by ti-amie CNN International
@cnni
A small, unassuming boat washed up on a remote island in the Pacific last week carrying no passengers -- but loaded with around 1,430 pounds of cocaine.
Ghost boat carrying 1,400 pounds of cocaine washes up on remote Pacific island
CNN Expansion Hong Kong July 2020 795169, Jessie Yeung
By Jessie Yeung, CNN
by ponchi101 Somewhere, in an obscure little room behind a dark little room, a member of a drug cartel is being taught what all those things you can buy at an ACE HARDWARE store are really for.
(somebody screwed up badly. If it is the Pacific, somebody in Mexico or Colombia needs to learn how to lash a boat properly to the dock)
by ti-amie Thank goodness they've got a year to figure out another way to do this!
Swiss to ban deducting bribes from taxes starting in 2022
By John Miller
ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss companies will no longer be able to deduct bribes paid to private individuals from their taxes, Switzerland’s government said on Wednesday, according to an update of tax laws due to take effect on Jan. 1, 2022.
Beyond bribes, costs from financing criminal activities or money paid in return for a crime to be committed will also no longer be tax deductible once the legislation takes effect after next year, the government said.
The Alpine country, famed for its historic practices of banking secrecy and as a haven for money from abroad, will leave some wiggle room for certain offenses to remain tax deductible, however, with foreign fines to be tax-deductible in exceptional cases from 2022 when the fines violate Swiss public policy, the government said.
“As in the past, domestic punitive financial sanctions, i.e. fines, monetary penalties and punitive administrative sanctions, are not tax-deductible,” the government said. “In contrast, foreign punitive financial sanctions are to be tax-deductible in exceptional cases if they violate Swiss public policy or if a company credibly demonstrates that it has taken all reasonable steps to comply with the law.”
Once the changes take effect, Switzerland said, it will be complying with a recommendation of the OECD’s Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering.
The wealthy republic has only tentatively lowered the legal boom on bribery over the last two decades, including a move to criminalize bribes to foreign public officials starting in the early 2000s.
In 2001, Switzerland banned the deduction of bribes paid by companies to public officials from their taxes.
The push to ban bribery of private individuals, in the works for several years and now punishable only in instances where it distorts competition, has taken longer amid opposition from some political parties to changes.
Reporting by John Miller; editing by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi
by ponchi101 Ex-(expletive)-cuse me?
This is actually the law? (deducing bribes from your taxes).
I mean, the rest of the world should gang together and invade them. Who knows how much damage this has caused through time.
by ti-amie
by ti-amieExclusive: 'It's a catastrophe': Scottish fishermen halt exports due to Brexit red tape
By Kate Holton
LONDON (Reuters) - Many Scottish fishermen have halted exports to European Union markets after post-Brexit bureaucracy shattered the system that used to put fresh langoustines and scallops in French shops just over a day after they were harvested.
Fishing exporters told Reuters their businesses could become unviable after the introduction of health certificates, customs declarations and other paperwork added days to their delivery times and hundreds of pounds to the cost of each load.
Business owners said they had tried to send small deliveries to France and Spain to test the new systems this week but it was taking five hours to secure a health certificate in Scotland, a document which is required to apply for other customs paperwork.
In the first working week after Brexit, one-day deliveries were taking three or more days - if they got through at all.
Owners could not say for sure where their valuable cargo was. A trade group told boats to stop fishing exported stocks.
“Our customers are pulling out,” Santiago Buesa of SB Fish told Reuters. “We are fresh product and the customers expect to have it fresh, so they’re not buying. It’s a catastrophe.”
On Thursday evening, the Scottish fishing industry’s biggest logistics provider DFDS Scotland told customers it had taken the “extraordinary step” of halting until Monday export groupage, when multiple product lines are carried, to try to fix IT issues, paperwork errors and the backlog.
Scotland harvests vast quantities of langoustines, scallops, oysters, lobsters and mussels from sea fisheries along its bracing Atlantic coast which are rushed by truck to grace the tables of European diners in Paris, Brussels and Madrid.
But Britain’s departure from the EU’s orbit introduced reams of paperwork and costs that must be completed to move goods across the new customs border, the biggest change to its trade since the launch of the Single Market in 1993.
Those trading in food and livestock face the toughest requirements, hitting the express delivery of freshly caught fish that used to move overnight from Scotland, via England, into France, before going on to other European markets in days.
David Noble, whose Aegirfish buys from Scottish fleets to export to Europe, said he would have to pay between 500 to 600 pounds ($815) per day for paperwork, wiping out most profit.
His concern is that this marks more than just teething problems, and says he cannot pass on the higher costs of doing business. “I’m questioning whether to carry on,” he said.
“If our fish is too expensive our customers will buy elsewhere.”
CENTURIES OLD MARKET
In the single market, European food could be processed and packed in Britain then returned to the EU for sale. But Britain’s pursuit of a more distant relationship means its trade deal does not cover all interactions between the two sides.
Gaps have already appeared on French and Irish shop shelves.
Brexit has strained the ties that bind the United Kingdom together: while England and Wales voted to leave the EU in 2016, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted remain.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has used Brexit as part of her argument that Scotland should seek independence.
She said on Friday that exporters were paying a high price, “a particular worry for Scotland’s world class seafood sector”.
Fishermen across Britain have accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of betrayal after he previously vowed to take back control of British waters. With little new control and little access to customer markets, many are in despair.
Fishing trade bodies said mistakes in filling out paperwork meant entire consignments were being checked. A French fishmongers’ union said numerous seafood trucks had been held up at the customs point in Boulogne for several hours, and even up to a day, due to faulty paperwork.
While that should improve with time, and IT issues should be resolved, Seafood Scotland warned they could see the “destruction of a centuries-old market” if it does not.
Fergus Ewing, Scottish secretary for the rural economy, said it was better for problems to be identified and resolved in Scotland than hundreds of miles away.
SB Fish’s Buesa, angered at suggestions that traders were not prepared, said all his paperwork was correct and demanded to know why business leaders were not making more of a fuss.
He owns the business with his father, has been exporting for 28 years and employs around 50 people. “I’m in the trenches here,” he said. “It’s gridlock.”
($1 = 0.7363 pounds)
Additional reporting by Richard Lough in Paris; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Catherine Evans
by JazzNU Didn't everyone know this would happen? I hope those complaining about this disaster voted Remain.
by ponchi101 Disinformation. We talked so much about it, but all these people could not see it. Now, welcome to being non-EU. Get used to dealing with European bureaucracy.
by skatingfan Fifth Estate documentary on the shooting.
by ti-amieTurkey drought: Istanbul could run out of water in 45 days
Water at critically low levels across Turkey after lack of rainfall leads to most severe drought in a decade
Bethan McKernan Turkey correspondent
Wed 13 Jan 2021 07.31 EST
Major cities across Turkey face running out of water in the next few months, with warnings Istanbul has less than 45 days of water left.
Poor rainfall has led to the country’s most severe drought in a decade and put the megacity of 17 million people close to running out of water, according to Turkey’s chamber of chemical engineers. The Ankara mayor, Mansur Yavaş, said earlier this month the capital had another 110 days’ worth in dams and reservoirs.
İzmir and Bursa, Turkey’s next two biggest cities, are also struggling, with dams that are about 36% and 24% full respectively, and farmers in wheat-producing areas such as the Konya plain and Edirne province on the border with Greece and Bulgaria are warning of crop failure.
The critically low level of rainfall in the second half of 2020 – approaching 50% year on year for November – led the religious affairs directorate to instruct imams and their congregations to pray for rain last month.
Turkey is a “water stressed” country, with just 1,346 cubic metres of water per capita per year, and has faced several droughts since the 1980s due to a combination of population growth, industrialisation, urban sprawl and climate change.
“Instead of focusing on measures to keep water demand under control, Turkey insists on expanding its water supply through building more dams … Turkey has built hundreds of dams in the last two decades,” said Dr Akgün İlhan, a water management expert at the Istanbul Policy Center.
“The warning signs have been there for decades but not much has been done in practice.”
Turkey has long prioritised economic growth over environmental concerns and remains the only G20 country apart from the US yet to ratify the 2015 Paris agreement.
“Everybody knows that water basins must be preserved, especially for these drought episodes which are becoming more severe and long term,” said Dr Ümit Şahin, who teaches global climate change and environmental politics at Istanbul’s Sabancı University.
“Yet in Istanbul, for instance, the most vital water basins, the last forests and agricultural land, [have been opened] to urban development projects … the new airport, the new Bosphorus bridge, its connection roads and highways, and the Istanbul canal project. These policies cannot solve Turkey’s drought problem.”
Ekrem İmamoğlu, elected in 2019 as Istanbul’s opposition party mayor despite fierce resistance from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development party, told the Guardian that Istanbullus had been reassured that the huge Melen dam system would supply the city’s water needs without issue until 2070.
On entering office, however, his administration realised that construction problems would delay the project for several years.
The municipality has for now urged residents to think carefully about how to save water, including turning off the tap while brushing teeth or shaving, turning down valves feeding into sinks and installing lower usage taps.
“Water would not be a problem today if the dam was active. But we also have to think about wide climate change issues … If it does not rain in Melen, you cannot get water from there either,” İmamoğlu said.
In İzmir, local authorities are preparing against water shortages by digging 103 new boreholes, recycling wastewater and minimising loss and leakage by repairing ageing pipes, according to the city’s mayor, Tunç Soyer.
Ultimately, Turkey’s cities need lots of rain, immediately, to avoid having to ration water in the next few months – and even sustained rainfall for the rest of the winter might not be enough for farming communities to rescue this year’s crops.
Drought creates a vicious cycle, says İlhan: decreased agricultural production and increased food prices could lead to a rise in poverty and rural to urban migration, exacerbating existing pressures on water infrastructure.
“Turkey does have the economic and technological means to fix its damaged water cycle. The missing element is the political will to take these steps.”
ti-amie wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 6:34 pmTurkey drought: Istanbul could run out of water in 45 days
...
The critically low level of rainfall in the second half of 2020 – approaching 50% year on year for November – led the religious affairs directorate to instruct imams and their congregations to pray for rain last month.
...
ti-amie wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 6:34 pmTurkey drought: Istanbul could run out of water in 45 days
...
The critically low level of rainfall in the second half of 2020 – approaching 50% year on year for November – led the religious affairs directorate to instruct imams and their congregations to pray for rain last month.
...
In what other country did I once see the government trying to solve a drought through prayer? uhm....
I'm reading a book on sacred royalty and at one time it was the function of the king to make sure the rain fell. However I don't think modern Turkey has royalty so what can I say? You can't draw on an ancient custom when the structure that supported a custom no longer exists.
by dryrunguy I talked with a friend of mine in Barinas, Venezuela last night. He was telling me about what he seeing when he leaves his apartment. He sees people who appear to be dying in the streets--not from COVID. From what they are saying as they lie in the street, they are dying of hunger.
by ponchi101 Just to say I have not heard of that.
And just to say it does not surprise me. But I have stopped following the news from Venezuela. I just can't stand them.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Here is the moment in which the 4 years of incompetence and corruption will come into play. The images from Jan 6th can now be doctored to say that it is the USA that is not a democracy.
by patrick
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:26 pm
Here is the moment in which the 4 years of incompetence and corruption will come into play. The images from Jan 6th can now be doctored to say that it is the USA that is not a democracy.
Unfortunately, I think you are correct thanks to Mr Rioter.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:26 pm
Here is the moment in which the 4 years of incompetence and corruption will come into play. The images from Jan 6th can now be doctored to say that it is the USA that is not a democracy.
Sigh
by mmmm8 If anyone wants to see the investigation about Putin's palace that Navalny's team released on the day of his arrest, it's available with English subtitles and, I think, pretty easy to follow for non-Russians.
It's really a palace. There's a theater and an "aquadiscotheque"
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 It is never the final straw. Not when the guy in charge is perfectly willing to shoot you.
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:49 pm
It is never the final straw. Not when the guy in charge is perfectly willing to shoot you.
I don't see it either. This stuff didn't work with a far weaker Lukashenko and surely is not going to work with Putin.
by MJ2004 Interesting opinion piece on Putin/Navalny (I still think Navalny was mad to have returned to Russia):
Alexei Navalny is a real threat to Vladimir Putin
The fragility of the Russian regime is becoming clear
Two years ago, a Russian friend told me that he thought that Alexei Navalny posed a serious danger to Vladimir Putin. I was skeptical. Russia had weathered the international condemnation and economic sanctions imposed after its annexation of Crimea in 2014. The country had just staged a successful World Cup. President Putin seemed well entrenched in the Kremlin.
But my friend was right. Through his bravery, determination and investigative flair, Mr Navalny has galvanised the Russian opposition. He has survived an attempt to kill him and returned to Russia to face arrest, imprisonment and, possibly, death. His example inspired mass protests across the country over the weekend. Whether Mr Navalny ultimately succeeds or fails, he now represents the most dangerous threat that Mr Putin has faced in the two decades since he took power.
There have been big anti-Putin demonstrations before. I was in Moscow in early 2012, as thousands took to the streets to protest against the Russian leader’s return to the presidency. I was there again, last summer, when there were further anti-Putin demonstrations provoked by the rigging of local elections.
But this time feels different. The current protests have taken place in more than 100 cities across Russia — from Vladivostok on the Pacific coast to Irkutsk in Siberia and Kazan in Tatarstan. Experienced observers say that the level of violence used against protesters is increasing: the police have swung their batons with more abandon, and some demonstrators have fought back. In 2012, the opposition did not have a clear leader. Now it does.
Mr Navalny and his organisation have stirred public anger with an extraordinary investigation into a palatial residence, apparently built for Mr Putin by the Black Sea. A film and illustrated essay, released to coincide with Mr Navalny’s return to Russia, highlight the extraordinary opulence of the palace. Computerised mock-ups, said to be based on leaks from disgruntled workmen, show a casino, pole-dancing room, amphitheatre and what looks like an underground ice-hockey rink. The place makes Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago look like a shack. The total area covered by the compound, which was filmed by an airborne drone, is claimed to be 39-times the size of Monaco.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, says that while the palace appears to exist, it does not belong to Mr Putin. Which raises the obvious question — who does own it?
The Kremlin still dismisses Mr Navalny as a figure of little significance, and until recently refused to utter his name in public. Mr Putin’s supporters point to opinion polls suggesting that Mr Navalny enjoys little public support, while Mr Putin remains relatively popular. But the regime is not prepared to test this proposition by allowing Mr Navalny to run in an election.
Mr Putin will be shaken, embarrassed and alarmed by the emergence of a younger, better-looking and braver opponent. But the Russian state’s apparatus of repression remains formidable. Previous opposition leaders have tended to end up in prison, in exile or dead — like Boris Nemtsov, who was killed near the Kremlin in 2015.
There seems little doubt that Mr Navalny will be jailed for several years. He may die in prison. Following his imprisonment on his return to Russia, Mr Navalny announced, via social media, that he has no intention of committing suicide. This was more than a dark joke. It was an attempt to shape the narrative before the authorities can announce that he has died by his own hand, or in a regrettable accident.
The probability is that there will be further and bigger demonstrations to come. Mr Putin and his support apparatus will hope that repeated arrests, sackings, beatings and killings will eventually wear down the opposition.
Whether the Russian leader’s carefully burnished image as the champion of ordinary citizens can survive such a process of mass repression is another question. As a keen student of the country’s history, Mr Putin will know that tsarist rule was shaken by repeated cycles of protest and repression before it was eventually toppled.
What happens next in Russia will be watched all over the world, particularly in China. Together, Mr Putin and President Xi Jinping have formed an axis of reaction — pushing back against pro-democracy movements around the world. The recent uprisings in Hong Kong and Belarus have seemed particularly threatening, because they took place so close to the power centres of Beijing and Moscow — and could serve to inspire Chinese or Russian opposition forces.
In Washington, President Joe Biden has now broken with his predecessor Donald Trump’s studied indifference to the fate of democracy and human rights in Russia. The Biden White House has urged the immediate release of Mr Navalny and his supporters.
The Kremlin will not listen. But US expressions of support for Mr Navalny and the protests will anger Mr Putin. One of the reasons that the Russian leader detested Hillary Clinton — and worked to defeat her — was the support that she expressed for anti-Putin demonstrators in 2012.
The Russian state’s machinery of repression is swinging into action. But beneath the tough exterior, the underlying fragility of President Putin’s regime is once again apparent.
by ponchi101 Completely agree that Navalny returning to Russia was a sign of madness. And about being suicidal: yes, yes he is. Going back was suicidal.
---0---
So many memories of people saying how fragile Chavez' regime was. Of thousands taking to the streets, sure that "this time is different" (the tear gas felt the same). Of knowing that that time, "this is it".
So many. Over 15 years ago and here I am, applying for Colombian citizenship.
by JazzNU Yes, it was clear that when Nalvany decided to return, he was willing to be a martyr for the cause.
I have a question for, maybe mmmm8 or someone else with advanced knowledge of Russia. I'm confused about the palace and the uproar surrounding it. Was it believed by most Russians before now that Putin was living a modest life? I recall coverage many years ago highlighting his lavish lifestyle. Is this seen as new information? If not, why is highlighting it making such a difference now?
by ti-amie Nalvany was indeed mad to go back. But he knew what was going to happen.
by MJ2004
JazzNU wrote: ↑Wed Jan 27, 2021 7:55 pm
I have a question for, maybe mmmm8 or someone else with advanced knowledge of Russia. I'm confused about the palace and the uproar surrounding it. Was it believed by most Russians before now that Putin was living a modest life? I recall coverage many years ago highlighting his lavish lifestyle. Is this seen as new information? If not, why is highlighting it making such a difference now?
I remember reading about his crazy watch collection a few years back. Of course, Russian news portrays a very different story. Don't know how (much) western media is censored.
by ti-amie Watches? Are you referring to the two Patek Phillippe's I read that he owns? It's not real if the NYT hasn't written a style piece implying he's some kind of elitist like they just did to President Biden for wearing a Rolex that runs about $7k.
MJ2004 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 27, 2021 8:13 pm
I remember reading about his crazy watch collection a few years back. Of course, Russian news portrays a very different story. Don't know how (much) western media is censored.
Exactly. I've read of lavish residences, cars, and yachts. There was a lot. Not remotely living the life of a commoner. So, is that what has happened over the years? That's it's like China where they censor out this information in internet searches to carefully craft the image they want for Putin? I feel like previous information has mostly come from opposition leaders in the past, similar to this. I'm just wondering what has changed. For instance, was there an account before of this going on, but not photos or videos to share with the Russian public like is happening now? Because I can see that making a big difference.
by MJ2004
ti-amie wrote: ↑Wed Jan 27, 2021 8:34 pm
Watches? Are you referring to the two Patek Phillippe's I read that he owns? It's not real if the NYT hasn't written a style piece implying he's some kind of elitist like they just did to President Biden for wearing a Rolex that runs about $7k.
Hmpf. I posted and it disappeared. Trying again.
Putin is in another league. A few years ago one of his PPs was on sale for a cool $1mil.
$7k is nothing in the world of watches.
by ponchi101 Let's remember that Rafa goes on court with $800K on his right wrist. That is the price of his Richard Mille.
Hublot has one watch that is worth $1MM. The casing is made of diamonds (no, not COVERED in diamonds, it is made of diamonds, of basically industrial quality but diamonds still).
Nobody really knows how much Putin is worth. But he is certainly the richest man on earth.
Will love to hear from M8.
by mmmm8
JazzNU wrote: ↑Wed Jan 27, 2021 7:55 pm
Yes, it was clear that when Nalvany decided to return, he was willing to be a martyr for the cause.
I have a question for, maybe mmmm8 or someone else with advanced knowledge of Russia. I'm confused about the palace and the uproar surrounding it. Was it believed by most Russians before now that Putin was living a modest life? I recall coverage many years ago highlighting his lavish lifestyle. Is this seen as new information? If not, why is highlighting it making such a difference now?
There is no surprise or uproar, but having visual proof I think moved some people to action that before were more apathetic. More people being moved to action led to additional people being moved to action, so the release of the video timed with his arrest was just a good catalyst. There are now memes and even songs making fun of it so the conversation is catching some people that may like to call themselves "apolitical." They may have watched the video or read about it just for entertainment/amusement, but now they are talking about rather just ignoring any news around politics.
MJ2004 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 27, 2021 8:13 pm
I remember reading about his crazy watch collection a few years back. Of course, Russian news portrays a very different story. Don't know how (much) western media is censored.
Exactly. I've read of lavish residences, cars, and yachts. There was a lot. Not remotely living the life of a commoner. So, is that what has happened over the years? That's it's like China where they censor out this information in internet searches to carefully craft the image they want for Putin? I feel like previous information has mostly come from opposition leaders in the past, similar to this. I'm just wondering what has changed. For instance, was there an account before of this going on, but not photos or videos to share with the Russian public like is happening now? Because I can see that making a big difference.
It's not censored like China in Russia, information is open on the internet and there are still independent TV channels and you can get CNN, etc on cable. But all the builders, service people, guests, etc. essentially have what probably is iron-clad NDAs with an added threat of persecution, and the primary media that does good investigative journalism of stuff like this are local media that often get stifled by local governments.
So the only photos of it publicly available before, as I understand, were some selfies builders took and put on social media in 2011/2 when it was under construction. You essentially had to look for this information to find it. Not many cared to look.
You have to also remember, Putin's very good at this clandestine stuff. For about 15+ years of his presidency people literally didn't know who his two daughters were, down to whether they even lived in Russia.
Navalny's organization has done dozens of this type of investigations on other officials and oligarchs tied to the regime but this is the first one that's garnered lots of national attention, not surprisingly.
by mmmm8 Anyway, to the larger issue, it's nice to see some social organizing, but I'll believe it's a movement when I see it. The tide was much greater in 2012 and it led to nothing.
by JazzNU Thanks so much for the insight @mmmm8. Really appreciate it.
by ti-amie What Jazz said. Thanks mmmm8
by JazzNU
China sharpens language, warns Taiwan that independence 'means war'
By Tony Munroe, Yew Lun Tian
BEIJING (Reuters) - China toughened its language towards Taiwan on Thursday, warning after recent stepped up military activities near the island that “independence means war” and that its armed forces were acting in response to provocation and foreign interference.
Taiwan, claimed by China as its own territory, reported multiple Chinese fighter jets and bombers entering its southwestern air defence identification zone last weekend, prompting Washington to urge Beijing to stop pressuring Taiwan.
China believes that Taiwan’s democratically-elected government is moving the island towards a declaration of formal independence, though Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has repeatedly said it is already an independent country called the Republic of China, its formal name.
Asked at a monthly news briefing about the air force’s recent activities, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.
“The military activities carried out by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in the Taiwan Strait are necessary actions to address the current security situation in the Taiwan Strait and to safeguard national sovereignty and security,” he said.
“They are a solemn response to external interference and provocations by ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” he added.
Wu said a “handful” of people in Taiwan were seeking the island’s independence.
“We warn those ‘Taiwan independence’ elements: those who play with fire will burn themselves, and ‘Taiwan independence’ means war,” he added.
While China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, it is unusual for Beijing to make such overt, verbal threats of conflict.
Asked about the remarks, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said there was no reason that tensions between China and Taiwan “need to lead to anything like confrontation.” He also reaffirmed longstanding U.S. military support to Taiwan’s self-defense.
“We have obligations to assist Taiwan with their self-defense and I think you’re going to see that continue,” said Kirby, a retired admiral, in the first Pentagon briefing of the Biden administration.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said China should think carefully and not underestimate the island’s determination to defend its sovereignty and uphold freedom and democracy.
Taiwan’s Defence Ministry reported six Chinese air force aircraft, including four J-10 fighter jets, flew into its air defence zone on Thursday, close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands at the top end of the South China Sea.
The weekend Chinese incursions coincided with a U.S. carrier battle group entering the disputed South China Sea to promote “freedom of the seas”.
China routinely describes Taiwan as its most important and sensitive issue in relations with the United States, which under the former Trump administration ramped up support for the island in terms of arms sales and senior officials visiting Taipei.
President Joe Biden’s government, in office for a week, has reaffirmed its commitment to Taiwan as being “rock solid.”
Taiwan has denounced China’s threats and efforts at intimidation, and Tsai has vowed to defend the island’s freedom and not be coerced.
Reporting by Tony Munroe and Yew Lun Tian, writing and additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; additional reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington, Editing by Himani Sarkar, William Maclean and Richard Pullin
by ponchi101 Better the USA send an carrier group there. Maybe even two.
by the Moz As nothing more than a counter to America's waning 'super power' status, I welcome China's rise. But their aggressive posturing will only grow more obnoxious and dangerous if left unchecked. They need to be brought down a notch or two. I'll leave 'the how' to diplomats or the military-industrial complex. And if China is keen to engage effectively in the international community then a modicum of compromise needs to be applied to their rigid doctrine. Tall ask I know, but stranger things have happened.
by ponchi101 I find their rise terribly worrisome. I get to work with Chinese crews with certain frequency and they view the world as their enemy. They do not forge diplomatic ties based on mutual common moral ground or economic relations that are equal vis-a-vis, but rather on possible exploitation tactics.
Their internal behavior towards their population tells you how they see a model of functioning government. Their record of human rights is, of course, appalling, and they see no issues with other countries following that model.
One issue that I truly dislike of the Chinese (the people) is the way they treat each other. I have seen supervisors completely demean and degrade a subordinate, to the point that I had to intervene (I asked him to talk to me in the same fashion; he dropped his gaze, as in theory I was his "superior"). I, together with a colleague, once had to pull a Chinese supervisor and explain to him that if he were to talk to another Kurd in that fashion, not only would we request his departure, it was not smart, as there were 400 Kurds in that group, 30 Chinese and 6 "Westerners" (Kurds would have no issues killing us, and I do mean that).
China does not see diplomacy as a way of conflict resolution; they see it as weakness. Their constant claims to several surrounding people (let's not forget Tibet/Nepal, which are simply successful occupations of foreign people) are an example.
Add to that their view of women ("having a baby girl is like watering your neighbor's garden" is one of their sayings) and, well, let me keep the USA as a superpower a bit longer.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
Wow. A relevant diplomatic response in real time. It's been about 4 years...
by JazzNU
Myanmar military says it is taking control of the country
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar military television said Monday that the military was taking control of the country for one year, while reports said many of the country’s senior politicians including Aung San Suu Kyi had been detained.
An presenter on military-owned Myawaddy TV made the announcement and cited a section of the military-drafted constitution that allows the military to take control in times of national emergency. He said the reason for takeover was in part due to the government’s failure to act on the military’s claims of voter fraud in last November’s election and its failure to postpone the election because of the coronavirus crisis.
The announcement follows days of concern about the threat of a military coup — and military denials — and came on the morning the country’s new Parliament session was to begin.
The detention of the politicians and cuts in communication services on Monday were the first signals that plans to seize power were in motion. Phone and internet access to Naypyitaw was lost and Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party could not be reached.
The Irrawaddy, an established online news service, reported that Suu Kyi, who as state counsellor is the nation’s top leader, and the country’s president, Win Myint, were both detained in the pre-dawn hours. The news service cited Myo Nyunt, a spokesman for the NLD.
Its report said that the party’s Central Executive Committee members, lawmakers and regional Cabinet members had also been taken into custody.
The U.S., Australia and others issued statements expressing concern reports and urging Myanmar’s military to respect the rule of law.
“The United States is alarmed by reports that the Burmese military has taken steps to undermine the country’s democratic transition, including the arrest of State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian officials in Burma,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement from Washington. She said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the reported developments.
“The United States opposes any attempt to alter the outcome of recent elections or impede Myanmar’s democratic transition, and will take action against those responsible if these steps are not reversed,” the statement said. Burma is the former name of Myanmar.
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne called for the release of Suu Kyi and others reported to be detained. “We strongly support the peaceful reconvening of the National Assembly, consistent with the results of the November 2020 general election,” she said.
Myanmar lawmakers were to gather Monday in the capital Naypyitaw for the first session of Parliament since last year’s election.
The 75-year-old Suu Kyi is by far the country’s most dominant politician, and became the country’s leader after leading a decades-long nonviolent struggle against military rule.
Suu Kyi’s party captured 396 out of 476 seats in the combined lower and upper houses of Parliament in the November polls, but the military holds 25% of the total seats under the 2008 military-drafted constitution and several key ministerial positions are also reserved for military appointees.
The military, known as the Tatmadaw, charged that there was massive voting fraud in the election, though it has failed to provide proof. The state Union Election Commission last week rejected its allegations.
Amid the bickering over the allegations, the military last Tuesday ramped up political tension when a spokesman at its weekly news conference, responding to a reporter’s question, declined to rule out the possibility of a coup. Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun elaborated by saying the military would “follow the laws in accordance with the constitution.”
Using similar language, Commander-in-Chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing told senior officers in a speech Wednesday that the constitution could be revoked if the laws were not being properly enforced. Adding to the concern was the unusual deployment of armored vehicles in the streets of several large cities.
On Saturday, however, the military denied it had threatened a coup, accusing unnamed organizations and media of misrepresenting its position and taking the general’s words out of context.
On Sunday, it reiterated its denial, this time blaming unspecified foreign embassies of misinterpreting the military’s position and calling on them “not to make unwarranted assumptions about the situation.”
by ti-amie Britain was the colonial power in Myanmar/Burma. Boris say anything yet?
by JazzNU Very confused about the statement from Jen's office. Mistake because it was rushed or was that intentional? I do think they still call them the Burmese military even in the context of Myanmar as the country name. Also think they reference the people similarly. But confused on the Burma title to then reference Myanmar and then back to Burma.
by mmmm8
JazzNU wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 3:50 am
Very confused about the statement from Jen's office. Mistake because it was rushed or was that intentional? I do think they still call them the Burmese military even in the context of Myanmar as the country name. Also think they reference the people similarly. But confused on the Burma title to then reference Myanmar and then back to Burma.
The US recognizes the country name as Burma because that was the name before the previous military coup and so the Department of State prefers Burma in support of democracy there.
However, this has come up before with not sticking to this rule:
Myanmar military says it is taking control of the country
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar military television said Monday that the military was taking control of the country for one year, while reports said many of the country’s senior politicians including Aung San Suu Kyi had been detained.
An presenter on military-owned Myawaddy TV made the announcement and cited a section of the military-drafted constitution that allows the military to take control in times of national emergency. He said the reason for takeover was in part due to the government’s failure to act on the military’s claims of voter fraud in last November’s election and its failure to postpone the election because of the coronavirus crisis.
The announcement follows days of concern about the threat of a military coup — and military denials — and came on the morning the country’s new Parliament session was to begin.
The detention of the politicians and cuts in communication services on Monday were the first signals that plans to seize power were in motion. Phone and internet access to Naypyitaw was lost and Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party could not be reached.
The Irrawaddy, an established online news service, reported that Suu Kyi, who as state counsellor is the nation’s top leader, and the country’s president, Win Myint, were both detained in the pre-dawn hours. The news service cited Myo Nyunt, a spokesman for the NLD.
Its report said that the party’s Central Executive Committee members, lawmakers and regional Cabinet members had also been taken into custody.
The U.S., Australia and others issued statements expressing concern reports and urging Myanmar’s military to respect the rule of law.
“The United States is alarmed by reports that the Burmese military has taken steps to undermine the country’s democratic transition, including the arrest of State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian officials in Burma,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement from Washington. She said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the reported developments.
“The United States opposes any attempt to alter the outcome of recent elections or impede Myanmar’s democratic transition, and will take action against those responsible if these steps are not reversed,” the statement said. Burma is the former name of Myanmar.
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne called for the release of Suu Kyi and others reported to be detained. “We strongly support the peaceful reconvening of the National Assembly, consistent with the results of the November 2020 general election,” she said.
Myanmar lawmakers were to gather Monday in the capital Naypyitaw for the first session of Parliament since last year’s election.
The 75-year-old Suu Kyi is by far the country’s most dominant politician, and became the country’s leader after leading a decades-long nonviolent struggle against military rule.
Suu Kyi’s party captured 396 out of 476 seats in the combined lower and upper houses of Parliament in the November polls, but the military holds 25% of the total seats under the 2008 military-drafted constitution and several key ministerial positions are also reserved for military appointees.
The military, known as the Tatmadaw, charged that there was massive voting fraud in the election, though it has failed to provide proof. The state Union Election Commission last week rejected its allegations.
Amid the bickering over the allegations, the military last Tuesday ramped up political tension when a spokesman at its weekly news conference, responding to a reporter’s question, declined to rule out the possibility of a coup. Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun elaborated by saying the military would “follow the laws in accordance with the constitution.”
Using similar language, Commander-in-Chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing told senior officers in a speech Wednesday that the constitution could be revoked if the laws were not being properly enforced. Adding to the concern was the unusual deployment of armored vehicles in the streets of several large cities.
On Saturday, however, the military denied it had threatened a coup, accusing unnamed organizations and media of misrepresenting its position and taking the general’s words out of context.
On Sunday, it reiterated its denial, this time blaming unspecified foreign embassies of misinterpreting the military’s position and calling on them “not to make unwarranted assumptions about the situation.”
ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 3:29 am
Britain was the colonial power in Myanmar/Burma. Boris say anything yet?
Maybe he cares more than I realize, but I feel like Boris was like:
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Excuse me? Is this some "secret"? The UK government is not aware of that? There have been, I can't recall, many investigative reports about this, in the UK, Netherlands and Germany, for years.
NOW they call it disturbing?
by JazzNU I'm not sure if they meant it this way, but I read this as, we knew there was plenty of Russian money laundering here, but guys, it has now reached a disturbing level. Like hey, maybe we can't keep looking the other way.
Probably suddenly concerned with what the money will go towards with Nalvany and the protests. CYA
by ti-amie AND no more EU to run interference. TBH I was surprised this didn't get more attention during the run up to formal Brexit. Some did mention that the vision is for England to become a European version of Singapore but only in passing.
by JazzNU Like a tax haven or something else?
by ti-amie I really don't know if a tax haven and "something else" don't go hand in hand.
Snippet from inside that article:
"Earlier this year, TLE revealed that the world’s ten richest men have added more than $132 billion to their combined net worth this year, despite the devastating impact of the coronavirus crisis on the global economy."
Yep. Sounds right.
by Suliso I wonder if there is any economic or political development whatsoever, other than heavy taxation, which would be more favorable to a common man than tech billionaires. I'm struggling to think of such...
by Suliso 500,000 bicycle parking places is not enough so the Dutch will invest in 100,000 more
I think what this needs in the US, especially in large cities, is a huge buy in from the public. You have this in the Netherlands (again House Hunters International knowledge) where many US citizens relocating are stunned by how almost no one uses cars.
by Suliso US is maybe far away and different, but it's very illustrative to compare Netherlands with Belgium. Very similar people and geography, but cycling much less in Belgium due to inferior infrastructure.
Actually majority of those cyclists do own cars too, but are not using for short distances or where train very convenient.
by ponchi101 About Bezos.
Just to be clear. My position is: he has done NOTHING wrong. He had one brilliant idea 30 years ago, and he has pioneered an entire section of an economy that is now booming around the world. Amazon has helped in some aspects: they are very much one factor why inflation in the USA has been kept in check for three decades, as they truly keep down prices (Wal Mart too).
But it does not mean these new economic models do not come without consequences, mainly, a severe drop in employment of good paying jobs. These guys are simply a real-life version of MONOPOLY (the game) in which, as we all know, eventually one player gets such momentum he gains everything. I know there is an economic theory for this (I read it years ago, but I can't find it) but it seems that nobody has ever read it.
So, Amazon needs to be broken up. It happened to Standard oil and the world kept spinning. The Rockefellers continued being super rich, a more diverse industry fueled the growth of the 20th century, and everybody was better off.
It is not such a complicated thing to see.
by ponchi101
Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Feb 04, 2021 6:57 pm
US is maybe far away and different, but it's very illustrative to compare Netherlands with Belgium. Very similar people and geography, but cycling much less in Belgium due to inferior infrastructure.
Actually majority of those cyclists do own cars too, but are not using for short distances or where train very convenient.
It is one of the things that can be done, in very short time, at almost no cost (just drop taxes on bicycles) that can help in so many ways: Climate Change, public health, and simple infrastructure.
Here: a lot of people use bikes. Bogota has almost 2,000 Miles of bike paths, and still, some companies do not allow their employees to go to work on bikes because it looks unprofessional (it is the sole reason I have been told).
I have to buy one. Instead of using public transport.
by Suliso Bogota I imagine is a lot more challenging due to climate and hills. We don't cycle as much here (people use public transport a lot) but there is infrastructure. I would cycle to work if I didn't live so far. We have showers and locker rooms available so you can change to business attire if needed.
by ponchi101 Actually, Bogota is GREAT for bicycles. We are in mountains but the city is in a flat valley in between two ridges. You do not have any Tour De France hills. Then, temperature is always pleasant: a super hot day will be 22C°, early morning and late afternoon (when you pedal to and from work) will be around 12C°. No issues.
The only thing is the rain. It rains a lot, but every single bike shop will sell you a full fledge rain suit for those occasions. Carry it in your backpack and you are set.
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:34 pm
Actually, Bogota is GREAT for bicycles. We are in mountains but the city is in a flat valley in between two ridges. You do not have any Tour De France hills. Then, temperature is always pleasant: a super hot day will be 22C°, early morning and late afternoon (when you pedal to and from work) will be around 12C°. No issues.
The only thing is the rain. It rains a lot, but every single bike shop will sell you a full fledge rain suit for those occasions. Carry it in your backpack and you are set.
I'm clearly not familiar with Colombian geography... Is Cali also like this? Mom's cousin is married to a Colombian guy. He comes from Cali, but I've never asked him this.
by ponchi101 Cali is a stove turned on to MAX. It is almost at sea level, close to the coast, and surrounded by jungle. Of the three main cities (Bog, Medellin and Cali) it is the hottest one.
Snippet from inside that article:
"Earlier this year, TLE revealed that the world’s ten richest men have added more than $132 billion to their combined net worth this year, despite the devastating impact of the coronavirus crisis on the global economy."
Yep. Sounds right.
I get what they are trying to do with this kind of article, but why is it ALWAYS Jeff Bezos like he's the only multi-billionaire around? I feel like it's gotten out of hand. You find me even half the number of "let me spend his money to prove a point" articles in this vein about Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Steve Ballmer, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and the rest of the them. Don't like Bezos? That's fine. And I hope those complaining about him aren't using Amazon (spoiler alert: most are Prime members) . But seriously, at this point, there's so much piling in on him so often it's making people tune out potentially valid points being made.
Amazon break up - I personally think that could be disastrous depending on how it is done and would have many unintended consequences as some key factors about Amazon's operations tend to get overlooked that would probably get trampled in a split. I don't find Standard Oil a good comparison. Also, for these reasons, I think this is mostly a National/US News story, not a World News story.
by ponchi101 I think they always pick Bezos because he is the richest one. The sole reason.
I put it in world news because by now Amazon is not an American company. They are all around the world. They recently opened in Colombia, and will continue to expand.
by Suliso It's also because he treats his employees badly compared to others in tech and is not much into philanthropy. Google is supposedly a great place to work, Amazon not so much. Of course to a large extent because Google doesn't employ simple workers.
by JazzNU Given the internet has felt the need to tell me on an almost daily basis for the last month how freaking wealthy Elon Musk is by surpassing Bezos as the richest man, he can be in line for the firing squad to me. And his philanthropy is nothing to write home about.
I'm not arguing that Amazon isn't a multinational company, all of the ones related to the men I listed are. But the lion's share of their business is in the US along with their headquarters, and the issues you're talking about, the ones related in particular to breaking it up, they are very much rooted in the fallout it would have in the US.
I do think the skill level of workers is a big issue @suliso. With almost all the tech companies. Add the lower skilled workers into the equation, i.e. Uber, Lyft, Instacart, criticism increases. By all accounts, working for Amazon corporate in Seattle is not that dissimilar from working with other tech companies. I didn't list the Waltons, but not sure why they are escaping people's ire all of a sudden. Daddy Walton held onto a dollar almost as tight as Getty. Their philanthropy has always been minimal.
And that's all I mean really. There are other billionaires worthy of attention and criticism. Most stories in the last few years seems hyper focused on Bezos. He's the only one I remember donating money to something, then have the amount given criticized, and then people wonder why he's not compelled to give more publicly. Keep hammering it as Bezos, Bezos, and just Bezos, especially when everyone loves them their Amazon and Amazon Prime, and people are going to care as much about the point that is trying to be made as they care about that their iPhones being made at Foxconn.
by ti-amie I don't get the piling on Bezos either. He's no different than any other ultra wealthy man past or present. I think what they hate is that if people want something they go to Amazon without a second thought. I'm trying to break that habit but since I'm not wealthy I shop by price. Usually it's cheaper on Amazon.
Musk, on the other hand, is one level above a grifter. And yet he's escaped most criticism.
Do you think Bezos owning the WaPo has anything to do with it?
by ponchi101 He is the most recognizable, and his company is the most recognizable. I think it is simply that.
It is the sole thing that these people suffer from: they can't win in that aspect. If you don't give money, you are a bastard that owns half the world and does nothing (Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk). If you are indeed heavily involved in philanthropy, you are trying to implant chips in people (Gates) or are the eldest of The Elders of Zion (Zoros).
They can't win.
by Suliso Musk doesn't dominate any industry and he makes cool things so not so much criticism. Never mind Bezos himself, but some of these companies really ought to be broken up. Amazon and Facebook are prime candidates...
by ponchi101 After all the consolidations that took place in the oil industry in the late 90's and 2000's, the sole beneficiaries of those consolidations were the stock owners. Tens of thousands of people lost their jobs (by now hundreds of thousands), and no one was for the better.
ExxonMobil, Shell/BG, Bp/Amoco, Total/Fina/Elf, Texaco/Conoco and all the big oil companies have to be broken up again. They still hold too much power.
And yes, most of the tech giants I would break up too. Way too powerful and the risks are still not completely known or understood.
(Don't get me started on the airlines...)
by ti-amie
by JazzNU
ti-amie wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 6:52 pm
Musk, on the other hand, is one level above a grifter. And yet he's escaped most criticism.
Amen. And I can't say what I really want about him on here about his recognizability, so the kindest way I can think to put it is that he is not shy about peddling his celebrity.
by JazzNU
Suliso wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 7:08 pm
Musk doesn't dominate any industry and he makes cool things so not so much criticism. Never mind Bezos himself, but some of these companies really ought to be broken up. Amazon and Facebook are prime candidates...
In the US he does in the electric car market. Considerable domination.
It is the right policy to follow. 6 decades of an embargo have brought nothing.
But there goes Florida to the GOP for the next 30 years. Cubans and Venezuelans believe the only way to handle Cuba and Maduro is to invade militarily.
Of course, that means US MARINES invade Cuba and Venezuela. We are too busy buying stuff at an American Mall to bother doing it ourselves.
by Suliso Let it go, Florida is a lost cause anyway.
by JazzNU
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by skatingfan That reminds me of being about that age & my brother & I dug a cave into the snow bank at the side of the driveway near the street. My brother went inside for something & I was in the snowbank when I heard a rumbling, but because of all the snow I didn't know what I was hearing or how close it was. I stuck my head out looking up to see a large front loader with a load of snow above my head, and a startled municipal worker at the controls. If I hadn't stuck my head out at that moment he would have buried me alive.
by ponchi101 The stories from our childhoods that make you wonder: "How on earth am I alive?!"
That must have been scary.
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 5:14 am
The stories from our childhoods that make you wonder: "How on earth am I alive?!"
That must have been scary.
I think it disturbs me more now then it did then, though I did scramble to my feet and move out of the way. The part that gets me now is wondering how long I would have been in the snowbank before my brother came back, and how long after that would he realize that I was under the snow.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie When Education is a priority parents will find a way.
Someone said there were 36 kids in the SUV.
by MJ2004 I counted 35. Hope they don’t get into an accident.
by ponchi101 Sorry, In Venezuela abortion is illegal, but readily available. I truly doubt anybody knows how many abortions are performed in the country because basically nobody reports it and if, for example, you are an obstetrician, you are perfectly sure that no police or enforcement agency is going to come for you. It is a non-conversation.
The problem is that, being illegal, it is a cash business. And if you don't have the money, that is where the problems start.
by ti-amie
You can click on Fin Gomez name to see the full read out.
by ponchi101 I know that it is a bit of mixing different issues but, if you were to allow the Keystone Pipeline to be built, you could get oil from Canada, a country where democracy is respected and that is not a cause for continuous problems, and not have to buy the same oil from a brutal dictatorship with zero respect for human rights and lives, and not have to be involved in a regional massacre that will inevitably bathe your hands in blood.
I mean, MBS is in the same league as Putin, Xi Jinping, however you spell the little North Korean creep's name, and plenty of former despots.
But he has oil, and Aramco.
by ti-amie
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 10:52 pm
I know that it is a bit of mixing different issues but, if you were to allow the Keystone Pipeline to be built, you could get oil from Canada, a country where democracy is respected and that is not a cause for continuous problems, and not have to buy the same oil from a brutal dictatorship with zero respect for human rights and lives, and not have to be involved in a regional massacre that will inevitably bathe your hands in blood.
I mean, MBS is in the same league as Putin, Xi Jinping, however you spell the little North Korean creep's name, and plenty of former despots.
But he has oil, and Aramco.
I'm sure you are already well aware of this information, and I feel slightly embarrassed at the idea that I would try to explain this to someone who works in the industry, but her I go. The US already gets more than half of its total imports from Canada, and Canadian oil imports are approximately 5 times what Saudi oil imports are per day, but the real issue is that the money is just not there to justify building the Keystone XL Pipeline (Keystone Pipeline was completed & has been operational for years.) to the point where the Alberta government invested billions in cash & loan guarantees last fall to help keep the project afloat. Unless oil prices return to the low triple digit prices for West Texas Crude that we saw a decade ago the price of Canadian crude will be too low to justify the type of financial investment needed to complete the project and obtain the political will to make the project important to the public.
by ponchi101 I am not aware of the issue for Canadian oil as I am not authorized to work in the USA or Canada, so thanks for the info.
My twisted point is that the Saudi family is supported solely by the demand for oil from the USA. When I was in Oman (2002-03) I read a poll done in Saudi Arabia about the USA, and how did people in the KSA felt about them. The poll was eye opening: 60% of all people that answered the poll stated that they HATED the USA. Why? Because the USA kept the monarchy propped up.
So this continuous support of the monarchy by the USA is a no win for the USA as a whole. And propping up these homicidal maniacs is a losing proposition for everybody.
by the Moz Until money stops making the world go around, the cycle will continue ponch.
by ti-amie I'm sure we're all shocked but they finally released the report of the death of Jamal Khashoggi and guess who gave the go ahead? You only get one guess.
Saudi crown prince approved operation that led to death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, U.S. intelligence report concludes
By
Karen DeYoung
Feb. 26, 2021 at 6:58 p.m. EST
The Biden administration will impose no direct punishment on Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite the conclusion of a long-awaited intelligence report released Friday that he “approved” the operation, administration officials said.
“The relationship with Saudi Arabia is bigger than any one individual,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference. By making public the intelligence report — withheld by the Trump administration for two years — and taking other actions, President Biden has moved toward a promised “recalibration” of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, he said.
But for many lawmakers, human rights activists and Saudi dissidents, it was not enough.
The crown prince “should suffer sanctions, including financial, travel and legal — and the Saudi government should suffer grave consequences as long as he remains in government,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), whose legislation in early 2019 mandated release of the report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Wyden was joined in those sentiments by a number of Democrats, although others spoke vaguely only of further “accountability.” Few Republican lawmakers ventured a public opinion.
The Open Society Justice Initiative, which has been in court since early last year to force release of intelligence on the Khashoggi murder, said “the U.S. and other governments must take immediate measures to hold the Crown Prince and the Saudi government accountable for their flagrant disregard for the rule of law.”
Senior administration officials sharply rejected suggestions that its decision not to sanction the crown prince was a continuation of President Donald Trump’s cozy relationship with the Saudi rulers, and Mohammedin particular.
The United States, “as a matter of practice has not generally applied sanctions on the highest leadership” of countries with which it has diplomatic relations, said a senior administration official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the White House.
by the Moz On one hand it is worth note that the American's are calling out the Saudi's at that level. But on the other, not much comes from this as both parties exercise foreign policy on their own terms.
by ti-amieFormer French president Nicolas Sarkozy found guilty of corruption, sentenced to year in prison
By
Rick Noack
March 1, 2021 at 12:11 p.m. EST
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of corruption and influence peddling on Monday and sentenced to one year in prison, marking a historic defeat for the 66-year-old, who has remained popular among conservative voters even as his legal woes mount.
The verdict included a two-year suspended sentence, but Sarkozy’s attorney said her client would appeal, delaying the sentence from taking effect. Given that short prison sentences in France can typically be waived, it is unclear whether Sarkozy would have to spend any time in prison even if the appeal were to fail. He could also request to serve the sentence at home, subject to electronic monitoring.
The ruling followed years of parallel investigations against the former president, and some others are ongoing. Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, will face another trial later this month over accusations that his party falsified accounts during his unsuccessful reelection bid in 2012.
The charges over which Sarkozy was sentenced Monday were centered on whether he was behind a deal with a magistrate to illegally receive information on an inquiry linked to him, using false names and unofficial phone lines.
According to the prosecution, Sarkozy and his then-attorney and longtime friend Thierry Herzog attempted to bribe the magistrate, Gilbert Azibert, by offering him a high-profile position in return for information. The incident occurred after Sarkozy had left office.
The inquiry related to claims that Sarkozy and others had accepted illegal contributions from business executive Liliane Bettencourt, the late heiress of French cosmetics giant L’Oréal, ahead of the 2007 presidential campaign. Sarkozy was later cleared of those illegal-funding charges.
Sarkozy’s attorneys also denied the accusations of corruption and influence peddling last year, arguing that because the magistrate did not receive the allegedly promised position, it proved the former president’s innocence.
Sarkozy said he “never committed the slightest act of corruption.”
The prosecution argued, however, that there were no doubts that the magistrate had conveyed details illegally. Their evidence was largely based on wiretapped conversations.
Azibert and Herzog also were found guilty on Monday and were given sentences similar to Sarkozy’s. Both have appealed, France’s public broadcaster reported.
Prosecutors had originally demanded a four-year sentence for Sarkozy, with a requirement that he serve at least two years. In justifying their request, they cited what they characterized as the damage Sarkozy inflicted on the French presidency.
In its ruling, the court agreed that Sarkozy had “used his status as former French president,” rendering his offenses more egregious.
Sarkozy attempted to run in the 2017 presidential election, but he did not succeed, partially because of his mounting legal woes.
He subsequently suggested that his career in politics had come to an end. But Sarkozy has maintained high approval ratings among French conservatives, prompting hope among some of his supporters that he might run in the presidential election next year. In a sign of Sarkozy’s continued influence in conservative French politics, he received some prominent backing on Monday.
“The severity of the sentence is absolutely disproportionate and reveals judicial harassment,” wrote Christian Jacob, president of the center-right Republican Party, which Sarkozy used to lead. Supporters also questioned why Sarkozy was subjected to wiretapping after he left office.
Investigators deemed those surveillance measures necessary amid mounting questions at the time over how Sarkozy funded his 2007 campaign.
Sarkozy continues to face accusations that he received illegal payments from the regime of then-Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi ahead of the 2007 election.
Sarkozy is the second former French president in a decade to be sentenced. Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy’s predecessor and initial patron, was given a two-year suspended sentence in 2011 for handing nonexistent jobs to political allies during his time as Paris mayor.
by ponchi101 Remember that crazy idea from NaziPonchi that every woman on earth should have the right to shoot one man in her life? That he said that it started as a joke but then he started taking it seriously?
Wanna think it over? Devastatingly pervasive: 1 in 3 women globally experience violence
But I would continue to argue that the solution isn't reverse violence.
by ponchi101 Because you are a good hearted woman .
Serious here.
One issue that I would like to see is the typification of sexual crimes; a proper legal definition of what sexual harassment is, what sexual violence is. It is one of those things that we "know" what it is, but when it comes to the legal aspects, it gets fuzzy.
Here in Colombia, a law to do that failed; women were left without protection because the Senate did not pass the law. It was the worst of all cases as now there are no legal frames for anything other then rape and feminicide. And the problem here in Colombia is pressing: those figures about Latin America in the report? No way I can believe them. There is a culture here of silence that completely stops any progress
Then, of course, after such clarification, I would like to see an increase in the severity of punishment. I just don't see how else to begin the process of stopping this. Homicide? 20 years (an example). Feminicide, in equal circumstances? 30.
Here is my logic about my idea. Yes, it is insane. Yes, it cannot be put in practice, and reverse violence is indeed not wanted. Any violence is unwanted. But assume this: you implement it. You see then a decrease in violence against women and an increase in violence against men. There would have to be a trade-off, a point in which an overall decrease in violence would be seen. If, as a society, you would see an increase of 10% more men being hurt, but a decrease of 50% in violence against women, you would have to, mathematically, take it. After all, the whole premise is that the life of a woman is worth equally to the life of a man (false, evolutionarily speaking; it is worth more).
We talked about it in TAT1.0. The need to re-instate civics as part of the basic educational process of young people is crucial. Until then, what you get is an entire cohort of men that grow up being raised by his troglodyte dad (case here in Colombia).
Other than that, I am at a loss about how to end this problem.
by mmmm8 My view is less in good-heartedness and more around efficacy. Violence begets more violence and polarization (very easy to "other" people when there is a risk of violence). And the point should be to solve the underlying problem (the proverbial "patriarchy") not treat the symptoms with punishment.
IMO the key steps are: to provide women with access to positions of power and financial independence. Does that mean that domestic violence against women will go away? No. (Russia has one of the best cases of career gender equality and, among developed countries, one of the worst cases for domestic violence prevalence).
But maybe it'll help get ahead on this next point - I agree with you, legislation and the legal system would need to come in. But the problem is that the legal system doesn't work well in general in most countries in the world, let alone for people at risk of being victims. And whether it does or not, it's inherently sexist because people are inherently sexist.
So, then, a cultural shift is important. That's the toughest one of all because all the -isms are extremely persistent in every society everywhere (and to be clear, women perpetuate almost as much misogyny as men!). I'm really curious to see how the tolerance education that Sweden introduced into their school curriculums along with other cultural shifts on gender roles (shared parental leave, etc.) is going to play out in the long-run.
Anyway, I think my conclusion is that everything's bad and won't get much better in our lifetimes but shooting people is going to make it worse in the long-term.
(Waiting for Suliso to respond with statistics about how much better off women are vs the Dark Ages )
by Suliso Well, is there any other land and time you'd prefer to be a middle class woman at instead of early 21st century NYC?
by ponchi101 I will. Remember that in the Middle Ages, there was no rape because not even the concept was understood. Women were "possessed", and that was the end of it.
Back to the XXI.
by mmmm8
Suliso wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 8:29 pm
Well, is there any other land and time you'd prefer to be a middle class woman at instead of early 21st century NYC?
Why can't I switch class in this fantasy? Patriarchy!
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:35 am
I will. Remember that in the Middle Ages, there was no rape because not even the concept was understood. Women were "possessed", and that was the end of it.
Back to the XXI.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:35 am
I will. Remember that in the Middle Ages, there was no rape because not even the concept was understood. Women were "possessed", and that was the end of it.
Back to the XXI.
(Picked this one because it's this month and Supreme Court of India
I haven't been able t put myself into the mental space to even read that article.
by ti-amie
Bolivian police arrest former president Jeanine Añez on terrorism and conspiracy charges
Añez, a conservative politician who led Bolivia as an interim president after socialist leader Evo Morales fled the country following an alleged coup in 2019, was arrested on Friday evening after prosecutors accused her of terrorism, conspiracy and sedition. Observers fear the move will reignite political tensions in the South American country.
Photo via @AgenciaTelam
by ponchi101 Reignite political tensions in Bolivia? This is a country with 13 coup d'etats, which was not the case with Evo.
Political tension is how Bolivia handles their politics. Always.
by ti-amie Remember when be more like Japan was a mantra in educational circles? Also, remember how there was a brief focus on the high umber of suicides among Japanese students? Also, isn't there a huge US military base near Osaka?
Black hair, white underwear: A battle resumes over Japan’s bizarre school rules
Japanese high school students attend a ceremony for the reopening of their school in Higashiosaka, Osaka prefecture, last summer. Many schools require students to have straight black hair. (Jiji Press/AFP/Getty Images)
By
Simon Denyer and
Julia Mio Inuma
March 14, 2021 at 4:00 a.m. EDT
TOKYO — There is a saying in Japan: "When rules exist, they have to be obeyed."
But there are surely few rules as pointless, divisive and cruel as the widely enforced regulation that Japanese schoolchildren must have straight jet-black hair, sociologists and activists say.
It is supposed to prevent rebellious students — girls and boys alike — from dyeing or perming their hair and encourage them to concentrate on their studies. But as with other rules here, including a ban on dating and a requirement that students wear white underwear, the result often fuels discrimination, crushes individuality and enforces a rigid conformity that holds Japan back, according to critics.
The battle to change the rules has been reignited by a court ruling in the western city of Osaka last month that awarded a former student $3,000 for “emotional distress” incurred after she was hounded out of high school because her hair wasn’t black enough. But the court controversially backed the school’s legal right to impose the rule.
The young woman’s lawyer, Yoshiyuki Hayashi, said his client, now 21, intends to appeal, saying her childhood was destroyed when she entered the Prefectural Kaifukan High School. By her second semester, she was ordered to dye her hair black every four days but was banned from classes and even excluded from a school trip because teachers decided it still “wasn’t black enough,” Hayashi says.
When she refused to keep dyeing her hair, she was told not to bother coming to school. Later, her parents tried to negotiate a way for her to return, only to find her desk had been removed from the classroom and another pupil assigned her school ID number.
“She was hit very hard psychologically,” Hayashi said. “At one point, it was so bad that just seeing herself in the mirror or seeing her hair caused her to hyperventilate.”
The woman, who declined to comment herself, had always wanted to attend university, he said, “but she became extremely mistrustful of people” to the extent she does not interact with many people outside her family. “She has now started a part-time job, but she is still struggling,” he said.
In a news conference after the ruling, principal Masahiko Takahashi said the school would not change its black hair policy but would “take more care.” Osaka’s prefectural government noted the court upheld the school’s rules but said the girl’s name shouldn’t have been removed from the school’s directory.
Nearly half of Tokyo’s public high schools require students whose hair is not black and straight to submit certification to prove it’s natural and not dyed or permed, according to a report by NHK, while the Mainichi newspaper found the proportion even higher in Osaka.
Schoolgirls walk on a snow-covered street in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture, last month. (Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images)
Miyuki Nozu, a 32-year-old woman now working with refugees, went to a private school that demanded students with brown or curly hair carry certification with them at all times. Eyebrows were regularly checked to make sure students had not plucked them, while socks had to be white and folded three times.
She says the rules make it much harder for immigrant and mixed-race children to feel they belong.
“Schools just assume without any thought that all Japanese people have black straight hair and girls should act a certain way,” she said. “But Japan is not a single-ethnicity nation anymore. Schools don’t realize society has changed and that they are forcing an outdated ideal on students. This proves they have no intention or ability to teach about diversity.”
Nozu said one of her classmates was labeled a “troublemaker” because she struggled to follow the rules, but went on to graduate top of her class at the prestigious Tokyo University of the Arts. Still, she said, “there are plenty of people who are repressed and lose their creativity.”
Kayoko Oshima, a law professor at Doshisha University who focuses on the issue, says some students are “emotionally damaged and lose their self-esteem” and can also be isolated and bullied by classmates who absorb the underlying ethos — that those who don’t conform don’t belong in Japanese society.
“In Japan, people have an impression that when someone stands out, they will be targeted or bullied,” she said. “So people learn not to stand out, and young people see this as a survival method. Teachers talk about individuality, and yet people’s uniqueness is crushed.”
In corporate Japan, that in turn creates an atmosphere in which people are often scared to speak out, particularly in meetings, and especially if they are women, Oshima and Nozu said.
In schools, it doesn’t stop at hair color. In the city of Nagasaki, nearly 60 percent of 238 public schools demand that pupils wear white underwear, NHK reported, with one student telling the broadcaster teachers regularly check their underwear when they change for gym class.
In Fukuoka, 57 out of 69 schools surveyed by the lawyers’ association had rules about underwear color, the Asahi newspaper reported. Some schools even reportedly asked pupils to remove their underwear if they broke the rules.
Yet pressure is growing for change.
A young Japanese woman has taken her Tokyo high school to court for abusing its power by asking her to “voluntarily withdraw” after she broke the rules by dating a boy in her class Even though she was just a few months from graduation, she felt obliged to drop out, Japan Today reported.
In 2018, when the Osaka case first came to court, Yuji Sunaga was so outraged that he helped start a campaign to “Stop Extreme School Rules” and collected 60,000 signatures for a petition demanding the government take action.
He says the rules not only entail discrimination but can also lead to sexual harassment. Strict uniform policies impose financial burdens on poor parents; rules requiring children to take all their textbooks home can cause back problems; and rules banning winter clothing or scarves can also damage children’s health. Some children may be driven to suicide, he says.
“Because of the rules, the children themselves exert peer pressure that everyone needs to conform, and this continues into adulthood like an obsession,” he said.
“Children’s self-esteem is plummeting, in some cases so low they are losing their will to live,” he said.
by JazzNU Wow Wow Wow! Super disturbing.
by Suliso Japan and South Korea as well are extremely conformist societies. Difficult to adjust if you are not exactly like them. Also why a fair few leave for US or Europe despite high incomes.
by ti-amie It also explains why their fantasy lives involve characters with different colored hair, sometimes wild/outlandish clothing, for women really crazy make-up.
by JazzNU
by ponchi101 Not fun. it takes seconds before the sand gets into your mouth and you are grating your teeth, and then it is your ears. And in a storm like this, pretty soon it is everywhere in your clothes.
by ti-amie Wow
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 If only somebody, or some group of people, could have warned us...
by the Moz
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 6:41 pm
If only somebody, or some group of people, could have warned us...
Can you file away this comment so we can use it for future occasions like California wildfires, Caribbean hurricanes etc...
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 6:41 pm
If only somebody, or some group of people, could have warned us...
Can you file away this comment so we can use it for future occasions like California wildfires, Caribbean hurricanes etc...
We can actually make some code that can be typed and then will spit out such a string, if you really want to...
by JazzNU
Lebanon crisis escalates after failure to agree government
By Maha El Dahan, Laila Bassam
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon’s financial crisis intensified on Monday after Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri publicly repudiated President Michel Aoun, saying the latter wanted to dictate cabinet membership and grant veto powers on policy to his political allies.
After the latest of more than a dozen meetings with the president to form a new cabinet, Hariri called Aoun’s demands “unacceptable”. Hariri’s televised announcement dashed hopes for an end to five months of political deadlock between the two and a reversal of the country’s financial meltdown.
“This is a catastrophe for the country, we were holding on by a thread but now we’re heading towards a total crash,” one official source told Reuters, asking to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Lebanon has been without a government since shortly after the Aug. 4 chemical explosion that destroyed the port of Beirut and devastated downtown areas of the capital, killing hundreds of people, injuring thousands and making 300,000 homeless.
The giant blast accelerated the downward spiral of an economy trapped in debt, banking, financial and fiscal crises, while foreign donors refuse to bail out Lebanon until it forms a government of capable technocrats committed to reform.
Aoun sent a list suggesting different scenarios for a cabinet of either 18,20 or 22 ministers, with names to be filled in, Hariri said.
“This is unacceptable because it is not the job of the prime minister-designate to fill forms from someone else or of the president to form a government.”
In a statement read by the presidency spokesperson, Aoun said he was “surprised” by Hariri’s comments and that his proposal to Hariri had not included a blocking minority.
The lack of agreement came after a hint of a breakthrough on Thursday when the two last met and Hariri had said he saw an opportunity to be seized.
“The current deadlock and dim outlook will certainly have a toll on the exchange rate, making it more difficult for the average worker to get by without food aid,” said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
The Lebanese pound dropped to over 13,000 to the dollar on the informal market after news of the outcome of the meeting, having traded earlier in the day at around 11,000.
Lebanon’s economic crisis, which is posing the biggest threat to its stability since the 1975-1990 civil war, has seen the Lebanese pound sink by almost 90%, plunging many into poverty.
As businesses shut down, joblessness and hunger are rising. Lebanon’s banks, having lent 70% of their assets to an insolvent state and central bank, have locked most depositors out of their savings.
Hassain Diab’s cabinet, which resigned after the Beirut port blast, remains in a caretaker capacity until a successor is formed but fractious politicians have been unable to agree a government since Hariri’s nomination in October.
There is no budget and there will soon be no hard currency to pay for imports of subsidised wheat, medicine and fuel.
Under a sectarian power-sharing system, Lebanon’s president must be a Maronite Christian and the prime minister a Sunni Muslim. Aoun is an ally of Hezbollah, listed as a terrorist group by the United States.
Veteran Sunni politician Hariri was nominated to form a cabinet of specialists that could enact reforms and unlock foreign aid.
The Shi’ite Amal movement, headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri who backs Hariri, called for it to be formed urgently on Monday.
But Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday that even though he would approve a government of technocrats if formed, a cabinet with no politicians would not last long.
Reporting By Laila Bassam, Maha El Dahan and Ellen Francis; Editing by Samia Nakhoul, Giles Elgood and Bernadette Baum
by ponchi101 No, that's not oil, folks. It is economics. 100 large ships (boston whalers do not go into the Suez Canal) are consuming fuel oil as they stand there because they cannot shut down engines, because that takes time to do, and more time to re-start. So they were there, burning a considerable amount of oil, while going nowhere. As soon as the news came out, and no idea of how long the interruption would last, the futures market must have reacted; just imagine if that boat had been stuck for a few days, not just one. Add to that all the supply lines that were interrupted, and blocking the Suez canal for just one day has real consequences.
Somebody is in real trouble for this disruption, and lawsuits may start flying. I would not want to be the captain of that boat.
by MJ2004
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:46 am
As soon as the news came out, and no idea of how long the interruption would last, the futures market must have reacted; just imagine if that boat had been stuck for a few days, not just one. Add to that all the supply lines that were interrupted, and blocking the Suez canal for just one day has real consequences.
As if we need more reminders on the fragility of the state of the world. Wouldn't want to have to go around Africa instead though.
by ponchi101 Well, what do you know? The carrier is not free yet, it is actually stuck at the southern entrance of the canal and the salvage company that is trying to get it unstuck says it may be days, even weeks. It is 430 feet long so it truly blocks the whole width of the canal.
Now: what do you do? The vessels still in the Red Sea can back up and decide but I am sure that many of them do not have a bow thruster to do a 180° turn. They would need tugs to help them. Get in line. Then, their companies decide: wait it out, if it will be only days, or as MJ says: go around Cape Hope? That puts your navigation time up by at least three weeks (down the Red Sea, around Cape Hope, not an easy pass, up the coast of west Africa, into the Mediterranean for a lot of them). Imagine the amount of fuel such vessels will burn.
Those INSIDE the canal (coming from the north and stuck there) have no space to maneuver. They are likely as big as the one stuck so they can't do 180°, even with thrusters. So, do they lay anchor and wait or are they going to be tugged back to the canal entry, rotate in the Mediterranean, fuel up (Port Said and Damietta are not big enough to handle that level of influx) and do the opposite? Last: the Mediterranean ports get their fuel and stock FROM the Gulf, via the Canal. Now that is not possible.
And somebody is bitching about oil going up? Heck, that is the least of problems.
This is major.
by ti-amie Thanks for the update and explanation Ponchi. Whose ship is it? I know the registration means jack but is there any idea who it really belongs to?
by Suliso
ti-amie wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:17 pm
Thanks for the update and explanation Ponchi. Whose ship is it? I know the registration means jack but is there any idea who it really belongs to?
Japanese owners, Taiwanese operators and all Indian crew.
ti-amie wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:17 pm
Thanks for the update and explanation Ponchi. Whose ship is it? I know the registration means jack but is there any idea who it really belongs to?
Japanese owners, Taiwanese operators and all Indian crew.
Thanks suliso!
by ti-amie A picture is worth 1,000 words.
In pictures: Efforts to dislodge huge ship from Egypt's Suez Canal
Efforts are continuing to refloat the Ever Given, a 400m-long (1,300ft) container ship which has been blocking the Suez Canal in Egypt since Tuesday.
Dredgers have been clearing sand and mud away from the bow of the vessel, while tugboats and the ship's winches are being used in an attempt to move it.
On Thursday, the Ever Given's owner, Japanese firm Shoei Kinsen, apologised for the effects the incident has had on traffic waiting to go through the canal.
It said it was doing its utmost, along with local authorities and the vessel's operators, to resolve the problem, but warned that it was extremely difficult.
A flotilla of tugs has been trying to move the 200,000-tonne vessel
The stranded ship is visible from farmland near the Suez Canal
And of course, there is just no comparison between trade levels in 1975 versus now. Present-day impact is incomparably larger.
by MJ2004Suez blockage prompts shipping angst over piracy threat
Companies call US Navy over dangers as they grapple with questions about rerouting vessels
Shipping companies have contacted the US Navy about the potentially elevated threat of piracy to rerouted vessels after a container ship ran aground and could block the Suez Canal for weeks.
Asian shipping associations confirmed the concerns as they contemplate anchoring billions of dollars of cargo at sea or taking other lengthy — and potentially risky — routes around Africa. Zhao Qing-feng, office manager of the China Shipowners’ Association based in Shanghai, said on Friday that potentially rerouting vessels included security considerations.
“Africa has the risk of piracy, especially in east Africa,” he said, adding that shipping companies might need to hire extra security officers.
Rolf Habben Jansen, chief executive of Hapag-Lloyd, the world’s fifth-largest container carrier, warned there was “nothing we can do” about cargo stuck on vessels outside the Suez Canal and the company’s focus was to get ships to their intended destinations as soon as possible.
But Peter Sand, chief shipping analyst at Bimco, said some ships could head “to a nearby port like Djibouti” to air freight components or goods in an effort to limit the impact on certain manufacturing supply chains.
While east Africa has long been known for piracy, there has been a surge in kidnappings at sea and other maritime crimes in west Africa in recent months.
Dimitris Maniatis, chief commercial officer of Seagull Maritime Security, a provider of ship guards, said that private security would cost between $5,000 to $10,000 per vessel if those waiting at the southern entrance of the Suez Canal needed to turn back and sail through the Gulf of Aden.
He added that vessels rerouted to bypass the Suez Canal and travel around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope would steer well clear of dangerous areas off the coast of west Africa.
The US Navy told the Financial Times there had not yet been an impact on naval operations in the region, but companies were concerned that if the blockage continued, their vessels could face risks.
James Wroe, head of liner operations at Maersk Asia Pacific, wrote on social media that the decision of whether to reroute was a “roll of the dice”.
Jansen said three vessels in its alliance with other shipping companies had been diverted. The Ever Greet, sister ship to the Ever Given, the vessel stuck in the canal, has also been diverted. Shipbrokers in Singapore and Tokyo said similar rerouting decisions were “imminent” on a number of oil tankers and other vessels.
Vessels travelling from Singapore to Rotterdam via the Cape of Good Hope faced additional costs of $400,000 per vessel for a full voyage said Anoop Singh, head of tanker research at shipbroker Braemar ACM.
Shipping companies estimated that almost 200 vessels were stranded on either side of the Suez Canal, the chokepoint through which about 12 per cent of global trade flows. The route is critical for oil, gas and high-demand food commodities such as coffee.
Several Asian carmakers rely on the route to transport parts bound for European factories, raising the possibility of plant stoppages across the UK and Europe in an extended blockage.
Nissan, which said it was “assessing the impact on our operations”, confirmed it used the Suez Canal for all of its ocean shipments to Europe from Asia. Honda also said it was monitoring the situation.
Because of the sheer number of parts they use, carmakers hold very little stock, instead relying on “just in time” delivery of components. Delays at sea often see carmakers turn to expensive air freighting of parts as an emergency measure.
The warnings came as shipping operators’ stocks jumped on the prospect of higher freight rates, as industry executives contemplated rerouting cargo around southern Africa, which would add at least seven days and potentially force the cancellation of other scheduled routes.
Shares in Maersk, the world’s largest container group, gained about 4 per cent, following Asian peers higher, including a 16 per cent bump for South Korea’s Hyundai Merchant Marine after salvage experts indicated it could take weeks to dislodge the 400-metre Ever Given from the banks of the Suez Canal.
Dutch and Japanese salvage specialists have produced a variety of theories for how best to free the Ever Given, a formidable technical challenge that has been complicated by poor weather. Nippon Salvage, which is part of the rescue efforts, declined to comment.
An official at Shoei Kisen Kaisha, the Japanese owner of the Ever Given, said it was focusing on dislodging the container ship but added that resolving the situation remained “extremely difficult”. Jansen predicted it would “at least take a few weeks” for congestion at the Suez Canal to ease even if the ship is refloated soon.
“The market is betting that the issue might go on for a while,” said Kim Youngho, an analyst at Samsung Securities. “If you detour to the Cape of Good Hope, it will probably take at least one more week to reach the Netherlands from Shanghai . . . if you have to detour it should raise current freight rates further.”
- FT
by JazzNU
Global shipping was in chaos even before the Suez blockage. Shortages and higher prices loom
By Hanna Ziady
One of the world's most vital trade arteries has been blocked by a quarter-mile-long container ship, creating a traffic jam that has ensnared over 200 vessels and could take weeks to clear.
But even before the Ever Given ran aground in the Suez Canal earlier this week, global supply chains were being stretched to the limits, making it much more expensive to move goods around the world and causing shortages of everything from exercise bikes to cheese at a time of unprecedented demand.
A prolonged closure of the key route between West and East could make matters much worse. Costly delays or diversions to longer routes will heap pressure on businesses that are already facing container shortages, port congestion and capacity constraints.
The grounding of the Ever Given is delaying shipments of consumer goods from Asia to Europe and North America, and agricultural products moving in the opposite direction. As of Friday, some 237 vessels, including oil tankers and dozens of container ships, were waiting to transit the canal, which handles about 12% of global trade.
"There's been a great convergence of constraints in supply chains like I've never seen before," said Bob Biesterfeld, the CEO of C.H. Robinson, one of the world's largest logistics firms. The bottlenecks are widespread, affecting transport by air, ocean and road, Biesterfeld told CNN Business in an interview. "It really has been unprecedented."
Freight costs soaring
More than 80% of global trade by volume is moved by sea, and the disruptions are adding billions of dollars to supply chain costs. Globally, the average cost to ship a 40-foot container shot up from $1,040 last June to $4,570 on March 1, according to S&P Global Platts.
Those costs add up. In February, container shipping costs for seaborne US goods imports totaled $5.2 billion, compared to $2 billion during the same month in 2020, according to S&P Global Panjiva.
These expenses could soon mean higher prices for consumers, adding upward pressure to rising inflation — a nightmare scenario for Wall Street, which is already fearful that a spike in prices could force the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates sooner than expected.
"At the moment a lot of these costs are within the supply chains," said Chris Rogers, a research analyst at S&P Global Panjiva. "I think it's inevitable that it will be passed on to consumers — it's just going to take time," he added.
The coronavirus wreaked havoc on global supply chains last year, as lockdowns temporarily closed factories and disrupted the normal flow of trade. Economic activity slowed dramatically at the start of the pandemic, and the rapid rebound in trade volumes that followed caught companies off guard.
A pickup in manufacturing and seemingly insatiable demand from housebound consumers for goods such as televisions, furniture and exercise bikes has stretched suppliers and made it difficult for consumers to find the products they'd like to buy.
Manufacturers have also struggled to secure crucial components. Major carmakers, including Ford (F) and Volkswagen (VLKAF), have been forced to idle factories because of a shortage of computer chips caused by high demand for smartphones, gaming systems and other tech gadgets.
"One year ago, global trade slowed to a crawl as the Covid-19 pandemic first hit China and then spread worldwide," Gene Seroka, executive director at the Port of Los Angeles, said in a presentation this month. "Today, we are in the seventh month of a historic import surge, driven by unprecedented demand by American consumers," he added.
US seaborne imports were nearly 30% higher in February than the same month last year and 20% up on February 2019, according to S&P Global Panjiva.
The import surge in the United States and elsewhere has led to a worldwide container shortage. Everything from cars and machinery to apparel and other consumer staples are shipped in these metal boxes. The factories that make them are mostly in China and many of them closed early in the pandemic, slowing down the rate at which new capacity was coming on stream, according to Rogers.
Containers are in all the wrong places
China's exports recovered fairly quickly compared to the rest of the world. At the same time, major shipping lines had canceled dozens of sailings to respond to the earlier lull in trade. The result was that empty containers piled up in all the wrong places and couldn't meet the sudden demand in Europe and North America for Asia-made goods.
Hapag-Lloyd (HPGLY), one of the world's largest container shipping lines, has deployed about 52 additional vessels just to move hundreds of thousands of empty containers to where they're needed most. In more normal times, there would be fewer than 10.
"That's in reality about a ship a week that's doing nothing more than moving empty containers," CEO Rolf Habben Jansen told investors on a call last week.
The influx of imports has compounded problems at choked up ports, which are contending with labor shortages due to Covid-19 and a slowdown in operations caused by social distancing measures and quarantines.
On Wednesday, there were two dozen vessels at anchor awaiting entry into either the Port of Los Angeles or the neighboring Port of Long Beach, according to Port of Los Angeles spokesperson, Phillip Sanfield.
"At the Port of Los Angeles, we are actively working on an additional 17 container ships," Sanfield told CNN Business. "Pre-pandemic, we would be working about 10 container ships with no container ships waiting to enter."
The port processed the equivalent of nearly 800,000 20-foot containers last month — the busiest February in its 114-year history.
Companies feel the strain
Companies from Under Armour (UA) and Hasbro (HAS) to Dollar Tree (DLTR), Urban Outfitters (URBN) and Crocs (CROX) have all warned about the supply chain crunch recently, pointing to container shortages, port congestion, rising shipping costs and logistics challenges.
Costco (COST) said earlier this month that it was having trouble stocking imported cheeses because of a shortage of shipping containers and bottlenecks.
An analysis of 7,000 company earnings calls globally in January and February by S&P Global Panjiva found that more than a quarter mentioned "freight," 37% mentioned "logistics" and half discussed supply chains.
"We know that the freight pressure across retail is here to stay and we've built that into our future plans," Mark Tritton, the CEO of Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY), told investors in January.
Aston Chemicals, a UK company that supplies European manufacturers of personal care products, said its shipping costs were 6.5 times more expensive in January compared to November.
"We paid almost $14,000 for a container in January," said managing director Dani Loughran. That was for a shipment from Malaysia to the port of Felixstowe in England, which just two months earlier had cost $2,100.
Peloton blamed US West Coast port delays for causing "longer than acceptable wait times" for the delivery of its high-end exercise bikes. The company told shareholders in February that it's investing over $100 million to expedite deliveries by air and sea over the next six months to improve delivery times.
It's not the only firm resorting to airplanes to move goods that would ordinarily come by boat, as companies scramble to keep up with customer demand.
According to Biesterfeld of C.H. Robinson, a number of durable goods typically transported in shipping containers are being carried in planes, such as toys and games. Companies are "choosing air freight because inventories are so low," he said.
Air freight is more expensive than ocean freight even under normal circumstances and therefore reserved for high-value goods. These costs are even higher at the moment because fewer flights carrying travelers means less available capacity to transport goods, a chunk of which are typically carried in the bellies of passenger planes.
That will only add to the costs facing businesses and could trickle down to consumers before long.
Higher prices on the way
Companies have so far said very little about how they plan to respond to soaring freight rates but there are early signs that import prices are rising. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, US import prices experienced their largest monthly increase in January since March 2012.
"We anticipate strong demand from consumers to continue over the next couple of months and don't see meaningful change in capacity over that short time period," said Biesterfeld.
The cost to move goods by air, ocean, truck and train is now "structurally up" on 2019 and contracts reflect that, he added. "I do think the costs are real and eventually will manifest themselves for consumers," he said.
The extent to which this feeds through to consumer prices will vary from one product to the next. Goods that rely more heavily on imported components will likely cost more. At the same time, if the cost of imported goods rises significantly or these products become less readily available, that could give domestic producers more leeway to increase prices, said Joanna Konings, a senior economist at ING.
Commerzbank analysts said in a note to clients on Friday that the Suez snarl up could cause oil to become more expensive for consumers because of higher tanker rates as a result of the incident.
For Aston Chemicals, the cost increases were so severe that the only option was to pass them on to their customers: businesses that make everyday products such as shampoos, moisturizers and cosmetics.
If those companies in turn decide to hike prices for their customers, in this case retailers, consumers could start to feel the pinch soon, said Konings.
"Most prices along the supply chain have gone in one direction, and that's up, so it has to appear somewhere."
by ponchi101 So, who will win? Production costs will go up because of the disruption, but consumer purchasing power is down due to low consumer income. So, when supply and demand kicks in, where will the chain break?
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:26 pm
So, who will win? Production costs will go up because of the disruption, but consumer purchasing power is down due to low consumer income. So, when supply and demand kicks in, where will the chain break?
Meanwhile the folks on Twitter don't see what the problem is? They've got solutions that I'm sure the professionals haven't thought of... /s
by Suliso Eventually they will refloat it, but it might require removing all or most of containers. If so that will take a couple of weeks.
All this will make shipping more expensive, but will not greatly hinder it.
by ti-amie
by the Moz Maybe James Cameron can help with the salvage operation
by JazzNU
by ti-amie
I don't understand what the navigator was doing. Whatever it was it looks as if he should've been relieved of duty.
Reading is fundamental. They're saying it was an equipment failure. I know it's hard to stop a ship that big (I went on a tour of an air craft carrier) but couldn't they have slowed it?
by ponchi101 A ship that big will not respond to any maneuver set in the bridge in less than 15-20 minutes. One command or change of rudder will only affect the real movement of the ship 20-30 minutes later. The way it looks, it seems that the navigator compensated, saw no response, panicked and over compensated again.
When we work on boats we have to navigate extremely narrow lanes. The changes in the bridge are minute, and we usually enter our lanes a good 5-6 miles prior to the initial point. Of course, we are carrying kilometers of cable behind us so we need to ensure we enter the lane already in a straight line.
Might have been a combo: too much wind, an inexperienced captain/navigator. Neither man will be finding work any time soon.
by ti-amie What do you think about this ponchi?
@jsrailton
How soon till one of the big Dutch salvage companies shows up for an ultra-premium re-floating?
by ti-amie
Full image if you don't want to click on the Twitter link.
by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sun Mar 28, 2021 7:28 pm
What do you think about this ponchi?
@jsrailton
How soon till one of the big Dutch salvage companies shows up for an ultra-premium re-floating?
The world's largest salvage companies already have a huge presence in the Gulf. Jebel Ali is the largest man made port in the world (Dubai). Sharm El Sheikh is also monstrous. It is not as if that area of the world does not know about boats.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Next. Godzilla REALLY rises from the depths of the sea, and not to save us from anything. A swarm of locusts covers Europe. The mid Atlantic ridge splits open and swallows the entire ocean, and the entire world runs out of all sorts of chocolate.
by ti-amie It's bad isn't it?
by ponchi101 Egypt has decided to unload the Ever Given. Maybe tomorrow they can try to move it once more, with another spring tide, but it does not look promising.
Without specialized cranes like the ones at ports, this will take a couple of weeks. And then... you have to load them again, because at 20,000 containers if you are going to transport them by land to another port to load them onto another ship, that means 5,000 trips (four containers at a time).
by dryrunguy
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 1:16 am
Next. Godzilla REALLY rises from the depths of the sea, and not to save us from anything. A swarm of locusts covers Europe. The mid Atlantic ridge splits open and swallows the entire ocean, and the entire world runs out of all sorts of chocolate.
And Vanilla Ice records an intelligent, thought-provoking song.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 1:16 am
Next. Godzilla REALLY rises from the depths of the sea, and not to save us from anything. A swarm of locusts covers Europe. The mid Atlantic ridge splits open and swallows the entire ocean, and the entire world runs out of all sorts of chocolate.
And Vanilla Ice records an intelligent, thought-provoking song.
by JazzNU
by MJ2004 The ship is now fully free. It is being towed into the next lake.
by ti-amieSuez Canal pilots come under scrutiny after grounding of ship
By
Sudarsan Raghavan,
Adam Taylor and
Ruby Mellen
March 29, 2021 at 4:03 p.m. EDT
ISMAILIA, Egypt — With the Ever Given freed and on the move, the spotlight is now likely to turn to the investigation of how the vessel got wedged into the Suez Canal, leading to billions of dollars in losses globally.
While strong winds during a dust storm are widely seen as a major factor, Lt. Gen. Osama Rabie of the Suez Canal Authority told reporters that the investigation will not focus just on the weather and that human and technical errors cannot be ruled out.
Investigators are likely to examine the performance of the two Egyptian canal pilots aboard the Ever Given and their relationship with the ship’s captain.
Were there any communications problems? How experienced were the pilots and the captain in navigating the canal? And what challenges did they face in moving a ship of such massive size — as big as the Empire State Building and near the maximum size allowed in the canal — along a single-lane artery of the waterway?
A high-ranking canal pilot working for the Suez Canal Authority said the two pilots aboard the Ever Given were both senior chief pilots with 30-plus years of experience. “They had the experience and qualifications to guide this ship,” he said.
The senior pilot said the job of navigating ships through canals had become more taxing in recent years. The vessels today are much larger and carry more cargo than those traversing the canal in the 1990s. Back then, he recalled, an oil tanker had blocked the canal and a single tugboat towed the vessel and cleared the waterway.
“The ships today are bigger than they used to be,” the pilot said. “This is something new. We haven’t seen this before.”
Strong winds, he said, could have easily propelled the Ever Given toward the bank, leaving the canal blocked. “This is something that happens to massive ships of this kind,” said the senior pilot, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to the media. “They can run aground when winds exceed 30 or 40 knots.”
He noted that canal pilots have guided the Ever Given through the canal before. “The ship has crossed the Suez Canal previous times but never under such weather conditions,” he said.
Contrary to their titles, the pilots do not actually steer the vessel in the Suez Canal. The pilot serves more as a consultant, using his experience and practical knowledge of the canal to give advice, for instance on how to maneuver the vessel or what course to steer.
The captain has to be present at all times on the bridge and give the orders to the helm, to the engines and tugs, taking into account the pilot’s directions, according to international maritime law. The captain has to keep the pilot informed of any problems with the handling of the vessel “so that the pilot might be in a position to give better advice to control the navigation and movement of the vessel,” the law reads. Ultimately, “the responsibility falls completely” on the captain, it adds.
“The captain has the sole responsibility for directing the ship,” the senior pilot said. “The pilots can offer their guidance and opinions, but the captain can choose to refuse it.”
Among some seafarers, the role of the pilots can be somewhat mysterious.
Rose George, author of “Deep Sea and Foreign Going,” a book that recounts a five-week journey aboard a container ship from Britain to Singapore, said that when she traveled through the canal in 2010, it was unclear what the Suez crew’s purpose was.
“We had a Suez crew on board, which is obligatory,” she said on “BBC News Hour” on Sunday. “You pay a fortune to go through the Suez Canal, about a $100,000 to $300,000, but you have to take on a Suez pilot.”
“The canal authority says you have to take this crew on board,” George said. “You have to take a special electrician who has to operate what they call a Suez Canal projector, which is a massive headlamp that you stick on the foxhole at the front of the ship on the bow, and that’s in case anything happens. And then there’s also a few other crew who apparently have special rope skills.”
She said the captain on the medium-size container ship she was on had been at sea for 42 years, having crossed the canal more times than he could remember. He said he had “never seen this crew do anything except sit in their special crew cabin,” George recounted.
Gregory Tylawsky, a captain with the California-based Maritime Expert Group, said that it was too early to say what caused the Ever Given’s grounding, but he offered, “There is no evidence at this time to indicate responsibility attached to any individuals, including the Suez Canal pilots on board the Ever Given at the time of the incident.”
