organizing a disinformation campaign against Sputnik V. Perhaps this is related to the fact that Free Europe, which operates with American money, already called the Russian vaccine controversial on March 11 .

      Many are concerned that the Russian development program was not transparent enough. Additional concerns are that the European Medicines Agency has not yet approved the vaccine, possible production disruptions, and the fact that the Russians themselves are quite distrustful of Sputnik V.

    1. as journalist Branko Marcetic noted on Twitter

      It was not just one journalist that made this claim, nor was a claim of Russian Pravda - it has been noted by many journalist around the world that the, undisputed so far (Sep 2023), claim that it was Boris Johnson who broke the peace negotiations was made by the Ukranian Pravda.

  7. Aug 2023
  8. Jul 2023
    1. Moscow then illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014

      What Reuters and other mainstream media systematically neglect tot write is that what predated the annexation of Crimea was a 2014 a violent US-backed coup d'etat replaced the russia-friendly elected government with a Western-affiliated one that banned russian language (30%-50% of population) and said political parties, arresting their leaders.

  9. Jun 2023
    1. Die EU-Staaten erhalten weiterhin verflüssigtes Erdgas aus Russland und finanzieren damit den Krieg gegen die Ukrains. 16% des im ersten Quartal 2023 importierten LNG und 7% des insgesamt importierten Erdgas stammen aus Russland. Eine Bruegel-Analyse ergibt, dass ein Verzicht auf die russischen Lieferungen möglich wäre, wobei dann aber – wenn der Erdgasverbrauch gleich bleibt – LNG aus anderen Quellen gekauft werden müsste. https://www.repubblica.it/economia/2023/06/28/news/gas_liquefatto_russo_europa-405944960/?ref=RHVS-BG-I330891680-P3-S8-T1

      Bruegel-Analyse: https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/eu-can-manage-without-russian-liquified-natural-gas

    1. Pakistan hat zum ersten Mal mit chinesischen Yuan für russisches Erdöl bezahlt, das aufgrund der westlichen Sanktionen gegen Russland zu einem verbilligten Preis an die verbliebenen Abnehmerländer geliefert wird. Die Zahlung stellt das bisherige globale System der Bezahlung von Öl infrage, bei der immer der amerikanische Dollar als Währung verwendet wird. Standard-Artikel mit vielen Informationen zu den geo- und finanzpolitischen Hintergründen https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000174993/alternative-zum-dollar-pakistan-zahlt-erstmals-oel-in-yuan

    1. Das Verschwinden des arktischen meereises hat – in Verbindung mit den Spannungen in anderen Regionen – gravierende geopolitische Konsequenzen. Russland ist dabei, die Arktis massiv zu militarisieren. Dabei kooperiert ist mit China. Es will andererseits von den Schiffsrouten durch das eisfreie Nordpolarmeer profitieren. Wissenschaftliche Kooperation in der Arktis findet seit der Invasion der ganzen Ukraine im Februar 2022 nicht mehr statt. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/13/arctic-russia-nato-putin-climate

  10. May 2023
    1. New to me form of censorship evasion: easter egg room in a mainstream online game that itself is not censored. Finnish news paper Helsingin Sanomat has been putting their reporting on the Russian war on Ukraine inside a level of online FPS game Counter Strike, translated into Russian. This as a way to circumvent Russian censorship that blocks Finnish media. It saw 2k downloads from unknown geographic origins, so the effect might be very limited.

  11. Apr 2023
  12. Mar 2023
    1. Stora delar av den rasideologiska miljön uppfattar Vladimir Putins politiska projekt som en motvikt till EU, liberalism eller ”globalism”. Därför har nyhetssajter och organisationer i miljön knutit band till Ryssland och spridit den ryska regimens narrativ.
    2. Rysslands anfallskrig mot Ukraina har splittrat den rasideologiska miljön. De flesta grupper undviker att ta tydlig ställning. Men i ett försök att framstå som en balanserande kraft i det offentliga samtalet sprider de högerextrema medierna ett okritiskt pro-ryskt narrativ om kriget och krigets orsaker. Det gör den rasideologiska miljön till en tummelplats för rysk desinformation och påverkan.
  13. Jan 2023
    1. T he REVELATIONS about the possible complicity of the Bulgarian secret police in the shooting of the Pope have produced a grudging admission, even in previously skeptical quarters, that the Soviet Union may be involved in international terrorism. Some patterns have emerged in the past few years that tell us some- thing about the extent to which the Kremlin may use terrorism as an instrument of policy. A great deal of information has lately come to light, some of it accurate, some of it not. One of the most interesting developments appears to be the emergence of a close working relation- ship between organized crime (especially drug smug- glers and dealers) and some of the principal groups in the terrorist network.

  14. Dec 2022
    1. The Open Society Foundations extend our condolences to the friends and family of loved ones on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. We are deeply saddened to learn of the loss of the HIV/AIDS researchers and advocates onboard traveling to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, along with all the other people who perished.
    1. Notice that Twitter’s account purge significantly impacted misinformation spread worldwide: the proportion of low-credible domains in URLs retweeted from U.S. dropped from 14% to 7%. Finally, despite not having a list of low-credible domains in Russian, Russia is central in exporting potential misinformation in the vax rollout period, especially to Latin American countries. In these countries, the proportion of low-credible URLs coming from Russia increased from 1% in vax development to 18% in vax rollout periods (see Figure 8 (b), Appendix).