Even if pilot error is found to have contributed to the accident, Egyptian law makes clear that pilots are not liable for any damage during their watch of the ship.
In an explanatory video posted Monday, Mark Phillip Laurilla, the chief engineer of a container ship who blogs about his experiences under the name Chief MAKOi, acknowledged that may seem unfair but said it is the same all over the world. “Whatever the case, all liabilities point towards the vessel, which means the ship owners along with their insurers are in for quite a ride,” Laurilla said.
Tylawsky said he was confident the industry would quickly learn from the incident. He noted that ships were required to have doubled hulls after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Just on Saturday, he said, a ship in Istanbul suffered a 230-foot gash in a docking incident.
“In ships of older design, the location of this rupture would be in alignment with the ships’ fuel tanks, thus creating an oil spill,” Tylawsky said. “This is just one of many examples in our industry.”
Hungarian and Polish PMs to meet Italy's League leader to discuss new alliance
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The prime ministers of Hungary and Poland will meet the leader of Italy’s rightist League party on Thursday for talks on forming a European political alliance, Hungarian state news agency MTI said on Tuesday.
The talks between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Italy’s League leader Matteo Salvini and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki will take place in Budapest, it said.
They will discuss creating an alliance involving the League, Orban’s governing Fidesz party and Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, MTI quoted Orban’s press chief as saying.
Fidesz quit the main pan-European centre-right bloc, the European People’s Party, earlier this month, two years after it was suspended for policies criticised by mainstream conservatives as authoritarian.
Orban’s nationalist policies have long been widely seen as a better fit with smaller European blocs to the right of the EPP - such as the eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group that includes Poland’s PiS, or the right-wing Identity and Democracy (ID) group that includes France’s National Rally and Italy’s League.
Orban has said he has held talks with like-minded parties about creating a new political alliance, and that Fidesz has been in talks with conservative political forces as it seeks a new group in the European Parliament.
He says the goal is for there to be a political home for Fidesz and similar forces in Europe that do not want to host migrants and want to “protect” traditional families.
Orban faces elections in 2022, with the opposition united against him for the first time.
by ponchi101 Gee, if there only existed some sort of international organization which grouped countries together and which could enforce laws and regulations to make the world a better place.
One can only dream of such an institution.
by the Moz
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:02 pm
Gee, if there only existed some sort of international organization which grouped countries together and which could enforce laws and regulations to make the world a better place.
One can only dream of such an institution.
Cette institution needs to reform or scrap their Security Council as part of a broader effort to reclaim international legitimacy in the 21st century.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:02 pm
Gee, if there only existed some sort of international organization which grouped countries together and which could enforce laws and regulations to make the world a better place.
One can only dream of such an institution.
Cette institution needs to reform or scrap their Security Council as part of a broader effort to reclaim international legitimacy in the 21st century.
You're suggesting that this institution become a truly democratic one with all countries having an equal voice? Wow. What a radical you are! /s
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:02 pm
Gee, if there only existed some sort of international organization which grouped countries together and which could enforce laws and regulations to make the world a better place.
One can only dream of such an institution.
Cette institution needs to reform or scrap their Security Council as part of a broader effort to reclaim international legitimacy in the 21st century.
You're suggesting that this institution become a truly democratic one with all countries having an equal voice? Wow. What a radical you are! /s
The institution certainly had much more legitimacy when it was founded than it does now.
Not sure I'm suggesting what you are suggesting I'm suggesting
by Suliso Be careful what you wish for...
by ti-amie
Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:25 pm
Be careful what you wish for...
I know. I understand why the Security Council exists but it really does need to be revised.
I hope we're all talking about the same institution.
by ti-amieVenezuelan military offensive sends thousands fleeing, recharging one of the world’s worst refugee crises
A woman with two children sits on Tuesday at a sports field in Arauquita, Colombia, where tents have been set up to house refugees who have fled fighting across the border between the Venezuelan military and groups of Colombian guerrillas. (Nadège Mazars)
By Steven Grattan,
Anthony Faiola and
Ana Vanessa Herrero
April 1, 2021 at 4:57 p.m. EDT
ARAUQUITA, Colombia — A new campaign by the Venezuelan military near the country’s lawless western border is sparking a surge of refugees, with thousands defying the spiking pandemic to pack into makeshift shelters and tent settlements in this Colombian town.
The sudden outflow is amplifying a renewed wave of Venezuelan refugees and migrants — the world’s second-largest group of internationally displaced people — from the broken socialist state. Concern is also rising about mounting tensions between the left-wing Venezuelan and right-wing Colombian governments, which are blaming each other for the uptick in violence in Venezuela’s western Apure state.
The Venezuelan military launched a campaign two weeks ago against a rogue faction of Colombian guerrillas in a region with heavy jungle along the Arauca River. The guerrillas, known as the 10th Front, appear to have run afoul of the government in Caracas, which allegedly has had long-standing profit-sharing and protection deals with other leftist fighters in the area engaged in narco-trafficking and extortion.
The Venezuelan government “doesn’t seem to be defending its sovereignty, but protecting its drug-trafficking business,” Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano told Colombian National Radio last week.
Venezuelan officials put the death toll from the ongoing offensive at nine, including four soldiers, with 32 people arrested and nine camps destroyed. But refugees and human rights groups say Venezuelan security forces are falsely targeting civilians in their quest to find dissident guerrillas and their allies, and are engaging in extrajudicial killings as well as beatings and arbitrary detentions.
One refugee, Ana Maria Vásquez, 30, said a large group of Venezuelan soldiers arrived on March 21 at a slaughterhouse in the Venezuelan town of La Capilla where she and her husband worked. They accused male laborers, including her husband, of being in league with the guerrillas. Her husband was dragged into the street, she said, where he was severely beaten and later detained.
Vásquez said she fled hours later, risking Venezuelan military patrols to cross the fast-flowing Arauca River to reach Colombia. She told her story beside the tent here where she and her five children had slept for the past 10 days.
On a recent afternoon, the sounds of explosions from the fighting across the border could be heard from the tent settlements.
“It’s hard, especially with the children,” Vásquez said.
Over the past two weeks, local officials say, nearly 5,000 refugees, roughly 40 percent of them children, have fled the fighting. Most are Venezuelans, along with a substantial minority of Colombian nationals who had settled across the border.
Olga Sarrado, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said the organization is providing the new arrivals with tents, mattresses, hygiene kits and face masks and is in contact with both Colombian and Venezuelan authorities.
“We are working with local partners and authorities to respond to the needs of the civilians that are being displaced,” Sarrado said. “We are on the Colombian side. The security situation remains quite difficult” on the Venezuelan side.
Venezuela’s Apure state is a hive of various armed groups and narco-traffickers, including a faction loyal to Luciano Marín, a senior leader of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) better known by the nom de guerre Iván Márquez.
In 2019, Marín broke with the Colombian peace deal of 2016, which has gradually unraveled in recent years. Observers say he fled to Venezuela with the blessing of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who publicly invited him to seek shelter in the country.
Colombian and Venezuelan opposition officials say the 10th Front, a longtime group of FARC dissidents in the area, appeared to object to Marín’s return and his close alliance with the Venezuelan government. Other observers suggest the 10th Front may have simply crossed a line by extorting powerful landowners in the area.
“Our belief is that the 10th Front refused to respect the pax mafioso,” or informal peace among criminal elements, said Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, a think tank that studies organized crime in Latin America. “They may have offended [Marín’s faction], or elements of the Venezuelan regime, by extorting the wrong person.”
The result: a military campaign that is boosting a broader outflow of Venezuelan migrants, 5.6 million of whom have already fled a nation racked by food and medicine shortages, criminal violence and government repression.
The pandemic had begun to reverse that trend, with an estimated 130,000 Venezuelans returning between March and October of 2020 as lockdowns imposed throughout the region left many of them unemployed and homeless. As those restrictions have begun to ease, however, the outflow has resumed. UNHCR estimates that as many as 1,500 Venezuelans a day have fled the country in recent months.
On March 21, the Venezuelan forces attacked members of the 10th Front in Apure, raiding six camps. The group responded by attacking a local tax office with explosives, prompting Caracas to deploy to the area a special elite fighting force known as the FAES.
As images of the destruction went viral on social media, Maduro went on national television to blame the attacks on “illegal armed groups” he claimed were being orchestrated by Colombian President Iván Duque.
“They want this to escalate into a military conflict between Colombian and Venezuelan forces,” Maduro said. Colombian officials have rejected Maduro’s claims, attributing the violence instead to his government’s shadowy dealings with narco-traffickers.
Maduro did not address allegations of excessive force by Venezuelan’s military against civilians. His attorney general, however, has said he will open an investigation into the claims.
Duque does not recognize Maduro’s presidency as legitimate, and the two countries have not had diplomatic relations since February 2019.
José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director for Human Rights Watch, said the organization has found “credible evidence” that Venezuelan forces have carried out extrajudicial killings of three men and a woman during the offensive.
Maduro’s defense minister, Vladimir Padrino López, insisted in a news conference Sunday that all of those killed were “terrorists,” calling the campaign evidence that Venezuela is moving to eradicate armed criminal groups and narco-traffickers from its territory.
Last year, the U.S. Justice Department indicted Maduro, Padrino and other senior members of the Venezuelan government on alleged “narcoterrorism” charges.
“We are called to expel any group of any ideology or foreign nationality, whatever it’s called,” Padrino said.
Refugees in Colombia interviewed by The Washington Post spoke of beatings and detentions in Apure as the Venezuelan military went from house to house.
Jegner Matus, 54, said he fled his indigenous Kuyba community in Venezuela after soldiers beat and detained him. (Nadège Mazars)
Jegner Matus, 54, from the indigenous Kuyba community in the Venezuelan town of La Victoria, said soldiers broke down his door and stole personal belongings, including his motorbike and a supply of gasoline.
“They gave us a beating, then put us in a truck with our hands tied,” Matus said. After seven days in jail, he was released and fled to Colombia amid the sounds of shooting and bombs, he said.
“They asked if we were guerrillas, if we collaborated with the guerrillas,” he added. “They made us hold weapons, bullets and other things and then took photos.”
In Arauquita, a hub of the regional cacao trade, some refugees, fearing exposure to the coronavirus — cases of which are spiking in both Colombia and Venezuela — have built their own makeshift shelters by the river. But even many of those are now crammed.
Ismer Corredor, 18, was helping build an extension to a small house where 50 Venezuelans are now living.
“I want to go home, but it’s frightening,” he said. “People are being beaten and taken away.”
Faiola reported from Miami and Herrero from Caracas.
by ponchi101 Colombia cannot take this influx of people. Unemployment here stands at 17%. The consequences are that we (Venezuelans) are starting to be seen as "bad" for the country. I have heard a couple of people commenting about how "Venezuelans" are committing the bulk of criminal activities in the country. A few days ago, as I was walking into my building, one person was talking to the admin and telling him how Venezuelans had taken over spots in the country and were overseeing criminal operations here.
It was bound to happen. Human nature, I guess. Blaming the alien.
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:02 pm
Gee, if there only existed some sort of international organization which grouped countries together and which could enforce laws and regulations to make the world a better place.
One can only dream of such an institution.
Yes, unfortunately the existing organization you're thinking of has no enforcement power.
by JazzNU
Dutch government formation to resume, PM role for Rutte less certain
By Bart H. Meijer, Toby Sterling
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s chances of forming a new government suffered a major setback on Friday, as parliament passed a motion disapproving of his behavior and saying he had “not spoken the truth”.
Lawmakers called for a new independent investigator to oversee preliminary formation talks after March 17 elections in which Rutte’s conserative VVD party took most votes.
Rutte, acting as caretaker prime minister, survived a no-confidence vote and will be allowed to continue in that role as the coronavirus pandemic continues.
The investigator, who has not yet been named, will “see what possibilities there are to restore confidence,” said the motion filed by the D-66 and Christian Democrat parties, the most likely allies of the VVD Party in a future coalition.
“Parliament has given me a serious message and I will try my very best to win back confidence,” a relieved Rutte told reporters after the debate.
The formation of the new government has been set back at least several weeks by the affair and it is no longer clear Rutte will have the respect needed to lead a fourth Cabinet.
Sigrid Kaag, who took the second most votes in the elections that had been seen as a referendum on Rutte’s performance during the pandemic, was bluntly skeptical.
“If I were him, I would not continue”, she said when asked about Rutte’s position.
The crisis became acute on Thursday after Rutte acknowledged having privately discussed what job should go to a prominent member of parliament who had been critical of his previous Cabinet. Rutte had previously said he did not do so, but notes from a meeting emerged showing he had.
“The only thing I can do here is say from the bottom of my heart ... that I never lied,” Rutte said in parliament on Thursday.
Rutte, a 54-year-old conservative who has been in office for more than 10 years, pointed to his record and said he hoped to continue leading the country.
Talks on forming a new government were abruptly put on hold on March 25 when one of the chief negotiators unwittingly revealed a sensitive document to a news photographer. She left it in view as she rushed out of parliament after learning that she had tested positive for COVID-19.
The document showed that negotiators were discussing a position “elsewhere” for popular MP Pieter Omtzigt, a prominent Christian Democrat who had been critical of Rutte’s previous Cabinet. The cryptic “elsewhere” remark has been interpreted as implying either outside parliament or outside the Netherlands.
Omtzigt, who was sworn in as a member of parliament on Wednesday, said the implication he should be removed was “an affront to the Dutch voter”.
China sends more jets; Taiwan says it will fight to the end if there's war
By Ben Blanchard, Yimou Lee
TAIPEI (Reuters) - China sent more fighter jets into Taiwan’s air defence zone on Wednesday in a stepped up show of force around the island Beijing claims as its own, and Taiwan’s foreign minister said it would fight to the end if China attacks.
The democratic self-governed island has complained of repeated military activities by Beijing in recent months, with China’s air force making almost daily forays in Taiwan’s air defence identification zone. On Monday, China said an aircraft carrier group was exercising close to the island.
Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said 15 Chinese aircraft including 12 fighters entered its air defence identification zone, with an anti-submarine aircraft flying to the south through the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines.
Taiwan’s air force sent up aircraft to intercept and warn the Chinese away, the ministry added.
Speaking earlier in the day, Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said the United States was concerned about the risk of conflict.
“From my limited understanding of American decision makers watching developments in this region, they clearly see the danger of the possibility of China launching an attack against Taiwan,” he told reporters at his ministry.
“We are willing to defend ourselves without any questions and we will fight the war if we need to fight the war. And if we need to defend ourselves to the very last day we will defend ourselves to the very last day.”
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office and the U.S. State Department did not respond to requests for comment on Wu’s remarks. China has said its activities around Taiwan are aimed at protecting China’s sovereignty. The United States has expressed concern about China’s movements, and said its commitment to Taiwan is “rock solid”.
Adding to the stepped up military action near Taiwan, the U.S. Navy said the guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain conducted a “routine” transit of the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday.
‘PORCUPINE’ TAIWAN
Neither Taiwan nor China has said precisely where the Chinese carrier group is, or whether it is heading towards the disputed South China Sea, where a U.S. carrier group is currently operating.
Speaking in parliament, Taiwan’s Deputy Defence Minister Chang Che-ping said the Chinese carrier’s movements were being closely followed, and described its drills as routine.
A person familiar with Taiwan’s security planning told Reuters the carrier group is still “near the Japanese islands”, though declined to disclose the exact location.
Japan had said on Sunday that the Chinese carrier group had entered the Pacific after sailing through the Miyako Strait, through Japan’s southern Ryukyu island chain northeast of Taiwan.
Washington, Taiwan’s most important international backer and arms supplier, has been pushing Taipei to modernise its military so it can become a “porcupine”, hard for China to attack.
Wu said Taiwan was determined to improve its military capabilities and spend more on defence.
“The defence of Taiwan is our responsibility. We will try every way we can to improve our defence capability.”
Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said it will run eight days of computer-aided war games this month, simulating a Chinese attack. A second phase of exercises, including live-fire drills and anti-landing drills, will take place in July, when hospitals would also practice handling mass casualties.
“The drills are designed based on the toughest enemy threats, simulating all possible scenarios on an enemy invasion on Taiwan,” Major General Liu Yu-Ping told reporters.
Asked if Washington’s de facto embassy, the American Institute in Taiwan, would send representatives to the drills, Liu said such a plan was “discussed” but “will not be implemented”, citing military sensitivity.
by ponchi101 Because, of course, what the world needs right now is a war in the China Sea.
A big test for Biden, if something were to happen. The last incursions by foreign countries into adjacent territories (Russia/Ukraine, Russia/Georgia) have been done successfully because NATO has not replied.
by ti-amie
by JazzNU
by ponchi101
I wonder what other technical solutions there are. Not an easy problem.
by MJ2004Egypt impounds Ever Given ship over $900m Suez Canal compensation bill
Egyptian authorities have seized a massive cargo ship which blocked the Suez Canal for almost a week last month, amid a dispute over financial damages, the state-run Al Ahram news outlet said on Tuesday.
An Egyptian court ordered the vessel's Japanese owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha, to pay $900 million in compensation as a result of losses inflicted when the Panamanian-flagged Ever Given prevented marine traffic from transiting through the vital global trade waterway.
The hefty bill also includes maintenance fees and the costs of the rescue operation, Al Ahram reported.
An international salvage operation worked around the clock to dislodge the ship from the banks of the canal, intensifying in both urgency and global attention with each passing day, as ships from around the world, carrying vital fuel and cargo, were prevented from entering the canal.
The Ever Given was successfully re-floated on March 29 and moved to the nearby Great Bitter Lake to be inspected for seaworthiness and to allow repairs to be carried out.
Shoei Kisen Kaisha said insurance companies and lawyers were working on the compensation claim, and refused to comment further.
UK Club, the protection and indemnity insurer for the Ever Given, said Tuesday that they had responded to a claim from the Suez Canal Authority for $916 million, and questioned its basis.
"Despite the magnitude of the claim which was largely unsupported, the owners and their insurers have been negotiating in good faith with the SCA. On 12 April, a carefully considered and generous offer was made to the SCA to settle their claim," the statement said.
UK Club says it is the insurer of the Ever Given for certain third-party liabilities including obstruction claims or infrastructure issues, but is not the insurer for the vessel itself or the cargo.
Its statement went on to explain why UK Club believes the magnitude of the claim is not valid. "The SCA has not provided a detailed justification for this extraordinarily large claim, which includes a US$300 million claim for a "salvage bonus" and a US$300 million claim for "loss of reputation." The grounding resulted in no pollution and no reported injuries. The vessel was re-floated after six days and the Suez Canal promptly resumed their commercial operations. The claim presented by the SCA also does not include the professional salvor's claim for their salvage services which owners and their hull underwriters expect to receive separately," the UK Club statement said.
The ship's cargo has been seized until the dispute is resolved, according to the Suez Canal Authority.
More than 400 ships were blocked from passing through the crucial shipping lane when the Ever Given ran aground on March 23. The circumstances that led to the situation are still being probed separately by Egyptian authorities.
CNN's Mostafa Salem reported from Abu Dhabi and Mai Nishiyama from Tokyo.
by ti-amie Because of course.
by ti-amie
by ti-amieRaúl Castro steps down as Cuban Communist Party leader
Raúl Castro says he is resigning as Cuban Communist Party leader, ending his family's six decades in power.
Mr Castro, 89, told a party congress that he is handing over the leadership to a younger generation "full of passion and anti-imperialist spirit".
His successor will be voted in at the end of the four-day congress.
The move, which was expected, ends the era of formal leadership by him and his brother Fidel Castro, which began with the 1959 revolution.
"I believe fervently in the strength and exemplary nature and comprehension of my compatriots," he told party delegates in Havana on Friday.
Although Mr Castro has not endorsed a successor, it is widely believed the party leadership will pass to Miguel Díaz-Canel, who took over as the island's president in 2018.
Not unexpected, but no less historic
By Will Grant, Cuba Correspondent
While the entire island knew this moment was coming, it was no less historic or symbolic when it arrived: Cuba will be officially governed by someone other than a Castro for the first time since 1959.
The reality is that, at least in the short term, little will change.
The man who took over from Raúl Castro as president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, may well succeed him now as the party's first secretary too. It seems likely he will be forced to take further steps to liberalise Cuba's centrally controlled economy. The island is currently in the grip of its worst economic crisis since the period immediately following the end of the Cold War. As a result, private farmers were recently permitted to sell beef and dairy products - goods previously under the sole control of the state.
Any hope of improving ties with the US however may have to wait as the Biden administration has shown little inclination to unpick the Trump administration's harsher sanctions on Cuba at this stage.
One thing is for sure, Raúl Castro's words of keeping "one foot in the stirrup" means he will remain a powerbroker behind the scenes. And by reiterating the island's eternal commitment to socialism it means that political change remains as unlikely under his successor as it was under his late brother, Fidel.
by ponchi101 In 1959, Fidel said that he would only remain in power for three years, and then would transition to democratic vote.
60 years later, there they are.
Of course, the continent is still plagued by people wearing Che Guevara t-shirts.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 I never understood Europe's soft approach to Russia's murdering spree on their soils. It is not as if there was any secret.
Actually, I don't understand Europe's relation with Russia. None of it.
by the Moz
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 10:22 pm
I never understood Europe's soft approach to Russia's murdering spree on their soils. It is not as if there was any secret.
Actually, I don't understand Europe's relation with Russia. None of it.
Sure. But not a commodity that is in any way scarce and that can't be outsourced from nowhere else. Specially since 2014, not a bargaining chip of any value.
Sure. But not a commodity that is in any way scarce and that can't be outsourced from nowhere else. Specially since 2014, not a bargaining chip of any value.
Tell that to von der Leyen et al.
by Suliso Oil yes, gas difficult since there are existing pipelines coming from Russia.
Current President of European Commission, EU's executive branch. She's one of the Parliament's leaders from the 27 member states of EU.
by ti-amie
by MJ2004The unmaking of India
The country’s catastrophic Covid response has exposed a creeping erosion of democratic values and traditions under Modi
England is due to host the next football World Cup, and in preparation for this most prestigious of sporting events, the stadium in Wembley has undergone a makeover. The refurbished stadium is ready a year before the tournament is scheduled to kick off. The Football Association’s chief executive boasts that this is now the largest football stadium in the world, seating more people and far more comfortably than any such venue in Berlin, Rio de Janeiro or Barcelona.
A friendly match against old rivals Germany is arranged to show off the new premises. The Queen is invited by the FA to attend the event. She accepts, since she likes an outing. The chancellor of the exchequer is also asked, and is likewise happy to come. Just before kick-off, the chancellor requests the Queen to declare the new stadium open. The monarch pushes a button, which lifts a curtain to reveal a plaque embedded into the stadium’s entrance. The plaque reads:
INAUGURATION OF
BORIS JOHNSON STADIUM,
LONDON
on February 24 2021 by
HER MAJESTY ELIZABETH II
This tale is, of course, made-up — even though we know Boris Johnson to be publicity-hungry and ever flirting with controversy.
But change the names, the city and the sport, and what seems farcical and fantastical turns out to be entirely true. On February 24 this year, the Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium was inaugurated in the city of Ahmedabad, just before a Test match between India and England. The honours were done by Ram Nath Kovind, the president of the republic, whose role as defined by the Indian constitution is closely modelled on the British monarch’s (except that the post is not hereditary). Standing next to President Kovind was Amit Shah, home minister of India and second only to prime minister Modi in power and influence in the Union government.
By having a sports stadium named after himself within his lifetime, Modi put himself in the worst possible company, including Kim Il Sung and Saddam Hussein. Yet what truly made it in bad taste was that India had just come through a dire 12 months. Although the Covid-19 pandemic had not yet caused as much loss of life as in Europe and North America, the economy lay in ruins. Gross domestic product contracted by 23.9 per cent between April and June 2020. By some estimates, more than 100m people had lost their jobs.
Admittedly, the Covid curve had flattened in the final months of 2020, with cases and deaths coming down quite substantially. Still, with all that India needed to do to rebuild its economy and restore its ever-fragile social fabric, was this the time for its prime minister to so extravagantly allow a public massaging of his ego?
As I write this, safe and thus far fever-free in my home in southern India, my country has become the new epicentre of the virus. Anxious messages pour in from friends overseas as they read of how every day India sets a world record for the most cases recorded in the previous 24 hours.
These are “official” figures, issued by a government notoriously economical with the truth. One CNN report cited an expert who suggested deaths are under-reported by a factor of between two and five, meaning we may have already had 1m Covid-related deaths instead of the roughly 200,000 reported so far. And with the surge predicted to continue at least till the end of May, the magnitude of the disaster is almost impossible to contemplate.
As stories of oxygen shortages and photos of burning funeral pyres are carried across the world, the culpability of the Modi government becomes ever clearer. From the time the first reports of the virus emerged, our prime minister has consistently ignored the danger signs while focusing on building his own personal brand and image.
Like other populists, Modi has been sceptical of experts’ advice, saying he much prefers “hard work” to “Harvard”. Where previous Indian prime ministers actively consulted scientists and economists in the making of public policy, Modi has preferred to trust his own instincts. The professional civil service, and even the diplomatic corps, have become more and more politicised, with growing emphasis on loyalty to the leader and his ideology. The pandemic has in many ways brought into sharp focus a more existential crisis for India — the creeping erosion of its democratic traditions and values.
Let me take you back to February 2020, exactly a year before the inauguration of the Narendra Modi Stadium, when the prime minister visited Ahmedabad in the company of the then US president, Donald Trump. The virus was making its presence known, but the leaders of the world’s richest and largest democracies were unconcerned.
Modi wanted praise from Trump, and Trump wanted Modi to get Indian-Americans to vote for him in the 2020 presidential election. In Ahmedabad the two populist demagogues made a show of respect towards Mahatma Gandhi, visiting his ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati river. Then Modi took Trump to New Delhi, where, while they chatted and feasted, riots broke out in India’s capital, in which Muslims suffered disproportionately.
Throughout February 2020, Modi’s attentions were devoted to planning the visit of his friend from America. Throughout much of March, Modi and his Bharatiya Janata party were focused on bringing down a government ruled by the Congress party in the state of Madhya Pradesh, offering inducements to legislators to defect.
On March 11 the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic. The death toll was rising alarmingly in Europe. While now belatedly aware of the virus, Modi still wanted to wait to have the state of Madhya Pradesh in his hands. On March 23, a BJP government was sworn in in the state. The prime minister said he would address the nation the following evening. What might he say? Ever since he had announced, in November 2016, that 500 and 1,000 rupee notes (amounting to 86 per cent of the value of currency in circulation) would be rendered unusable in four hours’ time, the PM’s every speech had been awaited with a degree of nervous trepidation.
When speaking at public rallies, while canvassing votes for himself or his party, Modi works in the polemical mode, loudly mocking his rivals in an ever-increasing cascade of insults. When speaking on television, as prime minister, Modi adopts a gentler, paternal tone. He speaks softly, offering homilies to his fellow citizens. The sting is generally at the end. And so it was on the evening of March 24 2020, when he began by talking of the crisis that Covid-19 posed, before suddenly announcing that all of India, in just four hours’ time, would be locked down for three whole weeks.
With their jobs taken away from them at one fell swoop, and no buses or trains running any more, tens of thousands of workers began to walk back to their villages. Photographs of poor Indians walking with their belongings on their head, and of their being stopped and brutalised by the police, went viral. Several commentators remarked on the chilling similarities between these images and those of refugees during the Partition of India.
For our prime minister, Covid-19’s arrival in India became a further opportunity to reinforce the cult of personality. The choreographed speeches were one manifestation — with public broadcasting network Prasar Bharati crudely boasting that more people had tuned in to hear Modi speak than had watched the final of the hugely popular cricket tournament, the Indian Premier League. A second manifestation was the creation of a new fund with a diabolically well-crafted name — PM CARES, the acronym standing for Citizens Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations. Modi’s own photograph was prominently emblazoned on its website, and would be on the publicity collateral and perhaps on the packaging of the supplies bought with it too.
The fund’s operations were opaque — nobody knew how much money was collected, or how it was to be spent. An appeal to the Supreme Court of India to mandate financial transparency was rejected. As 2020 progressed, a sense of complacency set in about the pandemic itself — not merely in government, but among the public at large.
Some experts had claimed that India would be ravaged by the virus, with several hundred million people being affected; but when the number turned out to be far fewer, they were scolded by our prickly patriots. “Our drains are not filled with bodies, our hospitals have not run out of beds,” wrote one prominent Delhi editor. “Our crematoriums and graveyards are not out of wood or space. There is not even a cricket field-sized sliver of India anywhere that might help you make a convenient or macabre comparison with the Spanish Flu of 1918.” He added “that good news, or absence of expected bad news, is the truth that so many in the international community, and also within India, seem unable to handle.”
In December 2020, the Indian cricket team defeated Australia in a Test series played Down Under. The next month, in an address to university students, Modi invoked this sporting victory as a prelude to the nation’s apparent triumph against Covid. “The Indian cricket team suffered crushing defeat, yet recovered equally fast and won the next match,” he said. Likewise, “this self-confidence and absence of fear in trading the uncharted path and young energy has strengthened the country in its fight against corona . . . India took fast, proactive decisions instead of compromising with the situation and effectively fought with the virus.”
This sort of arrogant complacency permeated the Modi government’s actions and decisions. In the wake of the pandemic, a “Covid task force” of scientific experts had been constituted — yet there was no meeting of the body through February and March 2021. For the prime minister had given the signal that the virus had been defeated by Indians, just as the Australian cricketers had been.
It was by now well known that all countries, even the richest and with the best-equipped healthcare systems, had experienced a second wave of the virus, often worse than the first. “Had we anticipated this,” writes one distinguished Mumbai physician, “we could have buttressed our defences and increased our resources.” But “perhaps the powers that be felt that we are God’s chosen country and this could not happen to us”. And so, powered by faith in their living god, some 55,000 people, mostly maskless, came to cheer India play against England at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad in the last week of February.
Throughout February and March, Modi and home minister Amit Shah were busy with assembly elections in the state of West Bengal. They addressed large rallies in which they, like the audience, scorned the use of masks. On April 11 2021 the Covid task force finally met, after it was clear that a second wave had hit India. Modi remained focused on the West Bengal election: on April 17, he spoke at a rally in the industrial town of Asansol. “Maine aisi sabha pehli baar dekhi hai” (“I have never seen such big crowds at a rally”), he proclaimed.
By now, India’s crematoriums were out of wood and its graveyards out of space, and yet the prime minister was bragging about how loved he was.
Tragically, though, the boastfulness was not without foundation. Despite his failures on the economic front, despite his mishandling of the pandemic, Modi remains enormously popular among voters. An opinion poll conducted in late January showed “NaMo” as having approval ratings of above 70 per cent. Events of recent weeks may have caused a slide, but this is likely to be modest, rather than precipitous.
How does one explain this disjunction between performance and popularity? One reason for Modi’s appeal is that his ideology of Hindu majoritarianism is widely shared by voters, particularly in the populous states of northern India. The BJP has been especially successful in getting lower-caste Hindus into their fold, by offering them cultural superiority over Muslims.
India once stood out in south Asia for affirming — at least in theory, if less emphatically in practice — that faith and state were distinct in public matters. Now, under Modi, India is increasingly becoming a Hindu version of Pakistan. (In Covid times, this glorification of Hindu pride has revealed itself in the decision to allow a congregation of millions of worshippers in the Kumbh Mela, with costs that will steadily mount as infected devotees return to their towns and villages.)
Modi’s political success has also been enabled by a weak and fragmented opposition. Particularly culpable here is the Indian National Congress, once the great party of the freedom movement, now the property of a single family. In the general elections of 2014 and 2019, the BJP won easily because Modi was pitted against Rahul Gandhi, an entitled fifth-generation dynast with no administrative experience; he is also an indifferent orator. Yet it may still be Gandhi who leads the Congress into the 2024 elections.
Finally, Modi has been able to do what he wants because of the capitulation of the democratic institutions meant to keep authoritarianism in check. The principal culprit here is the Supreme Court, whose conduct in recent years has been nothing less than supine. Successive chief justices have refused to protect individual liberties and minority rights, been insensitive to the savage suppression of dissent by the state, and facilitated a secretive electoral bonds scheme whereby the ruling party can collect money from businesses in return for favours.
One constitutional scholar describes the Supreme Court of the Modi years as an “institution that speaks the language of the executive, and has become indistinguishable from the executive”; a second writes that the “Supreme Court has badly let us down in recent times, through a combination of avoidance, mendacity, and a lack of zeal on behalf of political liberty”.
Back in 2012, I exchanged a series of emails with a young entrepreneur, who, disgusted with the Congress party in power, desperately wanted Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, to become India’s next prime minister. The correspondence was long and instructive, but here I must quote only snatches. Thus my friend wrote: “Specifically, Narendra Modi could be our own Deng Xiaoping, unwedded to any ideology except economic growth. As a natural democrat and argumentative dissident, I shudder at that analogy, which is barely an unmixed compliment. But, as far as choices go, that will be my pick.”
The comparison of Modi to Deng provoked this anguished response from myself: “No, no, no, do not be so simple-minded and see Modi as the leader we need or want. What is good for business is not necessarily good for India. Deng was a genuine patriot, Modi is a bigot and megalomaniac.”
It turned out I was wrong on one count: Modi has been good for a few businessmen, not for business as a whole. During the pandemic, even as tens of millions of Indians lost their jobs, a handful of billionaires made windfall gains. Among them are Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani, both coincidentally from Modi’s state of Gujarat, and also, surely coincidentally, with their names emblazoned on the new Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium, where overs are bowled alternatively from the Adani and Ambani ends.
Modi may (or may not) win a third term as prime minister. But from what he has done so far, it seems pretty clear that the republic has been ill-served by his rule. Incompetence, sectarianism and the cult of personality — these are the three defining traits of his regime.
In the present wave of the pandemic, the city of New Delhi has been the worst affected, yet the sufferings of its citizens have not deterred Modi from going ahead with a vanity project dearer to his heart than any other. This is to radically reshape the landscape of the capital, so as to supplant the glorious architectural heritage of the Mughals and the British with the personal imprint of the new emperor of India. While shortages of oxygen, beds, medicines and vaccines abound, while the dead are being cremated in parking lots, a construction company has been instructed to get on with building a brand new house for the prime minister, their activities given legal protection under the “Essential Services Act”.
From cricket to Covid, no sphere of human life has escaped our eagle-eyed prime minister. Although India was slow off the mark in vaccinating its population, its programme will be unique in one respect — each certificate of vaccination carries a portrait of Modi. One Indian posted a photo of his certificate with the sarcastic line: “Sir Modi jee knows what to do, when to do, how to do”.
Another commentator was more brutal, tweeting: “Just as there is a photo of Modi on the vaccine certificate, there should also be a photo of Modi on the death certificate of those killed by Covid.” Grim and even ghoulish, this statement may yet serve as an appropriate epitaph for the reign of Narendra Modi.
-FT
by the Moz The state of India's public health system before COVID is more than enough explanation about how they are in this current mess. It was never going to go well.
by Togtdyalttai There were so many places in that article where you could have replaced Modi with Trump and India with the US and it would still have made sense. It feels like they're living out many of the same COVID problems we did because of incompetent leadership.
by Suliso Indian democracy is in trouble and not just because of covid. Unfortunately their democracy is weaker in terms of checks and balances and Modi is smarter than Trump. Plus the population is far more religious and tensions with the sizable Muslim population are very real.
by ponchi101 The Achilles' heel of democracies in under-educated countries: how do you avoid the rise of the populist? The vicious circle: people are uneducated so they fall for the lies of the man (because it is always a man) that will not do anything to lift them from their lack of education.
Other than that: what all of you guys say.
by Suliso In this particular case it's more of a religious thing. In that sense different from Latin America
by ponchi101 The only reason why the demagogues in L. America do not play the religious card is because we are so homogenous. But, in the Colombian election that Antanas Mokus lost to J.M. Santos, the fact that Mokus was openly an atheist came into play. It may have swayed some votes, enough for Santos' victory.
You are correct: the Indian issue revolves around religious groups. Which is why it is so pernicious. But I still find myself convinced that the lack of education of these disastrous democracies is the reason why they are so susceptible to the call of the demagogue: he finds an absurd cause, and from then on, it is downhill all the way.
by ti-amie
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat May 01, 2021 2:21 pm
The Achilles' heel of democracies in under-educated countries: how do you avoid the rise of the populist? The vicious circle: people are uneducated so they fall for the lies of the man (because it is always a man) that will not do anything to lift them from their lack of education.
Other than that: what all of you guys say.
I'm not sure anymore under-education is really the main issue, at least in the relative sense. Countries in Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia) that've recently fallen for right-wing populism have some of the highest levels of education. The rural/older population might still have limited political education but, in relative terms, they're well ahead of the global average. Yes, maybe they wouldn't have fallen for a Duterte or a Trump or a Modi, but give them the same in a well-tailored suit and with better vocabulary, and it's enough.
by ponchi101 Meanwhile, in a God-forsaken Latin American country with a long history of violence.
Colombia's proposed Tax Reform went the usual way: more taxes for the middle class and an elimination breaks from taxation on basic products, especially food items in what is called "the basic needs" basket. For a week now, the country has been facing demonstrations that have become violent. Since the president's own house is just two blocks from where I live, some of the marches have been right across from my place; it had been over a decade since I last smelled tear gas. Of course, all for nothing because he is at the OFFICIAL presidential residence now, although his family uses his apartment because he wanted his daughters to remain in the same school (it would be too long a drive).
The gist of the movement is the same as always: money. The official unemployment figure is 16% and no one believes that. So, as the taxes proposed were all aimed at the poor and the middle class, who have been the most affected by the C19 crisis (of course), the feeling in the street is one of social justice: Colombia is really bad at generating decent employment and with the C19 crisis, the entire service sector has been hit severely.
This will guarantee, almost, that in the '22 election the youth will vote for Gustavo Petro, a radical-left former guerrilla that promises the same as always: revenge on the upper class. The young did not live through the period of Colombian history when this man committed his crimes, so those will not come into consideration when the vote comes.
On the one hand, the protesters are right: new taxes when in Colombia Senators have a $10,000/month salary are unfair, specially in view of the rampant corruption that drains a considerable portion of the budget, and which the current administration has done nothing to stop. On the other, smashing private property in the cities never leads to anything. So this will be the start of the leftist cycle in Colombia, which has never elected a leftist government.
Like Dropshot told us (me) once: migrating within Latin America is nothing more than changing cabins in the Titanic.
by mmmm8 Well now we know where you live, Ponchi, losing internet anonymity by the post
Yeah, I don't particularly understand why the government thought this would be a good time to bring austerity reforms that affect the basic necessities. Especially after what's just happened in Chile. At least try to vaccinate people first. They're shooting themselves in the foot here. The only thought it that it's probably better now than closer to the election.
by ponchi101
mmmm8 wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 2:11 pm
Well now we know where you live, Ponchi, losing internet anonymity by the post
...
But I had Colombia as my residency in the past. Oh, you mean you can now LOCATE me?
It is terribly stupid to do a reform right now, but it was the entire tax package. Higher VAT for almost all purchases, dropping the threshold for taxation from 3 Minimum Wages down to 2 (meaning, people making around $300/month), taking elements in the production of, for example, eggs and other essentials out of the tax exemptions (so those prices would increase) while, as I said before, not a single tax for industry or the wealthy.
It is not learning from what happened in Chile, this is a total Marie Antoinette moment (and I know she did not say the "let them eat cake" thing). It is a total disconnect with what is happening in the streets.
On top of that, the GOVT is very slow with vaccination but they are sourcing Chinese (Sinovac) vaccines. So what they are going to end up with is a population which will be, at best, 50% protected. So there is no way we can achieve herd immunity. So what are they are talking about? How they need to make sure that Colombian foreign debt bonds are propped, because they are all the way down to BBB-.
They simply are not getting it.
by Suliso Enormous gap between the rich and the poor is the great scourge in almost every South American country. Not that there is a place with no large gap, but there it's worse than elsewhere. Leads to perpetual political instability and economic boom and bust cycles (or just bust).
by ponchi101 Indeed. For a while in Venezuela, people got in the habit of, when you asked them "How are things?", they would reply: "Everything is fine. It is just badly spread"
It loses a bit in the translation, but the gist is there. It is the perennial recipe for our combustible societies.
mmmm8 wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 2:11 pm
Well now we know where you live, Ponchi, losing internet anonymity by the post
...
But I had Colombia as my residency in the past. Oh, you mean you can now LOCATE me?
I bet I could find you here some days, looking on (doesn't look like court quality would be high enough for you to play): https://goo.gl/maps/C3s68wsyMAAF1nLC6
When I went to Bogota, I got very lost in a mall near there, so there's that, so chances are good I can locate you but not actually find you.
(Sorry to digress from a real and serious topic)
by ponchi101 I am impressed by your detective skills... but not impressed by your logician's mind
I can't afford the Bogota Country Club. Membership there is about $250,000, plus of course monthly fees. It is the place where Bogota's society mingles. I have never even been there.
The other little court is close to my house but I actually did not know it was there. It is not where I play. I play here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Acade ... -74.059148
The owner is an old Ex Davis cup Colombian, good for some good stories about Laver, Rosewall and Ashe. He played against them and worked for Ashe for several years, in Florida. Courts are decent, they have an OK gym where I train, with an instructor that has become a good friend. He is an Argie so we have a lot to talk about.
If you come over, I won't even give you my address. I will let you find it
by mmmm8 You say logician's mind, I say lazy person's mind - I went by distance! There are 6(!) tennis clubs/academies in the close area to where you play! Some sort of tennis oasis.
by ti-amie
Oh joy
by Suliso I'm safe, but most of you are not.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 By now, there is "nothing" to protest about. The govt has clearly stated that the tax reform will not be passed or even presented to the Senate.
So I really don't know why the people are still in the streets, other than the overall picture for the majority of people is grim.
by ti-amie But...I thought it was Meghan and Harry who were destroying the English monarchy?!
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 "I was recovering from a kidney transplant, in which they took part of my brain out too..."
by ti-amie I debated putting this in the Science/Techno Babble thread but this is more like a shot across the bow from POTUS to the world.
p1
by ti-amie
p2
Gee imagine a real US Government response instead of the former guy getting a cut of whatever ransom was paid?
by ponchi101 It's a new idea, that didn't get traction a couple of years ago.
Next step, create a government branch to represent the country in international circles. You could call it something like MINISTRY OF STATE, or a variation of that.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 2:22 am
It's a new idea, that didn't get traction a couple of years ago.
Next step, create a government branch to represent the country in international circles. You could call it something like MINISTRY OF STATE, or a variation of that.
Joe Biden does have a son-in-law - that's how diplomacy is done, no? Funny that we've never heard of him.
by ti-amieEuropean leaders condemn Belarusian authorities after plane is forced to land and opposition journalist is detained
By
Isabelle Khurshudyan
and
Michael Birnbaum
May 23, 2021 at 1:38 p.m. EDT
MOSCOW — Authorities in Belarus ordered a Ryanair flight that took off in Athens and was headed to Lithuania to land in Minsk over a purported bomb threat, which the Belarusian opposition is calling just a pretext to arrest an activist on board.
The forcing down of the airplane, traveling between two European capitals before a MiG-29 fighter escorted it to Minsk, drew condemnation from European leaders. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he wanted to discuss immediate sanctions at a previously scheduled meeting of European leaders in Brussels on Monday.
“Hijacking of a civilian plane is an unprecedented act of state terrorism. It cannot go unpunished,” he wrote on Twitter.
The news service for the airport in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, said the plane was diverted because of reports that there were explosives on board. President Alexander Lukashenko personally ordered the fighter escort, the BelTA state news agency said.
The airport news service told state media that a bomb was not found on the plane, which had 123 passengers.
Roman Protasevich, an opposition journalist who ran the popular social media Telegram channel Nexta, was detained upon the plane’s landing. The flight was headed to Vilnius, Lithuania, where the 26-year-old has been living in exile.
Protasevich faces more than 12 years in prison after he and the creator of Nexta, which exposed Belarusian police brutality during anti-government demonstrations last year, were added to a list of individuals purportedly involved in terrorist activities. Nexta and its sister channel, Nexta Live, have close to 2 million subscribers.
Protasevich said on his Telegram channel earlier Sunday before departing Greece that he sensed he was under surveillance.
“The regime forced the landing [of the] Ryanair plane in Minsk to arrest journalist and activist Roman Protasevich,” opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said on Twitter, adding that she is demanding his “immediate release” and calling on the International Civil Aviation Organization to take action.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Twitter that the plane was “forcibly landed” and that the Belarusian “regime is behind the abhorrent action.”
The Ryanair flight was nearly at the Lithuanian border before it made a U-turn to divert to Minsk, according to the Flightradar24 website.
Ryanair said in a statement that Belarusian air traffic control notified its crew that there was “a potential security risk on board” and instructed it to divert “to the nearest airport, Minsk.” But the plane was much closer to the Vilnius airport than to the one in Minsk, according to the flight tracker.
Nothing untoward was found, the statement said. The flight departed for Vilnius at 7 p.m. local time in Minsk.
“This is unprecedented,” said a senior European diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the unfolding situation.
The diplomat said European policymakers would need to discuss whether to issue a fresh wave of sanctions against Belarus and, more practically, whether it was still safe to fly over Belarusian airspace.
Flights in Northern and Eastern Europe often try to avoid Russian airspace — including the exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea — which means that if Belarusian airspace is also a no-go, north-south flights in Europe could become quite circuitous.
Protasevich had been in Athens taking photographs during a visit by Tikhanovskaya to Greece, so his whereabouts would have been public to anyone with an interest. The senior diplomat noted that investigative open-source outlets such as Bellingcat have been able to purchase flight manifests and that it would probably not have been difficult for Belarusian authorities to gain access to information about Protasevich’s travel plans.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Twitter that Britain is “coordinating with our allies. This outlandish action by Lukashenko will have serious implications.”
Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, has unleashed a sustained crackdown on all forms of opposition, including media. On Tuesday, the offices of Belarusian independent news site Tut.by were raided after a criminal case of “large-scale tax evasion” was opened against it.
Lukashenko claimed a sweeping victory in last year’s elections — a result internationally denounced as rigged. Months of popular protests over his rule followed, prompting a crackdown that has left most of the opposition exiled or jailed.
by ponchi101 As long as China ahs Xi Jinping, and Russia has Vlad, strongmen around the world will do these things because they know there will be no consequences.
Unless international flights are stopped into Minsk (which of course means people will fly through Moscow) this will have all the repercussions of the Kashogi murder.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by Suliso Indeed, we've also got a bit of a fight with Lukashenko now. He has kicked out all Latvian diplomats and naturally we reciprocated with the same. Latest is that EU will forbid flying over Belarus and their companies flying to EU.
by Suliso This is more of a human story, but connected to Belarus situation. About a young doctor who fled recently from Minsk to Riga. The article is in Belorussian, but google translate works very well.
by Suliso These days there is a lot more direct oppression in Belarus than before the elections. Previously I would have said it's more about stagnation. A country which never woke up from USSR. Not a place for young people with some ambition, but no connections with the ruling class.
by the Moz For shame Belarus
by ti-amie There are two clips up today of Dominic Cummings. Both are cause for eyebrow raising. This is the first one.
by ti-amie Here is the second one that I saw earlier. It answers a question we raised in the Style and Entertainment thread about why anyone would consider being intimate with someone like Boris Johnson.
Apparently there are more clips but they get into the weeds of British politics.
by ti-amie One more. "The Prime Ministers Girlfriend" comes up again.
by the Moz Dominic Cummings was BoJo's hatchet man at No.10, but when he got the sack he was always going to dish the dirt to anyone who would listen.
And on any comments pertaining to COVID, it's best DC stay mum. He personally flouted restrictions and saw no sanction. Not sure where he stands on COVID concern any more than his former boss.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by the Moz A shameful reminder of Canada's shameful past.
It now came out that there was a fighter jet likely following the Ryanair flight, potentially directly threatening to strike if they don't land. They turned around when they were 2 minutes from the Lithuanian border and the flight pattern shows they were trying to get there as fast as possible (usually planes start descent this close to Vilnius but they were maintaining altitude, likely going for speed)
by ti-amie
by Suliso Well, no doubt Putin will support them even more now.
by mmmm8
Suliso wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 7:08 pm
Well, no doubt Putin will support them even more now.
It'll also be good for the Russian economy, Belarussians will now have to fly to Russia or Ukraine first before going elsewhere in Europe.
Suliso wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 7:08 pm
Well, no doubt Putin will support them even more now.
It'll also be good for the Russian economy, Belarussians will now have to fly to Russia or Ukraine first before going elsewhere in Europe.
That is if Lukashenko will let them out and EU in. Currently neither is the case.
It's sad really, that country is destined for "eternal" stagnation. Definitely a place young and ambitious people ought to flee from if the can.
by ponchi101 How do the Belarusian players move around, then? Special dispensation? I have no idea, and it is not as if there are just a two or three.
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 7:59 pm
How do the Belarusian players move around, then? Special dispensation? I have no idea, and it is not as if there are just a two or three.
Yes, privileged position since they have a job abroad. Also how many actually live in Belarus? Currently there are 4 women and 2 men in the top 150.
by JazzNU
Suliso wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 8:03 pm
Yes, privileged position since they have a job abroad. Also how many actually live in Belarus? Currently there are 4 women and 2 men in the top 150.
Blanking on the men in question, but for the women, Aryna, Vika, and Aliaksandra all live in Belarus. For Vika, she's only there part time, but more so in recent years (which I'd hazard a guess is about legal strategy, a very good move on her part).
by Suliso I was under impression that Vika is a permanent resident in US and spends all her time there. Interesting to find out otherwise. I guess it's ok as long as you keep a very low profile.
by mmmm8
Suliso wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 8:59 pm
I was under impression that Vika is a permanent resident in US and spends all her time there. Interesting to find out otherwise. I guess it's ok as long as you keep a very low profile.
Her parents and brother are based in Belarus from what I've seen on social media
by Jeff from TX This is big news in the world of organized crime: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/artic ... essage-app Global Sting: FBI-Run Messaging App Tricks Organized Crime
Criminal gangs divulged plans for moving drug shipments and carrying out killings on a messaging app secretly run by the FBI.
By Associated Press
June 8, 2021
By MIKE CORDER and NICK PERRY, Associated Press
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Criminal gangs divulged plans for moving drug shipments and carrying out killings on a messaging app secretly run by the FBI, law enforcement agencies said Tuesday, as they unveiled a global sting operation they said dealt an “unprecedented blow” to organized crime in countries around the world.
The operation known as Trojan Shield led to police raids in 16 nations. More than 800 suspects were arrested and more than 32 tons of drugs — including cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines and methamphetamines — were seized along with 250 firearms, 55 luxury cars and more than $148 million in cash and cryptocurrencies.
The seeds of the sting were sown when law enforcement agencies earlier took down two encrypted platforms, EncroChat and Sky ECC, that had been used by criminal gangs to organize drug trafficking and underworld hits. With the gangs in the market for a new means of communication, the FBI stepped in with a covertly developed app called ANOM that was installed on modified mobile phones. Over the past 18 months, the FBI provided phones via unsuspecting middlemen to more than 300 gangs operating in more than 100 countries.
Intelligence gathered and analyzed “enabled us to prevent murders. It led to the seizure of drugs that led to the seizure of weapons. And it helped prevent a number of crimes,” Calvin Shivers, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, told a news conference in The Hague, Netherlands.
The number of arrests seem low from a few other reports that I saw.
by ponchi101 I could not agree more with your signature, Jeff.
(The article is pretty good too)
by MJ2004 Macron having a rough day.
by dryrunguy I feel guilty for laughing. Just a tad, mind you.
by ti-amie
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 5:30 pm
I feel guilty for laughing. Just a tad, mind you.
A giggle is fine...
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by mmmm8 All the photos I've seen of world leaders with Biden from this summit show faces full of pure joy. Him being not Trump (and for some, like Merkel, an old acquaintance) is doing wonders for Biden and for the US.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by Suliso Seems unlikely he'd stay the full two years as agreed, but stranger things have happened.
by ti-amie I'll just leave this here:
If this is true...
by ti-amie An update:
by ti-amie And more
by ti-amie UGH. The pictures are horrible. I didn't post them.
by JazzNU
by JazzNU ^^ Many moons ago when I was in school, we had a guest for one of our lectures that was a member of the British Parliament (don't remotely remember his name) and he was talking about the EU. I basically got into a loud discussion with him in front of the class, after he said some truly shady (expletive) he didn't think he would get called on about admitting certain countries as member states and not others. And it was for exactly this reason. Hungary is in the EU passing a law like this, why?
by ti-amie SMH.
by ti-amie Meanwhile Netanyahu won't vacate the official residence and GOP'ers are flocking to meet him there.
by Suliso
JazzNU wrote: ↑Tue Jun 15, 2021 10:01 pm
^^ Many moons ago when I was in school, we had a guest for one of our lectures that was a member of the British Parliament (don't remotely remember his name) and he was talking about the EU. I basically got into a loud discussion with him in front of the class, after he said some truly shady (expletive) he didn't think he would get called on about admitting certain countries as member states and not others. And it was for exactly this reason. Hungary is in the EU passing a law like this, why?
Because you can only admit countries, no mechanism to kick anyone out involuntarily. Of course you already knew that.
With some luck maybe they'll vote Orban out next year and if so things will change for the better. I don't think Hungarians are really that massively different from neighboring Slovaks or Croatians.
by ponchi101 Serious here. You think there can be fair elections in Hungary, with a guy like Orban in charge?
by Suliso Hard to say. They did manage to remove Bibi in Israel.
by the Moz Bibi lost his premiership by parliamentary procedure, not at the ballot box.
by Suliso And that was only possible because he came a bit short in the latest elections.
by ti-amie Has Netanyahu moved out yet or is he still staging a sit in?
by JazzNU Rachel Scott is the reporter from ABC News
by ti-amie That second response is very, very interesting.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie "if you dont understand that you're in the wrong business."
by patrick
ti-amie wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 7:18 pm
"if you dont understand that you're in the wrong business."
That was classic by Biden during his presser
by the Moz
Suliso wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 3:57 pm
And that was only possible because he came a bit short in the latest elections.
His inability to maintain a working coalition government played a part as well.
It's too late for just emissions reductions. Time to geo-engineer this thing.
Reforest 1/2 the earth.
Clean the oceans.
Go nuclear (no, not bombs, nuclear power plants).
There is no disease in this planet that I would not wish on this tiny man.
Indeed. He's a pariah of the highest order. But do remember, all living creatures eventually die. And any 'information' coming out of North Korea must be taken with the severest grain of salt, regardless of the source. The defining function of this regime is to exercise complete control of government, people, ideas etc. and thereby neutering facts and the truth. Quite a pathetic and tragic way to treat a country and its people.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 As opposed to house them in Kansastan, Texakistan and Utahkistan? Because that could be done.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by dryrunguy We're all gonna die, there is no future, we are damned.
by ponchi101 I didn't know it was PEMEX. They have a reputation for lax safety, about the same as PDVSA (Venezuela's company).
About we are going to die. Painfully and slowly.
(Sorry, I forgot it is Saturday. Go back to watch W, it is more uplifting)
by JazzNU From this past week:
by ti-amie THEY NEED MORE GUNS!
/s
Add this to the ocean being on fire and it's been a week.
by ti-amie
NOTE: Be careful of clicking overseas links.
PEMEX right now:
by the Moz
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sun Jul 04, 2021 7:04 pm
THEY NEED MORE GUNS!
by ti-amie Mud volcanoes
by ponchi101 So, an Earth zit.
Blame it on us (says the O&G guy). We have done much worse.
by ti-amie
by ti-amieHaiti’s prime minister calls for ‘harmony’ after the president is killed.
President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti was assassinated in an attack in the early hours of Wednesday at his home on the outskirts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, the interim prime minister said, creating a political void that threatens to deepen the turmoil that had gripped the country for months.
As foreign governments struggled to assess the situation, millions of Haitians anxiously huddled around radios and televisions, staying off the streets as they tried to understand what the coming days might bring.
Mr. Moïse’s wife, Martine Moïse, was also shot in the attack, the interim prime minister, Claude Joseph, said in a statement. Her condition was not immediately clear.
“A group of unidentified individuals, some of them speaking Spanish, attacked the private residence of the president of the republic and thus fatally wounded the head of state,” the prime minister said, but there was little solid information about who might have carried out the assassination.
In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Joseph said that he was the one running the country at the moment. Still, it was unclear how much control he had, or how long it might last. A new prime minister had been scheduled to replace Mr. Joseph this week, and the head of the nation’s highest court, who might also have helped establish order, died of Covid-19 in June.
Later Wednesday, in a televised broadcast to the nation, Mr. Joseph presented himself as head of the government and announced that he and his fellow ministers had declared a “state of siege.”
Mr. Joseph called for calm.
“Let’s search for harmony to advance together, so the country doesn’t fall into chaos,” he said.
He also vowed that the commando unit that had carried out the assassination would be brought to justice.
The news of Mr. Moïse’s assassination rocked the Caribbean nation 675 miles southeast of Miami. But it had already been in turmoil.
In recent months, protesters had taken to the streets to demand Mr. Moïse’s removal. He had clung to power, ruling by decree for more than a year, even as many — including constitutional scholars and legal experts — argued that his term had expired.
(...)
On Wednesday, Mr. Joseph said that the president had been “cowardly assassinated,” but that the murderers “cannot assassinate his ideas.” He called on the country to “stay calm” and said he would address the nation later in the day.
He said the country’s security situation was under the control of the police and the army. But international observers warned that the situation could quickly spiral out of control.
Didier Le Bret, a former French ambassador to Haiti, said the situation in Haiti had become so volatile that “many people had an interest in getting rid of Moïse.”
He said he hoped Mr. Joseph would be able to run the country, despite his lack of political legitimacy.
Mr. Le Bret criticized the international community for ignoring the volatile political situation in Haiti and said it should now come help the country “to ensure a smooth transition.”
This sounds like amateur hour. Can't imagine the DEA being that blatant or careless. And while Erik Prince is a (likely treasonous) assassin, he's an expert at covert missions so it's hard to imagine he'd organize something that sloppy even if this is some kind of setup. Remember, he was a Seal before he became a mercenary and started Blackwater.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Journalism in the 20th century has become one of the most dangerous professions on earth. It is time these people work undercover. They are too vulnerable otherwise.
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 10:19 pm
Journalism in the 20th century has become one of the most dangerous professions on earth. It is time these people work undercover. They are too vulnerable otherwise.
21st Century
by ponchi101 Gee, I wonder how old I am...
(That was embarrassing. Txs)
by ti-amieAssassination of Haitian president becomes complex international web
By Widlore Merancourt, Anthony Faiola and Shawn Boburg
July 9, 2021|Updated today at 10:10 p.m. EDT
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The sound of gunfire rang out in the neighborhood where the president of Haiti had been assassinated hours before. Police were hunting suspects — Spanish-speaking commandos in Creole-speaking Haiti — when two Haitian Americans from South Florida, wearing dirty white T-shirts and khaki pants, approached.
They surrendered, then offered a yarn befitting a Netflix series, according to an official who interrogated the pair. One of the men, James Solages, a naturalized American who often jumped between South Florida and Haiti, said he applied on the Internet for a job and landed the position as an interpreter for “foreigners” whose full names, he said, he did not know. For about a month, Solages and the foreigners would frequently meet to grab a plate of food and talk with other team members at the restaurant inside the Royal Oasis Hotel, an upscale lodge about 10 minutes from the president’s home.
They were told, Solages explained, that they were executing an order to arrest the president authorized by a judge. On Wednesday night, as the team encroached on the presidential palace, Solages, 35, called out to the president’s guards, claiming to be from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and ordering them to stand down. But something, the men claimed, had gone terribly wrong.
One of the Colombian commandos involved in the mission came out of the president’s home and informed the Haitian Americans — Solages and Joseph Vincent, 55 — that the president had been killed before the team had arrived.
The twists and turns of the account gave Clément Noël, an investigating judge who debriefed the two Americans, pause. How much was true? How much was not?
In Haiti right now, it is impossible to tell.
“In my opinion, they were withholding information."
“They said they turned themselves in because they did not feel like they had a choice,” said Noël. “They did not have a mission to kill the president. When they realized that things had changed, they brought themselves to the police.”
The mysterious plot that led to the brazen assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse — apparently without significant resistance from his own guards — has taken on the dimensions of an international affair, bringing together Colombian former military commandos traversing the Dominican Republic, the two Haitian Americans from South Florida and triggering a standoff at the Embassy of Taiwan.
The tale emerging is a convoluted one, where truth or lie could be behind any corner, and the cast of self-interested suspects vast. But the armed foreign mercenaries, Florida men, and claims of being misled by enigmatic mission masterminds for the promise of coin was eerily familiar, if of far greater consequence.
In an unrelated mission last year, a murky Florida-based ex-Green Beret lured two other former American military veterans — Luke Denman and Airan Berry — into a bizarre and bungled operation to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by falsely telling them it had been sanctioned by the U.S. government. Like Solages and Vincent, they ended up in foreign jail. In 2019, another group of five heavily armed American mercenaries were arrested — then mysteriously released — following a murky mission in Haiti that was never fully clarified.
“Now, you’ve got Colombians. You’ve got these Haitian Americans. And a dead president of Haiti,” said Ralph Chevry, a board member of the Haiti Center for Socio Economic Policy in Port-au-Prince, the capital. “Everybody wants answers.”
Mathias Pierre, Haiti’s minister of elections and interparty relations, said the Haitian government had requested and expected the assistance of the FBI in investigating the assassination. He said the Haitian government also submitted a letter to the U.S. Embassy and the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, shortly after the assassination, requesting “troops” to the national police in restoring order in the country and protecting energy infrastructure, airports and ports. He said the country was not seeking a large-scale deployment, as Haitians have witnessed in the past.
“We were talking more to the international community,” he said. “But a small group of U.S. troops would be a tremendous help.”
Air Force Lt. Col. Ken Hoffman, a Pentagon spokesman, said “the Haitian government has requested security and investigative assistance, and we remain in regular contact with Haitian officials to discuss how the United States can assist.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in Washington that “in response to the Haitian government’s request for security and investigative assistance, we will be sending senior FBI and DHS officials to Port-au-Prince as soon as possible to assess the situation and how we may be able to assist.”
The crisis over who is charge in the country deepened. On Friday, members of the country’s non-functioning senate — it lacks a legal quorum due to a lapsed election schedule — voted to make the body’s president, Joseph Lambert, the country’s president. The move appeared designed to bolster the prospects for Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon, who was appointed prime minister two days before the assassination, and is now backed by a number of political players. It has created a challenge to the assumed rule of interim prime minister Claude Joseph, who some experts say remains the constitutional head of state.
The Taiwanese Embassy in Port-au-Prince said Haitian police, with Taipei’s approval, had entered its grounds and seized 11 suspects who had broken into the compound and were holed up there.
Haitian authorities have said that 20 of the 28 assailants have been captured, three have been killed and five remain on the run. Other than the two Haitian Americans, they have identified the men as Colombian nationals. They have yet to provide evidence linking them to the killings. Late Thursday, authorities displayed 17 of them on national television along with a tableau of seized weapons, passports and supplies.
Colombian officials have identified their detained nations as former members of the Colombian army, which has become a prime recruiting ground for paid mercenary and private security firms.
On Friday, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, head of the National Police of Colombia, said that authorities there are investigating four companies that could be responsible for hiring the captured men. He didn’t provide the names of the companies or information on its owners.
Vargas and other Colombian officials said that none of the people arrested in Haiti are active military and that they had retired between 2018 and 2020. On Twitter, the Colombian police shared the flight records of the Colombians, indicating they had been in position for months. Alejandro Rivera García and Duberney Capador Giraldo — two Colombians killed in the aftermath of the assassination — had traveled to Panama from Colombia, and then to the Dominican Republic and on to Haiti in the first half of May. Eleven other Colombian nationals flew to the Dominican Republic on June 4 from Bogotá, Colombia, crossing the border into Haiti on June 6.
Colombian President Iván Duque ordered the heads of the national intelligence and intelligence of the national police to travel to Haiti, with Interpol personnel, to support the investigations.
"We offer all the collaboration to find the truth about the material and intellectual authors of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse,” he said on Twitter.
A woman who claimed to be the wife of one of the Colombian men detained — Francisco Eladio Uribe — told a local Colombian radio station on Friday that he had been promised $2,700 a month for the mission. He was told, she said, that he would go to the Dominican Republic to wait for an operation, in which, he told her, he believed he would serve as a bodyguard.
“They didn’t say where they were going to take him, just wherever they were needed. It was a good job opportunity,” the woman, who identified herself as Yuli Durango, told W Radio.
Her husband was asked to take two pairs of pants and two black shirts for the trip. She said Duberney Capador, one of the Colombians who was killed during the post-assassination operation, had gotten her husband the job.
She said she realized he had been detained when she saw images from Haitian television of the detained men.
She did not provide details on the name of the company that hired Uribe. But she said her husband shared with her the acronym — “CTU” — when they talked about it.
A company named CTU Security is based in Doral, Fla., and sells police and military equipment and provides “different kinds of security and vigilance services,” according to its website. The company’s president, Antonio Intriago, did not respond to a voice-mail message on his office phone, an email or a text message.
“The most important new fact is that apparently the mercenaries were not supposed to kill the president, but arrest him. Why? And who paid them remains an enigma,” Robert Fatton, a professor of government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia who has written extensively on Haiti, said in an email. “Now whether the mercenaries are lying to the Haitian police is another question.”
Court records show a Joseph G. Vincent with the same birth date provided by Haitian authorities was charged in the United States with passport fraud and grand theft auto in the 1990s. In November 1999, Vincent, then living in Miami, was indicted by federal authorities in Washington, D.C., for knowingly making a false statement on a passport application, swearing that he was born in Indiana, that his first name was Brandon, and providing a false birth date. He pleaded guilty, and a judge sentenced him to two years’ probation, records show.
A person matching Vincent’s full name and his true birth date was also charged in Florida in 1995 with grand theft auto, according to an online database maintained by Broward County clerk of the courts. Vincent, the database shows, was born in Port-au-Prince. The database does not show how the case was resolved, and a public information officer at the Hollywood Police Department, which arrested him, did not respond to an email requesting additional information.
by ti-amieColombians held in Haitian assassination say Florida firm hired them
The men accused of killing Haitian President Jovenel Moïse say they were employed by a Doral firm run by a Venezuelan émigré.
Police guard detained suspects in the assassination of Haiti's President Jovenel Moïse at the General Direction of the police in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Thursday. Moïse was assassinated in an attack on his private residence early Wednesday. [ JEAN MARC HERVÉ ABÉLARD | AP ]
By Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, Kevin G. Hall, Miami Herald, Antonio Maria Delgado, Miami Herald and Bianca Padró Ocasio. Miami Herald
Published Yesterday
Updated Yesterday
The plot to assassinate Haitian President Jovenel Moïse ran through South Florida, according to statements of captured Colombians who said they were hired by a Miami-area security firm.
Seventeen Colombians and two Haitian Americans from South Florida are in custody in Haiti. A person who interviewed the detained Colombians in Haiti told the Miami Herald that the men claimed to have been recruited by an under-the-radar firm in Doral called CTU Security. It is run by a Venezuelan émigré, Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera.
The Miami Herald visited the company’s offices on Thursday, where a doorbell rang to a phone, and a man declined to discuss the events in Haiti. He did not return phone calls, texts or emails asking about reports of involvement in the monumental developments gripping Haiti. No one answered on Saturday.
This screenshot from the Facebook page of Antonio Intriago shows the Miami security provider and his girlfriend waving the Venezuelan flag. Captured Colombians accused of participating in the July 7 assassination of Haiti’s president claim they were hired by Intriago’s company CTU Security. [ Miami Herald ]
Multiple sources in Haiti, requesting anonymity for their safety, have confirmed to the Herald that the detained men said they were hired by CTU, and several of the men indicated they had been in Haiti for at least three months, some longer. It is unclear if they knew or believed CTU leaders were aware of the assassination plot.
The men were hired to provide VIP security, one source in Haiti said, and were paid about $3,000 a month. The two Haitian Americans — reported at the time to be James Solages, 35, and Vincent Joseph, 55 — told a judge that they were hired as translators but did not reveal who their employer was, Judge Clément Noël told the Miami Herald.
Solages worked as a maintenance director at a senior-living center in Lantana until this past April 12. Little is known about the other man but documents obtained Saturday show his name may have been reversed in the Haitian proceedings and that it is really Joseph Gertand Vincent. His sparse public footprint shows he was indicted in 1999 for making a false statement on a passport application and given probation.
In another Florida-related development, interim Haitian police director Leon Charles in an interview said that with the help of Colombian authorities now in Haiti the investigation is “moving fast to get some more groups who played a role as the intellectual authors.”
He said the suspects, including the Haitian Americans, confirmed that they worked for a company “based in the U.S .and Colombia. They worked with the two Haitian Americans and a high-profile doctor here.”
Those versions square with what family members of captured Colombians are now saying.
The Colombian station W Radio featured an interview Friday with the wife of captured security man Francisco Uribe, who said he’d been hired by CTU, paid $2,700 and provided travel to the Dominican Republic to work as private security for powerful families. (The Washington Post reported Saturday that Uribe has been under investigation for extrajudicial killings when he was a Colombian soldier.)
Also on Saturday, W Radio interviewed Yenni Capador, sister of another Colombian, Duberney Capador Giraldo, who retired from the army in 2019 and was reported killed this past week in Haiti in a police raid.
The “hypothesis we are all working is that it went wrong and they are unjustly accused of something that my brother did not do,” she told the media outlet. “He lived with his mother and we know he was hired to work with a security company.”
Known in Venezuelan expat circles in South Florida, Intriago would boast of his police background in the South American country. At times, said one who knew him but did not want to be identified in the widening story, Intriago claimed to have connections to or to have worked directly for U.S. agencies.
A person claiming to have known him back in Venezuela said Intriago worked out of a small Doral office, where he would boast of being a paid mercenary and a coordinator of special forces, but most people did not take those claims seriously.
The source, who demanded anonymity to speak freely, said that Intriago is also known for providing firearms, firearms parts, and military and police equipment such as bulletproof vests.
Public records link him to a small, fenced three-bedroom residence a few blocks off of I-95 near Miami Northwestern High. Venezuela’s voter database shows he remains registered to vote there through the consulate in Miami.
Intriago’s Facebook page provides a bit of a timeline. It shows him appearing to arrive in the United States around 2009 and working initially with alarm systems. His social media presence is largely apolitical except for some postings against the Venezuelan government and one in support of Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan lawmaker the Trump administration recognized as the oil-rich country’s legitimate leader.
Intriago’s security firm has a limited social media presence and does not appear to have won any federal contracts to provide security or training. His personal Facebook page shows that he offers personal security classes at night for people wanting to protect their families and pitches the services occasionally in posts.
On Saturday, a Herald reporter and photographer rang the doorbell of CTU’s storefront at 2510 NW 112th Ave., tucked in a beige, green and orange corporate office complex. The store, near the Dolphin Mall, had a cargo company, a CCTV camera store, a Realtor and a blinds warehouse nearby. The office unit had a white garage door in the back and a pickup truck parked out front with a CTU bumper sticker. No one answered the door.
A security guard sitting in a golf cart told the Herald that CTU hosts shooting range classes inside and those classes have people constantly coming in and out of the store. She said the company had a class as recently as last Thursday and added the black pickup with a Texas license plate is always parked out front.
At one of the company’s two other listed locations, the office headquarters on 53rd Street, Herald journalists knocked on the door of the listed suite number inside a white office building with black awnings. The suite was identified with a plaque that read Offix Solutions, which is owned by someone who appears to be unaffiliated with Intriago. No one answered the door.
Intriago and his now ex-wife owned a South Florida newspaper company Prensa Libre Newspaper Corp., which corporate records show existed between 2003 and 2009.
There is nothing in Intriago’s public footprint to indicate that he had either the money or the scope to train dozens of private soldiers to raid the private residence of the Haitian president and kill him.
What role Miami and Intriago played directly, or inadvertently, in the Haitian assassination will surely be investigated with the FBI. Haiti has asked for FBI help, in part because of the large number of businessmen and drug gangs that might have had an interest in getting rid of the president.
A team from Colombia is already in Port-au-Prince, dispatched on Friday to collaborate with the Haitian government on how the Colombians became involved in the assassination.
Miami and the Doral enclave have become sort of a Star Wars bar for would-be liberators and for-hire warriors.
A botched coup in May 2020 in Venezuela similarly involved for-hire security men in Florida and some of the plotting traced to the 12th fairway of the Red Course at the Doral resort.
by ponchi101 "Ponchi, you sure you really want to hold COLOMBIAN NATIONALITY? With a Venezuelan place of birth?"
(One of these days I am going to be arrested entering Basra... )
by ti-amie The Q-ers are saying that Moïse, may he rest in peace, was killed because of something or another involving Covid19 vaccines. I would say it's nonsense no one would believe but I know from family that this will be all over What'sApp and taken as truth.
by JazzNU
ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Jul 12, 2021 12:53 am
The Q-ers are saying that Moïse, may he rest in peace, was killed because of something or another involving Covid19 vaccines. I would say it's nonsense no one would believe but I know from family that this will be all over What'sApp and taken as truth.
Well of course. Procuring/not procuring covid vaccines, the only issue of his "presidency" that might have set someone off. /s
by ti-amie New reporting indicates that the Colombians may have been patsy's.
Haiti’s police claim a Florida-based doctor recruited mercenaries
A Haitian-born doctor based in Florida has been arrested as a key suspect in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti, and the national police chief suggested at a news conference that he believed the suspect was plotting to become president.
To date, some two dozen people have been arrested in the killing, but on Sunday, Haitian officials described the doctor, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 63, as a central figure in the case.
Even as the Haitian authorities offered their most detailed account so far of the plot behind the brazen assassination of the president in the bedroom of his private home last week, there was widespread skepticism among the public of the official version of events.
An increasingly fraught struggle for control of the country is only adding to the general sense of unease and foreboding as an already grim situation in Haiti threatens to descend further out of control.
A majority of sitting members of Haitian Parliament, which is itself in a state of dysfunction, are calling for a new government to replace the interim prime minister, Claude Joseph.
Mr. Joseph has issued a series of desperate pleas for foreign intervention to stabilize the nation, including calling on the United States to send troops.
American officials signaled that they remained reluctant to provide military forces to Haiti to help secure order, but have sent a team of investigators to help look into last week’s assassination, which has left the country teetering.
Haiti’s national police chief, Léon Charles, said that Dr. Sanon played a vital role in the plot, but offered no explanation for how the doctor could possibly have taken control of the government.
Still, the arrest of Dr. Sanon added yet another element of intrigue in a rapidly moving investigation that stretched from Colombia to Miami.
“He arrived by private plane in June with political objectives and contacted a private security firm to recruit the people who committed this act,” he said. The firm, he said, was a Venezuelan security company based in the United States called CTU.
During a raid at his home, the authorities said, the police found a D.E.A. cap — the team of hit men who assaulted Mr. Moïse’s home appear to have falsely identified themselves as Drug Enforcement Administration agents — six holsters, about 20 boxes of bullets, 24 unused shooting targets, and four license plates from the Dominican Republic.
“The initial mission that was given to these assailants was to protect the individual named Emmanuel Sanon, but afterwards the mission changed,” Mr. Charles said, implying that Mr. Sanon had meant to install himself as president.
CTU is run by a man named Antonio Intriago. He did not respond to messages requesting comment and CTU’s office was shut when a reporter stopped by on Saturday.
Two Americans arrested last week have said that they were not in the room when the president was killed and that they had worked only as translators for the hit squad, according to a Haitian judge who interviewed them. They met with other participants at an upscale hotel in the Pétionville suburb of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, to plan the attack.
The goal was not to kill the president, the two Americans told the judge, but to bring him to the national palace.
by ti-amieMystery surrounds suspected mastermind of Haiti presidential assassination plot
By
Rachel Pannett, Widlore Merancourt and Samantha Schmidt
July 12, 2021|Updated today at 10:26 a.m. EDT
A Haitian man arrested under suspicion of playing a leading role in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse appears to have presented himself as a potential leader of the impoverished Caribbean nation for as long as a decade.
Police said Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 63, planned to assume the presidency and hire some of the men involved in the attack on Moïse as his security team. Sanon, who reportedly has lived on-and-off in Florida for about two decades, landed in Haiti on a private plane in early June with “political objectives,” Haiti’s police chief, Léon Charles, told reporters Sunday. He recruited the team through a Venezuelan security firm based in the United States, but its mission changed when one member was presented with an arrest warrant for Moïse.
Sanon couldn’t immediately be reached and it wasn’t clear if he had an attorney. Authorities didn’t immediately present evidence of their case against Sanon.
Many questions remain about the bizarre plot that led to the president’s fatal shooting July 7 at his home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. Chief among them: how a man who filed for bankruptcy in Florida in 2013, according to the Miami Herald, listing himself as a church pastor, could be behind what authorities have described as a commando operation.
(...)
A post on a now-defunct website, “Haiti Lives Matter,” presents Sanon as a leader of a coalition “chosen to lead Haiti,” according to an archived version of the page. The website lists several other members of his “transitional government,” including academics, a business person and even a senior member of Haiti’s permanent mission to the United Nations.
When reached by The Post for comment, one of the people named on the site said they had never even heard of Sanon and suggested their details appeared to have been clipped from an old résumé. The person spoke over the phone on the condition of anonymity to avoid repeating details of what they said was a falsified account of their involvement in any plot to install a new government.
(...)
The announcement of Sanon’s arrest came as senior FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials arrived in Haiti Sunday to discuss how the United States might assist after Moïse’s killing last week.
(...)
Sporadic gunfire erupted in Port-au-Prince over the weekend, piercing the relative calm that followed Moïse’s killing as violent gangs threatened to fill the power vacuum in a country that has no clear leader. One powerful gang leader called his followers to the streets as residents shuttered their doors against the possibility of more bloodshed in a city already terrorized by criminal violence.
In the mystery and confusion immediately after Moïse’s assassination, the gangs gave the city something of a reprieve from the torrent of gunfire that has killed hundreds this year. But while answers remain elusive — the motive for the president’s killing remains unclear, and at least four men have claimed they are in charge — the peace has been broken.
The city’s most powerful gang leader, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, called followers into the streets in coming days to demand “justice against this cowardly assassination carried out by foreign mercenaries in the country.” In a video message Saturday, the self-styled revolutionary asked other gang leaders to join him in the violence.
(...)
Cherizier and his alliance of gang leaders, called the G9 Family and Allies, say they are engaged in a revolution to liberate Haiti from a corrupt wealthy and political class. Human rights organizations had accused Moïse of maintaining links to Cherizier.
Cherizier said his followers would “practice what we call legitimate violence.”
“If they shoot on us, you know what to do,” he said. “You are not children.”
Pannett reported from Sydney, Merancourt reported from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Schmidt reported from Washington. Anthony Faiola in Miami and Dalton Bennett contributed to this report.
by ti-amieBiden Calls Cuba Protests ‘Clarion Call for Freedom’
A day after a rare outbreak of anti-government protests in Cuba, the United States and Cuba traded sharp words.
By Oscar Lopez and Ernesto Londoño
July 12, 2021
Updated 1:51 p.m. ET
As the largest protest movement in decades swept Cuba, President Biden on Monday called on the Cuban government to heed the demands of thousands of citizens who took to the streets on Sunday to protest power outages, food shortages and a worrying lack of medicine.
“We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “The United States calls on the Cuban regime to hear their people and serve their needs at this vital moment rather than enriching themselves.”
His comments followed a day of astonishing demonstrations in Cuba. In a country known for quashing dissent, remarkable scenes emerged around the nation on Sunday, with thousands of Cubans taking to the streets in a surge of protests not seen in nearly 30 years.
Shouting phrases like “freedom” and “the people are dying of hunger,” protesters overturned a police car in Cardenas, 90 miles east of Havana. Another video showed people looting from a government-run store — acts of open defiance in a nation with a long and effective history of repressive crackdowns on expressions of opposition.
Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, spoke out on national television on Monday, calling the demonstrations a consequence of an underhanded campaign by Washington to exploit peoples’ “emotions” at a time when the island is facing food scarcity, power cuts and a growing number of Covid-19 deaths.
“We must make clear to our people that one can be dissatisfied, that’s legitimate, but we must be able to see clearly when we’re being manipulated,” Mr. Díaz-Canel said. “They want to change a system, to impose what type of government in Cuba?”
Mr. Biden’s comments represented something of a shift in tone from that of former President Barack Obama, who had emphasized sweeping aside decades of animosity between the two countries and cutting loose “the shackles of the past.” Mr. Obama made restoring relations with Cuba a focal point of his foreign policy and significantly expanded ties between the two countries — a détente that the Trump administration quickly moved to strip away.
But the protests in Cuba on Sunday offered a rare moment of bipartisanship in the United States, with Democrats and Republicans alike speaking out in support of the demonstrations.
“America stands with the oppressed Cuban people assembling for their birthright of #Libertad,” former Vice President Mike Pence wrote on Twitter. “America stands for a free and democratic Cuba!”
Others, however, blamed the American trade embargo for the protests and the deprivation driving them, a position the Cuban government took on Sunday when the demonstrations erupted.
“The truth is that if one wanted to help Cuba, the first thing that should be done is to suspend the blockade of Cuba as the majority of countries in the world are asking,” Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, told reporters on Monday. “That would be a truly humanitarian gesture.”
But some Cuban activists in the United States, including those who oppose the embargo, were quick to challenge that narrative.
“There’s no food, there’s no medicine, there’s nothing, and this isn’t a product of the American embargo, which I do not support,” said Ramón Saúl Sánchez, president of the Movimiento Democracia advocacy group in Miami. He noted that the embargo does allow Cuba to buy food from the United States, though restrictions on financing present significant barriers to the amount.
The size of Sunday’s demonstrations, which played out across the country, stunned longtime Cuba analysts. It reflects how dire life in Cuba has become in recent months, as the pandemic deprives the island of vital tourism revenue and strains the health system, the electricity grid falters, and the prices of basic food staples like rice and beans soar.
“There are tremendously long lines to get into supermarkets,” which these days only accept dollars, said Katrin Hansing, an anthropologist at Baruch College in New York who spent much of the past year doing research in Havana. “The same can be said for medicine. There is nothing: There is no penicillin, there’s no antibiotics, there’s no aspirin. There’s nothing, really.”
On social media, videos of protesters decrying the lack of electricity and basic supplies circulated widely on Monday.
“I took to the streets because I’m tired of being hungry,” said Sara Naranjo, in a video shared on Twitter. “I don’t have water, I don’t have anything,” she said, adding, “you get bored, you get tired, you’re going crazy.”
Some observers called the mass demonstrations on Sunday inspiring, but also feared a crackdown, with Mr. Díaz-Canel calling on his supporters to take to the streets as well. Opposition groups reported that scores of activists were unaccounted for on Monday, fueling fear that security forces had taken a large number of demonstrators into custody.
Dissidents posted the names and photographs of several people they feared had been detained. Security forces in Cuba often take prominent activists into custody, or prevent them from leaving home during tense times, and videos circulating on social media showed the authorities patrolling the streets, violently detaining people.
But it was hard to ascertain the extent of a crackdown because internet connectivity was down in much of the island on Monday, a common tactic to suppress the ability of opponents to organize or even get basic information.
Some said the protests meant that Cubans had become increasingly emboldened to criticize their government, which typically puts down acts of dissent with ruthless efficiency.
“The basic economic situation is what’s pushing people to go out and raise their voices,” Ms. Hansing said. “But there’s also a loss of fear, and once that barrier is broken and more and more people see a significant number of people have lost their fear, more and more start getting encouraged.”
Ernesto Londoño is the Brazil bureau chief, based in Rio de Janeiro. He was previously an editorial writer and, before joining The Times in 2014, reported for The Washington Post.
by JazzNU I understand activists ignoring it, but have not been clear in recent years why supposedly objective journalists covering Cuba for a story like this mention the embargo and leave out the significant amount of overseas trade Cuba does with many, many non-communist countries including the EU.
by Suliso It's a fairly popular holiday destination for Europeans these days or perhaps I should say was before the pandemic.
by ponchi101 Because it is the convenient, preferred SOUTH AMERICAN narrative. You evil gringos are the sole reason why Cuba is an impoverished country, with your evil embargo.
As you say, no mentioning ever that Cuba can do any and all business with Europe or South America. For example, the Spanish basically have a monopoly on the tourist sector of the island. Venezuela, since Chavez, sends them 160,000 barrels/day, almost for free (payable starting in 2025, at constant prices). Argentinians, with the stupid "Che Guevara was great" mentality, travel a lot to Havana, and they believe that Cuban medicine is "top class". I have a dear friend that had an eye operation in Cuba, and went back to Argentina fully satisfied. He is blind today (and I don't mean that figuratively).
So it is a nice narrative. Chavez once called Cuba "The Island of Happiness" and indeed, he took us there. Why people living in an island of happiness risk crossing 90 miles of shark infested waters in converted CARS (not boats) escapes the mentality of those obsessed with communism and truly outdated and idiotic philosophies.
But hey, that is the reason we are 3rd world. We basically asked for it.
(Sorry, the subject infuriates me. Not you asking, but the way people down here see it).
by ti-amieFlorida resident detained as key suspect in Haitian president's assassination
A 63-year-old Haitian-born Florida resident has been arrested as a top suspect in the July 7 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, according to multiple reports. Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a self-identified doctor, joins a list of more than two dozen people who have been accused of having a role in the president’s killing, according to ABC News. Two more Haitian-American suspects have been identified in the investigation, including one former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informant named Joseph Vincent, according to Reuters. The latest:
- A US delegation that traveled to the country on Sunday said that “there is a lack of clarity about the future of political leadership” in Haiti
- A majority of the Haitian Parliament is calling on a new government to replace interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, according to The New York Times
- ABC News was unable to verify if Sanon is in fact a licensed physician
- Two additional Haitian-Americans have been identified in the assassination, including one former DEA informant
Video via @dwnews
by JazzNU
ti-amie wrote: ↑Tue Jul 13, 2021 10:59 pm
Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a self-identified doctor, joins a list of more than two dozen people who have been accused of having a role in the president’s killing, according to ABC News.
- Two additional Haitian-Americans have been identified in the assassination, including one former DEA informant
I'm so mad at this. We went from doctor to self-identified doctor, and I'm thinking the next article will l be that he's an exterminator who took some science classes or something. WTH is going on here?
Are we supposed to know someone is a DEA informant? It looks like he's involved so I'd guess his fate is sealed, but if he's one of the less guilty parties to say cooperate and gets a lighter sentence, you just exposed him so brand new peril to meet him on the other side of this.
Thanks for the updates on this story @Ti.
by ti-amie Talk about a false flag operation.
I suspected that Sanon wasn't a doctor when he wasn't working at any medical facility.
The man declared bankruptcy in 2013 and is now flying in private jets and "masterminding" this plot? I don't buy it.
by ti-amieBrazilian President Jair Bolsonaro hospitalized after 10 days of hiccups
By
Sammy Westfall
July 14, 2021|Updated today at 1:53 p.m. EDT
There’s holding your breath, getting spooked or sipping ice cold water — but Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro can’t seem to shake his case of hiccups.
The hiccups have persisted for so long — more than 10 days — that the country’s far-right leader has been hospitalized so doctors can try to figure out the cause.
In the many recent presidential live streams, Bolsonaro’s hiccuping is evident — and he has prefaced some talks with acknowledgment of his hiccuping and disrupted speech. In one July 8 clip, Bolsonaro hiccuped approximately 14 times within his first minute speaking.
Bolsonaro has had a run of health scares. He nearly died on the 2018 campaign trail after being stabbed in the abdomen. He lost a lot of blood and suffered a serious wound to his intestine. He contracted covid-19 last July after playing down the coronavirus for months. While in quarantine, he was bitten by an emu-like giant bird. He’s had a stubborn cough, too.
‘Hiccups’ were trending on Google in relation to Bolsonaro this past week, Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported.
The president said that he had dental implant surgery Saturday, and he suggested a possible link between the post-implant medication and his 24/7 hiccups.
He’s expected to be under observation at the Armed Forces Hospital in Brasília for a day or two — although he will not necessarily remain in the hospital building. “He is feeling good and doing well,” the president’s press office said in a statement.
The hiccups and examinations caused Bolsonaro to cancel his entire agenda Wednesday, including meetings with the heads of the three branches of government.
Mark V. Larson, a Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist and internist, told The Washington Post that while transient hiccups are very common, persistence for more than a day is already quite rare. Bolsonaro’s 10-day spell is very rare.
He said that medications taken after the surgery, or even the surgery itself, could plausibly have triggered the symptoms.
Hiccups are involuntary contractions of your diaphragm — a dome-shaped muscle between your chest and abdomen. Normally, it contracts and relaxes to let air flow in and out of your body. But irritation can cause spasms, bringing a rush of air through your throat, Larson said. Your vocal cords rapidly close up and cause the distinct hiccup sound.
Hiccups can be caused by physical and emotional changes and disruptions — stress, sore throats, cold drinks or eating too fast, for example — so pinpointing any cause for the Brazilian president’s hiccup bout isn’t possible without an examination.
Prolonged hiccups can be a serious problem, or indicate one. Doctors recommend seeking medical attention if they persist longer than 48 hours, especially if they disrupt sleep.
Causes can range from something as small as swallowing too much air while chewing gum to something as serious as a tumor — and longer cases can be connected to damage or irritation to the nerves near the diaphragm.
In rare cases, hiccups persists for lengthy stretches. One man, the late Charles Osborne of Iowa, reportedly hiccuped for 68 years straight.
A specialist in Brasília told O Globo that Bolsonaro’s hiccups could be caused by the dental implant because of oral and phrenic nerve relationships. The specialist said it was unlikely that the stabbing had anything to do with the hiccups.
ti-amie wrote: ↑Wed Jul 14, 2021 6:08 pm
One man, the late Charles Osborne of Iowa, reportedly hiccuped for 68 years straight.
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 13, 2021 6:25 pm
Because it is the convenient, preferred SOUTH AMERICAN narrative. You evil gringos are the sole reason why Cuba is an impoverished country, with your evil embargo.
As you say, no mentioning ever that Cuba can do any and all business with Europe or South America. For example, the Spanish basically have a monopoly on the tourist sector of the island. Venezuela, since Chavez, sends them 160,000 barrels/day, almost for free (payable starting in 2025, at constant prices). Argentinians, with the stupid "Che Guevara was great" mentality, travel a lot to Havana, and they believe that Cuban medicine is "top class". I have a dear friend that had an eye operation in Cuba, and went back to Argentina fully satisfied. He is blind today (and I don't mean that figuratively).
So it is a nice narrative. Chavez once called Cuba "The Island of Happiness" and indeed, he took us there. Why people living in an island of happiness risk crossing 90 miles of shark infested waters in converted CARS (not boats) escapes the mentality of those obsessed with communism and truly outdated and idiotic philosophies.
But hey, that is the reason we are 3rd world. We basically asked for it.
(Sorry, the subject infuriates me. Not you asking, but the way people down here see it).
When I was there, I saw no Spanish people. Are you saying they are investors in the tourist sector?
The tourists were British and Canadians primarily, then Americans (At the time (2017-18), the country was opening up to the US), then other Europeans.
by MJ2004 Lots of Spanish tourists. A good number of my relatives have been there.
Screenshot 2021-07-14 160046.jpg
17 hotels in total in the island.
-->
by ponchi101 Spanish companies, in the tourist sector. This capture shows ONLY the hotels run by Melia, which is a huge Spanish hotels company:
Screenshot 2021-07-14 160046.jpg
17 hotels in total in the island.
by Suliso Taking full advantage of the common language. I imagine Spanish companies are fairly active in Latin America as well. The "mother country" still by far the wealthiest Spanish speaking country.
by ponchi101 Spain maintains a lot of companies here in L. America. Movistar, a spanish cell phone company, is only second to CLARO, which is Mexican. Banks such as BBVA and Santander have offices all over. It goes on and on.
The point being made was about Cuba's claim that all their political maladies are due to the American embargo. Which, as jazzNu said, is total BS.
by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 14, 2021 9:28 pm
Spain maintains a lot of companies here in L. America. Movistar, a spanish cell phone company, is only second to CLARO, which is Mexican. Banks such as BBVA and Santander have offices all over. It goes on and on.
The point being made was about Cuba's claim that all their political maladies are due to the American embargo. Which, as jazzNu said, is total BS.
Also, this mythical idea that ending the embargo would magically make life wonderful in Cuba especially economically. The way it gets written it's as if there's next to no international trade in Cuba, so if the embargo is lifted, voila, the world is their oyster. A lot is available now so it seems like a recipe for disaster to me to frame this as if the embargo would substantially change life in Cuba. I'm not saying it couldn't or wouldn't be better without the embargo, but more detailed and objective coverage of how things actually are and what is available now would be good so that hopes aren't set sky high. If you have seen Cuban Americans on social media, it would appear to me they think lifting the embargo would lead to things that are already available to them through their other trade partners and given the one-sided "journalism" I keep seeing, I'm not surprised that many may not be clear on the realities of Cuba's current trade market.
I didn't know the South American investments were as high as they are in Cuba so I appreciate that info. I knew about EU visitors making up a sizable portion of their tourism. And I know companies like Nestle have greatly benefited from not having to compete with a Hershey and that is repeated across many industries.
by skatingfan Pre-pandemic every American I've ever met who is visiting Canada for the first time has commented on the commercials on Canadian television for vacations in Cuba. Canadian dollars keep the Cuban economy working, and we haven't been visiting for 15 months & counting.
by ti-amie
skatingfan wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 1:09 am
Pre-pandemic every American I've ever met who is visiting Canada for the first time has commented on the commercials on Canadian television for vacations in Cuba. Canadian dollars keep the Cuban economy working, and we haven't been visiting for 15 months & counting.
My in-laws honeymooned there years ago. It felt so weird hearing them talk about how much they enjoyed the island.
by ponchi101 If you go as a tourist and stay in the hotels and resorts, you will have a good time. If somehow you manage to go to the real Havana, get ready for the shock.
The movie BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB, which is solely about music, was vetoed in the island because it has a panoramic view of Havana, from a boat anchored in the bay. The level of devastation is intense, and the Cuban govt forbid the movie in the island, even though it has zero political commentaries.
Go into that MELIA CUBA website, and check the resorts. It is nothing short of Mediterranean Monte Carlo, at 1/3 the price. Because of course, everybody in the hotel gets paid starvation wages.
by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 1:45 am
Go into that MELIA CUBA website, and check the resorts. It is nothing short of Mediterranean Monte Carlo, at 1/3 the price. Because of course, everybody in the hotel gets paid starvation wages.
by Suliso I know some Latvians who have been. Not to these fancy resorts, but staying in modest hotels in Havanna and traveling around the island on their own. They liked their stay too, in particular the low prices.
I've been to neither Cuba nor LA so no personal experience, but I wonder is poverty there really more visible than in say Bolivia or Dominican Republic?
by ti-amie
Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 6:21 am
I know some Latvians who have been. Not to these fancy resorts, but staying in modest hotels in Havanna and traveling around the island on their own. They liked their stay too, in particular the low prices.
I've been to neither Cuba nor LA so no personal experience, but I wonder is poverty there really more visible than in say Bolivia or Dominican Republic?
I was going to bring up the Dominican Republic. The resort areas are beautiful but they don't recommend you go wandering around outside of them without a guide of some kind. The poverty is staggering from what I hear.
I was going to bring up the Dominican Republic. The resort areas are beautiful but they don't recommend you go wandering around outside of them without a guide of some kind. The poverty is staggering from what I hear.
I've been to the D.R. and definitely agree and avoided doing that.... and that taking into account that we lived in Argentina and had a trained eye.
Having said that, I wouldn't venture too far in Cuba either nor would I move from city to city by myself.
by Suliso Is Dominican Republic significantly more dangerous than southern Mexico? I've traveled through the latter few years ago with a rental car and it was perfectly fine. Except that one moment when I almost run over a wild turkey on a highway...
by ponchi101 The problem with crime in S. America is that it is not like crime in Europe. Sure, you can travel Colombia in a car and there might not be any problems (as an example). But the difference is that when you run into the bad hombres in Mexico, or Colombia, or Bolivia, they don't take your wallet or take your car. Unless you are worth more alive than dead, dead is where you end.
Sure, I worked in the Magdalena river basin here in Colombia. We navigated the river. But at night, the navy patrols the river with a "piranha", a boat armed with one .50 caliber machine gun and two .40's, one on each side. Because when the bad guys come out, they do not carry knives. The knives they carry are for eating the BBQ. The 9 mm and Mac 11's are for real.
Sure you can walk downtown Havana, or downtown Santo Domingo, at night. But your chances are not as good as downtown Madrid.
by Suliso I know the crime is a lot more in South America. Having said that would you or would you not recommend Colombia as the first spot to travel to in the continent for people like me? Obviously after the pandemic dies down a bit.
I have a colleague in the office who's married to a Colombian woman. He used to go for 4 weeks every December/January before the pandemic. Obviously he can blend in a bit better than I ever could.
by ti-amieSuspects in Haitian President’s Killing Met to Plan a Future Without Him
Haitian officials accuse the suspects of meeting to plot President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination, but participants say the sessions were intended to plan a government once the president stepped down.
By Anatoly Kurmanaev, Frances Robles and Julie Turkewitz
July 15, 2021
Updated 2:35 p.m. ET
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Several of the central figures under investigation by the Haitian authorities in connection with the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse gathered in the months before the killing to discuss rebuilding the troubled nation once the president was out of power, according to the Haitian police, Colombian intelligence officers and participants in the discussions.
The meetings, conducted in Florida and the Dominican Republic over the last year, appear to connect a seemingly disparate collection of suspects in the investigation, linking a 63-year-old doctor and pastor, a security equipment salesman, and a mortgage and insurance broker in Florida.
All have been identified by the Haitian authorities as prominent players in a sprawling plot to kill the president with the help of more than 20 former Colombian commandos and seize political power in the aftermath. It is unclear how the people under investigation could have accomplished that, or what powerful backers they may have had to make it possible.
But interviews with more than a dozen people involved with the men show that the suspects had been working together for months, portraying themselves in grandiose and often exaggerated terms as well-financed, well-connected power brokers ready to lead a new Haiti with influential American support behind them.
Haitian officials contend that Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a doctor and pastor who divided his time between Florida and Haiti, conspired with the others to take the reins of the country once Mr. Moïse was killed. During a raid of Mr. Sanon’s residence, they say, the police found six holsters, about 20 boxes of bullets and a D.E.A. cap — suggesting that it linked him to the killing because the team of hit men who struck Mr. Moïse’s home posed as agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Mr. Sanon is now in custody.
Haitian officials are investigating whether the president’s own protection force took part in the plot as well, and on Thursday they detained the head of palace security for Mr. Moïse. Colombian officials say the palace security chief made frequent stopovers in Colombia on his way to other countries in the months before the assassination.
The Haitian authorities offered little explanation as to how Mr. Sanon — who did not hold elected office — planned to take over once the president was killed. It was also difficult to understand how he might have financed a team of Colombian mercenaries, some of whom received American military training when they were members of their nation’s armed forces, to carry out such an ambitious assault, given that he filed in Florida for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in 2013.
But the interviews show that several of the key suspects met to discuss Haiti’s future government once Mr. Moïse was no longer in power — with Mr. Sanon becoming the country’s new prime minister.
“The idea was to prepare for that eventuality,” said Parnell Duverger, a retired adjunct economics professor at Broward College in Florida, who attended about 10 meetings on Zoom and in person with Mr. Sanon and other experts to discuss Haiti’s future government.
“At the time of the meetings he was, we all believed, going to become a prime minister,” said Mr. Duverger, adding that Mr. Sanon had presented himself as having the support of Democratic and Republican politicians in the United States, Haiti’s most powerful international backer.
At no time did anyone discuss, much less plan, a coup or an assassination, Mr. Duverger stressed. “I would have stopped attending if anyone mentioned a coup, let alone murder.”
To the contrary, he added, the expectation at the meetings was that President Moïse — who had faced months of blistering street protests demanding his removal — would eventually have no choice but to step down. Mr. Duverger, 70, described the meetings as cabinet-style sessions intended to help Mr. Sanon form a potential transition government once that happened.
Mr. Duverger said he believed Mr. Sanon was innocent. But as for his claims to be a prime minister in waiting, he added: “I keep asking myself, there must be something wrong with me for being so naïve. I believed him. I believed that, because I believed a new transitional government was needed in Haiti.”
Among the participants in the meetings, Mr. Duverger said, were at least two other key suspects who have since been identified by Haitian officials as central figures in the plot. One was Antonio Intriago, who owns the private security and equipment company that hired the former Colombian commandos and brought them to Haiti.
The other was Walter Veintemilla, who leads a small financial services company in Miramar, Fla., called Worldwide Capital Lending Group. On Wednesday, the Haitian authorities accused him of helping to finance the assassination plot.
Neither Mr. Intriago nor Mr. Veintemilla, both based in Florida, responded to repeated requests for comment through their businesses and relatives. Their whereabouts, and whether the Haitians have sought to charge them with any crimes, is unknown. But Haitian and Colombian officials say that in late May, after some of the former Colombian soldiers hired by Mr. Intriago arrived in Haiti, he and Mr. Veintemilla met in the neighboring Dominican Republic with Mr. Sanon.
On Wednesday, Haitian and Colombian officials said that a photograph showed the three men at the meeting with another central suspect in the investigation: James Solages, a Haitian American resident of South Florida who was detained by the Haitian authorities shortly after the assassination.
It is unclear whether any of the discussions crossed into a nefarious plot that led to the death of Mr. Moïse. The Haitian police have provided little concrete evidence, and American and Colombian officials familiar with the investigation said their officers in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, had been unable to interview most of the detained suspects as of Wednesday morning, forcing them to rely on the accounts of the Haitian authorities.
Another participant in one of the meetings with Mr. Sanon also said there was never any hint of a plot to kill the president.
“Never!!! never!!! Never!!!” the attendee, Frantz Gilot, a consultant for the United Nations, said in a text message, adding that about 20 people had been present. “Sanon introduced himself as a potential candidate,” he said, “and talked about his dream and vision for Haiti.”
More than a dozen interviews with relatives of the Colombian commandos — as well as an audio recording of how the soldiers’ mission in Haiti was presented to them — show that several of the main suspects vastly exaggerated their experience and financial capabilities, and deeply misled at least some of the Colombian soldiers they hired.
In April, Mr. Intriago’s firm, CTU Security, contacted a retired Colombian army sergeant, Duberney Capador, and asked him to put together a group of ex-commandos to “protect important people in Haiti,” according to Mr. Capador’s sister, Yenny Carolina Capador.
“We are going to help in the recovery of the country, in terms of its security and democracy,” Mr. Capador wrote in one recruitment pitch he later sent to other former soldiers on WhatsApp. “We are going to be pioneers.”
Mr. Capador reached out to his wide network of military buddies, most of them in their early 40s, recently retired from the armed forces and struggling to find good paying jobs in Colombia.
The New York Times interviewed 15 family members of the Colombian soldiers implicated in the attack, as well as 14 men who had been recruited for the operation but who ended up not going in June — in some cases because they were part of a second wave of men slated to arrive at a later date, they said.
In interviews, several wives of the recruits said Mr. Capador had assured the men that the operation was backed by an American company — and in some cases even told them it was supported by the U.S. government — and promised to pay the men $2,700 a month, a life-changing sum.
Many of the former soldiers jumped at the opportunity, agreeing to take the job even though some did not know where they were headed or whom specifically they would be protecting, according to their family members.
A group of about two dozen Colombians arrived in Port-au-Prince between early May and June 6, according to interviews with their relatives. Mr. Capador told the recruits they would be fighting criminal gangs, securing crucial infrastructure, and guarding dignitaries and investors, with the backing of a major American company.
Instead, they found themselves confined to a cottage and spending the next month exercising indoors, taking English classes and cooking, said the relatives, who remained in daily touch with the recruits. Colombian officials said on Thursday that Mr. Sanon had also met with leaders of the former Colombian soldiers shortly after they arrived in Haiti in May.
In mid-June, the ex-soldiers were introduced to a Spanish-speaking man claiming to represent Worldwide Capital, the name of Mr. Veintemilla’s company, according to a recording made by one of the former Colombian soldiers. In that same session, the speaker introduced Mr. Solages, the now detained Haitian American, describing him as a seasoned international investor leading the reconstruction of Haiti.
The speaker went on to present Worldwide Capital as a multinational conglomerate with 200 subsidiaries that has worked with governments on security and reconstruction in dozens of countries around the world, including the United States, Spain, Somalia and Iraq.
There is little indication that Worldwide Capital, which operates from a small suite in a suburban business center in Florida, has played a significant role in major global projects. The company’s websites, which claim to offer generic financial services such as mortgages and insurance, do not mention any notable deals.
And the owner of the company that hired the Colombian commandos, Mr. Intriago, has a history of debts, evictions and bankruptcies. Several relatives of the Colombian soldiers said they had never received their promised wages.
After the assassination, 18 of the Colombian soldiers were detained by the Haitian authorities and accused of participating in the killing. Another three Colombians, including the recruiter, Mr. Capador, were killed in the hours after the president’s death.
On Thursday, the Colombian police said Mr. Capador and a retired Colombian captain, German Alejandro Rivera, had conspired with the Haitian suspects as early as May to arrest Haiti’s president, providing the first indication of at least some of the veterans’ complicity in the plot.
It remained unclear how the plot turned into murder, but the Colombian authorities said seven Colombian commandos had entered the presidential residence on the night of the attack, while the rest guarded the area.
“What happened there?” said the wife of one of the detained former soldiers, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of concern for her safety. “How does this end?”
Reporting was contributed by Mirelis Morales from Miramar, Fla.; Sofía Villamil from Bogotá, Colombia; Edinson Bolaños from Villavicencio, Colombia; Zolan Kanno-Youngs from Washington; and Catherine Porter.
Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 7:59 pm
I know the crime is a lot more in South America. Having said that would you or would you not recommend Colombia as the first spot to travel to in the continent for people like me? Obviously after the pandemic dies down a bit.
I have a colleague in the office who's married to a Colombian woman. He used to go for 4 weeks every December/January before the pandemic. Obviously he can blend in a bit better than I ever could.
I do recommend Colombia, because nowadays you can tell where NOT to go. Bogota is not a tough city, as are not Medellin or Cali.
It is getting to be a bit tougher lately, because of the pandemic-driven economic struggles. But is is still not as bas as in the past.
Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 7:59 pm
I know the crime is a lot more in South America. Having said that would you or would you not recommend Colombia as the first spot to travel to in the continent for people like me? Obviously after the pandemic dies down a bit.
I have a colleague in the office who's married to a Colombian woman. He used to go for 4 weeks every December/January before the pandemic. Obviously he can blend in a bit better than I ever could.
I do recommend Colombia, because nowadays you can tell where NOT to go. Bogota is not a tough city, as are not Medellin or Cali.
It is getting to be a bit tougher lately, because of the pandemic-driven economic struggles. But is is still not as bas as in the past.
Are there enough places one could safely go into a jungle, see animals, hike mountains etc.? With some kind of guide obviously. I've heard of the red river (Caño Cristales) area being particularly beautiful, but that's about as far as my knowledge extends... That kind of stuff interests us more although of course we'd spend few days in the cities too.
Really miss traveling before the stupid virus...
by ponchi101 The only problem with travelling within Colombia is that the tourist infrastructure is no good. By that I mean it is hard to get to place. I have looked into going to Caño Cristales indeed, but it is super difficult. Take a plane, then catch a bus, then get on a mule... (joke at the end). So moving around is hard.
FLYING within cities is super easy. The years of guerrilla fighting meant that driving was super dangerous, so the country developed a very good airport system. For example, if you feel like going to Cartagena, and it is noon, just pack your bags and go to the airport. You will get on any of numerous flights. The same for Medellin, Cali, Barranquilla and many other cities.
A guide would always be helpful. I should do that for Caño Cristales, but... heck, I speak Spanish. I should manage on my own (stubborn mule)
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 9:49 pm
A guide would always be helpful. I should do that for Caño Cristales, but... heck, I speak Spanish. I should manage on my own (stubborn mule)
I read that without a local guide you're not allowed to go to the river itself and permit numbers are limited, but then again maybe that's on paper and locals have ways around. I'm usually not that keen on guides, but obviously a must for going deeper in the wilderness. Getting lost in those forests no fun and speaking Spanish won't help.
by JazzNU
by JazzNU ^^ Also seeing mention of Netherlands and Luxembourg having flooding. There's been lesser mentions of Switzerland, but they are there. Hopefully @suliso can let us know what is going on in Switzerland, I've seen the least mentioned about it.
by Suliso Some flooding in central Switzerland as well, but not to the extent of houses being swept away. They say this is the rainiest summer since 2005. I moved here in 2009 so for me the rainiest ever.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by Suliso
by ponchi101 I say it will go back to full Taliban control in a few years.
The UN should establish some sort of refugee protection program for women and children that will want to escape that hell. Walk in, no questions asked, relocation to the EU or USA. Before Sharia law gets them.
I was going to bring up the Dominican Republic. The resort areas are beautiful but they don't recommend you go wandering around outside of them without a guide of some kind. The poverty is staggering from what I hear.
I've been to the D.R. and definitely agree and avoided doing that.... and that taking into account that we lived in Argentina and had a trained eye.
Having said that, I wouldn't venture too far in Cuba either nor would I move from city to city by myself.
Cuba is exceptionally safe, actually, shockingly so for the level of poverty. I traveled all through the country with 2 female friends and felt safe everywhere including walking alone when it's dark, stopping at random places with car trouble, etc. The street harassment is pretty bad (but largely harmless, just out of boredom, the worst was a pre-teen grabbing my butt while he was riding a bike in the opposite direction... it was almost impressive). I also generally didn't feel overcharged or taken advantage of for being a tourist - there is a double price system with the prices for tourists/the rich very much higher, but it's an official system and we also had access to the local places charging local prices.
by Suliso Actually most poor but not at war/uprising countries are relatively safe for travelers. As long as you keep a modest profile and avoid particularly sketchy areas. For example me and my girlfriend felt safe in Southern Mexico even though we can't really fit in visually and our Spanish doesn't extend beyond few phrases.
by mmmm8
Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 3:02 pm
Actually most poor but not at war/uprising countries are relatively safe for travelers. As long as you keep a modest profile and avoid particularly sketchy areas. For example me and my girlfriend felt safe in Southern Mexico even though we can't really fit in visually and our Spanish doesn't extend beyond few phrases.
Yes, but there were generally no sketchy areas that seemed more dangerous. I mean, I'm sure one could find some, but I found less need to take precautions than in other places, including not only Latin America, but US cities, European capitals, etc.
by Togtdyalttai If I were her, I would have chosen Lithuania over a country which is sliding towards authoritarianism itself. But maybe she has a connection there.
by Suliso
Togtdyalttai wrote: ↑Thu Aug 05, 2021 1:50 pm
If I were her, I would have chosen Lithuania over a country which is sliding towards authoritarianism itself. But maybe she has a connection there.
Both countries are strongly anti Lukashenko and have sizeable Belarussian expat communities.
by mmmm8
Togtdyalttai wrote: ↑Thu Aug 05, 2021 1:50 pm
If I were her, I would have chosen Lithuania over a country which is sliding towards authoritarianism itself. But maybe she has a connection there.
I had the same thought, althought Suliso is right that they're strongly against the regime in Belarus, I wouldn't choose Poland if I had issues with authoritarianism. She had offers of asylum from Poland and Czech Republic, apparently.
Poland may have better training facilities for her sport, though.
by Suliso Apparently her defection was the last minute decision. She had no plans whatsoever not returning from Japan before a public argument with team officials.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Colombian soldiers had real training for over 40 years, fighting a real war in very tough conditions. So they are not theoretical soldiers, they know their real deal.
And, BTW. The US DID NOT back the war. The US sided with the government and helped it fight the guerrillas that wanted to turn the country into a leftist regime. It is not so simple, just to say that the USA backed the war. They backed the government which, and that is clear, has been very close to America.
Again, not so simple and not so fast.
by Suliso
Situation is changing quickly. Kunduz city in the Northeast shown to be government controlled has already fallen and I think Herat and Kandahar are in a danger of falling too within a week. Both are completely surrounded with no real way of being reinforced except by air.
by ponchi101 The power of religious believe, which is not the same as religion. The USSR invaded Afghanistan, and left years later, humiliated. The USA invaded Afghanistan, and now leaves, perhaps leaving the country worse than it was found, mission not accomplished. The Taliban remains undefeated.
My only wish would be: have a plan to save the women and children, who will be brutalized (the first) and indoctrinated into a new generation (the second) by Al Qaeda. Set up a system in the next couple of months in which any woman requesting asylum will get it, automatically.
What a sad story.
by Suliso Majority of women are ultra religious as well. Anyway once they take over completely, maybe in 2-3 decades things start relaxing again. I'm going by Iranian example.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101
Suliso wrote: ↑Sun Aug 08, 2021 5:29 pm
Majority of women are ultra religious as well. Anyway once they take over completely, maybe in 2-3 decades things start relaxing again. I'm going by Iranian example.
Sure. But within the younger ones there might be some women that have been exposed to new ideas that will see the reality in which they will live soon.
Give them some help.
by ti-amie
by Suliso Kandahar and Herat, the second and third largest cities in Afghanistan, have just fallen to Taliban. All the government is left with is Kabul as well as the Mazar-i-Sharif (4th largest city) in the north. It's difficult to see them holding on much longer.
by ti-amie I'm old enough to remember when the US first talked about getting involved in Afghanistan that there were those who said that the people who live there will never let outsiders control them. The MSM et al pushed those voices to the side. And here we are, faced with the same situation we found going in there all those years ago. How many lives ruined and people killed and for what?
by Suliso
ti-amie wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 10:00 pm
I'm old enough to remember when the US first talked about getting involved in Afghanistan that there were those who said that the people who live there will never let outsiders control them. The MSM et al pushed those voices to the side. And here we are, faced with the same situation we found going in there all those years ago. How many lives ruined and people killed and for what?
That's somewhat biased. There was already a civil war there before US arrived, Taliban have never controlled 100% of the country. You can control them to some extent and you did for 20 years, but of course you can't just leave if you wish to continue to control.
by ponchi101 Afghanistan was a fairly well developed country in the 1950's, similar to Iran or Lebanon. Open to the west, with a secular government, in the cities.
Then the fanatical Islamic movements began their attack. Of course, my opinion is dubious because of my well documented dislike for the form of government they have developed, but the move towards Islamic rule basically sent them back decades, if not one or two centuries.
by ti-amie
by ti-amieAfghanistan Meant Nothing
Laura Jedeed
A Veteran Reflects on 20 Wasted Years
By the time you read this, the Taliban may already be in Kabul. If not now, then soon.
Nixon wanted — and got — his decent interval between the United States pullout of Vietnam and the inevitable North Vietnamese takeover. Afghanistan’s interval was never going to be decent, but I confess I expected an interval. We’re scrambling to leave in time, we’re racing for the helicopters as the Taliban burns through Afghanistan like a forest fire.
I remember Afghanistan well. I deployed there twice — once in 2008, and again in 2009–2010. It was already obvious that the Taliban would sweep through the very instant we left. And here we are today.
I know how bad the Taliban is. I know what they do to women and little boys. I know what they’re going to do to the interpreters and the people who cooperated with us, it’s awful, it’s bad, but we are leaving, and all I feel is grim relief.
This is what I remember:
I remember Afghanistan as a dusty beige nightmare of a place full of proud, brave people who did not (expletive) want us there. We called them Hajjis and worse and they were better than we were, braver and stronger and smarter.
I remember going through the phones of the people we detained and finding clip after clip of Bollywood musicals, women singing in fields of flowers. Rarely did I find anything incriminating.
I remember finding propaganda footage cut together from the Soviet invasion and our own Operation Enduring Whatever. I remember laughing about how stupid the Afghans were to not know we aren’t the Russians and then, eventually, realizing that I was the stupid one.
I remember how every year the US would have to decide how to deal with the opium fields. There were a few options. You could leave the fields alone, and then the Taliban would shake the farmers down and use the money to buy weapons. Or, you could carpet bomb the fields, and then the farmers would join the Taliban for reasons that, to me, seem obvious.
The third option, and the one we went for while I was there, was to give the farmers fertilizer as an incentive to grow wheat instead of opium poppy. The farmers then sold the fertilizer to the Taliban, who used it to make explosives for IEDs that could destroy a million dollar MRAP and maim everyone inside.
I remember we weren’t allowed to throw batteries away because people who worked on base would go through the trash and collect hundreds of dead batteries, wire them together so they had just enough juice for one charge, and use that charge to detonate an IED.
I remember the look on my roommate’s face after she got back from cutting the dead bodies of two soldiers out of an HMMWV that got blown up by an IED that I have always imagined was made with fertilizer from an opium farmer and detonated with a hundred thrown-out batteries.
I remember an Afghan kid who worked in the DFAC (cafeteria) who we called Cowboy. He always wore this cowboy hat and an “I’m with stupid” t-shirt someone had given him, always with a big smile, high school age.
Cowboy was a good student. His family, who all worked on base, was incredibly proud of him. He wanted to go to college in America. But there weren’t colleges that took Afghans, the education system was too (expletive). No program to help kids like him. I looked.
I wonder if he’s dead now, for serving us food and dreaming of something different.
But if Cowboy is dead then he died a long time ago, and if Cowboy is dead it’s our fault for going there in the first place, giving his family the option of trusting us when we are the least trustworthy people on the planet.
We use people up and throw them away like it’s nothing.
And now, finally, we are leaving and the predictable thing is happening.
The Taliban is surging in and taking it all back. They were always going to do this, because they have a thing you cannot buy or train, they have patience and a bloody-mindedness that warrants more respect than we ever gave them.
I am Team Get The (expletive) Out Of Afghanistan which, as a friend pointed out to me today, has always been Team Taliban. It’s Team Taliban or Team Stay Forever.
There is no third team.
And so I sit here, reading these sad (expletive) articles and these horrified social media posts about the suffering in Afghanistan and the horror of the encroaching Taliban and how awful it is that this is happening but I can’t stop feeling this grim happiness, like, finally, you (expletive), finally you have to face the thing Afghanistan has always been. You can’t keep lying to yourself about what you sent us into.
No more blown up soldiers. No more Bollywood videos on phones whose owners are getting shipped god knows where. No more hypocrisy.
No more pretending it meant anything. It didn’t.
It didn’t mean a goddamn thing.
by ponchi101 Worth a cry.
So, which American newspaper starts the poll on who is responsible for this mess? Bush, Bush and Cheney, Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice? Any other options?
by the Moz Justin Trudeau asked the Governor General to dissolve Parliament, and Canada will have a federal election 20 Sept. Justin is gunning for a return to majority government and I hope he gets there
by the Moz
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 4:12 pm
Worth a cry.
So, which American newspaper starts the poll on who is responsible for this mess? Bush, Bush and Cheney, Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice? Any other options?
All of the above 10x over.
by Suliso All of them, but of course Trump and Biden as well.
by ponchi101 Why are Trump and Biden responsible? And if so, why leave Obama out? It has been four administrations that have been overlooking this war.
Simply curious.
by ti-amie
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 5:41 pm
Why are Trump and Biden responsible? And if so, why leave Obama out? It has been four administrations that have been overlooking this war.
Simply curious.
Forgot Obama, of course him as well. Biden will definitely be blamed for his bungled withdrawal with US citizens desperately fleeing with at the last hour. Rightly so...
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Kabul has fallen.
So, it is indeed a collection of tribes (I have never been there). Will the entire government dissolve? Will the country split into factions?
What can the world do? Or, rather, what SHOULD the world do?
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 7:38 pm
Kabul has fallen.
So, it is indeed a collection of tribes (I have never been there). Will the entire government dissolve? Will the country split into factions?
What can the world do? Or, rather, what SHOULD the world do?
I did not forget. Also, did the Taliban come to Camp David last year concerning US troops withdrawal?
by ti-amie
the Moz wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 4:18 pm
Justin Trudeau asked the Governor General to dissolve Parliament, and Canada will have a federal election 20 Sept. Justin is gunning for a return to majority government and I hope he gets there
Because that worked so well for Cameron in the UK...
the Moz wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 4:18 pm
Justin Trudeau asked the Governor General to dissolve Parliament, and Canada will have a federal election 20 Sept. Justin is gunning for a return to majority government and I hope he gets there
Because that worked so well for Cameron in the UK...
I'll take Justin's checkered premiership over BoJo and the heartless Tories anyday.
by ti-amieAfghanistan’s military collapse: Illicit deals and mass desertions
By
Susannah George
Today at 7:05 p.m. EDT
KABUL — The spectacular collapse of Afghanistan’s military that allowed Taliban fighters to walk into the Afghan capital Sunday despite 20 years of training and billions of dollars in American aid began with a series of deals brokered in rural villages between the militant group and some of the Afghan government’s lowest-ranking officials.
The deals, initially offered early last year, were often described by Afghan officials as cease-fires, but Taliban leaders were in fact offering money in exchange for government forces to hand over their weapons, according to an Afghan officer and a U.S. official.
Over the next year and a half, the meetings advanced to the district level and then rapidly on to provincial capitals, culminating in a breathtaking series of negotiated surrenders by government forces, according to interviews with more than a dozen Afghan officers, police, special operations troops and other soldiers.
Within a little more than a week, Taliban fighters overran more than a dozen provincial capitals and entered Kabul with no resistance, triggering the departure of Afghanistan’s president and the collapse of his government. Afghan security forces in the districts ringing Kabul and in the city itself simply melted away. By nightfall, police checkpoints were left abandoned and the militants roamed the streets freely.
The pace of the military collapse has stunned many American officials and other foreign observers, forcing the U.S. government to dramatically accelerate efforts to remove personnel from its embassy in Kabul.
The Taliban capitalized on the uncertainty caused by the February 2020 agreement reached in Doha, Qatar, between the militant group and the United States calling for a full American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some Afghan forces realized they would soon no longer be able to count on American air power and other crucial battlefield support and grew receptive to the Taliban’s approaches.
“Some just wanted the money,” an Afghan special forces officer said of those who first agreed to meet with the Taliban. But others saw the U.S. commitment to a full withdrawal as an “assurance” that the militants would return to power in Afghanistan and wanted to secure their place on the winning side, he said. The officer spoke on the condition of anonymity because he, like others in this report, were not authorized to disclose information to the press.
The Doha agreement, designed to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan, instead left many Afghan forces demoralized, bringing into stark relief the corrupt impulses of many Afghan officials and their tenuous loyalty to the country’s central government. Some police officers complained that they had not been paid in six months or more.
“They saw that document as the end,” the officer said, referring to the majority of Afghans aligned with the government. “The day the deal was signed we saw the change. Everyone was just looking out for himself. It was like [the United States] left us to fail.”
The negotiated surrenders to the Taliban slowly gained pace in the months following the Doha deal, according to a U.S. official and an Afghan officer. Then, after President Biden announced in April that U.S. forces would withdraw from Afghanistan this summer without conditions, the capitulations began to snowball.
As the militants expanded their control, government-held districts increasingly fell without a fight. Kunduz, the first key city overrun by the militants, was captured a week ago. Days of negotiations mediated by tribal elders resulted in a surrender deal that handed over the last government-controlled base to the Taliban.
Soon after, negotiations in the western province of Herat yielded the resignation of the governor, top Interior Ministry and intelligence officials and hundreds of troops. The deal was concluded in a single night.
“I was so ashamed,” said a Kabul-based Interior Ministry officer, referring to the surrender of senior ministry official Abdul Rahman Rahman in Herat. “I’m just a small person, I’m not that big. If he does that, what should I do?”
Over the past month, the southern province of Helmand also witnessed a mass surrender. And as Taliban fighters closed in on the southeastern province of Ghazni, its governor fled under Taliban protection only to be arrested by the Afghan government on his way back to Kabul.
The Afghan military’s fight against the Taliban involved several capable and motivated elite units. But they were often dispatched to provide backup for less-well-trained army and police units that repeatedly folded under Taliban pressure.
An Afghan special forces officer stationed in Kandahar who had been assigned to protect a critical border crossing recalled being ordered by a commander to surrender. “We want to fight! If we surrender, the Taliban will kill us,” the special forces officer said.
“Don’t fire a single shot,” the commander told them as the Taliban swarmed the area, the officer later recounted. The border police surrendered immediately, leaving the special forces unit on its own. A second officer confirmed his colleague’s recollection of the events.
Unwilling to surrender or fight outmatched, the members of the unit put down their weapons, changed into civilian clothing and fled their post.
“I feel ashamed of what I’ve done,” said the first officer. But, he said, if he hadn’t fled, “I would have been sold to the Taliban by my own government.”
When an Afghan police officer was asked about his force’s apparent lack of motivation, he explained that they hadn’t been getting their salaries. Several Afghan police officers on the front lines in Kandahar before the city fell said they hadn’t been paid in six to nine months. Taliban payoffs became ever more enticing.
“Without the United States, there was no fear of being caught for corruption. It brought out the traitors from within our military,” said one Afghan police officer.
Several officers with the Kandahar police force said corruption was more to blame for the collapse than incompetence. “Honestly, I don’t think it can be fixed. I think they need something completely new,” said Ahmadullah Kandahari, an officer in Kandahar’s police force.
In the days leading up to Kandahar’s capture this month, the toll on the police had become visible. Bacha, a 34-year-old police commander, had been steadily retreating for more than three months. He had grown hunched and his attire more ragged. In an interview, he said the repeated retreats had bruised his pride — but it was going without pay that made him feel desperate.
“Last time I saw you, the Taliban was offering $150 for anyone from the government to surrender and join them,” he told a reporter as the interview drew to a close. “Do you know, what is the price now?”
He didn’t laugh, and several of his men leaned forward, eager to hear the answer.
by ponchi101 If the GOP, as we know it now, had not existed, how much money would the USA had saved in:
The Vietnam War
The War on Drugs
The Afghan War?
I still say: I don't care about Afghanistan MEN. I only care about the women and children.
by ti-amieAfghan conflict: US and Taliban sign deal to end 18-year war
Published29 February 2020
The US and the Taliban have signed an "agreement for bringing peace" to Afghanistan after more than 18 years of conflict.
The US and Nato allies have agreed to withdraw all troops within 14 months if the militants uphold the deal.
President Trump said it had been a "long and hard journey" in Afghanistan. "It's time after all these years to bring our people back home," he said.
Talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are due to follow.
Under the agreement, the militants also agreed not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control.
Speaking at the White House, Mr Trump said the Taliban had been trying to reach an agreement with the US for a long time.
He said US troops had been killing terrorists in Afghanistan "by the thousands" and now it was "time for someone else to do that work and it will be the Taliban and it could be surrounding countries".
by ti-amie The man who now says he is the leader of Afghanistan was in Guantanamo until the former guy got him out.
Also there are minerals in the mountains of Afghanistan that are very valuable. The former guy wanted Erik Prince and his mercenaries to take over control of the military there.
Make of that what you will. I wonder what deals were made by Jared et al.
by ti-amie
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 12:52 am
If the GOP, as we know it now, had not existed, how much money would the USA had saved in:
The Vietnam War
The War on Drugs
The Afghan War?
I still say: I don't care about Afghanistan MEN. I only care about the women and children.
You forgot the Iraq War.
Was there a better chance for Afghanistan if there weren't an Iraq war? I say yes. I think there'd be a stronger international peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan in addition to more US resources.
by Suliso I don't think there was a lack of money from US. More like wrong priorities and lots of wishful thinking.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 12:52 am
If the GOP, as we know it now, had not existed, how much money would the USA had saved in:
The Vietnam War
The War on Drugs
The Afghan War?
I still say: I don't care about Afghanistan MEN. I only care about the women and children.
You forgot the Iraq War.
Was there a better chance for Afghanistan if there weren't an Iraq war? I say yes. I think there'd be a stronger international peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan in addition to more US resources.
I thought about that one and I don't know if it will end being the same. Iraq is certainly a mess, but I don't know if it will be taken over, in the end, by something similar to the Taliban. Maybe Al Qaeda, for sure, but if in the end Iraq comes out as a secular society, it will not be a total loss. And having been to Kurdistan, the toppling of Saddam was positive for that region. Sulaymaniyah and Erbil are viable cities.
Of course, right now, you are more right than I am. But I will still give Iraq some time.
by Suliso Iraq will not collapse, if it was going to it would have already. It's a stronger, more educated society.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by Deuce Putting aside US politics (because not everything is about US politics)... the images of Afghan people clinging to the outside of airplanes at the airport in Kabul - and falling off the planes once they took off - is absolutely heartbreaking.
It's well beyond disturbing and unacceptable that this can happen to humanity in this day and age.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie The Magna Carta, that great Scottish document.
Edinburgh Castle: Protesters claims to 'seize' Capital historic site
Police are responding to an ongoing incident as protesters claim that they have ‘seized’ Edinburgh castle on Tuesday evening.
By Hannah Brown
Tuesday, 17th August 2021, 8:24 pm
Updated
Police are close to the entrance to the Museum of The Royal Regiment for Scotland as a group of protesters gather, claiming that they hope to ‘free Scotland’ from ‘corrupt powers.’
The group claim that they are ‘seizing’ the castle ‘lawfully and peacefully’ to ‘free the people of Scotland from corrupt powers.’
It is understood that the incident is ongoing following reports of the protest at around 5.45pm on Tuesday night.
In a video, a protester claims: “Edinburgh Castle belongs to the people of Scotland.
"High treason has been committed.
"We are using article 61 of the Magna Carta. We have had enough. The people of Scotland have had enough and today we claim our power back.”
A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “Officers are currently in attendance at Edinburgh Castle and are engaging with a group of people who have gathered within the Castle grounds.”
I'm not quite sure what is going on here. These may be anti-vaxxers protesting a lockdown that ended already? Are they Scottish nationalists?
by ti-amieCIA’s Former Counterterrorism Chief for the Region: Afghanistan, Not An Intelligence Failure — Something Much Worse
by Douglas London
August 18, 2021
While it’s certainly convenient to depict the shock and miscalculation U.S. officials claim over Afghanistan’s tragic, rapid fall to the Taliban as an intelligence failure, the reality is far worse. It’s a convenient deflection of responsibility for decisions taken owing to political and ideological considerations and provides a scapegoat for a policy decision that’s otherwise unable to offer a persuasive defense.
As CIA’s Counterterrorism Chief for South and Southwest Asia before my 2019 retirement, I was responsible for assessments concerning Afghanistan prepared for former President Donald Trump. And as a volunteer with candidate Joe Biden’s counterterrorism working group, I consulted on these same issues. The decision Trump made, and Biden ratified, to rapidly withdraw U.S. forces came despite warnings projecting the outcome we’re now witnessing. And it was a path to which Trump and Biden allowed themselves to be held captive owing to the “ending Forever Wars” slogan they both embraced.
The U.S. Intelligence Community assessed Afghanistan’s fortunes according to various scenarios and conditions and depending on the multiple policy alternatives from which the president could choose. So, was it 30 days from withdrawal to collapse? 60? 18 months? Actually, it was all of the above, the projections aligning with the various “what ifs.” Ultimately, it was assessed, Afghan forces might capitulate within days under the circumstances we witnessed, in projections highlighted to Trump officials and future Biden officials alike.
In his prepared remarks on Monday, President Biden stated, “But I always promised the American people that I will be straight with you. The truth is: This did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.” That’s misleading at best. The CIA anticipated it as a possible scenario.
By early 2018, it was clear President Trump wanted out of Afghanistan regardless of the alarming outcomes the intelligence community cautioned. But he likewise did not want to preside over the nightmarish scenes we’ve witnessed. Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the principal architect of America’s engagement with the Taliban that culminated with the catastrophic February 2020 withdrawal agreement, terms intended to get the president through the coming elections. Pompeo championed the plan despite the intelligence community’s caution that its two key objectives– securing the Taliban’s commitment to break with al-Qa’ida and pursue a peaceful resolution to the conflict — were highly unlikely.
America’s special representative, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, was a private citizen dabbling on his own in 2018 with a variety of dubious Afghan interlocutors against whom the intelligence community warned, trying opportunistically to get “back inside.” Undaunted, his end around to Pompeo and the White House pledging to secure the deal Trump needed which the president’s own intelligence, military and diplomatic professionals claimed was not possible absent a position of greater strength, was enthusiastically received. Our impression was that Khalilzad was angling to be Trump’s Secretary of State in a new administration, were he to win, and would essentially do or say what he was told to secure his future by pleasing the mercurial president, including his steady compromise of whatever leverage the United States had to incentivize Taliban compromises.
But it was just as clear in the Biden camp that the candidate was committed to leaving Afghanistan, the security implications from which his team had more confidence they could manage than the intelligence supported. Endorsing Trump’s withdrawal agreement was considered win-win. It played well with most Americans. Moreover, from my perspective, they appeared to believe that negative consequences would be at least largely owned by Trump, the GOP, and Khalilzad, whose being left in place, intentionally or not, allowed him to serve even more so as a fall guy. For the candidate, who had long advocated withdrawal, the outcome was, as it had been with Trump, a foregone conclusion despite what many among his counterterrorism advisors counselled. President Biden himself has said as much in terms of his mind being made up.
There was a rather naïve confidence among Biden’s more influential foreign policy advisors that the Taliban’s best interests were served by adhering to the agreement’s main points. Doing so, they argued, would guarantee the U.S. withdrawal, and leave room for more constructive engagement, possibly even aid, should the Taliban come to power. The Taliban learned a great deal about the utility of PR since 2001, and maximized their access to Western media as highlighted by Taliban deputy and Haqqani Taliban Network leader Sirajuddin Haqqani’s apparently ghost written New York Times OpEd. The reality, of course, as the intelligence community long maintained, was that the Taliban’s control over the country was predicated on isolation from the rest of the world, rather than integration. International recognition, global financial access, and foreign aid were not going to influence how the Taliban would rule.
U.S. policy makers were also cautioned that the broad coalition of Afghan politicians, warlords and military leaders across the country benefiting from the money and power that came with a sustained U.S. presence were likely to lose confidence and hedge their bets were U.S. military forces and intelligence personnel to withdraw. Further, that President Ashraf Ghani’s stubborn resistance to the Afghan political practice of buying support and his dismantling of the warlords’ private armies would weaken their incentives to support the government. Switching sides for a better deal or to fight another day is a hallmark of Afghan history. And U.S. policy to impose an American blueprint for a strong central government and integrated national army served only to enable Ghani’s disastrous and uncompromising stewardship.
Because intelligence is an imprecise science with which to crystal ball given that the conditions upon which any assessment is made will likely change, projections and confidence levels varied based on the U.S. military presence, internal Afghan dynamics, and the credibility of the Taliban’s pledge to good faith negotiations. Scenarios for an orderly withdrawal ranged from those in which the United States retained roughly 5,000 troops and most of the existing forward military and intelligence operating bases, to what was determined to be the minimum presence of around 2,500 troops maintaining the larger bases in greater Kabul, Bagram, Jalalabad and Khost, as well as the infrastructure to support the bases we would turn over to Afghan partners. The larger of these two options was judged more likely to prevent Afghanistan’s collapse for 1-2 years and still provide for a degree of continued U.S. counterterrorism pressure; the smaller footprint was more difficult to assess but allowed flexibility for the United States to increase or further reduce its presence should circumstances rapidly deteriorate. (It would be valuable if commentators and news coverage included a greater appreciation of how such contingency-based assessments work rather than conflating assessments.)
Initially, even a “Kabul only” option included the retention of the sprawling U.S. Bagram Air Base and other intelligence facilities in the greater capital area through which the United States could project force, maintain essential logistical, intelligence and medical support to Afghan operated bases, and retain some technical intelligence collection and counterterrorist capability across the country. But without any U.S. military and intelligence presence beyond the Embassy in Kabul, faced with a Taliban military and propaganda offensive, and undermined by Ghani’s fractious relationship with his own national political partners, the intelligence community warned the government could dissolve in days. And so it went.
The clock began to accelerate when US military and intelligence elements withdrew from Kandahar on May 13, and thereafter closed remaining forward operating bases and “lily pads,” the term used for temporary staging areas under U.S. or coalition control. By the time Bagram was closed on July 1, the United States and NATO had also departed Herat, Mazar I Sharif, Jalalabad, Khost and other locations I am not at liberty to name. The Taliban was moving in even as we were packing up. They were quite likely joined by the many al-Qa’ida members (some of whom had enjoyed Iranian sanctuary),-if not direct operational support, augmented further by recently released comrades the Taliban set free from Afghan detention at Bagram and elsewhere.
Policy makers were also aware of the Taliban’s effective use of a parallel “shadow government” structure maintained since losing power that provided for reliable lines of communication with local elders across the provinces, as well as government authorities, often owing to shared family or clan connections. To an American it might be surprising, but it was nothing out of the ordinary for an Afghan military commander or police chief to be in regular contact even with those faced daily in combat.
The Taliban was thus well positioned to negotiate and buy rather than fight their way to successive conquests, itself an Afghan tradition. Moreover, the Taliban was prepared to quickly rule and provide services in the territories coming under its control. And by prioritizing the periphery to secure borders and the lines of communication required to sustain an insurgency, striking first from where they were defeated in 2001, the Taliban clearly learned from history, whereas we still have not. But where did the money come from to finance this campaign?
Persuading low level government fighters and functionaries to turnover their weapons and abandon their posts was well within the Taliban’s means, but it was undoubtedly more expensive securing the cooperation of senior officials with the authority to surrender provincial capitals. Layer on that the need to pay the surge of their own fighters, many of them essentially part-time and seasonal. Payroll and care for the families of fighters killed and wounded is often the greatest expense for the Taliban and its terrorist partner groups, and in Afghanistan, likewise the most important incentive to attract fighters.
The Taliban’s finances are complicated, more so by a structure which is not monolithic, and heavily dependent on the vast international criminal network operated by the Haqqani Taliban Network in the East, and somewhat autonomous regional commanders in the West. Revenues are variously drawn from taxes imposed on locals, narcotics trafficking, foreign donations-largely from Arab Gulf countries, real estate (some of which is abroad), the extortion of mining companies operating in areas under their control–many of which are Chinese government parastatals, and other foreign governments. Pakistan has long been a principal backer, but Russia and Iran increased their investments to court the group in recent years. Moreover, both benefited decidedly from the Taliban’s swift, bloodless conquest that expeditiously purged and humiliated the United States, and minimized what might have been a violent, prolonged fight that increased regional instability and the flow of refugees.
Momentum the Taliban needed to secure their adversaries’ cooperation was facilitated by a robust propaganda machine that, in many instances, successfully manipulated the media into positive, disproportional coverage from the outset of their offensive in casting their conquest as inevitable. Neither the Afghan government nor the United States could ever effectively counter the Taliban’s persistent and savvy media efforts given the need to protect sources and methods, legal restraints, and an unfortunate lack in investment and imagination.
And in grading their own homework, the U.S. defense establishment only exacerbated the problem. While it’s little surprise the Department of Defense was unwilling to objectively evaluate the resolve and capacity of those they trained, equipped, and advised to resist a forthcoming Taliban offensive, their rose-colored depictions of achievement over 20 years flew in the face of reality, and was consistently challenged by the CIA’s more gloomy, albeit realistic projections.
As the CIA’s former regional counterterrorism chief, and then a private citizen, I advocated the need for the United States to remain in Afghanistan with a small, focused, counterterrorist presence but to adopt a dramatically different approach that did not require us being in the line of fire between rival national forces whose conflicts predated our intervention and will persist long after we’re gone. And while I have criticized the CIA and the intelligence community for various ills that require reform and contributed to the current circumstances, not least of which was a counterterrorism strategy that was arguably more damaging than the ill it sought to address, there was no intelligence failure by the agency in warning either Trump or Biden as to how events would play out. Operating in the shadows and “supporting the White House” will prevent the intelligence community from publicly defending itself. But the failure was not due to any lack of warning, but rather the hubris and political risk calculus of decision makers whose choices are too often made in their personal and political interest or with pre-committed policy choices, rather than influenced by (sometimes inconvenient) intelligence assessments and the full interests of the country.
by the Moz How does the Donald release public statements these days? Carrier pigeon?
by ponchi101 He is using other people to post his statements. The benefit for this is that the syntax has improved, and the use of UPPER CASE and exclamation points has decreased.
Other than that, the hypocritical lunacy remains dialed to the max.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 You have to admit, the GOP is much better then the DEMS at stirring frenzy.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Note the date of this article.
Trump Pushed CIA to Give Intelligence to Kremlin, While Taking No Action Against Russia Arming Taliban
by Ryan Goodman July 8, 2020
Why would the Russian government think it could get away with paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers? One answer to that question may be the extraordinary response that Moscow received when the Trump administration learned of a precursor to the bounty operation. From mid-2017 and into 2018, Pentagon officials became increasingly confident in intelligence reports that the Kremlin was arming the Taliban, which posed a significant threat to American and coalition forces on the ground in Afghanistan.
President Trump’s actions in the face of the Russia-Taliban arms program likely signaled weak US resolve in the eyes of Putin and Russian military intelligence.
Three dimensions of Trump’s response are described in detail in this article, based on interviews with several former Trump administration officials who spoke to Just Security on the record.
First, President Trump decided not to confront Putin about supplying arms to the terrorist group. Second, during the very times in which U.S. military officials publicly raised concerns about the program’s threat to U.S. forces, Trump undercut them. He embraced Putin, overtly and repeatedly, including at the historic summit in Helsinki. Third, behind the scenes, Trump directed the CIA to share intelligence information on counterterrorism with the Kremlin despite no discernible reward, former intelligence officials who served in the Trump administration told Just Security.
Most of these officials emphasized, as a caution, the significant qualitative difference between arming the Taliban and paying bounties to kill American service members—a massive escalation. Unlike bounties, the Russian-Taliban arms program could also be potentially explained, or plausibly denied, by Moscow as an effort to assist the Taliban’s fight against the common enemy of ISIS. That said, the arms also reportedly became increasingly sophisticated in what appears to provide the Taliban an edge against NATO and Afghan government forces.
The failure to push back on the weapons program signaled to Putin that he could press further, said Michael Carpenter, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense with responsibility for Russia in the Obama administration. “When Western powers fail to push back, the Kremlin keeps prodding and probing — until it meets resistance, or until the costs for President Putin and his regime exceed the perceived benefits,” Carpenter wrote in Just Security on Friday.
What we now know is that President Trump not only failed to push back against Russia’s arming the terrorist group. That extraordinary act of omission was coupled with the president’s effort to push the CIA to cooperate with Russia by providing U.S. intelligence to the Kremlin on counterterrorism operations despite getting nothing in return, according to former officials.
Trump has denied being informed of U.S. intelligence reports on the Russian bounty operation, but the same can’t be so easily claimed about the Russian weapons to the Taliban. Over the course of 2017 and 2018, senior military officials began speaking openly, in media interviews and before Congress, about their increasing confidence in the intelligence picture of the Russian arms and the significant concerns it raised for U.S. and Coalition troops.
The following Timeline shows the series of public statements by senior military officials about the Kremlin’s provision of weapons to the Taliban.
Timeline
Feb. 9, 2017: Gen. John Nicholson, Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan and NATO’s Resolute Support Mission, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee made headlines by drawing attention to Russian efforts to support the Taliban; over the following months, senior military officials would specifically identify the problem of Russian provision of weapons to the Taliban
Note on President Trump: On Feb. 16, 2017 President Trump says in a press conference, “by the way, it would be great if we could get along with Russia;” “If we could get along with Russia, that’s a positive thing. We have a very talented man, Rex Tillerson, who is going to be meeting with them shortly. And I told him, I said, I know politically it’s probably not good for me;” “if we could get along, it would be a positive thing, not a negative thing.”
March 23, 2017: Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, Commander, U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander, Europe in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee raises the Russian arms issue
March 29, 2017: Gen. Joseph L. Votel, Commander, U.S. Central Command in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee raises the Russian arms issue
April 24, 2017: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Gen. John Nicholson, Commander, Resolute Support and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, in a press conference held in Afghanistan raise the Russian arms issue
Note on President Trump: On May 10, 2017, Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office, where the President reportedly passes highly classified information to the two Russian officials
Note on President Trump: On May 25, 2017, in Europe, Trump chastises NATO leaders for their “chronic underpayments” to the alliance and fails to reaffirm U.S. commitment to Article 5 of the Atlantic Charter for collective self-defense in a speech; the omission surprises Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and National Security Advisor McMaster, who endeavored to include language supporting Article 5 in Trump’s remarks prior to the summit, Politico reports
Note on President Trump: On July 9, 2017: Upon returning from his first face-to-face meeting with Putin at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, Trump tweets, “Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!”
Note on President Trump: July 19, 2017: US officials announce that Trump has decided to end a program to arm Syrian rebels. An anonymous current official tells the Washington Post, “This is a momentous decision. … Putin won in Syria.” A former White House official tells the Post, “People began thinking about ending the program, but it was not something you’d do for free.” “To give [the program] away without getting anything in return would be foolish.” These statements are even more relevant in consideration of Russia’s arming of the Taliban at the time.
Sept. 28, 2017: Sec. Mattis in a joint press conference with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg raises the Russian arms issue
Note on President Trump: On Jan. 29, 2018: The White House announces it will not impose new sanctions on Russia
March 23, 2018: Gen. John Nicholson, Commander, Resolute Support and U.S. Forces Afghanistan in an interview with the BBC raises the Russian arms issue
Note on President Trump: On July 5, 2018: President Trump says at a political rally, “I might even end up having a good relationship, but they’re going, ‘Will President Trump be prepared? You know, President Putin is KGB and this and that.’ You know what? Putin’s fine. He’s fine.”
Note on President Trump: On July 16, 2018, in a very friendly summit between the two leaders at Helsinki, President Trump publicly sides with President Putin over the U.S. intelligence community on the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections
On Sept. 1, 2018, Gen. Nicholson told the Voice of America, “We know that Russia is attempting to undercut our military gains and years of military progress in Afghanistan, and make partners question Afghanistan’s stability.” A few days later, he steps down, as scheduled, after serving in the position for over two years. Mattis resigns that December over sharp policy differences with the president.
B. President Trump’s Noticeable Silence
Absent from those public statements by top military officials were similar public statements or public protestations by President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, or Mattis’s successors. “Nicholson’s 2018 interview was a rare public protest by a U.S. official. Trump didn’t press the Russians to stop, and so they continued,” wrote the Washington Post’s David Ignatius last week.
Peter Bergen observed a similar discrepancy between Nicholson’s BBC interview and President Trump’s disposition toward Putin, in Bergen’s 2019 book, Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos.
If anything, there was reason for administration officials to intensify their public opposition to Russian military support for the Taliban, not quiet themselves. That’s in part because the Kremlin’s support became more sophisticated and a greater threat to U.S., NATO, and Afghan forces, Carpenter told me. In an email, he said:
The type of equipment the Russians transferred to the Taliban also shows how the Kremlin was becoming increasingly confrontational over time. At first, the Russians were mostly providing excess AK-47s, weapons that are found in almost every major global conflict. More recently, however, they also started transferring night-vision equipment, which is both in shorter supply in Russia but also specifically intended to equalize the gap between NATO forces and the Taliban. Throughout the conflict in Afghanistan, U.S. special forces have always “owned the night.” The Russians wanted to change that to the detriment of the U.S. and its NATO allies.
At a press conference this past Wednesday, July 1, Pompeo suggested that he repeatedly confronted his Russian counterparts about the arms program, even though the reporter had not asked about that program. The reporter posed a question about the bounties:
On this bounty issue, you had some conversations with senior Russian officials after your aides were told about evidence of the Russian bounties. Did you use those opportunities to tell Moscow not to endanger U.S. troops in that manner?
In his response, Pompeo raised the arms program:
We took this seriously; we handle it appropriately. The Russians have been selling small arms that have put Americans at risk there for 10 years. We have objected to it. To your point, when I meet with my Russian counterparts, I talk with them about this each time: “Stop this.” … So yes, maybe not every time, but with great frequency, when I speak to my Russian counterparts we talk about Afghanistan. We talk about the fact that we don’t want them engaged in this.
In his reply, Pompeo had made one of the strongest statements to date of the administration’s confidence in the intelligence assessment of the Russian-Taliban arms program and its threat to US forces. (See also Pompeo’s reiterating those claims later the same day in a Fox News interview.)
But Pompeo’s claim to have “handle[d] it appropriately” and to have raised the arms supplies with his Russian counterparts, presumably including Foreign Minister Lavrov, is dubious.
“To my knowledge, this was never raised with Putin by Trump or any other senior officials, nor am I aware of any specific high-level pushes for this to be raised with senior Russian officials,” a former senior Trump administration official told Just Security.
Nonetheless, it can’t be completely ruled out that Pompeo raised the issue, for example, in one-on-one meetings. But how much would that matter without President Trump’s taking action including in his public statements about Russia and engagements with Putin?
(...)
I asked Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former senior CIA official with expertise on Russia and counterterrorism, how the President’s inaction in this policy space would affect any similar efforts on the part of senior intelligence officials to raise concerns with their Russian counterparts. “Given Trump’s permissive relationship with Putin, and his generally skeptical attitude concerning US intelligence, Russian special services would feel more inclined to ignore any US demands for action if they doubted the president’s resolve to back up the US intelligence community,” Mowatt-Larssen told me.
C. Trump Pushes CIA to Share Intelligence with Russia
At the same time that senior US military officials were publicly expressing concerns that Russia was arming the Taliban’s terrorist activities that threatened U.S. personnel, President Trump was pushing the CIA to share counterterrorism intelligence information with the Kremlin.
In the first weeks of the administration, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn tried to push the Defense Department to engage in cooperation with Russia, but the Pentagon and Centcom opposed his efforts, the Daily Beast’s Spencer Ackerman reported. Flynn was not the first to consider such an idea. Secretary of State John Kerry floated the concept of cooperation with Russia against terrorist groups in Syria during the final year of the Obama administration, but was rebuffed by Defense Secretary Ash Carter and other parts of the administration. Like Kerry, Flynn ran into a roadblock: a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act strictly prohibits “bilateral military-to-military cooperation” between the United States and Russia, unless the Secretary of Defense issues a waiver and notifies Congress. Mattis reportedly refused to issue a waiver.
[For more on that statute, see former Department of Defense Acting General Counsel Robert S. Taylor’s analysis and my earlier coverage at Just Security in 2018.]
But there’s no analogous statute barring cooperation by the CIA.
That’s where the White House succeeded in pushing the CIA to cooperate with Russia despite analysts determining the Kremlin would provide nothing in return, two former CIA officials who served in the Trump administration told me.
“There was a consistent push for CT cooperation with Moscow, coming from the White House, despite near universal belief within the IC that this effort would be one sided and end up being a waste of time and energy,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, who retired in mid-2019 from the Senior Intelligence Service at the CIA.
“To be fair, every administration wants a reset with Moscow, and thus the IC dutifully attempted to engage with the Russian government on CT matters,” he added in discussing the Trump policy. “Bottom line, we tried, as this was the guidance from policy makers. There was no ‘deep state push back,’ there was no stalling, there was a concerted effort to work with the Russians.”
Douglas London, a CIA Senior Operations Officer who retired at the end of 2018, told me that “despite increasing reflections of Russian material support to the Taliban raised publicly by Defense Secretary James Mattis in 2017 and throughout 2018 by General John Nicholson, President Trump pressured CIA to invest time and resources increasing counterterrorist cooperation with Russia.”
(...)
Before entering the administration, Pompeo himself had expressed contempt for the idea of cooperating with the Russians on counterterrorism. Asked to comment on Secretary Kerry’s proposal in October 2016, then-Congressman Pompeo was nothing short of scathing, “For the United States to share intelligence in a way that they hope we can keep sources and methods secure is foolish. … a dumb idea … such an awful idea … I hope that the silliness of Secretary Kerry on this issue will never come to fruition. It would be bad … for America.”
Pompeo served as CIA Director during the program described by Polymeropoulos and London. He left the CIA for the State Department in late April 2018.
D. Protections of US Personnel on the Ground: Getting Priorities Straight
The heart of the criticism of President Trump’s handling of Russian bounty intelligence reports has been his lack of action toward Moscow to safeguard American troops threatened by Russia’s aggression. Trump’s lack of response to the Russian arms to the Taliban may have helped pave the way to the increasingly audacious acts by Putin against U.S. forces. Was it a case of the President Trump making tradeoffs in his relationship with Putin?
“The operators on the ground are always victims of this strategic chess game,” Polymeropoulos said.
Polymeropoulos advised putting it in the context of Pakistan’s support for the Taliban and the failure of administrations’ to push back adequately with Islamabad. “Pakistan is far more complicit, Russians did it but not to the level of the Pakistanis, until the bounty issue. The bounty issue takes this to another level perhaps putting Russia now in the category of Pakistan, as a state sponsor of terrorism, in my view.”
I also communicated with Ambassador Todd Buchwald who retired from the State Department in July 2017, after serving across five Republican and Democratic administrations. As the Special Coordinator for the Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice since 2015, one of Buchwald’s areas of expertise is the International Criminal Court’s investigation of US forces in Afghanistan.
Buchwald compared President Trump’s response to the Russian arms and bounty programs to the administration’s most recent actions toward the ICC. He provided a comment by email:
This episode just underscores how hard it is to figure out how the Administration decides what are and what are not our urgent national priorities – the situations in which it is appropriate for the President to invoke the extraordinary authorities that Congress long ago entrusted to Presidents upon a “declaration of national emergency.” Look at the administration’s reactions to two threats: the potential for an ICC case alleging U.S. detainee abuse in Afghanistan, and Russian support for the actual slaughter of U.S. service members there.
Just three weeks ago, the President asserted his “steadfast commitment to protecting American service members and defending our national sovereignty” as his basis for his Executive Order imposing sanctions against the International Criminal Court. There are lots of different views about the Court but in fact it has never — in its history – actually convicted, or even prosecuted, the acts of a service member of the standing military of any state, much less a state as strong — and as committed to the rule of law — as the United States. Meanwhile, the Russians have — since the early days of the Administration (see here and here) — been smuggling secret weapons to our battlefield adversaries, intent on conducting actual deadly attacks on those service members; and then, following the President’s lack of objection, appear to have breathtakingly upped the ante by offering bounties for killing American troops.
It is fair to ask: which of the two – the ICC or the Russians – actually imperils our troops in Afghanistan?; and which — in the words of the President’s Executive Order — actually constitutes “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security?
On Thursday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing titled, “Russian Bounties on U.S. Troops: Why Hasn’t the Administration Responded?” The witnesses include Gen. Nicholson and former Acting CIA Director Mike Morrell.
by ti-amieViral video of people running into a building is from a Texas stadium in 2019, according to Reuters and Newsweek
Reuters, Newsweek, Dallas Morning News and New York Post report that a viral video depicting crowds of people running into a building is from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. According to Reuters, the video was originally posted in January 2019 by journalist Jon Machota, who said fans were entering the stadium for an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks.
by ponchi101 If they are willing to lie about the elections, posting false videos is a perfectly normal thing to do.
The end will always justify the means, no matter the means.
by ti-amie As we now know, the Afghan government was not part of the negotiations Rep Allred is referring to. Ghani left the country with a reported $169m in cash.
by ti-amie A TL:dr on what happened in Afghanistan thanks to lauging Pompeo and TFG
by ti-amie
Aviation Twitter has been tracking and following planes in and out of Kabul in near real time. It's amazing to watch. A good place to start is @flightradar24
by ponchi101 AITA question: if you are an American, and WERE in Afghanistan when it was announced that the US would pull out, shouldn't you have also made preparations to get out of there in a hurry, other than if you were essential personnel to the US Govt operation?
Again, serious AITA question. I have my witnesses that I said that this would happen in a hurry once the USA would leave.
by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 10:49 pm
AITA question: if you are an American, and WERE in Afghanistan when it was announced that the US would pull out, shouldn't you have also made preparations to get out of there in a hurry, other than if you were essential personnel to the US Govt operation?
Again, serious AITA question. I have my witnesses that I said that this would happen in a hurry once the USA would leave.
I've wondered the same thing. I've heard several stories and not sure how to feel about them. Terrible for the overall circumstances of course, but also just confused about the decision-making and the timing surrounding plenty of people's personal actions.
I assume IATA, but personally, I have a hard time believing if I was in the same circumstance I'm not packing when the 6th and 7th largest cities fall, bouncing by the time 4 and 5 fall. Worst case scenario, already in international air space before 2 and 3 fall.
by ti-amie On the local all news station they played a piece where a spokesperson said that one of the problems they're facing is trying to find out if someone who checked in when they got to the country left without bothering to check out again. Many may have done just what Jazz and ponchi said they should've but right now it's like who knows.
There is also a problem with folks who came in and didn't register with the embassy.
Who would do that?
by ti-amie Estadão @Estadao
EXCLUSIVO: Polícia Federal monitora ataques de Steve Bannon, estrategista de Trump, a urnas brasileiras http://bit.ly/3DnJcLt
Translated from Portuguese by Google
EXCLUSIVE: Federal Police monitor Steve Bannon, Trump's strategist, attacks on Brazilian ballot boxes http://bit.ly/3DnJcLt
EXCLUSIVO: Polícia Federal monitora ataques de Steve Bannon, estrategista de Trump, a urnas brasileiras http://bit.ly/3DnJcLt
Estadão @Estadao
Replying to @Estadao
Eduardo Bolsonaro é principal interlocutor de estrategista no País
Translated from Portuguese by Google
Eduardo Bolsonaro is the main strategist interlocutor in the country
by ti-amie Another look at what TFG and his boy Pompeo did in Afghanistan.
Badd Company @BaddCompani
Let me break it down
TFG and Pompeo signed a 'Surrender' agreement with the Taliban. Both withheld All information from the Biden Transition Team and blocked, blocked, blocked. Once Biden finally got all the truth He reacted. 'That's it, were out'
They Blocked even the Afghani Army and Government from participating, all done for Putin.
TFG left us with a skeleton force and undersupplied them and played games with Leadership. They blocked for 4 years getting Any Afghani Helper because they were Brown People (Muslims)
They spent years telling America Brown People are BAD and all of them are Terrorists, whether in the Middle East or the Southern Border, or an Island in the Pacific, or Los Angeles. THEY are doing all they can to SPIN a HUGE lie.
HUGE LIE!
They are ALL pissed we are turning off Spickets (sic). (I think he means spigots)
Allow me to break it down even further. Afghanistan was to become the Great Distraction, something like Ukraine in the beginning. Russia and China are doing big things Globally so we had 2 choices, Get Out of Afghanistan and pay attention to what they are doing or go
Full Boar and just wipe them out. Amerca does Not want that so were are out as we should have been a long time ago. To be honest, in the game of Risk, Russia and China just got played. In the game of Chess, one more bad move. Now They can get bogged down over there.
It's a risky move, hence the name of the game but this move HAD to be made to protect the Homeland and Democracy. Today, G-7.
Russia wanted Chaos, Pompeo obliged and That is the bottom line.
For China, Silk Road. For Russia, Pipelines. For both, Lithium and Opium.
by ti-amie
WSJ paywall.
by JazzNU A true patriot right there. And he's a mercenary, not a contractor, if this doesn't make that crystal clear, not sure what will.
by ti-amie
This is easy to check via aviation twitter. @flightradar24 is a good place to start.
by dryrunguy It just occurred to me... I know a lot of people are being evacuated. But WHERE are they going? According to one source I found, people "are being taken to U.S. installations in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Spain, Italy, and Germany where U.S. officials will complete their screening and security checks."
Is that what you all are reading as well? Sounds plausible, but I was not familiar with the source and do not know if it is reputable.
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Wed Aug 25, 2021 8:21 pm
It just occurred to me... I know a lot of people are being evacuated. But WHERE are they going? According to one source I found, people "are being taken to U.S. installations in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Spain, Italy, and Germany where U.S. officials will complete their screening and security checks."
Is that what you all are reading as well? Sounds plausible, but I was not familiar with the source and do not know if it is reputable.
Yes, if you check the account @Ti posted that tracks flights, you'll see almost all of those as the landing destinations. Georgia (Tbilisi) and Tajikistan are additional locations I've seen.
by JazzNU And this is going on right now as well. Not good, not good at all.
by ti-amie Irony, alas, is long gone. This is another piece that some editor, somewhere, should've said "just a minute here..."
Kissinger given a platform after what he did in South East Asia? Kissinger who can't leave the US because of an outstanding warrant for his arrest in relation to war crimes?
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
ti-amie wrote: ↑Thu Aug 26, 2021 12:38 am
Irony, alas, is long gone. This is another piece that some editor, somewhere, should've said "just a minute here..."
Kissinger given a platform after what he did in South East Asia? Kissinger who can't leave the US because of an outstanding warrant for his arrest in relation to war crimes?
Bourdain's full quote:
Anthony Bourdain > Quotes > Quotable Quote
Anthony Bourdain
“ Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.”
― Anthony Bourdain, A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 The only thing I have issues with is believing that Tiny could plan anything this far in advance. Surely, somebody else in his team could have, but there is no way he could have even understood the concept of "in two years, AFTER YOU ARE GONE..."
by ti-amie Jared, Miller and whoever else would've brought the plan to Tiny who then would've asked "what's in it for me?" Embarrassing President Biden would've been fine in his "mind". I have a feeling there are other ticking time bombs the former guy and his minions left.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by Suliso Did you know that Taliban are stooges of USA? According to Islamic state in Afghanistan they are. Mullah Bradley project.
by ti-amie The former guy made a deal with the Taliban so I guess to the hard core they're sell outs?
by Suliso Yes, but also those two groups have always been at war. Taliban want to have their emirate, but also want peace with neighbours. For ISIS being at peace with a country like Iran is treason.
by MJ2004 Today's FT Big Read, since I know it's blocked for many here:
Escape from Afghanistan: fear and terror as evacuation enters final phase
The humanitarian effort is becoming more fraught as western forces prepare to leave Kabul airport in the hands of the Taliban
Shehzad was at home in Kabul with his family last week when Taliban soldiers came looking for him. While his father and brother kept them talking at the door, he leapt through a back window and ran across the city to a friend’s house. A day later, his wife and four children joined him. “They know me,” he said of the Taliban. “They are doing their best to find me.”
Shehzad, not his real name, spent three years as an interpreter alongside British forces in the southern province of Helmand and his place in the UK government’s emergency evacuation scheme had been confirmed. The night the Taliban knocked on his door he was waiting for details of his flight out of the Afghan capital.
When the call finally came on Wednesday night, the 31-year-old rushed his family to Kabul airport only to be rebuffed by Taliban guards. After they beat him and threatened to open fire on the crowd, the family returned home. Speaking on Friday morning, he said: “Now we are just waiting. If I am not relocated, I am scared I will be found and killed.”
Time is now running out for Shehzad and hundreds, possibly thousands, of other Afghans trying to escape. The evacuation effort is becoming more fraught and dangerous ahead of the August 31 departure deadline, originally set by the US but now being enforced by the Taliban, for foreign forces to leave. On Thursday, a suicide bomber affiliated to Isis struck at the airport, killing at least 79 Afghans and 13 US troops.
For the past fortnight, following the collapse of Afghan forces which Nato allies had trained and funded over the past 20 years, Hamid Karzai airport has been the centre of an international mission to bring foreigners and Afghans who worked alongside them to safety. A fragile agreement struck by the US with the new Taliban leadership has allowed western allies to manage the airport perimeter and operate flights.
Amid rising instability, international forces had evacuated well over 100,000 of their own nationals and Afghans by Friday afternoon, but panic is growing among those who fear being left behind. Canada, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands have now stopped their flights, while France and the UK are winding down evacuations. Families desperate to travel ignored terror warnings issued on Wednesday and surged to the gates outside the Baron Hotel, the UK’s evacuation centre.
Britain’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has spoken of his “deep regret” that some Afghans will not make it on to the final evacuation flights and suggested that those trying to flee should now approach land borders rather than attempting to reach the airport. Large crowds are reported to be gathering at the Spin Boldak border post with neighbouring Pakistan.
For Joe Biden, who is overseeing the largest and most dramatic western withdrawal from a conflict zone since the fall of Saigon in 1975, the political and military stakes are high. The US president has been fiercely criticised for his decision to end what he called “America’s longest war” and the subsequent rapid withdrawal of the last 2,500 US troops which dealt a heavy morale blow to Afghan forces. Just weeks from the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, which prompted the 2001 US invasion, all eyes are on America’s final exit.
Even after the last civilian has been evacuated, the operation will not be over. This weekend, American forces — who have secured the airport with a deployment of 5,800 personnel alongside 1,000 UK troops and more from Turkey and Azerbaijan — will begin the perilous job of dismantling the security cordon while soldiers and equipment are flown out.
General Sir Richard Barrons, former head of UK joint forces command who served in the Nato-led mission in Afghanistan, says handing control of security to the Taliban will be a moment of great jeopardy for both western forces and Afghan civilians. If crowds rush towards the airfield, Taliban forces may fire on them. Alternatively, the Taliban could stand back and allow a stampede.
“Then you have potentially thousands of people flooding the runway and surrounding planes which can no longer take off,” Barrons says. “That’s the nightmare scenario because you’re essentially stuck”.
‘Tightening the noose’
Afghanistan, often described as the graveyard of empires, has not proved an easy country from which to organise an emergency evacuation. It is landlocked, so the only route out is either by air or through land borders into Pakistan, Iran or Tajikistan. During previous airlift operations in countries such as Sierra Leone and Libya, international forces parked warships off the coast and shuttled evacuees to them by helicopter. By comparison, Kabul’s airport, which has only one runway and is surrounded by Taliban guards, is a chokepoint.
The western evacuation effort was hindered before it even began by the Taliban’s unexpectedly rapid capture of Kabul, and the collapse of President Ashraf Ghani’s government, which many believed was still months away. The UK warned its citizens to urgently leave Kabul only a week before the Taliban marched into the capital on August 15, while the US followed with similar advice to its citizens a day later.
Western governments were caught off guard by the sheer number of people seeking assistance to escape the Taliban, including higher than expected numbers of foreign nationals of Afghan descent living in the country. “The number of foreign citizens with Afghan roots has been much bigger than we thought,” says one European official.
Embassies were also inundated with requests for help from others who had not been directly employed by foreign governments, as well as individuals involved in projects funded by them: human rights activists, journalists and women — who are seen as particularly at risk from the Taliban.
The failure to make earlier, more urgent warnings, meant many who might have easily left on commercial flights — which had been operating until the eve of the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul — were still in the city when it declared an unexpected victory.
From this point, the exit plan had to be negotiated with the Taliban. “An example does not come to mind where the change in relationship from armed enemy to diplomatic engagement partner has been so sharp,” says Douglas Lute, a retired US general who previously directed Afghan strategy at Washington’s National Security Council.
Afghan civilians called to the airport have been taking as long as 48 hours to cross Kabul though multiple Taliban checkpoints, according to UK officials. Taliban guards have been filmed using whips and firing into the air to control crowds and at least seven Afghans have died in crushes near the airport. TV footage shows desperate civilians pushed up against large, concrete blast walls topped with coils of razor wire while western troops stand guard, trying to maintain order.
Concerned that prospective evacuees were not arriving at the airport, several Nato allies including the US, UK and France have conducted special forces operations, some by helicopter, to collect civilians from safe houses in Kabul. With western diplomats confined to the northern section of the airport, the US and Britain have also turned to Qatar — which hosts the biggest US military base in the region, and has facilitated talks between Washington and the Taliban — for assistance.
The Gulf state has been able to use its connections during the evacuation chaos to run multiple convoys of diplomatic vehicles and buses ferrying thousands of Afghans and foreigners through Taliban checkpoints to the airport. To ensure their safe passage, the Qatari ambassador to Afghanistan has acted as an escort, including for one convoy last week which took almost 12 hours to reach the airport through gunfire.
“It’s been very risky, with all the shooting, it’s dangerous,” says a person briefed on Qatar’s role in the evacuation push. “The threat is not a Taliban government per se, it’s the factions underneath the main group who feel you are getting people out they want to get revenge on.”
While the Taliban leadership initially seemed unconcerned about the flood of Afghans seeking to flee the country, their attitude hardened this week, after a lethal firefight at one of the airport gates on Monday, killing one member of the Afghan security forces still working with the US military, and wounding several others.
At a press conference in Kabul the next day, Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, declared the road to the airport — by then controlled by the militant group’s elite and well equipped Badri Unit — would be closed to local Afghans, due to the deteriorating security situation. From then on, Taliban guards were generally permitting only foreign passport and US green card holders to travel the road to the airport.
Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a Taliban spokesman, told the Financial Times the decision to block Afghans was taken “due to congestion created at the airport and due to security reasons”.
But Mujahid also expressed concerns about the exodus of educated people, and urged the US to stop taking “Afghan experts” such as engineers because their expertise is needed in Afghanistan.
General Wayne Eyre, Canada’s acting chief of defence staff, summed up the situation as he announced the end of Ottowa’s evacuation process on Thursday. “It’s very, very difficult for anybody to get through at this point,” he said. “The Taliban have tightened the noose.”
‘There’s no buffer with the enemy’
Military chiefs planning the final exit are expected to set false deadlines in the coming days to try to seize the initiative over the Taliban. But they are running out of time for such ruses to be effective. US troops, which have led the airport operation including taking over air traffic control, are expected to leave last, forming a rearguard for other western forces. US reconnaissance aircraft spotted over Kabul are likely to be relaying intelligence on Taliban positions back to the Pentagon.
“It’s a very tenuous tactical situation from a military security perspective,” says Lute. “The airport is secure but it’s also surrounded. So you have no stand-off, you can’t see the Taliban coming from a distance, they’re just there. There’s no buffer with the enemy.”
Following the bombing on Thursday, military planners are also alive to the continuing threat of another suicide attack by Isis-K, the regional affiliate of the terror group which is active in Afghanistan. Diplomats and border officials processing visas will leave on the final civilian flights. Troops have already slimmed down their kit to the bare minimum. One UK military official in Kabul said this week that soldiers were down to their last rations and are “living in the equipment they’re carrying with them and just the clothes they’re wearing”, surviving with a small rucksack each to reduce the final cargo.
The decision for US forces will be whether to leave behind heavy equipment in order to make more space for civilians on departing aircraft. Jim Banks, a Republican House representative and former US Navy reservist, suggested this week that the Taliban now has access to more than $85bn of US military equipment which was supplied to Afghan forces. The Pentagon could not immediately confirm the figure. Reports in US media suggest artillery, mortars and anti-drone weapons will be left in place and “destroyed” so they do not fall into Taliban hands.
“If there needs to be destruction or other disposition of equipment there at Hamid Karzai International Airport then we’ll do that and we’ll do that appropriately”, the Pentagon said this week, adding that “lives are always gonna be the priority” over kit.
One western defence official describes the loss of Bagram air base which US forces left suddenly in early July, as a “significant” strategic weakness. Bagram, the centre of US operations in the country since the 2001 invasion, could have provided a useful staging post outside Kabul for last-minute evacuations by helicopter. But that option has now been lost. Instead, the US military may have to fly larger helicopters such as Chinooks to a neighbouring country because they do not have the range to reach the nearest American bases in the UAE and Qatar. Smaller MH-6 Little Bird helicopters, which have been deployed on rescue missions in Kabul, will have to be packed on to larger transport aircraft for the journey home.
Just a few miles from the airport, Shehzad is still waiting for his departure. His family are too scared to risk another trip to the terminal gate after the terror attack, and he is hoping his former British employers will arrange an escort to the plane. If this doesn’t work, he is planning other routes out, maybe via Pakistan or Tajikistan, but the future is unclear.
“We are disappointed and worried and just waiting,” he said. “We are here, waiting.”
by ponchi101 $85 BN in military equipment. Wonder how much will Vlad and Xi pay for that.
by ti-amie
Biden doesn't waste time bloviating.
by ti-amie Biden to the world: FAFO
Eff around and find out
by ti-amie
I understand what the General is saying but the political optics of the situation required that this be done.
by ti-amie
by MJ2004 Grinding my teeth as I post this.
Fears grow for Afghan refugees stuck in ‘Kafkaesque’ Poland-Belarus standoff
Lukashenko accused of encouraging refugees to come to Belarus in retaliation for Brussels sanctions
Fears are growing for a group of Afghan refugees who fled their country last month and made their way to Europe, only to find themselves marooned on the border between Poland and Belarus in a “Kafkaesque” political standoff.
The 32 refugees – women, men, and a child of 15 years old – have been stuck in a small, muddy patch of land between the two countries for almost three weeks with no access to clean water, insufficient shelter and intermittent food supplies, according to a Polish NGO.
Despite seeking international protection in Poland, they are not being allowed in, with border guards preventing them from entering. Neither are they being allowed back into Belarus, where they came from in the hope of being able to cross into the European Union.
According to the Ocalenie Foundation, which has been monitoring the situation for the past week, one member of the group, a 53-year-old woman, is ill and urgently needs medical assistance. Mariana Wartecka, a spokesperson for the NGO, said border guards had refused her access to health professionals.
“It’s a humanitarian crisis right now,” she said. “They don’t have proper shelter. They don’t have access to clean water. They are drinking water from a stream near them that is really dirty.”
EU countries have accused the authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, of seeking to destabilise the bloc by encouraging refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere to come into the country on tourist visas. Then, they say, he is sending them to the border with Poland and the Baltic states in retaliation for the sanctions imposed by Brussels in June.
The group of Afghans stuck near the village of Usnarz Górny, about 55km east of Białystok, find themselves in the crosshairs of this clash, say human rights observers.
“They’re a victim of the political game between countries,” said Aleksandra Fertlińska, a campaigner at Amnesty International Poland. “But what is the most important is that it doesn’t matter what is the source of this political game. They are refugees, and they are protected by [the] Geneva convention and what we need to do is … accept them.”
Last week, the European court of human rights ordered Poland and Latvia to help refugees and migrants gathered on their borders by providing them with “food, water, clothing, adequate medical care and, if possible, temporary shelter.” It was not, it added, requiring that either country “let the applicants enter their territories”.
A group of Iraqi Kurds is in similar limbo on the border between Latvia and Belarus.
In response to the court’s interim, Poland’s rightwing government said its foreign ministry had repeatedly offered to take humanitarian assistance intended for the refugees into Belarus. A spokeswoman for the interior ministry said: “These people are on the Belarusian side of the border.”
Agnieszka Kubal, a migration scholar at UCL, said the offer was disingenuous at best.
“We’re in a situation where Polish border guards are standing literally metres from these people in a tight cordon and Polish authorities are sending a truck to Belarus to reach those people from the other side. It’s a Kafkaesque situation. It’s so ridiculous that I’m lost for words.”
As the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan prompts hundreds of thousands of people to flee to neighbouring countries, the EU – still reeling from its failure to manage the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis – is braced for a fresh influx of refugees.
Fertlińska urged Warsaw to be prepared to accept refugees fleeing their crisis-hit country and “not to close the borders and not to build the fences, because we [saw] that in 2015 this kind of politics didn’t make any change in terms of the numbers of people who were trying to get to Europe”.
But, when visiting the border last week, the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, struck a hardline note, accusing the Belarusian regime of exploiting the refugees and insisting: “Poland must protect its border.”
“I truly sympathise with the migrants who have been in an extremely difficult situation but it should be clearly stated that they are a political instrument,” Morawiecki said.
Belarus has denied it is sending refugees to the border. In May, Lukashenko told the EU that if it imposed new sanctions it would find itself with more “drugs and migrants” that his country would once have stopped.
by Suliso It's all Lukashenko asymmetric warfare against Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. Many of these people flew directly from Baghdad to Minsk on "tourist" visas.
by MJ2004 In today's news of the Afghanistan debacle, the US intercepted five rockets targeting airplanes flying out. Which made me wonder, how do the final airplanes leave? With no rocket interception coverage? Do they blow up the tech or take it with them, or leave it in place for the Taliban? Do they fly out with no coverage and hope for the best?
by ponchi101 The Taliban are firing at planes just like that?