    1. On Facebook, we identified 51,269 posts (0.25% of all posts)sharing links to Russian propaganda outlets, generating 5,065,983interactions (0.17% of all interactions); 80,066 posts (0.4% of allposts) sharing links to low-credibility news websites, generating28,334,900 interactions (0.95% of all interactions); and 147,841 postssharing links to high-credibility news websites (0.73% of all posts),generating 63,837,701 interactions (2.13% of all interactions). Asshown in Figure 2, we notice that the number of posts sharingRussian propaganda and low-credibility news exhibits an increas-ing trend (Mann-Kendall 𝑃 < .001), whereas after the invasion ofUkraine both time series yield a significant decreasing trend (moreprominent in the case of Russian propaganda); high-credibilitycontent also exhibits an increasing trend in the Pre-invasion pe-riod (Mann-Kendall 𝑃 < .001), which becomes stable (no trend)in the period afterward. T
    2. On Twitter, the picture is very similar in the case of Russianpropaganda, where all accounts are verified (with a few exceptions)and mostly associated with news outlets, and generate over 68%of all retweets linking to these websites (see panel a of Figure 4).For what concerns low-credibility news, there are both verified (wecan notice the presence of seanhannity) and not verified users,and only a few of them are directly associated with websites (e.g.zerohedge or Breaking911). Here the top 15 accounts generateroughly 30% of all retweets linking to low-credibility websites.
    3. Figure 5: Top 15 spreaders of Russian propaganda (a) andlow-credibility content (b) ranked by the proportion ofretweets generated over the period of observation, with re-spect to all retweets linking to websites in each group. Weindicate those that are not verified using “hatched” bars

    4. Figure 4: Top 15 spreaders of Russian propaganda (a) andlow-credibility content (b) ranked by the proportion of in-teractions generated over the period of observation, withrespect to all interactions around links to websites in eachgroup. Given the large number of verified accounts, we indi-cate those not verified using “hatched” bars.

    1. The style is one that is now widely recognized as a tool of sowing doubt: the author just asked ‘reasonable’ questions, without making any evidence-based conclusions.Who is the audience of this story and who could potentially be targeted by such content? As Bratich argued, 9/11 represents a prototypical case of ‘national dissensus’ among American individuals, and an apparently legitimate case for raising concerns about the transparency of the US authorities13. It is indicative that whoever designed the launch of RT US knew how polarizing it would be to ask questions about the most painful part of the recent past.
    2. Conspiracy theories that provide names of the beneficiaries of political, social and economic disasters help people to navigate the complexities of the globalized world, and give simple answers as to who is right and who is wrong. If you add to this global communication technologies that help to rapidly develop and spread all sorts of conspiracy theories, these theories turn into a powerful tool to target subnational, national and international communities and to spread chaos and doubt. The smog of subjectivity created by user-generated content and the crisis of expertise have become a true gift to the Kremlin’s propaganda.
    3. To begin with, the US output of RT tapped into the rich American culture of conspiracy theories by running a story entitled ‘911 questions to the US government about 9/11’
    4. Instead, to counter US hegemonic narratives, the Kremlin took to systematically presenting alternative narratives and dissenting voices. Russia’s public diplomacy tool — the international television channel Russia Today — was rebranded as RT in 2009, probably to hide its clear links to the Russian government11. After an aggressive campaign to expand in English-, Spanish-, German- and French-speaking countries throughout the 2010s, the channel became the most visible source of Russia’s disinformation campaigns abroad. Analysis of its broadcasts shows the adoption of KGB approaches, as well as the use of novel tools provided by the global online environment
  15. Nov 2022
    1. In broad terms, when I read this highly abbreviated account of a very complex matter, I cannot help buy see a reflection of what's going on in the US - where Lenin is in the role of Trump.

      Most significantly, it seems that in both cases, a madman got the poor and uneducated to throw out one form of power structure for another, in both cases of which the poor and uneducated gained nothing.

    1. Βρέθηκαν στη γραμμή πυρός από την αρχή, συμπεριλαμβανομένης της αεροπορικής επιδρομής της 9ης Μαρτίου που κατέστρεψε ένα μαιευτήριο στην κατεχόμενη πλέον πόλη-λιμάνι της Μαριούπολης.

      Συμφωνα με τον Johnny Miller, η ίδια η έγγκυος στη συνέντευξη κατηγορούσε τους Ουκρανούς, αλλα το οι NYT & BBC έκοψαν αυτό το κομμάτι από τη συνένμευξή της.

  16. view.connect.americanpublicmedia.org view.connect.americanpublicmedia.org
    1. Most of the tourist and sporting infrastructure had to be built at enormous expense — estimates range anywhere from$200 billion to $300 billion. Yet the return on investment for huge events like this is rarely positive. The Olympics are infamously pricey  to put on, and the economic benefits for residents of the host city are questionable.  So, with the big price tag and not much to show in return, why do countries like Qatar, Russia and Brazil offer up billions of dollars to host global sporting events? According to Victor Matheson, a professor of economics at the College of the Holy Cross and a former Major League Soccer referee, they may be seeking to burnish their reputations through international media coverage.   “If you’re putting any sort of significant money into infrastructure like Qatar obviously is doing, there’s just no way you can make that back on ticket sales, on media rights, [or] on the amount of money you make from tourists coming to visit your country,” Matheson said in an interview with Marketplace’s David Brancaccio. “So obviously, you’re hoping for some sort of long-run benefits, some sort of legacy, and often that is an improvement in your reputation, either as a tourist destination or as a world player in some ways.” 