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 30, 2021 8:38 pm
The Taliban are firing at planes just like that?
Taliban are not firing at anything. It's ISIS who's doing that. There is a big difference.
by JazzNU
by MJ2004 Yes, ISIS was firing at the planes. Not the Taliban. Rather a moot point now that evacuation is complete, I was just curious about the logistics of the final transfer/withdrawal.
US withdraws from Afghanistan bringing end to 20-year war
Top commander says ‘every single service member’ has left country as evacuation effort concludes
The US commander responsible for troops in Afghanistan announced the final American withdrawal from the country, as the military wrapped up its massive airlift from Kabul’s airport and brought the country’s involvement in the 20-year war to a formal end.
General Kenneth McKenzie, the head of US central command, announced the end of the evacuation operation at a Pentagon news conference on Monday afternoon, which coincided with Tuesday morning in Kabul — the deadline President Joe Biden had set for a full withdrawal.
“I’m here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan,” McKenzie said at a Pentagon briefing, adding that the last military plane had left Kabul airport with the US ambassador aboard. “Every single US service member is out of Afghanistan.”
“Tonight’s withdrawal signifies both the end of the military component of the evacuation, but also the end of the nearly 20 year mission that began in Afghanistan shortly after September 11, 2001,” McKenzie said.
The US had dramatically scaled back its evacuation mission in Afghanistan in the days leading up the end of the operation, with the number of civilians being airlifted out of Kabul falling sharply on Monday.
Ahead of the last flight leaving Kabul, military commanders were sharing some drawdown logistics with Taliban commanders to “deconflict and prevent miscalculations and misunderstandings”, said John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman. He added: “So far that communication has been effective.”
The pace of the airlift slowed significantly as the US switched its focus from evacuating civilians to withdrawing its troops and equipment.
On Monday, the US said its military had evacuated approximately 1,200 people over the previous 24 hours, compared with 6,800 on Friday and almost 13,000 a-day at the peak of the operation last week.
The Taliban on Monday told Afghans they would be blocked from going to the airport even if they had visas and documents.
“While the military evacuation is complete, the diplomatic mission to ensure additional US citizens and eligible Afghans who want to leave continues”
The final push to conclude the evacuation took place against the backdrop of an increasingly dangerous security situation in Kabul, where the airport had been the target of a successful suicide bombing and unsuccessful rocket attacks.
Qatar, meanwhile, urged the Taliban to accept foreign security help to keep the airport running.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Doha’s foreign minister, told the Financial Times that the Gulf state, a point of contact between the west and the Taliban, was urging Afghanistan’s new rulers to accept outside assistance to operate Kabul airport.
“What is a clear [Taliban] objection is that they don’t want to see a foreign security presence in their airport or their territory,” Sheikh Mohammed said. “What we are trying to explain to them is that airport safety and security requires a lot more than securing the perimeters of the airport.”
Isis claimed responsibility for rockets fired at the airport on Monday, although no casualties were reported. US defence officials said five rockets were fired, one of which was intercepted by US rocket defence systems.
That attack follows a deadly suicide bombing on Thursday that killed 13 US service personnel, injured 14 more, and killed more than 100 civilians who were near the Abbey gate of the airport.
The US has launched at least two drone strikes in retaliation after Biden vowed to “hunt down” those responsible.
The Pentagon said on Monday it was “assessing and investigating” reports it had killed about 10 civilians with a drone strike on Sunday. “We are not in a position to dispute it,” said Kirby.
He added: “Make no mistake, no military on the face of the earth works harder to avoid civilian casualties than the US military, and nobody wants to see innocent life taken.”
The drone strike, which hit a crowded Kabul neighbourhood, has sparked controversy. The US said it “successfully hit the target” and had destroyed an explosives-laden vehicle that was to be used in a second airport attack, and that “significant secondary explosions from the targeted vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material”.
But in Kabul, news reports said a former US army interpreter and several of his children were killed in the strike.
-FT
by JazzNU By the way, those of us that were wondering why Americans didn't leave well ahead of all this? We're going to remain wondering, but they were given increasingly dire warnings and still decided to remain. So we right in thinking they had to know this was getting much worse.
by ti-amie Meanwhile this is happening.
by JazzNU And by the way, that doesn't count the California students that thought it was a good idea to plan a vacation to Afghanistan in the middle of all this if you missed that story. I have no words, can't make this ish up.
by ti-amie Oh are we supposed to feel sorry for them? Please tell me how I'm supposed to feel because...
by JazzNU
ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Aug 30, 2021 11:04 pm
Oh are we supposed to feel sorry for them? Please tell me how I'm supposed to feel because...
I've had that question so many times during this because people have told their different stories and at least half of them are like, uh, I don't know what you want me to do with that.
I feel sorry for the kids here. And for any military who were forced to make additional trips to try to get them out because of this level of stupidity taking place. I have no idea WTF these adults were thinking putting anyone in this situation.
by Suliso I thought those maybe Afghan Americans visiting family, but no not even that... Really weird.
by ti-amie
by dmforever
JazzNU wrote: ↑Mon Aug 30, 2021 9:37 pm
And by the way, that doesn't count the California students that thought it was a good idea to plan a vacation to Afghanistan in the middle of all this if you missed that story. I have no words, can't make this ish up.
Nowhere in that story does anyone express even the slightest hint of incredulity, which is in and of itself quite amazing. My mouth is touching the floor right now.
Kevin
by MJ2004 A desire to punish is a noble motive? Ok...
by ti-amie
by skatingfan
dmforever wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 12:52 am
Nowhere in that story does anyone express even the slightest hint of incredulity, which is in and of itself quite amazing. My mouth is touching the floor right now.
Kevin
After doing a bit more reading it became clear that this was not a school trip, but five separate families that happen to be from the same school district in California, on vacation to visit family this summer in Afghanistan. There's still reason to question the thought process that went into these trips given that the US withdrawal has been known about for 18 months.
dmforever wrote: ↑Tue Aug 31, 2021 12:52 am
Nowhere in that story does anyone express even the slightest hint of incredulity, which is in and of itself quite amazing. My mouth is touching the floor right now.
Kevin
After doing a bit more reading it became clear that this was not a school trip, but five separate families that happen to be from the same school district in California, on vacation to visit family this summer in Afghanistan. There's still reason to question the thought process that went into these trips given that the US withdrawal has been known about for 18 months.
Thanks. Still not a great decision, but not nearly what it sounded like.
Kevin
by the Moz It reeks of western privilege, arrogance and ignorance.
by Togtdyalttai I think I gathered from this article that only one of the families is still in Afghanistan, and one more in processing:
Also, not the suburb I would have guessed when I saw this story. My money would have been on Santee or Poway.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 BTW. A truly interesting "experiment" has started in El Salvador. The nation will adopt (or already did) Bitcoin as its official currency. Seeing how it is basically non-existent in the science and technology area, and how it is slowly sliding into dictatorial rule, the fluctuations of the currency will affect the country in very significant ways.
Who knows where this leads.
by Suliso It's going to be a disaster. Bitcoin is not a real currency. It's an investment vehicle with wildly fluctuating value in dollars.
by ponchi101 That is the reason I say it will be an interesting experiment. One of the things that I wonder how they will handle will be monetary indicators. How do you calculate inflation? Year end GDP? What will be the salaries of Salvadoreños, if they are paid in Bitcoin? Also, my understanding is that there will be a limited amount of bitcoin to be "mined" so El Salvador has, by decree, a limited ceiling in growth.
I agree, it will be a disaster, but I wonder how. I know how these things end up in L. America: in a very short time, the economy will dollarize and a black market will be created very soon. And then, El Salvador will go the way of Venezuela. But with a leftist regime, who knows what crackdowns and violations of civil liberties will take place. So who knows if El Salvador will show the pit falls of adopting a cyber currency as a national one.
by Suliso Feud between Musk and Bezos, possibly the two richest individuals on this planet, is heating up. Bezos is less public about it all, but Musk certainly doesn't hide his disdain for the technical ability and tactics of Bezos companies.
Amazon rips into Elon Musk in its dispute over Starlink, saying his companies believe 'rules are for other people'
Amazon ripped into Elon Musk in its latest filing in a series of tiffs with SpaceX over its plans to expand Starlink on Wednesday.
"The conduct of SpaceX and other Musk-led companies makes their view plain: rules are for other people, and those who insist upon or even simply request compliance are deserving of derision and ad hominem attacks," a letter from Amazon to the Federal Communications Commission said.
The letter, first reported by CNBC's Michael Sheetz, comes just a week after SpaceX responded to Amazon's protest. At the time, the space company said Jeff Bezos' lawsuits had "become a bigger bottleneck than the technology," pointing out that Bezos-owned companies including Amazon and Blue Origin had filed complaints against SpaceX roughly every 16 days this year. Musk said on Twitter that suing SpaceX, was Bezos' "full-time job."
In its most recent letter to FCC, Amazon said that SpaceX's letter was an "overheated response to an uncontroversial argument." The company said the response failed to address the issue and focused primarily on attacking Amazon instead.
"It is with a sigh that Amazon responds to SpaceX's recent attack on Amazon, which takes this familiar tack in order to distract from the actual problem," the letter said. "The approach comes from a playbook familiar to any regulator faced with the unfortunate task of evenhandedly applying its rules to SpaceX: concede nothing, ignore rules whenever possible, and when all else fails, malign those that invoke them."
The Amazon letter also focuses on criticising Musk, saying the SpaceX CEO demonstrates an unwillingness to comply with rules and government authorities and pointing out reports from The Wall Street Journal on Musk's "War on Regulators."
Amazon's initial letter to the FCC registered concerns regarding SpaceX's plans to expand Starlink into Gen2. It called for the FCC to require SpaceX to submit a new proposal because its proposal offered two options for how it would expand its satellite system, instead of one.
Starlink is part of Musk's vision to build an interconnected internet network with thousands of satellites that would deliver high-speed internet to customers anywhere on the planet. Amazon's satellite-internet subsidiary — Kuiper Systems — has a similar vision, but is expected to take about a decade to fully deploy its planned 3,236 satellites. While the Starlink service is still in beta, the company has over 100,000 users in 14 countries so far. SpaceX has launched 1,740 Starlink satellites to date, and its second generation project plans to have nearly 30,000 satellites in total.
Amazon's latest complaint against SpaceX is one of many filed by companies affiliated with Bezos. Blue Origin, a space company launched by the billionaire, has filed multiple protests against NASA's decision to select SpaceX over Blue Origin for its project to put boots on the moon. Most recently, Blue Origin took the issue to federal court, calling the NASA decision "unfair" and essentially halting SpaceX's work on the project.
It is also not the first time that Musk and Bezos have sparred, as the two billionaires race to space.
When Bezos initially complained about the NASA decision for its lunar landing project Musk tweeted, "Can't get it up (to orbit) lol."
by Suliso Note: auto industry is by far the most important sector in Germany. Like Silicon valley companies in US.
VW and Daimler Going Electric Overwhelms German Auto Suppliers
By Stefan Nicola
August 26, 2021, 12:40 PM GMT+2
Germany’s Painful Shift
Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler are pushing hard to electrify their offerings, but Germany's $94 billion car-parts industry is struggling with the once-in-a-generation shift.
More than half the country’s auto suppliers are overwhelmed by the pace of the transformation to battery-powered vehicles, according to a study released this week by consultancy Roland Berger.
After spending decades perfecting the production of crankshafts, diesel injectors and other components not needed for electric motors, the industry is now scrambling to adapt as its traditional products become obsolete sooner than expected.
From global players like Robert Bosch and Continental to the hundreds of small- and medium-size companies, parts makers are key to Europe’s biggest economy. Roughly 75% of the value-add of a car made in Germany comes from this supply network, which employs more than 300,000 people. Many of those jobs are dependent on how swiftly the sector can change.
Doing so will be a bit like merging onto a crowded autobahn at high speed. Suppliers started cutting personnel and pushing into electric-vehicle technologies before the pandemic hit. The global health crisis hasn’t just devastated auto demand; it’s also led to a global chip shortage and fueled material-price increases. In the midst of all this, carmakers and European regulators came out with more ambitious EV sales and emissions-cutting targets, hastening the demise of internal combustion engines.
“The ability to transform their product range is becoming an existential question for suppliers,” says Jan C. Maser, a partner at Roland Berger and one of the study’s co-authors. “Companies have to invest heavily in new technologies — and that with stagnating production volumes and tight margins.”
Carmakers are exacerbating issues by producing more components in-house. Tesla, VW and Porsche are making car batteries themselves or with a partner from outside the traditional car-parts industry. VW aims to cut procurement costs by 7% and fixed costs by 5% over the next couple years, potentially pressuring suppliers including Continental, Magna and ZF Friedrichshafen, my colleague Joel Levington wrote for Bloomberg Intelligence. During a visit to Germany earlier this month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly called out Bosch for not supplying chips quickly enough.
The industry’s struggles won’t be over soon. The semiconductor shortage will cut worldwide auto production by as many as 7.1 million vehicles this year, with pandemic-related supply disruptions hobbling output well into 2022, according to IHS Markit. This week, VW's Wolfsburg plant — the world’s biggest, employing some 60,000 people — restarted from its usual summer break running only one shift.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, which has been kind to the industry in past years, earlier this month green-lighted a 1 billion-euro “future” fund to help German regions reliant on autos survive the shift away from the combustion engine. Still, analysts anticipate greater consolidation of the parts industry.
So, what can suppliers do? Roland Berger says they must overhaul long-established processes to become leaner, invest more in software and digitization, become more open to R&D partnerships and look to Asia for potential growth.
Some have started the process. Hanover-based Continental, which abruptly replaced its CEO last year after falling returns and slow progress shifting to electric-vehicle components, is spinning off its powertrain unit Vitesco Technologies next month — albeit long after similar moves by rivals.
Germany’s auto suppliers are known to be great at solving problems. They’ll develop new products, raise efficiencies and carve out new niches. Still, the industry’s glory days are probably over: While a combustion drivetrain contains roughly 1,500 individual parts, an electric one has only 250. That’s a lot fewer slices of pie from which to feast.
The colored part is a very important point. Electric cars are much simpler, the real innovation and challenge is in batteries.
by ponchi101 Do you have any idea of how much rare earth or other elements go into a battery? Because we are going to need a lot of exploration and geophysics to supply an entire German auto-industry, and even more if America and China and Japan join that race, which they will have to.
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 9:59 pm
Do you have any idea of how much rare earth or other elements go into a battery? Because we are going to need a lot of exploration and geophysics to supply an entire German auto-industry, and even more if America and China and Japan join that race, which they will have to.
Certainly more mining will be needed, particularly for lithium. That is if Ni or Fe based batteries don't become competitive. But still something will need to be mined and also a lot more electricity will need to be produced. I suspect in a longer term future pretty much everything other than rockets will be electrically driven.
Can you somehow overlay your oil and gas skills to this new industry? They'll need safety and environmental assessment too...
by Suliso And to dispel one particular myth electric vehicles use hardly any rare earth metals, in fact less than traditional ones.
Certainly more mining will be needed, particularly for lithium. That is if Ni or Fe based batteries don't become competitive. But still something will need to be mined and also a lot more electricity will need to be produced. I suspect in a longer term future pretty much everything other than rockets will be electrically driven.
Can you somehow overlay your oil and gas skills to this new industry? They'll need safety and environmental assessment too...
I am in O&G but, in reality, it is is geophysics, which, if mining is needed, we are the starting point.
So sure, any sort of mining prospection for metals or whatever is down there, it is us. Hopefully.
by ti-amie
by ti-amieFrance accuses Patel of blackmail in row over Channel migrants
Interior minister says UK plans to return boats of vulnerable people would not be accepted
Rajeev Syal, Jamie Grierson and Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Thu 9 Sep 2021 19.45 BST
Priti Patel has been accused by France’s interior minister of plotting “financial blackmail” and a violation of international maritime law in a deepening diplomatic row over efforts to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel by boat.
Gérald Darmanin said that UK plans, released on Wednesday night, to send back boats of vulnerable people into French waters would not be accepted by his government.
“France will not accept any practice that breaks maritime law, nor any financial blackmail,” Darmanin wrote on Twitter. “Britain’s commitments must be respected. I said this clearly to my counterpart” during a meeting on Wednesday, he added.
The statement from Darmanin, the British home secretary’s counterpart, reflects anger in Paris about reported plans by the British government to begin turning back boats carrying migrants once they enter UK waters in the Channel.
French officials and unions are also concerned that the “turnaround” tactics could result in greater numbers of migrants jumping into the sea as Border Force vessels approach.
Patel, who is under pressure from Boris Johnson and Tory MPs to halt the Channel crossings, has approved the new hardline strategy. She claimed to have secured legal advice for Border Force vessels to start redirecting migrant boats away from UK waters and back towards France, where the French authorities would have to return them to shore.
French officials have also been angered by suggestions that Britain could withhold some of the €62.7m (£55m) it promised earlier this year to fund policing and patrols in northern France unless more is done to prevent crossings.
A French interior ministry source said there had “never been any question of making payment conditional on numerical targets”. “Such an approach would reflect a serious loss of confidence in our cooperation,” the source said.
The source said that any form of intercepting boats at sea, when those boats did not want to be escorted, was very dangerous and could lead to more people jumping or threatening to jump into the sea.
Lucy Moreton, a professional officer at the Immigration Services Union that represents Border Force guards, said she was also concerned that Patel’s announcement could lead to more migrant passengers leaping into the water. “This announcement makes it more likely that some could jump into the sea when they are approached to ensure their boat is not turned back,” she said.
In the morning, Moreton had told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the plan was “dead in the water” as France would “simply not engage in this”.
Union representatives who have examined the protocol for using the “turnaround” tactic suspect it will never be used. Kevin Mills, the Border Force rep for PCS union, said he suspected that the tactic was part of a “headline-grabbing exercise” because the UK authorities must fulfil exacting criteria before implementation.
“To use this tactic, you need perfect weather, you need to know there is adequate fuel on the suspected vessel so it can return to France, the vessel would have to be seaworthy, there can’t be any babies or minors on board, every passenger has to be healthy, and there can be no chance of loss of life. Highly unlikely,” he said.
Tim Loughton, a Conservative member of the home affairs select committee, also poured cold water on the prospects of the tactic being used in practice. “It sounds good. But I’m afraid in practice it’s just not going to happen. These are flimsy boats coming over. Even those that are tougher are completely weighed down.
“Any boat coming up alongside at speed would capsize most of these boats anyway and then we’re looking at people getting into trouble in the water and drowning … and then we’ll get blamed for that.”
Aid organisations and refugee representatives condemned the announcement. The British Red Cross said the policy would detract from finding solutions that would give people alternatives to making the dangerous crossing through busy shipping lanes.
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said: “The government’s pushback plan is senseless, dangerous and almost certainly unlawful.
“Intercepting vessels in the Channel is incredibly high risk and to push people back will endanger their lives, which is totally at odds with the legal duty of rescue at sea.”
Johnson’s official spokesman rejected the claims of financial blackmail and said the government had “provided our French counterparts with significant sums of money previously, and we’ve agreed another bilateral agreement backed by millions of pounds”.
He said: “I don’t think any single approach is going to solve this challenge, which sees criminal gangs target some of the most vulnerable people, and we want to work with our French counterparts, and indeed the wider EU, on a range of options to address this longstanding problem.
A Home Office source said the plans had been fully examined by the government. “We are looking at this as one part of reform of the entire system. We believe there would be a deterrent effect from making the journey in the first place,” the source said.
by ponchi101 Wow. The divorce was ugly, and now they are going after each other? Sort of like using the kids for leverage, seems to me.
by ti-amie I read somewhere that because of Brexit England can't do squat. Throw in international maritime law and this is kind of performative.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie These visuals are so disturbing for me as a Westerner.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 I knew she was low key, but all these details make her even more incredible.
I wish any Latin American "leader" were 10% of what she was. 5%. 1%. Not the corrupt kleptocrats that lead us to ruin every day.
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 6:37 pm
I knew she was low key, but all these details make her even more incredible.
I wish any Latin American "leader" were 10% of what she was. 5%. 1%. Not the corrupt kleptocrats that lead us to ruin every day.
Wish I could agree. Yes, he did not steal or was a corrupt politician. But Uruguay is basically stagnated progress-wise. The populists measures were of no effect.
by ti-amie Intriguing bit of news...
by ponchi101 If I remember well, turning off your transponders in a civilian vessel is illegal. Other vessels cannot see you which, in such a congested area, is dangerous.
by ti-amie It's the same south of your border. Exactly the same.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 It would be sweet if Pakistan gets suckered by the Taliban too. Like cosmically sweet.
by ti-amieBeer, chicken and now carbon dioxide: Why Britain’s shortages keep coming
by ponchi101 Meanwhile, in El Salvador, bartering is now the official mercantile mechanism of the land.
by Suliso I bet they use dollars for anything important. Is that not so?
by ponchi101 Oh, sure. I already read news that the population has moved over to the US Dollar because, as was expected, the majority of the population not only does not know how to deal with Bitcoin, they have no access to bank accounts or other financial services.
by MJ2004
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:08 pm
Oh, sure. I already read news that the population has moved over to the US Dollar because, as was expected, the majority of the population not only does not know how to deal with Bitcoin, they have no access to bank accounts or other financial services.
:facepalm: Absolutely mindboggling anyone thought this was a good idea.
by MJ2004 The president of El Salvador called himself "the coolest dictator in the world". You just can't make this (expletive) up.
by MJ2004
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:08 pm
the majority of the population not only does not know how to deal with Bitcoin, they have no access to bank accounts or other financial services.
Or internet. At least half the population does not have internet access. Absorb that.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:08 pm
the majority of the population not only does not know how to deal with Bitcoin, they have no access to bank accounts or other financial services.
Or internet. At least half the population does not have internet access. Absorb that.
Would that be including via cell phones?
by ponchi101 I would not know about El Salvador, but here in Colombia, a lot of people (myself included) use prepaid plans. A lot of the plans sold by the carriers are what they call FTWI: FB, TWT, WA and IG. You can navigate but it is mostly social networks.
So if you want to use the internet as a tool for work, some people, even with access, don't use them for that.
by ti-amie
by Suliso What about internet banking etc for people who do have bank accounts?
Both here and in Latvia that is now highly developed. Also I was thinking today in the train that it's been a very long time since I've seen anyone show a paper ticket (still available) to a ticket inspector. It's 90%+ smart phone tickets or transport passes loaded on a card.
by ponchi101
Suliso wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:37 pm
What about internet banking etc for people who do have bank accounts?
Both here and in Latvia that is now highly developed. Also I was thinking today in the train that it's been a very long time since I've seen anyone show a paper ticket (still available) to a ticket inspector. It's 90%+ smart phone tickets or transport passes loaded on a card.
Again, Colombia. if you have a bank account, you have all the tools. Transfers, pays, etc. Our bus system involves a card called TU LLAVE (your key) that allows you to board any bus, but you have to load it, which is at times problematic. The older bus system is still cash.
Bogota has no trains or subway. Medellin has a subway.
by Suliso Theoretically I still have a Swiss pass in a credit card format, but I don't use it. Everything I need is on a smart phone. We have a country wide unified ticketing system. You just add in the app starting and ending point, it will calculated routes and costs and you click to buy tickets. Works for all trains and buses in the country (exception is most private mountain funiculars). I'm not sure about cross border tickets, can't buy those from the same app.
Latvia is not so centralized, have to buy all tickets separately.
by ponchi101 Remember that you live in the late 21st century, I live in the early 20th. Colombia' and, for that matter, all of S. America, has a very deficient land transportation system. There are no trains almost anywhere (Argentina has a few lines) and almost everything is by bus.
Colombia's 60 years of guerrillas and almost 1 1/2 centuries of civil wars made it almost impossible to develop proper land transportation. The guerrillas would bomb anything that remotely looked like a road, which was their way to control territories. Trains are expensive so nobody could buy one of those. Of course, they also claim that the terrain is too mountainous, but go tell that to the Swiss or Austrians.
Air transportation is much better and you can get the AVIANCA app and buy a ticket with ease. You can pay with your bank account or a system called PSE (Safe Electronic Payment).
Of course, when it comes to gambling sites, that was integrated like in 5 minutes.
by skatingfan Canadians Michael Kovrig, Michael Spavor coming home after U.S. strikes plea deal to free Meng Wanzhou
China freed Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig after the U.S. Justice department reached a deferred prosecution agreement with senior Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou, ending an almost three-year prison ordeal for the two men that ruptured Canada-China relations.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a late news conference on Friday to say the two Canadians, accompanied by Canada’s ambassador Dominic Barton, flew out of China after Ms. Meng left Vancouver to return home.
A Royal Canadian Airforce Challenger jet was spotted at Elmendorf air force base in Anchorage Alaska, and it is believed Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor were to be transferred to this plane.
“These two men have been through an unbelievably difficult situation, but it is inspiring and it is good news for all of us that they are on their way home to their families,” Mr. Trudeau said.
The Prime Minister said the two Michaels went through a “terrible time,” spending more than 1,000 days in Chinese prisons with the lights on 24 hours a day.
“They have shown determination, grace and resilience every step of the way. They have been an inspiration to all of us,” he said.
Mr. Trudeau declined to say what the resolution would mean for Canada-China relations, which hit their worst point since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. “Right now, our focus is on getting these two Canadians home safe. They have been through an extremely difficult ordeal,” Mr. Trudeau said, adding that Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor are expected to land in Canada on Saturday morning.
A senior government official said Canada did not make any concessions to obtain the release. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the source who was not authorized to speak about the matter.
China locked up the two Canadians in December, 2018, in apparent retaliation for the arrest of Ms. Meng, a member of China’s corporate elite, on a U.S. extradition warrant to face fraud charges related to violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran. The Canadian government has said they are victims of hostage diplomacy.
Ms. Meng appeared by teleconference on Friday before a U.S. federal court in Brooklyn, where a judge approved the legal arrangement between the United States and the Huawei executive. In the deal, she accepted a significant portion of the U.S. government’s case against her, including an attempt to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran. But she did not have to pay a fine or enter a guilty plea as part of the arrangement, in which the charges will be deferred and then dismissed on Dec. 1, 2022.
In the agreement, which is not an admission of guilt, Ms. Meng accepted that she made “untrue” statements to bankers about Huawei’s relationship with Skycom Tech Co. Ltd., which conducted business in Iran and was in fact controlled by the Chinese company. She accepted that Huawei caused Skycom to conduct about $100-million worth of U.S.-dollar transactions via a bank that cleared them through the United States – “at least some of which supported its work in Iran in violation of U.S. law.”
Her acceptance of these facts as part of the deal could help the United States in its continuing prosecution of Huawei over alleged violations of U.S. sanctions law.
“In entering into the deferred prosecution agreement, Meng has taken responsibility for her principal role in perpetrating a scheme to defraud a global financial institution,” Nicole Boeckmann, acting United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. “Meng’s admissions confirm the crux of the government’s allegations in the prosecution of this financial fraud — that Meng and her fellow Huawei employees engaged in a concerted effort to deceive global financial institutions, the U.S. government, and the public about Huawei’s activities in Iran.”
Ms. Meng appeared later in the day in a Vancouver courtroom, where the extradition proceedings were stayed and her bail conditions lifted, allowing the Chinese telecom executive to leave the country.
At the close of proceedings in B.C. Supreme Court, after the Canadian Justice Department withdrew the case against Ms. Meng, Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes thanked Ms. Meng for her co-operation.
“You have been co-operative and courteous throughout. The court appreciates and thanks you for that.”
“Thank you, my lady,” Ms. Meng replied in English. She later burst into tears as she hugged her lawyers.
“Now, she will be free to return home to be with her family,” Ms. Meng’s U.S. lawyer William Taylor said in a statement, noting his client “will not be prosecuted further in the United States.”
Ms. Meng has been out on bail and living in a $13.7-million Vancouver home while Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor were in Chinese jail cells where the lights are on 24 hours a day.
Speaking to reporters after her court appearance, Ms. Meng thanked Justice Holmes “for her fairness” and the Canadian government “for upholding the rule of law.”
Ms. Meng talked of how hard this has been for her: “My life has been turned upside down. It was a disruptive time for me as a mother, a wife and a company executive.”
The Globe and Mail reported on Sept. 17 that the U.S. Department of Justice had resumed talks on a deal with Huawei and lawyers for Ms. Meng, daughter of Ren Zhengfei, founder of the Chinese telecommunications giant. This followed a hiatus in negotiations since late 2020, when the U.S. government under the Trump administration’s Justice Department first attempted talks with Ms. Meng.
A former federal prosecutor in the United States said he could not remember another prosecution involving a high-profile person, with so much time and resources put into it by U.S. authorities, that ended in a deferred prosecution agreement with a simple release and no provision for ongoing co-operation.
“I would even probably call it a rare use of a deferred prosecution agreement,” said Michael McAuliffe, who has worked in the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington and as an assistant U.S. attorney in South Florida. “One gets the sense that they’ve come up short of their original objectives.”
He said the agreement means Ms. Meng is essentially free of any involvement with U.S. prosecutors.
“Because the agreement has no co-operation provision (and no requirement of even being accessible to prosecutors) and she will be in China at least until the end of the agreement, her involvement in the matter and with the U.S. authorities appears over,” Mr. McAuliffe said in an e-mail. “A stunning change from being on an ankle bracelet ... and facing extradition, trial and potential imprisonment.”
The Canadian government had been pressing the Biden administration to reopen negotiations with Ms. Meng and Huawei lawyers for a DPA to help end the dispute, which put Ottawa in the middle of a superpower standoff between Washington and Beijing.
China accused Canada of acting as a U.S. puppet by detaining Ms. Meng and slapped punitive trade sanctions on some Canadian agriculture products after the arrest of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor.
In June, The Globe reported that Canada’s ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, was in Washington for three weeks this spring in talks with senior officials in the Biden administration aimed at facilitating the release of the two Canadians.
Mr. Barton met with officials from the White House National Security Council and the departments of Justice, State, Defense, Treasury and Commerce. He also held talks with Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the United States.
China put Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor on trial in March of this year. They were charged with spying as part of a process that Canada and dozens of allies call arbitrary detention on bogus charges in a closed system of justice with no accountability.
A Chinese court in August found Mr. Spavor guilty of espionage and sentenced him to 11 years in prison. He appealed the ruling. The verdict for Mr. Kovrig had yet to be announced.
by Deuce But... but... China repeatedly said that their holding the 'two Michaels' captive was in NO WAY related to Canada holding the Huawei executive Meng.
So the 'two Micheals' being released right after Meng was permitted to go home is a truly astonishing co-incidence!
Canada should have never meddled in this affair. They did so only to please and impress the U.S. - much as a younger sibling tries to impress the elder. The inferiority complex that Canada still feels - particularly in relation to the U.S. - is quite pathetic, really.
by the Moz Canada had a responsibility to act on the bilateral legal and diplomatic protocols both nations agreed to. That being said, the elephant and the mouse complex is still sadly alive and well. America should have done more to free the Michaels.
As for China, they don't subscribe to truth or transparency. So their words and actions can't carry much credence.
As for China, they don't subscribe to truth or transparency. So their words and actions can't carry much credence.
From the business point of view. I have worked enough with purely Chinese companies. They operate in a mentality that if they lie to you, and you do not realize it, it is YOUR fault. Very difficult to negotiate with them as there is never a concept of trust or good faith.
As for China, they don't subscribe to truth or transparency. So their words and actions can't carry much credence.
From the business point of view. I have worked enough with purely Chinese companies. They operate in a mentality that if they lie to you, and you do not realize it, it is YOUR fault. Very difficult to negotiate with them as there is never a concept of trust or good faith.
Absolutely. Cultural nuance has many forms.
by ti-amieIn plain sight, Boris Johnson is rigging the system to stay in power
Jonathan Freedland
Fri 1 Oct 2021 11.35 EDT
If this wasn’t us, how would we describe it? If this was Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, or Poland, what language might we use? Would an announcer on the BBC World Service declare: “Amid fuel and food shortages, the government has moved to cement its grip on power. It’s taking action against the courts, shrinking their ability to hold the ruling party to account, curbing citizens’ right to protest and imposing new rules that would gag whistleblowers and sharply restrict freedom of the press. It’s also moving against election monitors while changing voting rules, which observers say will hurt beleaguered opposition groups … ”
It doesn’t sound like us. We like to tell ourselves that we live in a mature democracy, our institutions deep rooted. Political competition is brisk, never more so than at this time of year, as one party conference ends and another begins. This is not a one-party state. All it would require is Labour to get its act together – to which end it made a decent start this week – and, with a fair wind, the Conservatives would be out.
It’s a consoling thought, but not a reliable one. Almost unnoticed, perhaps because it’s done with an English rather than a Hungarian accent, our populist, nationalist prime minister is steadily setting out to weaken the institutions that define a liberal democracy: the ones that might act as checks and balances on him. And he’s moving, Orbán style, to make it ever harder for his government to lose power.
Start with the courts. After all, that’s what Boris Johnson did. It seems petty to suggest that he is out for revenge after the supreme court delivered an 11-0 humiliation over his unlawful suspension of parliament in 2019, but Johnson is acting like a man determined to settle a score.
He set his sights early on a bill to reform judicial review, the process by which courts can overturn unlawful decisions by the government and others. The language is less overt than it was, but that bill stays true to its initial aim of declaring entire categories of government action off limits to judges – and it explicitly bans a particular, 11th-hour form of judicial review often used in immigration cases. No wonder the Law Society has been sounding the alarm, warning of a threat to essential curbs on “the might of the state”.
If that enrages you, think twice before taking to the streets. Under the new police bill, ministers will have the power to suppress pretty well any protest they don’t like. It makes it a crime, punishable by up to 10 years in jail, merely to cause “serious annoyance” to the public. The police will be able to clamp down on a demonstration, or ban it altogether, on the flimsiest basis. If they deem a demo sufficiently loud to cause someone in the vicinity “serious unease”, that would be enough.
Of course, no one goes on a march unless they know about whatever outrage the government or others has committed. That can take a whistleblower or journalist or both, and Johnson is moving against them too. He wants to widen the scope of the Official Secrets Act, applying it to more areas of government activity and increasing the punishment for breaking it. Crucially, he refuses to add any kind of public interest defence for journalists or their sources. Even the Sun calls the move a “licence for cover-up”, adding that a society where journalists and whistleblowers face jail even over leaks that are clearly in the public interest is “in the grip of oppression”.
But Johnson is bent not only on preventing his government from being held to account. More sinister, he is taking steps to ensure it can’t easily be replaced. He wants to tilt the playing field of electoral competition permanently in the government’s favour, and his first target is the referee.
The Conservatives’ elections bill hands ministers powers over what has, until now, been an independent Electoral Commission. Suddenly, ministers will be able to deploy the commission as they see fit, using it to define what counts as election campaigning. A minister could order the commission to impose a criminal penalty on a group that had been campaigning for, say, higher NHS pay, six months before an election was called, by retroactively defining that effort as election spending. It’s not hard to imagine ministers using that power selectively to hurt their opponents. Little wonder that an alliance of charities and trade unions, convened by the Best for Britain group, has called the change “an attack on the UK’s proud democratic tradition and some of our most fundamental rights”.
The same bill would require voters to show photo ID before being handed a ballot, a remedy for the nonexistent problem of voter fraud – and a practice known to exclude poorer voters less likely to back the Conservatives. Meanwhile, note who got the money from a £1bn fund set aside by the government for struggling towns: in a remarkable coincidence, 39 of the 45 towns chosen are in constituencies with a Conservative MP, even when that meant cash going to a Tory-held seat rather than the poorer place next door. That looks a lot like using public money as an electoral war chest to keep Tory seats Tory.
And let’s not forget a trick straight out of the Orbán or Donald Trump playbook. Ofcom, like the Electoral Commission, is meant to be independent. But Johnson persists in his determination to install in the chair an ideological ally: the former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre.
There is a pattern here, if we’re only willing to see it. A populist government hobbling those bodies that exist to keep it in check, trampling on democratic conventions and long-held rights, all to tighten its own grip on power. We need to recognise it, even when it wears a smile and tousled hair, and speaks in the soothing cadences of Eton College.
by ponchi101 They are springing all over the place.
by Suliso I've felt for some time that among the Silicon valley giants Facebook is the weakest link. Below NYT article saying essentially the same.
Facebook Is Weaker Than We Knew
A trove of leaked documents, published by The Wall Street Journal, hints at a company whose best days are behind it.
By Kevin Roose
One possible way to read “The Facebook Files,” The Wall Street Journal’s excellent series of reports based on leaked internal Facebook research, is as a story about an unstoppable juggernaut bulldozing society on its way to the bank.
The series has exposed damning evidence that Facebook has a two-tier justice system, that it knew Instagram was worsening body-image issues among girls and that it had a bigger vaccine misinformation problem than it let on, among other issues. And it would be easy enough to come away thinking that Facebook is terrifyingly powerful, and can be brought to heel only with aggressive government intervention.
But there’s another way to read the series, and it’s the interpretation that has reverberated louder inside my brain as each new installment has landed.
Which is: Facebook is in trouble.
Not financial trouble, or legal trouble, or even senators-yelling-at-Mark-Zuckerberg trouble. What I’m talking about is a kind of slow, steady decline that anyone who has ever seen a dying company up close can recognize. It’s a cloud of existential dread that hangs over an organization whose best days are behind it, influencing every managerial priority and product decision and leading to increasingly desperate attempts to find a way out. This kind of decline is not necessarily visible from the outside, but insiders see a hundred small, disquieting signs of it every day — user-hostile growth hacks, frenetic pivots, executive paranoia, the gradual attrition of talented colleagues.
It has become fashionable among Facebook critics to emphasize the company’s size and dominance while bashing its missteps. In a Senate hearing on Thursday, lawmakers grilled Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, with questions about the company’s addictive product design and the influence it has over its billions of users. Many of the questions to Ms. Davis were hostile, but as with most Big Tech hearings, there was an odd sort of deference in the air, as if the lawmakers were asking: Hey, Godzilla, would you please stop stomping on Tokyo?
But if these leaked documents proved anything, it is how un-Godzilla-like Facebook feels. The documents, shared with The Journal by Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, reveal a company worried that it is losing power and influence, not gaining it, with its own research showing that many of its products aren’t thriving organically. Instead, it is going to increasingly extreme lengths to improve its toxic image, and to stop users from abandoning its apps in favor of more compelling alternatives.
You can see this vulnerability on display in an installment of The Journal’s series that landed last week. The article, which cited internal Facebook research, revealed that the company has been strategizing about how to market itself to children, referring to preteens as a “valuable but untapped audience.” The article contained plenty of fodder for outrage, including a presentation in which Facebook researchers asked if there was “a way to leverage playdates to drive word of hand/growth among kids?”
It’s a crazy-sounding question, but it’s also revealing. Would a confident, thriving social media app need to “leverage playdates,” or concoct elaborate growth strategies aimed at 10-year-olds? If Facebook is so unstoppable, would it really be promoting itself to tweens as — and please read this in the voice of the Steve Buscemi “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme — a “Life Coach for Adulting?”
The truth is that Facebook’s thirst for young users is less about dominating a new market and more about staving off irrelevance. Facebook use among teenagers in the United States has been declining for years, and is expected to plummet even further soon — internal researchers predicted that daily use would decline 45 percent by 2023. The researchers also revealed that Instagram, whose growth offset declining interest in Facebook’s core app for years, is losing market share to faster-growing rivals like TikTok, and younger users aren’t posting as much content as they used to.
“Facebook is for old people” was the brutal verdict delivered by one 11-year-old boy to the company’s researchers, according to the internal documents.
A good way to think about Facebook’s problems is that they come in two primary flavors: problems caused by having too many users, and problems caused by having too few of the kinds of users it wants — culture-creating, trendsetting, advertiser-coveted young Americans.
The Facebook Files contains evidence of both types. One installment, for example, looked at the company’s botched attempts to stop criminal activity and human rights abuses in the developing world — an issue exacerbated by Facebook’s habit of expanding into countries where it has few employees and little local expertise.
But that kind of problem can be fixed, or at least improved, with enough resources and focus. The second type of problem — when tastemakers abandon your platforms en masse — is the one that kills you. And it appears to be the one that Facebook executives are most worried about.
Take the third article in The Journal’s series, which revealed how Facebook’s 2018 decision to change its News Feed algorithm to emphasize “meaningful social interactions” instead generated a spike in outrage and anger.
The algorithm change was portrayed at the time as a noble push for healthier conversations. But internal reports revealed that it was an attempt to reverse a yearslong decline in user engagement. Likes, shares and comments on the platform were falling, as was a metric called “original broadcasts.” Executives tried to reverse the decline by rejiggering the News Feed algorithm to promote content that garnered a lot of comments and reactions, which turned out to mean, roughly, “content that makes people very angry.”
“Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits,” said Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesman. “To say we turn a blind eye to feedback ignores these investments, including the 40,000 people working on safety and security at Facebook and our investment of $13 billion since 2016.”
It’s far too early to declare Facebook dead. The company’s stock price has risen nearly 30 percent in the past year, lifted by strong advertising revenue and a spike in use of some products during the pandemic. Facebook is still growing in countries outside the United States, and could succeed there even if it stumbles domestically. And the company has invested heavily in newer initiatives, like augmented and virtual reality products, that could turn the tide if they’re successful.
But Facebook’s research tells a clear story, and it’s not a happy one. Its younger users are flocking to Snapchat and TikTok, and its older users are posting anti-vaccine memes and arguing about politics. Some Facebook products are actively shrinking, while others are merely making their users angry or self-conscious.
Facebook’s declining relevance with young people shouldn’t necessarily make its critics optimistic. History teaches us that social networks rarely age gracefully, and that tech companies can do a lot of damage on the way down. (I’m thinking of MySpace, which grew increasingly seedy and spam-filled as it became a ghost town, and ended up selling off user data to advertising firms. But you could find similarly ignoble stories from the annals of most failed apps.) Facebook’s next few years could be uglier than its last few, especially if it decides to scale back its internal research and integrity efforts in the wake of the leaks.
None of this is to say that Facebook isn’t powerful, that it shouldn’t be regulated or that its actions don’t deserve scrutiny. It can simultaneously be true that Facebook is in decline and that it is still one of the most influential companies in history, with the ability to shape politics and culture all over the globe.
But we shouldn’t mistake defensiveness for healthy paranoia, or confuse a platform’s desperate flailing for a show of strength. Godzilla eventually died, and as the Facebook Files make clear, so will Facebook.
by ponchi101 In which movie did Godzilla eventually died?
I heard all this about Microsoft. It was old, it could not withstand Apple's newer, faster designs, it was "for old people", it would not be able to beat Google's Chrome OS, Linux would run it into the ground.
None of that happened.
I would not miss it ever. I don't use it. But it may end up being like beer companies too. They are selling less beer. But are selling water, seltzers, cocktails, etc.
To Kevin Roose: Yes, I have seen this movie before. The movie in which somebody wrote about the end of a company, and it never happened. When companies die, they die like Blackberry. Of a heart attack, not slow cancer.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Great. No mention that it is a Ponzi scheme. That helps.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 07, 2021 7:36 pm
Great. No mention that it is a Ponzi scheme. That helps.
I've listened to three Slate Money podcasts on crypto and every time I do I come away thinking that it's a scam. They had an Israeli woman on last week and all she did was spout Libertarian-esque slogans about freeing yourself from the tyranny of big banks. When asked about criminal use of this "currency" she went into her rant about "freedom to do what you want".
All that to say that ponchi is right.
by ti-amieAustria’s Kurz, Inner Circle Ensnared in Corruption Probe
By Jonathan Tirone and Boris Groendahl
October 6, 2021, 10:35 AM EDT Updated on October 6, 2021, 12:55 PM EDT
Chancellor implicated by prosecutor in a bribery investigation
Government denies wrongdoing, says it’s victim of witch hunt
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and members of his inner circle were implicated in a sprawling corruption investigation that threatens to open a new chapter of political turbulence in the Alpine nation.
Offices at Kurz’s Chancellery and several other locations were raided on Wednesday, according to an emailed statement by anti-corruption prosecutors.
The 35-year-old leader of Austria’s conservative People’s Party and others are under investigation for their alleged role in funneling federal funds to a newspaper publisher to orchestrate his rise in government, according to a separate 106-page legal document seen by Bloomberg, which summarizes the investigation and was filed with a criminal court in Vienna.
Kurz rejected the allegations, and said they were falsely constructed by taking text messages out of context, the chancellor said in an emailed statement.
It’s the second investigation to involve Kurz within the last year. Last month, a judge questioned the chancellor about the veracity of statements he provided to parliamentary investigators looking into the collapse of his previous government. During five hours of questioning, Kurz said that any allegations of perjury were baseless.
Prosecutors are now probing messages shared between Kurz, his chief strategist and media advisers, according to the recently filed document seen by Bloomberg. The communications occurred from 2016, when Kurz was Austria’s foreign minister, and allegedly detail how polling data and stories were strategically placed in newspapers to facilitate his rise to power.
Austria’s opposition parties called for an extraordinary parliamentary session in response to the prosecutor’s investigation while warning Kurz’s party not to interfere with the judiciary.
“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” said Joerg Leichtfried, a senior Social Democrat in parliament.
Message Control
In their court filing, prosecutors said evidence suggested Kurz knowingly collaborated in efforts to plant political advertising camouflaged as poll data.
“Sebastian Kurz is the central figure: all criminal actions are primarily done to further his interests,” read the document.
Since rising to power as Europe’s youngest head of government in 2017, Kurz’s administrations have been dogged by a string of controversies.
His first government with the country’s far-right populists disintegrated in 2019 after a lurid video shot on the Spanish island of Ibiza showed his coalition partner offering government contracts to a woman posing as a Russian oligarch’s niece. Subsequent parliamentary probes zeroed in on job postings and political favors.
The latest allegation “hits at the base” of Kurz’s current coalition with Austria’s Green Party, said Thomas Hofer, a political analyst and consultant in Vienna.
“Message control is one thing,” he said. “But if those allegations are true, this was not only manipulating the media, but also misleading the public.”
(Adds comment from Chancellor Kurz in 2nd paragraph.)
by JazzNU Anytime I've been on a forum or something and people are talking about cryptocurrency, I think man, this sounds shady AF and why am I the only one who thinks this has epic potential to blow up? Don't get me wrong, I wish to God I had bought some Bitcoin when it was like $40 back when I saw a discussion on it. But say I owned 10 Bitcoins into 2021, the only thing I'd have done is figure out the 20 steps necessary to turn it into actual cash so that I could actually buy something with it and I don't know how that all doesn't feel like you're trying to get out of a scam.
by ponchi101 Remember, I AM NOT SAYING IT. I wish I were that smart. I have read smart people calling it that: Nassim Nicholas Taleb was the latest one (although initially he was for it). I found this on line:
QUOTE
Right now, Bitcoin is a textbook Ponzi scheme:
It has no intrinsic value. You can’t eat it, wear it, or heat your house with it. Unlike gold — which at least feels nice and looks shiny on your spouse’s ring finger — you can’t even see Bitcoin.
It is not a productive asset. It’s not a factory that produces an item. It’s not a field that produces cucumbers. It’s not a firm that offers a service. It contributes nothing to society.
It has zero underlying value. None. It’s not backed by land or commodities or — as with national currencies like USD or GBP — the threat of violence (in the form of wage garnishment, asset seizure, and imprisonment.)
It has minimal utility. Because the price fluctuates so wildly (what healthy currency doubles in a month?), it’s virtually ineffective as a safe representation of value or means of trade.
Its value is solely derived from the trust that the price will continue to rise indefinitely. That there will always be new investors to buy out the old ones.
The evidence is crystal clear, and don’t trust any online Bitboy who tells you otherwise:
Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme… for now.
END QUOTE
I like the end. FOR NOW. We could be open to it becoming legit. But right now, it is being pushed here in Venezuela as an option to the Bolivar, and that is telling, as that currency is basically worthless, even WITHIN the country.
I don't know. I like the fact that if one were that crazy, one could go to a bank and ASK to see your money. "Put it all HERE. Let me see it. Then, deposit it again".
(Because, after all, when have you really SEEN your money?).
by dryrunguy My head hurts.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 07, 2021 10:22 pm
Remember, I AM NOT SAYING IT. I wish I were that smart. I have read smart people calling it that: Nassim Nicholas Taleb was the latest one (although initially he was for it). I found this on line:
QUOTE
Right now, Bitcoin is a textbook Ponzi scheme:
It has no intrinsic value. You can’t eat it, wear it, or heat your house with it. Unlike gold — which at least feels nice and looks shiny on your spouse’s ring finger — you can’t even see Bitcoin.
It is not a productive asset. It’s not a factory that produces an item. It’s not a field that produces cucumbers. It’s not a firm that offers a service. It contributes nothing to society.
It has zero underlying value. None. It’s not backed by land or commodities or — as with national currencies like USD or GBP — the threat of violence (in the form of wage garnishment, asset seizure, and imprisonment.)
It has minimal utility. Because the price fluctuates so wildly (what healthy currency doubles in a month?), it’s virtually ineffective as a safe representation of value or means of trade.
Its value is solely derived from the trust that the price will continue to rise indefinitely. That there will always be new investors to buy out the old ones.
The evidence is crystal clear, and don’t trust any online Bitboy who tells you otherwise:
Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme… for now.
END QUOTE
I like the end. FOR NOW. We could be open to it becoming legit. But right now, it is being pushed here in Venezuela as an option to the Bolivar, and that is telling, as that currency is basically worthless, even WITHIN the country.
I don't know. I like the fact that if one were that crazy, one could go to a bank and ASK to see your money. "Put it all HERE. Let me see it. Then, deposit it again".
(Because, after all, when have you really SEEN your money?).
What is a Ponzi scheme? See highlighted sentence.
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 07, 2021 10:22 pm
(Because, after all, when have you really SEEN your money?).
I haven't of course, but in 500 franc notes it would look a pitiably miniscule pile of cash...
by MJ2004 A Ponzi scheme or a Ponchi scheme?
by ponchi101 In a Ponchi scheme, even the FIRST investor loses his money.
Subtle, but different
by the Moz Isn't a ponzi scheme Darwinism for the investor set?
by ti-amie
the Moz wrote: ↑Fri Oct 08, 2021 1:54 am
Isn't a ponzi scheme Darwinism for the investor set?
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 There is now way that anybody posing with a AK-47 or an AR-15 DOES NOT look like a psychopath.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 I wonder if they can really put the screws on him.
by JazzNU I read about him the other day. Hopefully he flips on Maduro. And then I hope he gets put in gen pop in prison.
by ponchi101 We were surprised (the Vennies around the world) that Maduro's nephews did not provide more dirt on Uncle. Now they will linger in prison for 25 years, the bulk of their youth.
This guy must have so much details on this bunch of criminals that I wonder if he even needs to spill half of it to cur a deal with the USA.
Personally: dreams of Room 101, a Dremel tool and plenty of salt. Oh, and pliers. Many pliers.
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 19, 2021 2:43 pmWe were surprised (the Vennies around the world) that Maduro's nephews did not provide more dirt on Uncle. Now they will linger in prison for 25 years, the bulk of their youth.
This guy must have so much details on this bunch of criminals that I wonder if he even needs to spill half of it to cur a deal with the USA.
Personally: dreams of Room 101, a Dremel tool and plenty of salt. Oh, and pliers. Many pliers.
My guess is it works like the mafia. if you snitch, you end up in a ditch.
by ponchi101 Most likely, but, they ensured themselves 25 years in a max security prison. Rather trust the US govt, cut a deal, and give a witness protection program a chance.
And the Govt here is not Russia (sorry about that). It is not as if Nicolas even knows about polonium 210, or tricks like that. Their power really ends at the border.
by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 19, 2021 2:43 pm
We were surprised (the Vennies around the world) that Maduro's nephews did not provide more dirt on Uncle. Now they will linger in prison for 25 years, the bulk of their youth.
This guy must have so much details on this bunch of criminals that I wonder if he even needs to spill half of it to cur a deal with the USA.
Personally: dreams of Room 101, a Dremel tool and plenty of salt. Oh, and pliers. Many pliers.
From what I read, he's going to need to sing like a canary to cut a decent deal. Whatever they are picking him up on now is small potatoes. They are hoping to flip him to help make a case for narco terrorism against Maduro.
by Suliso
JazzNU wrote: ↑Tue Oct 19, 2021 4:40 pm They are hoping to flip him to help make a case for narco terrorism against Maduro.
Does it really matter? Maduro will never leave Venezuela.
JazzNU wrote: ↑Tue Oct 19, 2021 4:40 pm They are hoping to flip him to help make a case for narco terrorism against Maduro.
Does it really matter? Maduro will never leave Venezuela.
Ask Noriega if that's enough.
by ponchi101 Different era. The days of the USA intervening in S. America militarily are over. If they don't get involved, the people here hate the USA because they did nothing. If they do, they people here get mad because "the USA is meddling in S. America, as if we are their backyard". Case of damned if you, damned if you don't. So might as well not do anything, which is cheaper.
And Venezuela not even can be seen as a prize-jewel because of oil. It simply makes no sense for the USA to get involved more than things like this.
by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 19, 2021 7:32 pm
Different era. The days of the USA intervening in S. America militarily are over. If they don't get involved, the people here hate the USA because they did nothing. If they do, they people here get mad because "the USA is meddling in S. America, as if we are their backyard". Case of damned if you, damned if you don't. So might as well not do anything, which is cheaper.
And Venezuela not even can be seen as a prize-jewel because of oil. It simply makes no sense for the USA to get involved more than things like this.
Different era, same problem. The US can be creative when they want to be. In this instance, I think it's going to be less about Venezuela and more about dismantling one of the more significant cartels funneling drugs into the US.
by Suliso Demand for drugs in US is huge. Unless that changes there will always be this cartel or that one satisfying it.
by ponchi101 Only thing I would add would be that Maduro and his cronies are funneling huge amounts of drugs to the USA AND EU. They are equal opportunity criminals, in that aspect
by Suliso Not sure drug demand here is significantly less...
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Says a lot about Colombia's self confidence on handling these guys. Pretty embarrassing (to me)
by JazzNU I read about this earlier and with the announcements coming out of Colombia on capturing him, I'm definitely surprised he's getting extradited. BUT, maybe they are making an honest assessment of his reach since they are comparing him to Pablo Escobar. Mexico wasn't honest with themselves about El Chapo's reach and he was back to escaping thru bathtub tunnels and it was a greater embarrassment that he got away from their custody.
by mmmm8 With all the political instability of the last year, Colombia probably doesn't want to deal with the risks from keeping him. It's possible also that the US really wanted him and traded some aid or other favors.
by ponchi101
mmmm8 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 25, 2021 11:01 am
With all the political instability of the last year, Colombia probably doesn't want to deal with the risks from keeping him. It's possible also that the US really wanted him and traded some aid or other favors.
Possible? You are the winner, my dear!!!!
(There is no way the Colombian government is not going to either draw something right now from this or get a token for future favors. No way).
mmmm8 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 25, 2021 11:01 am
With all the political instability of the last year, Colombia probably doesn't want to deal with the risks from keeping him. It's possible also that the US really wanted him and traded some aid or other favors.
Possible? You are the winner, my dear!!!!
(There is no way the Colombian government is not going to either draw something right now from this or get a token for future favors. No way).
See, the latter (token for future favors) wouldn't warrant an explanation for me because I feel like the Colombian government have already paid a lifetime of dues in this vein.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amieLa Palma volcano eruption in pictures: houses burn to ground as lava spewed over island
Hundreds of homes have been destroyed so far and thousands evacuated
EUROPA PRESS/GETTY IMAGES
Experts do not know when this eruption will end
EUROPA PRESS /GETTY IMAGES
Members of the local police watched on last night
ANDRES GUTIERREZ/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES
The destruction encroaches on another house on the island. Up to 10,000 people are being evacuated
BORJA SUAREZ/REUTERS
Lava from the volcano flowed downhill towards the buildings below
BORJA SUAREZ/REUTERS
This clock tower looks as if it was made of cardboard.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie More video from Indonesia.
by JazzNU
by JazzNU ^^ Just a coincidence that the timing is planned near the Olympics or something Putin knows about vulnerabilities in global security with so much focus on the Games during that time? Because this is very similar timing to Russia invading Crimea too, at conclusion of the Sochi Olympics.
by ponchi101 Unless NATO gets involved, game over, Ukraine.
Next stop: Warsaw.
(Only half joking here).
by mmmm8
JazzNU wrote: ↑Sun Dec 05, 2021 7:54 pm
^^ Just a coincidence that the timing is planned near the Olympics or something Putin knows about vulnerabilities in global security with so much focus on the Games during that time? Because this is very similar timing to Russia invading Crimea too, at conclusion of the Sochi Olympics.
It's about not attracting world attention.
by JazzNU
by ponchi101 Let's se what the WSJ does now. Let's see if they will cower like almost everybody does with China (it is no longer Hong Kong).
by ti-amie
by mmmm8 Damn millenials
by ponchi101 Actually, I would vote for her AGAIN if I were Finn. My PM goes clubbing? Here's my vote.
(But I do agree with you )
I get that in this case, the result wasn't great, but there is soooooo much to love about a PM who goes clubbing until 4 AM AND leaves her work phone at home.
I get that in this case, the result wasn't great, but there is soooooo much to love about a PM who goes clubbing until 4 AM AND leaves her work phone at home.
Kevin
by ti-amie
How realistic is this scenario?
by ponchi101 They are viewing him as the problem NOW?
Because they never saw that this man was never meant to be the PM? And then politicians wonder why people have such a low opinion of them.
by ti-amieBoris Johnson and staff pictured with wine in Downing Street garden in May 2020
Exclusive: photograph raises fresh questions for No 10 after denial of a social event at time of Covid restrictions
Rowena Mason, Heather Stewart and Peter Walker
Sun 19 Dec 2021 18.37
The picture shows Boris and Carrie Johnson, bottles of wine and a lack of social distancing, calling into question No 10’s insistence that a ‘work meeting’ was under way.
Boris Johnson has been pictured with wine and cheese alongside his wife and up to 17 staff in the Downing Street garden during lockdown, raising questions over No 10’s insistence a “work meeting” was taking place.
The photograph was shared with the Guardian following No 10’s denial last week that there was a social event on Friday 15 May 2020 including wine, spirits and pizza inside and outside the building. Johnson’s spokesman said Downing Street staff were working in the garden in the afternoon and evening.
However, the picture raises questions over that assertion. Bottles of wine are in evidence, there is a lack of social distancing and 19 people are gathered in groups across the Downing Street terrace and lawn.
At the time social mixing between households was limited to two people, who could only meet outdoors and at a distance of at least 2 metres. In workplaces, guidance said in-person meetings should only take place if “absolutely necessary”.
Angela Rayner, the deputy leader of the Labour party, described the picture as “a slap in the face of the British public”, adding: “The prime minister consistently shows us he has no regard for the rules he puts in place for the rest of us. Alleged drinking and partying late into the evening [at No 10] when the rest of us were only recently getting one daily walk.”
The prime minister has faced a string of allegations of partying and socialising in No 10 while Covid restrictions were in place. He was forced to order a civil service inquiry, though its head stepped down on Friday over allegations of his own Christmas party.
The past week has been described as the worst of the prime minister’s premiership, with a major rebellion by Conservative MPs over Covid regulations followed by a historic byelection defeat and the shock departure of the Brexit minister, David Frost.
In the new image shared with the Guardian, Boris Johnson and Carrie, who appears to be holding their newborn baby, are seen sitting around a table with a cheeseboard and wine, along with two people believed to be a civil servant and an aide. Last week No 10 said Johnson was working in the garden before retiring to his flat at 7pm.
On that day Matt Hancock, then health secretary, had given a 5pm press conference urging people to stick to the rules and not take advantage of the good weather over the May weekend to socialise in groups.
At the time schools were still shut and pubs and restaurants were closed, with strict controls on social mixing. More people had been allowed to return to their workplaces, but guidance said social distancing of 2 metres should be followed at all times and “only absolutely necessary participants should attend meetings and should maintain 2-metre separation throughout”.
The Guardian reported last week, as part of a joint investigation with the Independent, that Johnson had been present for an alleged social gathering in Downing Street on 15 May 2020. Sources said the prime minister had spent about 15 minutes with staff, telling an aide inside No 10 that they deserved a drink for “beating back” coronavirus.
Insiders claimed about 20 staff drank wine and spirits and ate pizza following a press conference on that day, some in offices inside No 10 and others going into the garden. Some staff stayed drinking until late into the evening, they alleged. The sources described the event as having a “celebratory” feel given the initial loosening of some restrictions and the good weather in London that day.
by ponchi101 Gabriel Boric wins the Chilean elections, making more inroads for the left in L. America.
The only country that has never elected a leftist government is Colombia, which will do so in 22. With that, the majority of the continent will be held by the left, the notable exception being Brazil, being held by the lunatic far right.
by ti-amie Amb. McFaul is pimping his book but this comment is...something
by Togtdyalttai
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 20, 2021 5:32 pm
Gabriel Boric wins the Chilean elections, making more inroads for the left in L. America.
The only country that has never elected a leftist government is Colombia, which will do so in 22. With that, the majority of the continent will be held by the left, the notable exception being Brazil, being held by the lunatic far right.
I looked at profiles of the two candidates, and Kast, Boric's opponent, seemed to me like a clone of Bolsonaro, which I thought would be worse than Boric. Boric at least seemed to be in favor of democracy. It was a shame that those two had to be the two choices in the runoff though.
by ponchi101 Chile has been able NOT to produce extremists. Bachelet was leftist but not one of the loonies in the rest of the continent. Piñera was from the right, but not extreme. I hope Boric will keep that trend, and not go to an extreme.
by ti-amie
by mmmm8 Interesting staging
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Translation:
"We know that if Ukraine falls back under control of The USSR Russia, we will be next. Might as well fight them at THAT border".
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 3:53 pm
Translation:
"We know that if Ukraine falls back under control of The USSR Russia, we will be next. Might as well fight them at THAT border".
I think it's more, "We can't do much but we really hate Russia, so we'll do something symbolic and maybe the rest of Europe will grow some balls."
I'm not following why this escalation is in Putin's interest at the moment...
by ponchi101 Your opinion is obviously 10 times worth mine, but I always felt that Putin really, really never got over the dissolution of the USSR. He wants it back, together with the dissolution of the USA.
Which he is 1/4 of the way already.
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 7:05 pm
Your opinion is obviously 10 times worth mine, but I always felt that Putin really, really never got over the dissolution of the USSR. He wants it back, together with the dissolution of the USA.
Which he is 1/4 of the way already.
I'm not 100% sure the above is not true, but his motivations are also often driven by some sort of political gain or financial gain, so my first instinct is there is a domestic distraction he needs, but I'm not sure from what specifically at this exact time. Or maybe he's just getting old and feeling particularly imperialistic.
by JazzNU
by ti-amie
Tl;dr
The prime minister is facing fresh questions after newly published WhatsApp messages with the Tory peer David Brownlow show Johnson called parts of his Downing Street residence a “tip” and asked for “approvals” so his decor designer, Lulu Lytle, could “get on with it” in November 2020.
In British English I think a "tip" is a garbage dump.
by ti-amie
by JazzNU A question for those of you more familiar with Serbia than I am. Is there a country you can compare it to that gives me an idea of the level of democracy there? Because the last few days with the Novak Djerkovic drama have made me question much more what the deal is there. The media seems like it has the appearance of a free press, while not necessarily being one, with many seeming to be something similar to state media. Is that fairly accurate? Because from the things that I read, it sounds like there's been little coverage of any of Novax's testing dates, his post-positive movements, or general inconsistencies from the majority of the major publications there. Seems as if people there can likely find out through other means if they seek it out on their own, but looks like the story being told there is highly skewed, favorable to Djokovic and in line with the way the government wants him to be supported.
So, is there a country that you would say is a good comparison to Serbia?
by MJ2004
JazzNU wrote: ↑Fri Jan 14, 2022 4:50 pm
So, is there a country that you would say is a good comparison to Serbia?
by Suliso It is a somewhat flawed democracy, but still a democracy. Not sure what to compare with... Maybe some of the better places in South America? Argentina perhaps?
by ponchi101 I was about to say no way Argentina, and then... yes, Argentina. Novax is Serbia's Maradona, and NOTHING, NOTHING Maradona ever did was remotely criticized. Not because of lack of freedom of the press or anything structural, but rather because the man was god down there. Years after his death, there is not a week on which there is not a TV special in Argie ESPN about "El Diego".
So tangentially correct.
by mmmm8 I don't have a comparison but I don't think this is related to freedom of the media, more to culture. It's a very nationalistic country with very rich history and tradtions, but it's a small one that has lost a lot of power in the region, so they are standing by their man because they feel international attention he gets gets them global prestige.
As a democracy, it's a democracy, but with corruption. That typically means that corruption is accepted at all levels, so, let's say it's pretty obvious he faked the COVID test, I would expect a lot of Serbians to give that a pass because they've all done or seen things like that done. The media should still report it, but the locals may not find it inexcusable like many Australians might.
by ponchi101 I know that we have been distracted by Novax' plight but... A little something is happening in Eastern Europe.
Will NATO really stand up to Putin this time? it seems like this talk of war is not idle; some harsher than usual words are being thrown around. I am reading on the issue and it does seem that both sides are not just bluffing.
I started a poll at first post of this topic (I can easily delete it later)
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 14, 2022 8:08 pm
I know that we have been distracted by Novax' plight but... A little something is happening in Eastern Europe.
Will NATO really stand up to Putin this time? it seems like this talk of war is not idle; some harsher than usual words are being thrown around. I am reading on the issue and it does seem that both sides are not just bluffing.
I started a poll at first post of this topic (I can easily delete it later)
I've been watching this via Political, Diplomatic and World News Twitter. It's frightening.
by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 14, 2022 8:08 pm
I know that we have been distracted by Novax' plight but... A little something is happening in Eastern Europe.
Will NATO really stand up to Putin this time? it seems like this talk of war is not idle; some harsher than usual words are being thrown around. I am reading on the issue and it does seem that both sides are not just bluffing. I started a poll at first post of this topic (I can easily delete it later)
First reaction was that given Putin's involvement the "sense will prevail" option was deserving of a laughing face emoji next to it.
First reaction was that given Putin's involvement the "sense will prevail" option was deserving of a laughing face emoji next to it.
Agree. But sometimes I have to pretend that I do not have the cynical dialed to 11.
And this is one occasion in which I really have doubts and do not have a formed opinion. The way the USA is working nowadays means the GOP may not even back Biden on any form or military conflict. The UK is led by the buffoon, so that is a wildcard. Germany no longer has Merkel, who was the most knowledgeable western figure regarding Russia. France is a blank to me with Macron. And the countries that are directly affected are small and the EU may, as it has been done in the past, decide that life is good for them and stick their heads in the sand.
by mmmm8 Well, what does "sense will prevail" mean?
My answer is that there will be a conflict, it'll involve Russia and Ukraine (and unofficial military aid to Ukraine).
by ti-amie I picked that sense will prevail. Why not?
by ti-amie So this happened last night for those of us not in this time zone.
You can see the shock wave(s).
Here is a different view
by ti-amie Water level view of eruption
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Impressive.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by JazzNU
Eastern Europe Tests New Forms of Media Censorship
With new, less repressive tactics, countries like Serbia, Poland and Hungary are deploying highly effective tools to skew public opinion.
by Andre Higgins
BELGRADE, Serbia — When Covid-19 reached Eastern Europe in the spring of 2020, a Serbian journalist reported a severe shortage of masks and other protective equipment. She was swiftly arrested, thrown in a windowless cell and charged with inciting panic.
The journalist, Ana Lalic, was quickly released and even got a public apology from the government in what seemed like a small victory against old-style repression by Serbia’s authoritarian president, Aleksandar Vucic.
But Ms. Lalic was then vilified for weeks as a traitor by much of the country’s news media, which has come increasingly under the control of Mr. Vucic and his allies as Serbia adopts tactics favored by Hungary and other states now in retreat from democracy across Europe’s formerly communist eastern fringe.
“For the whole nation, I became a public enemy,” she recalled.
Serbia no longer jails or kills critical journalists, as happened under the rule of Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s. It now seeks to destroy their credibility and ensure few people see their reports.
The muting of critical voices has greatly helped Mr. Vucic — and also the country’s most well-known athlete, the tennis star Novak Djokovic, whose visa travails in Australia have been portrayed as an intolerable affront to the Serb nation. The few remaining outlets of the independent news media mostly support him but take a more balanced approach.
Across the region, from Poland in the north to Serbia in the south, Eastern Europe has become a fertile ground for new forms of censorship that mostly eschew brute force but deploy gentler yet effective tools to constrict access to critical voices and tilt public opinion — and therefore elections — in favor of those in power.
Television has become so biased in support of Mr. Vucic, according to Zoran Gavrilovic, the executive director of Birodi, an independent monitoring group, that Serbia has “become a big sociological experiment to see just how far media determines opinion and elections.”
Serbia and Hungary — countries in the vanguard of what V-Dem Institute, a Swedish research group, described last year as a “global wave of autocratization” — both hold general elections in April, votes that will test whether media control works.
A recent Birodi survey of news reports on Serbian television found that over a three-month period from September, Mr. Vucic was given more than 44 hours of coverage, 87 percent of it positive, compared with three hours for the main opposition party, 83 percent of which was negative.
Nearly all of the negative coverage of Mr. Vucic appeared on N1, an independent news channel that broadcast Ms. Lalic’s Covid-19 reports. But a bitter war for market share is playing out between the cable provider that hosts N1 — Serbian Broadband, or SBB — and the state-controlled telecommunications company, Telekom Srbija.
Telekom Srbija recently made a move that many saw as an unfair effort to make SBB less attractive to consumers when it snagged from SBB the rights to broadcast English soccer by offering to pay 700 percent more for them.
Telekom Srbija’s offer, nearly $700 million for six seasons, is an astronomical amount for a country with only seven million people — and nearly four times what a media company in Russia, a far bigger market, has agreed to pay the Premier League each season for broadcast rights.
“It is very difficult to compete if you have a competitor that does not really care about profit,” SBB’s chief executive, Milija Zekovic, said in an interview.
Telekom Srbija declined to make its executives available for comment, but in public statements, the company has described its investments in English soccer and elsewhere as driven by commercial concerns, not politics.
“Their goal is to kill SBB,” Dragan Solak, the chairman of SBB’s parent company, United Group, said in an interview in London. “In the Balkans,” he added, “you do not want to be a bleeding shark.”
Eager to stay in the game, Mr. Solak announced this month that a private investment company he controls had bought Southampton FC, an English Premier League soccer team. Broadcast rights for the league will stay with his state-controlled rival, but part of the huge sum it agreed to pay for them will now pass to Mr. Solak.
Government loyalists run Serbia’s five main free-to-air television channels, including the supposedly neutral public broadcaster, RTS. The only television outlets in Serbia that give airtime to the opposition and avoid hagiographic coverage of Mr. Vucic are Mr. Solak’s cable news channel N1, which is affiliated with CNN, and his TV Nova.
Without them, Mr. Solak said, Serbia “will be heading into the dark ages like North Korea.”
Space for critical media has been shrinking across the region, with V-Dem Institute, the Swedish research group, now ranking Serbia, Poland and Hungary among its “top 10 autocratizing countries,” citing “assaults on the judiciary and restrictions on the media and civil society.” Freedom House now classifies Serbia as “partly free.”
In each country, security forces — the primary tools for muzzling critical voices during the communist era — have been replaced in this role by state-controlled and state-dependent companies that exert often irresistible pressure on the news media.
Poland’s governing party, Law and Justice, has turned the country’s public broadcaster, TVP, into a propaganda bullhorn, while a state-run oil company has taken over a string of regional newspapers, though some national print outlets still regularly assail the government.
In December, Law and Justice pushed through legislation that would have squeezed out the only independent television news channel, the American-owned TVN24, but the Polish president, worried about alienating Washington, vetoed the bill.
Hungary has gone further, gathering hundreds of news outlets into a holding company controlled by allies of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Only one television station with national reach is critical of Mr. Orban and financially independent from his government.
Mr. Orban’s previously divided political rivals have formed a united front to fight elections in April but have been unsuccessful in shaking his stranglehold on the news media.
In Serbia, the media space for critical voices has shrunk so far, said Zoran Sekulic, the founder and editor of FoNet, an independent news agency, that “the level of control, direct and indirect, is like in the 1990s” under Mr. Milosevic, whom Mr. Vucic served as information minister.
Journalists, Mr. Sekulic added, do not get killed anymore, but the system of control endures, only “upgraded and improved” to ensure fawning coverage without brute force.
When United Group started a relatively opposition-friendly newspaper last year, it could not find a printer in Serbia willing to touch it. The newspaper is printed in neighboring Croatia and sent into Serbia.
Dragan Djilas, the leader of Serbia’s main opposition party and formerly a media executive, complained that while Mr. Vucic could talk for hours without interruption on Serbia’s main television channels, opposition politicians appeared mostly only as targets for attack. “I am like an actor in a silent movie,” he said.
N1, the only channel that sometimes lets him talk, is widely watched in Belgrade, the capital, but is blocked in many towns and cities where mayors are members of Mr. Vucic’s party. Even in Belgrade, the cable company that hosts the channel has faced trouble entering new housing projects built by property developers with close ties to the government. A huge new housing area under construction for security officials near Belgrade, for example, has refused to install SBB’s cable, the company said.
Viewers of pro-government channels “live in a parallel universe,” said Zeljko Bodrozic, the president of the Independent Journalists Association of Serbia. Channels like TV Pink, the most popular national station, which features sexually explicit reality shows and long statements by Mr. Vucic, he said, “don’t just indoctrinate, but make people stupid.”
The European Union and the United States have repeatedly rebuked Mr. Vucic over the lack of media pluralism, but, eager to keep Serbia from embracing Russia or stoking unrest in neighboring Bosnia, have not pushed hard.
This has given Mr. Vucic a largely free hand to expand the media control that Rasa Nedeljkov, the program director in Belgrade for the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability, described as “the skeleton of his whole system.” In some ways, he added, Serbia’s space for critical media is now smaller than it was under Mr. Milosevic, who “didn’t really care about having total control” and left various regional outlets untouched.
“Vucic is now learning from this mistake by Milosevic,” Mr. Nedeljkov said. Mr. Vucic and his allies, Mr. Nedeljkov added, “are not tolerating anything that is different.”
Once powerful independent voices have gradually been co-opted. The radio station B92, which regularly criticized Mr. Milosevic during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, for example, is now owned by a supporter of Mr. Vucic and mostly parrots the government line.
Journalists and others who upset Mr. Vucic face venomous attacks by tabloid newspapers loyal to the authorities. Mr. Solak, the United Group chairman, for example, has been denounced as “Serbia’s biggest scammer,” a crook gnawing at the country “like scabies” and a traitor working for Serbia’s foreign foes.
Mr. Solak, who lives outside Serbia because of safety concerns, said he had become such a regular target for abuse that when he does not get attacked, “my friends call me and ask: What happened? Are you OK?”
by dryrunguy Thanks so much for posting the news about Burkina Faso, Jazz. Sidebar: While I have stopped lending on Kiva for a whole host of reasons, I am still responsible for managing an online store that recommends vetted Kiva loans for Kiva lenders affiliated with the atheist team. I cannot tell you how many times in recent years political upheaval or even government policy changes have resulted in MAJOR losses for Kiva lenders. I hope I am just overreacting to this news, but out of an abundance of caution, I have removed loans to borrowers in Burkina Faso from the online A+ store because the purpose of the store is to recommend loans to lenders that have a high probability of repayment. It is well within the realm of possibility that the new government will prohibit MFIs in Burkina Faso from wiring money outside of the country.
Please feel free to share any updates here, Jazz. I will also try to continue to monitor the situation.
It's very sad.
by JazzNU
by ponchi101 Not incredible news in the sense that everybody knows that if Russia wants to invade Ukraine the only stop is the Polish border, unless NATO intervenes.
The question is how much of a (expletive) will NATO give. I say Europe gives zero (expletive)'s.
by ti-amie
by mmmm8
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:01 am
Thanks so much for posting the news about Burkina Faso, Jazz. Sidebar: While I have stopped lending on Kiva for a whole host of reasons, I am still responsible for managing an online store that recommends vetted Kiva loans for Kiva lenders affiliated with the atheist team. I cannot tell you how many times in recent years political upheaval or even government policy changes have resulted in MAJOR losses for Kiva lenders. I hope I am just overreacting to this news, but out of an abundance of caution, I have removed loans to borrowers in Burkina Faso from the online A+ store because the purpose of the store is to recommend loans to lenders that have a high probability of repayment. It is well within the realm of possibility that the new government will prohibit MFIs in Burkina Faso from wiring money outside of the country.
Please feel free to share any updates here, Jazz. I will also try to continue to monitor the situation.
It's very sad.
Why did you stop lending on Kiva?
One of my close friends is from Burkina Faso... She is related to the now-removed president
by ti-amie
by mmmm8 BTW, thanks for posting, Jazz! Very busy time at work so I've only skimmed the news headlines and of course, this wasn't at the top of them. I wouldn't have known to check in on my friend otherwise (she is in NY by the way, but not most of her family).
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:01 am
Thanks so much for posting the news about Burkina Faso, Jazz. Sidebar: While I have stopped lending on Kiva for a whole host of reasons, I am still responsible for managing an online store that recommends vetted Kiva loans for Kiva lenders affiliated with the atheist team. I cannot tell you how many times in recent years political upheaval or even government policy changes have resulted in MAJOR losses for Kiva lenders. I hope I am just overreacting to this news, but out of an abundance of caution, I have removed loans to borrowers in Burkina Faso from the online A+ store because the purpose of the store is to recommend loans to lenders that have a high probability of repayment. It is well within the realm of possibility that the new government will prohibit MFIs in Burkina Faso from wiring money outside of the country.
Please feel free to share any updates here, Jazz. I will also try to continue to monitor the situation.
It's very sad.
Why did you stop lending on Kiva?
One of my close friends is from Burkina Faso... She is related to the now-removed president
Sorry about your friend.
As for Kiva, there were a host of reasons why I decided to quit. I could go into great detail about the changes they made to the borrower profiles, which included burying really critical field partner repayment data and other things--or eliminating them from borrower profiles entirely.
Some of that information has been added back in due to the outcry from long-term lenders like myself who relied heavily on this stuff. These details would bore you to death.
But when people get pissed off, they also go digging.
That digging showed that the CEO of Kiva makes nearly $800,000/year--which seems pretty excessive for an organization that calls itself a charity, even if it is based in the Silicon Valley. In fact, the Kiva CEO and the members of the board of directors making something like $2.5 million/year combined--and that increased significantly during the pandemic. Further digging and reviews of Kiva's financial statements showed that Kiva is getting about $2.3 million/year by charging its field partners fees for accessing capital. So Kiva is basically making money off of organizations dedicated to serving the poor and providing capital to the poor.
So yeah, I'm done. Lenders are leaving in droves. But we're all being replaced by new lenders who prefer to think of their contributions as donations rather than loans and love the reduced amount of information on the borrower profiles.
It's actually more complicated than that, but these are the key snapshots.
by mmmm8 That's too bad... I've been been lending (small amounts) on the site ever since you turned us onto it years ago but, admittedly, have been complacent about tracking the organization and haven't paid much attention to the details.
Is there an alternative microlending service you'd recommend?
by dryrunguy
mmmm8 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 11:45 am
That's too bad... I've been been lending (small amounts) on the site ever since you turned us onto it years ago but, admittedly, have been complacent about tracking the organization and haven't paid much attention to the details.
Is there an alternative microlending service you'd recommend?
Well, FYI, another major change that Kiva made in the past year or so was how it dealt with inactive accounts. At one point, Kiva had about $20 million just sitting in inactive accounts--doing nothing. So it sent out a massive number of emails to users with inactive accounts and informed them that the funds in their accounts would be autolended on their behalf unless they opted out (by turning off autolending in their settings). So if you didn't have autolending turned off, then your funds have been re-lended as repayments come in. So you may want to look into that and see where your account stands.
I actually supported that move for two reasons. One, it was a massive amount of money just sitting in accounts. Two, since Kiva did that, very few loans have failed to raise the amount requested. A few years ago, thousands of loans were expiring each month because they failed to raise the full amount. That doesn't happen anymore.
But even that move had a major downside. Each time Kiva makes a loan via autolending using inactive accounts, it gives itself a 15% donation. THAT's sketchy. And it's not sustainable.
::
As for alternatives, if you don't care about interacting with other lenders, www.lendwithcare.org is good. It's hard to find field partner repayment info, and I don't think they do a particularly good job of keeping that info up-to-date. The site is a little clunky. And since it is based in the UK, they operate in British pounds--not U.S. dollars. But is a good organization and a subset of CARE International, which seems to have an excellent reputation.
mmmm8 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 11:45 am
That's too bad... I've been been lending (small amounts) on the site ever since you turned us onto it years ago but, admittedly, have been complacent about tracking the organization and haven't paid much attention to the details.
Is there an alternative microlending service you'd recommend?
Well, FYI, another major change that Kiva made in the past year or so was how it dealt with inactive accounts. At one point, Kiva had about $20 million just sitting in inactive accounts--doing nothing. So it sent out a massive number of emails to users with inactive accounts and informed them that the funds in their accounts would be autolended on their behalf unless they opted out (by turning off autolending in their settings). So if you didn't have autolending turned off, then your funds have been re-lended as repayments come in. So you may want to look into that and see where your account stands.
I actually supported that move for two reasons. One, it was a massive amount of money just sitting in accounts. Two, since Kiva did that, very few loans have failed to raise the amount requested. A few years ago, thousands of loans were expiring each month because they failed to raise the full amount. That doesn't happen anymore.
But even that move had a major downside. Each time Kiva makes a loan via autolending using inactive accounts, it gives itself a 15% donation. THAT's sketchy. And it's not sustainable.
::
As for alternatives, if you don't care about interacting with other lenders, www.lendwithcare.org is good. It's hard to find field partner repayment info, and I don't think they do a particularly good job of keeping that info up-to-date. The site is a little clunky. And since it is based in the UK, they operate in British pounds--not U.S. dollars. But is a good organization and a subset of CARE International, which seems to have an excellent reputation.
Thank you! Re: auto-lending, they actually sent those emails to everyone, I think. I'm an active user and I still get them threatening to auto-lend - I like to pick my own loans and opt to give to the loan vs the donation, so I just log in every time I get one.
Boris Johnson receives heavy criticism from MPs in the Commons in the wake of Sue Gray's report into lockdown parties
Labour leader Keir Starmer says he is taking the public for fools and "hiding behind" a police investigation
Former Tory PM Theresa May questions if the PM felt Covid rules didn't apply to him
Johnson says he is sorry, that he accepts the report and that he will make changes to No 10
Sue Gray's report identifies "failures of leadership and judgment" in Downing Street
She looked at 16 events in total but the Met Police are investigating 12 of them so she had to leave details out
The police say they have been handed more than 300 photos and will start contacting individuals soon
Gray's findings come as some Tory MPs are still weighing up if they want Johnson to continue as PM
by ponchi101 Some Tory MP's want BJ to continue as PM?
Ok. Sure.
by the Moz 'I didn't know it was a party'
'I didn't know what the rules were'
BoJo as British PM =
by mmmm8 I wish Theresa May were funny, then she could have added the option that "they can't read" as a possibility...
by the Moz I wish Ms. May had been able to pass her thrice-rejected EU Withdrawal Agreement. Perhaps then she could have prevented this clown from snatching her premiership.
by ti-amie
by ti-amieRotterdam to dismantle part of historic bridge so Jeff Bezos’s massive yacht can pass through
A picture shows barges docked on the Koningshaven waterway near the “De Hef” lift bridge and the Koninginnebrug drawbridge in Rotterdam. (SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP via Getty Images)
By Miriam Berger
Today at 1:21 p.m. EST
Rotterdam has agreed to temporarily dismantle part of its historic Koningshaven Bridge so that Jeff Bezos’s 417-foot-long, three-mast yacht can pass through the waterway sometime this summer, according to a spokeswoman for the city.
The Dutch company Oceano has been building the massive vessel for an estimated $500 million in the nearby city of Alblasserdam. Once completed this year, the ship, known as Y721, will be the world’s largest sailing yacht, according to Boat International.
But to reach the open seas it must first pass through Rotterdam — considered the maritime capital of Europe — and the city’s historic steel bridge, locally known as De Hef, which has a clearance of just over 131 feet.
Originally built in 1927, De Hef was a railway bridge and the first of its kind in Western Europe, with a central span that could be lifted to allow ship traffic to pass underneath. It was decommissioned in 1994 after being replaced by a tunnel, but later declared a national monument. The bridge underwent a major restoration from 2014 to 2017, after which the city said it would not be dismantled again, according to the Dutch broadcaster Rijnmond, which first reported on the yacht agreement.
Although the exact plans, timetable and costs have not been set, Oceano and Bezos will pay to dismantle the bridge, Rijnmond reported.
Frances van Heijst, the Rotterdam municipality spokeswoman, confirmed by phone that the city would not be footing the bill. She said the shipbuilder bears the cost of hiring a company to carry out the bridge’s deconstruction and reassembly, but that she could not provide an estimate or breakdown of the cost as “a lot of details need to be worked out.”
Representatives for Bezos and Oceano did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bezos, estimated to be one of the world’s richest people, owns The Washington Post. Last year, he stepped down as chief executive of Amazon, the online retail giant he founded.
mmmm8 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 03, 2022 12:49 pm
But is the yacht shaped like a phallus?
It will be shaped like a...
Nah, I can't ban myself. It is technically impossible.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by JazzNU
by ti-amie Odd how it's Partygate and not the snafu's surrounding Brexit that are greasing the skids for him.
by ti-amie
by ti-amiePolice rescue Keir Starmer after protesters berate him near parliament
Boris Johnson criticised after anti-vax protesters shout ‘traitor’ and ‘Jimmy Savile’ at Labour leader
Jessica Elgot
@jessicaelgot
Mon 7 Feb 2022 18.53 GMT
MPs from all sides angrily rounded on Boris Johnson and accused him of whipping up political poison after the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, was set upon by protesters who accused him of protecting the paedophile Jimmy Savile.
Johnson provoked widespread fury last week when he suggested Starmer had protected Savile during his time as director of public prosecutions. The comments drew criticism from two former Tory chief whips and prompted the resignation of a long-serving aide.
On Monday, Starmer and the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, had to be bundled into a police car after anti-vax protesters surrounded him near parliament with shouts of “traitor” and “Jimmy Savile”. One witness said a protester carried a hangman’s noose prop, which another protester had joked was for Starmer.
Lammy said it was “no surprise the conspiracy theorist thugs who harassed Keir Starmer and I repeated slurs we heard from Boris Johnson last week at the dispatch box. Intimidation, harassment and lies have no place in our democracy. And they won’t ever stop me doing my job.”
The former chief whip Julian Smith, who has called on Johnson to apologise, described the events as appalling. “It is really important for our democracy and for his security that the false Savile slurs made against him are withdrawn in full.”
Tory MP Rob Largan also said it was time to defuse the situation. “Words matter. What we say and how we say it echoes out far beyond parliament. It can have serious real world consequences. Elected representatives have a responsibility to lower the temperature of debate, not add fuel to the fire.”
Boris Johnson said the behaviour “directed at the leader of the opposition tonight is absolutely disgraceful” but stopped short of apologising for his remarks. “All forms of harassment of our elected representatives are completely unacceptable. I thank the police for responding swiftly,” he said.
Labour sources were furious at the incident, though Starmer was unharmed and escorted back to his office within minutes. “Boris Johnson and his cabinet chose to lie down with the dogs – and now the whole lot of them are covered in fleas,” one Labour source said.
The row has been cited by a number of Tory MPs who have submitted letters of no confidence in the prime minister, 54 of which must be sent to trigger a vote of no confidence in him.
During an exchange in the House of Commons last Monday, Johnson said Starmer was “a former director of public prosecutions, who spent more time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”. Starmer did not take the decision personally but had apologised for institutional failings after Savile’s abuse was revealed.