      Alternate thesis for why countries and cities vie to host money-losing events like the World Cup and the Olympics: grift.

      With the necessary need for building infrastructure, there's easy and ample opportunity for cooking the books and pushing cash flow into the pockets of contractors and political figures as well as into the pockets of the governing bodies and their officials.

      Cross reference FIFA bribery

      Some of the money may go into the local economy and workers which is good, but who's really benefitting here? Where is the money going? Who is footing the loss? It can't all be written off to goodwill.

  17. Oct 2022
    1. Putin’s regime
      • Why is Russia state a "regime"? More than eg Egypt's or Israel's contra its arab-speakng citizens?
      • Why is Putin responsible more than eg Medvedev or Zuganov of Lacrov or other officials and strongmen of the russia government? Why is it necessary to name the PM of Russia?
  18. Sep 2022
    1. The US then began integrating Ukraine into NATO, such that by June of 2020 it was recognised as an “Enhanced Opportunities Partner”. A year later, the two countries signed a “Charter on Strategic Partnership”, which declared that the US supports Ukraine’s “aspirations to join NATO”.

      After the Maidan revolution the US started to integrate Ukraine into NATO through unofficial means.

      By June 2020 they were recognised as an Enhanced Opportunities Partner (https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_176327.htm)

      A year later in 2021 the US and Ukraine signed a "Charter on Strategic Partnership" which declared that the US supports Ukrain's aspirations to join NATO (https://www.state.gov/u-s-ukraine-charter-on-strategic-partnership/).

  19. Aug 2022
    1. he war in Ukraine remains a major variable in the worldwide supply outlook since Russia normally supplies one of every 10 barrels of the global 100-million-barrel-a-day market

      Umfang des Ölmärkte: 100 Mill. Barrel am Tag.

      Russischer Anteil: 10%

      Verbrauch der USA: Ca ein Drittel

    1. Russian oil production has fallen by less than 3% since the invasion of Ukraine, with a swathe of western energy sanctions having only a “limited” effect, the International Energy Agency has found.
    1. Gas und Öl aus Russland haben die deutsche Wirtschaft, die treibende Kraft der EU, angekurbelt, die ihrerseits zu einem wesentlichen Bestandteil des gesamten Weltmarkts geworden ist.

      Diese Abhängigkeit der deutschen Wirtschaft ist ein entscheidender Punkt, siehe auch den Bericht in Libération über die befürchtete Krise in Deutschland. @bourdoiseauPourAllemagneDopee2022

  20. Jul 2022
    1. "The attack cast serious doubt on the credibility of Russia's commitment," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said

      Because that is the problem, this attack is what puts doubts about the credibility

  21. Jun 2022
  22. Apr 2022
    1. Let's try to examine the roots of the Ukrainian conflict. It starts with those who for the last eight years have been talking about "separatists" or "independentists" from Donbass. This is a misnomer. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in May 2014, were not referendums of "independence" (независимость), as some unscrupulous journalists have claimed, but referendums of "self-determination" or "autonomy" (самостоятельность). The qualifier "pro-Russian" suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term "Russian speakers" would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin.

      The referenda of Donestk and Lugansk were not about independence but about self-determination.

  23. Mar 2022
    1. Ben Collins. (2022, February 28). Quick thread: I want you all to meet Vladimir Bondarenko. He’s a blogger from Kiev who really hates the Ukrainian government. He also doesn’t exist, according to Facebook. He’s an invention of a Russian troll farm targeting Ukraine. His face was made by AI. https://t.co/uWslj1Xnx3 [Tweet]. @oneunderscore__. https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1498349668522201099

    1. In the video, the soldiers of the special forces of the DPR described the real situation in Mariupol, criticizing the hooray-patriotic approach of many Russian and local journalists.

      Much down to earth report from a Donetsk fighter about Mariupol progress of Russian invasion, seems to be older than March 30.

    1. Russia has approximately 6,000 nuclear warheads – the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. In an interview on Saturday, Medvedev said Russia’s nuclear doctrine did not require an enemy state to use such weapons first.He said: “We have a special document on nuclear deterrence. This document clearly indicates the grounds on which the Russian Federation is entitled to use nuclear weapons. There are a few of them, let me remind them to you:“Number one is the situation, when Russia is struck by a nuclear missile. The second case is any use of other nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies.“The third is an attack on a critical infrastructure that will have paralysed our nuclear deterrent forces.“And the fourth case is when an act of aggression is committed against Russia and its allies, which jeopardised the existence of the country itself, even without the use of nuclear weapons, that is, with the use of conventional weapons.”Medvedev added that there was a “determination to defend the independence, sovereignty of our country, not to give anyone a reason to doubt even the slightest that we are ready to give a worthy response to any infringement on our country, on its independence”.
    1. Erdogan said. “We are building the Akkuyu Nuclear Energy Plant with Russia.”

      I tohught the West would demand that Turkey stop cooperating with Russia to acquire nuclear capabilities...not even that!

    2. However, Erdogan said Turkey and Russia were also negotiating a way to use the Ruble and Turkish Lira for tourism as Putin promised the Turkish leader he would encourage Russians to travel to Turkey.

      Mhtsotaki's unconditional pro-West stance has given Turkey all kinds of leverage and benefits, including economical ones.

    1. Putin's Early Bird History Book Russia's occupation on Ukraine and innocent mass murder marked a sign of harassing human life simply because of greed, arrogance and pride. Why they (or we) don't realize if those things only temporary and soon people will write you on the dark side of history books. Surely the topic is about "The most horrible humankind ever lived on earth". This book contains long list and every generation provide it and this period is you. Pray for your after life, Comrade!

      Humanity for all human As seen on: Free Ads Groups sidebar

    1. The American sanctions created more than just sewage problems, and Japanese leaders came to believe they would lose power if they did nothing. They also believed they would lose power if they abandoned the war in China. As a result, Tokyo expanded the war and attacked Pearl Harbor. Critically, the Japanese cabinet chose to attack the United States even after it received analysis which reached the “unequivocal conclusion” that war with the United States “was unwinnable.”

      What if sanctions catastrophically succeed?

    1. Το «φρούριο Δύση» που συγκροτείται, ενάντια σε Ρωσία και Κίνα ξεκινάει και θα συνεχίσει στραμμένο τέρμα δεξιά με τα μισά του κανόνια να κοιτάνε προς τα μέσα.
    1. “The choice that we faced in Ukraine — and I'm using the past tense there intentionally — was whether Russia exercised a veto over NATO involvement in Ukraine on the negotiating table or on the battlefield,” said George Beebe, a former director of Russia analysis at the CIA and special adviser on Russia to former Vice President Dick Cheney. “And we elected to make sure that the veto was exercised on the battlefield, hoping that either Putin would stay his hand or that the military operation would fail.”

      So invasion of Russia's in Ukraine had been explicitly provoked by CIA!

    1. « Η επιλογή που αντιμετωπίσαμε στην Ουκρανία — και χρησιμοποιώ σκόπιμα την ένταση του παρελθόντος εκεί — ήταν εάν η Ρωσία άσκησε βέτο για τη συμμετοχή του ΝΑΤΟ στην Ουκρανία στο τραπέζι των διαπραγματεύσεων ή στο πεδίο της μάχης» δήλωσε ο Τζορτζ Μπίμπε, πρώην διευθυντής ανάλυσης της Ρωσίας στη CIA και ειδικός σύμβουλος για τη Ρωσία στον πρώην αντιπρόεδρο Ντικ Τσένι. Παρακάτω: η πλήρης διάλεξη του Πανεπιστημίου του Σικάγου John J. Mearsheimer, η οποία τώρα γίνεται ιογενής.. Ο Μπίμπι της CIA ακολουθεί αυτή την σχεδόν απίστευτη ατάκα:  «Και εκλέξαμε για να βεβαιωθούμε ότι το βέτο ασκήθηκε στο πεδίο της μάχης, ελπίζοντας ότι είτε ο Πούτιν δεν θα το αποτολμήσει  είτε η επιχείρησή του θα αποτύχει”.

      Η μεταφραση ειναι χαλια, εδώ το αγγλικό κειμενο.

    1. Russia has said it may close its main gas pipeline to Germany if the West goes ahead with a ban on Russian oil.

      This could be a blessing and a boon to climate change transition to a fossil fuel free world.

    1. The legacy of the expansion of the Russian Empire and the development of Soviet nationalities policies was a complex mosaic of different communities scattered across Eurasia with historical ties to Russia.

      Not "one Russia", but many unique cultures loosely associated with it.

      • Russia and Ukraine DO have a shared culture and origin, but all people have that actually. Both cultures (plus Belarus) shaped each other, it's incorrect to say that any one was once part of the other (the "ancient Rus" were not today's Russians).
      • Putin fits his ideas of a strong Russia into the historical context with disregard for actual facts.
      • In that he leaves the Ukrainians no choice of their own culture or power to shape it, which short-circuits (invalidates) the entire discussion.
    1. However, this assertion does not make sense if Ukraine and Russia are the same.

      Why doesn't it make sense according to his reasoning? This would simply be a territorial dispute if you incorrectly believe that cultures are static (that Ukrainians are carbon copies of Russians). In that case the Soviet Union would have carved Ukraine out of Russia's territory, and after the fall of the Union Ukraine continued as a separate nation without reason.

      That's of course ignoring the historical fact that Ukraine was not actually Russian territory (as described above).

    2. The whole topic is clearly a personal idée fixe for him: back in July 2013, and before the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine that followed during the subsequent year, he gave a speech in Kyiv stating that all of Ukraine was historical Russia.

      Integrating Ukraine into Russia is not a new idea. How many other people inside Russia believe this (disregarding effects of propaganda)? Putin can't be the one who invented it?

    3. Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians have all used Rus’ as part of their compound name at various times; but this only means they are kin, not the ‘same people’. Putin’s argument that the Ancient Rus’ were ancient Russians is, therefore, only one possibility out of four.

      Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians DO have a shared culture -- but that simply means they are similar to each other. No two people are exactly the same.

    1. are halting deliveries to Russia to comply with sanctions.

      Interesting, at least some of the companies pausing business in Russia are forced to do so through the sanctions by the US government.

      • "Restoring the Russian empire" requires an easy victory over Ukraine, as it's meant as a "liberation" from the western "empire of lies".
      • The fierce resistance by the Ukrainian people invalidates this premise. Their national identity is strengthened through the resistance in this conflict.
      • This means Putin pushed Ukraine further away from Russia, rather than integrate them.
      • If he extracts political concessions from Ukraine (e.g. that they won't join NATO), the only way to enforce them is through intimidation. The effectiveness of economic sanctions may prevent this from working longer term
    1. But the Russian despot has told his lie so many times that he apparently believes it himself.