Munira Mirza, one of Johnson’s closest aides who headed the No 10 policy unit, quit on Thursday after urging Johnson to retract the comments. Cabinet ministers have also expressed unease at the remarks, including the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, during a national press conference, saying “I wouldn’t have said it”. Other cabinet ministers have defended the remarks – including the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, and the justice secretary, Dominic Raab, who called it part of the “cut and thrust” of politics.
The incident on Monday night prompted renewed anger from MPs. Labour’s Chris Bryant tweeted that Johnson’s comments were directly responsible for circulating links between Starmer and Savile, which had originally appeared on far-right websites.
“This is appalling. People were shouting all sorts at Keir, including ‘Jimmy Savile’. This is what happens when a prime minister descends into the gutter and recycles lies from hard-right conspiracy theorists. Political poison has an effect. Johnson has no moral compass,” he wrote.
The shadow minister, Yasmin Qureshi, said: “The PM enabled and actively encouraged this.” Liam Byrne, the MP and former mayoral candidate, said: “The best of this country will always defeat the worst. But now we see clearly the kind of behaviour Boris Johnson is prepared to incite.”
The Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, also blamed Johnson for amplifying false claims. “This is what happens when fake news is amplified and given credibility by people who should know better. Solidarity with Keir Starmer and David Lammy. Thank you to the Met officers for their swift intervention.”
The health secretary, Sajid Javid, had earlier said it was time to “move on” from the row over Johnson’s Savile comments. “I think we should draw a line under this issue and try to move on because the prime minister has come forward and clarified his remarks.”
Johnson is expected to reshuffle his team on Tuesday, including a shake-up of the whips’ office that could see the chief, Mark Spencer, sacked. Chris Pincher, a housing minister and ally of the prime minister, is tipped to replace him.
The prime minister will also continue the overhaul of his back office team, after recruiting Steve Barclay, the Cabinet Office minister, as his chief of staff, and Guto Harri, his former spokesperson, as his new director of comms. Henry Newman, the deputy chief of staff, and an ally of Carrie Johnson, is also leaving No 10 to return to a job in Michael Gove’s team.
Barclay addressed No 10 staff on Monday saying he wanted to create a “mutually supportive” environment after difficult recent weeks and assuring them his doors is “always open”. He will now divide his time between No 10 and the Cabinet Office, with some of his portfolio distributed to other ministers.
Harri was also present at the staff meeting, after drawing criticism from Labour over his previous job for a lobbying firm and a media interview in which he recounted Johnson appearing to make light of his troubles by singing: “I will survive”.
Labour called for more scrutiny of Harri’s past work for the lobbying firm, saying: “We can’t have the revolving door from lobbying to government see potential national security issues arise. We need full transparency from Guto Harri about all contact he had with government in his former role as a lobbyist and who his clients were.”
Scotland Yard said two arrests were made following clashes between police and protesters on the Victoria Embankment after Starmer was taken to safety. A Met police statement said: “Shortly after 5.10pm on Monday, 7 February, a man who had been surrounded by a group of protesters near to New Scotland Yard, was taken away from the scene by a police car.
“A man and a woman were arrested at the scene for assault of an emergency worker after a traffic cone was thrown at a police officer. They have been taken into custody.”
by ponchi101 But that is how he thinks. He has gotten away with anything and everything for years now. Why would he change?
by JazzNU I remember him saying sort of a rape joke in the past (maybe related to an Israeli diplomat?), so this isn't surprising.
by ponchi101 Has also boasted that "our prostitutes are the best".
I will yield to M8, but it is part of a cultural thing.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Once again for those in the back:
by ti-amie And for those asking why war?
by Suliso If I was a general in a computer game I'd use forces in Belarus for the main attack of Kyiv while using an attack from the South and the East as a distraction.
Did he also not eat, drink, or touch anything the whole visit?
by mmmm8 I really don't want to be proven wrong, but I don't think Russia would possible airstrike Kiev. The two countries are still too culturally tied together and destroying a city many Russians know and have friends and family in could backfire quite a bit domestically.
One of the replies to the NYT part, there are several telling them to delete it because it's incorrect and misleading information
Stéphanie Chouinard@DrSChouinard
Replying to @nytimes
This is wrong. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is explicitly upheld in the Act.
You guys are really doing a terrible job covering this. Call some Canadians perhaps.
by JazzNU
by JazzNU Also...
by ponchi101 This is the moment Vlad tests all other nations. He invades Ukraine and they do nothing, and it is game, set, match, Vlad. He will know that he can slowly annex all other FSU republics, either by force or by a little arm twisting.
by JazzNU
by ti-amie
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 15, 2022 12:47 am
This is the moment Vlad tests all other nations. He invades Ukraine and they do nothing, and it is game, set, match, Vlad. He will know that he can slowly annex all other FSU republics, either by force or by a little arm twisting.
That's easy to say, not so easy to do. Sanctions maybe a great idea, but the Russian gas is needed anyway. There just isn't enough alternative energy sources in the World and the lights do need to be kept on. A big dilemma...
As for Ukraine invading maybe easy, maintaining the occupation not necessarily so. As both USSR and USA found out in Afghanistan...
That's easy to say, not so easy to do. Sanctions maybe a great idea, but the Russian gas is needed anyway. There just isn't enough alternative energy sources in the World and the lights do need to be kept on. A big dilemma...
As for Ukraine invading maybe easy, maintaining the occupation not necessarily so. As both USSR and USA found out in Afghanistan...
Again, in writing, I should be more careful. Vlad would not invade Ukraine, he would annex it. It would be radically different from invading Afghanistan, as it is one country with the same language and, I guess, a very similar culture.
You are totally correct in that Russia has Europe by the throat with their energy dependence. But if that is the case, then they have to stop it. Germany, especially, made that dumb decision to shut down all their nuclear power plants a few years ago, which were replaced by coal and gas. Well, not only dumb environmentally, also dumb politically, as time has proven. But re-starting those things would take only a couple of years, not decades.
But now they have to deal with a poorly made decision, and Vlad will mark his new border in Poland. Which will be next, years from now.
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 15, 2022 4:09 pm
Again, in writing, I should be more careful. Vlad would not invade Ukraine, he would annex it. It would be radically different from invading Afghanistan, as it is one country with the same language and, I guess, a very similar culture.
I think here you're mistaken. Similar it might be, but any invasion is likely to be anything but a walk in the park. Not very much love for Russia as a country left in Ukraine. Irish also speak mostly English, but do we say they're all the same?
by ti-amie
by JazzNU Protestors? Sound more like extremists or terrorists.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 15, 2022 4:09 pm
Again, in writing, I should be more careful. Vlad would not invade Ukraine, he would annex it. It would be radically different from invading Afghanistan, as it is one country with the same language and, I guess, a very similar culture.
I think here you're mistaken. Similar it might be, but any invasion is likely to be anything but a walk in the park. Not very much love for Russia as a country left in Ukraine. Irish also speak mostly English, but do we say they're all the same?
I did not say SAME, I said SIMILAR. And the cultures in the UK are indeed similar, with their regional quirks.
How difficult was for Russia to annex Crimea? On a scale from 1 to 10, a 2? Why should the Eastern portion of Ukraine be different?
by Suliso A lot of things have changed since 2014. At that time Putin took everyone by surprise, no chance of that anymore. People see what has happened to Donetsk and Crimea under Russian rule.
Maybe Putin decides to invade anyway, but if not then I think the major factor in his thinking will have been the following:
- far more modern weapons in Ukraine than 8 years ago and a unified public opinion. They still couldn't stop the Russian army entirely, but loses would be high and potential for a protracted civil war as well.
- relatively uniform response from the West (sanction threats, weapons etc.)
- public opinion in Russia is not calling for a major war either (ok, this one maybe he doesn't care about)
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Photos of Storm Eunice hitting the British Isles
Storm Eunice produces strong winds and large waves in Porthleven, Cornwall, Britain on Feb. 18. (Tom Nicholson/Reuters)
The white-domed roof of the O2 arena is seen damaged by wind, as a red weather warning was issued with Storm Eunice in London on Feb. 18. (Stefan Rousseau/PA/AP)
A photographer kneels on the beach as waves crash over Newhaven harbor wall in southern England on Feb. 18. (Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images)
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 15, 2022 4:09 pm
Again, in writing, I should be more careful. Vlad would not invade Ukraine, he would annex it. It would be radically different from invading Afghanistan, as it is one country with the same language and, I guess, a very similar culture.
I think here you're mistaken. Similar it might be, but any invasion is likely to be anything but a walk in the park. Not very much love for Russia as a country left in Ukraine. Irish also speak mostly English, but do we say they're all the same?
I did not say SAME, I said SIMILAR. And the cultures in the UK are indeed similar, with their regional quirks.
How difficult was for Russia to annex Crimea? On a scale from 1 to 10, a 2? Why should the Eastern portion of Ukraine be different?
A bit late on this, but agree completely with Suliso. Invading Eastern and Western Ukraine are whole different ballgames.
Crimea and the currently separatist parts of Eastern Ukraine have huge ties to Russia, speak Russian, like(d) Russia. Russia also had years of buildup propaganda, offering not only messaging but, more importantly, Russian passports to a lot of the population there. None of this is the case with Western Ukraine. Kiev is mostly Russian-speaking, but the city is richer than the country, is very independently minded and has a prideful history (it's where Russia started and they still think we Russians usurped and appropriated their culture). I just don't see this going down "easy" at all.
by ti-amie Everyone talks about the lack of civics knowledge among some in the US but maybe geography should also be taught again? This dolt didn't realize or understand that Canada is a separate country.
by ti-amie
by mmmm8 A follow up regarding Ukraine, this is the percentage of Ukrainians in each region that voted AGAINST independence from the USSR in 1991 (The red is Crimea; the map legend is a little manipulative, but it does illustrate a point)
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie The Moscow Bureau Chief of the Financial times just posted a very long thread detailing Putin's speech to his nation and signing decrees annexing two parts of Ukraine. It's long. I tried to use the thread reader app but I don't think this author allows it.
P1
by JazzNU Good God.
by ti-amie
P2
by ti-amie
P3/L
by ti-amie Unless he teleported from one place to the signing hall the speech was recorded earlier. I'm sure someone will find the metadata of the speech.
Also by doing this Seddon lets us avoid the FT paywall.
This is really what Twitter is good for. It's not that hard to avoid the loonies and navel gazers.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie I guess this is the TL;dr
Hans de Vreij
@hdevreij
Vladimir Poetin heeft dus een 'Hitlertje' gedaan. Net als destijds het geval was met het Sudetenland (Tsjechoslowakije) en de 'Anschluss' van Oostenrijk doet hij aanspraak op grondgebied van een buurland gebaseerd op etniciteit en taal (plus geloof vwb de Donbass)
Translated from Dutch by Google
Vladimir Putin has done a 'little Hitler'. As was the case with the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia) and the 'Anschluss' of Austria at the time, he claims territory of a neighboring country based on ethnicity and language (plus religion regarding the Donbass)
by JazzNU
by JazzNU
by ponchi101 Well, I wrote about it some time ago. Putin simply sees Russia as the USSR, and wants it back.
If he is not stopped with this Ukraine lunacy, I would not want to be the Baltic states. Not even the Balkans.
by ti-amie
She followed this up with a request for donations. Adam Klasfeld retweeted her so I guess she's legit. You have to take everything these days with a huge dose of salt.
A podcast I listen to also said that this speech came across as a declaration of war.
by JazzNU
by ponchi101 A victory for women of few resources. The rich were always able to get abortions on demand.
Still, a big step, in a country still well imbued with powerful anti-feminist attitudes.
by JazzNU
by JazzNU Names I've heard today while watching or reading the news with regards to Putin and trying to explain Putin's speech and actions - Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Catherine the Great. I fear we are entering very dark times.
by ti-amie We are in dark times indeed but there is always Faux News...
by ponchi101 Ukraine announces that it "might break up diplomatic relations with Russia".
In other unrelated news:
"Wife tells husband 'we may be over' after divorce settlement"
"Don't count on me anymore!", former employee tells company that fired him.
"We have to use some form of contraception" girlfriend tells boyfriend, after pregnancy test comes back positive.
Might? They are invading you can called you a non-country. Might?
by the Moz Putin yearns for another cold war born of perverse historical nationalism and reared on the ridiculous notion that 'if the West is for then we're against'. His sabre rattling in the sandbox a jealous reaction to all the attention heaped on 21c newborn the war on terror. And now clearly feeling
jilted after America dumped them and took China to the super power prom.
by Owendonovan I'm not confident sanctions will do anything more than make the average Russian citizen suffer. Putin and his cronies seem all set to weather sanctions.
by ponchi101 I always ask: name me one set of economic sanctions that have ever achieved the planned effect.
As you say, it will be the average Russian paying the price. And Putin has been building bulwarks for this occasion, which is the reason it took him 7 years to move from Crimea.
by ti-amie
by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 23, 2022 5:26 am
I always ask: name me one set of economic sanctions that have ever achieved the planned effect.
As you say, it will be the average Russian paying the price. And Putin has been building bulwarks for this occasion, which is the reason it took him 7 years to move from Crimea.
The sanctions against Iran have been pretty effective. Not sure what the original planned effect of them was though.
by ti-amie
by Owendonovan Looks like it's on in the Ukraine.
by JazzNU
by JazzNU
by JazzNU May accounts are reporting bombings in many major cities including Odessa, Mariupol, Kramatorsk. It's not just Kyiv and Kharkiv.
by JazzNU
Russia’s Putin announces military operation in Ukraine
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, DASHA LITVINOVA, YURAS KARMANAU and JIM HEINTZ
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday announced a military operation in Ukraine and warned other countries that any attempt to interfere with the Russian action would lead to “consequences they have never seen.”
He said the attack was needed to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine – a claim the U.S. had predicted he would falsely make to justify an invasion
In a televised address, Putin accused the U.S. and its allies of ignoring Russia’s demand to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and offer Moscow security guarantees. He said Russia’s goal was not to occupy Ukraine.
U.S. President Joe Biden denounced the “unprovoked and unjustified” attack on Ukraine and said the world will “hold Russia accountable.”
As Putin spoke, big explosions were heard in Kyiv, Kharkiv and other areas of Ukraine.
A full-blown Russian invasion could cause massive casualties and topple Ukraine’s democratically elected government. And the consequences of the conflict and resulting sanctions levied on Russia could reverberate throughout the world, affecting energy supplies in Europe, jolting global financial markets and threatening the post-Cold War balance on the continent.
He said the Russian military operation aims to ensure a “demilitarization” of Ukraine. Putin urged Ukrainian servicemen to “immediately put down arms and go home.”
Putin announced the military operation after the Kremlin said rebels in eastern Ukraine asked Russia for military assistance to help fend off Ukrainian “aggression.” The announcement immediately fueled fears that Moscow was offering up a pretext for war, just as the West had warned.
A short time later, the Ukrainian president rejected Moscow’s claims that his country poses a threat to Russia and said a Russian invasion would cost tens of thousands of lives.
“The people of Ukraine and the government of Ukraine want peace,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an emotional overnight address, speaking in Russian in a direct appeal to Russian citizens. “But if we come under attack, if we face an attempt to take away our country, our freedom, our lives and lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. When you attack us, you will see our faces, not our backs.”
Zelenskyy said he asked to arrange a call with Putin late Wednesday, but the Kremlin did not respond.
In an apparent reference to Putin’s move to authorize the deployment of the Russian military to “maintain peace” in eastern Ukraine, Zelensky warned that “this step could mark the start of a big war on the European continent.”
“Any provocation, any spark could trigger a blaze that will destroy everything,” he said.
He challenged the Russian propaganda claims, saying that “you are told that this blaze will bring freedom to the people of Ukraine, but the Ukrainian people are free.”
The United Nations Security Council quickly scheduled an emergency meeting Wednesday night at Ukraine’s request. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called the separatists’ request “a further escalation of the security situation.”
Anxiety about an imminent Russian offensive against its neighbor soared after Putin recognized the separatist regions’ independence on Monday, endorsed the deployment of troops to the rebel territories and received parliamentary approval to use military force outside the country. The West responded with sanctions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the rebel chiefs wrote to Putin on Wednesday, pleading with him to intervene after Ukrainian shelling caused civilian deaths and crippled vital infrastructure.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the separatists’ request for Russian help was an example of the sort of “false-flag” operation that the U.S. and its allies have expected Moscow to use as a pretense for war.
“So we’ll continue to call out what we see as false-flag operations or efforts to spread misinformation about what the actual status is on the ground,” she said.
Earlier in the day, Ukrainian lawmakers approved a decree that imposes a nationwide state of emergency for 30 days starting Thursday. The measure allows authorities to declare curfews and other restrictions on movement, block rallies and ban political parties and organizations “in the interests of national security and public order.”
The action reflected increasing concern among Ukrainian authorities after weeks of trying to project calm. The Foreign Ministry advised against travel to Russia and recommended that any Ukrainians who are there leave immediately.
“For a long time, we refrained from declaring a state of emergency ... but today the situation has become more complicated,“ Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council head Oleksiy Danilov told parliament, emphasizing that Moscow’s efforts to destabilize Ukraine represented the main threat.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the Russian force of more than 150,000 troops arrayed along Ukraine’s borders is in an advanced state of readiness. “They are ready to go right now,” Kirby said.
The latest images released by the Maxar satellite image company showed Russian troops and military equipment deployed within 10 miles of the Ukrainian border and less than 50 miles from Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv.
Early Thursday, airspace over all of Ukraine was shut down to civilian air traffic, according to a notice to airmen. A commercial flight tracking website showed that an Israeli El Al Boeing 787 flying from Tel Aviv to Toronto turned abruptly out of Ukrainian airspace before detouring over Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. The only other aircraft tracked over Ukraine was a U.S. RQ-4B Global Hawk unmanned surveillance plane, which began flying westward early Thursday after Russia put in place flight restrictions over Ukrainian territory.
Another wave of distributed-denial-of-service attacks hit Ukraine’s parliament and other government and banking websites on Wednesday, and cybersecurity researchers said unidentified attackers had also infected hundreds of computers with destructive malware.
Officials have long said they expect cyberattacks to precede and accompany any Russian military incursion, and analysts said the incidents hew to a nearly two-decade-old Russian playbook of wedding cyber operations with real-world aggression.
In other developments, Russia evacuated its embassy in Kyiv; Ukraine recalled its ambassador to Russia and considered breaking all diplomatic ties with Moscow and dozens of nations further squeezed Russian oligarchs and banks out of international markets.
President Joe Biden allowed sanctions to move forward against the company that built the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and against the company’s CEO.
“As I have made clear, we will not hesitate to take further steps if Russia continues to escalate,” Biden said in a statement.
Germany said Tuesday that it was indefinitely suspending the project, after Biden charged that Putin had launched “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine” by sending troops into the separatist regions. The pipeline is complete but has not yet begun operating.
Putin said Tuesday that he had not yet sent any Russian troops into the rebel regions, contrary to Western claims, and Donetsk rebel leader Denis Pushilin insisted Wednesday there were no Russian troops in the region, even though a local council member claimed the previous day they had moved in.
Already, the threat of war has shredded Ukraine’s economy and raised the specter of massive casualties, energy shortages across Europe and global economic chaos.
European Union sanctions against Russia took effect, targeting several companies along with 351 Russian lawmakers who voted for a motion urging Putin to recognize the rebel regions and 27 senior government officials, business executives and top military officers.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has shrugged off the sanctions, saying that “Russia has proven that, with all the costs of the sanctions, it is able to minimize the damage.”
In Ukraine’s east, one Ukrainian soldier was killed and six more wounded after rebel shelling, the Ukrainian military said Wednesday. Separatist officials reported several explosions on their territory overnight and three civilian deaths.
Facing a barrage of criticism at the 193-member United Nations General Assembly, Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, warned Ukraine that Russia will monitor a cease-fire in the east and emphasized that “no one intends to go softly, softly with any violators.”
“A new military adventure” by Kyiv “might cost the whole of Ukraine very dearly,” he warned ominously.
After weeks of rising tensions, Putin’s steps this week dramatically raised the stakes. He recognized the independence of the separatist regions, a move he said extends even to the large parts of the territories now held by Ukrainian forces, and had parliament grant him authority to use military force outside the country.
Putin laid out three conditions that he said could end the standoff, urging Kyiv to renounce its bid to join NATO, to partially demilitarize and to recognize Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine long has rejected such demands.
___
Litvinova reported from Moscow. Angela Charlton in Paris; Frank Jordans in Berlin; Lorne Cook in Brussels, Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Frank Bajak in Boston, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Aamer Madhani, Eric Tucker, Ellen Knickmeyer, Zeke Miller, Chris Megerian and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed.
mick1303 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 8:23 am
Land Internet is not working. Connected via mobile
Mick, I'm so sorry you're going through this. Do you have any plans (or opportunities?) to temporarily evacuate? I hope you stay safe.
A shameful day to be a Russian
Yes, so very sorry. Prayers for your safety.
by meganfernandez Is this mainly about Donbas and Luhansk's independence? Do they want to be independent, or are there many people in those areas who don't want to be and are caught in the crossfire? Or is this just Putin's justification for taking over the country for other reasons? Sorry if this is naive and an oversimplification. Curious what the jist of this is.
by skatingfan
meganfernandez wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 2:45 pm
Is this mainly about Donbas and Luhansk's independence? Do they want to be independent, or are there many people in those areas who don't want to be and are caught in the crossfire? Or is this just Putin's justification for taking over the country for other reasons? Sorry if this is naive and an oversimplification. Curious what the jist of this is.
Putin wants a buffer between Russia and the West, and he doesn't want examples of successful democracies on his border because it presents an alternative to the Russian people than his rule.
by ponchi101
mick1303 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 8:22 am
I can hear those explosions myself, right now. I'm in Kharkov.
Please post at least once a day, just so we will know you are "alright".
Sorry for your country, Mike. I hope the best for it.
by ponchi101
Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 6:24 am
China is not ready yet, will take another 5-10 years. No need to hurry, though.
Why 5-10 years? This is a very good time to invade Taiwan:
The USA can't fight or get involved in two wars that are so geographically distant.
Europe has no stakes in Taiwan other than financial and, if I recall well, the reliance on chips that (I believe) you posted about a long time ago.
Europe could not care less about democracy in Taiwan. It is one thing that was made clear with the war in the Balkans: as long as it is not happening within the EU borders, they care very little for anything happening outside. They issue statements and nothing more.
China does have economic leverage against the west. All the American and European manufacturing that is done there would be at stake.
China has been building, for years now, solid supplies for raw materials from Africa and S. America. Several countries in my continent are, at a minimum, partial to China over the USA (Venezuela Argentina, Mexico and all the other leftist buffoons). None of them even recognize Taiwan as an independent nation (as neither does the USA or the EU). So they are not exposed to sanctions related to embargoes.
Vlad and Xi truly see eye to eye. No need to believe that Xi is not looking at the USA/EU response and saying "I can deal with that easily. We are the world's second largest economy".
Your ideas are truly expected (and I am not joking there).
by mick1303 I'm still in one piece and apartment is not damaged. There is still electricity and water. But artillery explosions continue. They are not targeting residential areas, but there is always a human error. And then another human's life is destroyed. Pray for us...
by patrick
mick1303 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 4:21 pm
I'm still in one piece and apartment is not damaged. There is still electricity and water. But artillery explosions continue. They are not targeting residential areas, but there is always a human error. And then another human's life is destroyed. Pray for us...
Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 6:24 am
China is not ready yet, will take another 5-10 years. No need to hurry, though.
Why 5-10 years? This is a very good time to invade Taiwan:
The USA can't fight or get involved in two wars that are so geographically distant.
Europe has no stakes in Taiwan other than financial and, if I recall well, the reliance on chips that (I believe) you posted about a long time ago.
Europe could not care less about democracy in Taiwan. It is one thing that was made clear with the war in the Balkans: as long as it is not happening within the EU borders, they care very little for anything happening outside. They issue statements and nothing more.
China does have economic leverage against the west. All the American and European manufacturing that is done there would be at stake.
China has been building, for years now, solid supplies for raw materials from Africa and S. America. Several countries in my continent are, at a minimum, partial to China over the USA (Venezuela Argentina, Mexico and all the other leftist buffoons). None of them even recognize Taiwan as an independent nation (as neither does the USA or the EU). So they are not exposed to sanctions related to embargoes.
Vlad and Xi truly see eye to eye. No need to believe that Xi is not looking at the USA/EU response and saying "I can deal with that easily. We are the world's second largest economy".
Your ideas are truly expected (and I am not joking there).
Think Xi and Vlad may have updated each other on their ideas in Beijing a few weeks ago.
Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 6:24 am
China is not ready yet, will take another 5-10 years. No need to hurry, though.
Why 5-10 years? This is a very good time to invade Taiwan:
The USA can't fight or get involved in two wars that are so geographically distant.
Because I think China is not yet militarily ready for an amphibious assault like that. Taiwan is a harder target.
by JazzNU
by ti-amie
mick1303 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 8:22 am
I can hear those explosions myself, right now. I'm in Kharkov.
Be safe Mick!
by ti-amie TFG was talking about an amphibious assault on Faux last night. Maybe he got his autocrats mixed up?
by ti-amie POTUS remarks P1
by ti-amie P2
by ponchi101 Russia will be limited to doing business in the four major currencies. Because they were doing business in the past in Rubles? They weren't, right?
And if you don't cut them from SWIFT, they can move all the money they want.
by ti-amie P3
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 8:12 pm
Russia will be limited to doing business in the four major currencies. Because they were doing business in the past in Rubles? They weren't, right?
And if you don't cut them from SWIFT, they can move all the money they want.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by JazzNU Every general and colonel that I've seen in the last 48 hours has said the same thing about SWIFT - you do not use that as sanction right now, it's a terrible strategic play. It's the nuclear option. You use that as your Plan A and you have no Plan B where sanctions are concerned.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie I wanted to argue that this wouldn't have happened, that "someone" would've stopped it but...
by ti-amie
Translated from French by Google
Kharkiv and Kiev metros tonight.
To be honest it breaks my heart so that'll be all for tonight
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 8:12 pm
Russia will be limited to doing business in the four major currencies. Because they were doing business in the past in Rubles? They weren't, right?
And if you don't cut them from SWIFT, they can move all the money they want.
He means Russia's business in the 4 currencies will be limited not vice versa
by ti-amie
JazzNU wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 9:27 pm
Every general and colonel that I've seen in the last 48 hours has said the same thing about SWIFT - you do not use that as sanction right now, it's a terrible strategic play. It's the nuclear option. You use that as your Plan A and you have no Plan B where sanctions are concerned.
by dryrunguy Two things:
1) F*** the American Petroleum Institute.
2) My heart aches for the people of Ukraine--and our own, Mick.
JazzNU wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 9:27 pm
Every general and colonel that I've seen in the last 48 hours has said the same thing about SWIFT - you do not use that as sanction right now, it's a terrible strategic play. It's the nuclear option. You use that as your Plan A and you have no Plan B where sanctions are concerned.
They've mentioned that plenty. It's not a secret in the least. But it's the biggest sanction they can place on Russia, so using it immediately is not a strategically sound move. I haven't seen anyone downplaying Europe in particular's economic interests if that move were to occur.
You take that move now, and it doesn't work, the same people telling him to do it now who don't have to deal with the fallout of any of it if it doesn't work, are the same ones who will be criticizing the move as being too much, too fast.
by JazzNU FYI, there are a lot of people claiming to know more about what's going on than they actually do. Think of the meme the other day of the Covid Experts suddenly becoming Foreign Policy experts this week. This well known and respected CNN reporter that primarily does fact checking has composed a list of some trustworthy sources if you're looking for reliable information.
BP (it is not only the API) also diverted almost all of their operations in S. America and moved that capital to joint ventures with Russia.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
I hesitate to post video because so much of it is doctored. I hope this is legit. He's a WSJ reporter based in Moscow.
by JazzNU Haven't seen specific sanctions from France, Germany, and Italy today, I'll post if I see them. The third post is additional information on one of the US sanctions effect.
by JazzNU
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Those are considerable number of people marching in a country that is totalitarian.
I will claim expertise in that subject: Marching will achieve nothing. Nothing.
(Says a Venezuelan).
by Deuce
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 1:07 am
Those are considerable number of people marching in a country that is totalitarian.
I will claim expertise in that subject: Marching will achieve nothing. Nothing.
(Says a Venezuelan).
^ Well, it might get the marchers jailed - or even killed...
Other than that, it shows the rest of the world that this invasion has far less than unanimous approval in Russia. If that many people are protesting in the streets against the invasion, there are likely at least 10 or 20 (likely even more than that) times as many others in Russia who are also against it, but are afraid to take to the streets.
Also, on an individual level, it makes one feel better psychologically to protest against something one is against, rather than doing nothing actively about it.
Mick - are you still (relatively) ok?
.
by mick1303 The situation is escalating. There are hits on apartment buildings, windows are shattered. They hit a boiler station (we have a centralized water-heating). So the heating was off for a couple of hours (not enough to feel the difference yet, but radiators were cooling down). But then municipal workers fixed the boiler or diverted the hot water from another. Now radiators are warm again. We put a duct tape on windows - it will not prevent breaking the windows, but will limit the debris.
by Deuce
mick1303 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 12:32 pm
The situation is escalating. There are hits on apartment buildings, windows are shattered. They hit a boiler station (we have a centralized water-heating). So the heating was off for a couple of hours (not enough to feel the difference yet, but radiators were cooling down). But then municipal workers fixed the boiler or diverted the hot water from another. Now radiators are warm again. We put a duct tape on windows - it will not prevent breaking the windows, but will limit the debris.
Sigh...
Are you with your family there?
Do you have any chance of getting out of the country?
mick1303 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 12:32 pm
The situation is escalating. There are hits on apartment buildings, windows are shattered. They hit a boiler station (we have a centralized water-heating). So the heating was off for a couple of hours (not enough to feel the difference yet, but radiators were cooling down). But then municipal workers fixed the boiler or diverted the hot water from another. Now radiators are warm again. We put a duct tape on windows - it will not prevent breaking the windows, but will limit the debris.
Sigh...
Are you with your family there?
Do you have any chance of getting out of the country?
With a family. Not a chance to leave. First it looks like Russians are moving rather freely in between cities. Second - Ukraine declared martial law and every man 18-60 cannot leave the country. I'm 57. And the most important - my father who is 86 lives in the next building and he will not be able to care of himself, if I leave. He is also not healthy - he has cancer...
mick1303 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 12:32 pm
The situation is escalating. There are hits on apartment buildings, windows are shattered. They hit a boiler station (we have a centralized water-heating). So the heating was off for a couple of hours (not enough to feel the difference yet, but radiators were cooling down). But then municipal workers fixed the boiler or diverted the hot water from another. Now radiators are warm again. We put a duct tape on windows - it will not prevent breaking the windows, but will limit the debris.
Sigh...
Are you with your family there?
Do you have any chance of getting out of the country?
With a family. Not a chance to leave. First it looks like Russians are moving rather freely in between cities. Second - Ukraine declared martial law and every man 18-60 cannot leave the country. I'm 57. And the most important - my father who is 86 lives in the next building and he will not be able to care of himself, if I leave. He is also not healthy - he has cancer...
Hang in there, Mick. Do the best you can.
I wish we could do - or at least say - more.
I started a thread about the Russian invasion specifically - if you want to switch to posting there, you can find it here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=777
mick1303 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 12:32 pm
The situation is escalating. There are hits on apartment buildings, windows are shattered. They hit a boiler station (we have a centralized water-heating). So the heating was off for a couple of hours (not enough to feel the difference yet, but radiators were cooling down). But then municipal workers fixed the boiler or diverted the hot water from another. Now radiators are warm again. We put a duct tape on windows - it will not prevent breaking the windows, but will limit the debris.
Sigh...
Are you with your family there?
Do you have any chance of getting out of the country?
With a family. Not a chance to leave. First it looks like Russians are moving rather freely in between cities. Second - Ukraine declared martial law and every man 18-60 cannot leave the country. I'm 57. And the most important - my father who is 86 lives in the next building and he will not be able to care of himself, if I leave. He is also not healthy - he has cancer...
Thanks for the update, Mick. I wish there was something we could do to help you. Is there? I'll keep praying of you and your family.
by ti-amie Mick sincere thoughts and prayers to you and your family.
by JazzNU
by JazzNU ^^ Russia is the Chair of the Council this moth, which is why they could veto. UAE chairs next month, according to this vote, not sure this will pass in just another week. UK and US chair in April and May.
by Suliso Russia can always veto just as US, France, UK and China.
by Deuce
Suliso wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 8:32 am
Russia can always veto just as US, France, UK and China.
^ But there are some things that Russia cannot veto...
.
by ponchi101 The U.N. will never work for anything of relevance as long as the veto of those five nations can overturn anything.
And when two of those nations are totalitarian regimes, just dismantle the place.
by dave g
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 4:51 pm
The U.N. will never work for anything of relevance as long as the veto of those five nations can overturn anything.
And when two of those nations are totalitarian regimes, just dismantle the place.
Their vetoes only occur in the Security Council, not in the General Assembly. So, maybe the General Assembly will do something that Russia can't veto.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 4:51 pm
The U.N. will never work for anything of relevance as long as the veto of those five nations can overturn anything.
And when two of those nations are totalitarian regimes, just dismantle the place.
Their vetoes only occur in the Security Council, not in the General Assembly. So, maybe the General Assembly will do something that Russia can't veto.
Yes, that was said as well. Apparently the vote being so one-sided along with the abstentions that occurred instead of being no votes is an embarrassment to Putin. From those that cover UN regularly, I guess China was expected to be a NO vote, so the abstention from them is particularly embarrassing.
I have no idea about the relationship between Russia and UAE. Is that about oil or something else?
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 4:51 pm
The U.N. will never work for anything of relevance as long as the veto of those five nations can overturn anything.
And when two of those nations are totalitarian regimes, just dismantle the place.
Their vetoes only occur in the Security Council, not in the General Assembly. So, maybe the General Assembly will do something that Russia can't veto.
Yes, that was said as well. Apparently the vote being so one-sided along with the abstentions that occurred instead of being no votes is an embarrassment to Putin. From those that cover UN regularly, I guess China was expected to be a NO vote, so the abstention from them is particularly embarrassing.
I have no idea about the relationship between Russia and UAE. Is that about oil or something else?
Word on the street
by ponchi101 Russians in the UAE are three for a Ruble. They love to stash their money there, and their presence is ubiquitous.
Anti-war protests break out as Belarus votes to renounce non-nuclear status
Feb 27 (Reuters) - Protesters took to the streets as Belarus held a referendum on Sunday to adopt a new constitution that would ditch its non-nuclear status at a time when the country has become a launchpad for Russian troops invading Ukraine.
The vote, almost certain to pass under the tightly controlled rule of President Alexander Lukashenko, could see nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil for the first time since the country gave them up after the fall of the Soviet Union.
It raises the stakes at a time when Lukashenko has fallen behind Russian President Vladimir Putin's military assault on Ukraine after earlier playing an intermediary role between the two neighbours.
The referendum sparked anti-war protests in several cities, as people chanted "no to war", cars blared their horns in solidarity, and people laid bunches of flowers in the yellow and blue colours of the Ukrainian flag.
At least 290 people were detained, rights activists said.
Protests had largely died down in Belarus after Lukashenko launched a violent crackdown on dissent against his 28-year-long rule. Mass protests had erupted in 2020 following a disputed election that opponents say Lukashenko rigged.
On Sunday, speaking at a polling station, Lukashenko said that he could ask Russia to return nuclear weapons to Belarus.
"If you (the West) transfer nuclear weapons to Poland or Lithuania, to our borders, then I will turn to Putin to return the nuclear weapons that I gave away without any conditions," Lukashenko said.
Lukashenko turned to Russia after the 2020 protests, securing loans that offset the effect of Western sanctions.
His rival in the 2020 vote, exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, had called on Belarusians to use the referendum vote to protest the war against Ukraine.
"For a long time I did not know how to start this appeal. Because how can you demand courageous actions from people who live in fear for a year and a half? The war we've been dragged into started two days ago," she said in a special address.
"But until now, the Belarusians have not declared publicly that they are against it, they have not shown this to the Ukrainians by their actions. So do I have the right to ask you for action? Maybe not. But I won't forgive myself if I don't try."
In videos and photos posted on social media, people gathered at polling stations in Minsk and other cities in Belarus to protest.
"There is little we can do now, with all this terror and horror in which we live. But I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't try to do something. We are already considered accomplices," said Elena, 45, who came to one of the polling stations along with a couple of dozen people. She declined to provide more personal information for security reasons.
The West has already said it will not recognise the results of the referendum, which is taking place against the background of the sweeping crackdown on domestic opponents of the government. According to human rights activists, as of Sunday, there were more than a thousand political prisoners in Belarus.
On Sunday, amateur ensembles performed at polling stations, food and cheap alcohol were sold in buffets.
The new constitution would give powers to the All-Belarusian People's Assembly, created by Lukashenko and populated by party loyalists, local councils, officials and activists of pro-government organizations.
It would also give lifetime immunity from prosecution to the president once he left office.
by ponchi101 All this talk involving nuclear weapons is insane, and dangerous. No need for that whatsoever.
by texasniteowl
mick1303 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 8:22 am
I can hear those explosions myself, right now. I'm in Kharkov.
Lots of talk about Kharkiv this morning on the news I am watching. Hope you are still ok...or at least as well as you can be.
by JazzNU
by JazzNU
by ponchi101 By now I gather it is clear that Vlad miscalculated all of this.
I also believe that there is a new question: does he survive this mess? Even if he keeps Ukraine, Russia will be a disaster for years to come.
by Suliso Seems like Putin has poked a sleeping tiger a bit too hard.
by ponchi101 An accumulation of all the things he has done ABROAD throughout the years. The poisoning of enemies, the invasion of Crimea, I would even say that the lack of response to the Olympic cheating finally awoke the west to the reality that he will not stop unless truly confronted.
I said it in some post a long time ago. He is a bully, and bullies are never appeased. You need to confront them directly.
by JazzNU And the former Finnish PM said the threats aren't something new from Russia, but the danger was lessened because Latvia and Lithuania were NATO members (Estonia obviously too, but it wasn't mentioned in the blurb I saw about the interview he gave) and I guess there was some reliance on that in their calculation in joining NATO in the past. But now that Putin's lost his damn mind, sounds like all bets are off.
by ti-amie
There has been terrible flooding in Brazil as well.
by mick1303 I'm very touched that all of you are worrying about me.
I wasn't answering because there was no power and Internet. Now I have them - don't know for how long.
Yesterday we've got electricity restored in our apartment (emergency connection for a group of buildings, because regular power distribution node is destroyed (or otherwise not functional). Mobile Internet is very weak and only outdoors (as is mobile reception in general). But surprisingly today we've got wired Internet.
Overall situation of the city is dire. Russians do not target residential areas intentionally, but they are getting destroyed anyway here and there. Besides their choice of "military objects" is also quite cannibalistic. They destroyed blood transfusion center - big medical facility. Their reasoning apparently was that it was helping Ukrainian army.
The hits on the city and destroyed buildings and facilities are too many to describe.
Some supermarkets are open and there are very long lines of people, though they selling out what is remained, does not look like they are able to re-supply. Too little time passed yet to have food shortages, but some already suffer.
We are getting used to constant sounds of artillery.
by mick1303 With electricity and AC working in inverter mode I raised the temperature in my apartment from 59 to 66. We are without centralized heating since 24th.
by mmmm8 Thank you for checking in, Mick. We are thinking of you and your family.
by MJ2004 Mick, it is awful to see what is happening in Kharkiv and all of Ukraine. We hope you are able to stay warm and safe. Thank you for posting, many of us have been thinking of you.
by meganfernandez
mick1303 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 03, 2022 9:30 am
With electricity and AC working in inverter mode I raised the temperature in my apartment from 59 to 66. We are without centralized heating since 24th.
Thanks for touching base, Mick. Thinking about you and praying for your and your family's safety. Please keep us updated if you have a chance, and if there's anything we can do, please don't hesitate to ask. I know that sounds small, but we're here for you if needed.
by ti-amie Thank you for checking in Mick. I was very worried when I heard about Kharkiv. We're all here for you.
by ti-amie Posted without comment
by texasniteowl Mick, I'm glad you were able to check in and so sorry you are having to endure this. I believe you said your father is there too? I hope you both continue as well as possible.
Do we have any other folks with relations or friends in Ukraine? My aunt by marriage is Ukrainian and her son from her first marriage is still in Ukraine. They are from Sumy. Her son and his wife (along with 2 cousins and their wives) have been able to get to western Ukraine, but not farther. He will supposedly not be allowed to leave but hopefully his wife will soon leave. My aunt and uncle are headed to Europe soon to be available for her.
by mick1303 March 5th update.
There is no wired Internet, but mobile is still somewhat working in my fathers apartment. His has windows on the opposite site from mine apartment. I arranged my phone near the window in modem mode and have Internet on the notebook via wifi.
Not much else new, sounds of artillery are close. No direct hits on our district (around 30 residential buildings - 5 to 9 stores). But some hits nearby - in particular oncology center nearby - a big loss. It is close to aviation plant and probably was hit as a "miss", but nonetheless. My wife had a surgery there 2 years ago. It is 20 minutes on feet from me. Across the city there are plenty of hits on civilian buildings and infrastructure. But of course I haven't seen it myself - it is in the local telegram channels.
by mick1303 I have a lot of friends of course here in Ukraine. Some, who could leave - left for Western Ukraine or if they are allowed - to Europe. But majority is still here. Civilians are hostages of the situation. The decision to block the possibility to leave for all men 18-60 seems questionable to me. Has it ever happened in "democratic" countries?
by skatingfan
mick1303 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 9:26 am
I have a lot of friends of course here in Ukraine. Some, who could leave - left for Western Ukraine or if they are allowed - to Europe. But majority is still here. Civilians are hostages of the situation. The decision to block the possibility to leave for all men 18-60 seems questionable to me. Has it ever happened in "democratic" countries?
I can't say that I remember such a rule being enforced in the 2nd World War. That was the last time that the Western democratic countries were facing invasion, but so many of those invasions went so quickly it wouldn't have made a difference, plus the whole idea that people would just be allowed to leave their country for another was different 80 years ago. In Canada we had conscription during the 2nd World War, and the US had conscription during the Vietnam War. A neighbour of my family when I was a kid was a draft dodger from the US during the '70's, and would have been arrested had he returned to the US.
by MJ2004
mick1303 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 9:26 am
IThe decision to block the possibility to leave for all men 18-60 seems questionable to me.
I understand why Ukraine is doing this, but indeed it does seem questionable. Forcing citizens to fight who have had not military training and may not even be properly armed is sending them to their deaths for sure. I was just reading of a town center (possibly in Mariupol? I'm not sure) in which 49 citizens armed with molotov cocktails were gunned down by Russian troops.
And of course as you said, families are either being forced to split up or entire families choosing to stay who would otherwise have left.
by ponchi101 You may want to keep the able bodied, young men not just for military action. They can be of help in other areas: carry a stretcher, if trained in some craft, repair things, assist in Search and Rescue (digging through rubble).
Yes, a tough call, but not necessarily without reason.
---0---
Thanks for posting, Mick. We are pending on your posts, both to get information and know how you are doing.
by mmmm8
mick1303 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 9:25 am
March 5th update.
There is no wired Internet, but mobile is still somewhat working in my fathers apartment. His has windows on the opposite site from mine apartment. I arranged my phone near the window in modem mode and have Internet on the notebook via wifi.
Not much else new, sounds of artillery are close. No direct hits on our district (around 30 residential buildings - 5 to 9 stores). But some hits nearby - in particular oncology center nearby - a big loss. It is close to aviation plant and probably was hit as a "miss", but nonetheless. My wife had a surgery there 2 years ago. It is 20 minutes on feet from me. Across the city there are plenty of hits on civilian buildings and infrastructure. But of course I haven't seen it myself - it is in the local telegram channels.
Ny "like" was of course for you being alright not the scary situation you are in.
by mmmm8
mick1303 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 9:25 am
March 5th update.
There is no wired Internet, but mobile is still somewhat working in my fathers apartment. His has windows on the opposite site from mine apartment. I arranged my phone near the window in modem mode and have Internet on the notebook via wifi.
Not much else new, sounds of artillery are close. No direct hits on our district (around 30 residential buildings - 5 to 9 stores). But some hits nearby - in particular oncology center nearby - a big loss. It is close to aviation plant and probably was hit as a "miss", but nonetheless. My wife had a surgery there 2 years ago. It is 20 minutes on feet from me. Across the city there are plenty of hits on civilian buildings and infrastructure. But of course I haven't seen it myself - it is in the local telegram channels.
Mick, would you mind sharing your neighborhood name? I've been following pretty closely and just want to be aware.
I hope you are still alright and also that you have a connection, I know new areas of Kharkiv were hit overnight.
by mmmm8 The Chief of Staffs of the Belarussian military has resigned. He was tasked with organizing troops to prepare for offense (as backup, I guess). His resignation letter says there was en masse refusal from the troops. (Source in Russian only so far)
by Suliso I wonder would it even be possible for Russian citizens to return to Russia right now? Flights from EU and US are banned and Russian airlines are stopping all flights abroad from March 8th.
Probably the most feasible option would be via land from Kazakhstan.
by Suliso IN fact it's a more serious issue than I had imagined. Particularly for Ukrainians...
by Suliso By the way a major further squeeze on chipmaking is expected due to Ukraine providing ca 50% of world supply of neon which in turn is crucial for lasers used in the electronics industry. It's probably best not to plan to replace any electronics this year or next...
by ponchi101 In another forum, I found a list of all the things Ukraine does. I will post it in the UKRAINE WAR topic, but I was truly impressed, both at all they do, and my ignorance of it.
It will not only be electronics. I did not know that Ukraine was so important to the world's economy.
by mmmm8
Suliso wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 9:36 am
I wonder would it even be possible for Russian citizens to return to Russia right now? Flights from EU and US are banned and Russian airlines are stopping all flights abroad from March 8th.
Probably the most feasible option would be via land from Kazakhstan.
Trains between St. Petersburg and Finland are still running and flights are still open by non-Russian airlines to some countries (Armenia, Kazakhstan, for example). I'm actually trying to reach family in St. Petersburg to see if they are planning to/have taken that train. They're an older couple and their son and family are expats in Germany.
Suliso wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 9:36 am
I wonder would it even be possible for Russian citizens to return to Russia right now? Flights from EU and US are banned and Russian airlines are stopping all flights abroad from March 8th.
Probably the most feasible option would be via land from Kazakhstan.
Trains between St. Petersburg and Finland are still running and flights are still open by non-Russian airlines to some countries (Armenia, Kazakhstan, for example). I'm actually trying to reach family in St. Petersburg to see if they are planning to/have taken that train. They're an older couple and their son and family are expats in Germany.
And to just demonstrate an example of what this war means, the wife in that older couple has a younger brother who lives - lived in Kiev. He and his family (small kids) left to go to Western Ukraine as of March 2, they haven't been able to reach them for 4 days.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 I understand the logic.
But it basically means that the USA is willing to let Venezuela remain a dictatorship forever, in its attempt to save Ukraine. And if the USA believes that Venezuela will come over and become an ally of the USA, they have not learned anything about Maduro.
(It is the Vennie government that "hates" the USA, as they like very much to vacation there. The Venezuelan people have nothing against America).
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 5:14 am
I understand the logic.
But it basically means that the USA is willing to let Venezuela remain a dictatorship forever, in its attempt to save Ukraine lower oil prices. And if the USA believes that Venezuela will come over and become an ally of the USA, they have not learned anything about Maduro.
(It is the Vennie government that "hates" the USA, as they like very much to vacation there. The Venezuelan people have nothing against America).
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 5:14 am
I understand the logic.
But it basically means that the USA is willing to let Venezuela remain a dictatorship forever, in its attempt to save Ukraine lower oil prices. And if the USA believes that Venezuela will come over and become an ally of the USA, they have not learned anything about Maduro.
(It is the Vennie government that "hates" the USA, as they like very much to vacation there. The Venezuelan people have nothing against America).
Fixed it for you.
And thanks. What the hell was I thinking?
by meganfernandez
mick1303 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 9:26 am
I have a lot of friends of course here in Ukraine. Some, who could leave - left for Western Ukraine or if they are allowed - to Europe. But majority is still here. Civilians are hostages of the situation. The decision to block the possibility to leave for all men 18-60 seems questionable to me. Has it ever happened in "democratic" countries?
i'm glad to hear you are still safe. Do you ever leave the apartment? This seems silly, but are people still going to work and such?
by mick1303 Again there is a period of time when there is power and Internet. Things are not getting better though. Pictures of familiar places turned into dust tear my heart. There are already significant destruction in the places where I can walk in 10 minutes. We entertained the thought of fleeing to the Western part of the country. But it is very hard for various reasons. My father refuses to move, believing that by some miracle everything will be OK. All railroads and automobile roads are heavily congested. Besides railroad way is closed to me, because they would not allow men 18-60 on the train. So for the time being my options are limited.
I am leaving an apartment, walking the streets, because otherwise you will just go insane. Explosions at the distance is the thing one can get used to. But all this comes at a cost (psychologically). It is hard to sleep and I constantly feel tired and drift into some kind of numbness.
by meganfernandez
mick1303 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 1:59 pm
Again there is a period of time when there is power and Internet. Things are not getting better though. Pictures of familiar places turned into dust tear my heart. There are already significant destruction in the places where I can walk in 10 minutes. We entertained the thought of fleeing to the Western part of the country. But it is very hard for various reasons. My father refuses to move, believing that by some miracle everything will be OK. All railroads and automobile roads are heavily congested. Besides railroad way is closed to me, because they would not allow men 18-60 on the train. So for the time being my options are limited.
I am leaving an apartment, walking the streets, because otherwise you will just go insane. Explosions at the distance is the thing one can get used to. But all this comes at a cost (psychologically). It is hard to sleep and I constantly feel tired and drift into some kind of numbness.
Thanks for sharing your story, Mick. I wish there was something I could do. This is unimaginable. You are so strong already. I'm praying for you and your family, and your neighbors. I hope you can convince your father to go somewhere safer.
by skatingfan
ti-amie wrote: ↑Thu Feb 03, 2022 1:46 amRotterdam to dismantle part of historic bridge so Jeff Bezos’s massive yacht can pass through
A picture shows barges docked on the Koningshaven waterway near the “De Hef” lift bridge and the Koninginnebrug drawbridge in Rotterdam. (SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP via Getty Images)
By Miriam Berger
Today at 1:21 p.m. EST
Rotterdam has agreed to temporarily dismantle part of its historic Koningshaven Bridge so that Jeff Bezos’s 417-foot-long, three-mast yacht can pass through the waterway sometime this summer, according to a spokeswoman for the city.
The Dutch company Oceano has been building the massive vessel for an estimated $500 million in the nearby city of Alblasserdam. Once completed this year, the ship, known as Y721, will be the world’s largest sailing yacht, according to Boat International.
But to reach the open seas it must first pass through Rotterdam — considered the maritime capital of Europe — and the city’s historic steel bridge, locally known as De Hef, which has a clearance of just over 131 feet.
Originally built in 1927, De Hef was a railway bridge and the first of its kind in Western Europe, with a central span that could be lifted to allow ship traffic to pass underneath. It was decommissioned in 1994 after being replaced by a tunnel, but later declared a national monument. The bridge underwent a major restoration from 2014 to 2017, after which the city said it would not be dismantled again, according to the Dutch broadcaster Rijnmond, which first reported on the yacht agreement.
Although the exact plans, timetable and costs have not been set, Oceano and Bezos will pay to dismantle the bridge, Rijnmond reported.
Frances van Heijst, the Rotterdam municipality spokeswoman, confirmed by phone that the city would not be footing the bill. She said the shipbuilder bears the cost of hiring a company to carry out the bridge’s deconstruction and reassembly, but that she could not provide an estimate or breakdown of the cost as “a lot of details need to be worked out.”
Representatives for Bezos and Oceano did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bezos, estimated to be one of the world’s richest people, owns The Washington Post. Last year, he stepped down as chief executive of Amazon, the online retail giant he founded.
More than 1,000 Dutch residents plan to throw rotten eggs at Jeff Bezos' superyacht if it ends up forcing a historic bridge be dismantled for it to pass through
Jeff Bezos' new megayacht is being built in the Netherlands, where it may require a historic bridge be dismantled so it can sail through.
Some Dutch residents definitely won't be egging him on but will instead be chucking eggs at his yacht when it passes.
Rotterdam locals have taken to Facebook to plan an event called "Throwing eggs at Jeff Bezos' superyacht" in protest.
"Calling all Rotterdammers, take a box of rotten eggs with you and let's throw them en masse at Jeff's superyacht when it sails through the Hef in Rotterdam," the event description reads. "Rotterdam was built from the rubble by the people of Rotterdam, and we don't just take that apart for the phallic symbol of a megalomaniac billionaire. Not without a fight!"
As of this writing, roughly 1,200 people have marked themselves going to the event, and 4,900 people are interested in it. The event is slated for June 1.
Bezos' megayacht is predicted to cost $500 million and is under construction now in Alblasserdam, Netherlands, by shipbuilding company Oceanco. Once completed, the 417-foot vessel will need to pass through Rotterdam to reach the ocean and ultimately, Bezos.
The problem, though, is that the megayacht's three masts are too tall to pass under the 131-foot clearance of Rotterdam's Koningshaven Bridge. Known locally as De Hef, the bridge is nearly 100 years old and is thought of as something of a landmark in the city. After the bridge was renovated in 2017, the city vowed it wouldn't be taken apart again, according to Dutch broadcaster Rijnmond.
Rotterdam's mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, said Thursday that no decision has been made yet on dismantling the bridge to accommodate the superyacht. If it does end up happening, Bezos or Oceanco may have to foot the bill, he added.
mick1303 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 1:59 pm
Again there is a period of time when there is power and Internet. Things are not getting better though. Pictures of familiar places turned into dust tear my heart. There are already significant destruction in the places where I can walk in 10 minutes. We entertained the thought of fleeing to the Western part of the country. But it is very hard for various reasons. My father refuses to move, believing that by some miracle everything will be OK. All railroads and automobile roads are heavily congested. Besides railroad way is closed to me, because they would not allow men 18-60 on the train. So for the time being my options are limited.
I am leaving an apartment, walking the streets, because otherwise you will just go insane. Explosions at the distance is the thing one can get used to. But all this comes at a cost (psychologically). It is hard to sleep and I constantly feel tired and drift into some kind of numbness.
Mick, given you have limited internet access, I'm just going to drop a few links here that have aggregated information on some potentially helpful resources, especially if you do decide to leave Kharkiv. I'm sure you have a better view, but maybe some of these might help as well. You'll see on the list there are also some hotlines offering medical advice and mental health support:
by mick1303 My family managed to move 250 km to the west to the town of Mirhorod. There is no war here ATM. My wife's aunt gave us shelter. Volunteers moved us two families (6 ppl) by a van. It went rather smoothly, the roads are no longer congested. While moving through the city I saw the signs of destruction myself. Make no mistake, they already targeting civilian infrastructure and residential buildings intentionally. I saw Russian military vehicles burned well inside city limits.
by ponchi101 I hope the Russian army and generals get tried for war crimes. Your comment of targeting civilian infrastructure is sickening.
Hope you are well, and that this will end soon. Keep posting, so we will know you are safe.
by ti-amie
Jack Detsch
@JackDetsch
Bringing you stories from the Pentagon. National security reporter
@foreignpolicy
. Tell me something new: Signal → 510-439-7894 / email → jack.detsch@gmail.com
by ponchi101 Would that be strategic? Aim at the head, see if that demoralizes the troops?
It is a serious question. How would the Ukrainians know where the generals are?
by mmmm8
mick1303 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 12, 2022 1:33 pm
My family managed to move 250 km to the west to the town of Mirhorod. There is no war here ATM. My wife's aunt gave us shelter. Volunteers moved us two families (6 ppl) by a van. It went rather smoothly, the roads are no longer congested. While moving through the city I saw the signs of destruction myself. Make no mistake, they already targeting civilian infrastructure and residential buildings intentionally. I saw Russian military vehicles burned well inside city limits.
Good to hear, Mick, although I hope you can go further West at some point. If you decide to exit Ukraine, my understanding is if you go by car, the enforcement of the rules around men under 60 having to stay is not the same at all border areas and it's possible to leave. If you or members of your family decide to do so, please let us know. I have a friend volunteering at the Romanian border and other contacts in Europe that might be able to help if you are not sure where to go/what to do.
For everyone else, MIrhorod means "city of peace." Let's hope it stays that way.
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 12, 2022 4:19 pm
I hope the Russian army and generals get tried for war crimes. Your comment of targeting civilian infrastructure is sickening.
Hope you are well, and that this will end soon. Keep posting, so we will know you are safe.
A big monastery was bombed overnight...
by meganfernandez No word from Mick since March 12...
by ti-amie
meganfernandez wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 1:02 am
No word from Mick since March 12...
Worried...
by skatingfan
meganfernandez wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 1:02 am
No word from Mick since March 12...
His user profile shows that he was logged in today.
by dryrunguy In case you missed what's been happening in El Salvador...
by ponchi101 The results of decades of countries that cannot provide education, and later on work, for their youth.
by ti-amie SIGH
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 How Europe has changed in a couple of decades.
Democracy is truly getting scarcer around the world.
by ti-amie Via RussJones@RussinCheshire
Tweets aggregated via @threadeaderapp
1. Let’s start #TheWeekInTory with PartyGate, where randy Honey Monster and (no, really) Prime Minister Boris Johnson denied 20 fines meant there had been wrongdoing
2. This doesn’t quite explain why he had personally phoned the Queen to apologise for all the wrongdoing
3. Regardless, The Met issued MASSIVE fines of £50 for breaching lockdown rules
4. Last week a £2,200 was handed down to a member of the public (who didn't live or work in Downing St) for breaching lockdown rules, thus proving we’re all equal in the eyes of the law
5. Maria Caulfield said the PM was “very clear there was wrongdoing”
6. Same TV show, she said the PM “did not believe there was wrongdoing”
7. Dom Cummings (Lucius Malfoy after a flash-fire) said “the PM encouraged attacks on junior officials” to distract from his own crimes
8. Having promised to release all party photos to the Sue Gray inquiry, No 10 now refuses to release photos, and denies they even exist
9. Anyway, off (very slowly) to Dover, to find a week of 23-mile, 30 hr traffic jams as a combination of Brexit paperwork and P&O problems hit
10. Last week the govt promised to sue P&O
11. It dropped that promise 4 days later, once it had attracted enough good headlines
12. The govt had also promised to improve worker’s rights
13. This week the govt shelved those plans for the second year running
14. Kent had a "temporary traffic management system" that we were told would be scrapped in Oct 2021, by which time Brexit would be simply marvellous
15. This week that temporary traffic system was made permanent, in recognition that Brexit will never stop being dog-(expletive)
16. This brings us on to a cross-party report this week, which found Brexit has caused 500,000 agriculture vacancies
17. So the govt issued 30,000 temp visas, which is 6% of what we need
18. Amazingly, this didn’t solve the problem
19. Nor did a 50% increase in farm pay
20. But it has led to a huge increase in food prices and costs for farmers
21. Lack of workers means crops are going unharvested, and left to rot
22. The loss of crops, cost increases, and damage to supply chains caused by Brexit has been “financially ruinous” to UK farmers
23. And it has led to 27000 healthy pigs being culled cos we don’t have enough staff to prepare them for the table
24. That’s 27000 healthy animals shot and chucked in the bin, while we have over 2.5 million people using foodbanks
25. You definitely voted for that, right?
26. But at least it’s better than the horror of Ukraine, where 6.5 million refugees seek homes, and our world-leading govt has taken 43 days to issue just 2700 visas
27. So far only 500 refugees have been allowed into the country. Out of 6.5 million
28. Naturally, given the urgent crisis, this week the Home Office chose to shut down part of its visa system, which officials called “chaotic”
29. And then the govt admitted they’ve been “giving Ukrainian refugees the wrong guidance” on how to apply to come here for over a month
30. The Tory refugee minister in the Lords said his own govt’s response to refugees was “embarrassing”
31. Undeterred – but definitely still turd – Home Secretary and rabid Dolores Umbridge cosplayer Priti Patel’s put forward lovely new plans to criminalise refugees
32. They were rejected by the House of Lords after the lord chief justice pointed out they “breach international law”
33. Over to Number 11, where Rishi Sunak, who is being chancellor during his gap year, made loads of friends in yet another devastatingly successful week
34. He began by blocking the Green Homes plan that would have reduced energy bills
35. Then he forced everybody with rocketing and terrifying fuel debt to take on an additional £200 of fuel debt, whether they like it or not
36. Sunak then insisted giving people money that they had to repay “doesn’t make it a loan”
37. Brandon Lewis, out of his depth on a sheet of graphene and battling to hold 2 ideas in his head at once, told an interviewer “It is a loan, let’s remember. No, it isn’t”
38. To show how much he sympathised with the desperate plight of the poor, Sunak generously donated £100,000 to foodbanks
39. No, hold on: let me correct that: he donated £100,000 to his old boarding school Winchester College, alma mater of some of the richest people on earth
40. In his next act of empathy, Sunak demonstrated a great way we could all avoid freezing as his fuel and tax policies cause catastrophic hardship: leave behind all the massive problems you just caused, and fly off to your £5m holiday home in sunny Santa Monica
41. Feral gonad Sajid Javid said it was “right and fair” that we all pay more tax than we can afford
42. He then said it was right and fair for Rishi Sunak’s billionaire wife to avoid tax she can easily afford, cos what are we: animals? Or - god help us - Belgians?!
43. Akshata Murthy (Mrs Sunak) has non-dom status, so doesn’t pay tax on most of her billions of income
44. This includes income derived from the £727m stake she has in Russian businesses that her husband spent last week telling the rest of us we shouldn’t invest in
45. Sunak said his wife was only avoiding tax cos she’s Indian
46. But being Indian doesn’t make you exempt from UK tax if you live/earn here
47. And being non-dom isn’t an accident of birth: she pays £30k a year for it
48. But it has allowed her to avoid £20m of tax
49. The average Brit worker pays £6k per year in tax, so Murthy’s greed has wiped out the entire contribution of 3,330 British workers
50. And then the govt, by some amazing twist of happenstance, chose her family firm to be recipients of £50m in contracts
51. Let us enter the (presumably quite large) orbit of Eric Pickles, former housing minister and current twat, who respectfully attended the Grenfell Inquiry
52. He respectfully told them he was too busy to answer their questions
53. He said the fire killed 96 people. It killed 72, which he respectfully couldn’t be arsed remembering
54. Still, he’s an improvement on Nadine Dorries, who ignored a committee of MPs telling her the new Ofcom head shouldn’t get the job because he has a “clear lack of depth”
55. The same flaw hadn’t stopped Dorries getting into cabinet, so she pressed on regardless
56. The last time Dorries appointed a head of the Charity Commission – and a friend of Boris Johnson’s, wouldn’t you just know it – was December, and he lasted barely a week
57. So this week, without bothering to run an appointments process, she appointed a different member of the Tory inner-circle as the new charities head
58. MPs had already rejected this one too, as being “slapdash”, and I think I’m starting to spot a pattern
59. The Tory chair of the culture committee said the actions of Dorries simply proved “the public appointments process is broken”
60. Taking her queue from this, Dorries then moved on to breaking Channel 4
61. Dorries (the actual Culture Minister, and not a woman dragged in front of the cameras straight from a fight outside a flat-roofed pub) said C4 being publicly funded was “holding it back”
62. C4 isn’t publicly funded, and Nadine is so thick you could stand a spoon up in her
63. Dorries's sterling native stupidity didn’t stop Ben Bradley (the Lego form of Al Murray) from using her as a role-model, so he also claimed C4 gets “£ from the taxpayer” and can’t raise its own funds
64. It raises its own funds via advertising
65. Grade B MP David Warburton was suspended for class A drugs, and for sexually assaulting 3 women
66. It probably won’t help his defence that he’d posed for photos next to a baking-tray full of cocaine
67. Tory whips knew about his drugs/assaults for weeks, and did nothing
68. Warburton has checked himself into a psychiatric unit
69. He somehow jumped the place of the 60% of children’s mental health referrals currently being rejected, because a decade of Tory cuts (which Warburton voted for) has left us unable to care for our kids
70. Perhaps Warburton will pay for his own care, maybe using the undisclosed £100k he just took from a Russian businessman
71. This was hot on the cloven-heels of Priti Patel, who this week took a £100k “donation” from an oil trader
72. A donation is not the same as a bribe. One is illegal, the other legal. But occasionally, by some chance-in-a-million fluke, they produce identical results
73. For example, days after getting a donation from an oil trader, Patel opposed windfall taxes on oil company profits
74. Which brings us to the energy crisis, and 2 weeks ago the PM promised a “long-term energy policy” based around windfarms
75. And then 9 cabinet ministers – the usual supercluster of arrant gobshites, Patel, Dorries, Rees-Mogg etc – demanded a cut in support for windfarms
76. So the PM’s “long-term energy policy” has lasted 2 weeks, and today's wild, sweaty fumble in the policy tombola has led to a new one: 6 nuclear power stations instead, which won’t open for decades, and for which there is no money
77. There’s also no money for home insulation, which is the cheapest, fastest, and greenest way to conserve energy and reduce bills, and could start tomorrow
78. However, ministers did launch a plan to drop the ban on fracking, contradicting their own manifesto pledge
79. Other manifesto pledges: a mini-thread, as if you haven't suffered enough
a. “We will not raise National Insurance”
b. National Insurance increased by 10%
c. “We will keep the pension Triple Lock”
d. They abolished the triple lock
e. “No-one will have to sell their home to pay for care”
f. People still have to sell their homes for care
g. “We'll build rail between Manchester and Leeds”
h. Scrapped
i. “40 new hospitals”
j. Isn’t happening
k. “We will cap energy bills”
l. Energy bills are up 54%
m. “0.7% of GDP on international aid”
n. They ended most international aid
o. “We will host the first ever LGBT conference”
p. So this week govt cancelled that conference as 100s boycotted it in protest at Tories failing to outlaw conversion practices for transgender people
80. Anyway, back to the main thread, which - yep - is still grinding on, you poor (expletive). The latest broken pledge on clean energy came the same week the IPCC said “extreme steps” are needed immediately to avert “catastrophic climate change”
81. Faced with this existential threat, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the result of a Dalek having hate-sex with a pendulum, said he supported extracting “every last drop of oil from the North Sea”
82. Bear in mind this lot hosted the COP26 climate summit less than a year ago
83. Although Boris Johnson did take a private jet to Devon to attend it, which should have given us a hint about his intentions
84. And if that wasn’t a big enough clue, the Tories let Shell pay £0 tax on oil and gas production last year, and instead we PAID THEM £92 million
85. Research this week showed in 2 years the PM has told 17 uncorrected lies in parliament, and ministers a further 27
86. The ministerial code says any falsehood must be corrected, or the minister must resign. But still they cling on
87. And finally, 5 million people had Covid last week, experts called the cancellation of health measures a “perfect storm”, and 3000 NHS staff per week are off sick with the virus
88.So naturally, we chose this exact moment to cancel free rapid testing.
by ti-amie The Brits have such interesting scandals.
Sunak asks PM for investigation into his own financial affairs
Entry on the list of ministers’ interests does not mention his wife’s £690m stake in Infosys – which has UK government contracts
Rowena Mason Deputy political editor
Sun 10 Apr 2022 19.23 BST
Rishi Sunak has written to the prime minister to ask for an investigation into his own affairs after days of criticism over his wife’s “non dom” tax status and lack of transparency over their financial affairs.
The chancellor wrote to Boris Johnson asking him for a referral to Lord Geidt, the independent adviser, requesting a review of all his declarations since becoming a minister in 2018.
Sunak said he was confident it would find “all relevant information was properly declared” on the advice of officials. It follows criticism that his entry on the list of ministers’ interests contains no mention of Akshata Murty’s £690m stake in Indian company Infosys – which has UK government contracts.
He is also facing scrutiny over his investments held in a blind management arrangement, with his spokesperson declining to say which jurisdiction they are held in or when the arrangement was formed. Sunak has come under pressure over whether his decision to keep a US green card conferring permanent residency for 19 months while chancellor represents a conflict of interest with his UK government role.
However, the inquiry requested by Sunak will cover only his ministerial career, and there is still a mystery over his lack of any declaration of financial interests from the time he became an MP in 2015 until 2018, when he became a minister and formed a blind management arrangement.
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, has also written to Johnson and Geidt with a detailed series of questions, including:
Whether Sunak had ever benefited from the use of tax havens.
Whether he had received any updates on his blind trust since becoming chancellor.
Whether Sunak made a legal promise to the US when he received his green card that it was his permanent residence, and, if so, whether he was legally a permanent US resident when he entered parliament and became a minister.
Whether the chancellor and his family would provide “full transparency” on all their overseas income and where they pay tax on it.
It comes after Sunak was criticised for “whingeing” about the leak of his wife’s non-dom tax status after he ordered a Whitehall inquiry and raised concerns the unauthorised disclosure could be a criminal offence.
Labour criticised the chancellor for complaining about the “smears” and insisting on an inquiry into the leak, instead of addressing the criticism of his family avoiding tax while he puts up taxes and cuts benefits in real terms this month.
An investigation by the Treasury and Cabinet Office is also under way after details of Murty’s tax details were given to the Independent. Her status as non-domiciled has allowed her to legally avoid about £20m of UK taxes on dividends from the Indian IT company founded by her billionaire father on the understanding that her long-term permanent domicile is in India.
Sunak initially responded to the story by saying it was a “smear”, but late on Friday Murty issued a statement saying she would in future pay UK tax on worldwide earnings.
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said that “whingeing Rishi simply doesn’t get it”.
“Tomorrow he imposes biggest real terms cut to pension for 50 years. Tomorrow he imposes severe real terms cuts to support like universal credit. But he’s more bothered about settling scores for exposing him after days of obfuscating,” he said.
Labour is expected to increase criticism of Sunak this week, raising questions about his lack of transparency and potential for conflicts of interest.
The Liberal Democrats have also drawn up draft legislation aimed at forcing the chancellor and any other government ministers to reveal whether they or their spouses claim non-domiciled status or have holdings in overseas tax havens.
Sunak was strongly defended on Sunday by Kit Malthouse, the policing minister, who said the chancellor had been a “remarkable force of good” by bringing in the furlough scheme during the pandemic. However, Malthouse also admitted that the leak had been “not ideal” for Sunak.
by ti-amieFrom non-dom to green card: questions still facing Rishi Sunak
The chancellor remains under pressure after controversy over the tax affairs of his wife
Rowena Mason Deputy political editor
Sun 10 Apr 2022 19.13 BST
The “non-dom” status: why will Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, not give it up?
Murty has agreed to pay UK tax on her worldwide earnings in future and for the last tax year, but she will continue to be a non-domiciled citizen. This potentially still confers inheritance tax advantages on her overseas wealth. Some critics are also still calling for her to pay UK tax on her worldwide earnings on a backdated basis.
The green card: why did Sunak cling on to a US “permanent resident” card even when UK chancellor?
There has still not been an adequate explanation as to why Sunak kept his US green card for six years while an MP, including 19 months as chancellor. It does not seem that the move gave him tax advantages, but it does suggest he was keeping his options open in terms of a move back to the US in case his political career did not work out.
US lawyers, though, have queried how he would have presented himself to US immigration officials when returning to his Santa Monica apartment in California, questioning whether they would have been misled about his true residence while a British MP. It is also understood that his wife gave up her green card before Sunak became chancellor, so it is not clear why he did not do so earlier.
The “blind” investments: why will Sunak not tell the public what he owns?
Sunak has so far avoided publicly declaring what companies or funds he holds investments in and where these investments are based. His spokesperson would not say what jurisdiction his holding was in, nor when his “blind management arrangement” was set up.
It is not unlikely that he could still have a holding in Theleme, the Cayman Islands-based hedge fund that he co-founded. But the public has no idea, because he is refusing to say.
His wife’s investments: where are they and how much does she own?
Likewise, Sunak has not declared all his wife’s shareholdings on his register of ministerial interests entry. It is public that she owns a shareholding worth an estimated £690m in Infosys, which has UK government contracts. She may own large chunks of other companies as well, but there is no transparency over what she has a stake in.
The decision about disclosure of his family’s financial interests is one for the independent adviser of ministerial interests, and questions have been raised in the past about why Murty’s substantial holdings do not appear on the register.
Conflicts of interest: what involvement has Sunak had in non-dom policy and other changes related to his investments?
The Guardian revealed on Friday that Sunak brought in tax breaks in April to benefit fund managers who are non-doms. In fact, the whole qualifying asset holding companies regime is likely to be used by people who work in his former industry. And there is no way of knowing whether any of his investments may benefit from the new regime. Officials in the Treasury working on non-dom policy are said to be dismayed that they did not know of his wife’s tax status. There are questions to be answered over whether his potential conflicts have been properly declared and managed.
by the Moz French Presidential debate was last night and it appears Macron bested Le Pen ahead of the run-off vote on Sunday. Macron is expected to beat Le Pen again, but by a smaller margin than their 2017 contest. I'm fine with EM continuing and will be very glad to see Marine's presidential aspirations laid to rest. Vive la république et vive la France!
by ponchi101 The Far Right slowly continues to gain ground in France. There are two points that worry me there.
One is, for the last few elections they have reached the run-off stage. I means that their base is solid and not considering moving to a more responsible platform.
Second. They do better all the time in the Run-off. And it will take only one election win for the Far Right to do some very permanent and terrible damage.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Are there any other news about this? Why would an entire airport be closed?
Has Vlad already denied any involvement, meaning he is involved? Has he said nothing, meaning he is involved?
by mick1303
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 7:44 pm
Are there any other news about this? Why would an entire airport be closed?
Has Vlad already denied any involvement, meaning he is involved? Has he said nothing, meaning he is involved?
In Russian Vladimir is rarely shortens to Vlad. "Vlad" usually means Vladislav. For Vladimir another short names exist - Vova/Volodya. Or was it a reference to Dracula?
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 7:44 pm
Are there any other news about this? Why would an entire airport be closed?
Has Vlad already denied any involvement, meaning he is involved? Has he said nothing, meaning he is involved?
In Russian Vladimir is rarely shortens to Vlad. "Vlad" usually means Vladislav. For Vladimir another short names exist - Vova/Volodya. Or was it a reference to Dracula?
Nope, it was a reference to Putin, so thanks for the clarification. As I have seem in other places that indeed he is called Vlad, I was simply following that path.
Thanks for the correction.
But: why would you shorten somebody's name from three syllables to... three syllables? Vladimir->Volodya? It makes no sense. I gather I will use Vova.
(By the way: internal joke here. In Spanish, BOBA would mean SILLY in female, so Vova sounds indeed silly).
by mick1303 Yes, I understood that it was a reference to Putin once I passed initial confusion. Then I thought that you liken him to Dracula, not that you implied that actual Dracula got resurrected and meddled with Polish planes.
by meganfernandez
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 22, 2022 3:59 pm
But: why would you shorten somebody's name from three syllables to... three syllables? Vladimir->Volodya? It makes no sense. I gather I will use Vova.
(By the way: internal joke here. In Spanish, BOBA would mean SILLY in female, so Vova sounds indeed silly).
Nicknames aren't always about shortening. They express informality/familiarity/tenderness. Especially with diminutives. James/Jimmy, Alberto/Betito, Enrique/Enriquillo.
by ponchi101 I know of Alberto going to Beto, but Betito is only when you are a little child.
Never heard of Enriquillo. We call those Quique (Key-Kuh). I guess different countries have different ones.
by meganfernandez
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 22, 2022 6:35 pm
I know of Alberto going to Beto, but Betito is only when you are a little child.
Never heard of Enriquillo. We call those Quique (Key-Kuh). I guess different countries have different ones.
My husband is Enrique, and yes, we call him Quique (or Kike, as I spell it), but also Enriquillo. I hear his older sister say that, maybe because she's often talking to her little kids about him. I guess that's more of a diminutive than a nickname. He calls his adult cousin Betito. I dunno... Jimmy just came to mind, but that's a diminutive of Jim. Anyway, off topic.
by ponchi101 Wonder where to put this, so here it goes.
[urlhttps://finance.yahoo.com/news/top-lithium-expert-agrees-elon-181259766.html]A top lithium expert agrees with Elon Musk that there’s not enough of the crucial metal to meet booming demand[/url]
So, what do we do? We can't use oil because it pollutes. And now there is not enough lithium for that brand new, shiny $145,000 Lucid.
There's just too many of us.
by Suliso Recycling, recycling and again recycling. That's about lithium, particularly where large car batteries are concerned.
by ponchi101
Suliso wrote: ↑Sat Apr 23, 2022 4:43 pm
Recycling, recycling and again recycling. That's about lithium, particularly where large car batteries are concerned.
Ah, I knew you would see the bright side of it...
But, there is so much recycling you can do. If the demand outstrips both the mined raw material AND the recycling capacity, then you get to the bottle neck. If we really want to switch all car production to simply EV's, you are talking replacing billions of cars. And then, who knows where the lithium comes from.
I gather we will figure it out, as there are indeed financial rewards.
by Suliso Yes, but in medium term more mining is possible too. A life cycle of a car is 15-20 years (several owners).
by dryrunguy Early results of the French presidential election project Macron will defeat Le Pen.
by Suliso At least one disaster avoided...
by ponchi101 But Le Pen got around 41% of the vote. The Far Right continues to gain ground.
Sure, the disaster has been avoided, but when 40% of your people are leaning in one direction, they have to be taken into account.
Looks familiar, no?
by Suliso True, but if the far right is to gain power it won't be with Le Pen. This was already her 3rd try...
by ti-amie Who says colonialism isn't a state of mind?
by ti-amie
Yes Mme Macron was there...
by dryrunguy Meanwhile, for the record, we should at least acknowledge Le Pen's willingness to concede the election within a reasonable timeframe after the projections were made (though she failed to congratulate Macron). That's how a democracy works after a fairly lopsided loss. So far, no election officials in Paris or Leon have been threatened with retaliation. And so far, no one seems to be planning to storm the Palais Bourbon.
I'm just sayin'...
by ponchi101 There are people gathering at Le Bastille...
(Not)
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 24, 2022 10:00 pm
There are people gathering at Le Bastille...
(Not)
They did gather but for this...
by ti-amie Christine Lagarde
@Lagarde
Mes chaleureuses félicitations
@EmmanuelMacron
pour sa réélection à la présidence de la France !
Un leadership fort est essentiel en ces temps incertains et votre engagement européen sans faille continuera à être le bienvenu pour relever les défis auxquels nous sommes confrontés.
Translated from French by Google
My warm congratulations
@EmmanuelMacron
for his re-election as President of France!
Strong leadership is essential in these uncertain times and your unwavering European commitment will continue to be welcome in addressing the challenges we face.
Central bankers usually keep quiet about stuff like this but here we are. That's how important this election was.
by ti-amie Everyone is talking about France but this seems important too:
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 7:44 pm
Are there any other news about this? Why would an entire airport be closed?
Has Vlad already denied any involvement, meaning he is involved? Has he said nothing, meaning he is involved?
In Russian Vladimir is rarely shortens to Vlad. "Vlad" usually means Vladislav. For Vladimir another short names exist - Vova/Volodya. Or was it a reference to Dracula?
Nope, it was a reference to Putin, so thanks for the clarification. As I have seem in other places that indeed he is called Vlad, I was simply following that path.
Thanks for the correction.
But: why would you shorten somebody's name from three syllables to... three syllables? Vladimir->Volodya? It makes no sense. I gather I will use Vova.
(By the way: internal joke here. In Spanish, BOBA would mean SILLY in female, so Vova sounds indeed silly).
Volodya is more of a nickname than a shortened name. Like Pancho for Francisco in Spanish, for example or Jack for John in English.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Mart Kuldkepp
@KuldkeppMart
Here is a thread on Swedish security policy traditions and the question of NATO membership.
Probably my last one on Nordic security and NATO, at least for a while. But it's a long one. (0/48)
Sweden holds the distinction of being the country that has longer than any other – ever since the Napoleonic wars, in fact – stood outside of international military conflicts. (1/48)
This experience of two centuries of peacefulness has conditioned Sweden’s foreign and defence policy in important ways that merit closer attention. This is true not least today when Russia is fighting its criminal war against Ukraine.
As one consequence of this war, (2/48)
Swedish foreign and defence policy has come under new scrutiny both in Sweden and elsewhere. Since late February, (3/48)
it has become an increasingly contested whether peacetime non-alignment (alliansfrihet) would indeed guarantee Sweden a freedom of choice between neutrality and belligerency (handlingsfrihet) in times of war. Rather, (4/48)
recent opinion polls tell us that the majority of Swedish voters already believe the country’s security would in fact be better served by outright membership in NATO. Furthermore, Sweden is not alone. (5/48)
Neighbouring Finland has moved very close to submitting its own membership application, and Sweden is likely to follow.
To understand Sweden’s approach to its security, it would be helpful to delve deep into its history going as far back as the 17th century. (6/48)
But if we don’t have the patience for that, it is helpful to revisit at least the Cold War period.
The collapse of its Scandinavian Defence Alliance initiative in 1949 left Sweden alone in the region to pursue a traditional neutrality course, (7/48)
just as it had done already since the 19th century. This policy meant military nonalignment in peacetime, with a view to remaining neutral in the event of war. (8/48)
It was furthermore supported by a relatively strong army for ‘neutrality defence’ and a domestic armaments industry. Sweden even had a nuclear weapons programme.
However, in the mid-1970s, as the growth of Swedish economy was slowing down, (9/48)
its defence expenditure began to decline.
The USSR took note of this, and a series of Soviet submarine incidents followed in the Swedish territorial waters in the early to mid-1980s. (10/48)
The most dramatic of these occurred when a Soviet submarine ran aground near the Karlskrona naval base in south-east Sweden. Since the type of submarine was called ‘Whiskey’ in NATO parlance, the incident became known as ‘whiskey on the rocks.’ However, (11/48)
although the USSR showed clearly that Sweden was quite exposed and vulnerable to Soviet aggression, there was no fundamental revision of Sweden’s neutrality policy.
At the same time, although Sweden officially pursued a policy of unswerving nonalignment, (12/48)
it also undertook covert preparations for military cooperation with NATO in the event of an attack from the Soviet Union. Although not all the details are known, this secret cooperation was ongoing already in the early 1950s. Indeed, (13/48)
it seems that NATO was willing to defend Sweden even with nuclear weapons, if necessary, since Sweden was strategically important for the defence of Norway and the northern Atlantic. (14/48)
Sweden’s two-faced attitude to its security in the Cold War era has sometimes been associated with the theory of ‘small-state realism’: the idea that deep down, small states cannot really afford to be idealistic about their security policy, because, in the end, (15/48)
they rely on stronger powers to protect them.
However, this does not mean that it was conscious policy choice officially adopted by the Swedish leadership. Instead, (16/48)
it has recently been suggested by Matti Roitto and Antero Holmila that Swedish security policy in this period could be described as ‘liquid neutrality’: a flexible and pragmatic set of policies that were adopted or changed to meet the obstacles that happened to arise, (17/48)
and to exploit the ‘cracks along the fault lines of superpower competition.’ This opportunistic stance was facilitated by the fact that the Swedish public – as most voters – neither understood well nor was particularly interested in foreign policy, (18/48)
so important changes could happen unnoticed.
The first significant turning point in Swedish security policy after 1949 occurred at the end of the Cold War. (19/48)
The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the bipolar world system more generally meant significant changes in the security landscape for all the states in the region, and Sweden was no exception. (20/48)
The decline of traditional security concerns about the USSR seemed to open new and exciting perspectives to rethink Sweden’s approach to its foreign and defence policy. (21/48)
Both Finland and Sweden continued to define their security position in the early 1990s as one of ‘military nonalignment and a credible national defence’, but they also sought a relationship with NATO through membership in the Partnership for Peace programme. (22/48)
This was possible because the end of Cold War-era bipolarity also led to a change in the role of NATO and the EU as ‘security providers.’ Especially NATO acquired a new function in the Nordic security landscape. Now, (23/48)
rather than purely an article 5-based collective defence organisation, it turned into something more like a cross-national forum for dialogue on security matters. In the post-Cold War world, (24/48)
the ability to access such networks was an important asset that Sweden could not afford to forgo, even if its closeness to NATO undermined its rhetoric of non-alignment.
To compensate for their decision to still not seek membership in NATO, (25/48)
both Sweden and Finland turned into semi-independent security innovators in the 1990s. As new EU members, (26/48)
the two made an innovative joint proposal in 1996 for strengthening the Union’s crisis management capability and subsequently participated extensively in crisis management initiatives under both EU and NATO flags, using both military and non-military instruments. In 2008, (27/48)
a Nordic battle group was launched with Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Estonian, and Irish troops. The tasks of this and similar units was to provide humanitarian support, search, rescue, and evacuation duties.
The question of joining NATO outright did come up in Sweden. (28/48)
In 2003, the former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt and the former Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Elleman-Jensen issued a joint statement arguing that Finland and Sweden should join NATO or risk losing their influence in the discussion of European security. Nevertheless, (29/48)
the idea remained an anathema for the Swedish Social Democrats, the party that over the course of the Cold War had become heavily invested in the non-alignment policy. Rather than a form of calculated security policy, (30/48)
the Swedish left’s attachment to non-alignment can be best described as a form of identity politics, with NATO widely seen as incompatible with Swedish foreign policy traditions and ‘third way’ ethos.
In 2004, (31/48)
a new defence bill by the Swedish Social Democratic minority government stated that Sweden no longer perceived any serious threats to its national territory. Consequently, one third of Swedish military forces were disbanded, (32/48)
the size of defence staff reduced by one quarter and the number of submarines and fighter aircraft substantially cut. This effectively marked the end of the Cold War policy of armed neutrality. Instead, Sweden profiled itself by developing a small, (33/48)
highly trained rapid reaction force for crisis management purposes.
But even so, Swedish non-alignment came to be increasingly watered down over the years. As for other non- NATO member states like Finland (but also Austria and Ireland), the EU ‘solidarity clause’, (34/48)
as introduced by the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, raised questions about whether the security policies of these member states could be perceived as non-aligned anymore. Moreover, despite its continued official status as non-aligned, (35/48)
Sweden continued to take part in NATO exercises and operations and used NATO standards in its force transformation and capability development programmes, resulting in a high level of interoperability.
In October 2013 (five years after Finland), (36/48) Sweden joined the NATO Rapid Response Force, contributing a ‘fighter unit’ deployable under NATO command within 90 days, mainly providing Swedish Air Force fighter aircraft for NATO operations. From 2016, (37/48)
Sweden (and Finland) also provide Host Nation Support to NATO forces through the provision of logistical and operational support sites, essentially allowing allied forces to be stationed on their territory, including in times of peace. (38/48)
The question of NATO membership also became increasingly debated in the mid-2010s, as Russia’s aggressive behaviour increasingly highlighted Sweden’s limited territorial defence capability. Embarrassingly, in 2013, (39/48)
the Russian air force undertook an attack exercise in international airspace near the island of Gotland and the Swedish air force was not able to respond.
More decisively, (40/48)
public opinion on the matter shifted under the impression of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014, showing a somewhat stronger degree of support for Swedish membership in NATO: 48 per cent in favour, (41/48)
compared to an average of 35 per cent in comparable surveys between 2007 and 2013.
After the renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and repeated Russian threat, as well as violations of Swedish airspace by Russian planes, (42/48)
the support for joining NATO had risen to 60% by early April. At present, the incumbent Social Democratic government is undertaking consultations to reconsider its stance on the issue, (43/48)
but with the Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson having signalled her support for membership, the outcome of these consultations is not in doubt.