      Does Putin even see the population of Russia as real people? Particularly the activists. Maybe he thinks that most people need to be told what to do ("freed from the empire of lies").

    1. Russia has reportedly been trying for years to “unplug” from the internet so it can completely control communications in the country. Internet providers shouldn’t help the Russian government, or any government, keep people within an information bubble.

      Any good article on this, and on Russia's propaganda machine in general?

      Are they trying to emulate China, or did they arrive on this on their own?

    1. this derails the whole rationale of Putin’s war. Because you can conquer the country, maybe, 00:09:54 but you won't be able to absorb Ukraine back into Russia. The only thing he's accomplishing, he is planting seeds of hatred in the hearts of every Ukrainian. Every Ukrainian being killed, every day this war continues is more seeds of hatred that may last for generations. 00:10:17 Ukrainians and Russians didn't hate each other before Putin. They’re siblings. Now he's making them enemies. And if he continues, this will be his legacy.

      Putin wanted this violence. He planned it for years but as they say "careful what you wish for, it just may come true". Putin will win the battle but will lose the war.

    2. his long-term goal, the whole rationale of the war, 00:07:47 is to deny the existence of the Ukrainian nation and to absorb it into Russia. And to do that, it's not enough to conquer Ukraine. You also need to hold it. And it's all based on this fantasy, on this gamble, that most of the population in Ukraine would agree to this, would even welcome this. 00:08:11 And we already know that it's not true. That the Ukrainians are a very real nation; they are fiercely independent; they don’t want to be part of Russia; they will fight like hell. And in the long-run, again, you can conquer a country, But as the Russians learned in Afghanistan, as the Americans learned also in Afghanistan, also in Iraq, it's much harder to hold a country.

      Does Putin know this? Do his advisors know this? If so, is the current targeting of civilians all to save face? What a price to pay!

    3. The imperial dream was always there, but you know, empires are often the creation of a very small gang of people at the top. I don’t think the Russian people [are] interested in this war. I don't think that the Russian people want to conquer Ukraine or to slaughter the citizens of Kyiv.

      The interesting modern historical question is why does a small gang of authoritarian leaders seem to rise up to the top and take over Russia? Is there some fundamental lesson that the people of Russia have not yet learned that creates this atmosphere of enabling authoritarianism? Yeltsin tried but it failed and this vacuum created the space for the opportunity Putin to step in. The danger of failed democracy is authoritarianism waiting in the wings.

  24. Feb 2022
    1. “We think there will be a need to rethink the whole security situation if these Russian troops and weapons are here to stay [in Belarus] as they appear,”

      Was Belarus allying itself to Russia really that unexpected?

    1. But if you look at [the demands Putin made of the west before invading], it’s not just Ukraine.

      Putin's stated goal isn't even about Ukraine directly, just about preventing its shift to the west politically. https://youtu.be/1qS6J-WbTD8?t=1364

    1. UK-based Shell (RDSA) owns a 27.5% stake in Sakhalin-2, which it describes as one of the world's largest integrated oil and gas projects. Shell says Sakhalin-2 supplies about 4% of the world's current liquified natural gas market.ExxonMobil (XOM)has been in Russia for over 25 years, and employs about 1,000 people there.Its subsidiary, Exxon Neftegas Limited, has a 30% stake in Sakhalin-1 — a vast oil and natural gas project located off Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East. It has operated the project since 1995 on behalf of a consortium that includes Japanese and Indian partners, as well as two affiliates of Rosneft.

      Will any of these companies or countries divest?

    2. In addition to its stake in Rosneft, BP had three joint ventures with Russia's biggest oil company — a 20% stake in the Taas-Yuryakh oil project in eastern Siberia, 49% of Yermak Neftegaz in Western Siberia and 49% in the Kharampur oil and gas project.

      Will BP divest in these as well?

    1. Russian armored vehicles are loaded onto railway platforms

      They are loaded onto railway flatcars. The platform is the area in the photo marked by white lines - where passengers board trains.

      Journalists know very little about the world around them yet present themselves as authoritative.

  25. Jan 2022
    1. Ariel Karlinsky. (2022, January 2). Russia at 1.04 MILLION excess deaths since March 2020, which is about 240% higher than their reported COVID-19 deaths. This is 1st place worldwide (for countries with data) in absolute excess mortality, 2nd place on per capita terms and 9th on p-score. #poptwitter #epitwitter https://t.co/aLBRRht3z2 [Tweet]. @ArielKarlinsky. https://twitter.com/ArielKarlinsky/status/1477531141510946818

  26. Dec 2021
  27. Oct 2021
    1. Coronavirus Pandemic Data Explorer. (n.d.). Our World in Data. Retrieved March 3, 2021, from https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer

      is:webpage lang:en COVID-19 graph case death Germany Sweden UK Afghanistan Africa Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antigua Barbuda Argentina Armenia Asia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Costa Rica Cote d'ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia Democratic Republic of Congo Denmark Djobouti Dominica Dominician Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Europe Europian Union Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands Fiji Finland France Gabon Gambia Georgia Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Mashall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North America North Macedonia Northern Cyprus Norway Oceania Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philipines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South America South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor Togo Trinidad Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turks and Caicos Islands Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates USA Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican Venezuela Vietnam World Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe test vaccine chart map table data case fatality rate mortality