To summarise, it is fair to say that even before February 2022, (44/48)
Sweden had moved rather close to embracing the idea of NATO membership. Nevertheless, it was held back primarily by domestic left-wing opinion and the Social Democratic party, large sections of which have by now rethought their position. (45/48)
After decades of cuts to defence spending, there have already been many examples of Sweden’s renewed commitment to territorial security and military deterrence. Now, when Finnish and Swedish NATO membership applications are all but certain, (46/48)
the two Nordics are about to deal a significant symbolic and strategic blow to Russia and become full participants in regional and European security. (47/48)
I hope you found it interesting...
by ponchi101 I was in Finland. We were visiting an island that faces Russia, and were lucky to hook up for a while with a Finnish family. Talking at random, we started talking about the military history of Finland. I asked if they had an army and was explained that indeed they did, and that service was compulsory. After a bit more talk, I don't remember why the father stated "well, we certainly don't have an army because of the Swedes".
The people in Scandinavia should understand that Russia will not invade them outright. But capturing positions is a different story.
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed May 04, 2022 3:26 pm
I was in Finland. We were visiting an island that faces Russia, and were lucky to hook up for a while with a Finnish family. Talking at random, we started talking about the military history of Finland. I asked if they had an army and was explained that indeed they did, and that service was compulsory. After a bit more talk, I don't remember why the father stated "well, we certainly don't have an army because of the Swedes".
The people in Scandinavia should understand that Russia will not invade them outright. But capturing positions is a different story.
The summary above does not go back to the 17th century like the poster suggests it could, but it's not irrelevant that Russia and Sweden have fought a number of wars over the last thousand years, including a war that led to Finland becoming part of Russia. Pre-20th century, it was probably one of the biggest historical threats/adversaries of Russia. It's certainly debatable, but, on average, Sweden have been more of an aggressor
by ponchi101 We saw that in Sweden too. Both countries have a long history of going at each other. Sweden may be peaceful right now, but in the past it was as quarrelsome as all other European countries.
by ti-amieA Pot of U.N. Money. Risk-Taking Officials. A Sea of Questions.
A little-known United Nations agency decided to make an impact by doling out loans and grant money — all to a single family. It did not go well.
From left, Grete Faremo, the top official at the U.N. Office for Project Services; Vitaly Vanshelboim, the second-highest-ranking official at the agency; and Paolo Zampolli, a businessman and an ambassador for the Caribbean island of Dominica.Credit...Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images
The top official at the Office for Project Services, Grete Faremo of Norway, announced early Sunday that she was stepping down.
Ms. Faremo had previously planned to retire in September, but — in a letter to employees sent hours after this article was posted online — she said an interim replacement would be appointed “imminently.”
“Without knowing the full story, it happened on my watch,” Ms. Faremo wrote in a letter to the office’s staff, which was obtained by The New York Times. She said she had informed Mr. Guterres of her decision on Friday. “I acknowledge my responsibility and have decided to step down.”
The second-highest-ranking official at the agency, Vitaly Vanshelboim of Ukraine, was placed on administrative leave because of the investigation. He declined to comment.
A London law firm representing the British businessman, David Kendrick, and his daughter, Daisy Kendrick, released statements saying the pair had done nothing wrong. The law firm said Mr. Kendrick’s companies had been hampered by the pandemic and decisions by foreign governments.
“Our clients strongly believe in the projects they are running and in their ability to deliver these, and regret the fact that they appear to have become, through no fault of their own, the targets of a campaign seeking to harm their reputations,” wrote the law firm, Carter-Ruck.
The case has become the talk of the U.N. after a series of blog posts by Mukesh Kapila, a former U.N. official who is widely read by diplomats, and an article by the news outlet Devex. The Times reconstructed the story of the lost millions using documents from U.N. auditors, business records and interviews with dozens of people in eight countries.
A Party in Manhattan
The party that began it all was held in 2015 in the antique-filled 5,000-square-foot Upper East Side apartment of Gloria Starr Kins — the 95-year-old editor and publisher of a diplomatic society magazine that covers U.N. parties and events.
It was hosted by Ms. Faremo, a former justice minister and defense minister of Norway. She had taken over the Office for Project Services in 2014 — and later said she had made it faster and less risk-averse: “More than 1,200 pages of rules went into the trash.” Also in attendance was Mr. Vanshelboim, a U.N. veteran and financial whiz who describes himself on LinkedIn as a “SERIAL OVERACHIEVER.”
Their agency was one of the U.N.’s less glamorous: a kind of general contractor to the world. Other U.N. agencies hired it to build schools and roads, deliver medical equipment or perform other logistical tasks.
That job was huge and vital. But at the U.N., prestige came from standing at lecterns — giving grants and giving orders. Their office did neither.
But that was set to change.
“I wanted to move away from being the silent partner,” Ms. Faremo later wrote.
Her agency had stockpiled tens of millions of dollars in excess fees paid to it by other U.N. agencies, and now she and Mr. Vanshelboim wanted to lend out the money, like a bank, to fund profit-making projects in the developing world. Instead of a humdrum contracting hub, they would run a revolutionary in-house investment firm.
But they hadn’t found someone to lend to. That was the point of the party.
Then, through the door came Paolo Zampolli, a man who makes introductions.
One of the U.N.’s best-known characters, Mr. Zampolli is an Italian American businessman who also serves as an ambassador for the Caribbean island of Dominica. And he has long nurtured the dream of something bigger: having his own U.N.-approved conservation group called We Are the Oceans, or WATO.
...At the time of the party, he was making introductions for Mr. Kendrick, the British businessman, who was selling a system for building fast, cheap, sturdy homes in the developing world. And if making the introductions worked?
“Could that bring me money? Yes, of course,” Mr. Zampolli said. “That’s called real estate.”
At that party, it worked. Mr. Kendrick and his daughter met Ms. Faremo and Mr. Vanshelboim there, according to Mr. Zampolli and an employee of Mr. Kendrick’s at the time who was present, Ramy Azoury. Ms. Faremo said she did not recall whom she met at the party, but a photo from the event shows her holding a business card for Mr. Kendrick’s company.
Later, using the acronym for the Office for Project Services, Mr. Zampolli said: “David came to me and said, ‘Paolo, these UNOPS people are very interested. They can invest.’”
In 2017, the U.N. agency gave a $3 million grant to a conservation group run by Ms. Kendrick, who was a recent college graduate.
But Mr. Zampolli said he was never paid a finder’s fee. In fact, Mr. Zampolli said he now regretted making the introduction at all. Ms. Kendrick, it turned out, had named her group We Are the Oceans.
His name.
“I was truly used,” Mr. Zampolli said.
Singing About the Ocean
The U.N. agency declined to say how — out of all the world’s environmental groups — it had chosen Ms. Kendrick’s group for such a large grant. She had set up her New York-based group as a nonprofit a year earlier but never obtained approval from the Internal Revenue Service for a tax exemption as a charity.
Ms. Kendrick signed incorporation papers that seemed to give an inaccurate picture of the group’s leadership. Mr. Azoury and Ms. Starr Kins — two other people who were at the 2015 party — were both listed as directors, but both said in recent interviews that they had no connection to the group, did not know their names had been used and had known Ms. Kendrick only in passing.
“They stole my name,” Ms. Starr Kins said. “She knows I am well-known and she used me.”
Ms. Kendrick’s group produced events, a website, ocean-themed games by the makers of Angry Birds and a pop song about the ocean that was recorded by the British singer Joss Stone. The U.N. agency said its internal investigations group had started a review of the partnership with Ms. Kendrick’s group.
Her father also seemed to play a major role behind the scenes, according to people who dealt with the group. When Ms. Stone signed a recording agreement, the agreement assigned control of the song — and the right to sell it — to a for-profit company that Mr. Kendrick was a director of, according to a copy of the contract provided by Ms. Stone. The company paid for the band that accompanied Ms. Stone.
Ms. Stone said she had agreed to record the song for free, believing it was a fund-raiser for the U.N.
Ms. Kendrick’s lawyers said in a statement that We Are the Oceans delivered on all of its promises to the U.N. and that “the rates paid to all WATO’s participants were at all times legitimate and fair.”
Mr. Svensson, the former employee at the Office for Project Services, said his bosses were focused on arranging a performance of the song by Ms. Faremo. He said she wanted to sing it in the U.N.’s cavernous hall during a 2017 conference about the oceans. They flew in a backing band from Britain, he said.
“Whatever it takes,” he remembered a supervisor saying.
Ms. Faremo sang. But, Mr. Svensson said, an earlier speaker ran so far over time that the hall was largely empty. Mr. Svensson said he planned to include a video of the performance in a documentary he is making about the U.N.
“I agreed to sing this due to my background as a singer,” Ms. Faremo said in a written statement last week. Despite the delayed start, she said, “there was still a crowd in the hall.”
Loans Under Scrutiny
The next year, in 2018, the Office for Project Services announced it was making its first loans. Over the next two years, according to U.N. records, it lent $8.8 million to a company investing in a wind farm in Mexico and $15 million to another company for renewable energy projects. A further $35 million went to build housing in Antigua, Ghana, India, Kenya and Pakistan, projects overseen by a third company.
Business records show that all three companies appear to be connected to Mr. Kendrick. He owns two of them through a family office in the British territory of Gibraltar. The third, based in Spain, does not list an owner in its corporate records — but its directors are longtime associates of Mr. Kendrick, and its email address leads to a company that Mr. Kendrick appears to own half of. U.N. auditors and Mr. Kendrick’s lawyers both referred to the three companies as if they were a single entity.
Mr. Kendrick is a 58-year-old British native who has listed addresses in Spain, according to public records, and he is associated with more than a dozen interlocking companies in multiple countries, mostly in the world of construction. One video, from a project in Antigua in 2014, shows him saying: “I don’t build houses. I’m inspired to build communities.”
It is difficult to get a complete picture of his finances. But at least some of his businesses have struggled at times: U.N. auditors said one of Mr. Kendrick’s companies had lost $20.2 million in 2017 and $14.9 million in 2018.
The U.N. auditors said officials had chosen his companies because they believed his building technology “allowed for quickly built, high-quality and earthquake- and hurricane-resistant homes.” Ms. Faremo approved the loans herself, the auditors found.
Still, the auditors raised alarms that the Office for Project Services had concentrated all of its risk in one place. They wrote in July 2020 that they were “of the view that UNOPS did not follow a sound and transparent method in selecting a partner.”
Just a few months after that, the agency began trying to get its money back, without providing any public reason for doing so. In October 2020, according to U.N. reports, Mr. Kendrick’s companies agreed to return millions lent for the wind farm and the renewable energy projects. But they did not follow through on returning the money.
Months went by.
Finally, according to a U.N. audit report last year, one of Mr. Kendrick’s companies admitted it had used the U.N.’s loan to pay off other loans: “A large portion of the $15 million deposit had been used to discharge its pre-existing debts and liabilities,” the auditors’ report said. The U.N. auditors said last year that Mr. Kendrick’s companies had made some small payments, but the auditors expected the U.N. agency to lose $22 million.
The other loans, which were intended to fund affordable housing projects, are still officially pending. But the U.N. said that, so far, no houses had been completed.
“Not a single housing project has been built,” said P.K. Sarpong, a spokesman for the government of Ghana, where the U.N. loans were supposed to allow work to begin on 200,000 homes. Top officials in Ghana helped announce the deal, but after “the pomp and pageantry, they didn’t hear about the project again,” Mr. Sarpong said.
Mr. Kendrick’s lawyers said that his companies were in the process of restructuring their loans from the U.N. agency and that “no funds have been lost.”
The financial mess threatens to undermine the broader trust of the U.N.’s member countries in the institution at a time when the U.N. is seeking millions of dollars to deal with the war in Ukraine and surging food prices. Finland, for example, had pledged $20 million to support the Office for Project Services’ investments, which were run out of an office in Helsinki, the country’s capital. But Finland has since suspended its funding, according to diplomats and a statement from its foreign ministry.
“They are investing money that the United States and other countries have provided,” Christopher P. Lu, a senior official at the U.S. mission to the U.N., said of the agency. “So they need to be good stewards of our money.”
But the U.N. is a place where accountability often comes slowly and in secret. It was unclear when, if ever, the U.N. would release the results of the investigation that it said this past week had been completed.
If there are to be broader reforms at the Office for Project Services, they would come from its executive board — a group of diplomats from U.N. member states. In the wake of the losses, the board in February demanded an “independent comprehensive evaluation” of what had happened.
by ti-amie As Don Henley said, (paraphrasing): “A man with a briefcase can steal more money than a man with a gun.”
by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sun May 08, 2022 7:21 pm
As Don Henley said, (paraphrasing): “A man with a briefcase can steal more money than a man with a gun.”
I did not know that Henley said that. So true.
We tried it in TAT1.0, so I will not ty it here again. But sometimes I feel like we need a "Good News" topic. When you read stuff like the one above, it puts you so down.
by ti-amieSinn Féin set to be largest party in Northern Ireland assembly
Michelle O’Neill likely to be first minister after party tops first-preference votes with 29%
Rory Carroll and Lisa O'Carroll in Belfast
Fri 6 May 2022 17.02 BST
Sinn Féin’s leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O'Neill (centre), celebrates with party members after being elected on the first count. Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty
Sinn Féin is on course to be the biggest party at Stormont after a symbolic breakthrough for Irish nationalism in Northern Ireland’s assembly election.
The party topped the first-preference vote with 29%, which will position its deputy leader, Michelle O’Neill, to become the region’s first minister, the first nationalist to hold the position in a historic turnaround and a severe blow to unionism.
With transfer votes still being counted on Friday night, it was clear the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) had dramatically lost its pre-eminence by slumping to 21.3% in the first preference vote. “A disaster for the DUP,” tweeted Tim Cairns, a former special adviser to the party.
The other big winner in Thursday’s election was the centrist Alliance, which surged to 13.5%, putting it in third place and showing the growing influence of voters who shun nationalist and unionist labels.
An expected DUP boycott could delay and conceivably derail the formation of a new power-sharing executive unless Boris Johnson’s government renegotiates the Northern Ireland protocol with the EU, as the DUP demands. That would put a question mark over O’Neill becoming first minister, but not alter the profound psychological impact of a Sinn Féin victory.
“This place was organised more than a century ago to ensure that a Michelle O’Neill would never occupy the position of first minister, so it’s a great moment for equality,” said Sinn Féin’s leader, Mary Lou McDonald, amid ecstatic supporters in Belfast.
The result was seismic given that Northern Ireland was an entity created on the basis of a unionist majority, said Jon Tonge, a University of Liverpool politics professor and authority on the region. “A party that does not want Northern Ireland to exist and refuses to even use the term Northern Ireland will become its biggest. It will not trigger a border poll, but it is an incremental step on the long road to Irish unity.”
(...)
Voters ranked the cost of living and health service as their chief concerns, but the campaign was dominated by unionist anger at the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol, which puts a trade border in the Irish Sea, and the contest between Sinn Féin and the DUP for the first minister post.
Unionists sought comfort in the fact that overall support for unionist parties marginally outweighed support for nationalist parties. Opinion polls show solid support for Northern Ireland remaining in the UK, but Sinn Féin hope to build momentum towards a referendum on Irish unity, a goal boosted by the party’s surging popularity in the Republic of Ireland, where, under McDonald, it leads the opposition in the Dublin parliament.
“It’s a great moment that says beyond a shadow of a doubt that life has changed in the North, that things have changed in Ireland and that we are only going forward, and we are never going back,” said McDonald.
Many unionists blame the DUP for the protocol, which they fear weakens Northern Ireland’s position in the UK, and some defected to a rightwing rival, the Traditional Unionist Voice. However, Jeffrey Donaldson, the MP and DUP leader, clawed back some support by casting his party as a bulwark against a Sinn Féin first minister.
Donaldson said he would not lead the DUP into the executive – which cannot be formed without his party – unless the protocol was replaced, putting pressure on Downing Street to amend the Brexit agreement to avert a prolonged crisis in Northern Ireland.
Naomi Long, Alliance’s leader, urged the DUP to “stop creating instability and start doing government” and accept the will of the electorate.
Since 2007 there has been a DUP first minister and Sinn Féin deputy first minister. Both posts have equal power, but the more prestigious title has become a proxy test of strength. There have been calls to change the titles to co-first minister and to overhaul the Good Friday agreement-era power-sharing rules, which did not anticipate the rise of a centrist political force.
by ti-amieDUP to block formation of Northern Ireland power-sharing executive
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson tells Downing Street he will not nominate ministers without ‘decisive action’ on Brexit protocol
Jeffrey Donaldson, centre, speaking to the media at Stormont before meeting the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the Democratic Unionist party leader, has rebuffed appeals by the British and Irish governments and said he will block the formation of a new power-sharing administration in Northern Ireland.
Donaldson told the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, on Monday that the DUP will not nominate ministers to the Stormont executive later this week unless Downing Street takes “decisive action” on the Brexit protocol.
Such a boycott would trigger a political crisis and paralyse devolved government in the region just a week after Sinn Féin triumphed in an assembly election, making its deputy leader, Michelle O’Neill, the putative first minister.
The DUP came second, winning 25 seats to Sinn Féin’s 27 in the 90-seat assembly. Under power-sharing rules, the executive cannot form unless the DUP nominates a deputy first minister and other ministers.
After meeting Lewis, Donaldson repeated an election campaign promise to disrupt Stormont unless there were changes to the protocol. “Until we get decisive action taken by the UK government on the protocol, we will not be nominating ministers to the executive,” he said.
On Monday night the Times reported that the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, had decided to ditch the protocol after giving up on talks with the EU. Officials working for Truss have reportedly drawn up draft legislation that would unilaterally remove the need for all checks on goods being sent from Britain for use in Northern Ireland. The legislation would also allow businesses in the province to disregard EU rules and regulations and take away the power of the European court of justice to rule on issues relating to Northern Ireland, the paper reported.
A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson told the Guardian that no decisions had yet been taken but “the situation is now very serious”. “We have always been clear that action will be taken to protect the Belfast agreement if solutions cannot be found to fix the protocol,” they said.
The DUP says the protocol, which puts trade checks on some goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, harms the economy and undermines the region’s position within the UK. Only if those problems were resolved could it join an executive, said Donaldson. “We want to see stable political institutions, we want to be part of the executive, we want to play our part.”
Most unionists oppose the protocol but are divided on how to respond. Some favour working with London and Brussels to tweak the agreement. Others advocate obstruction and resistance, a radical strain that has pulled the DUP to a hardline position, leaving it isolated.
Lewis, who flew into Belfast from London, delivered a coded rebuke when he urged all the main parties at Stormont to deliver a “stable and accountable” devolved government.
Ireland’s taoiseach, Micheál Martin, said Northern Ireland’s party leaders had a duty to heed voters who wanted a functional government to tackle crises in the cost of living and health services: “All of us now have to have due regard to stability within the north, to the full workings of the institutions of the Good Friday agreement.” He told RTÉ there was a “landing zone” for compromise on the protocol between London and Brussels.
Downing Street has given mixed signals about possible unilateral action. All sides will monitor the Queen’s speech at the state opening of parliament on Tuesday for further signals. The EU vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, urged pragmatism. “We need the UK government to dial down the rhetoric, be honest about the deal they signed and agree to find solutions within its framework,” he said in a statement.
O’Neill said the DUP should not try to “punish the public” for its mistakes on Brexit. “Brinkmanship will not be tolerated where the north of Ireland becomes collateral damage in a game of chicken with the European Commission. Make no mistake, we and our business community here will not be held to ransom.”
Other party leaders echoed the calls for the swift formation of an executive. “I want us to sit down, get the negotiations under way on the programme for government and the budget,” said Naomi Long, leader of Alliance, which won 17 seats, making it the third biggest party. “We need the DUP to step up to the plate. You know, with power comes responsibility, and people now need to take the responsibility seriously.”
Doug Beattie, leader of the Ulster Unionist’s nine assembly members, said problems with the protocol would be resolved only through talks between London and Brussels. “Northern Ireland has to have a say in that. We’ll only have a say if we have a government.”
by ti-amie The Etonians didn't even think about how Brexit would affect Ireland. And here we are.
by ti-amie Via Morning Briefing, Asia Pacific Edition NYTimes
May 11, 2022
By Amelia Nierenberg
Writer, Briefings
President Marcos, take two
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of a former dictator, clinched a landslide victory in one of the most divisive presidential elections in recent Philippines history.
On Tuesday, angry young voters who had rallied around his rival, Leni Robredo, gathered to voice their frustration with preliminary results showing her overwhelming defeat. Many raised questions about the election: Multiple observers have said they had received thousands of reports of anomalies since the vote on Monday.
Robredo, the current vice president, has yet to concede defeat, and Marcos has yet to claim victory. Robredo said her team was looking into reports of voter fraud, but opinion polls had suggested Marcos would win by a large margin.
What’s next: Marcos is expected to take office on June 30. Many of his policy proposals remain thin, and he has shunned most of the news media and avoided nearly all debates.
History: The Marcos family was driven from office and the country in 1986 over its deadly abuses and rampant corruption. Five years later, the younger Marcos and his mother were allowed to return to the Philippines. He began his rise by winning key state leadership roles, entering national politics as a senator in 2010.
Campaign: Hundreds of thousands of Robredo’s young supporters went door to door, fighting an online disinformation campaign that portrayed the violent Marcos regime as a “golden age.”
by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: ↑Tue May 10, 2022 10:02 pm
The Etonians didn't even think about how Brexit would affect Ireland. And here we are.
Sorry, you lost me there, Ti. Who are the Etonians? I know about how Brexit was going to affect N.Ireland and Ireland, but, no clue about "The Etonians".
ti-amie wrote: ↑Tue May 10, 2022 10:02 pm
The Etonians didn't even think about how Brexit would affect Ireland. And here we are.
Sorry, you lost me there, Ti. Who are the Etonians? I know about how Brexit was going to affect N.Ireland and Ireland, but, no clue about "The Etonians".
Brexit was/is an idea hatched by a bunch of people who attended the posh Eton College. Boris Johnson attended the school.
Eton College is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore, intended as a sister institution to King's College, Cambridge, making it the 18th-oldest Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference school. Wikipedia
Address: Windsor SL4 6DW, United Kingdom
Phone: +44 1753 370100
School fees: £48,501 per year; US$68,244 per year
Eton has educated prime ministers, world leaders, Nobel laureates, Academy Award and BAFTA award-winning actors, and generations of the aristocracy, having been referred to as "the nurse of England's statesmen." The school is the largest boarding school in England ahead of Millfield and Oundle.
Eton College - Wikipedia
by ponchi101 I don't know if to put this in the Ukraine War topic.
Finland has decided to join NATO ASAP. Exactly what Russia said they were fighting against: to avoid the expansion of European influence in the region.
Now, Russia has said it will retaliate severely. I already read one article saying that Russia will cut gas supplies to Finland as early as tomorrow. With that weather, that would not be without consequences. And Medvedev (Russian PM) has again talked openly about using Nukes.
This gets really scary once again. If Sweden follows Finland, and they should, it is basically a new World Cold War, with the possibility of getting hot in a flash.
by ti-amie
by Deuce In a 'What in hell is happening?'moment, four female journalists have been murdered this week - 1 in Chile, 2 in Mexico, and 1 in Israel.
Not killed by bombs that exploded near them - at least 3 of the 4 were deliberate, targeted murders.
And, in yet one more example of there being huge errors made in the creation of the human animal, this is what occurred at the funeral procession of one of the murdered journalists...
by ponchi101 For the last few days, my news feed has been showing me a few articles claiming that Putin has cancer "and some other diseases". Has anybody else seen this? He does look different, although one thing that I remember from my brother's disease is how much weight he lost and a peculiar frail look. Putin looks more like bloated, to me.
by ti-amie The subject has popped up on my Twitter time line but I don't know if it's disinformation or real. There's also been a bit of a focus on his private life lately too. Again, I don't know whether to trust it or not.
by dryrunguy I guess I'll put this here, but it could conceivably evolve into its own thread. Johns Hopkins just released this health security alert.
::
MONKEYPOX OUTBREAKS Public health experts worldwide are on alert over several outbreaks of confirmed and suspected monkeypox in the UK, Portugal, and Spain. The seemingly unconnected clusters raise concerns there is more than one chain of transmission. The WHO said extensive contact tracing and viral sequencing of the confirmed cases is underway. European health authorities are monitoring for additional suspected cases. The US CDC expressed concern over the cases and the potential that the disease has spread outside of the UK, saying the clusters are atypical for monkeypox.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has confirmed 9 monkeypox cases since May 6. The UKHSA reported its first case on May 7 in an individual in England with recent travel history to Nigeria, where monkeypox is endemic. Several people who were on the same flight as that individual on May 4 are being monitored for symptoms for 21 days, including 6 people in the US. On May 14, the UKHSA reported 2 additional monkeypox cases in London among individuals who live in the same household but who have no connection to the initial case. Another unconfirmed case is linked to that household. On May 16, the UKHSA announced 4 more confirmed cases, 3 in London and 1 linked case in the northeast of England. These 4 individuals have no known connection with the previous 3 cases announced on May 7 and 14, none had recent travel to endemic nations, and all appear to have been infected in London. These 4 individuals identify as gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men (MSM), and common contacts have been identified for 2 of the 4 cases.
Today, the UKHSA announced 2 additional confirmed monkeypox cases, one in London and another in the southeast of England. Neither case has known connections to previous cases. The UKHSA said evidence suggests there may be community transmission of monkeypox occurring via close contact and urged MSM to quickly report any unusual rashes or lesions to a health clinic. Community transmission of monkeypox in humans is rare, and the disease has not previously been described as sexually transmitted, so this limited initial evidence raises concerns.
Portugal’s health ministry said today it has confirmed 5 monkeypox cases and is investigating at least 15 suspected cases, all in the Lisbon and Val do Tejo region. All the confirmed cases involve men with ulcerative lesions. Additionally, health authorities in Spain also issued an alert, saying they have identified at least 8 suspected cases with symptoms consistent with monkeypox, all in the Madrid region. Information on whether the confirmed and suspected cases in Portugal and Spain are among MSM is not currently available.
Monkeypox is a rare viral infection that is thought to typically spread from close person-to-person contact through large respiratory droplets, direct contact with skin lesions or bodily fluids, or indirect contact via contaminated clothing or linens. Symptoms include fever and chills, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, and a rash similar to chickenpox that can spread throughout the body and notably on the palms of the hands.
There is no treatment or vaccine specifically for the disease, although smallpox vaccine has been shown to be effective in stopping transmission when used in a ring vaccination strategy, and some antivirals might be useful in severe cases. Symptoms of monkeypox usually spontaneously resolve within 14-21 days but can be severe and require medical care. The case-fatality rate of monkeypox in Africa ranges from 1% to 10%, with the highest risk of death among children.
Two distinct clades of monkeypox virus have been identified—Congo Basin and West African clades—with the former found to be more transmissible and virulent. While monkeypox typically is found in West and Central Africa, experts have seen epidemiological changes in recent years, including shifts in the age and geographic distribution of cases. WHO officials stressed the need to better understand how monkeypox is transmitted and invest in tools for prevention and treatment.
by ponchi101 The 20's are being really swell...
by ti-amie Thanks for posting this Dry.
Deep sigh
by dryrunguy Johns Hopkins released this update today on monkeypox.
::
Update on Recent Outbreaks in Europe & North America as of May 20, 2022 at 1:30pm ET
Recent cases have now been identified in the United Kingdom (20 confirmed), Spain (30 confirmed), Portugal (14 confirmed)2, Australia (2 confirmed)2 Belgium (2 confirmed), Canada (2 confirmed)31, France (1 confirmed),32 Germany (1 confirmed), Italy (3 confirmed), Sweden (1 confirmed), and the United States (1 confirmed). To date, no deaths are reported.
Contact tracing is underway, but it is likely that cases may have occurred through community transmission. Additionally, it has been noted that an unusual number of the new cases have arisen among gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men (MSM).However, scholars have noted that MSM are not the only community at risk. Sexual transmission has been hypothesized as a potential mode of transmission but has not been reported as a driver of transmission in past monkeypox outbreaks.
by ti-amie I listened to a BBC podcast on Africa and I was shocked to hear what they call "wild polio" has hit Mozambique. Polio was considered eradicated on the continent but here we are.
Scary.
by Deuce Perhaps monkeypox will prove to be a positive element... If it can override COVID-19, and/or provide an immunity to the serious effects of COVID-19, I'd take the pockmarks on my body as a trade-off.
Hell, COVID-19 is still very much a mystery to even the best doctors and scientists. Maybe we'll get lucky, and monkeypox (which seems to be far less serious a virus than COVID-19) will render COVID-19 truly like the common cold - not just in people's wild imaginings as it is now, but for real.
Stranger things have happened....
by Owendonovan
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Fri May 20, 2022 10:09 pm
Johns Hopkins released this update today on monkeypox.
::
Update on Recent Outbreaks in Europe & North America as of May 20, 2022 at 1:30pm ET
Recent cases have now been identified in the United Kingdom (20 confirmed), Spain (30 confirmed), Portugal (14 confirmed)2, Australia (2 confirmed)2 Belgium (2 confirmed), Canada (2 confirmed)31, France (1 confirmed),32 Germany (1 confirmed), Italy (3 confirmed), Sweden (1 confirmed), and the United States (1 confirmed). To date, no deaths are reported.
Contact tracing is underway, but it is likely that cases may have occurred through community transmission. Additionally, it has been noted that an unusual number of the new cases have arisen among gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men (MSM).However, scholars have noted that MSM are not the only community at risk. Sexual transmission has been hypothesized as a potential mode of transmission but has not been reported as a driver of transmission in past monkeypox outbreaks.
This is the perfect fodder for those on the right to qualify their negative, "faith based", sometimes violent views on the LGBTQ community.
by ti-amie
Russia bans 963 Americans, including Biden and Harris — but not Trump
By Timothy Bella
Updated May 21, 2022 at 11:29 a.m. EDT|Published May 21, 2022 at 11:25 a.m. EDT
One prominent name missing from the list: former president Donald Trump. In fact, the only prominent Trump administration official included in the ban is former secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
The Russian Foreign Ministry’s list of 963 Americans includes many members of Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is not on the list. Also not listed is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who delayed a Senate vote on aid for Ukraine last week when he was the only senator to object. The Senate passed the measure this week, and Biden signed the $40 billion package of new military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine into law on Saturday while visiting Seoul.
by ponchi101 Very telling.
It is no longer wondering if there is a fifth column within the USA higher government, it is how big it is.
by ti-amie
by Suliso Large scale contested amphibious assaults remain extremely difficult. I believe they have been carried out successfully only twice in the 20th century.
by ponchi101 How about if Taiwan laces with explosives all of their really valuable assets? As in "You invade us, we blow them up".
Given the recent developments in Ukraine, if China invades Taiwan, with all of its technological systems needed for the rest of the world, who know how can the USA/EU/Japan axis can respond. Or how will they respond.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Just watching Spanish news. Price of gasoline: 2 Euros/Liter. That is: 7.7Euro/gal, $8.1/gal.
What is the cause behind this world wide inflation? It is really baffling to me. Prices here in Colombia are about 30% over last year. and I mean basic items.
by Suliso How nice that I have no need to drive.
by ponchi101 But are you seeing inflation in other areas of life? Food, energy? Down here, the price of premium gasoline is exactly as the price in the USA (regular gas is being held down or otherwise this country explodes) which is insane, in a country where income is well below American salaries.
Why is inflation affecting so many countries, which are not necessarily structurally similar?
by Suliso Food might have become slightly more expensive, but I couldn't tell you by how much. Things are expensive here already anyway. Electricity in Switzerland used to be unusually cheap, let's see what our next bill says (we pay for 3 months at once). Public transport prices haven't changed for some years. My Basel area pass costs ca 800 $/year, up only 60$ from 12 years ago. The one area where I see significantly higher costs is hospitality both here and in neighbouring countries. It's no longer possible to find a decent place to stay for 100 $/night, now should expect to pay 130-150 $.
by Owendonovan Inflation has always felt like the scam is kinda is.
by ponchi101 It is a relatively recent invention. It started when countries began issuing "debt". If a country issued a debt to be payed in 30 years, the best thing for the country to do was to have a devaluing currency (i.e., inflation) so that in 30 years they would pay less.
So yes, sort of the Royal Scam.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amieCarrie Johnson and the curious case of the vanishing Times story
Report had claimed Boris Johnson tried to hire his now wife as chief of staff when foreign secretary, but then it was deleted
Boris and Carrie Johnson. A spokesperson for the prime minister’s wife said the claims were ‘totally untrue’. Photograph: Hannah McKay/AP
Rowena Mason and Jim Waterson
Sun 19 Jun 2022 18.38 BST
At first glance, the story appeared to be the political scoop of the weekend.
On Saturday, the Times reported claims that Boris Johnson had tried to hire his now wife as his chief of staff when he was foreign secretary.
But almost as soon as the article hit the printers, it was withdrawn, without explanation or clarification.
The piece, written by the veteran lobby journalist Simon Walters, formerly of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, appeared on page five of some early print copies of Saturday’s Times newspaper but was dropped for later editions.
It does not appear that the article was ever published on the Times’ website.
The story expanded on claims in a biography of Carrie Johnson by the Tory donor and peer Lord Ashcroft that Johnson had tried to appoint her to a £100,000-a-year government job when he was foreign secretary in 2018.
It said the idea had fallen apart when his closest advisers learned of the idea to hire the Tory press chief, then known as Carrie Symonds, whom he later married. Johnson was then still married to Marina Wheeler, a barrister.
A source with knowledge of the situation told the Guardian this account was correct.
However, a spokesperson for Carrie Johnson was categoric. “These claims are totally untrue,” she said.
Downing Street declined to give an on-the-record response to the story but a No 10 source also said the story was untrue – and suggested it was sexist.
“This is a grubby, discredited story turned down by most reputable media outlets because it isn’t true. The facts speak for themselves.”
Walters told the Guardian: “I stand by the story. I went to all the relevant people over two days. Nobody offered me an on-the-record denial and Downing St didn’t deny it off the record either.”
Journalists at the Times were baffled by the decision to withdraw Saturday’s story, with multiple sources suggesting there had been a high-level intervention to remove it.
The paper’s editor, John Witherow, is reported to be off work. His deputy Tony Gallagher edited the newspaper on Friday, with multiple sources saying he made the call to drop the story from later editions.
A spokesperson for News UK declined to comment on why an article that appeared prominently in potentially hundreds of thousands of print newspapers had been removed from later editions, without any explanation.
Walters recently left his senior position at the Daily Mail, where he first revealed the scandal over Carrie Johnson’s renovations of the Downing Street flat.
MailOnline rewrote the Times’ story about the proposed government job for Carrie Johnson in the early hours of Saturday morning but has since also deleted its article without explanation or an editor’s note. News aggregation sites have also deleted their copies of the MailOnline article.
Removing the article may be an example of the Streisand effect – where attempts to delete information from the internet make the public much more interested in it.
Alastair Campbell, the former No 10 director of communications under Tony Blair, tweeted on Sunday that the disappearance of the story appeared to be “further evidence that much of our media is essentially an extension of the press office of a liar and a crook”. He also said that the Times owner, Rupert Murdoch, had “done so much damage to journalism”.
by ponchi101 Colombia just elected a leftist, former guerilla for president. Some ideas: he will make everybody's pay equal, and oil and gas will disappear from Colombia (a country with NO train system).
So, next time somebody comes and tells me that we (L. America) are in the state we are in due to the "Imperialistic oppressors" or the machinations of "The IMF, the World Bank and the Multinational corporations", can it. We do this (expletive) to ourselves, over and over.
by ti-amie I can't wait for Texas to apply to the IMF, World Bank, etc.
Maybe they envision a future like the one imposed by Larry Ellison on Lan'ai which is feudalism?
by mmmm8
ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Jun 20, 2022 5:49 pm
I can't wait for Texas to apply to the IMF, World Bank, etc.
Maybe they envision a future like the one imposed by Larry Ellison on Lan'ai which is feudalism?
Wasn't aware of this Larry Ellison Hawaii story, thanks!
ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Jun 20, 2022 5:49 pm
I can't wait for Texas to apply to the IMF, World Bank, etc.
Maybe they envision a future like the one imposed by Larry Ellison on Lan'ai which is feudalism?
Wasn't aware of this Larry Ellison Hawaii story, thanks!
Ditto.
by ti-amieEcuador facing food and fuel shortages as country rocked by violent protests
Government rejects conditions for dialogue to end 10 days of Indigenous-led demonstrations against economic policy
Reuters in Quito
Wed 22 Jun 2022 21.48 BST
Violent protests against the economic policies of Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso have paralysed the country’s capital and other regions, but the government on Wednesday rejected their conditions for dialogue.
Quito is experiencing food and fuel shortages after 10 days of demonstrations in which protesters at times have clashed with police. After officials rejected the conditions for negotiations, the United States government issued an advisory urging travellers to reconsider visiting the country due to “civil unrest and crime”.
The demonstrations led primarily by the Indigenous organization Conaie, began on 14 June to demand that gasoline prices be cut by 45 cents a gallon to $2.10, price controls for agricultural products and a larger budget for education. The protests began with peaceful roadblocks but levels of violence have escalated in parts of the country, including the capital, Quito, prompting conservative ex-banker Lasso to decree a state of exception in six provinces.
The Indigenous leader Leonidas Iza on Tuesday demanded – among other things – that the government eliminate the emergency decree and remove the military and police presence around places where protesters have gathered in Quito.
But the minister of government on Wednesday said the government could not lift the state of emergency because it would leave “the capital defenseless”.
“This is not the time to put more conditions, it is not the time to demand greater demands, it is the time to sit down and talk, we are on the 10th day of the strike,” Francisco Jiménez told a television network. “And we can’t keep waiting, the capital can’t keep waiting, the country can’t keep waiting.”
The protests – longer-lasting and larger than marches over fuel prices in October last year – are testing Lasso’s ability to restart the country’s economy and kickstart employment.
Lasso has an adversarial relationship with the national assembly, where lawmakers have blocked his proposals, and he has struggled to contain rising violence he blames on drug gangs.
Demonstrators armed with guns, ancestral spears and explosives clashed with soldiers in the city of Puyo, in Pastaza province, on Tuesday night, the interior minister, Patricio Carrillo, said.
The protesters burned a police station and patrol cars, tried to loot a bank and attacked civilians, Carrillo told journalists, blaming the incidents on radical groups.
“We cannot guarantee public safety in Puyo right now – they have burned the entire police infrastructure and the entrance to the city is under siege,” he said.
Leaders from Indigenous Amazonian communities said in a statement they rejected vandalism in Puyo and accused security forces of worsening violence in the city.
One protester died amid the incidents and six police officers were seriously injured, while 18 are missing, the government said.
The protester was killed after being struck in the head by a police teargas canister, according to human rights groups.
The Ecuadoran government said late Wednesday it would restart talks with Indigenous-led protesters, mediated by the Catholic Church, as a fresh state of emergency was issued more than two weeks into disruptive and often violent daily rallies against rising living costs.
To "return peace to the Ecuadoran people, we have decided to accept the mediation now offered by the Episcopal Conference of Ecuador (CEE)," government minister Francisco Jimenez said.
Without revealing when the talks might begin, Jimenez said the CEE would arrange the details of the negotiations, "so that we can arrive at a final solution in this conflict."
Discussions to end the protests that have rocked the South American country were suspended Tuesday -- on what would have been their second day -- after the government blamed the death of a soldier on demonstrators.
And as protesters took to the streets again Wednesday, President Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency in four of the 24 provinces where the "most violence is concentrated."
The state of emergency did not include the capital, where most of an estimated 14,000 protesters have congregated.
Chanting "We don't want 10 cents, we want results," a reference to fuel price concessions offered by the government, several hundred people demonstrated in the city center, which was blocked off by police, metal fencing and razor wire.
A protester with a traditional red poncho leading a group of men with makeshift shields addressed the rest by megaphone: "If we need to sleep here... we will."
Lasso has imposed a month-long state of emergency on the provinces of Azuay, Imbabura, Sucumbios and Orellana, the general secretary of presidential communication said.
The aim is to create a "security zone" -- enforced by military and police and where demonstrations are banned -- around the country's oil wells and to protect food, medicine and fuel supplies in those provinces as well as oxygen used in hospitals.
Lasso on Saturday lifted a previous state of emergency in six other provinces -- including Pichincha, where the capital lies -- in one of several concessions to protesters.
Country held 'hostage'
The government had called off talks after the military said Tuesday that a soldier died and five police and seven soldiers were injured in an attack by demonstrators on a tanker truck escort in the country's east.
Lasso, hours before surviving an impeachment vote, then accused Conaie leader Leonidas Iza of self-serving politics and vowed "we will not negotiate with those who hold Ecuador hostage."
It was the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie) -- credited with unseating three presidents between 1997 and 2005 -- that called the protests.
But government minister Jimenez struck a different tone Wednesday evening in announcing a return to negotiations.
"The goal of the national government is firstly to guarantee peace to Ecuadorans, and in pursuit of that standard, we will not abandon efforts that allow us to arrive at that long-awaited peace," he said.
The protests, which began on June 13, have been costly, with losses of some $50 million per day to the economy, according to the government, which has warned oil production -- already halved -- could come to a complete halt soon.
The nationwide show of discontent over deepening hardship comes in an economy dealt a serious blow by the coronavirus pandemic.
Indigenous people make up more than a million of the South American nation's 17.7 million inhabitants.
The protesters want fuel price cuts, jobs, food price controls and more public spending on health care and education.
Over the weekend, Lasso announced other concessions in a bid to unlock talks, including a 10-cents-per-gallon cut in diesel and gasoline prices to $1.80 and $2.45, respectively.
That received short shrift from protesters, who want a reduction to $1.50 for diesel and $2.10 for gasoline.
Five demonstrators have died and hundreds on both sides have been wounded in clashes between the security forces and protesters blockading roads and disrupting supply lines.
Some 150 people have been arrested, according to observers.
by ponchi101 This is tragic. And please, I do not want to be callous about what has happened.
But I want to see what Denmark does as a response. And I hope this never happens again.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
There is also talk of invoking something called the Lascelles Principles
by ponchi101 Surprise-meter reading, after checking about Boris Johnson unsuitability to be the UK's PM: Zero.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by the Moz BoJo standing down as Conservative Party Leader today, but is going to try to stay on as caretaker PM until the Autumn. I don't see that happening. He needs to go. Full stop. End of.
by mmmm8
the Moz wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 11:28 am
BoJo standing down as Conservative Party Leader today, but is going to try to stay on as caretaker PM until the Autumn. I don't see that happening. He needs to go. Full stop. End of.
There is no clear successor, so I don't see anyone taking over without some messy competition, and that is likely to last the summer.
by ponchi101 You can't have the position of PM empty for that long.
And, good riddance. This man was a mistake from the beginning.
One last COVID superspreader event before he goes!
by ti-amieBen Wallace and Rishi Sunak early favourites in leadership race
Gove and Raab have ruled themselves out, but many others from different wings of Tory party are mulling their chances
Rowena Mason and Heather Stewart
Thu 7 Jul 2022 17.57 BST
Boris Johnson’s resignation has triggered fevered speculation about who might take over in Downing Street, with early momentum among MPs swinging towards Rishi Sunak, and Ben Wallace emerging as a favourite among Conservative party members.
As a huge number of candidates weigh up whether to make a challenge, current and former cabinet ministers known to be drumming up support include Suella Braverman, Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss and Nadhim Zahawi.
Who will replace Boris Johnson? The runners and riders
Read more
Grant Shapps is also considering putting himself forward. But Michael Gove and Dominic Raab have ruled themselves out of the running, along with prominent backbencher Tobias Ellwood.
A survey by JL Partners, a polling company, suggests Sunak, the chancellor who quit Johnson’s government this week, is in the lead with the public out of the main candidates, and the only one to be slightly ahead of Labour’s Keir Starmer when put to a head-to-head question.
It shows him with a one-point lead over Starmer when asked who would make the best prime minister, and ahead of all his main rivals when asked the straight question of who should be leader.
Javid is in second place. The poll of 2,000 people was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday.
Sunak’s popularity plummeted with Conservative members after the furore over his wife’s non-dom tax status, but he has recovered some of his standing after he was one of the first two cabinet ministers to quit, alongside Javid.
One Tory MP said they suspected he would want to launch a campaign with a lot of big name MPs and a slick operation but only if they thought he had enough support.
Another MP from the party’s One Nation grouping said they supported Sunak, a Eurosceptic and rightwinger, “purely on the basis that he is clearly the most competent”.
Wallace, the defence secretary, has not revealed whether he is interested in standing and does not appear to have a well advanced campaign. But he became a bookmakers’ favourite based on polling of party members by ConservativeHome.
He refused to rule himself out of running for prime minister on a trip in the north of England on Thursday.
Speaking in the morning, before Johnson confirmed he had resigned in Downing Street, Wallace told reporters “let’s see what the prime minister says” when asked if he would seek the top job.
Truss, who cut short a trip to Indonesia to return to the turmoil at home, said on Thursday: “We need calmness and unity now and to keep governing while a new leader is found.”
Suella Braverman has reportedly been targeting many of Liz Truss’s potential supporters while the foreign secretary was out of the country. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters
One of her backers, Alec Shelbrooke, told GB News he was supporting her on the grounds that “she’s got huge amounts of experience, she’s really leading the world on the foreign stage where our country is at the forefront of so many important international issues”.
However, one Tory figure said Braverman, a leading Eurosceptic, was hoovering up many of Truss’s potential supporters while she was out of the country.
Braverman, the attorney general, is also on the Eurosceptic right of the party and was also quick to reveal her intention to stand, before Johnson had even resigned.
She told ITV’s Peston she wanted to shrink the size of the state and get rid of “woke rubbish”.
Neither Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, nor Priti Patel, the home secretary, have signalled their intentions yet but may not have enough wide support for a run.
Quick out of the blocks to signal an interest were backbenchers Steve Baker and Tom Tugendhat, from opposite wings of the party.
Tugendhat, on the One Nation side and chair of the foreign affairs committee, has previously said he would throw his hat into the ring.
On Thursday, he said the party needed a “clean start” and three of his backers publicly declared their support, including One Nation group leader, Damian Green, the former first secretary of state.
Meanwhile, Baker, a leading Eurosceptic and former Brexit minister, said he was mulling a leadership run after being urged by colleagues and looking at his recent appearances in the ConservativeHome list of members’ favoured candidates.
He told Times Radio people are asking him to do it, and it would be “dismissive and disrespectful” if he did not heed expressions of support, though he said he regards the prospect with “something akin to dread”.
A source close to Jake Berry, the leader of the Northern Research Group of MPs, told PoliticsHome he was considering a run.
The source said: “He appeals to people because he gets what matters. He is the only well-known member of the party who has actually offered policies.”
by ti-amie I watch a lot of K-dramas and J-dramas, some with political themes. Campaigning is done just like we see in these videos - on the street.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 He is conformed dead.
This is lunacy. Reminiscent of Olof Palme's assassination (the perpetrator there was never caught).
by Suliso This is extremely rare in Japan. Hence there was no need for security.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Back to Japan. The weapon used to kill Abe seems to have been a homemade device, not something you can buy.
by ponchi101 Considerable news about Sri Lanka, where "Protesters break into home of Sri Lankan PM, set it on fire".
One of the most beautiful countries I have visited (scenery and history), and, at the time, very peaceful. The PM has resigned, but the country is in chaos; lack of food, gasoline and other basic goods.
My third, split personality (Ponchi101-The Bringer of Doom) expects at this rate anytime soon for the skies above to part, and the giant hooves of the horses of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to stomp on our Earth. One of the horses will take a massive, toxic dump in my garden, which I will then have to clean.
My unofficial nickname: P, the Dark Cloud (I kid not in that last one. In a job 26 years ago. How often was I right).
by Suliso It's another Venezuela almost... How did they manage to run a modestly successful country in the ground in less than 15 years?
by ponchi101 Indeed. They had some interesting industries, and were viable. But I know nothing about the details. It makes me sad.
by ti-amie
by ti-amieBoris Johnson accused of trying to derail Rishi Sunak’s bid to be next PM
Senior Tories say the former chancellor is the main focus of the ousted leader’s anger as bitter infighting breaks out
Toby Helm and Michael Savage
Sat 9 Jul 2022 21.32 BST
Senior Tories accused Boris Johnson of trying to torpedo Rishi Sunak’s bid to succeed him as prime minister – and of refusing to leave No 10 with good grace – as the leadership race descended into bitter infighting.
As a trio of cabinet ministers entered the contest last night, senior MPs said the battle now risked inflicting even more damage on the party than the fall of Margaret Thatcher more than three decades ago.
One party grandee accused Johnson of installing unsuitable MPs to middle-ranking and junior government posts when he knew he was on his way out “to cause maximum problems for his successor” who would inevitably have to sack most of them on taking office.
“Those appointments were the most appalling thing I have seen in politics,” said the senior source. “It was obviously a move to sabotage his successor’s first weeks in office.”
Another senior figure in the government added that Johnson was so incensed at the way he had been ousted, having won such a huge mandate at the 2019 general election, that he was now intent on exacting revenge on those he saw as responsible, and on influencing events wherever possible from the outside.
“This is not an administration that is going to go quietly. There is a lot of anger about how this all happened,” said the source. “It is clear that much of it will now focus on Rishi. It is all very Trumpian.”
A former vice-chairman of the 1922 committee of Conservative backbenchers, Sir Charles Walker, told the Observer that pleas for restraint were pointless because there was so much bad blood.
“People like me can say until we are blue in the face that the Conservative party should not tear itself apart, but our pleas will fall on deaf ears.
“Clearly the prime minister remains deeply bruised by the chancellor’s resignation. Rishi’s camp will have to soak up a lot of anger over the days to come. That will apply to whoever takes over.”
Meanwhile, Johnson allies warned the party it would soon regret ditching him and accused the candidates vying to replace him of being incapable of repeating his successes. They say Sunak, in particular, faces questions of “loyalty and propriety” and accuse him of plotting his leadership bid for months while publicly professing his loyalty.
On Saturday night , amid the succession turmoil, fresh allegations emerged that Johnson had lobbied for a job for a young woman who claims she was having a sexual relationship with him during his time as London mayor.
According to the Sunday Times, the appointment was blocked because Kit Malthouse, then a senior figure in City Hall and now a cabinet minister, suggested the pair had an inappropriately close relationship. Johnson is said to have admitted pushing her forward for a job when the woman, who remains anonymous, confronted him in 2017.
The claims follow reports last month that Johnson had tried to secure his wife, Carrie, a role as his chief of staff during his time as foreign secretary. The pair were having an affair at the time. He is also accused of helping an American businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri gain access to taxpayer-funded business trips after their affair in 2011.
Foreign secretary Liz Truss, transport secretary Grant Shapps and the new chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, all entered the leadership contest on Saturday night, alongside Sunak, the attorney general Suella Braverman, ex-minister Kemi Badenoch and the chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Tom Tugendhat.
Shapps said he would focus on the cost of living crisis, while Zahawi promised to lower taxes “for individuals, families and business”.
The chancellor also stressed his “culture war” credentials, saying he would “focus on letting children be children, protecting them from damaging and inappropriate nonsense being forced on them by radical activists”.
Truss is expected to pledge to reverse the government’s recent national insurance rise when she officially launches her campaign this week.
Others expected to declare in the coming days include former cabinet ministers Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt. Supporters of trade minister Penny Mordaunt are urging her to declare, while the defence secretary Ben Wallace – one of the bookies’ early favourites – said on Saturday that he would not be throwing his hat into the ring.
The chair of the 1922 committee, Sir Graham Brady, will meet senior MP colleagues and members of the party’s board on Monday to decide how the contest will proceed. They are expected to agree a timetable that will see the number of candidates whittled down to two in a series of votes by MPs over the coming fortnight. Then there will be a programme of hustings for the final two, leading to a vote by party members, and the announcement of a new leader and prime minister in early September.
According to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer, Sunak is the favourite among people who voted Conservative at the last general election. Some 55.4% said he would be a good prime minister. Javid was in second place on 50.5%.
Those close to Johnson are struggling to decide which candidate they should back. “People are trying to work this out at the moment, the field is muddied by so many unrealistic candidates,” said one.
“There is a strong concern in what you might call the pro-Boris camp of certain candidates – some, perfectly reasonably, have never bought into what Boris was trying to do.
“Then there are those who have been running leadership campaigns from within the cabinet for some time, which is an act of the highest disloyalty. If you’re that far gone in terms of your support to the prime minister, you ought to have resigned months ago. I think that raises a fundamental question of loyalty and, indeed, of propriety.”
Johnson loyalists will look at any potential campaign by the home secretary, Priti Patel, as well as Truss and Zahawi, before deciding who to back. Another Johnson supporter said “buyer’s remorse” was already beginning to grow among those who had helped to topple Johnson.
by ponchi101 Considerable news that there are some major demonstrations in Argentina. The peso has (once again) devalued, price hikes have hit everybody (everybody poor, that is) and there are calls for the resignation of the president and vice president.
No, I did not read the news from 20 years ago. Nor 10. Nor 5. These are yesterday's.
by ti-amie Thanks Ponchi.
by SulisoSri Lanka’s Gotabaya Rajapaksa fails in effort to flee country
Airport staff reportedly block departing president from using VIP lane to board flight to Dubai
The Sri Lankan president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has made a failed attempt to flee the country after airport staff stood in his way and forced him to beat a humiliating retreat.
Rajapaksa, who is due to officially resign on Wednesday after months of demonstrations calling for him to step down, was reportedly trying to escape to Dubai on Monday night.
However, officials said immigration staff refused to let the president come to the VIP area of the airport to stamp his passport and he would not go through the ordinary queues for fear of being mobbed by the public.
As a result, Rajapaksa reportedly missed four flights to the United Arab Emirates, and he and his wife had to return to a nearby military base.
According to officials who spoke to Agence France-Presse, the president is now considering using a navy patrol craft to flee the island, though this could not be confirmed.
While he is still president, Rajapaksa enjoys immunity from arrest and he is believed to want to go abroad before stepping down to avoid the possibility of being detained. He stands accused of overseeing corruption and economic mismanagement, which bankrupted the country and triggered the worst financial crisis on record.
He has also been accused of war crimes, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, during his time as defence minister, when he brought the civil war, fought against the Tamil minority, to a bloody end in 2009. For more than a decade, the allegations against him have been prevented from reaching the courts.
The president was not the only member of the family unsuccessfully trying to flee. His younger brother Basil Rajapaksa, who served as finance minister and has also been accused of widespread corruption, was prevented from boarding a flight to the US, via Dubai, on Tuesday morning after other passengers protested.
Airport staff refused to let him use the fast-track concierge service and stopped him getting on the flight. According to airport officials, as the situation grew tense, Basil Rajapaksa, who has dual US citizenship, retreated.
After news of the Rajapaksa family’s attempts to flee emerged on Tuesday, a motion was filed to the supreme court seeking an order to prohibit Basil Rajapaksa, his older brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was forced to resign as prime minister in May, the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and several others who served in president Gotabaya’s Rajapaksa’s regime from being allowed to leave the country.
Rajapaksa had pushed back against public pressure for him to resign for months, but on Saturday, after hundreds of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Colombo, then took over his presidential palace and offices, he had little choice but to announce that he would step down.
However, the president has not been seen since the protests and his whereabouts remained a source of speculation. His resignation, which is expected on Wednesday, was conveyed first through the speaker of parliament, then the office of the prime minister, but no public address has been made by the president.
An interim all-party unity government is expected to take over after Rajapaksa’s much-anticipated resignation, when the cabinet have said they will all resign. Sajith Premadasa – the leader of the largest opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya – who lost the presidential election against Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019, has said he will put himself forward for president.
Sri Lanka’s parliament will reconvene on Friday and a new president will be elected by MPs on 20 July. The caretaker government is expected to rule for six to eight months until the country can afford to hold parliamentary elections.
by ti-amie The news out of Sri Lanka continues to amaze.
Ponchi The Guardian hasn't shown anything about what is happening in Ecuador in the last week or so. Have things calmed down?
by ponchi101 No.
It is S. America. Ecuador is going through some serious civil unrest. Argentina is again facing its 1,000th economic meltdown. Colombia elected a former guerrilla for president, who will begin the destruction process take over in about a month. Chile's recently elected psychopath is in the process of changing the constitution.
In other words, SNAFU. We are what we are. We are stupid.
by ti-amieMet police launches investigation into Mo Farah trafficking claims
Scotland Yard is likely to question a married couple Farah accused of forcing him into domestic servitude
Tom Ambrose
Wed 13 Jul 2022 20.24 BST
The Metropolitan police has launched an investigation into claims by Sir Mo Farah that he was trafficked into the UK and forced into domestic servitude.
The four-time Olympic champion told a BBC documentary that he was brought to London by a stranger under an assumed name after escaping war in Somalia aged nine.
Scotland Yard detectives are now likely to question a married couple Farah accused of forcing him to cook, clean and babysit, the Daily Telegraph reported.
He claimed they told him he would never see his family again if he told anyone the truth. The documentary, The Real Mo Farah, also revealed that his name is actually Hussein Abdi Kahin.
A Met spokesman said: “We are aware of reports in the media concerning Sir Mo Farah. No reports have been made to the MPS at this time.
“Specialist officers have opened an investigation and are currently assessing the available information.”
The athlete had previously claimed he had left Somalia aged eight to join his father, after his parents sent three of their six children to London for the chance of a better life.
Farah said his real father, Abdi, died in the Somali civil war before he was sent by his mother to live with family in Djibouti. He was then brought to the UK by a woman.
When he arrived in Britain Farah claimed he lived with a married couple who treated him badly. His PE teacher at school, Alan Watkinson, rescued him and also helped him to apply for British citizenship using his assumed name.
In the documentary, the athlete discloses that the name Mohamed Farah was stolen from another child and used to create a fake passport.
“Most people know me as Mo Farah, but it’s not my name or it’s not the reality,” he said. “The real story is I was born in Somaliland, north of Somalia, as Hussein Abdi Kahin. Despite what I’ve said in the past, my parents never lived in the UK.”
He decided to go public with the truth about his past after being encouraged to do so by his children.
“Family means everything to me and, you know, as a parent, you always teach your kids to be honest, but I feel like I’ve always had that private thing where I could never be me and tell what’s really happened,” he said.
“I’ve been keeping it for so long, it’s been difficult because you don’t want to face it and often my kids ask questions, ‘Dad, how come this?’ And you’ve always got an answer for everything, but you haven’t got an answer for that.”
The Home Office confirmed he would not face any repercussions following the documentary. “No action whatsoever will be taken against Sir Mo and to suggest otherwise is wrong,” a spokesperson said.
Farah is also understood to be in regular contact with his real mother, Aisha, and his siblings in Somaliland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia.
by ti-amie I wonder if he will be able to get new documents with his real name?
by ponchi101 In TAT1.0, years ago, I reviewed a book called A CRIME SO MONSTROUS.
Human trafficking and slavery is far from over. In ABSOLUTE numbers, the world has never had so many slaves. In percentages, never so few.
But it is still a terrible problem.
by Deuce And the internet has made human trafficking much easier than it was before.
For one thing, it's a lot easier to hide a 14 year old prostituted girl on the internet than it is to hide her on a street corner.
So much for 'progress', huh?
.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie So who will the Tories vote for, Truss or Sunak? I read that some say the Daily Fail (Rupert Murdoch) will determine the outcome.
Liz Truss vows to hold emergency tax-cut budget, build 'aspiration nation' and defend 'our country, history and values' if she beats Rishi Sunak to be next PM: Foreign Secretary unveils manifesto to take on Keir Starmer as 'freedom-loving Conservative
The Tory Leadership hopeful who could be the third female PM writes in the Mail
Truss tells of her desire to build 'aspirational nation' as she vies with Sunak
She also attacked the former chancellor on 'highest' tax burden in 70 years
And pledged to cut taxes immediately to help cost-of-living and business
While also saying she was the best person the beat the Labour leader in Election
By JASON GROVES and HARRIET LINE FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 17:01 EDT, 20 July 2022 | UPDATED: 18:15 EDT, 20 July 2022
Liz Truss today vows to beat Labour by ‘governing as a true tax-cutting, freedom-loving Conservative’.
The Foreign Secretary last night surged into the final run-off against Rishi Sunak in the race to become prime minister, knocking out rival Penny Mordaunt.
Writing in the Daily Mail today, Miss Truss sets out an agenda that will see her pursuing Boris Johnson’s freedom-loving instincts while reversing Mr Sunak’s high-tax agenda.
In an attack on the former chancellor’s record, she says the Government has been ‘going in the wrong direction on tax, with the tax burden at its highest in 70 years’.
She pledges to hold an emergency budget to push through immediate tax cuts to ease the cost of living and encourage enterprise.
‘We cannot have business-as-usual managerialism on the economy,’ she writes.
‘I am the tax-cutting candidate who will help squeezed families by reversing April’s national insurance rise and suspending the green levy on energy bills.’
Miss Truss also promises to take on the ‘Whitehall Blob’ to drive through ‘tax-cutting, enterprise boosting, business-friendly Conservative policy’. And she signals that she will take on the Left in the ‘culture wars’.
Favourite: Liz Truss, pictured in the House of Parliament after she saw off Penny Mordaunt to make the final two in the Tory leadership contest
Ballot winner: Rishi Sunak leaves an office building in London on Wednesday as tops the MPs vote on who will go to the Conservative members final vote to choose the nation's next PM
The British people can trust me to govern as a Conservative,’ she writes. ‘I won’t apologise for Britain or who we are as a nation and will stand up to people who talk down our country, our history and our values. I reject dehumanising identity politics, cancel culture and the voices of decline.’
Miss Truss’s comments came as bookmakers installed her as odds-on favourite to claim the Tory crown.
Mr Sunak topped yesterday’s final ballot of MPs with 137 votes, but he faces a frantic few weeks to convince Tory party members to back him. His final tally was well short of the 200-mark once predicted by allies and means he enters the second phase of the contest without an indisputable mandate from Tory MPs.
Multiple polls have suggested he will trail behind Miss Truss when the party faithful cast their ballots.
The former chancellor, whose resignation triggered Mr Johnson’s downfall, claimed he was the only candidate who could beat Labour at the next election.
‘We need to restore trust, rebuild the economy and reunite our country,’ he said. ‘I’m confident we can do that and we’ve got a really positive message to take out to all our members now – crucially, who is the best person to beat Keir Starmer and the Labour Party at the next election? I believe I’m the only candidate who can do that.’
The clash came as:
Miss Mordaunt was knocked out of the contest by eight votes;
Boris Johnson hinted at a comeback, declaring his ‘mission largely accomplished – for now’;
More than 4,000 Tory members signed a petition calling for him to be in the final run-off;
Sources said Mr Sunak’s team protested over the issue of ballot papers in early August, limiting his campaigning time;
Mr Johnson took a parting shot at Mr Sunak, saying major projects would not have been built ‘if we’d always listened to the Treasury’;
Tobias Ellwood, a Mordaunt supporter, had the Tory whip temporarily restored to allow him to vote in the final ballot.
The three candidates spent the final 24 hours scrabbling for votes from Kemi Badenoch’s supporters after she was knocked out of the contest on Tuesday.
Miss Truss leapfrogged Miss Mordaunt into second place, securing the backing of 113 Tory MPs – up 27 on the last round.
Trade minister Miss Mordaunt was second in all earlier rounds of voting but her campaign hit the buffers and she slipped into third place with 105 votes. She said: ‘We must all now work together to unify our party and focus on the job that needs to be done.’
Her allies later attacked the media for highlighting her changing views on issues like trans rights and claims that she failed to pull her weight as a minister.
Mr Sunak and Miss Truss will now campaign to win the votes of up to 200,000 Conservative Party members. Ballot papers will begin to land on doorsteps from August 1, and the ballot closes on September 2. The first of 12 regional hustings for party members will be held in Leeds next Thursday.
The result of the contest will be announced on September 5, and the winner is expected to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister the following day.
And this is news? That China may use any and all Chinese companies to spy on everybody else is news?
by ti-amie If you only knew how many young people are on that platform! My niece is constantly sending out videos from that app and gets upset if you don't respond to them. It's insidious.
Serbia has never been able to swallow their loss in '92. Nationalism is and always has been a vehicle for violence and hatred. "We're number 1!!!"
by ti-amie There was a very long and informative thread about this on the Bird App. I'll see if it was aggregated by the Thread Reader App.
by ti-amie Uh, what?
by Owendonovan "The FAO reports the 7.2 billion will be used to reduce the deficit and debt."
I think they mean population, not deficit and debt.
by ti-amie
ti-amie wrote: ↑Tue Aug 02, 2022 11:53 pm
There was a very long and informative thread about this on the Bird App. I'll see if it was aggregated by the Thread Reader App.
Thread by Una Hajdari
There isn’t a conflict or escalation brewing in Kosovo atm. Kosovo Serbs set up roadblocks towards two main border crossings with Serbia in the north, in opposition to a move by the gov’t whereby Serbian citizens need special certificates when entering the country. #calmdown
Since Serbia doesn’t recognize Kosovo, citizens need special “temporary documents” while residing in the country. PM Albin Kurti recently announced that Kosovo would reciprocate by demanding the same from Serbian citizens. The decision enters into force tonight.
Politically motivated (or influenced) Kosovo Serbs gathered on the roads towards the border in order to stop people from driving to Serbia. Similar roadblocks have been set up several times over the years, and while they do signal tensions, they rarely lead to armed escalations.
This is because the north of Kosovo is covered by more NATO/KFOR troops per capita than almost any place in Europe. They are stationed there to maintain order, and escalations like these are exactly when their powers come into force.
Of course, this comes on the back of a month-long spat between Kosovo and Serbia over how that border in particular (which Serbia considers an internal, administrative border) should be handled. I wrote about the last time things got intense last year:
Ever since Kurti was elected PM, he has tried to solidify Kosovo’s independence by doing to Serbia what Serbia has done to Kosovo — as in, if you don’t think we’re independent, watch us exercise our powers on our territory.
For Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, this hurts his pride and he’ll try to save face by making inflammatory statements like the one below to deflect from the fact that his hands are basically tied.
(Reference in Serbian is at the link below)
There have been sirens going off in North Mitrovica, the main Serb-majority municipality in the country, for a good part of the day. They’re intended to go off anytime there’s even a whiff of an incident that could endanger civilians, so that they know to stay off the streets.
But they go off when there are police raids there as well, like they have in the past year or so when the police confiscated illegal goods. While they are definitely unpleasant and startling, the main goal is to make sure civilians aren’t accidentally caught in crossfire or w/e.
The reason Serbia is “upset” is bc Kosovo did this outside the EU-monitored dialogue between the two, intended as the venue for solving outstanding bilateral issues. It messes with the perception President Vucic tries to emulate that he has everything under control.
At this moment (obv subject to change) Kosovo Police confirm that they were shot at while on the ground in the northern part of the country, but that no one has been injured. They also confirm that Kosovo Albanian drivers close to the border crossing were hassled by local Serbs.
While none of this is “normal” or welcome, it sadly isn’t extraordinarily out of proportion to previous incidents in the north. Various political and criminal Kosovo Serb groups flex their muscles when they feel their domination in that area is threatened, and yes, they are armed
The KFOR (NATO troops part of the Kosovo Forces) have active and regularly updated intervention plans on all the main roads leading into Kosovo in the North, which they can implement whenever they deem the situation to have significantly escalated.
While Russia is *always* happy when things go haywire in the Balkans, this incident was entirely tied to a decision by the Kosovo government that was announced ages ago, and the fact that Serbia is unhappy about it.
After the 1999 NATO bombing of what remained of Yugoslavia (yes the thing Putin always mentions), Serbia withdrew its military and political presence from Kosovo and signed the Kumanovo Agreement which set up a NATO-enforced air and ground safety zone.
While various facets of the agreement were suspended at times as a sign of goodwill (and joint NATO and Serbian army patrols were organized along the border) when a security crisis hits they’re immediately reimposed. This basically the equivalent of NATO Article 5 being violated.
As someone who has personally visited Bondsteel (the biggest US army base in the region, found in Kosovo) and the barracks of various NATO members close to the border — I can claim with almost 100% certainty that Russia or Serbia cannot (re)occupy Kosovo overnight.
The only thing this frantic fear-mongering (and spreading of alarmist disinfo) will achieve is that (armed) rabble-rousers will feel encouraged to actually go out and shoot people while the whole world is watching. So have that on your conscience while you spread fake news.
Additional NATO and Kosovo police presence has been placed on the bridges between Serb-majority North Mitrovica and Albanian-majority South Mitrovica, to pre-empt spillover tensions. FYI, the main bridge between the two municipalities has been closed off for almost two decades…
… and is guarded by international forces (such as the Italian Carabinieri) to deter ease of access for people who might want to escalate things. (This is for those suddenly interested in inter-ethnic tensions in Kosovo.)
by ponchi101 I know. I find it to be even more potentially destructive than Twitter, where, at least, some serious people post information.
This one is basically digital methamphetamines.
by Deuce
ti-amie wrote: ↑Wed Aug 03, 2022 12:02 am
Uh, what?
Doug Ford is Rob Ford's brother (Rob was the mayor of Toronto for a few years).
That explains everything.
(Warning - language... but really funny...)
by ti-amie OH the brother of that guy. Now I get it.
Missouri was miserable enough without him. He's such a tool.
by ponchi101 You just commented on a post that has the names Josh Hawley and Rand Paul in it, and said "he is such a tool".
I am puzzled by the use of the singular.
(Not really, I know what you mean).
by Owendonovan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 04, 2022 3:50 pm
You just commented on a post that has the names Josh Hawley and Rand Paul in it, and said "he is such a tool".
I am puzzled by the use of the singular.
(Not really, I know what you mean).
The sum of those 2 almost equal a whole human?
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 That is how dictatorships eventually evolve. The Supreme Leader starts seeing enemies all around him. Then, he needs them checked. Then, a few get jailed, then executed. Slowly, the fear spreads too much. Soon, the government is non-operational because everybody is afraid that, regardless of what you say, you end up on the wrong side.
He has to go. He has become a true danger for the planet.
by ti-amie17 missing, dozens hurt after lightning, explosions and fire at Cuban oil storage facility
Firefighters trying to prevent fire from spreading in Matanzas, Cuba
The Associated Press · Posted: Aug 06, 2022 11:26 AM ET | Last Updated: 27 minutes ago
A helicopter carrying water flies over the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base on Saturday. (Ramon Espinosa/The Associated Press)
A fire set off by a lightning strike at an oil storage facility raged uncontrolled Saturday in the city of Matanzas, where four explosions and flames injured nearly 80 people and left 17 firefighters missing, Cuban authorities said Saturday.
Firefighters and other specialists were still trying to quell the blaze at the Matanzas Supertanker Base, which began during a thunderstorm Friday night, the Ministry of Energy and Mines tweeted. The government said later that it had asked for help from international experts in "friendly countries" with experience in the oil sector.
Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio said the U.S. government had offered technical help to quell the blaze. On his Twitter account, he said the "proposal is in the hands of specialists for the due co-ordination."
Minutes later, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel thanked Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, Nicaragua, Argentina and Chile for their offers of help.
The official Cuban News Agency said lightning hit one tank, starting a fire, and the blaze later spread to a second tank. As military helicopters flew overhead dropping water on the blaze, a dense column of black smoke billowed from the facility and spread westward more than 100 kilometres toward Havana.
Workers watch a huge rising plume of smoke from the Matanzas Supertanker Base in Cuba on Saturday as firefighters work to quell a blaze that began during a thunderstorm on Friday night. (Ramon Espinosa/The Associated Press)
Roberto de la Torre, head of fire operations in Matanzas, said firefighters were spraying water on intact tanks trying to keep them cool in hopes of preventing the fire from spreading.
The Facebook page of the provincial government of Matanzas said the number of injured had reached 77, while 17 people were missing. The Presidency of the Republic said the 17 were "firefighters who were in the nearest area trying to prevent the spread."
Seven of the injured were taken to Calixto Garcia Hospital in Havana, which has a prominent burn unit.
Cuban authorities say dozens of people have been hurt following the lightning strike, fire and subsequent explosions at the oil storage facility in Matanzas. (Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images)
The accident comes as Cuba struggles with fuel shortages. There was no immediate word on how much oil had burned or was in danger at the storage facility, which has eight giant tanks that hold oil used to fuel electricity generating plants.
Smoke column and a sulphur smell
"I was in the gym when I felt the first explosion. A column of smoke and terrible fire rose through the skies," resident Adiel Gonzalez told The Associated Press by phone.
"The city has a strong smell of sulphur."
Authorities said about 800 people were evacuated from the Dubrocq neighborhood closest to the fire, while Gonzalez added that some people decided to leave the Versailles district, which is a little farther from the tank farm.
Many ambulances, police and fire engines were seen in the streets of Matanzas, a city of about 140,000 people on Matanzas Bay.
Diaz-Canel travelled to the area of the fire early Saturday, officials said.
Local meteorologist Elier Pila showed satellite images of the area with a dense plume of black smoke moving from the point of the fire westward and reaching east to Havana.
"That plume can be close to 150 kilometres long," Pila wrote on his Twitter account.
A vintage car sits parked Saturday as the sky in the background is filled with smoke from the fire at the oil tank storage facility in Matanzas, Cuba. (Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)
by Owendonovan I'm sure there's a new reason to call someone treasonous and jail them in Russia daily, whereas in America the treasonous go golfing.....
by ti-amieLeaked audio reveals Liz Truss said British workers needed ‘more graft’
Exclusive: Tory leadership frontrunner suggested Britons lacked ‘skill and application’, in echo of ‘idlers’ row
Pippa Crerar Political editor
Tue 16 Aug 2022 20.54 BST
Liz Truss, now the Tory leadership frontrunner, launched an astonishing broadside against British workers, saying they needed “more graft” and suggesting they lacked the “skill and application” of foreign rivals, the Guardian can reveal.
In a leaked recording, the then No 2 at the Treasury also risked pitting Londoners against the rest of the country by attempting to explain the difference between the capital and other regions in the UK.
Truss, who has put patriotism at the heart of her leadership campaign, suggested the disparity was “partly a mindset or attitude thing”.
The comments were made when Truss was the chief secretary to the Treasury, a post she held until 2019. In the recording she intimated that there seemed little desire to change the working culture so that the UK could become more prosperous.
The highly disparaging remarks echo a controversial passage about British workers being among the “worst idlers in the world” in the book Britannia Unchained, which she co-authored in 2012 when she was a new backbench MP seeking to make her mark as a neo-Thatcherite.
In the first televised head-to-head Tory leadership debate last month, Truss claimed she had not written the offending chapter and blamed her fellow author Dominic Raab instead.
She told the BBC presenter: “Each author wrote a different chapter. Dominic Raab wrote that chapter – he’s backing Rishi Sunak.”
Raab later claimed that the authors, who also included Priti Patel and Kwasi Kwarteng, had taken “collective responsibility” for the book, adding: “It’s up to Liz to explain why she’s changed her view.”
In the leaked recording, Truss claimed that the book had been “mischaracterised” at the time of its release a decade ago, but gave no detail as to how she felt the passage had been misrepresented.
Truss’s remarks about the productivity of workers outside London could be particularly damaging as earlier this month she was forced to make a U-turn on plans to cut civil service pay outside the capital after a furious outcry from Conservative MPs.
She claimed there had been a “wilful misrepresentation” of her policy – despite her campaign having published specific details – but confirmed she was abandoning plans for regional pay boards for civil servants or public sector workers.
London had the highest productivity level of any UK region in 2020, with output per hour more than 50% higher than the median, according to the Office for National Statistics.
However, this is widely believed to be the result of large multinationals being based in the capital, higher engagement with research and development, the size of firms and the level of exports, and the transport infrastructure.
In the leaked recording, Truss began: “I once wrote a book about this which got mischaracterised – British workers produce less per hour than … and that’s a combination of kind of skill and application.”
She went on: “If you look at productivity, it’s very, very different in London from the rest of the country. But basically … this has been a historical fact for decades. Essentially it’s partly a mindset and attitude thing, I think. It’s working culture, basically. If you go to China it’s quite different, I can assure you.”
The minister, who had close oversight of public spending, added: “There’s a fundamental issue of British working culture. Essentially, if we’re going to be a richer country and a more prosperous country, that needs to change. But I don’t think people are that keen to change that.
“There’s a slight thing in Britain about wanting the easy answers. That’s my reflection on the election and what’s gone before it, and the referendum – we say it’s all Europe that’s causing these huge problems … it’s all these migrants causing these problems. But actually what needs to happen is more … more graft. It’s not a popular message.”
Truss was questioned about the Guardian’s revelations during a Tory leadership hustings in Perth, and appeared to confirm she still believed British workers were not as productive as they should be.
Asked by Colin Mackay, STV’s political editor and chair of the hustings, whether she stood by those remarks, Truss said: “I don’t know what you’re quoting there [but] what we need in this country is more productivity and we need more economic growth.
“The thing is we don’t have enough of is capital investment, which why it’s important to get more investment in the whisky industry and North Sea.”
The shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said: “With wages shrinking thanks to Tory failure to bring inflation under control and years of lacklustre growth, it’s grossly offensive for Liz Truss to effectively brand British workers lazy.
“I would have hoped she had moved on from the days of her Britannia Unchained fiasco, but it seems that is the blueprint for her prospective government. Workers across the country are working all hours to keep a roof over their heads, put food on the table and provide for their families. Liz Truss should be helping working people to cope with this cost of living crisis, as Labour this week outlined we would do, not peddling this offensive nonsense.”
by ti-amieAnti-Putin American investor falls to his death outside his DC apartment block - with his dog carrying suicide note in nearby park: Widow DENIES suicide as it's revealed he had $2,620 in pocket
Dan Rapoport, 52, was found dead on August 14th outside 2400 M Apartments
DC police say that is where he was living, and that he jumped from the building
He had $2,620 cash on him along with a phone, headphones and a keyring with a lanyard when he was found dead
It was initially reported that he killed himself after setting his dog free and writing a suicide note
His widow says that's not true and that no such note was ever written
Rapoport was vociferous in his criticism of Putin and the war in Ukraine
He had also been complaining to friends about being ripped off by a Russian fund
Three days before his death, Rapoport posted a haunting final message on Facebook of Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now
By JENNIFER SMITH, CHIEF REPORTER and CHRIS PLEASANCE and WILL STEWART FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 07:04 EDT, 17 August 2022 | UPDATED: 13:55 EDT, 17 August 2022
The anti-Putin, Latvian-American businessman found dead in Washington DC this week fell to his death from a luxury apartment building with $2,600 cash on him, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Dan Rapoport, 52, was found outside 2400 M Apartments on August 14th shortly before 6pm. His body was discovered in the street along with his cracked cellphone, $2,620 cash, a keyring with a lanyard and a cracked white headphone.
Rapoport, a businessman who ran the iconic Soho Rooms nightclub in Moscow, lived in DC from 2012 until 2016 with his first wife, Irina.
Until this year, he had been living in Kyiv with his second wife, Ukrainian virologist Alena, and their young daughter. When was broke out in February, he sent them to Denmark and he returned to the US, planning to bring them over.
In recent months however, he'd been spotted in London 'surrounded by girls' in The Connaught Hotel, and he'd been telling international friends about being stiffed out of a $10,000 payment by a Russian VC firm.
It was initially reported by former Russian Tatler editor Yuniya Pugacheva this week, citing sources close to him, that he killed himself after setting his dog, Boy, free carrying a suicide note and cash.
DC Metropolitan police tell DailyMail.com an investigation is ongoing but they do not suspect any foul play. They area waiting a medical examiner's report.
His widow, Alena, says he did not kill himself and that Pugacheva's sources are off.
Three days before his death, Rapoport posted a haunting image on Facebook of Marilyn Brando as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now with the words: 'The horror, the horror.'
He had become obsessed with the war in Ukraine and Putin's Army, and had always been an outspoken critic of the regime.
In a message to a friend on Facebook in April, he wrote to a friend: 'I need a small favor. I just posted on FB about a Russian VC firm trying to screw me for $10k.
'I would really appreciate if you could like and/or comment on it. I don't expect to get paid, but I want to maximize their public embarrassment.'
The list of items discovered on or near his body after he died prompts more questions.
It includes not just the phone, keyring, headphone and cash, but also a pair of glasses, an unspecified piece of metal, orange flip flops, a black hat and a Florida's driver's license.
Rapoport was outspoken in his criticism of Putin and the war in Ukraine, where his wife is from and where he had been living until the conflict broke out.
He evacuated his wife and planned to bring them to the US.
Mr Rapoport lived in DC between 2012 - when he arrived from Russia amid protests again Putin - and 2016, when he moved to Kyiv and sold his house to Ivanka and Jared Trump following Donald Trump's election win.
It was in Kyiv that Mr Rapoport met and married his second wife - and had a daughter with her.
News of Mr Rapoport's passing first broke Tuesday on the Telegram channel of Yuniya Pugacheva, the former editor of Russian Tatler.
Pugacheva said the financial executive had 'committed suicide in Washington DC' before giving details about the dog and the suicide note.
She also claimed to have seen Rapoport back in May at London's swanky Connaught Bar, alleging that he was there 'in the company of young girls'.
'They say that his wife left him,' she added.
But, speaking to Russian newswire RBC, Alena disputed the majority of that account.
She did confirm his death, telling the site: 'To our great regret, the husband and father of our daughter is no more.'
Alena did not say when exactly her husband had died or provide an alternative cause of death, but said investigations are being carried out.
'We were due to meet, he had appointments and plans. Dan evacuated us from Kyiv and returned there to help my country. Next we were supposed to meet in the USA.'
Aside from his support for Navalny - who is currently jailed in Russia and was moved to solitary confinement in recent days - Rapoport was staunchly pro-Ukrainian.
In 2018, investigative website Bellingcat outed him as the man behind 'David Jewberg' - a 'Pentagon analyst' and expert on Ukraine-Russia relations who was frequently quoted by the media in both countries.
Typical 'Jewberg' posts slammed Putin, criticised the war in Ukraine he began in 2014, and lobbied the US to take a tougher stance against him.
In fact, 'Jewberg' turned out to be fictitious with the account actually run by Rapoport with support from a circle of friends.
In 2017, Sergei Tkachenko - a business partner of Rapoport who co-owned his Moscow nightclub - also died suddenly, and was reported to have killed himself.
Rapoport was born in Latvia when it was part of the Soviet Union and moved to America with his family in 1980 after they were given political asylum.
He graduated from the University of Houston in 1991 - the same year the Union fell apart - and then returned to Russia to work in finance and banking.
Rapoport became a well-known face in post-Soviet Moscow thanks to his ownership of the popular nightclub Soho Rooms.
But around 2011 he became involved in opposition politics amid a wave of protests against what were widely believed to be fraudulent elections.
He returned to the US in 2012 with wife Irina - a former model - and their two children, and remained in the city until 2016.
Following divorce from his first wife, he sold his house to the Trumps for $5.5million in December of that year and departed for Kyiv where he set up another investment firm and again got involved in politics.
His death stirs up sinister memories of the 1941 'suicide' of Walter Krivitsky, a Soviet spy who was said to have jumped to his death in DC.
Krivitsky had notoriously said in close circles: 'Any fool can commit a murder but it takes a true artist to stage a natural death or suicide.'
He was then found dead in DC, and it has long been suspected that he was killed by the Kremlin.
In the last year, there have been multiple mystery deaths among some of Putin's closest allies and associates.
In April, Sergei Protosenya was found dead in his Spanish villa with his wife and his daughter having been stabbed to death. He was hanging from a tree in the backyard.
That same month, Vladislav Avayev, a former Russian banking executive, was found shot dead.
by ponchi101 Ah, is there any doubt that...?
Nope. Not saying it. I mean, I am in Caracas. There's already a million ways to die here. And those are the natural causes.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
Read the article at your own risk.
by ti-amieSanna Marin: Finland PM partying video causes backlash
By Merlyn Thomas
BBC News
The Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, is facing a backlash after being seen partying in a leaked video.
In the footage, thought to be taken from social media, she and friends including Finnish celebrities are seen dancing and singing.
She has faced criticism from opposition parties, with one leader demanding she take a drug test.
Ms Marin, 36, denied taking drugs, saying she only drank alcohol and just partied "in a boisterous way".
Formerly the world's youngest head of government - a title now held by Chilean President Gabriel Boric - Ms Marin makes no secret of partying, and has often been photographed at music festivals.
Last year she apologised for going clubbing after coming into close contact with a Covid-19 case.
Just last week, Ms Marin was dubbed the "coolest prime minister in the world" by German news outlet Bild.
Commenting on the video on Thursday, she said she knew she was being filmed but was upset that the video had become public.
"I danced, sang, and partied - perfectly legal things. And I've never been in a situation where I've seen or known of others [using drugs]," she added.
Opposition party leader, Riikka Purra, called for Ms Marin to take a voluntary drug test, saying there was a "shadow of doubt" hanging over the prime minister.
And MP Mikko Karna, a member of the Centre Party who serve in Ms Marin's coalition government, tweeted that "it would be wise" for her to "voluntarily undergo a drugs test".
Ms Marin appeared open to the suggestion, telling reporters that she had "not used drugs" and had "no problem taking tests".
"I have a family life, I have a work life and I have free time to spend with my friends. Pretty much the same as many people my age," Ms Marin said.
She added that she felt no need to change her behaviour. "I am going to be exactly the same person as I have been until now and I hope that it will be accepted," the prime minister added.
There has been widespread reporting on the video in Finnish media - which justified the use of the footage as being in the public interest.
But other opposition party politicians have criticised both the prime minister and the media for talking about partying - instead of more important domestic problems.
Ms Marin has been in power since December 2019 and retains the support of her party.
by ponchi101 A 36 yo woman dancing.
Outrageous.
I believe they all need a corset...
(Joke. Bad joke. Why is this news?)
by ti-amie Hypothetical here.
She's out and about, a single woman, free to do her thing. Having watched some Finnish noir-ish TV drinking may be involved. Everyone is imbibing and no one notices something being slipped into her drink. She's then waylaid on her way home and divulges things she shouldn't. Unless of course all of this is staged and everyone in the picture has been cleared by Finnish intelligence and she is just letting off steam.
It's not a good look for the leader of a NATO country.
by ponchi101 Remember a few years ago when Suliso posted a photo of Switzerland's president, standing alone at the train station, going to work?
The relationship with their leaders in the Scandinavian countries is different than in other countries, perhaps with the exception of New Zealand. They are seen as true public servants, not protected by 5 rings of security. Sure, in the USA, that would be impossible, but somehow these countries have managed it.
It can lead to disastrous consequences, like the assassination of Olof Palme (Sweden's PM, 1986) but overall, they have a much healthier relationship with their leadership. They are not treated like superstars, and therefore they do not behave like one.
Ergo, this 36 yo girl dancing.
by ti-amie
Sorry for that article from TASS being repeated but everyone is linking to it.
by ti-amie This may be a translation of the above article.
More on the explosion
by ponchi101 It is so boring.
All these wanna be dictators/rulers always come back to the same stupidity: "We need to be sovereign, we need to be truly independent and recover our national identity".
by ti-amie
by Owendonovan All is fair in love and war. I hope he really loved his daughter and is suffering similarly to the all the Ukrainian men grieving over their lost daughters killed or raped by Russian soldiers.
by Suliso I doubt Ukrainians were at fault here, though. More likely Kremlin internal politics.
by ti-amie
Suliso wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 12:14 pm
I doubt Ukrainians were at fault here, though. More likely Kremlin internal politics.
Ms Lautman's CV
Analyst/researcher focus- Kremlin, intel, Eastern Europe. Senior Fellow
@CEPA
Co-host
@kremlinfile
podcast Coordinator for
@SyriaUkraineSUN
Views my own
by ponchi101
Suliso wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 12:14 pm
I doubt Ukrainians were at fault here, though. More likely Kremlin internal politics.
Exploding vehicles are not their MO (Kremlin's). They are more into poisoning, either chemical or radioactive.
And the by now well known defenestration.
But, if you are correct, and this was done by the Kremlin, when the top echelon starts plotting against each other, you know major changes are coming.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Why is the British Prime Ministry so reminiscent of Monty Python's Flying Circus lately?
by dryrunguy I guess I'll put this here. It got a mention in this morning's NY Times newsletter.
::
Last member of indigenous tribe dies in Brazil after resisting contact for decades
Sao Paulo (CNN)The last remaining member of an uncontacted Brazilian indigenous tribe has died, Brazil's indigenous protection agency, Funai, said Saturday.