    Tags

    Annotators

    URL

  28. Jul 2021
    1. The Daily Beast on Twitter: “The Russian marketing agency Fazze made a splash with attempts to pay off European influencers to spread fake dirt about Western vaccines in an apparent bid to make Moscow’s COVID-19 jab seem more appealing https://t.co/PEOnx1IggE” / Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved July 28, 2021, from https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1420388337421013001

  29. Jun 2021
    1. Osmanov, I. M., Spiridonova, E., Bobkova, P., Gamirova, A., Shikhaleva, A., Andreeva, M., Blyuss, O., El-Taravi, Y., DunnGalvin, A., Comberiati, P., Peroni, D. G., Apfelbacher, C., Genuneit, J., Mazankova, L., Miroshina, A., Chistyakova, E., Samitova, E., Borzakova, S., Bondarenko, E., … Sechenov StopCOVID Research Team. (2021). Risk factors for long covid in previously hospitalised children using the ISARIC Global follow-up protocol: A prospective cohort study [Preprint]. Pediatrics. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.26.21256110

  30. May 2021
  31. Apr 2021
  32. Mar 2021
  33. Feb 2021
  34. Oct 2020
    1. “every courageous and incisive measure to solve internal problems of our own society, to improve self-confidence, discipline, morale and community spirit of our own people, is a diplomatic victory over Moscow worth a thousand diplomatic notes and joint communiqués. If we cannot abandon fatalism and indifference in the face of deficiencies of our own society, Moscow will profit.”

      Perhaps the best defense against active measures is a little bit of activism of our own

  35. Sep 2020
  36. Aug 2020
  37. Jul 2020
  38. Jun 2020
    1. The habits and appearance of the Ickabog changed depending on who was describing it. Some made it snakelike, others dragonish

      This is reminiscent of dragons in Russian lore. See: Gordy, Lee, How Saint George’s Dragon Got Its Wings (JSTOR Daily, February 2020)

  39. May 2020
  40. Jan 2020
  41. Dec 2019
    1. St. Petersburgh

      One of the northernmost cities in Russia, St. Petersburgh, along with the city Archangel mentioned below, has a name that suggests a journey with theological overtones as Robert Walton moves ever closer on his expedition to his aim of discovering the principle of life, magnetism, and thus symbolically the seat of God.

    2. And now my wanderings began

      "Guided by a slight clue," Victor tracks the monster from Geneva along the windings of the Rhone southward to the Mediterranean. He spots the monster hiding in a ship and follows him to the Black Sea, through the wilds of Tartary and Russia. Ultimately, he travels northward into the ice.

    3. Archangel.

      Archangel is the anglicized name for the town of Arkhangelsk, a large seaport in northern Russia.

    4. hide himself in a vessel bound for the Black Sea

      Victor sails northeast toward the Black Sea, whose far shore is Russia.

  42. Oct 2019
  43. Aug 2019
  44. May 2019
  45. Apr 2019
    1. This wasn’t expected, but also shouldn’t be a huge shock. Despite the US hyping Russia as a threat for decades, Russia hasn’t spent deeply on its military in years, and drawing down from Syria, they don’t have much costly overseas engagement.

      To contextualize, you can still spend a hell of a lot on development, but if you don't have costly mobilizations it can make it look like you aren't spending as much as others; in fact, you are arguably making 'smarter' investments?

  46. Mar 2019
    1. The total of 300-plus pages suggests that Mr. Mueller went well beyond the kind of bare-bones summary required by the Justice Department regulation governing his appointment and detailed his conclusions at length.

      And another

  47. Nov 2018
    1. “You threw us under the bus!” she yelled at Mr. Stamos, according to people who were present.

      Just imagine how all of your users feel Ms. Sandberg! And let's be honest, the fish stinks from the head.

    1. Britain and America, Brexit and Trump, are inextricably entwined. By Nigel Farage. By Cambridge Analytica. By Steve Bannon. By the Russian ambassador to London, Alexander Yakovenko, who has been identified by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as a conduit between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. The same questions that dog the US election dog ours, too.

      There is one vital difference on this between the US and the UK. America has the Mueller investigation. And Britain does not.

  48. Oct 2018
    1. Federal prosecutors on Friday alleged that a Russian woman is the chief accountant of Project Lakhta, a sprawling Kremlin campaign to influence politics in the U.S. and European Union. It’s an operation that the FBI, in a criminal complaint, says is ongoing.

      The complaint accuses the woman, Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, of keeping detailed records of payouts to a social-media campaign of which the St. Petersberg-based troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, is just one component. Its chief financing, the FBI complaint continues, comes from Concord Management and Consulting, run by the oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, sometimes called “Putin’s Chef.”

  49. Sep 2018
    1. politicians looking for issues to drum up with have made a whipping boy out of the social networks

      Here, I think the author is just saying that Facebook and Twitter have taken a lot of heat from politicians about the 2016 election, Russian interference, etc. This year, the tech companies are showing that they are "good citizens" by having better security and helping young people register to vote.

  50. Aug 2018
    1. But events in Europe unfolded more or less according to Fukuyama’s prediction, and, on December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union voted itself out of existence. The Cold War really was over.

      Or ostensibly, until a strong man came to power in Russia and began its downturn into something else. It definitely doesn't seem to be a liberal democracy, so we're still fighting against it.

    1. Instead of trying to force their messages into the mainstream, these adversaries target polarized communities and “embed” fake accounts within them. The false personas engage with real people in those communities to build credibility. Once their influence has been established, they can introduce new viewpoints and amplify divisive and inflammatory narratives that are already circulating. It’s the digital equivalent of moving to an isolated and tight-knit community, using its own language quirks and catering to its obsessions, running for mayor, and then using that position to influence national politics.
    2. However, as the following diagrams will show, the middle is a lot weaker than it looks, and this makes public discourse vulnerable both to extremists at home and to manipulation by outside actors such as Russia.
  51. Jul 2018
    1. "Putin was never very fond of the internet even in the early 2000s," said Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist who specializes in security services and cyber issues. "When he was forced to think about the internet during the protests, he became very suspicious, especially about social networks. He thinks there's a plot, a Western conspiracy against him. He believes there is a very dangerous thing for him and he needs to put this thing under control."
    2. Gatov, who is the former head of Russia's state newswire's media analytics laboratory, told BuzzFeed the documents were part of long-term Kremlin plans to swamp the internet with comments. "Armies of bots were ready to participate in media wars, and the question was only how to think their work through," he said. "Someone sold the thought that Western media, which specifically have to align their interests with their audience, won't be able to ignore saturated pro-Russian campaigns and will have to change the tone of their Russia coverage to placate their angry readers."
    3. "There's no paradox here. It's two sides of the same coin," Igor Ashmanov, a Russian internet entrepreneur known for his pro-government views, told BuzzFeed. "The Kremlin is weeding out the informational field and sowing it with cultured plants. You can see what will happen if they don't clear it out from the gruesome example of Ukraine."
    4. The trolls appear to have taken pains to learn the sites' different commenting systems. A report on initial efforts to post comments discusses the types of profanity and abuse that are allowed on some sites, but not others. "Direct offense of Americans as a race are not published ('Your nation is a nation of complete idiots')," the author wrote of fringe conspiracy site WorldNetDaily, "nor are vulgar reactions to the political work of Barack Obama ('Obama did shit his pants while talking about foreign affairs, how you can feel yourself psychologically comfortable with pants full of shit?')." Another suggested creating "up to 100" fake accounts on the Huffington Post to master the site's complicated commenting system.
    5. According to the documents, which are attached to several hundred emails sent to the project's leader, Igor Osadchy, the effort was launched in April and is led by a firm called the Internet Research Agency. It's based in a Saint Petersburg suburb, and the documents say it employs hundreds of people across Russia who promote Putin in comments on Russian blogs.
    6. The documents show instructions provided to the commenters that detail the workload expected of them. On an average working day, the Russians are to post on news articles 50 times. Each blogger is to maintain six Facebook accounts publishing at least three posts a day and discussing the news in groups at least twice a day. By the end of the first month, they are expected to have won 500 subscribers and get at least five posts on each item a day. On Twitter, the bloggers are expected to manage 10 accounts with up to 2,000 followers and tweet 50 times a day.
    7. Russia's campaign to shape international opinion around its invasion of Ukraine has extended to recruiting and training a new cadre of online trolls that have been deployed to spread the Kremlin's message on the comments section of top American websites.Plans attached to emails leaked by a mysterious Russian hacker collective show IT managers reporting on a new ideological front against the West in the comments sections of Fox News, Huffington Post, The Blaze, Politico, and WorldNetDaily.The bizarre hive of social media activity appears to be part of a two-pronged Kremlin campaign to claim control over the internet, launching a million-dollar army of trolls to mold American public opinion as it cracks down on internet freedom at home.
    1. RuNet Echo has previously written about the efforts of the Russian “Troll Army” to inject the social networks and online media websites with pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Twitter is no exception, and multiple users have observed Twitter accounts tweeting similar statements during and around key breaking news and events. Increasingly active throughout Russia's interventions in Ukraine, these “bots” have been designed to look like real Twitter users, complete with avatars.
  52. Jan 2018
    1. In that sense, he observed, the biggest surprise in the relationship between China and the United States is their similarity. In both countries, people who are infuriated by profound gaps in wealth and opportunity have pinned their hopes on nationalist, nostalgic leaders, who encourage them to visualize threats from the outside world. “China, Russia, and the U.S. are moving in the same direction,” he said. “They’re all trying to be great again.” 

      This is what we have to contend with.

  53. Oct 2017
    1. 27 Oct 2017

      • A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter.

      The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are.

    1. ... "Frontline" will give consumers not just a story via a two-part documentary on Vladimir Putin, "Putin's Revenge," which begins tonight and looks at the evolution of his thinking about, and animus toward, the United States.

      At 10 p.m., it will post online virtually every bit of all its interviews, or 70 hours of 56 interviews. They're with figures big and small, ranging from former big-time U.S. intelligence officials such as James Clapper and John Brennan to Putin confidantes, journalists, policy experts and others whom you don't know but have a lot to say on this important and ambiguous topic.

      Both the video and transcripts will be easily searchable and annotated right here.

      http://go.pardot.com/e/273262/frontline-film-putins-revenge-/23b4b/70048029

    1. In 2012, the U.S. Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, which targets Russian human-rights abusers: It freezes their assets and deprives them of visas.

      . . .

      The Magnitsky Act drives Putin nuts. It means that his men can’t act as they always have, i.e., with impunity. Now there are consequences, which is a problem for Putin. Four countries have Magnitsky acts: the U.S., Britain, Estonia, and now Canada. (They passed theirs last week.)