Known as the "Man of the Hole," he had lived in complete isolation for the past 26 years on the Tanaru indigenous land, deep in the Brazilian Amazon in Rondonia state, according to non-profit organization Survival International.
He was given his nickname for his habit of constructing deep holes to trap animals and to hide in, the group said.
The man had resisted all attempts to be contacted, though authorities continued to monitor him from afar, occasionally leaving out supplies for him.
Survival International said the rest of his tribe was wiped out by several attacks since the 1970s, mainly from cattle ranchers and land grabbers.
"No outsider knew this man's name, or even very much about his tribe -- and with his death the genocide of his people is complete," said Fiona Watson, the group's research and advocacy director.
"For this was indeed a genocide -- the deliberate wiping out of an entire people by cattle ranchers hungry for land and wealth."
The man's body was found lying in a hammock in a hut by Funai officials on August 23. There were no signs of struggle, violence or the presence of other people in the area.
He died of natural causes, and his body will undergo a forensic examination by the Federal Police, according to Funai.
The last known video of the "Man of the Hole" was released by Funai in 2018, which appeared to show him hacking at a tree with an ax-like tool.
Survival International said his abandoned campsites left clues to his lifestyle -- he planted crops including corn and papaya, and made houses of straw and thatch.
by skatingfan It's not a government, it's a criminal organization.
by Suliso It's a typical imperial style government. You can plead the sovereign for your case (privately!), but you can't openly advocate for it let alone demand something or criticize. Such a lese majeste will be punished harshly.
by Suliso The sovereign is afforded a demigod stature. He has to be obeyed or else he'll destroy you.
I'm bothered by the real lack of creativity with the excuse for this murder. I suppose they think people are that stupid.
by Suliso They don't need to hide. In fact they want people to know and be afraid. People in Russia are not more stupid than in any other somewhat advances country.
by ponchi101 It is the same in Vennieland. They don't hide anymore. They will arrest anybody and not even explain.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 The pistol jammed. It had 5 live rounds in it.
by Suliso She's very lucky...
by ti-amie The New York Times
@nytimes
El domingo, Chile votará una nueva constitución que, de aprobarse, consagraría algunos de los derechos más extensos para los pueblos indígenas en cualquier parte del mundo. Pero esas reformas también se han convertido en la parte más polémica del texto.
Translated from Spanish by
On Sunday, Chile will vote on a new constitution that, if approved, would enshrine some of the most extensive rights for indigenous people anywhere in the world. But those reforms have also become the most controversial part of the text.
by dryrunguy Just want to acknowledge the stabbing at James Smith Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada yesterday morning that killed 10 people and injured 15 others. The perpetrators, who appear to be brothers or cousins, remain on the loose and, at this point, could be just about anywhere. Last I read yesterday, authorities seem to think this was a mixed targeted/random attack. It may also be a hate crime, but that remains to be seen, and I haven't heard anyone use that term yet in relation to this case.
by ponchi101 I missed that completely. Thanks for the post.
by ti-amie To absolutely no ones surprise Truss has been chosen as the new leader of the Tories, and hence the new Prime Minister. Someone posted this video of her promoting English food which is a taste almost no one outside of that country has a taste for.
by ponchi101 I wonder what has stopped England from exporting their fantastic food in the past. And, as members of the European Union, they have access to the largest consumer block in the world.
Right?
(I'll still take their chutneys and Worcestershire sauce).
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 05, 2022 6:45 pm
I wonder what has stopped England from exporting their fantastic food in the past. And, as members of the European Union, they have access to the largest consumer block in the world.
Right?
(I'll still take their chutneys and Worcestershire sauce).
As someone once said the English went around the world destroying cultures for spices they never use.
I do like their marmalade, the one with the thick chunks of orange rind, and I use the tea they label as theirs but call either Ceylon, Darjeeling or Assam for iced tea.
by Suliso English baking is not bad at all. Traditional main courses are not much to write home about...
by ti-amie
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Mon Sep 05, 2022 2:53 pm
Just want to acknowledge the stabbing at James Smith Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada yesterday morning that killed 10 people and injured 15 others. The perpetrators, who appear to be brothers or cousins, remain on the loose and, at this point, could be just about anywhere. Last I read yesterday, authorities seem to think this was a mixed targeted/random attack. It may also be a hate crime, but that remains to be seen, and I haven't heard anyone use that term yet in relation to this case.
by skatingfan Man charged in fatal Sask. stabbings found dead, other accused still at large, RCMP say
Social Sharing
Lana Head, one of the deceased from James Smith Cree Nation, was security guard, ex-partner confirms
CBC News · Posted: Sep 05, 2022 10:23 AM CT | Last Updated: 20 minutes ago
One of the two accused RCMP are seeking in connection with a string of fatal stabbings in Saskatchewan on Sunday has been found dead, police confirmed Monday.
Damien Sanderson, 31, was found dead with wounds that did not appear to be self-inflicted, said Rhonda Blackmore, commanding officer of the Saskatchewan RCMP.
Myles Sanderson, 30, is still at large and is wanted. The RCMP also confirmed Monday at the media briefing that the two are brothers.
Ten people died in the attacks Sunday in various locations in the province, including James Smith Cree Nation. The injury toll has risen to 18.
Myles faces three counts of first-degree murder; Damien had been charged with one count of first-degree murder. Both men also were charged with attempted murder and break and enter.
Police from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were searching for the Sandersons after the attacks prompted a dangerous-persons alert.
Police said Myles may have sustained injuries, though that has yet to be confirmed.
"We do want the public to know this because there is a possibility he may seek medical attention," Blackmore said.
"Even if he is injured, it does not mean he is not still dangerous," Blackmore added, noting Myles has a lengthy criminal record involving both persons and property crimes.
Earlier, Rhonda Blackmore, commanding officer of the Saskatchewan RCMP, said: "To the people of Saskatchewan and beyond, please be assured that we are using every human, investigational and technological resource we have available to locate and arrest the persons responsible for this tragedy and to ensure your safety."
CBC has confirmed Lana Head, 49, is one of the deceased from James Smith Cree Nation. She leaves behind daughters Sable, 31, and Sage, 30.
Head's former partner, Michael Brett Burns, said Head worked as a security guard at Northern Lights Casino and was also a commissionaire officer.
Head's death was first reported by APTN.
Saskatoon police confirmed they've been searching for Myles Sanderson since May, when he stopped meeting with his assigned caseworker and was classified as "unlawfully at large."
He had been serving a nearly five-year federal sentence for assault, robbery, mischief and uttering threats. He got a statutory release, and then disappeared.
Police say they anticipate releasing more information about the people who died later Monday.
"At this stage in our investigation, we believe some victims have been targeted by the suspect and others have been attacked randomly," Blackmore said during a news conference Sunday.
In an update posted to Twitter at 7:36 a.m. CST on Monday, Regina police Chief Evan Bray said the two suspects are still at large despite "ongoing, relentless efforts through the night" from Regina police and RCMP officers to apprehend them.
Blackmore said hundreds of Saskatchewan RCMP staff, from operators to major crime units, are dedicated to the investigation.
Police said there was no indication the two men travelled out of the province.
The Cree Nation and Weldon are within 60 kilometres of Prince Albert, and about 20 kilometres from each other.
Police resources from across Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta are assisting with the multiple investigations, according to RCMP.
Damien was described as:
Five-foot-seven.
155 pounds.
With black hair and brown eyes.
Myles was described as:
Six-foot-one.
240 pounds.
With brown hair and brown eyes.
RCMP said before Monday's briefing that the men were armed and dangerous, and shouldn't be approached.
They were also believed to be driving a black Nissan Rogue with a Saskatchewan licence plate 119 MPI, although they may have since changed their vehicle.
According to police, the vehicle was last reported seen in Regina around 11:20 a.m. on Sunday, though it hasn't been confirmed.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said it was working with domestic and international law enforcement to "ensure border security, intelligence and enforcement."
The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN), which represents 74 First Nation communities in Saskatchewan including James Smith Cree Nation, joined a chorus of people offering their condolences to the James Smith Cree Nation after the "unspeakable violence that claimed the lives of innocent people."
"This is the destruction we face when harmful illegal drugs invade our communities, and we demand all authorities to take direction from the Chiefs and Councils and their membership to create safer and healthier communities for our people," said FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron in a statement late Sunday.
The FSIN also said it has been in contact with the federal government, which has committed to providing support to the communities.
Violence 'has no place in our country': PM
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the country Monday afternoon, sending his thoughts to loved ones affected.
"This kind of violence, or any kind of violence, has no place in our country," he said.
Trudeau said the federal government continues to monitor the situation closely and has spoken with the leadership of James Smith Cree Nation.
He said he also spoke with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, and added Ottawa will be there with the necessary resources "in this time of crisis."
Trudeau said "we'll continue to work as partners in the weeks, months and years to come through grieving and healing."
In a tweet published Sunday night, Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu said she reached out to chiefs and leadership to mobilize supports "as quickly as possible."
Indigenous Services Canada told CBC in an email it's working with the Cree Nation, FSIN and Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority (NITHA) to "identify and ensure health services and supports will be in place, including mental wellness support, for James Smith Cree Nation and neighbouring communities."
NITHA is an Indigenous health services organization that serves 33 First Nation communities, including James Smith Cree Nation.
The James Smith Cree Nation has asked for privacy.
Moe was among those who offered condolences Sunday to those affected by the stabbings.
The Saskatchewan government said in a statement late Sunday that it has activated Provincial Command, which helps co-ordinate and deploy resources, and has deployed victim services to the community. It has also supplemented other law enforcement resources with 16 staff from the provincial protective services.
In a statement posted to social media, Saskatchewan's premier called the attacks "horrific beyond anything that any of us could ever imagine." He said Saskatchewan is looking to provide safety and care to those affected. and called for residents to provide any helpful information they may have to police.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority entered a Code Orange following the influx of critical patients from the stabbings on Sunday.
On Monday, Anne Lindemann with the health authority said hospitals were no longer in a Code Orange.
"Along with providing for the immediate medical care required for those affected, the SHA is working on deployment of mental health resources to families, communities, physicians and staff impacted," Lindemann said in an email.
In an emailed statement Monday, the Canadian Red Cross said it's sending workers to the area to "provide comfort and support to family members and the community impacted" by the attacks.
The Red Cross said it's working with James Smith Cree Nation and the FSIN with support from the Prince Albert Grand Council and federal government.
by Owendonovan Are these 2 brothers (1 found dead) members of the Cree nation or some other indigenous nation or are they outsiders?
by skatingfan
Owendonovan wrote: ↑Mon Sep 05, 2022 11:08 pm
Are these 2 brothers (1 found dead) members of the Cree nation or some other indigenous nation or are they outsiders?
My understanding is that they are from the community of James Smith Cree Nation.
by dryrunguy Sigh... I was worried they were from the community. Heartbreaking. Why?
by skatingfan
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Tue Sep 06, 2022 12:22 am
Sigh... I was worried they were from the community. Heartbreaking. Why?
Only thing I've heard so far is something drug related, but I don't think we really know.
by ponchi101 BTW. The Chilean referendum to pass a new constitution was rejected by 62% vote. Despite the fact that the previous referendum, the one that triggered this possible constitutional reform, was won by 80%.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 06, 2022 10:02 pm
BTW. The Chilean referendum to pass a new constitution was rejected by 62% vote. Despite the fact that the previous referendum, the one that triggered this possible constitutional reform, was won by 80%.
Why do you think it was rejected?
by ponchi101 It granted too much power to the indigenous populations, which were not shared by the rest of the country. It would have changed the name of the country to a "Plurinational State of Chile", copying exactly the name from Bolivia, and indicating that indigenous areas would be very independent from the rest of the nation.
It was not balanced. Some aspects were very good: it gave better protection to women's rights, but it would have turned a population of around 13% of the country (the indigenous groups) into a dominant political faction, with disproportionate power.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:36 pm
It granted too much power to the indigenous populations, which were not shared by the rest of the country. It would have changed the name of the country to a "Plurinational State of Chile", copying exactly the name from Bolivia, and indicating that indigenous areas would be very independent from the rest of the nation.
It was not balanced. Some aspects were very good: it gave better protection to women's rights, but it would have turned a population of around 13% of the country (the indigenous groups) into a dominant political faction, with disproportionate power.
I wish I knew more about this. It was trending on my Twitter time line for almost two days.
Thank you
by texasniteowl It does not seem like a good situation when Buckingham Palace releases a statement re: the Queen's health and all the immediate family is rushing to Balmoral.
by Woody Still unconfirmed, but rumours and activities strongly suggest Queen Elizabeth is deceased or very near death. RIP, she had a helluva run. 70 years, 15 Prime Ministers, 14 U.S. Presidents. Second longest reign of a monarch, surpassed only by Louis XIV.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie To anyone who has watched The Crown the above sentence causes a bit of cognitive dissonance.
That said, she did her duties to the best of her abilities with the information she was allowed to have. May she now RIP
by ti-amie This was taken this week. Since she never officially asked Truss to form a government it will be Charles who will. I don't know if it will be before or after official mourning and his coronation.
by ti-amie And His Royal A**hat breaking protocol is another embarrassment.
by ponchi101 Not a time to speak ill of her, but that entire mess was the crown's fault. I know he was the President of the USA; but everybody knew this man would be unable to abide to protocol that would put him in SECOND place.
Her office should have never put her in that position.
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 08, 2022 7:23 pm
Not a time to speak ill of her, but that entire mess was the crown's fault. I know he was the President of the USA; but everybody knew this man would be unable to abide to protocol that would put him in SECOND place.
Her office should have never put her in that position.
Keep in mind that her primary role is internationally is diplomatic, and stroking Trump's ego was something the UK felt they needed to do. The Johnson government was at the time desperate to get a free trade agreement with the US and keeping Trump was a big part of that effort. If the Queen had snubbed him it would have been a lot worse.
by ti-amie Meanwhile Euro-based Irish Twitter is, let's say, not in mourning.
by ti-amie For example...
by ti-amie And the rest of the Commonwealth, well most of it?
by ti-amie Irish Twitter is still out of control.
by ponchi101 Wow. This goes deep.
by Suliso Irish twitter is being stupid...
by JazzNU When Putin dies, will anyone call those celebrating stupid or out of control? Did anyone do that when Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, or Hugo Chavez died? The Queen had the mightiest of mighty PR machines behind her that has led to a very positive view of her in many parts of the world and glossed over the many, many, many dark, troubling, and damaging things she was part of, permitted, or willfully ignored. Seems like a very good time to read and learn to understand the reactions that run counter to what you thought they'd be. It should be crystal clear by the reactions that the rosy picture that has been painted of the Queen's reign was nowhere close to the full story.
by Suliso For how long are we going to grind historical axes? Unlike those other gentlmen the Queen was only a symbol. UK is long since not an enemy of Ireland. So I reserve my right to call them out for not being gracious when the lady died. Of course you are free to think otherwise.
by ti-amie
Suliso wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 6:40 pm
For how long are we going to grind historical axes? Unlike those other gentlmen the Queen was only a symbol. UK is long since not an enemy of Ireland. So I reserve my right to call them out for not being gracious when the lady died. Of course you are free to think otherwise.
You might want to read up on what England is now trying to do to Northern Ireland regarding the EU. NI right now has no government because Boris started and Truss may finish shredding the NI Protocols that were part of Brexit.
by ponchi101 Isn't that a modern political problem, for which the Queen bears no responsibility? Northern Ireland is part of the UK, while Ireland is not; the entire Brexit mess is a modern political issue, but nobody is waging a war or sending armies anymore across those borders, to subdue the other side.
The British monarchy stopped being an actionable leadership of the UK a long time ago; as Suliso says, this woman was very little more than a symbol.
Personally, I find the entire idea of a monarchy, British or otherwise, ridiculous. But the idea of the Brits being evil is antiquated. They did nothing more or less than what empires of yore did whenever they encountered and conquered other people. It was the way of the world, until historically recently.
by Suliso Russians still think that way... Maybe Chinese too.
by ti-amie
Excerpts from the article:
Anne Marie Quilligan, a social care worker from Ireland’s Limerick region, said on Thursday that the mixed reactions from Irish and other people whose nations suffered under the British Empire were “collective trauma."
“Unresolved trauma can become generational," she wrote on Twitter. “Colonisation is a trauma.”
Hannah Wanebo, an Irish American lawyer based in Dallas, wrote on Twitter that her Irish grandmother hated England so much that she would only travel home on flights that did not touch down on English soil.
“I’m shocked by how many people think the Potato Famine was due to crop failure and don’t know the English EXPORTED food from Ireland to England during that time - enough food to feed all the Irish who died,” Wanebo wrote, referring to the 19th-century famine in Ireland that resulted in the deaths of as many as a million Irish people and the emigration of another 2 to 3 million escaping starvation.
Elizabeth wasn’t queen during the Irish famine. But she reigned during the Troubles in Northern Ireland — and when the two sides made peace with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
In 2011, she made history as the first monarch to travel to Ireland since its independence. Elizabeth traveled the country and addressed the two nations’ difficult, shared past head-on.
“To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past, I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy,” she said in a speech at Dublin Castle. "With the benefit of historical hindsight, we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.”
In 2012, the queen shook hands with Martin McGuinness, a former commander of the Irish Republican Army who had become deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. The IRA, a paramilitary group that used violent tactics in its pursuit of Irish reunification, had killed the queen’s cousin in 1979.
by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 6:58 pm
Isn't that a modern political problem, for which the Queen bears no responsibility? Northern Ireland is part of the UK, while Ireland is not; the entire Brexit mess is a modern political issue, but nobody is waging a war or sending armies anymore across those borders, to subdue the other side.
The British monarchy stopped being an actionable leadership of the UK a long time ago; as Suliso says, this woman was very little more than a symbol.
Personally, I find the entire idea of a monarchy, British or otherwise, ridiculous. But the idea of the Brits being evil is antiquated. They did nothing more or less than what empires of yore did whenever they encountered and conquered other people. It was the way of the world, until historically recently.
I think how you view them and the monarchy isn't as benign as how others view it. And you're saying it's long past, but people are sharing stories of how the monarchy, and Queen Elizabeth's, actions and inactions affected their parents and grandparents. I think that's part of the problem, too many are acting like every negative thing the monarchy had a hand in in ancient history. Apartheid, for instance, is far from ancient history. Neither are many conflicts that led countries to their independence from the British Empire.
Also, there's a call for a return of things the colonizers stole from other countries, extremely rare jewels chief among them from what I can tell, but also artifacts and other items of significance. Holding on to them and not returning them and instead making them part of the British Crown Jewels is part of why the pain of their actions linger.
There is also no reason whatsoever to diminish and gloss over what empires used to do. And based on the dismissive tone, I stand by what I said, sounds like you guys could learn a bit of history here because it's not ancient the way you're making it out to be nor was she just some powerless symbol.
by ponchi101 We could learn a bit of history? How about you?
Imagine MY life if Europeans had not arrived to the Americas. Imagine two conditions: I would be born in the same geographical location, and Europeans, until now, would not have made contact.
I could be looking forward to a life expectancy of about 30 years (I would be, statistically, dead by now). I would have spent such life in illiteracy and innumeracy, because none of the cultures of the Americas had developed either system in the 1500's. I would not know of sanitation, modern medicine and my life would have been, most likely, short and brutish, because the Europeans took from us maize, and tomatoes and gold, but gave us CIVILIZATION. Only the meso-american tribes had developed a little technology, mostly in calendar prediction, because although they had "discovered" the wheel, they had not made the jump to discover the axle, which is the real important component.
I live surrounded by that mentality: NOTHING is ever our fault. All of our ills are because of the bloody Europeans and, modernly, the Americans. We never look at our faults, at our cultural systems. No, it was something that was "done" to us 500 years ago, 200 years ago. As Suliso posted in TAT1.0: Venezuela was the 20th largest economy in the world in the 1970's, when we still had all the American/European oil companies managing our oil (we were very involved but those were private companies, not national entities). All that is gone, after we nationalized our industry. Sure, blame it on the Americans (the cousins of the Empire).
Pillaging. I remember the Museum of History in Palmyra, Siria. A lot of beautiful pieces that were curated by, yes, the Brits, and many that had been returned in precisely the same fashion that is now "demanded". A gorgeous little location (it was not that big). Which was then destroyed by ISIS when that war started, and all those pieces were destroyed. Better to have kept in the British Museum of Natural History; they would still exist.
Us learn some history? How about if you learn a bit about the large cities of the East? Shanghai, a british enclave which was transitioned to China. No need to bring up Hong Kong which, you know, was better off under British rule (at least, it was democratic). New Delhi and Dubai were also developed by the Empires (New Delhi the modern part, as the city also covers Old Delhi) and are dominant cities in their regions.
Did the Brits commit atrocities? That is precisely what we are saying: ALL empires committed atrocities; that was the way that the world worked until recently. The Russians committed atrocities, the Chinese committed atrocities, the Japanese and on and on. Pillaging, conquering, raping, stealing, that was the way. Modern society has changed that, but being stuck in the past is of no use. I do not see the Italians demanding the return of the Mona Lisa, nor the Spanish demanding the return of pieces from the USA (in plenty of museums). The pieces were taken and that was it.
But no. Let's remain stuck in the past. A very constructive sport, here in the Americas. Because all of our countries (and I don't mean the USA, which sprung from the Brits but is modern) are going to be way better off if we get a diamond back, as opposed to getting our stuff together.
by ti-amie The idea of Brexit is based on the British colonial past when "the sun never set on the British empire" so saying that the past is the past and people should move on is not really being fair.
by ti-amie
No one...
by JazzNU I know plenty of history @ponchi, including the majority of what you said as if that would be somehow new information. I don't agree with a good deal of how you think your world would be, but that's besides the point.
You're looking at this one way, they are looking at this in many other ways. But it doesn't seem as if it could hurt for anyone taking exception to their reactions and telling them to get over it and move on to learn about why they are angry. I've read plenty of what you're written to learn about your view of Venezuela and I did that because you have a personal stake in it and I learned more about your home country and what occurred there by doing so. There are a lot, and by that I mean a ton of people sharing stories all over social media about how and why someone in their family died, starved, or had to flee their country. Given the way things are being glossed over by you and @suliso, yes, I think reading some personal accounts, such as the ones you write yourself about Venezuela might be eye opening.
by JazzNU And this is a general PSA to everyone here. I would suggest you never in life tell a black person that colonization and their atrocities, which include slavery, were the way of the world and to just get over it. I have never in my life heard a single person tell someone Jewish to get over the Holocaust. I wish the same consideration could be extended to black people, but it never seems to be.
by ponchi101 Nobody is glossing things over. The history of all the Empires that stemmed from Europe and their behavior in Africa and the Americas is well documented and without dispute.
My point is what I tell people here: It happened. 200 years ago. 500 years ago. Now, grow up and realize that the problems we have here and now are OUR OWN fault. It is not something done by the Compañia Guipuiscuana (the Spanish version of the East India Company) 350-250 years ago. Our corruption, our impossibility to have proper social safety nets, our local internal disasters are our responsibility.
So coming down and rejoicing on the death of an inconsequential grandmother is rather silly. It will not help any of those Africa/Caribbean/S. American nations one bit. Much better to put that effort on fixing our issues.
Ps. You know that I have said it before. Everything I write about Venezuela has to be read with the understanding that I am biased against the country. Not just the current government, the culture of the country.
by Suliso
JazzNU wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 11:00 pm
And this is a general PSA to everyone here. I would suggest you never in life tell a black person that colonization and their atrocities, which include slavery, were the way of the world and to just get over it. I have never in my life heard a single person tell someone Jewish to get over the Holocaust. I wish the same consideration could be extended to black people, but it never seems to be.
Me neither but I also don't recall Jewish people celebrating the death of prominent Germans now. That would be just as unseemly. After all that was the point of my original remark. Not a call to forget.
In Venezuela everything is Spanish and American fault. In Latvia it's all Russian fault. I think the "effect" is less strong than in Latin America so the country is somewhat succesfull. Also we have a lot more reason to be worried about Russia now for obvious reasons.
I only write about cultures I know well, but I suspect many others should look a bit at themselves and think "is there some problem with us?".
by Suliso @ponchi: you say if Spanish hadn't come you would be this or that. However, you're probably 50% or more of Spanish descent yourself. So you could as easily say you'd be a poor farmer somewhere in Galicia instead.
by ponchi101 Of course. That would be a hypothetical scenario: not only I would also be born in the same geographical location, contact between the Americas and Europe would still not be established. Which would have been completely impossible.
Although I am Venezuelan to the core (I have no relatives that are not Venezuelan, up to all the generations that I know), genetically I would probably be of European stock. Which is another concept that I disagree with, but that is another conversation.
I am 100% Venezuelan. Regardless of how I feel about that (which is, I don't care one way or another).
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 It became an invasive species in the Caribbean. Bonaire, a divers' paradise, and where it was forbidden to bring in spearguns to the island, changed the ruling as long as you spearfish ONLY lion fish.
It is actually very good, but you have to be careful with the main spine. Poisonous like hell.
by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 11:09 pm
Nobody is glossing things over. The history of all the Empires that stemmed from Europe and their behavior in Africa and the Americas is well documented and without dispute. My point is what I tell people here: It happened. 200 years ago. 500 years ago. Now, grow up and realize that the problems we have here and now are OUR OWN fault. It is not something done by the Compañia Guipuiscuana (the Spanish version of the East India Company) 350-250 years ago. Our corruption, our impossibility to have proper social safety nets, our local internal disasters are our responsibility.
So coming down and rejoicing on the death of an inconsequential grandmother is rather silly. It will not help any of those Africa/Caribbean/S. American nations one bit. Much better to put that effort on fixing our issues.
This is...quite interesting. Good to know how someone really feels I guess. But no one should be surprised if I decide I have to take yet another long break from this forum.
by JazzNU
Cloud of colonialism hangs over Queen Elizabeth's legacy in Africa
By Stephanie Busari, CNN
Lagos, Nigeria (CNN)The death of Queen Elizabeth II has prompted an outpouring of reflection and reaction online. But not all was grief -- some young Africans instead are sharing images and stories of their own elders, who endured a brutal period of British colonial history during the Queen's long reign.
"I cannot mourn," one wrote on Twitter, posting an image of what she said was her grandmother's "movement pass" -- a colonial document which prevented free travel for Kenyans under British rule in the east African country.
Another wrote that her grandmother "used to narrate to us how they were beaten & how their husbands were taken away from them & left to look after their kids," during colonial times. "May we never forget them. They are our heroes," she added.
Their refusal to mourn highlights the complexity of the legacy of the Queen, who despite widespread popularity was also seen as a symbol of oppression in parts of the world where the British Empire once extended.
Queen Elizabeth II inspects men of the newly-renamed Queen's Own Nigeria Regiment, Royal West African Frontier Force, at Kaduna Airport, Nigeria, during her Commonwealth Tour, on February 2, 1956.
Kenya, which had been under British rule since 1895, was named an official colony in 1920 and remained that way until it won independence in 1963. Among the worst atrocities under British rule occurred during the Mau Mau uprising, which started in 1952 -- the year Queen Elizabeth took the throne.
The colonial administration at the time carried out extreme acts of torture, including castration and sexual assault, in detainment camps where as many as 150,000 Kenyans were held. Elderly Kenyans who sued for compensation in 2011 were ultimately awarded £19.9 million by a British court, to be split between more than 5,000 claimants.
The UK Foreign Secretary at the time, William Hague, said: "The British Government recognises that Kenyans were subject to torture and other forms of ill treatment at the hands of the colonial administration. The British government sincerely regrets that these abuses took place, and that they marred Kenya's progress towards independence."
Africa's memory of the Queen cannot be separated from that colonial past, professor of communication Farooq Kperogi at Kennesaw State University told CNN.
"The Queen's legacy started in colonialism and is still wrapped in it. It used to be said that the sun did not set over the British empire. No amount of compassion or sympathy that her death has generated can wipe that away," he told CNN.
Queen Elizabeth II on her way to the Kumasi Durbah with Kwame Nkrumah, President of Ghana, during her tour of Ghana, November 1961.
'Tragic period'
While many African leaders have mourned her passing -- including Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari, who described her reign as "unique and wonderful" -- other prominent voices in regional politics have not.
In South Africa, one opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), was unequivocal. "We do not mourn the death of Elizabeth, because to us her death is a reminder of a very tragic period in this country and Africa's history," the EFF said in a statement.
"Our interaction with Britain has been one of pain, ... death and dispossession, and of the dehumanisation of the African people," it added.
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip wave to a crowd of schoolchildren at a rally held at a racecourse in Ibadan, Nigeria, February 15, 1956.
Others recalled Britain's role in the Nigerian civil war, where arms were secretly supplied to the government for use against Biafrans who wanted to form a breakaway republic. Between 1 million and 3 million people died in that war. British musician John Lennon returned his MBE, an honorary title, to the Queen in protest over Britain's role in the war.
Still, many on the continent remember the Queen as a stabilizing force who brought about positive change during her reign.
Ayodele Modupe Obayelu from Nigeria told CNN: "Her reign saw the end of the British Empire and the African countries ... became a Republic. She doesn't really deserve any award or standing ovation for it, but it was a step in the right direction."
And Ovation magazine publisher Dele Momodu was full of praise, recounting meeting her in 2003 in Abuja while covering her visit to Nigeria. He added that he had fled Nigeria for the UK in 1995, during the dictator Sani Abacha's regime.
"I told her I was a refugee and now the publisher of a magazine. She told me 'congratulations,' and moved on to the other people on the line. I salute her. She worked to the very end and was never tired of working for her country. She did her best for her country and that is a lesson in leadership," he told CNN.
Momodu believes that the Queen did try to "atone" for the brutality of the British Empire. "She came to Nigeria during our independence and some of the artifacts were returned under her reign. That is why the Commonwealth continues to thrive. I feel very sad that the world has lost a great human being."
Adekunbi Rowland, also from Nigeria, said: "The Queen's passing represents the end of an era. As a woman, I'm intrigued by her story. This young woman had an unprecedented accession to the throne, and with much grace and dignity did everything in her power to protect the country and Commonwealth she loved no matter what it took."
Commonwealth Queen
The Queen once declared, "I think I have seen more of Africa than almost anybody."
She made her first official overseas visit to South Africa in 1947, as a princess and would go on to visit more than 120 countries during her reign, many of them on the continent.
Elizabeth, then a princess, and Prince Philip step from their plane in Nairobi, Kenya, on the first stage of their Commonwealth tour in 1952.
It was while visiting Kenya in 1952 that she learned that she had become Queen. Her father George passed away while she was there with Prince Phillip and she immediately ascended the throne.
As colonialism later crumbled and gave way to independence and self-rule in what had been British overseas territories, the former colonies became part of a Commonwealth group of nations with the Queen at its head and she worked tirelessly to keep the group together over the years.
She forged strong bonds with African leaders, including Nelson Mandela, whom she visited twice in South Africa, and Kwame Nkrumah, with whom she was famously pictured dancing during her visit to Ghana in 1961.
However, there is now a growing clamor for independence and accountability over Britain's past crimes such as slavery. In November 2021, Barbados removed the Queen as its head of state, 55 years after it declared independence from Britain, and other Caribbean countries, such as Jamaica, have indicated they intend to do the same.
Prince William and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, visited Jamaica in March but they faced protests and calls for reparations during the trip. There were also calls for a formal apology for the royal family's links to slavery.
"During her 70 years on the throne, your grandmother has done nothing to redress and atone for the suffering of our ancestors that took place during her reign and/or during the entire period of British trafficking of Africans, enslavement, indentureship and colonization," wrote members of a protest group, the Advocates Network Jamaica.
In June, Prince Charles became the first UK royal to visit Rwanda, where he was representing the Queen at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Following his mother's death, he now heads the Commonwealth, and will embark on a new relationship with its members, about a third of which are in Africa.
Some are asking whether he will be as effective in building the organization as his mother, and above all, how relevant it still is, given its roots in Empire.
by ti-amie Even "The Crown" stepped lightly when retelling the story of the late Queen Elizabeth's visits to Kenya and Jamaica. They did not treat it as a visit full of groveling by the people who were colonized but as a delicate balancing act between the then Princess and the people she was visiting.
It's because the European based Irish went batsh*t crazy on social media and were joined by people from the Caribbean and India in saying "we're not playing along anymore" that MSM in the West is talking about the realities of the "Potato Famine" in Ireland, the famine in Bengal, and the under development of English speaking island nations of the Caribbean. If these things are not talked about and the anger that lies just below the surface of the smiling people in so many pictures from that time when will they ever be discussed. One of the most widely circulated pictures was that of Cillian Murphy meeting Prince Harry. It says all you need to know about why this is happening now.
Sorry for the poor quality. I couldn't find a better one.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 09, 2022 11:09 pm
Nobody is glossing things over. The history of all the Empires that stemmed from Europe and their behavior in Africa and the Americas is well documented and without dispute. My point is what I tell people here: It happened. 200 years ago. 500 years ago. Now, grow up and realize that the problems we have here and now are OUR OWN fault. It is not something done by the Compañia Guipuiscuana (the Spanish version of the East India Company) 350-250 years ago. Our corruption, our impossibility to have proper social safety nets, our local internal disasters are our responsibility.
So coming down and rejoicing on the death of an inconsequential grandmother is rather silly. It will not help any of those Africa/Caribbean/S. American nations one bit. Much better to put that effort on fixing our issues.
This is...quite interesting. Good to know how someone really feels I guess. But no one should be surprised if I decide I have to take yet another long break from this forum.
He's talking about his own people, though. I'll assume generously that he knows the culture there better than me, you or anyone else on this forum.
by skatingfan
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sun Sep 11, 2022 7:20 pm
Even "The Crown" stepped lightly when retelling the story of the late Queen Elizabeth's visits to Kenya and Jamaica. They did not treat it as a visit full of groveling by the people who were colonized but as a delicate balancing act between the then Princess and the people she was visiting.
Rewatching the first season of 'The Crown' this weekend the speeches given by Queen Elizabeth, and Princess Margaret in Kenya, and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) respectively demonstrate the colonial appalling attitude towards the indigenous population at the time.
by ti-amieQueen’s funeral: Joe Biden caught officials off guard with plan to attend
Alistair Dawber, Washington | Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor | Didi Tang, Beijing | Bernard Lagan, Sydney
Monday September 12 2022, 10.20am BST, The Times
Jill and Joe Biden first met the Queen in 1982 and last spent time with her during a state visit to the UK last year
TOLGA AKMEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
President Biden caught the White House off guard when he told reporters he planned to travel to London for the Queen’s funeral.
Past presidents have not attended the last two state funerals in Britain — for George VI in 1952, and Winston Churchill in 1965 — but Biden will be among the scores of heads of state and government to arrive in the capital before the service next Monday.
However, there are likely to be some notable absences. President Xi, who will be in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan this week, has not said whether he will come, although insiders suggest this is unlikely. Xi has not left China since the pandemic began.
In central Asia, Xi will meet President Putin who, like the Chinese leader, has issued a statement expressing his sadness at the Queen’s death.
Instead, it is possible that Wang Qishan, the vice-president and a close ally of Xi, might attend the funeral on his behalf. Wang, 74, visited the British embassy in Beijing today, where he signed the condolence book. He praised the queen as “the promoter and contributor” to the development of China-UK relations.
The leaders of most Commonwealth countries are expected to attend the funeral at Westminster Abbey, including Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand — a journey that will take almost 24 hours — and her Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese. Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, has also confirmed he will attend.
Australia and New Zealand are engaging in soft diplomacy to ferry Pacific leaders to London for the funeral. Albanese said arrangements were being finalised between the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Pacific nations so that leaders could fly together to the UK.
“In some cases, it will require Australia to go to their countries in order to pick people up if that’s available. We are discussing at heads of government level and also the governor-general level of support,” Albanese said. “We want to make sure that no nation in our region, in the Pacific, as part of the Pacific family, is unable to attend the memorial service for Queen Elizabeth because of logistical concerns.”
It is uncertain whether Manasseh Sogavare, the prime minister of the Solomon Islands, will take up the invitation. He accused the Albanese government last week of “foreign interference” after Australia offered to help fund the country’s elections, which have since been delayed.
Albanese is expected to depart on Thursday evening for the funeral aboard a RAAF Airbus A330. Ardern will take an Air New Zealand flight to London.
European royal families are expected to be present, including King Felipe of Spain and his wife, Queen Letizia.
Emperor Naruhito will travel to London, a rare gesture for the Japanese monarch who does not usually attend funerals. The only other time it has happened was when Naruhito’s father, the now retired Emperor Akihito, attended the funeral of King Baudouin of Belgium in 1993.
But the close relationship with the British royal family is important to the imperial court, which had its own three days of mourning in the Queen’s honour. In 1953, aged only 19, Akihito attended the Queen’s coronation as crown prince. He visited as emperor in 1998, and attended the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012.
Both Naruhito and Empress Michiko were educated at Oxford. She continues to suffer from a stress-related condition which has long limited her public appearances, and it is not clear whether she will accompany the emperor.
President Yoon of South Korea will attend the funeral on his way to planned visits to the United States and Canada.
President Steinmeier of Germany will also be there, his office said today. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, who has paid tribute to the Queen as “a legend”, will also be present.
International guests are said to have been asked to travel on commercial flights and forbidden to use helicopters or cars to reach the funeral. They are to arrive together on a bus from a site in west London, Politico said, citing official documents.
Westminster Abbey is expected to be so full that only one representative from each country can attend, although they can be joined by a partner.
Questions have been asked in the US over whether Donald Trump will be invited but British sources have scotched the idea that he could accompany the US delegation and said there would not be space for Biden’s predecessors. Dwight Eisenhower, then the former president, attended Churchill’s funeral a private capacity.
A reception for overseas leaders will take place at Buckingham Place on the eve of the service, but no meetings will be allowed because of the strain on security teams, according to the Foreign Office guidance.
The funeral will be an opportunity for the King and the prime minister to meet world leaders and, in Charles’s case, renew acquaintances.
President Macron is likely to be among the other heads of state, including President Erdogan of Turkey, who will be in London. President Bolsonaro, the right-wing leader of Brazil who is campaigning for re-election in a vote next month, has accepted an invitation to attend, the country’s foreign ministry said.
It is not thought that President Zelensky of Ukraine, who has become a staunch ally of the UK in recent months, will attend.
The last major gathering of world leaders for the funeral of an international statesman was in South Africa for Nelson Mandela in December 2013.
Translated from French by Google
Emmanuel Macron arrived at #Londres where he walks around incognito. He goes up the queue and declares "to share the pain of the British"
by ti-amie Video of magnitude 7.6 earthquake that hit Papua New Guinea six days ago. Thank goodness there was no tsunami.
by MJ2004 For anyone who has followed the Wirecard scandal, or for anyone who might be interested in learning about it, I highly recommend Skandal! Bringing Down Wirecard, a new documentary available on Netflix. It's really well done and well worth the watch.
Trailer:
by ponchi101 I had not even heard of it. Txs
by MJ2004 The FT broke the story, so I've been reading about it for several years. The part I was not as familiar with was the connection with Russia.
by ponchi101 Wel, if you are going to be doing some financial mischief, Moscow is the place. Basically unregulated, and very open to not only NOT asking questions, very open to cyber abusing.
But we know that.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie There was also an earthquake in Taiwan.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie The tectonic plates under the Pacific are very active all of a sudden.
by ponchi101 The Pacific Plate borders PNG, Taiwan and Mexico. I guess if it shakes somewhere, it shakes everywhere.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie There are a lot of reports of a possible coup in China. Reports from media based in India say that the only thing that has been confirmed is that the air space was virtually vacant.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Can't find anything else about China. Those tweets are a bit odd.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 24, 2022 9:14 pm
Can't find anything else about China. Those tweets are a bit odd.
Agree. I saw it earlier today but no "reputable" news outlets have picked up the story.
by ti-amie
by Suliso I saw some people sharing this on Twitter earlier, but it was quickly apparent that it's fake news...
by patrick Per 5 PM update on Ian, experts think the storm is going more west, Looking at the cone, Miami is spared. Ian will be a Cat 4 in the Gulf and will hit western Florida but it will be north of Tampa if I am looking at it correctly
by ponchi101 If that is the area around Pt. Saint Joe, that was the area that was devastated a few years ago. Like Puerto Rico, I wonder what a second hit would do. Hope for the best.
by ptmcmahon Here was my album from going around the city today. We were much luckier than some in the city... and much more lucky than those above in Newfoundland:
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2022 2:57 am
If that is the area around Pt. Saint Joe, that was the area that was devastated a few years ago. Like Puerto Rico, I wonder what a second hit would do. Hope for the best.
Would that be the Panhandle?
by ponchi101 Yes. The area close to the Alabama coast, close to Pensacola.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
Via Wiki:
The Kingdom of Two Sicilies, in the course of 1848–1849, had been able to suppress the revolution and the attempt of Sicilian secession with their own forces, hired Swiss guards included. The war declared on Austria in April 1848, under pressure of public sentiment, had been an event on paper only.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 It is a very bad turn.
But it can't be sending shockwaves. Her victory was expected; all polls had her as the winner.
Europe is slowly turning right wing. It is not only Italy; you have Hungary and Poland.
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:41 pm
It is a very bad turn.
But it can't be sending shockwaves. Her victory was expected; all polls had her as the winner.
Europe is slowly turning right wing. It is not only Italy; you have Hungary and Poland.
Also, given Europe's aging, and shrinking population a turn to the right is to be expected.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Now he can marry Anna Chapman and have weasels for babies...
Well, he was never going back to the USA or leave Russia, so this is an expected move.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 If the UK goes, who goes down with them?
For example, I have always said that the reason I pay attention to the USA is because if the USA sinks, all of Latin America goes down with them. So, is there a similar relationship between the UK and some other regions?
by ti-amie Good question. Since they removed themselves from the EU there's a good possibility they're going to go down by themselves. I think. They haven't been able to forge those dynamic trading pacts with other countries that Boris et al swore were ready to be signed as soon as they were free from domination by Brussels.
by ti-amie I don't know how many here saw Rachel's show the other day where she played video of what happened to Mussolini. A lot of people were very upset about her showing it although she warned viewers for about five minutes that it wasn't pleasant viewing and children should probably not be in the room.
Tonight a woman on Twitter said comparing the newly elected President of Italy to Mussolini was racist.
Once again the fantasy of trickle down economics rears its idiotic head. Why conservatives are called conservatives I don't understand. They're thieves, racists, homophobes, misogynists, and xenophobes. There's nothing conservative about these people, they're loud, brash, and often straight up ignorant about whatever they're yelling about at the moment. this world needs a deep cleaning of it's "leaders".
by ponchi101 Well, the entire concept of "conservatism" is dumb from the start. They want to "conserve" the status quo, i.e. say NO to progress. It is particularly dumb when you see somebody from a minority that calls himself/herself conservative. If you were to apply conservatism back in time, such a person would basically have no rights.
One problem is that since we glorify the past so continuously, people fall for that trap without thinking about what that really means. You saw it in the USA with MAGA, which begged the question: when was AMERICA great, to the point of wanting to go back? This weekend we saw it in Italy, a few weeks ago, we saw it in Sweden.
But remember. These people get voted into power. Sometimes, it is not the politicians; the masses that elect them bear a lot of the blame (says a guy whose country voted itself into a dictatorship and ruin).
by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 2:40 am
I don't know how many here saw Rachel's show the other day where she played video of what happened to Mussolini. A lot of people were very upset about her showing it although she warned viewers for about five minutes that it wasn't pleasant viewing and children should probably not be in the room.
Tonight a woman on Twitter said comparing the newly elected President of Italy to Mussolini was racist.
So, comparing a white person to another white person is racism?
ti-amie wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 2:40 am
I don't know how many here saw Rachel's show the other day where she played video of what happened to Mussolini. A lot of people were very upset about her showing it although she warned viewers for about five minutes that it wasn't pleasant viewing and children should probably not be in the room.
Tonight a woman on Twitter said comparing the newly elected President of Italy to Mussolini was racist.
So, comparing a white person to another white person is racism?
Look.
by ti-amie
Krushchev famously pounded his shoe on the podium at the UN and said to the West "we will bury you".
All these years later this guy has updated the phrasing, if the translation is legit.
by ti-amie This is allegedly from a rally in Moscow today/tonight. It could just as easily be a deep fake of a crowd from a sporting event.
by ponchi101 Nobody cares about the price. Until they see it.
by ti-amieLiz Truss advised King Charles to stay away from Cop27 climate summit
Charles had intended to deliver speech
Caroline Wheeler and Roya Nikkhah
Saturday October 01 2022, 6.00pm BST, The Sunday Times
The King, a passionate environmental campaigner, has abandoned plans to attend next month’s Cop27 climate change summit after Liz Truss told him to stay away.
He had intended to deliver a speech at the meeting of world leaders in Egypt.
Truss, who is also unlikely to attend the Sharm el-Sheikh gathering, objected to the King’s plans during a personal audience at Buckingham Palace last month.
The decision is likely to fuel tensions between the new prime minister and the new monarch, although a Downing Street source claimed the audience had been cordial and there had “not been a row”.
The news comes amid suspicion that the government may water down, or abandon, its environmental target to achieve “net zero” by 2050.
A senior royal source said: “It is no mystery that the King was invited to go there. He had to think very carefully about what steps to take for his first overseas tour, and he is not going to be attending Cop.”
They said the decision was made on the government’s advice and was “entirely in the spirit of being ever-mindful as King that he acts on government advice”.
The 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as Cop27, will run from November 6 to 18.
Charles is still determined to make his presence felt there, and how he will do that is “under active discussion”. A senior royal source said: “Just because he is not in physical attendance, that doesn’t mean His Majesty won’t find other ways to support it.”
A source who knows Charles said he would be “personally disappointed” to miss it and was “all lined up to go”, with several engagements planned around his Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) which aims to persuade businesses to invest in environmentally friendly initiatives.
The source said: “The Queen gave an entirely non-political address at Cop last year . . . it sounds like he is not being given the choice. That is an error of judgment on the part of the government.
“The King could absolutely go and deliver the government’s message and give it credibility, given all the kudos he has in that space.
“It’s disappointing if people don’t believe he’d be able to do that, of course he could. He delivered the Queen’s speech at the state opening of parliament, rattling off lots of policies that went against his personal beliefs.
“He absolutely can put the government seatbelt on and drive at 30 miles per hour. He has already shown he is more than equal to that task.”
The King is respected as a prominent voice on environmental issues and has been campaigning on them for more than 50 years.
He delivered the opening speech at Cop21 in Paris in 2015, calling for a “vast military-style campaign” to fight climate change and urging world leaders to commit “trillions, not billions, of dollars”. He also played a vital role in convening and encouraging world leaders to sign up to the landmark Paris Climate Agreement at the event.
He delivered a speech at the opening ceremony of Cop26 in Glasgow, calling on world leaders to adopt a “warlike footing” to deal with the threat of climate change. In a video address to the conference last year, his mother hailed his work. “It is a source of great pride to me that the leading role my husband played in encouraging people to protect our fragile planet lives on through the work of our eldest son Charles and his eldest son William,” she said. “I could not be more proud of them.”
During the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June, William delivered a speech after pictures of the planet were projected on to Buckingham Palace. “As I watch those extraordinary images, it does make me think of all the monumental and pioneering work of so many visionary environmentalists that have gone before,” he said. “I’m so proud that my grandfather and my father have been part of those efforts.”
The Prince of Wales was also at Cop26, but will not be in Egypt. He is keen to focus on his Earthshot prize for environmental innovations and will attend its award ceremony in Boston in December, along with the Princess of Wales.
In his address to the nation and the Commonwealth following the Queen’s death, the King pledged to “uphold the Constitutional principles at the heart of our nation” and to “hold in the greatest respect the precious traditions … and responsibilities of our ... system of parliamentary government”. He added that “my life will of course change as I take up my new responsibilities”, acknowledging that “it will no longer be possible for me to give so much of my time and energies to the ... issues for which I care so deeply”.
When heir to the throne, Charles had a history for interfering in government business. Earlier this year he privately criticised the government’s policy of deporting migrants to Rwanda, calling the practice “appalling”.
Last month Truss appointed the Conservative MP Chris Skidmore to lead a review of the government’s net-zero policy. The former energy and climate minister has been given until the end of the year to present his findings to the prime minister.
His appointment comes amid concerns that Truss may row back on emission cuts. She has promoted
Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has expressed concerns about “climate alarmism”, to business secretary.
Other ministers, including Suella Braverman, the home secretary, questioned the wisdom of the net-zero goal during the Tory leadership contest.
Last month, ministers set out plans to lift the moratorium on fracking, ease planning laws, scrap long-standing environmental regulations on water and chemical pollution and lower the bar for new offshore oil and gas projects. The RSPB described the flurry of announcements as a “full-on attack on the laws that protect nature”.
However, Skidmore told The Times last week that he could “100 per cent” rule out the prospect of his report recommending that the target of 2050 for reaching net zero be delayed or abandoned.
by Owendonovan There's a smiling "no" for that when you're the Monarch.
by dryrunguy It looks like the election for President of Brazil will force a runoff on October 30 between Lula and Bolsonaro. With 99% of votes reported according to Reuters, Lula has 48.4% of the vote while Bolsonaro has 43.2% of the vote. So neither candidate reached the 50% threshold to avoid a runoff.
The third candidate with the most votes is Simone Tebet with 4.2% of the vote. If public opinion remains fairly constant, I would expect the Tebet votes to mostly shift to Lula, which should be more than enough to oust Bolsonaro.
Of course, Bolsonaro started complaining about election fraud before the election even occurred. And nothing is beneath him, so who knows...
by ponchi101 Another super divided country, going for the extremes. Bolsanaro, a right wing lunatic, Lula, a left wing thief.
by dryrunguy The analyses I've read this morning generally seem to agree that Bolsolnaro actually overperformed in the polls.
by ti-amie
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 3:22 pm
The analyses I've read this morning generally seem to agree that Bolsolnaro actually overperformed in the polls.
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 3:22 pm
The analyses I've read this morning generally seem to agree that Bolsolnaro actually overperformed in the polls.
Reminds me of 2016 and 2020 election where a certain group of people did not respond to pre election polling
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Never understood ANY tax break ever. The most egregious robbery of the poor by the rich, in all and any circumstance.
trillion.jpg
-->
by ponchi101 WIll put this here, because this is a WORLD'S problem.
The US NATIONAL DEBT reached $31 trillion.
China's Debt is around $7 Trillion (which I don't believe).
World's GDP is around $80 trillion.
GDP to debt ratio is about 2:1, counting only the USA and China.
Basically, we live in a monopoly board. The question is: who owns Park Avenue?
A trillion dollars, image. See the man standing to one side, for comparison.
trillion.jpg
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 I could read only half the article. I could not go any more.
I understand that the USA cannot accept all migrants. And I understand that the USA has no responsibility for what has happened in Venezuela.
But maybe the world has to pay a bit more attention to what is happening there.
Warning. There is only one photo in the article, but it is shocking.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:30 pm
I could read only half the article. I could not go any more.
I understand that the USA cannot accept all migrants. And I understand that the USA has no responsibility for what has happened in Venezuela.
But maybe the world has to pay a bit more attention to what is happening there.
Warning. There is only one photo in the article, but it is shocking.
Can't like it, ponchi. Every Sunday evening, I chat with a friend of mine in Venezuela. He has repeatedly talked about making the trek through the Darien Gap. So far, I have managed to talk him out of it. But the desperation... How do you argue with the desperation to get out? You can't blame them. It's horrible.
by ti-amie It's infuriating that people risk their lives to come to the US and the RWNJ's response is to make them political pawns. I can't look guys. I will get too angry.
by ponchi101 IN the meantime, the people in Caracas (my family included) say that things are getting better, because they can earn in $$$ and markets are well stocked.
Of course, the moment you leave the big city, you run into these images.
by Suliso
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 1:02 am
Can't like it, ponchi. Every Sunday evening, I chat with a friend of mine in Venezuela. He has repeatedly talked about making the trek through the Darien Gap. So far, I have managed to talk him out of it. But the desperation... How do you argue with the desperation to get out? You can't blame them. It's horrible.
Has he considered probably a more safe way to the South? Or is the attitude to Venezuelans too hostile there?
by patrick Still wonder why DeSantis did not fly them back to Venezuela instead of Massachusetts where Obama has a place.
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 1:02 am
Can't like it, ponchi. Every Sunday evening, I chat with a friend of mine in Venezuela. He has repeatedly talked about making the trek through the Darien Gap. So far, I have managed to talk him out of it. But the desperation... How do you argue with the desperation to get out? You can't blame them. It's horrible.
Has he considered probably a more safe way to the South? Or is the attitude to Venezuelans too hostile there?
He is in northwestern Venezuela (Barinas), so it's a LONG way to Brazil. (But obviously shorter than the Darien Gap route.) Plus, and ponchi will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he said something about Venezuela's southern border with Brazil basically being all jungle and impassible on foot. The bottom line is that he has his eyes firmly set on the U.S.
by ponchi101 Barinas is in the west, so crossing to Brazil would be very hard. There is one road connecting Manaos to Venezuela, but it is guarded by the Venezuelan National Guard and, if you want to pass to Brazil, they will extort you. Basically, any possession you have will be confiscated.
Although Colombia has been friendly, as a government, Colombians have grown weary of Venezuelans. The job market here is very tight, and they see us as coming in and taking away their jobs.
Peru has made it almost impossible to enter, impossing an impossible-to-get-visa scheme. Ecuador ditto.
Argentina is an entire continent away. Chile too.
Most Central American countries make it impossible to stay.
So, in answer to your query (@Suliso): yes, the rest of S. America is becoming hostile too.
And, besides. Like Drop Shot told me a long time ago, BEFORE he moved to Barcelona, Spain. Migrating within South America is like changing cabins in the Titanic.
by Suliso I wonder if he likes life in Spain...
by ponchi101 He is doing well, he feels his daughter has a future there.
by Suliso I like Spain too. A very pleasant place to travel to. Maybe for a retirement as well...
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Never been to Nicaragua, but have been several times to Costa Rica (just below). The Caribbean coast is nowhere near ready to handle a hurricane.
Very sorry for them.
by Suliso Can one truly be ready for a major hurricane?
by ponchi101 I meant the infrastructure. The Caribbean coast is full of wobbly, fragile buildings that are built out of wood and very flimsy materials.
Of course, ER units are also needed, and down here, we are famous for those being underfunded. But, for example, I would much rather be in Curazao for a hurricane, which has proper building codes and sturdy constructions, than in Honduras or Nicaragua. Plus, the C. America coast seldom saw these events. Now they are more frequent; the island of San Andres, which belongs to Colombia but is off the coast of Nicaragua, was flattened a few years ago because they had never seen a hurricane before. Constructions were unable to withstand the winds.
But.
The new European right-wing is NOT hiding what they are. They are not pushing one ideology while they campaign, and then impose another after taking over.
I agree, they are showing what they are. But they did that during the campaign. It is no surprise.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Financial Times
@FinancialTimes
5 hours ago
UK Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has been sacked after just 38 days in office
Liz Truss, UK prime minister, has sacked chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as she prepares to carry out a dramatic U-turn on his 'mini' Budget.
by the Moz Truss' days at No. 10 are numbered. They were always going to lose the next General Election to Labour. But this past month has been a train wreck for Liz and pretty much ensures they won't be at the helm of the Conservative Party when that GE happens.
Sir Keir for PM by year's end
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Serios here, again. Has a tax cut EVER, in any country, re-charged an economy?
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 15, 2022 9:36 pm
Serios here, again. Has a tax cut EVER, in any country, re-charged an economy?
Never.
by ti-amie
BBC has extensive coverage
Evin prison fire: Gun shots and sirens heard at notorious detention centre
Published
55 minutes ago
By Alex Binley
BBC News
A fire has broken out at Iran's notorious Evin prison, with footage posted online showing flames and smoke billowing from the area.
Gun shots, explosions and alarms have been reported as coming from the jail, the primary site for detaining political prisoners.
An official quoted by state media said "criminal elements" were to blame, but that the situation was under control.
Iran has been gripped for weeks by anti-government protests.
They first erupted last month when anger over the death in police custody of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian Mahsa Amini boiled over. Officials say she died from an underlying health condition, but her family say she died after being beaten by morality police.
BBC Persian's Rana Rahimpour says we do not yet know if the situation at the prison is linked to the recent demonstrations, but it easily could be because hundreds of the protesters have been sent to Evin. Inmates there will be fully aware of how intense the situation is in the country, Ms Rahimpour reports.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 15, 2022 9:36 pm
Serios here, again. Has a tax cut EVER, in any country, re-charged an economy?
Good question. I could imagine it happening when taxes are indeed outrageously high or unfair. Switzerland, for example, atracts a lot of companies via low taxes despite high costs. Not the case currently in UK for sure.
by the Moz
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 15, 2022 9:36 pm
Serios here, again. Has a tax cut EVER, in any country, re-charged an economy?
A tax cut obviously for the business elite and foolishly unfunded no less!
by ponchi101 I remember when W Bush gave the oil companies a tax break, to recharge that economy. First, it was not needed. Then, companies bought other companies and proceeded to fire thousands of employees, under the twisted logic that they now needed to pay for the companies they had bought and they needed to "cut costs" (always a euphemism for "firing people").
I really can't recall any tax cut that ever led to an improved economy.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie I give up. WTH is going on in England?
by Deuce
ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Oct 17, 2022 10:23 pm
I give up. WTH is going on in England?
Maybe it's all Charles's way of pressuring people to allow him to have the powers of Prime Minister.
After all - of what use is the title of 'King' if you really have no practical power to make decisions for the nation?
I mean, wearing a crown and sitting on a fancy throne and having people polish your shoes is all fine and good, but POWER OVER A NATION is what really satisfies!
ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Oct 17, 2022 10:23 pm
I give up. WTH is going on in England?
Maybe it's all Charles's way of pressuring people to allow him have the powers of Prime Minister.
After all - of what use is the title of 'King' if you really have no practical power to make decisions for the nation?
I mean, wearing a crown and sitting on a fancy throne and having people polish your shoes is all fine and good, but POWER OVER A NATION is what really satisfies!
Since they're about to throw Truss out on her ear who knows? Charles has had what, 70 years or so to think about what he would do as king no?
by ponchi101 ALL of Europe will have to prepare for a cold winter. That was Putin's plan; make them so dependent on his Oil and Gas that they would not mind about Ukraine.
I know I am partial. But the entire "no exploring, no drilling" in the North Sea, WITHOUT a parallel plan to provide excess energy if something like this happened, was pretty shortsighted. And it is not hindsight; plenty of talk in the industry about it, before this year.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Okay Canada you're up.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by the Moz Well, it is ITV but utterly hilarious nonetheless
by Owendonovan Liz Truss Says She Will Resign as Prime Minister
Her departure, after six weeks in office, came as virtually all of her signature tax cuts were being reversed, a stark repudiation of her leadership. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/20 ... truss-news
So, these lunatics were actually right. The lettuce outlasted Truss.
Not that she will be missed, but I have not been paying that much attention. How much of her issues were inherited from the looney before her? I gather that a lot.
by Suliso Some for sure, but I think mostly she made her own grave.
by MJ2004 What suliso said. It’s natural to want to blame Brexit or Johnson. But she did this to herself starting with that non-collaborative “mini-budget”.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Moral of the story.
If you belong to a millionaires' club, don't leave.
Nothing. But he probably ran out of funds now that the pound has lost so much of its worth.
by ti-amie The Brits can't be that stupid can they?
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 20, 2022 11:58 pm
Nothing. But he probably ran out of funds now that the pound has lost so much of its worth.
Just a reminder that Johnson is an American, and probably has substantial assets kept in American dollars. He probably made money buying, and then selling the pound during that crash.
monty-python.jpg
-->
by dryrunguy
monty-python.jpg
by Suliso Johnson might be running again. I think he has a good chance as a "unity candidate". Only among conservative members of course, but general elections are unlikely to be called before mid 2024.
by Deuce What's most comical to me is that people continue to have faith in politicians.
People go and vote for the person/party whose lies they believe. Then a year or so later, people are marching in the streets protesting against the people/party they voted for... Then they vote for a different person/party whose lies they believe. And a year or so after that, they are back in the streets protesting against the people/party they voted for... This repeats itself time after time after time after time. People don't learn - exactly like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown, and pulling it away every time!
Politicians and political parties have been dishonest and/or manipulative and/or corrupt and/or incompetent for decades. Yet the populace continues to have faith in them, and are surprised and shocked when they screw up and/or screw the populace in some way!
It's completely asinine!
People pay more attention to politics than to anything else. Every news media covers politics more than any other subject. And the viewers and readers lap it all up - because, despite the OVERWHELMING historical evidence that politicians are definitely not worthy of the trust and confidence that people put in them, the people continue to hope and to believe... and, ultimately, to be disappointed.
It's truly mind boggling.
It has been said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. But that's exactly what people do with politics in most 'free countries'.
by Suliso Democracy is a bad system of government except for all others which are even worse.
by Deuce 'Democracy' is democratic in name only.
When the choices people have are between liars, manipulators, cheaters, and idiots, there is no democracy or freedom; it's extremely restrictive. The standards that the citizens hold the politicians to are distressingly and very harmfully low.
It's so easy to make something appear 'good' by comparing it to something worse. It's the oldest trick in the book. And people keep falling for it.
Freedom cannot be relative - it is absolute or it is non existent.
The 'right to vote' is only a good and powerful thing if there are decent and honest people to vote for. But that's not been the case for decades in 98% of the countries of the world.
People disregard the constant, neverending lies. The politicians know that this extremely flawed system will continue to be accepted by the people - because time after time the people believe whatever the politicians tell them - despite the overwhelming evidence that doing so is, in a word, stupid.
It is truly an amazing phenomenon, and one which solidifies the position of the human animal as the most arrogant and dumbest - and most dangerous - species on Earth.
by Owendonovan
Deuce wrote: ↑Fri Oct 21, 2022 11:40 am
'Democracy' is democratic in name only. When the choices people have are between liars, manipulators, cheaters, and idiots, there is no democracy or freedom; it's extremely restrictive. The standards that the citizens hold the politicians to are distressingly and very harmfully low.
It's so easy to make something appear 'good' by comparing it to something worse. It's the oldest trick in the book. And people keep falling for it.
Freedom cannot be relative - it is absolute or it is non existent.
The 'right to vote' is only a good and powerful thing if there are decent and honest people to vote for. But that's not been the case for decades in 98% of the countries of the world.
People disregard the constant, neverending lies. The politicians know that this extremely flawed system will continue to be accepted by the people - because time after time the people believe whatever the politicians tell them - despite the overwhelming evidence that doing so is, in a word, stupid.
It is truly an amazing phenomenon, and one which solidifies the position of the human animal as the most arrogant and dumbest - and most dangerous - species on Earth.
I think this is a way for people to maintain their own integrity, on some level, while having the politicians do their bidding on things they may not be so open to expose about themselves. It's a twisted kind of moral maintenance.
by Suliso Anyway a country has to be governed somehow...
by ponchi101
Suliso wrote: ↑Fri Oct 21, 2022 10:39 am
Democracy is a bad system of government except for all others which are even worse.
Tell ME about it.
How I wish I had the UK's faulty democracy at home.
by Deuce Again - it's easy to compare something to something worse in order to make it appear 'good' or 'acceptable' by comparison.
But the fact remains that when it comes to politics and politicians, the standards of the populace are extremely low.
We will get good, honest governing only when people demand it, and stop accepting the garbage that they are currently being given.
Sadly, I'm not holding my breath for that to occur.
by ti-amie
by ti-amieRishi Sunak and Boris Johnson hold talks as ex-chancellor leads PM race
Rishi Sunak has secured the backing of 128 MPs, according to the BBC's tally
By Jasmine Andersson
BBC News
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have held talks as they edge closer to the deadline for nominations in the contest to replace Liz Truss.
Two separate sources told the BBC the meeting took place, but neither camp has disclosed what they discussed.
Rishi Sunak continues to forge ahead in the leadership race, gathering the support of 128 MPs.
Mr Johnson is currently in second place with 53 backers, according to the BBC's tally.
However his campaign claims he has the support of 100 MPs - the number required to officially enter the race.
Mr Sunak's supporters raised doubts over this and called for the former PM to show proof.
Penny Mordaunt is the only candidate to officially declare they are in the race, but she lags behind on support with 23 MPs.
The BBC's Laura Kuenssberg said that Mr Sunak and Mr Johnson had met on Saturday evening, but she was not sure "if any conclusions or news was likely to come out of it tonight".
The BBC has been keeping a running total of MPs who have gone on the record with support.
The voting intentions of only 204 out of 357 Conservative MPs are currently known and have been verified by the BBC, leaving many still to declare their interest.
The hopefuls have until 14:00 BST on Monday to get enough support to run, qualifying them for the next stage of the race.
If the party's MPs get behind just one candidate, we could have a new prime minister by Monday afternoon.
But if not, it will then go to an online ballot of the Conservative party membership, with the result to be announced on Friday.
Polling suggests Mr Johnson, who has returned from a Caribbean holiday to consider his options, would be favourite to win a members' vote.
Throughout Saturday, MPs were publicly declaring support for their favoured candidate.
International Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch earlier ruled herself out of the race to be the next prime minister, throwing her weight behind Mr Sunak.
Ms Badenoch - who made a big impact in the last Tory leadership contest - said in The Times that Mr Sunak was "the serious, honest leader we need".
She joined a growing list of Sunak backers, even though the ex-chancellor has yet to officially declare he is standing.
Mr Sunak's supporters include former chancellor and health secretary Sajid Javid, Security Minister Tom Tugendhat, former deputy prime minister Dominic Raab and former Brexit minister Lord Frost.
Pointing to the parliamentary probe facing Mr Johnson, Mr Raab told the BBC: "We cannot go backwards. We cannot have another episode of the Groundhog Day, of the soap opera of Partygate".
He said he was "very confident" Mr Sunak would stand, adding: "I think the critical issue here is going to be the economy. Rishi had the right plan in the summer and I think it is the right plan now."
Among supporters of Boris Johnson is former home secretary Priti Patel who said he could bring together a united team and lead the UK to a stronger and more prosperous future.
Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg and Transport Secretary Anne Marie Trevelyan have also thrown their weight behind the former PM.
Meanwhile Andrea Leadsom, former business secretary, said Ms Mordaunt was the unifying candidate; an experienced minister and a "robust Brexiteer".
Launching her campaign on Twitter on Friday, Ms Mordaunt said she would "unite our country, deliver our pledges and win the next [general election]".
Mordaunt backer Conservative MP Bob Seely said "I think we owe the country a collective responsibility to apologise" and said he believes Ms Mordaunt has the best chance of providing "unity and leadership" within the party.
Mr Johnson's potential bid to return to power comes just seven weeks after his final day in No 10.
His successor, Liz Truss, is the UK's shortest-serving prime minister, stepping down after 45 days in power.
She stood down on Thursday, after a series of humiliating U-turns forced on her by an adverse reaction to her tax policies in the financial markets.
by ponchi101 53 people are backing Johnson. Insanity.
It reminds me of a little cartoon that was making the rounds in Argentina, before the latest elections. Argentina, of course, elected Fernandez/Kirchner.
The cartoon went like this:
A person on a stage shouts: "We want to get rid of Macri!!! (the at the time president, who replaced Kirchner). A crowd gathered in front of him yells: "YES!!!"
The person yells: "Why do we want to get rid of Macri?", and the crowd replies: "Because he could not fix all the that Kirchner did!"
The person then yells: "And who are we going to vote for now?", and the crowd replies: "For Kirchner!!!!"
So pleasant to see that civilized countries are following our lead.
by ti-amie
by ti-amieBoris Johnson says he will not stand in Tory leadership contest
Move means Rishi Sunak almost certain to be PM
Rowena Mason Whitehall editor
Sun 23 Oct 2022 21.05 BST
Boris Johnson will not stand in the Conservative leadership race, leaving Rishi Sunak very likely to enter No 10.
The former prime minister had not formally declared but he had told supporters he wanted to run, drumming up backing from seven cabinet ministers – Jacob Rees-Mogg, James Cleverly, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Nadhim Zahawi, Alok Sharma, Simon Clarke and Chris-Heaton Harris.
After cutting short a Caribbean holiday, Johnson spoke to rivals Sunak and Penny Mordaunt in a bid to persuade them to get onboard with his attempted political comeback.
However, Johnson has said he is not running after only making it to about 60 declared backers by Sunday evening – well short of the 100-MP threshold required to make it on to the ballot.
The former prime minister said that he would not run despite having the support of the MPs required. He said he had come to the conclusion “this would simply not be the right thing to do” as “you can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in Parliament”.
He said that due to the failure to reach a deal with Sunak and Mordaunt, “I am afraid the best thing is that I do not allow my nomination to go forward and commit my support to whoever succeeds”.
“I believe I have much to offer but I am afraid that this is simply not the right time,” the former prime minister said.
Sunak has more than 140 declared supporters, while Mordaunt is lagging behind on 25.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 23, 2022 3:26 pm
53 people are backing Johnson. Insanity.
It reminds me of a little cartoon that was making the rounds in Argentina, before the latest elections. Argentina, of course, elected Fernandez/Kirchner.
The cartoon went like this:
A person on a stage shouts: "We want to get rid of Macri!!! (the at the time president, who replaced Kirchner). A crowd gathered in front of him yells: "YES!!!"
The person yells: "Why do we want to get rid of Macri?", and the crowd replies: "Because he could not fix all the that Kirchner did!"
The person then yells: "And who are we going to vote for now?", and the crowd replies: "For Kirchner!!!!"
So pleasant to see that civilized countries are following our lead.
This is what it looks like when an empire collapses, and the remaining pieces can't full accept it.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
His parents come from Kenya.
by ti-amie
by Owendonovan Another child of immigrants who doesn't like immigrants.
by ponchi101
Owendonovan wrote: ↑Tue Oct 25, 2022 12:05 am
Another child of immigrants who doesn't like immigrants.
I have a cousin in the USA that votes for Trump. And I do not mean, third relation, or a remote cousin. She is the daughter of my father's sister (my aunt, of course), who moved to the USA when my uncle, a merchant marine, fell in love with her during a stop in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, and married her and took her to the USA.
So, as you say. A full fledge, 1/2 Venezuelan, daughter of an immigrant, that wants to build a wall. And, since she lives in Georgia, she is super close to my immigrant niece.
They simply have full sectors of their hard drive that are inoperative.
The story with this guy is that he is openly gay and was previously an opposition activist and had even left pro-Kremlin media in protest before. Until he supported the war this February, he also headed one of the bigger AIDS non-profits in Russia (he left at the start of the war). In 2019, he sold out for relevancy and now spouts absolute B.S. and now karma got him. He's apologized for crossing the line and mixing good and evil... after he was fired.
Owendonovan wrote: ↑Tue Oct 25, 2022 12:05 am
Another child of immigrants who doesn't like immigrants.
I have a cousin in the USA that votes for Trump. And I do not mean, third relation, or a remote cousin. She is the daughter of my father's sister (my aunt, of course), who moved to the USA when my uncle, a merchant marine, fell in love with her during a stop in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, and married her and took her to the USA.
So, as you say. A full fledge, 1/2 Venezuelan, daughter of an immigrant, that wants to build a wall. And, since she lives in Georgia, she is super close to my immigrant niece.
They simply have full sectors of their hard drive that are inoperative.
A cab driver yesterday was telling me the latest news from his native Pakistan (it's bad - I hadn't been paying attention and it seems no one else has)... it was a very insightful conversation until he told me how much better Trump was than Biden....
BTW - Sumak's father-in-law is the founder of Infosys, that's where the money comes from.
by Suliso Trump is "macho" and Biden is not. It seems it matters a lot for one section of immigrants. The other part is that lots of immigrants worked hard to get where they are financially and socially. Some think that Democrats are just giving handouts to lazy locals.
by ponchi101 I said it before. His fake "macho" image (because he is really a coward) gets him votes.
I also wonder how many men vote for him because Melania is "hot".
by ti-amie So none of the men (and women) who feel he is such a manly man know he is incontinent?
by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: ↑Tue Oct 25, 2022 7:06 pm
So none of the men (and women) who feel he is such a manly man know he is incontinent?
He is not. We all know he is full of so he can't be
I did not know. That I would not mind; it is a medical condition. I mind his real cowardice: the "I want to punch him (a person at a rally) in the face", when he is surrounded by Secret Service trained killers. How brave.
And, after saying that Carly Fiorina had a face like dog, when she confronted him at a debate, he was all apologies, chickening out. That is the cowardice that I dislike.
(The same cowardice of Teddy and Lindsey).
by skatingfan
mmmm8 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 25, 2022 5:23 pm
A cab driver yesterday was telling me the latest news from his native Pakistan (it's bad - I hadn't been paying attention and it seems no one else has)... it was a very insightful conversation until he told me how much better Trump was than Biden....
mmmm8 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 25, 2022 5:23 pm
A cab driver yesterday was telling me the latest news from his native Pakistan (it's bad - I hadn't been paying attention and it seems no one else has)... it was a very insightful conversation until he told me how much better Trump was than Biden....
by ponchi101 Reports that Vermeer's "Girl with the pearl earring" was attacked by climate activists. This joins the attack on a Monet (Germany) and Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" at the London's National Gallery.
Serious here: is this a valid way to bring attention to climate change problems?
by Deuce
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 3:48 am
Reports that Vermeer's "Girl with the pearl earring" was attacked by climate activists. This joins the attack on a Monet (Germany) and Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" at the London's National Gallery.
Serious here: is this a valid way to bring attention to climate change problems?
No.
I am all in favour of bringing attention to environmental issues - because if human and animal life is to continue on this planet, humans must learn to be much less selfish than we've been over the past 100 years or so... but to try to bring attention to the issue in this manner is to enact the very juvenile (and stupid) philosophies of the ends justifying the means, and of 'any publicity is good publicity'.
by Suliso About Pakistan: to the best of my knowledge no Pakistani prime minister has ever served his/her entire term in office. Also they're completely obsessed with India as an enemy. Most Indians are just laughing about it.
by ti-amie
by Owendonovan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 3:48 am
Reports that Vermeer's "Girl with the pearl earring" was attacked by climate activists. This joins the attack on a Monet (Germany) and Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" at the London's National Gallery.
Serious here: is this a valid way to bring attention to climate change problems?
Maybe if they were throwing food at Charles Koch.
by ti-amie The death toll is now up to around 140+ in Seoul night club tragedy. The street where it occurred looked like this before the problems started.
picture via @allkpop
by ti-amie
Translated from Spanish by Google
Latin America is closely watching the presidential elections in Brazil, the region's most populous democracy. For this reason, The New York Times offers Spanish-speaking readers its coverage also in Spanish.
by ti-amie
They're everywhere!
by ponchi101 A typical L. American case of "devil and the deep blue see", "the fire or the frying pan", etc.
We will never stop being a cesspool.
Having said that, I would vote for Lula, if a gun were pointed at my head to choose. Bolsanaro is a disgrace.
(Lula is not that great, either).
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 30, 2022 8:45 pm
A typical L. American case of "devil and the deep blue see", "the fire or the frying pan", etc.
We will never stop being a cesspool.
Having said that, I would vote for Lula, if a gun were pointed at my head to choose. Bolsanaro is a disgrace.
(Lula is not that great, either).
I would vote for Lula too but with the caveat you mention. It's the same choice here in New York State. I'm not a big fan of our governor but she has worked hard and gotten herself up to speed about the issues that are important to us downstaters and hasn't just stayed in her lane for want of a better analogy. If I don't vote for her there's a chance that lunatic Zeldin gets in and shuts down all the the Legal Cases against TFG.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Brazilian Twitter is very excited right now.
#URGENTE : LULA (PT) IS ELECTED PRESIDENT, PROJECTS DATAFOLHA. READ MORE IN http://FOLHA.COM #Eleições2022
by ti-amie
by Suliso Good news as far as I can understand from the other side of the globe.
by ponchi101 Uhm...
Lula is a convicted felon, charged with several counts of corruption. I said it above: this was one truly "lesser of two evils" election.
by mmmm8 It's truly a lesser of two evils, but I'd always opt for someone sane and corrupt over someone unhinged.
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 31, 2022 3:09 pm
Uhm...
Lula is a convicted felon, charged with several counts of corruption. I said it above: this was one truly "lesser of two evils" election.
mmmm8 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 31, 2022 3:19 pm
It's truly a lesser of two evils, but I'd always opt for someone sane and corrupt over someone unhinged.
How credible were the corruption charges? I've often heard the investigation described as politically motivated.
by Suliso Charges were politically motivated, but of course he was corrupt too (so is Bolsonaro). That would be the most likely scenario.
by ponchi101 His corruption charges were brought forth by other politicians, but they became well scrutinized and proved to be correct. A huge multinational, Odebrecht (dealing in cement) ran an entire scheme all over latin America, and Lula was their focal point in Brazil.
Bolsonaro is also corrupt (as Suliso says). Here in L. America, we have to go by an axiom stated in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe" trilogy: If you want to run for office, you should NOT be allowed to hold office.
It is that simple.
by ponchi101 This is the new way of the world. You lose the election, you claim fraud.
And somebody in the USA set the example.
by ti-amieItaly's right-wing government to criminalise raves
The two-day rave ended on Monday after police asked people to leave
By Paul Kirby
BBC News
The new government of far-right PM Giorgia Meloni has said it will make staging unlicensed raves a crime, hours after stopping one in northern Italy.
The new crime of "invasion for dangerous gatherings" of more than 50 people would attract up to six years in jail and opens up the possibility of wiretapping rave organisers.
A thousand ravers were ordered to leave a warehouse rave in Modena on Monday.
"The party's over!" declared far-right minister Matteo Salvini.
Residents had complained of 48 hours of non-stop techno music at the Halloween party that attracted young ravers via social media from nearby Italian cities as well as Belgium and France.
The ravers had planned to stay until Tuesday but left the disused warehouse in northern Modena without trouble and witnesses said they tidied up behind them.
Prime Minister Meloni argued the new law aimed to protect people from harm and was no different from elsewhere in Europe - but it would signal that the Italian state was no longer lax in respecting the rules.
The previous national unity government had already begun work on changing the law after a mass rave in 2021 in the central town of Viterbo ended with the deaths of two people. But the new right-wing administration's draft degree goes further, including big fines and confiscation of sound systems.
Critics asked why the government had targeted young ravers but had ignored a fascist march at the weekend by 2,000 black-clad supporters of Italy's wartime dictator, Benito Mussolini.
The weekend rally took place in Predappio, where Mussolini was born and buried. It featured fascist salutes and hymns, marked Mussolini's march on Rome and the start of fascist rule 100 years ago.
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi argued that the two events were "completely different things" as the Mussolini march had not disrupted public order and had been happening for years, whereas the warehouse owner had reported the rave in Modena.
Ms Meloni, who has sought to distance herself from the post-fascist politics of her youth, said on Monday that the Mussolini march was "politically something distant from me in a very significant way".
But her past came under further scrutiny when she appointed a new deputy minister who had provoked uproar several years ago when a picture emerged of him wearing a Nazi swastika on his right arm. Galeazzo Bignami, who is part of her Brothers of Italy movement, said on Monday he felt "profound shame" over the pictures taken in 2005.
In a separate move, Ms Meloni's new cabinet agreed to end a requirement for doctors and nurses to be vaccinated against Covid-19, saying anyone suspended because of their objections to the jab could return to work. The decision means some 4,000 health workers will be able to return to work two months early, as the suspension was due to end at the end of the year.
Opponents accused her of rewarding anti-vaxxers but the prime minister said the previous government had taken an "ideological" stance.
by ponchi101 I want to talk with Steven Pinker.
Because in both his "Better Angels of our Nature" and "Enlightenment Now", he proves his case for these being the best of all times, but the news for the last couple of years seem to be backtracking his claim.
(And yes, I know. He makes a historical claim, following long term trends. Not a decade of data only).
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Someone in another thread mentioned China?
by ponchi101 He just looks more stoic. But in reality, Xi is as insane as the very best.
And we will pay for the brilliant Reaganomics idea of having EVERYTHING manufactured in China.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 10:23 pm
He just looks more stoic. But in reality, Xi is as insane as the very best.
And we will pay for the brilliant Reaganomics idea of having EVERYTHING manufactured in China.
I would argue that continuing supply chain issues are proof enough that Reaganomics, like trickle-down, was a hoax created to benefit the 1%.
by ponchi101 The history of the 20th century should be by now written. And, to me, there are two towering figures that are venerated by people and that in reality created great distortions and were two terrible politicians: Reagan and Thatcher.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 09, 2022 11:28 pm
The history of the 20th century should be by now written. And, to me, there are two towering figures that are venerated by people and that in reality created great distortions and were two terrible politicians: Reagan and Thatcher.
No lies seen.
by ti-amie Tony Ingesson
@tonyingesson
For my English-speaking intel/security people, here's a summary thread re. the GRU espionage case in Sweden that is getting significant media coverage here today:
Two brothers, Peyman Kia and Payam Kia, have today been charged with espionage on behalf of a foreign power. The exact charge is "grovt spioneri", meaning that it is a particularly serious form of espionage (in the sense that it can be assumed to have inflicted serious damage).
The older brother, Peyman, has been employed by both the Swedish Security Service (the agency responsible for counterintelligence) as well as military intelligence. According to media sources, Peyman has served in the most sensitive department in military intelligence, KSI.
The younger brother, Payam, is charged with having assisted his older sibling by handling the connections with the GRU as well as having received money and gold in payment.
As is often the case with counterintelligence investigations, this one has been years in the making. The investigation was initiated in 2017, and the brothers were arrested in September 2021. They have been detained ever since, awaiting trial.
The fact that Peyman had left the Security Service for a less sensitive position at the Swedish Food Agency probably meant that there was less time pressure to make the arrests. The head of the Swedish Food Agency was contacted in 2018 and was aware of the investigation.
I haven't read all the documentation released today yet, but it looks like a pretty solid case. Multiple computers, encryption software, USB sticks and phones have been secured, as well as evidence of transactions involving money.
There's also evidence suggesting that the brothers had made plans regarding significant monetary transactions involving cash and gold, methods for clandestinely receiving compensation, back-up plans, escape plans, etc.
Forensic analysis of a computer also shows that Peyman has photographed or duplicated classified documents in a conspiratorial manner. These documents have also been traced to printouts made by Peyman himself from the Security Service computer system.
The younger brother tried to destroy evidence by breaking apart a hard drive and throwing it away in a trash bin, but surveillance immediately detected this and the hard drive was secured.
I'm going to continue to look into this case, but from the looks of it, this could be one of the worst espionage cases in Swedish contemporary history, up there with Stig Bergling and Stig Wennerström.
On a side note, I've started reading the transcriptions of the interrogations of Peyman. It's quite chilling how he at first refuses to say anything at all, then a few days later is all charm and honestly quite persuasive in his explanations.
by ponchi101 Swedish interrogation methods:
"Mr. Guilty, we want to ask you a few questions.
Nope.
Uh... Ok."
Swedish interrogation?
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 11:16 pm
Swedish interrogation methods:
"Mr. Guilty, we want to ask you a few questions.
Nope.
Uh... Ok."
Swedish interrogation?
I guess there's no polite way to use truncheons and other assorted torture devices.
by ponchi101 I remember once seeing a documentary about a Norwegian "prison".
I have been in worse hotels in my life. IN THE USA.
So I guess the concept of advanced interrogation techniques is simply putting you in a room and blast "Dancing Queen" over speakers for hours.
by dryrunguy
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Nov 12, 2022 3:46 pm
I remember once seeing a documentary about a Norwegian "prison".
I have been in worse hotels in my life. IN THE USA. So I guess the concept of advanced interrogation techniques is simply putting you in a room and blast "Dancing Queen" over speakers for hours.
Ponchi, you had no call to be so insulting to one of the greatest anthems of all time, especially when you had other treasures such as "Ice, Ice Baby," "My Humps," and "Friday" so readily at your disposal.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Casablanca shocked
by ponchi101 Been enough in the Gulf. Don't be mistaken. Everybody there hates the USA.
The propping of the Saudi regime, and the support of the Israeli Govt, no matter what, makes it a tough sell down there.
by Suliso Also you can't possibly say that US is not medling in politics of the Gulf countries...
Climate Change is a major problem, if not the most pressing of them all.
But the other is job automation. We are still scheduled to reach 9 billion, which means 1 more billion that will need energy, but also 1 more billion that will need jobs. And work automation is erasing jobs, not creating them.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 We need to start geo-engineering, and fast.
Umm... duh. The bombing of Belgrade was a huge tactical (long-term) and humanitarian mistake that the US/NATO never really had to account for.
by Deuce So... Earth's human population reached 8 Billion today. That's obviously far more than the planet can handle and maintain its health, given the careless, selfish, and irresponsible manner in which humans are currently living.
If we could only get rid of all of the assholes in the world - that would bring us down to a significantly more manageable 1 Billion or less...
by ti-amie
by ti-amieSunak and Hunt to 'kitchen sink' the bad news in autumn statement - and it won't be pleasant
The autumn statement will be the Tories' attempt to get all the bad news out the way in one go as Rishi Sunak tries to rectify the mess of his predecessor and give his party a shot at staying in power in 2024.
Ed Conway
Economics & data editor @EdConwaySky
Corporate executives call it "kitchen sinking".
The minute you get into a new job you collect all the bad news, announce the miserable stuff at the same time and take the grisliest, most painful decisions all at once. You throw the kitchen sink at it.
You'll have spotted this strategy before, and not just in politics – though George Osborne's 2010 summer budget is often held up as the prime example.
Note how when a new chief executive takes over at a company, they will invariably begin by telling you the whole place needs a desperate clean-up and a change of strategy.
The autumn statement will be Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt's attempt to "kitchen sink" the bad news for the UK economy.
And to some extent, there's little they have to do to amplify what's already coming from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
The OBR's forecasts for the economy – the official numbers against which the government must set its own policy decisions – were already shaping up to be pretty miserable long before Rishi Sunak came into Downing Street.
The UK is probably already in a recession.
It could be a long recession – though the many caveats to the Bank of England's headline forecast for an eight-quarter long slump seem to have been forgotten in recent weeks.
What could the future hold?
Either way, the news is not good, and this recession is likely to feel tougher than many others, in large part because this time it is not banks or businesses being squeezed but households themselves.
For evidence of this, look no further than the latest inflation data from the Office for National Statistics, which shows that housing and household service prices are rising at the fastest rate since comparable records began in the 1950s.
True: the path ahead is very uncertain.
If gas prices fall and the Ukraine conflict goes in the right direction, things could be a lot better than expected.
But trying to second-guess Vladimir Putin is a mug's game. And in the meantime, the news is not good.
Britain, as a big importer of goods and for that matter energy, is very sensitive to increases in international prices, and we are going through an energy and price squeeze across much of the world.
And since our homegrown ability to generate income has not improved in the past year or so, those higher costs mean we are all, as a nation, worse off.
Britain is considerably poorer than it was last year – and this will be reflected in the OBR's forecasts.
But the point of kitchen sinking is not merely to deliver all the bad news at once, but to announce some remedies – tough as they may be.
And that's where the autumn statement really comes in.
What are we expecting from the autumn statement?
What was hitherto pitched by previous chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as a brief update on the state of the public finances, and the government's fiscal plan, has turned into something far bigger.
There will be spending cuts in real if not nominal terms and tax rises.
There will be warnings of a difficult couple of years to come.
And while Mr Hunt will emphasise that these "difficult decisions" will help provide the government with the room to cut taxes when the economy has recovered, the light at the end of the tunnel will feel quite distant.
There are a couple of reasons for this.
The first is that following the market mayhem of recent weeks, the Treasury wants to make abundantly clear to investors that it has a plan to repair the public finances. And it has a habit of overcompensating in moments like this.
One of the things that almost certainly unnerved investors back in September was that the mini-budget put the national debt on an ever-increasing trajectory.
The main task the chancellor is focusing on this time around is changing that trajectory so that the national debt is falling in five years' time.
This is where the much-discussed "black hole" concept comes in.
What is the 'black hole' concept?
The "eye-watering black hole" the Treasury has talked about in recent weeks is actually something quite simple: the amount of spending cuts/tax rises it would take to get the national debt falling within five years.