      Browder is a driver behind these Magnitsky acts, and Putin hates him for it, understandably. Twice in 2013, he tried to add Browder to Interpol’s wanted list, and twice he failed, because Interpol knew that Putin was politically motivated. Browder is not a criminal. He is an anti-criminal, which is why Putin targets him.

      . . .

      In the wake of Canada’s new Magnitsky act, Putin has tried again. Tried for a fifth time. Interpol has accepted his request. Worse, the U.S. government seems in partnership with the Kremlin: Our government has revoked Browder’s visa. (American-born, Browder is a British citizen.)

  54. Jul 2017
    1. It is still not clear how many people attended the meeting. So far acknowledged in attendance: Trump Jr., Kushner, Manafort, Veselnitskaya, Akhmetshin and the publicist Rob Goldstone who helped set the meeting up

      I can say something relevant.

    1. “With every attempt at transparency Donald Trump Jr. digs himself more deeply into the hole of criminality,” he told me via email. “He appears to have gone into that meeting—and likely others—looking for something of value—dirt on Hillary Clinton—from sources he should have stayed away from. His judgment was bad, to say the least.”

      Trump Jr

  55. Jun 2017
    1. a more holistic view of their work, and Ukraine needed a more coherent response to the brazen, prolific organization that Sandworm had become. “The light side remains divided,” he says of the balkanized reaction to the hackers among their victims. “The dark side is united.”
  56. May 2017
    1. On March 20, 2017, during public testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, FBI director James Comey confirmed the existence of an FBI investigation into Russian interference and Russian links to the Trump campaign, including the question of whether there had been any coordination between the campaign and the Russians.[24] He said the investigation began in July 2016 and was "still in its early stages".[25] Comey made the unusual decision to reveal the ongoing investigation to Congress, citing benefit to the public good.[93]

      Comey's public confirmation of a FBI investigation.

    1. proletarianise

      Proletarianization is the social process by which people move from being either the employer or self-employment to being employed as a wage laborer by an employer.

      Marx, Karl, and David McLellan. Karl Marx: selected writings. Oxford University Press, USA, 2000.

    2. offenses.

      These offenses included suspicion of treason intent on the part of couriers if they behaved with insufficient respect to the Tsar, to common crimes such as robbery or forgery. Some of the exiles were put to work on the land as state peasants, or employed as craftsmen in towns, but the majority were drafted into the ranks of the Cossacks.

      Forsyth, James. A history of the peoples of Siberia: Russia's north Asian colony, 1581-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992.

    3. economic planning regions

      The Soviet Union’s economy was one that was planned by leaders in the Party. The Gosplan was the agency that was responsible for the central economic planning in the Soviet Union. It was established in 1921 and did not have a large role at first. However, after the October Revolution and Russian Civil War, a large period of economic collapse occurred and a planned economy was necessary to stimulate the economy, increase productivity, and distribute necessary commodities. The Gosplan’s main task was to create and administer a series of 5-year plans that governed the economy of the USSR. The committee was disbanded in 1991 at the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

      Faulhaber, Gerald R., and David J. Farber. "Spectrum management: Property rights, markets, and the commons." Rethinking rights and regulations: institutional responses to new communication technologies (2003): 193-206.

  57. Mar 2017
  58. Aug 2016
    1. But second, a sense of what could have been. What if Stalin hadn’t murdered most of the competent people? What if entire fields of science hadn’t been banned for silly reasons? What if Kantorovich had been able to make the Soviet leadership base its economic planning around linear programming? How might history have turned out differently?

      I asked my brother, who writes about Soviet economics, whether he ever had this sense of sadness at what could have been. He responded that in his experience everyone who studies the period shares this feeling.

    2. First, amazement that the Soviet economy got as far as it did, given how incredibly screwed up it was.

      I feel this.

  59. Nov 2015
    1. Infrastructures, for Collier, are amixture of political rationality, administrative techniques, and material systems, and his interest isnot in infrastructure per se but in what it tells us about practices of government. Soviet electricityprovision, through this lens, is analyzed for how it reveals a system of total planning in a commandeconomy rather than for what it tells us about the effects of electricity on users in Russia.

      It's never really about what is in front of us when it comes to politics.. there is always more to it.. His theory is a tool we could study to learn about a country/society's government by looking at the infrastructure they've created.

  60. Sep 2015
  61. Apr 2015
    1. Why is it that Putin has no problem getting his message out? The reason, of course, is that most of what Russians see and hear is Putin’s point of view and Putin’s point of view only.

      Although a blant exaggaration, it's well said

    1. Интересно, что в познеровском монологе на путинском ТВ картина дебатов выглядела несколько иначе. Мэтр отечественного телевидения заявил, что дебаты закончились "почти вничью" (49% за "диалог", 51% — против), после чего пустился в рассуждения о невежественной канадской аудитории, будто бы ничего не знающей о России и находящейся во власти пропаганды. Простим господину Познеру, что он — случайно или по старой советской привычке — "подрезал" процентик у оппонентов. Гораздо важнее, что он скромно умолчал о том факте, что изначально аудитория гораздо больше симпатизировала именно его позиции, а изменение настроений аудитории — это результат дебатов, которые Познер с Коэном проиграли, а не мифической антироссийской пропаганды. Подобное поведение иначе как потерей лица не назовешь. В конце концов, нет ничего постыдного в том, чтобы проиграть в честном поединке, а вот заниматься передергиваниями — это действительно позор.