That equates to roughly £50-60bn, once you take account of the stuff Jeremy Hunt has already reversed.
Now, these numbers are subject to enormous change, since they are based on imprecise estimates and the state of the economy is pretty unclear anyway.
But the gist here is that the Treasury is keen to over-compensate, much as it under-compensated in the mini-budget, sending a pretty clear signal to markets that it has a plan to reduce debt in the medium term.
And to meet that target, lots of bad news will be kitchen sinked: public sector pay settlements, departmental spending, tax rises for the wealthier, freezes in personal allowances.
Then there's the energy price guarantee and what happens next year, namely a significantly scaled-back scheme to follow the £2,500 average price cap currently in place.
Is Sunak's goal unrealistic?
But the other reason Rishi Sunak wants to kitchen sink the bad news now is because he has another date in mind: 2024.
He believes that if the Conservatives have any chance of winning the next election, likely before the end of that year, they need to show both that they've repaired the mess of the past few months, and that the light at the end of the tunnel is no longer such a distant prospect.
His hope is that by raising taxes today, he'll be able to promise to cut them (or even actually implement some cuts) by the election.
This might be an unrealistic prospect.
If the Bank of England's forecasts are to be relied on, and that's not a given, we may still be in the depths of a slump in a couple of years' time.
Even so, Mr Sunak will be hoping he can replicate the path taken by another previous Tory administration, that of Margaret Thatcher.
She came into office and, via Geoffrey Howe, delivered a heap of bad news in those first budgets.
Interest rates and taxes were raised.
It was the ultimate kitchen-sinking exercise but, so goes the Tory narrative, it laid the grounds for Nigel Lawson's tax-cutting budgets of the late 1980s.
Others will argue today, as economists did back then, that it is madness to "tighten" fiscal policy even as the UK faces a recession and interest rates are on the way up.
Some will argue – with good reason – that there is little point in kitchen sinking some bad news without addressing the other stuff, like the fact that on top of everything else, Brexit is depressing trade growth and output.
Political strategists will point out that Thatcher might have lost her second election were it not for the Falklands War and the Labour Party's lurch to the left.
More to the point, she could claim to be cleaning up the mess left by her political opponents; Rishi Sunak is cleaning up the mess left by his own colleagues.
Still, one thing is for sure: this will not be pleasant.
The Guardian UK
@TheGuardian_uk@newsrelay.org
Workers in running battles with police at Foxconn’s iPhone factory in China - Officers deal out beatings amid dispute about pay and conditions at Zhengzhou plant, with Apple warning of iPhone 14 delivery delaysPolice in China have dealt out beatings to workers protesting over working conditions and pay at the biggest factory for iPhones, as the country... #theguardian
by ponchi101 Apple is warning of iPhone 14 delivery delays.
Mentioning the appalling conditions most people in Chinese factories face, in ALL factories, thanks to the fact that Apple cannot open a factory in the USA or elsewhere because their bottom line IS the bottom line? Nah, no need for that.
(Change Apple for Nike, Adidas, any apparel company, other hardware companies, it remains the same).
by Suliso Bottom line is bottom line indeed, but good luck opening 200,000 worker factory anywhere in US or EU. I bet you couldn't do it even if you paid 100k with plush benefits.
Could you in Colombia paying locally top level wages?
by ponchi101 South America was never given the chance to develop any sort of industry in the same way that China was. Maybe Mexico, across the border from Texas, but most of that is mid-tech.
We are now in awe of Chinese technology, but that was non-existent in the 70's. The USA and later the EU decided to invest in tech transfer, but could not care less about human rights.
Several countries in S. America, at the time, could have set the same quality plants that China had at the time. Argentina and Brazil were at comparable stages of development. Venezuela was not interesting because we had our oil boom and wages were not interesting. Colombia and Peru had ongoing guerrillas devastating the country at the time, but Chile had an educated population that could have benefited.
by Suliso That's all true, but I was thinking more scale than skills in this case. Most likely 80%+ of those employees have no particular skills other than maybe a good work ethic. In most places you just couldn't find that many people who need a job and are willing to work on an assembly line.
by ponchi101 Yes, now. We are nowhere near the technological needs that a company like Apple needs, TODAY. But when the entanglement between the USA manufacturing sector and the Chinese government started, China was the laughingstock of all industries. S. America or several other locations could have benefitted from the progressive introduction of technology but, our dictatorships were not open to allow American companies to do ANYTHING THEY WANTED in our countries (there would have been limits).
Reagan was the one that decided that it was better to move all American manufacturing to China, to keep manufacturing prices down. The lie given was that once China would see the benefits of becoming an industrialized country, democracy would follow.
I was a stupid 21 yo at the time, finishing my studies in the USA. And even I laughed at that.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Arrested by whom? He is in Qatar. Who has the authority to arrest him there?
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 24, 2022 10:57 pm
Arrested by whom? He is in Qatar. Who has the authority to arrest him there?
No, he was not selected for the national team for the World Cup, but it seems clear that this is a message to the members of the national team that they are not above consequences for their actions in protesting the regime.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 24, 2022 10:57 pm
Arrested by whom? He is in Qatar. Who has the authority to arrest him there?
No, he was not selected for the national team for the World Cup, but it seems clear that this is a message to the members of the national team that they are not above consequences for their actions in protesting the regime.
Ok, thanks for that. I thought this was the same gentleman that a few pages back had offered his condolences to the people of Iran. I thought that was addressed to the victims of the crackdown on the current protests.
Thanks for clarifying.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 What are the protests about?
It is one thing if they are about C19 lockdowns. It is another if they are about the rest of the brutal aspects of the Chinese regime.
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 11:55 pm
What are the protests about?
It is one thing if they are about C19 lockdowns. It is another if they are about the rest of the brutal aspects of the Chinese regime.
It started as a protest against the restrictions, and lockdowns, and the possibility that people killed in a residential apartment fire died as a result of being in lockdown, being locked in their apartments, and that emergency vehicles were delayed by the fences used to control people's movements. There have been within the protest calls for Xi to resign, so the protests have expanded past the COVID issues. The question is whether these movements are sustainable in the way that the protests in Iran have sustained themselves for more than 2 months now.
by ponchi101 They are never sustainable. Sorry, but talking from experience here.
In Venezuela, during the Xmas of 2002, we held protests for almost 4 months. In the end, the army can fire at, beat up, teargas and arrest people 24/7 because that is their job. Civilian populations need to take care of the daily life and go to work and such.
Plus, one soldier can handle 50+ people, easily (rubber bullets, plan sticks and tear gas). So the balance is always in their favor.
by Suliso Real revolutions (see French and Russian examples) only happen if a large part of the army joins in and you win the ensuing civil war. Of course sometimes regimes kind of collapse from within without much violence (see Soviet Union), but that has a lot more to do with internal weakness not the strength of protests. I don't think Xi's administration is internally weak. So nothing much will come out of these protests in my opinion BUT it still remains a fact that he has painted himself in the corner with his zero covid policy. It's not obvious to me how he'll get out of there. Not without losing face I suspect.
by ponchi101 Exactly. The USSR collapsed not from outside threats but from within, when Gorbachev implemented new policies. The Pinochet regime never collapsed; he lost a referendum that was much closer than expected, and then stepped aside but put in place a friendly government. He remained in charge of the armed forces for a long time. And apartheid in S. Africa came down when people inside the regime also realized that it was untenable (not to mention, morally repulsive).
It is what has happened in Vennieland. As long as the army remains in the pockets of the administration, nothing will happen. The dictatorship will remain in power.
Let's not forget that this same atmosphere was around in China before Tiananmen. And that ended tragically, to say the least.
by ti-amie
Valid question/comment?
Beth Snodderly@bethsnodderly
Replying to
@petestrzok
Will Russia now send him to fight Ukraine?
Marla Tauscher @MarlaTauscher
Replying to
@petestrzok
Time to send him to Ukraine to demonstrate his loyalty to the motherland.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Reports that Iran has abolished the MORALITY POLICE.
I am skeptical that this will lead anywhere, but this makes me, at least, put some steak-sauce on my words.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Will it apply tourists? Because, you know, Bali is one big destination for people to go on pre-honeymoons.
It's interesting that for the article they chose a photo of a couple carrying on next to what appears to be a massive statue of a butt-plug.
by ponchi101
MJ2004 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 05, 2022 11:38 pm
Yes, it will apply to tourists.
There goes my vacation plan...
by Suliso That would rely destroy Bali tourism industry, however I bet no one will care about marital of white foreigners. Just like no one cares in Dubai as long as you keep a low profile.
by ti-amie
by ti-amieHeinrich XIII: the prince suspected of plotting to be German kaiser in coup
By Sarah Marsh
BERLIN, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss is one of the last descendents of a dynasty that once ruled over swathes of eastern Germany. He is suspected of hoping to become the country's new leader in a violent coup to overthrow the democratic order.
The 71-year-old was one of 25 members and supporters of a far-right group planning the alleged putsch who were arrested early on Wednesday in nationwide raids, according to the authorities.
The real estate developer has for years publicly advocated the theory life was better worldwide under monarchy. He stems from House of Reuss, which for centuries ruled over parts of present-day Thueringen state until Germany's 1918 revolution that led to the establishment of the Weimar Republic.
Neither the House of Reuss nor Prince Reuss' Office responded to requests for comment.
He said in a 2019 speech to the World Web Forum - which describes itself as bringing together progressive minds to empower positive radical change - that in the principality of Reuss people led "happy lives" because the tax rate was just 10% and the structures were "straightforward and transparent".
"If things didn’t work well, you just went to the prince," Heinrich said. "Who are you supposed to turn to today? Your parliamentarian, the local, federal or EU level? Good luck!"
In the speech, peppered with anti-Semitic conspiracies, he said Germany had been a vassal state government since World War Two and needed to regain its sovereignty through a peace deal.
He said monarchies worldwide including that of France had been overthrown due to the meddling of foreign powers which wanted to establish corporate structures in the pursuit of profit. The people had suffered as a result, he said.
HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR
Prosecutors said on Wednesday Heinrich had reached out to representatives of Russia, whom the group saw as its central contact for establishing its new order. They said there was no evidence the representatives had reacted positively to the request. The Kremlin said there could be no question of any Russian involvement in the alleged plot.
Heinrich was arrested at his house in Frankfurt, led out by balaclava-clad policemen in handcuffs, sporting mustard-coloured corduroy trousers and a tartan-patterned jacket, with long grey hair.
Police also searched his hunting lodge in Thueringen where he was suspected of stockpiling weapons, according to the Ostthueringer newspaper. The state in eastern Germany is known for the long-standing strength there of the far right.
The federal prosecutors' office declined to comment on the report, saying only there had been a raid in that area.
It also declined to comment on how, if at all, Heinrich was involved in the far-right "Reichsbuerger" movement, which denies the existence of the modern German state, and which prosecutors say inspired the group of suspects arrested.
The Reuss dynasty named all its male children Heinrich or Henry after the end of the 12th century in honour of Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, who bequeathed them the estates of Weida and Gera, now towns in Thueringen state.
While officially, there are no princes and princesses any more in Germany, some descendents like Heinrich have continued to use the title. He had named his real estate and financial services company, based in Frankfurt, the "Buero Prinz Reuss".
The House of Reuss, currently headed by Heinrich XIV who lives in Austria, has however previously distanced itself from Heinrich XIII, calling him a confused man peddling conspiracy theories, according to local media.
by ponchi101 Army and Police forces firmly against this.
He may have miscalculated. Just a bit.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 10:22 pm
Army and Police forces firmly against this.
He may have miscalculated. Just a bit.
Just a little bit...
by ti-amie
by ti-amie The Guardian US
@TheGuardian_us@newsrelay.org
Kosovo Serbs block road to major border crossings in volatile north - Trucks and agricultural machines used as roadblocks, fuelling recent tensions in the region Hundreds of ethnic Serbs erected barricades on a road in northern Kosovo on Saturday, blocking the traffic over the two major border crossings towards Serbia, police said.Trucks, ambulance cars and... #theguardian
by ponchi101 Yes there is. It's called Saudi Arabia, which routinely executes people for the simple "crime" of apostasy.
If you are going to call them out, call them ALL out. Not these ones simply because they are currently in the spotlight.
by ti-amie The people of Peru man.
by ti-amie Juanita Goebertus
@JuanitaGoe
Lamentable que los gobiernos de Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia y México respondan a la grave crisis en Perú victimizando a Castillo, quien intentó disolver el Congreso en medio de investigaciones por corrupción.
América Latina debe apoyar a Perú defendiendo el estado de derecho.
Translated from Spanish by Google
It is unfortunate that the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico respond to the serious crisis in Peru by victimizing Castillo, who tried to dissolve Congress amid corruption investigations.
Latin America must support Peru defending the rule of law.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:18 pm
Juanita Goebertus
@JuanitaGoe
Lamentable que los gobiernos de Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia y México respondan a la grave crisis en Perú victimizando a Castillo, quien intentó disolver el Congreso en medio de investigaciones por corrupción.
América Latina debe apoyar a Perú defendiendo el estado de derecho.
Translated from Spanish by Google
It is unfortunate that the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico respond to the serious crisis in Peru by victimizing Castillo, who tried to dissolve Congress amid corruption investigations.
Latin America must support Peru defending the rule of law.
The fax at the presidential palace in Vennieland must be broken, because it is odd they did not join this.
Latin America's left. A collection of buffoons like nowhere else.
BTW. This is very much a repeat of what happened in Honduras. The president broke the law, congress/Senate suspended him, then he cried "Coup D'etat" and the rest of the world said it was so. And Honduras is still recovering.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie For those of us who know nothing about the countries of South America except maybe their names this is a great historical review. It's also long and he didn't allow aggregation so it may take a few posts. I apologize in advance but not for the content.
P1/
by ti-amie P2/
by ti-amie P3/
by ti-amie P4/Last
Translated from Spanish by Google
This explanation is morally attractive, but empirically trivial.
Morally attractive because injustice is the cause of a distressing phenomenon.
Empirically trivial because it explains something here and now with something that has been in a good part of the continent for 500 years.
Translated from Spanish by Google
The problem is that neither you nor any of us trying to analyze what happens really know what causes everything. The racial, historical explanation sounds reasonable, but you're not sure what's going on. The agriculture-poverty relationship is not exclusive to Peru.
Translated from Spanish by Google
It means that it contributes very little to understanding when a phenomenon is present or absent. Oxygen is necessary for fire, but it is a trivial cause. There is oxygen everywhere, but no fire.
by ti-amie Some background on Mr. Gurmendi
Alonso Gurmendi @Alonso_GD
Lecturer @Politics_Oxford
| Visiting Prof. @UMichLaw
| Ph.D. @UCLLaws
| blogs @opiniojuris
| Esp/Eng | Views personal | Peru, History & Int’l Law
United Kingdomalonsogurmendi.comJoined May 2011
by ti-amie
My Spanish is not even rudimentary but didn't the woman in the video say that the protestors want Castillo back?
by ponchi101 She starts talking about being gas-sprayed and how dangerous that is.
Then, by the end, she says: "All we are asking for is for THE PEOPLE to be heard. THE PEOPLE are only asking for the reinstatement of..." and there is where the video ends.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 9:22 pm
She starts talking about being gas-sprayed and how dangerous that is.
Then, by the end, she says: "All we are asking for is for THE PEOPLE to be heard. THE PEOPLE are only asking for the reinstatement of..." and there is where the video ends.
Thanks. Interesting place to cut the audio though...
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Paulo Pimenta
@DeputadoFederal
Bolsonaro, Guedes e a extrema-direita saem do governo deixando caos na saúde, educação, assistência, milhões de desempregados e mais de 33 milhões de pessoas passando fome. A partir de 1° de Janeiro teremos muito trabalho, mas vamos reconstruir o país e dar dignidade ao povo!
Translated from Portuguese by Google
Bolsonaro, Guedes and the extreme right leave the government, leaving chaos in health, education, assistance, millions of unemployed and more than 33 million people going hungry. From the 1st of January we will have a lot of work to do, but we will rebuild the country and give dignity to the people!
by ti-amie An update on Peru
Alonso Gurmendi Retweeted
César Muñoz
@_Cesar_Munoz
La
@Defensoria_Peru
:
- Condenó el intento de golpe de Castillo
- Pide una investigación independiente de posible uso desproporcionado de la fuerza por fuerzas de seguridad
- Condena actos de violencia durante protestas.
Eso es una defensa coherente de los derechos humanos.
Translated from Spanish by Google
The
@Defensoria_Peru
:
- Condemned Castillo's attempted coup
- Calls for an independent investigation of possible disproportionate use of force by security forces
- Condemns acts of violence during protests.
That is a coherent defense of human rights.
Defensoría Perú
@Defensoria_Peru
#Comunicado Defensoría del Pueblo reafirma su compromiso con la protección de derechos ante crisis que afecta al país https://bit.ly/3VqGoVH
Translated from Spanish by Google
#Comunicado Ombudsman's Office reaffirms its commitment to the protection of rights in the face of a crisis affecting the country https://bit.ly/3VqGoVH
by ti-amie Also this
Alonso Gurmendi Retweeted
Raul Asensio
@RaulHAsensio
El embajador de México en Perú es una persona muy cercana al ámbito de la cultura. Siempre atento a todo lo que pasa y dispuesto a involucrarse.
Entiendo las razones para expulsarle. Probablemente es lo que corresponde ante las injerencias de López Obrador.
Pero es una pena.
Translated from Spanish by Google
The Mexican ambassador in Peru is a person very close to the field of culture. Always attentive to everything that happens and willing to get involved.
I understand the reasons for expelling him. It is probably what corresponds to the interference of López Obrador.
But it's a pity.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 And after this, I hope he flies to Brussels and convinces the EU for more funding. It is the only thing that can win that war.
by Deuce I don't like politicians - because, with very, very few exceptions, they are dishonest, selfish, manipulative, etc.
But you gotta love Zalensky.
He's the anti-politician politician.
In a previous visit to the U.S. (in September, 2021), he was still new and intimidated - so he was cleanly shaved and wore the typical politician's disguise/uniform of a suit and tie.
But this time, because he is more comfortable being himself, and due to the situation we're all too familiar with, he wasn't clean shaven, and he wore a soldier's uniform. Not the fancy soldier's uniform adorned with 7 pounds of medals and which is always immaculately clean (because it never sees any physical action) that other politicians wear to impress the blind, but the simple dark khaki/olive green sweater and pants that civilian soldiers wear.
Gotta love this guy...
.
by ti-amie The RWNJ's are up in arms because he came in the uniform of a soldier at war. Cooler heads are reminding them of the time Churchill showed up during WWII in a field uniform but then again many of them were too busy cheering for the other side...
by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 8:42 pm
The RWNJ's are up in arms because he came in the uniform of a soldier at war. Cooler heads are reminding them of the time Churchill showed up during WWII in a field uniform but then again many of them were too busy cheering for the other side...
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Somewhere in this topic, I said it. If I were rich and Russian, I would never go above a 1st floor.
This is ridiculous. They don't even bother to hide their M.O. anymore. Let's see what Modi does.
(Nothing).
by ti-amieJair Bolsonaro wrecked Brazil’s presidential palace, TV report suggests
Journalist touring residence with new first lady is shown torn sofas, broken windows and art damaged by the sun
Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Fri 6 Jan 2023 16.09 GMT
Jair Bolsonaro’s wrecking of the Amazon made him a global outcast – but his acts of desecration were not limited to the rainforest.
A report by the Brazilian broadcaster GloboNews suggests that even the official presidential residence – a 1950s masterpiece by the architect Oscar Niemeyer – was defiled by the far-right politician during his four years in power.
One of the network’s leading political correspondents, Natuza Nery, took a tour of the Palácio da Alvorada (Palace of Dawn) on Thursday with Brazil’s new first lady, Rosângela Lula da Silva, and was unimpressed with what she saw.
“The overall state of the building, which is Brasília’s most iconic … is not good … and will require many repairs,” reported Nery, who was shown torn carpets and sofas, leaky ceilings, broken windows and jacaranda floorboards, and works of art damaged by the sun.
Photographs of the rundown palace more resembled images of dilapidated student accommodation than a listed building designed by one of the world’s most celebrated modernist architects.
A tapestry by Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, one of Brazil’s most celebrated 20th-century artists, had been damaged after being moved from the library and hung in the sun. “Unfortunately, it will have to be restored,” the first lady said.
Nery said several works of art had disappeared altogether from the palace, which was completed in 1958, two years before Brazil’s purpose-built capital was inaugurated by the then president, Juscelino Kubitschek.
The first lady, who is widely known as Janja, said she had felt “rather disappointed” and “shaken” by the state of disrepair of her new home. A Brazilian cactus planted by her husband, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, during his 2003-10 presidency had reportedly been removed. Bolsonaro left a disposable ballpoint pen – one of the symbols of his populist administration – on one of the palace’s desks.
Bolsonaro, who abandoned Brasília on the eve of Lula’s swearing-in last Sunday, looks unlikely to return soon. He is in Florida, and reportedly fears prosecution for alleged crimes including his anti-scientific response to a Covid pandemic that killed nearly 700,000 people in his country.
A report in the Brazilian magazine Istoé this week claimed the former president was pressuring the Italian government to grant his family citizenship and hoped to move there after a stint in the US to avoid jail. Bolsonaro reportedly believed Brazilian authorities would be unable to extradite him from the European country, from where his great-grandfather Vittorio Bolzonaro emigrated in the late 19th century.
by ponchi101 29 bystanders, or 29 of his minions? Big difference.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 06, 2023 9:36 pm
29 bystanders, or 29 of his minions? Big difference.
From the article:
Nineteen suspected gang members and 10 military personnel were killed in a wave of violence after Mexican security forces arrested Ovidio Guzman, the country's defence minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval said on Friday.
Ovidio Guzman photographed after his arrest on 5 January 2023. Pic: Mexico Secretaria Defensa Nacional (SEDENA)/Reuters
I have no idea why they covered his eyes.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Lula
Translated from Portuguese by
Decree signed by Lula for federal intervention in the Federal District. #EquipeLula
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 (Don't say anything about Venezuela, don't say anything, P, just STFU and don't say anything...)
51/I've pointed to possible links to US-based folks like Bannon & #Jan6 parallels.
And Twitter's failures.
Investigations needed.
That said, Brazil has its own history w/dictators & coups.
Now it's stock-taking time & I recommend seeking out *Brazilian* experts & voices.
by ti-amieHow Trump's allies stoked Brazil Congress attack
Mike Wendling
US disinformation reporter
The scenes in Brasilia looked eerily similar to events at the US Capitol on 6 January two years ago - and there are deeper connections as well.
"The whole thing smells," said a guest on Steve Bannon's podcast, one day after the first round of voting in the Brazilian election in October last year.
The race was heading towards a run-off and the final result was not even close to being known. Yet Mr Bannon, as he had been doing for weeks, spread baseless rumours about election fraud.
Across several episodes of his podcast and in social media posts, he and his guests stoked up allegations of a "stolen election" and shadowy forces. He promoted the hashtag #BrazilianSpring, and continued to encourage opposition even after Mr Bolsonaro himself appeared to accept the results.
Mr Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, was just one of several key allies of Donald Trump who followed the same strategy used to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 US presidential election.
And like what happened in Washington on 6 January 2021, those false reports and unproven rumours helped fuel a mob that smashed windows and stormed government buildings in an attempt to further their cause.
'Do whatever is necessary!'
The day before the Capitol riot, Mr Bannon told his podcast listeners: "All hell is going to break loose tomorrow." He has been sentenced to four months in prison for refusing to comply with an order to testify in front of a Congressional committee that investigated the attack but is free pending an appeal.
Along with other prominent Trump advisers who spread fraud rumours, Mr Bannon was unrepentant on Sunday, even as footage emerged of widespread destruction in Brazil.
"Lula stole the Election… Brazilians know this," he wrote repeatedly on the social media site Gettr. He called the people who stormed the buildings "Freedom Fighters".
Ali Alexander, a fringe activist who emerged after the 2020 election as one of the leaders of the pro-Trump "Stop the Steal" movement, encouraged the crowds, writing "Do whatever is necessary!" and claiming to have contacts inside the country.
Bolsonaro supporters railed online about an existential crisis and a supposed "communist takeover" - exactly the same type of rhetoric that drove the rioters in Washington two years ago.
In another parallel with the Capitol riot, some supporters of the former president attempted to shift the blame by pinning the storming of government offices on outside agitators or supporters of President Lula.
Rumours about anti-fascist antifa activists or left-wing agitators sparking the Capitol riot gained traction online and on right-wing news outlets after 6 January, but subsequent criminal trials have consistently shown that the main leaders and instigators of the attack were staunch supporters of former President Trump.
Casting doubt on voting systems
The links between Mr Bolsonaro and the Trump movement were highlighted by a meeting in November between the former president and Mr Bolsonaro's son at Mr Trump's Florida resort.
During that trip, Eduardo Bolsonaro also spoke to Mr Bannon and Trump adviser Jason Miller, according to reports in the Washington Post and other news outlets.
As in the US in 2020, partisan election-deniers focused their attention on the mechanisms of voting. In Brazil, they cast suspicion on electronic vote tabulation machines.
Mr Bannon posted messages urging Brazilian authorities to "release the machines", echoing calls to investigate electronic voting in Colorado, Arizona, Georgia and other states. The American authorities responsible for election security said in 2020 that there was no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was compromised in any way.
A banner displayed by the Brazilian rioters on Sunday declared "We want the source code" in both English and Portuguese - a reference to rumours that electronic voting machines were somehow programmed or hacked in order to foil Mr Bolsonaro.
A number of prominent Brazilian Twitter accounts which spread election denial rumours were reinstated after the election and acquisition of the company by Elon Musk, according to a BBC analysis. The accounts had previously been banned.
Mr Musk himself has suggested some of Twitter's own employees in Brazil were "strongly politically biased" without giving details or evidence.
Some of Mr Trump's opponents in the US were quick to put the blame on the former president and his advisers for encouraging the unrest in Brazil.
Jamie Raskin, a Democratic Party member of the US House of Representatives and a member of the committee that investigated the Capitol riot, called the Brazilian protesters "fascists modeling themselves after Trump's Jan. 6 rioters" in a tweet.
The BBC attempted to contact Mr Bannon and Mr Alexander for comment.
by dryrunguy U.S. disinformation reporter. Some reporters write obituaries. Other cover sports, crime, politics, or community events.
BBC has a U.S. disinformation reporter. Have any of you seen a similar reporter title at a U.S. news outlet? I know I have not.
by ti-amie
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Mon Jan 09, 2023 11:22 pm
U.S. disinformation reporter. Some reporters write obituaries. Other cover sports, crime, politics, or community events.
BBC has a U.S. disinformation reporter. Have any of you seen a similar reporter title at a U.S. news outlet? I know I have not.
This reporter's title says it all about what is happening here doesn't it? To answer your question other than this reporter I haven't seen another one with a similar beat.
by ponchi101 A couple of things, from this latino.
The "ploy" about creating some violence and then blaming it on the opposition is as old as Cuba claiming that everything that happened there was a plan by the USA. In Venezuela, everything that happens is blamed on the opposition, which is basically powerless. The idea of the "infiltrator" is very well done here in S. America; it was used even by the Colombian Govt during the 2022 protests. So, Mr. Scott-Railtorn has to become more fluent on how things get done here.
Second. The reason why this was planned in Florida is simply because every person in L. America that has any means wants to and does live in Miami. It has nothing to do with Fl. currently being a GOP stronghold. All the people plotting to bring down the Vennie regime, for example, live in or near Miami. Most likely, Weston. It can be that this is indeed coincidental, for what I just said.
Other than that. Sure, the Bolsonaristas only need red hats with MBGA stamped on them.
To me, one interesting info: India's population is actually young: almost 50% of the people are below 25, while in China, it is "only" 25%. As Suliso pointed, China's population will start crashing soon (in historical terms, I don't mean Tuesday) whole India will still have some momentum.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 But wait!
Germany voted to get rid of ALL ITS NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS! And now, they don't want the coal plants needed to replace that capacity? Solar and wind won't cut it, and Germany has no gas to speak of.
You have to think these things through.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Ponchi's King for a Day dreams: if you DON'T want to be president/PM, you MUST remain president/PM.
Shows she was not driven by power.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie There was a discussion here about population and I apologize because I don't remember where the discussion was taking place. This fits right in with what was being discussed.
by Suliso Japan would need to change culturally and I have a hard time seeing it.
by ponchi101 "If birth rate does not rise".
Or they become more tolerant of immigrants. Because birth rate will not rise in Japan, unless you outlaw contraception and get them to stop working 26 hours a day.
by Suliso Birth rates could rise a bit (to European or American levels), but it would require abandoning the all work male dominated culture. Just paying some money to couples who already want children certainly won't do it.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Hey, apply for residency. What's stopping you?
(Little dirty secret that people on L. America do not want the rest of the world to know: If tomorrow the USA would say "Any latin person that is inside the USA on such given day will be granted residency automatically", you would have people flying strapped to the wings of airplanes. Guaranteed).
by ti-amie This is why he wants to change his visa status:
by ponchi101 Aaaaaah. I forgot the "shadier" part.
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Tue Jan 31, 2023 10:50 pm
16708719_10155073400670972_7825925730175863095_n.jpg
What she is saying.
by ti-amie
by JazzNU Same penalties as meth and cocaine.
by ponchi101 I wonder if it is the same dynamic as here in Colombia. Marijuana (and derivates) are much more profitable for a few if they remain illegal. China being a dictatorship probably has the dynamic that the military is in the take.
100% speculation from my side, but as it is usually a dynamic with the drug-world, just wondering.
by JazzNU
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Turkey still wants its pound of flesh. Not so fast.
by ti-amie
Paywall
by ti-amiePentagon expects suspected Chinese spy balloon will remain over U.S. ‘for a few days’
By Amy B Wang, John Wagner, Mariana Alfaro and Alex Horton
Updated 8 min ago
A suspected Chinese spy balloon flying over the contiguous United States is expected to remain over U.S. airspace “for a few days,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said Friday. The surveillance balloon was drifting at an altitude of 60,000 feet “somewhere over the center” of the country Friday, and is being tracked but is not considered a threat to anyone on the ground. The balloon had been seen over Montana, home to some of the United States’ nuclear missile silos.
The balloon is about the size of two or three buses, with sensors and other equipment carried underneath, according to a U.S. defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. It is unclear whether the balloon is following a predetermined path to loiter in certain places or is being controlled directly by Chinese operators.
Here’s what to know
China’s Foreign Ministry released a statement Friday confirming that the balloon originated in China, but said it is a weather balloon that drifted off course.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a planned trip to China in response to the Pentagon’s discovery of the surveillance aircraft, which he called “an irresponsible act” and a violation of international law by Beijing.
U.S. officials briefly considered shooting the balloon down but decided against it due to the threat of falling debris.
11 min ago
Montana Sen. Jon Tester says defense subcommittee will hold hearing on balloon
By Amy B Wang
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said Friday that his panel would hold a hearing about the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that had been spotted above his home state but had since moved eastward across the United States.
“Montanans value their freedom and privacy and I’ll always fight to defend both,” Tester said in a statement. “China’s actions are a clear threat to those values and to America’s national security, and I’m demanding answers from the Biden Administration.”
KEY UPDATE
40 min ago
Return to menu
By Liz Goodwin
Congress reporter
The Biden administration will brief the so-called Gang of Eight next week about the suspected Chinese spy balloon, according to an aide to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). The Gang of Eight is a panel of lawmakers that includes the top Republican and Democratic leadership in the House and Senate plus the heads of each chamber’s intelligence committee.
1 hour ago
By Meaghan Tobin
China correspondent focused on tech and business
Throughout the day on Friday, the phrase “wandering balloon” trended in Chinese on Twitter and Weibo as social media users posted that the Chinese surveillance balloon was the third installment of the hit Chinese science fiction movie ‘The Wandering Earth,' the second of which was just released over the Lunar New Year holiday in January.
1 hour ago
By Amy B Wang
National politics reporter
“The first step is getting the surveillance asset out of our airspace, and that’s what we’re focused on,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday, when asked whether postponing his trip to China was enough of a punishment for the balloon’s intrusion into U.S. airspace.
Blinken said he still planned to go to China “when conditions permit.”
1 hour ago
Return to menu
By Amy B Wang
National politics reporter
“We’re confident this is a Chinese surveillance balloon,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Friday.
Blinken said he spoke with a Chinese Communist Party official Friday to make clear that the presence of the balloon in U.S. airspace “is a clear violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law” and an “irresponsible act.”
KEY UPDATE
2 hours ago
Suspected Chinese spy balloon not a threat unless conditions change, official says
By Alex Horton
A U.S. defense official echoed previous Pentagon assessments that the balloon does not pose an imminent threat, but the official laid out conditions where that calculus could change.
The balloon has drifted about 60,000 feet in the air, roughly double the altitude of where commercial aircraft typically fly, reducing chances it could collide with passenger jets. But if it were to linger at altitudes that risked the safety of aircraft and passengers, that may shift the conversation toward a military response, the official said.
2:37 p.m. EST
Return to menu
By John Hudson
National security reporter focusing on the State Department and diplomacy.
Blinken acknowledged Beijing’s statement of regret regarding the balloon’s movement through U.S. airspace and said he intends to travel to China after the controversy subsides. “He underscored that the United States is committed to diplomatic engagement and maintaining open lines of communication, and that he would be prepared to visit Beijing as soon as conditions allow,” spokesman Ned Price said.
KEY UPDATE
2:32 p.m. EST
Return to menu
By John Hudson
National security reporter focusing on the State Department and diplomacy.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told China’s foreign affairs chief that the presence of a “surveillance balloon” in U.S. airspace amounted to an “irresponsible act” and a “clear violation of U.S. sovereignty,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Friday.
KEY UPDATE
2:05 p.m. EST
Biden agreed with military’s ‘strong recommendation’ not to shoot down balloon, White House says
By Amy B Wang
President Biden was briefed about the suspected Chinese spy balloon over U.S. airspace Tuesday and asked the military to present options, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday.
It was the “strong recommendation” of military officials not to take “kinetic action” — that is, to shoot the balloon down — because of possible risk to civilians on the ground from the resulting debris, she said. Biden agreed.
“President Biden took the … recommendation from the military seriously,” Jean-Pierre said. “Clearly, the president will always put the safety and the security of the American people first. We are tracking [the balloon] closely and keeping all options on the table.”
Due to the licensing issue this image may disappear soon...
by ti-amie AFP News Agency
@AFP@mediastodon.com
Chile has declared a state of disaster in several central-southern regions after a devastating heat wave provoked forest fires that left at least five people dead, authorities said https://u.afp.com/iWZK
by JazzNU The people who are like "shoot it down" as their first response are the same ones who would be loudest with the Biden Blame Game if shooting it down were to escalate this into even more of an international incident.
by ti-amie Sigh
by ti-amie One Ms Dolly Moore's video and a response.
Of course Faux is already running with it.
by Owendonovan Same lady likely had the made up medical condition that she would scream about to be mask free.
by ti-amie
by Deuce
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sat Feb 04, 2023 1:52 am
One Ms Dolly Moore's video and a response.
Of course Faux is already running with it.
It's obvious that this was a flair that she shot into her fireplace and up out of her chimney, no?
by ponchi101 Small meteor entering the atmosphere and "exploding" as it heated up. Could be as simple as that.
About the balloon. It's Chinese. It is over the USA.
It is spying.
And no, you can just "shoot it down". It is 11 miles up. Not that easy.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie The MAGA response
The real world response:
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
Aviation Twitter is in its glory.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie We don't know what the damage to marine life will be but the Pentagon had to consider what was the lesser of two evils in this case. The cascade of debris is proof enough that to bring this thing down over land would've been a mistake.
TFG would've been on the phone trying to grift the CCP so he wouldn't shoot the thing down.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie When you need proof of how ignorant people are
Thomas Smith @LilMeatMafia
Replying to @flightradar24
Crazy bc the balloon has been shot down already
Then again this "person" has only 8 followers and seems to mostly post about F1.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Was it shot over international waters? If so, can the Chinese claim destruction of their property?
by ti-amie
This explains why they blew it up the way they did. That was a pretty powerful message.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Unhinged rant to follow...
by ti-amieU.S. military downs Chinese balloon over Atlantic Ocean
The airship, which Pentagon officials characterized as an attempt by Beijing to collect intelligence on the U.S. military, was shot down off the South Carolina coast
By Ellen Nakashima, Alex Horton, Dan Lamothe and Rosalind S. Helderman
Updated February 4, 2023 at 7:19 p.m. EST|Published February 4, 2023 at 2:09 p.m. EST
The discovery of this military spy balloon and others — the presence of a second craft loitering over Latin America was disclosed on Friday, and officials say there is likely a third operating elsewhere — is highly embarrassing to the Chinese.
A second official, said that Beijing was “freaked” by the incident. “They’re in a very tough place,” this person said. “And they have very few cards to play right now.”
(...)
A senior defense official portrayed the delay in downing in the craft as an intelligence coup for the United States. “This actually provided us with a number of days to analyze this balloon, and through a number of means … to learn a lot about what this balloon was doing, how it was doing it, why the PRC may be using balloons like this,” the official said, declining to offer specifics. PRC stands for the People’s Republic of China.
(...)
The balloon presence in the mainland United States was disclosed to the public on Thursday after appearing over Montana, where it loitered for a time near Malmstrom Air Force Base, home to several nuclear missile silos. It’s path from there took it over several U.S. military installations, officials disclosed Saturday. Without elaborating, officials said that the administration had taken steps to thwart the craft’s ability to collect information that would undermine U.S. national security.
(...)
China’s foreign ministry claimed on Friday that the balloon was merely collecting weather data when it was blown off course. U.S. officials said Saturday that such an explanation “lacked any credibility.”
Two officials told The Washington Post that the balloons are part of an extensive Chinese military surveillance program that has been running for years and relies on technology from a Chinese company that supplies the People’s Liberation Army, said two officials.
The airship contains “sophisticated communications gear,” said one official. “But what it actually does we don’t know.”
Before Saturday’s takedown, U.S. officials said they believed that the balloon, outfitted with propellers on the bottom, was able to drift with air currents and be directed. It has changed course on a number of occasions, they said. The balloon’s payload or bay, which contained suspected surveillance equipment, is roughly the size of three large buses, they said.
But there is still much the United States does not know. “We know that these are military intelligence systems,” the second official said. “We don’t know how capable they are. We don’t know what they are tracking, and we don’t know how they’re getting the information back [to the PLA].”
The Chinese government reacted apologetically initially, saying it “regrets the unintended entry” of what Beijing insisted was an unmanned weather balloon used for civilian research. By Friday evening, after the announcement that Blinken would postpone his trip, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs took a more combative tone, saying China had no intention to violate American airspace or sovereignty while accusing “some politicians and media in the U.S.” of having “hyped” the incident to “attack and smear China.”
The spokesperson called for maintaining “a coolheaded and prudent” approach to the incident, noting that Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November agreed that maintaining contact and communications was an important goal.
(...)
The incident has put Beijing on its back foot, officials said.
“The Chinese don’t want to make this a crisis,” one official said. But as more surveillance platforms emerge, “that’s going to become increasingly hard.”
(...)
The Pentagon has not explained why it did not bring down the balloon in the earliest days, when it drifted over the Aleutian Islands and other remote areas where it posed little to no hazard. Once it reached mainland Alaska and Canada, officials said, there were no opportunities to do so without risk of harming civilians. The debris field would have covered an estimated 7-mile radius, they said.
A senior defense official said there have been four previous Chinese balloon incursions over the continental United States, including one early in the Biden administration and three during the Trump administration. Former defense secretary Mark T. Esper, speaking to CNN on Friday, said that he did not ever recall the issue coming up. “I would remember that for sure,” said Esper, a Trump appointee. “My focus was on implementing the national defense strategy to take on the Chinese as the greatest strategic threat facing our country.”
Chinese surveillance balloons have previously been spotted over five continents, the official said, and the United States is briefing allies and partners about the practice.
Yasmeen Abutaleb and Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.
by ti-amie A comment on the above article by TwoScoopsTwoSpecialProsecutors:
We are all joking here, but this was actually a bullseye shot - at least from appearance. I get it, it was an F22, but it was likely flying as slow as possible at that altitude (in other words, not slow), and the balloon was practically stationary (relative to the F22). And, I don't know how they hit the balloon, the actual balloon, dead center, but they did it.
There was thought put into this. They could have fired a fully loaded warhead into it, and that would be a massive explosion. They essentially fired what I would characterize as a guided bullet into the balloon, and only the balloon. Regardless if they recovered the payload intact or not, the pilot did a damn fine job (and so did the people that planned the mission).
by ponchi101 Why are the Chinese in a "tough" spot? Because they were caught spying on the USA? Who is so dumb as to believe they don't do that on a regular basis? I mean, WTF is Huawei there for if not spying?
by dryrunguy I shudder to think what QAnon is making of this.
by Owendonovan ^They knew all along.
by patrick Read where China had three balloons fly over USA during the previous admin but nothing was done
by Owendonovan
patrick wrote: ↑Sun Feb 05, 2023 11:01 am
Read where China had three balloons fly over USA during the previous admin but nothing was done
Too busy looking at Hunter Biden's laptop.
by ponchi101 I am about to side with the Chinese.
There is another balloon floating over S. America. To which you ask: what for? What can you spy about S. America that you cannot get by bribing some govt official?
"Oh, we are seeing a lot. Like, a lot of jungles, a lot rivers, lots of empty spaces..."
That thing must be here by mistake.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 05, 2023 4:26 pm
I am about to side with the Chinese.
There is another balloon floating over S. America. To which you ask: what for? What can you spy about S. America that you cannot get by bribing some govt official?
"Oh, we are seeing a lot. Like, a lot of jungles, a lot rivers, lots of empty spaces..."
That thing must be here by mistake.
That makes me wonder about where that balloon was supposed to go. Is it there by accident?
Also, what happened to Dolly what's her name in Montana and her fake video that Fox news ran as if it were real? Do I hear crickets?
by ti-amie
by Owendonovan Death toll from earthquake in Turkey/Syria at 4,300 as of 9pm eastern. There's an incredible amount of destruction, I wouldn't be surprised if that number gets multiplied by 10, it's pretty grim there right now.
by ti-amie The after shock was almost as strong as the earthquake. Horrible, horrible situation.
by Suliso Very poor areas... I bet most construction not earthquake proof. Very sad indeed even if it was bound to happen.
by ponchi101 Constructions in those countries (as they are in mine) are very frequently simply done by masons that have experience in just laying bricks and mortar. We call them "Master of the Work" (maestro de obra) and are the people that, under the guidance of an architect and an engineer, can lay down a base and erect a building. But they obviously do not have any technical expertise on anti-seismic construction or re-enforced engineering.
They will build you a home, but not something according to some code.
I saw some footage, and entire buildings came crashing down. If an earthquake of that strength were to hit Bogota, a large part of the city would also suffer the same consequences.
by Suliso Is Bogota earthquake prone?
by ponchi101 Not too much. But some areas of the country are, and of course, we have some active volcanoes. So, not prone, but also not unusual.
by mick1303 Missiles are hitting somewhere close. Loud. The windows are trembling...There were six or so hits across the city. I'm back in Kharkov now. For the last month and a half (since mid-December, when I returned) it was the most loud just now.
by ti-amie
mick1303 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 07, 2023 9:13 pm
Missiles are hitting somewhere close. Loud. The windows are trembling...There were six or so hits across the city. I'm back in Kharkov now. For the last month and a half (since mid-December, when I returned) it was the most loud just now.
Stay safe!
by ponchi101 Stay safe, indeed. Hoping that nothing will happen to you or your loved ones.
by ti-amie Axios
@axios@mastodon.social
The death toll from the massive earthquakes and aftershocks in Syria and Turkey neared 20,000, as hope for finding survivors trapped under toppled buildings began to fade. https://t.co/UWISeZyjAp
by MJ2004 It's been heartwrenching watching this disaster unfold, it could still get far worse.
by ponchi101 BTW. Syria was also affected, as it borders the South of Turkey. And those are war torn areas, so whatever was left standing had already been affected by the war.
by ti-amie‘High-altitude object’ shot down by military over Alaska, White House confirms
By Justine McDaniel
Updated February 10, 2023 at 3:19 p.m. EST|Published February 10, 2023 at 2:50 p.m. EST
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby announced the action during Friday's White House briefing. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
The U.S. military shot down a “high-altitude object” above Alaskan airspace that was much smaller than the Chinese spy balloon that crossed the country before being shot down last weekend, officials said.
President Biden ordered the military to take down the object on the recommendation of the Pentagon, primarily over concerns that its 40,000-foot altitude could pose “a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday at the White House.
Kirby said the United States did not know who owned the object or what its purpose was. It did not appear to have the ability to move around the way the confirmed Chinese balloon did, he said.
The object was the size of a small car, much smaller than the surveillance balloon, which was the size of two or three buses, Kirby noted. The military plans to recover the debris, which may be easier because it landed on ice, he said.
Whether the object was capable of surveillance, Kirby said, the United States has not “ruled anything in or out.”
“We’re still trying to learn more from it,” Kirby said. “I want to stress again we don’t know what entity owns this object. There’s no indication it’s from a nation or an institution or an individual.”
He said he did not know of any outreach to the Chinese government Friday afternoon about the new object.
The military downed the object over frozen territorial waters near the northeastern part of Alaska, near the Canadian border and heading over the Arctic Ocean, about within an hour after 1:30 p.m. Eastern time, Kirby said, and expects to recover the debris.
Biden was told of the object Thursday night after a fighter aircraft assessed the object, Kirby said. But he added that the speed, darkness and small size of the object made it difficult; aircraft surveilled the object again Friday. The military determined the object was unmanned before Biden gave the order to shoot it down.
“They worked really hard to try to get as much information as they could about this object,” Kirby said. “It was difficult for the pilots to glean a whole lot of information.”
The Chinese balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday was capable of collecting intelligence on American sites, the Pentagon has said, and was part of a larger surveillance program.
Biden acted quickly to order the downing of the new object on Friday because it was over water and was much smaller — it was safer to shoot down than the balloon, Kirby said.
The NSC spokesman said the United States is not aware of any other airborne objects flying over the country.
“We’re going to remain vigilant about the skies over the United States,” he said. “And as I said earlier, the president takes his obligations to protect our national security interest. And those of us in the safety and security of the American people is paramount. And … he’s always going to decide and act in a way that is commensurate with that duty.”
by ti-amieNew unidentified ‘high-altitude object’ shot down over Canada
NORAD and military aircraft had spotted and tracked the latest craft, as search continues off Alaska for latest downed balloon
By Dan Lamothe
Updated February 11, 2023 at 5:26 p.m. EST|Published February 11, 2023 at 5:07 p.m. EST
An F-22 Raptor was used to shoot down a high-altitude object over Canada on Saturday, Feb. 11, marking the third such shootdown in a week. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Jacob M. Thompson) (Airman 1st Class Jacob Thompson/341st Missile Wing Public Affairs)
A new “high-altitude airborne object” has been spotted and shot down over Canada’s Yukon territory, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday, as U.S. personnel continued efforts to recover the remnants of two other craft shot down over Alaska and South Carolina within the last week.
Trudeau said in a tweet that Canadian and U.S. aircraft were scrambled to respond in the latest incident, with a “U.S. F-22 successfully fired at the object.”
“I spoke with President Biden this afternoon,” Trudeau tweeted. “Canadian Forces will now recover and analyze the wreckage of the object.”
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) had said earlier in a statement that it had “positively identified” the latest object, but offered few additional details. The organization includes both U.S. and Canadian military officials, and protects the skies over North America.
The disclosure came as U.S. military officials said searches continued Saturday near the Alaskan town of Deadhorse for an object shot down Friday just off the coast, and off the coast of South Carolina for a suspected Chinese surveillance airship that made a cross-country journey ending with a shoot-down on Feb. 4.
“Arctic weather conditions, including wind chill, snow, and limited daylight, are a factor in this operation, and personnel will adjust recovery operations to maintain safety,” U.S. military officials said of the object shot down over Alaska. “Recovery activities are occurring on sea ice."
Military officials said they had no new details to provide about the origin, capabilities or intended purpose of the object shot down over Alaska. It was shot down over the state’s North Slope on Friday at 1:45 p.m. Eastern by an AIM-9x Sidewinder missile fired from an F-22 Raptor, one of the U.S. military’s most advanced fighter aircraft. Defense officials said its remnants landed in a mix of snow and ice near Prudhoe Bay, a community of about 2,000 that is home to North America’s largest oilfield.
Military personnel in helicopters and an HC-130 search-and-rescue plane immediately began looking for pieces. While the object, described as about the size of a small car, came down off Alaska’s northern coast, the water was frozen, complicating any effort to recover the craft by boat.
The object was first spotted Thursday at an altitude of about 40,000 feet and traveling northeast across the state, Pentagon officials said. Two F-35s from Eielson Air Force Base in central Alaska were dispatched to assess what the object was, and two F-22s from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage were sent up Friday to shoot it down.
John Kirby, a White House spokesman, said President Biden was notified of the situation Thursday night and, on a recommendation from the Pentagon, ordered it to be shot down Friday. At such an altitude, he said, it posed a risk to civilian air travel.
Friday’s encounter bookended a week in which the Biden administration faced scrutiny over its decision to allow a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon to traverse the continental United States before shooting it down Feb. 4 off the South Carolina coast. The balloon — roughly the size of three buses and soaring at an altitude above 60,000 feet — was first spotted by the U.S. government off the coast of Alaska on Jan. 28. Gen. Glen VanHerck, who oversees the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said in the aftermath of that incident that he did not initially shoot the balloon down because it showed no hostile intent.
The Chinese airship shot down Feb. 4 was first detected near the Aleutian Islands. It crossed above mainland Alaska and into Canada before appearing over the continental United States, first in northern Idaho on Jan. 30 and then in Montana the following day.
The administration weighed shooting it down then, and even temporarily imposed a stoppage on flights in and out of the airport in Billings. Biden has said that his advisers talked him out of shooting down the craft in Montana, fearful that falling debris could harm civilians and property on the ground.
Administration officials also have said that by allowing the Chinese craft to traverse the country, military officials had days to observe it and gather intelligence that has informed their understanding of what they now say is a sprawling surveillance program overseen by the People’s Liberation Army. The shootdown over water, they said, also would aid in collection, rather than dealing with challenging mountainous terrain.
Those explanations have not appeased lawmakers, however. At a Senate hearing this week, Republicans and Democrats pressed senior defense officials about why they had not acted sooner to thwart the Chinese balloon incursion and whether they have taken appropriate measures to enforce the boundaries of U.S. airspace.
“I don’t want a damn balloon going over the United States when we could have taken it down over the Aleutian Islands,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D.-Mont.)
The balloon shot down last weekend fell into the Atlantic Ocean, landing in relatively shallow water measuring about 50 feet deep. Salvage efforts, U.S. officials said, are ongoing.
by Deuce ^ What is this - some sort of bizarre competition to see who can 'shoot down' the most flying objects all of a sudden?
It's getting rather ridiculous.
What's next - a kid's drone? A hummingbird?
by JazzNU
Erdogan’s political fate may rest on his response to the earthquake
By Nadeen Ebrahim, CNN
Abu Dhabi, UAE (CNN) — A devastating earthquake in southern Turkey could change the electoral equation for Turkish strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who hopes an upcoming election will extend his rule well into a third decade.
While the 68-year-old leader faced the strongest opposition yet to his presidency, the 7.8 magnitude earthquake – which also hit northwest Syria and sent aftershocks across the region – could be a gamechanger for his political career, analysts say.
Erdogan has been visiting impacted areas, consoling victims and pledging to rebuild the thousands of flattened homes. On Tuesday, he announced a state of emergency in the ten hardest-hit provinces of the country’s south, many of which have traditionally supported him and his AK Party.
But there is disgruntlement with the government’s response in those areas, where some people complain that scores of bodies are yet to be collected, causing the stench of death to spread.
“There are no organized relief efforts in here,” Sinan Polat, a 28-year-old car dealer in Hatay province, told CNN. “There are so many bodies in front of the hospitals, there’s not even enough shroud to cover them. Cemeteries are full. What are we going to do, throw the bodies of our families into the sea? It’s not what we expected and hoped. Under these conditions, we’re not hopeful about the future.”
Nuran Okur, a 55-year-old resident of the southern city of Iskenderun, told CNN there was no sign of the state in the city. “It’s been four days, and there’s no one here.”
Erdogan’s response to Monday’s earthquake, which has so far killed more than 22,000 people across Turkey and Syria, may determine the results of an election that is scheduled for May 14.
Erdogan is likely aware of that. On Wednesday he acknowledged “shortcomings” in the government’s early response. The next day, he reminded Turks of government efforts in previous disasters, promising to rebuild homes in less than a year and pledging to support victims with 10,000 liras ($531) each.
“For Erdogan, the next 48 hours will be definitive,” Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy told CNN on Thursday.
Erdogan’s strongholds hit
Whether his efforts will salvage his chance at re-election is unclear. Most of the quake-stricken provinces in Turkey’s south are socially conservative and are strongholds of Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party, said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and chairman of Istanbul-based think-tank EDAM.
“The average AK Party performance in those provinces has been above their national average,” he said, adding that AK Party provinces have generally received more support from the central government, in comparison to opposition-held ones.
The ten provinces that were most affected by the earthquake represent around 15% of Turkey’s population of 85 million and a similar proportion of the 600-seat parliament. During the 2018 vote, Erdogan and the AK Party won the presidential and parliamentary elections, respectively, in all of those provinces but one, Diyarbakir. That region voted for the pro-Kurdish HDP party, and its candidate Selahattin Demirtas, who ran for elections from prison.
One of the strongest to hit the region in more than 100 years, the earthquake has so far killed 19,000 in Turkey alone, where the toll is expected to rise.
Emotions have been running high as many, including those in non-affected provinces, have expressed anger at what they feel was a lack of readiness for the disaster, especially since Turkey is no stranger to earthquakes.
In 1939, an earthquake of the same magnitude as Monday’s killed 30,000 people, and in 1999, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in the country’s northwest killed more than 17,000 people.
For Turkey’s rulers, quakes have been gamechangers in the past. In what later became a defining moment for Erdogan’s ascension to power, the 1999 quake – and the slow relief efforts that followed – only added to the sense of disillusionment many felt toward the nationalist, secularist state in power at the time, analysts say.
After the 1999 earthquake, the state “collapsed like a house of cards,” Cagaptay told CNN. “And that basically destroyed the ideological hold of the state over society.”
The government has particularly been criticized for its lack of preparedness to minimize damage from such disasters, said Ulgen, especially since the state has since the 1999 earthquake been collecting taxes aimed at sheltering the country from potential future disasters.
The Turkish opposition is already speaking out about the government’s perceived shortcomings in dealing with the tragedy.
Following a nationwide restriction on social media after the earthquake, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party said: “This insane palace government cut off social media communication.”
“As a result, crying for help is less heard,” he tweeted on Wednesday. “We know everything you’re trying to hide.”
While there have been no official announcements to postpone the May 14 elections, some analysts expect Erdogan and the opposition to agree on a later date.
It’s unlikely that conditions in the impacted provinces will allow for the vote to be held, said Ulgen.
“It is going to be a very complicated thing to be able to even orchestrate elections in these provinces,” he said.
With additional reporting by Yusuf Gezer in Iskenderun, Turkey.
by JazzNU ^^ Article I read the other day that I found interesting and thought others might as well. Didn't remember that Erdogan's rise to power was on the heels of poor response to a previous earthquake.
by ponchi101 So, it boils down to his response over a natural disaster? Nothing about his appalling human rights record?
I'll never get it. Never.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Julia Davis Share
@Julia_Davis_share
16 Feb 2023
Another Top Russian Official Found Dead After Apparent Plunge From High-Rise Apartment
Marina #Yankina, 58, was the head of finance and procurement of the #Russian Defense Ministry’s Western Military District.
President Joe Biden’s motorcade slipped out of the White House around 3:30 a.m. Sunday. No big, flashy Air Force One for this trip -– the president vanished into the darkness on an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing 757 normally used for domestic trips to smaller airports.
The next time he turned up — 20 hours later — it was in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 15e5cbcb48
Sneaking a president from DC to Kyiv without anyone noticing
Associated Press
by ponchi101 I don't know if it is only me. But I like that he tries to be low-key on some occasions.
by ti-amieOn surprise trip to Kyiv, Biden vows enduring support for Ukraine
By Missy Ryan, Matt Viser, Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Alice Martins
Updated February 20, 2023 at 12:17 p.m. EST|Published February 20, 2023 at 4:56 a.m. EST
Biden and Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday. Biden went to a country at war without a heavy U.S. military presence for protection. (Evan Vucci/AP)
KYIV, Ukraine — President Biden made a dramatic, unannounced visit to Kyiv on Monday, in a display of robust American support for Ukraine just four days before the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The high-risk visit to the historic Ukrainian capital — where air raid sirens blared as Biden walked the streets with President Volodymyr Zelensky — signaled continued commitment from the United States, the largest financial and military backer of Ukraine’s effort to repel Russian invaders from its territory.
Biden was spotted with the Ukrainian leader outside St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery shortly before noon local time, his appearance capping hours of speculation during an intense security lockdown that had blocked car traffic and even pedestrians from parts of central Kyiv.
Following talks with Zelensky and a visit to the U.S. Embassy, Biden departed Kyiv several hours later, according to a reporter traveling with him. Biden’s visit, however brief, represented one of the most remarkable presidential trips in modern history, sending him into a country at war and a city under regular bombardment without the heavy U.S. military presence that provided a protective shield during previous stops in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters that the White House had notified Moscow in advance of Biden’s travel “for deconfliction purposes.”
In his remarks alongside Zelensky, Biden said the United States would provide another half-billion dollars of assistance to Ukraine, including additional ammunition for the artillery systems the United States previously provided. Biden has insisted that Washington will back Ukraine against Russia for “as long as it takes” despite flagging support among the American public and no near-term prospect of peace talks.
Biden’s administration has provided some $30 billion in security aid since President Vladimir Putin sent Russian forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, initiating the largest ground war in Europe since World War II — one that has cost his country and Ukraine hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Under Biden’s leadership, the United States and its NATO allies have gradually expanded the array of weaponry they have pledged to include heavy tanks, but Ukrainian leaders continue to press for more sophisticated weapons as the combatants prepare for renewed offensives this spring.
Biden said his visit was intended to reaffirm American backing for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, which Russia has violated since 2014, when Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and launched support for a separatist campaign in the eastern Donbas region.
Photos showed Biden and Zelensky embracing in front a wall where photos of killed Ukrainian soldiers were displayed.
The White House has attempted to cast the deepening conflict as a high-stakes battle that will determine not only Ukraine’s fate, but also that of democracies and the rule of law everywhere, arguing that if Putin is permitted to seize parts of another nation by force, it will give a green light to other autocrats.
“When Putin launched his invasion nearly one year ago, he thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided. He thought he could outlast us,” Biden said in a statement issued by the White House after his arrival. “But he was dead wrong.”
Video later showed the president, wearing a dark suit and, in an apparent nod to the Ukrainian flag, a blue-and yellow striped tie, seated with Zelensky, who wore his trademark military-style attire.
The visit represented a major boost for Zelensky, whose domestic support has soared in line with national unity and anti-Russian fury since Putin’s invasion.
As a wartime leader, Zelensky now faces the formidable task of propelling Ukraine’s fatigued military into Russian-occupied territory while also persuading foreign partners to provide ever greater military support, including fighter jets. U.S. officials have so far declined to provide aircraft to Ukraine.
Biden’s trip comes as questions abound about the longevity of global backing for Ukraine and the cohesion of the U.S.-led coalition that has enabled Kyiv’s military success so far. A top U.S. official said in recent days that China was actively considering sending military aid to Russia.
While Western nations continue to proclaim strong support, many have grown worried about the economic and political costs of a protracted conflict — and about their ability to keep the money and munitions flowing.
Biden’s trip was shrouded in secrecy and, on the ground in Kyiv, involved even greater security than other high-level visits. Biden had been due to leave for an announced visit to Poland from Washington on Monday evening but, according to a small group of reporters who traveled with Biden to Kyiv, he secretly departed Washington around 4 a.m. Sunday instead.
Journalists accompanying Biden agreed to withhold real-time details of the president’s movements until he departed, including information about how he arrived in the Ukrainian capital. The country’s airspace has been closed for the past year.
(...)
While other world leaders have visited Kyiv to meet with Zelensky and tour the war-scarred city over the past year, Biden has stayed away because of security concerns and wariness about the possibility of a conflict between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. He has sent senior aides including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in his place, and the first lady, Jill Biden, made a surprise visit to western Ukraine on Mother’s Day.
In contrast, Britain’s Boris Johnson visited Kyiv three times as prime minister in the months following the invasion.
Biden and Zelensky in Kyiv. Biden said Monday that the United States would provide another half-billion dollars of assistance to Ukraine (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images)
A journalist traveling with Biden reported around 2 p.m. local time that the president had left Kyiv. No further details about his travel were immediately available.
In a call with reporters after Biden’s departure from Kyiv, White House officials described the trip was “bold” and “risky,” and said it was the product of months of planning.
They said the arrangements — and the central question of whether Biden could safely get to Kyiv and back — were made more challenging by the lack of an official U.S. military presence in Ukraine. While there is a small defense liaison office at the U.S. Embassy, Biden has promised to keep American troops out of the war.
The interest in the president’s travel gave the White House an opportunity to refute Kremlin propaganda about how Russia is actually fighting a proxy war with the United States and NATO.
“This was a historic visit unprecedented in modern times, to have the president of the United States visit the capital of a country at war where the U.S. military doesn’t control the critical infrastructure,” Sullivan said.
Biden’s visit occurs against the backdrop of the most intense acrimony between Washington and Moscow in decades. A U.S.-led campaign of economic sanctions and political isolation has taken a toll on Russia’s economy and left Putin with few global allies.
Russian officials and state media figures portrayed the visit as a publicity stunt, as part of Biden’s reelection bid, or as confirmation of repeated assertions by the Kremlin and its propagandists that the United States is waging a proxy war against Russia through Ukraine.
“Biden, having received security guarantees, finally went to Kyiv, where he promised a lot of weapons and swore allegiance to the neo-Nazi regime to the grave,” Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and now a senior security official in Putin’s administration, wrote in his Telegram blog.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said the visit shows that Zelensky is a “project” of the United States that is bound to fail. Meanwhile, some hawkish pro-war commentators said that the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan showed “how the United States actually “supports its allies.”
Officials said the traveling party was smaller than the entourage that usually accompanies the American president overseas. It included a handful of Biden’s closest aides, a medical team, and security staff.
While planning took place over several months, Biden made a final decision to go ahead on Friday.
During the visit, Biden and Zelensky held private talks at the Mariinsky Palace, a ceremonial baroque structure overlooking the Dnieper River in central Kyiv.
Zelensky said the discussion “brings us closer to victory,” according to a White House pool report. He noted that long-range missiles that the United States has not previously provided to Ukraine were now under discussion. The present moment, he added, was a “clear signal that Russia’s attempts of relaunch will have no chance.”
In Kyiv, the two leaders reminisced about the opening moments of Russia’s full-scale invasion, nearly a year ago on the night of Feb. 24. Zelensky said his first call as the invasion began, after months of White House warnings, was to Washington.
“You told me that you could hear explosions in the background,” Biden said in response. “I’ll never forget that.”
Biden said he had asked Zelensky that night how he could be of help and twice repeated what he said was the Ukrainian leader’s response: “Gather the leaders of the world. Ask them to support Ukraine.”
“You said that you didn’t know when we’d be able to speak again. That dark night one year ago, the world was literally at the time bracing for the fall of Kyiv,” Biden continued. “Perhaps even the end of Ukraine.”
“One year later, Kyiv stands. And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands,” he said. “The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”
Biden also made a stop at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, which was closed for several months after Russia’s invasion and now operates with a reduced footprint.
Biden next travels to Poland, where he is expected to deliver a speech Tuesday and meet with President Andrzej Duda and leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a group of mostly former Eastern bloc nations that formed after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Countries in that group are especially wary of Moscow’s expansionist aspirations.
Viser and Woodson reported from Warsaw. Kostiantyn Khudov in Kyiv and Mary Ilyushina and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.
by ti-amie
Michael Beschloss
@beschlossdc@bird.makeup
White House pool photograph of President Biden and Jake Sullivan (NSC) on train from Kyiv to Poland
Michael Beschloss
@beschlossdc@bird.makeup
Eager to learn more about the train that has taken President Biden to and from Kyiv.
President Joe Biden’s motorcade slipped out of the White House around 3:30 a.m. Sunday. No big, flashy Air Force One for this trip -– the president vanished into the darkness on an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing 757 normally used for domestic trips to smaller airports.
The next time he turned up — 20 hours later — it was in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 15e5cbcb48
I don't know if this is important or not, but any plane that the President of the United States is on is Air Force One. It's not the designation of a particular aircraft, but the call sign of the plane the President is physically on.
by ti-amie
Pascaline
@pascaline@mastodon.nl
Shocking images from Prigozjyn, head of the Wagner group which mainly consists of criminals. He is now pressuring the Kremlin to get more ammunition in the war in Ukrain. What I like about this is that this guy may, MAY, pick a fight with Putain (I know, I know, I wield my French stick with pride) and this may escalate into some power play. What if he would kick Putain out? Or: will Putain try to poison him, or let him get 'an accident'? They need one another. This is all very interesting.
This is what the poster is referencing.
Wagner mercenary boss and Russian military chiefs at war — with each other
By Mary Ilyushina
February 22, 2023 at 3:29 p.m. EST
Russian President Vladimir Putin at a concert in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium on Wednesday. (for The Washington Post)
RIGA, Latvia — In the photos, dozens of dead Russian mercenaries were piled up on frozen ground — some half-naked, some wrapped in a tarp. Images like these might usually appear on Ukrainian Telegram channels, but this time they were posted by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the financier of the infamous Wagner mercenary group, who went public with his most bitter attack yet against Russia’s regular military, claiming his fighters were deprived of ammunition and, as a result, died “in heaps” in Ukraine.
In his state of the nation address Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin omitted any mention of his battlefield defeats and steep casualties, and instead attempted to relay an image of a united country working to crush a common enemy.
But even as Putin spoke, the fierce personal attacks unleashed publicly by Prighozin against Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff who is now the overall operational commander of the war, exposed what the Russian president refused to admit: His war is flagging, and key players in the Kremlin’s orbit are now at each other’s throats.
Prigozhin, who made billions through government catering contracts, has fallen in and out of favor with Putin and his closest circle in recent years. But having built Wagner into a private army, he seized the chance created by the war in Ukraine to emerge as a national power player and sent at least 50,000 fighters to the front after the regular military suffered huge losses early on.
While ordinary Russians face severe prison sentences for bad-mouthing the military or criticizing the war, Prigozhin has been permitted to attack Shoigu, Gerasimov and other military commanders with seemingly no repercussions, presumably because he is protected by Putin, who may see benefit in the squabbling — as insurance against any one faction turning against him.
Kremlin watchers have long noted Putin’s decision to split the battlefield into fiefs controlled by the Defense Ministry, by Prigozhin’s Wagner fighters and by paramilitary forces loyal to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, among others.
In a recording published by his news service Monday, Prigozhin lamented that Russian generals were stonewalling his ammunition requests. “They all point their fingers up and say, ‘You know you have a complicated relationship up there, so you have to go apologize and obey, then your fighters will get the ammo,’ ” Prigozhin said, making veiled references to Shoigu and Gerasimov.
Prigozhin attacked military officials who he said ate their meals off “golden plates” and sent their children and grandchildren on holidays to Dubai while soldiers were dying in the war. It was an apparent reference to Shoigu’s daughter, who was recently spotted vacationing in the United Arab Emirates.
The Russian Defense Ministry, which normally ignores any public criticism, offered a rare response, calling Prigozhin’s “exalted” statements false.
The ministry said its command “pays special, constant and priority attention” to providing “everything necessary” to “volunteers,” the way officials refer to illegal mercenaries.
“Attempts to split the close mechanism of interaction and support between the divisions of the Russian group are counterproductive and play only to the advantage of the enemy,” the Defense Ministry added.
In addition to the ugly feud between Prigozhin and the military chiefs, other fissures may be emerging in the Russian government.
Alexander Baunov, a political analyst with the Carnegie Endowment, noted that Putin seems to be showing less regard for the Foreign Ministry. “Putin’s address contained praise for almost everyone: the military, the public, the government and Duma, private businesses, doctors and teachers,” Baunov tweeted. “Everyone except diplomats.”
In his speech, Putin also took a jab at the Russian business elite, particularly oligarchs hit hard by sanctions, saying they will also be considered “second class citizens” in the West. “Believe me, none of the ordinary citizens of the country took pity on those who lost their capital in foreign banks, did not pity those who lost their yachts, palaces abroad, and so on,” Putin said.
Still, whatever divisions may be emerging elsewhere, they do not approach the viciousness of Prigozhin’s attacks on the military. On Tuesday, he published a second angry recording, saying his men were dying “because some strange people take decisions on whether they will live or not live.” Then, the bitter infighting continued Wednesday on the morning after Putin’s speech.
“I posted this photo of one of the points where we collect the dead, and all these guys died yesterday because of this so-called ammunition hunger,” Prigozhin said in an interview with a popular military blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky. “There should have been five times fewer dead … Who’s fault is this that they died? Those who should have solved the supply issue are to blame.”
“The sign-off must come either from Gerasimov or Shoigu, but neither wants to make a decision,” Prigozhin added.
The conflict between Prigozhin and Russia’s top military brass has been brewing for weeks, as Wagner fighters appeared to notch some territorial gains in Ukraine following months of retreats by the regular military. Last month, Shoigu demoted Gen. Sergei Surovkin, who had been operational commander of the war and repeatedly won praise from Prigozhin.
Prigozhin has engaged in a series of media stunts, including flying in a fighter jet and publicly challenging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to a dogfight.
Wagner’s minimal gains, including capturing the town of Soledar, have come at a huge cost. The mercenary group for months has led an assault intended to advance and capture the city of Bakhmut, which Ukrainian officials called the “bloodiest” spot on the front line. But it continues to suffer massive losses there, and Priogzhin may not be able to replenish his ranks as easily as he did last year by recruiting in prisons.
In mid-February, Prigozhin admitted he is no longer able to recruit convicts, who have made up about 80 percent of the 50,000 Wagner force in Ukraine, according to U.S. assessments.
Analysts said Prigozhin’s public outburst this week showed weakness and recognition that he has lost standing. “This recording is an act of desperation,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It is rather an attempt to get through to Putin through publicity, to frighten the military authorities with political consequences.”
“Prigozhin does not have direct access to Putin and cannot solve his problems directly,” Stanovaya added. “With Surovikin, as it follows from the audio, everything more or less worked, but now that Gerasimov is in command, difficulties have arisen that require political intervention.”
Wagner has sent poorly equipped men in waves to overwhelm and exhaust the enemy, which resulted in staggering losses among inmates-turned-mercenaries. The White House recently estimated that about 30,000 members of the group have been injured or killed.
Prigozhin also published a copy of a written request for various types of ammunition signed by a Wagner officer and addressed to Gerasimov, which effectively confirms that Wagner is closely coordinated with the Russian military, though mercenary groups are technically illegal in Russia.
“When we will run out of all the Wagner fighters, it’s Shoigu and Gerasimov that will probably have to take up arms,” Prigozhin said in the interview with Tatarsky. “All Russians should speak out and say: ’Give ammunition to Wagner.”
Analysts said that replacing Surovikin was primarily an attempt to establish a proper chain of command, but it also infuriated Prigozhin and turned him into even more of a loose cannon.
“As long as Putin is relatively strong and able to maintain a balance between influence groups, Prigozhin is not dangerous,” Stanovaya said. “But the sign of weakness could provoke Prigozhin to challenge power, even if not directly Putin’s at first. War breeds monsters, whose recklessness and desperation can become a challenge to the state.”
President Joe Biden’s motorcade slipped out of the White House around 3:30 a.m. Sunday. No big, flashy Air Force One for this trip -– the president vanished into the darkness on an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing 757 normally used for domestic trips to smaller airports.
The next time he turned up — 20 hours later — it was in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 15e5cbcb48
I don't know if this is important or not, but any plane that the President of the United States is on is Air Force One. It's not the designation of a particular aircraft, but the call sign of the plane the President is physically on.
Yes. Any Air Force aircraft that the President is on to be more specific. When it's a Marine aircraft, the designation is Marine One. Marines are the ones that fly the helicopters now, used to be them and the Army. VP is Air Force Two, Marine Two.
by Suliso How about Train force one?
by ponchi101
Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Feb 23, 2023 5:31 am
How about Train force one?
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 I am still (pleasantly) surprised of how the majority of the world has sided against Russia. Even countries that in the past were clearly on their side.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 3:22 pm
I am still (pleasantly) surprised of how the majority of the world has sided against Russia. Even countries that in the past were clearly on their side.
"Today for me, tomorrow for you."
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Something is going on in the country of Georgia.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by JazzNU
by ponchi101 Sort of ties to our conversation about what can Belarusain players be expected to do.
It reminds me so much of back home. Same tactics.
Apparently, the group of people shot were Jehovah Witnesses.
Let's see where this end. But, for an European country, this is huge. Let's see the response by the German govt.
by JazzNU
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 1:26 am
Apparently, the group of people shot were Jehovah Witnesses.
Let's see where this end. But, for an European country, this is huge. Let's see the response by the German govt.
The shooting happened at a Kingdom Hall, so yes, definitely Jehovah Witnesses.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 1:26 am
Apparently, the group of people shot were Jehovah Witnesses.
Let's see where this end. But, for an European country, this is huge. Let's see the response by the German govt.
The shooting happened at a Kingdom Hall, so yes, definitely Jehovah Witnesses.
He was a former congregant who had an ax to grind with the church.
"Weeks before he opened fire on his former congregation at a Jehovah’s Witness hall in northern Germany, the authorities had checked on the gunman but determined that they did not have the grounds to seize his weapons, officials said on Friday.
The gunman killed six people, including a pregnant woman, before turning his weapon on himself as police stormed the building in Hamburg on Thursday in what the authorities called “the worst such mass shooting incident of this dimension” to affect the city.
In keeping with German privacy laws, the police identified the gunman only as Philip F., a 35-year-old German who, according to the authorities, had been a member of the congregation up until a year and a half ago, “but apparently did not leave on good terms,” said Thomas Radszuweit, the head of state security in Hamburg.
In January, the authorities responsible for weapons control received a letter saying that Philip F. “harbored a special rage against members of religious groups, especially the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Mr. Radszuweit said."
by ponchi101 The Ukrainian pictures remain heart wrenching.
by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 10:09 pm
The Guardian doesn't let you share individual pictures so here's a link to their weekly summary from around the world.
by ti-amie The woman in the earthquake rubble really got to me.
by skatingfan The photo of the Aghan weddings.
by Owendonovan Authorities Reinstate Alcohol Ban for Aboriginal Australians
The reaction to a rise in crime has renewed hard questions about race and control, and about the open wounds of discrimination.
Geoff Shaw cracked open a beer, savoring the simple freedom of having a drink on his porch on a sweltering Saturday morning in mid-February in Australia’s remote Northern Territory.
“For 15 years, I couldn’t buy a beer,” said Mr. Shaw, a 77-year-old Aboriginal elder in Alice Springs, the territory’s third-largest town. “I’m a Vietnam veteran, and I couldn’t even buy a beer.”
Mr. Shaw lives in what the government has deemed a “prescribed area,” an Aboriginal town camp where from 2007 until last year it was illegal to possess alcohol, part of a set of extraordinary race-based interventions into the lives of Indigenous Australians.
Last July, the Northern Territory let the alcohol ban expire for hundreds of Aboriginal communities, calling it racist. But little had been done in the intervening years to address the communities’ severe underlying disadvantage. Once alcohol flowed again, there was an explosion of crime in Alice Springs widely attributed to Aboriginal people. Local and federal politicians reinstated the ban late last month. And Mr. Shaw’s taste of freedom ended.
For those who believe that the country’s largely white leadership should not dictate the decisions of Aboriginal people, the alcohol ban’s return replicates the effects of colonialism and disempowers communities. Others argue that the benefits, like reducing domestic violence and other harms to the most vulnerable, can outweigh the discriminatory effects.
For Mr. Shaw, the restrictions are simply a distraction — another Band-Aid for communities that, to address problems at their roots, need funding and support and to be listened to.
“They had nothing to offer us,” he said. “And they had 15 years to sort this out.”
The liquor restrictions prohibit anyone who lives in Aboriginal town camps on the outskirts of Alice Springs, as well as those in more remote Indigenous communities, from buying takeaway alcohol. The town itself is not included in the ban, though Aboriginal people there often face more scrutiny in trying to buy liquor.
The roots of the 15-year alcohol ban were a national media firestorm that erupted in 2006 over a handful of graphic and highly publicized allegations of child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory.
Many of the allegations were later found to be baseless. But just months before a federal election, the conservative prime minister at the time used them to justify a draconian set of race-based measures. Among them were the alcohol restrictions, along with mandatory income management for welfare recipients and restrictions on Indigenous people’s rights to manage land that they owned.
Their equipment is also said to be sub-par.
With 90% to 95% of the world's countries strongly condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine, one would think that Russia would be defeated rather rapidly in any type of larger scale global war.
(Of course, that changes if China decides to partner up with them...)
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Needless to say, the infrastructure there is not built to withstand such a quake. Get ready for the 1000's of dead.
by ti-amie huntingdon
@huntingdon@mstdn.social
The Guardian insists that the French are protesting President Macron's rise in the pension age from 62 to 64, achieved through a maneuver that avoided a parliamentary vote.
They are not. They are protesting nationwide to contest Macron's cuts to their already-earned pensions. And what that means for other benefits, and the process through which government changes them, and for whose benefit.
Once again I have to ask how this man was reelected?
Simple policy promise: continue the expansion into Palestine. And the other policies against that population.
It seems that they didn't read the fine print then.
by skatingfan
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 11:34 pm
Once again I have to ask how this man was reelected?
He got less than 24% of the vote. Israel has had 5 elections in 4 years, and there is no consensus for the direction of the country.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie The Israeli Philharmonic has taken to the streets. Translation by Google
Translated from Hebrew by
The Philharmonic Orchestra went out to protest against the coup d'état
by ti-amie Bloomberg News Bot
@bloombergnews@mstdnnewsbots.org
After three months in Florida, Jair Bolsonaro is returning to Brazil to challenge the leftist government of his foe Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Most WSJ articles are paywalled. I didn't check these.
by ponchi101 I am sorry to sound cruel, but: Americans have to learn that if you are in a foreign country that is an enemy of the USA., YOU HAVE A PRICE. And your embassy is useless.
by ti-amie The kind of stories you used to find on the Dogecoin App
The Xylom is hiring* !
@thexylom@journa.host
NEW: While working on her master’s thesis in forests by coffee plantations in Costa Rica, Gina Errico took the opportunity to talk to local farmers and foresters about the issues they are facing and learn how they are trying to combat these problems.
"For Diana Vargas Hernández, a daughter of coffee farmers in Puntarenas, a sprawling province spanning most of the Central American country’s Pacific coast, the annual coffee bean harvest has always been a part of her life.
'Growing up I remember how crazy it was trying to pick all of the fruits before they went bad or the birds ate them all,' she said. (/2)
But today, Diana’s family is facing a crisis. “Now I hear my parents discussing the decrease in [coffee] yields and issues with fungal pathogens that may force them to give up on the farm and it breaks my heart.” (/3)
Her family is not alone. In Costa Rica, there are around 50,000 individually owned coffee farms, 90% of which are on less than five hectares (13 acres) of land. Each farm is being faced with multiple crises at once, including rapid changes in temperature and rainfall, an increase in fungal and insect pests, coupled with a rise in the cost of pesticides/fertilizers. (/4)
by ponchi101 Wow, if Europe does not need Ukraine, do they need... Russia? A belligerent superpower that is always attacking it?
by Owendonovan I don't use Twitter, but it more and more seems to be used as a weapon. Ultimately, it's an unnecessary convenience run by a right winger, yet trying to convince people otherwise is a fools game because people have been soaked into believing it's necessary.
by ponchi101A mass shooting in Belgrade. 9 dead.
Extremely different circumstances than shootings in the USA. Serbia has strict controls on guns, but it is equally awash in weapons left from the war.
Time to re-calibrate the theories of why these massacres happen?
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2023 3:16 pmA mass shooting in Belgrade. 9 dead.
Extremely different circumstances than shootings in the USA. Serbia has strict controls on guns, but it is equally awash in weapons left from the war.
Time to re-calibrate the theories of why these massacres happen?
No. We see one-off examples of these types of events in other countries, but not enough of them in a particular country or region to draw any conclusions. The US is clearly a special case because of the shear volume of mass shootings.
by ponchi101 But, precisely. These events, in countries other than the USA, are seldom seen. But by now, you have a handful. Port Arthur, Dunblane, Utoya, now this. Is there a connection between these four? (I am unable to remember others). if so, what is it?
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2023 5:25 pm
But, precisely. These events, in countries other than the USA, are seldom seen. But by now, you have a handful. Port Arthur, Dunblane, Utoya, now this. Is there a connection between these four? (I am unable to remember others). if so, what is it?
I don't have access to enough information about all these events to connect them. There may be some commonalities, but it would take a lot of resources to study them properly, and I'm not sure it's valuable given that they all happened in different countries, different societies, with different laws regarding fire arms.
by Suliso Some randomness is inevitable.
by mmmm8 There is a commonality - vast majority of these are perpetrated by males with a history of violence and/or isolation.
by ponchi101 I find it hard to blame Iran in this one. A treaty was in place, it had been worked out by almost every major power.
And then the USA broke up the deal. Why would they believe that if, a democratic president again signs a deal, the next republican president will not renege on it?
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2023 3:45 pm
I find it hard to blame Iran in this one. A treaty was in place, it had been worked out by almost every major power.
And then the USA broke up the deal. Why would they believe that if, a democratic president again signs a deal, the next republican president will not renege on it?
The difference between having the right to bear arms in your constitution and not having it there. It's a monumental difference, but that is why the others are able to take such sweeping actions. Those moves are in line with an Executive Order here, and if our presidents did that, it would be immediately overturned on constitutional grounds. Our interpretation is for ish for sure and exacerbates the problems.
That article is high on emotion, low on facts unfortunately. I appreciate the sentiment expressed and wanting to call out US problems, but Serbia would need to like quintuple the estimate of that announced disarmament to even get rid of half of their guns owned by average people. There is heavy gun ownership in Serbia, so in the neighborhood of 250k is a drop in the bucket. This appears to be a public relations move from a populist president, not an actual effort to truly disarm their population like we've seen in other countries following mass shootings.
by JazzNU
by ti-amie Whoa. They're not playing around are they?
by ponchi101
JazzNU wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2023 6:34 pm
...
The difference between having the right to bear arms in your constitution and not having it there. It's a monumental difference, but that is why the others are able to take such sweeping actions. Those moves are in line with an Executive Order here, and if our presidents did that, it would be immediately overturned on constitutional grounds. Our interpretation is for ish for sure and exacerbates the problems.
That article is high on emotion, low on facts unfortunately. I appreciate the sentiment expressed and wanting to call out US problems, but Serbia would need to like quintuple the estimate of that announced disarmament to even get rid of half of their guns owned by average people. There is heavy gun ownership in Serbia, so in the neighborhood of 250k is a drop in the bucket. This appears to be a public relations move from a populist president, not an actual effort to truly disarm their population like we've seen in other countries following mass shootings.
Serious question here.
The 2nd amendment starts with the words "A well regulated militia...". It seems that that gives legislators a broad spectrum of options to implement. For example, I can't see a reason why the right to bear arms would be infringed if strict regulations to own a weapon were enacted; it would be like the right to drive a car, but you can't do so without training, testing and carrying insurance.
So why the lack of such regulations?
Also. Following Chris Rock's idea. Regulate the sale of ammunition. You want to buy your AR-15? Ok, protected by the constitution. You want ammo? Different story.
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2023 8:20 pm
Serious question here.
The 2nd amendment starts with the words "A well regulated militia...". It seems that that gives legislators a broad spectrum of options to implement. For example, I can't see a reason why the right to bear arms would be infringed if strict regulations to own a weapon were enacted; it would be like the right to drive a car, but you can't do so without training, testing and carrying insurance.
So why the lack of such regulations?
Also. Following Chris Rock's idea. Regulate the sale of ammunition. You want to buy your AR-15? Ok, protected by the constitution. You want ammo? Different story.
The Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia vs Heller interpreted the 2nd amendment as an individual right to bear arms, as opposed to a state right to maintain a militia. Though the court maintains that the right is not unlimited the ruling has led to the quashing of gun laws that restricted weapons based on type, as well as requirements for licensing, purchase, possession, and carrying of weapons.
JazzNU wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2023 6:34 pm
...
The difference between having the right to bear arms in your constitution and not having it there. It's a monumental difference, but that is why the others are able to take such sweeping actions. Those moves are in line with an Executive Order here, and if our presidents did that, it would be immediately overturned on constitutional grounds. Our interpretation is for ish for sure and exacerbates the problems.
That article is high on emotion, low on facts unfortunately. I appreciate the sentiment expressed and wanting to call out US problems, but Serbia would need to like quintuple the estimate of that announced disarmament to even get rid of half of their guns owned by average people. There is heavy gun ownership in Serbia, so in the neighborhood of 250k is a drop in the bucket. This appears to be a public relations move from a populist president, not an actual effort to truly disarm their population like we've seen in other countries following mass shootings.
Serious question here.
The 2nd amendment starts with the words "A well regulated militia...". It seems that that gives legislators a broad spectrum of options to implement. For example, I can't see a reason why the right to bear arms would be infringed if strict regulations to own a weapon were enacted; it would be like the right to drive a car, but you can't do so without training, testing and carrying insurance.
So why the lack of such regulations?
The above answer is mostly correct. But it's not a single ruling, that's a more (comparatively speaking) recent landmark case, but obviously we had widespread problems long before that ruling came down. But it's the interpretation of the constitution by the Supreme Court (and also Circuit Courts, which get forgotten, but are significant and binding) over hundreds of years that matters here, not just the text of the constitution. And there's another ruling that came down in 2022 that further expanded gun right ownership and effectively put limitations on what state gun laws could limit.
by Suliso Presidential elections in Turkey today. I'd say the outcome will be of importance in a wider region not merely in Turkey itself. The last opinion polls show Erdogan slightly behind the main opposition candidate.
by ponchi101 Can we expect a clean election?
by dryrunguy
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun May 14, 2023 3:57 pm
Can we expect a clean election?
Very clean. In the sense that the result is pre-determined. Doesn't get much "cleaner" than that.
by Suliso I wish I could answer this with any confidence. Second round is likely in my opinion.
by mmmm8 Yup,runoff likely on May 28.
by ponchi101 Erdogan has to go. That is the only thing.
I am surprised that if the result was "rigged", it will go that far. Very strange for the dictatorial type not to take care of this sort of issues.
by dryrunguy I thought we had a Climate Change thread somewhere? Anyway, did anyone else not know that they're moving the city of Jakarta? Today's NY Times newsletter provides a summary.
::
800 miles away
“Jakarta has a lot of problems,” says my colleague Hannah Beech, The Times’s senior correspondent for Asia, “but its most existential one is that it is sinking in some places by up to a foot a year.”
Climate change is part of the reason: The Java Sea — which surrounds Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital — is rising. But an even bigger factor is that Jakartans, desperate for access to clean water, have dug thousands of illegal wells that effectively deflate the marshes underneath the city. Today, 40 percent of Jakarta lies below sea level, and flooding is increasingly common.
The encroaching sea presents a threat to one of the world’s most densely packed cities, where 10 million people live in an area about half the size of New York City, and another 20 million reside in the surrounding region. To deal with that threat, Indonesia’s popular president — Joko Widodo, in his ninth year in office — has devised an audacious solution: He is moving the country’s capital.
The new capital, now under construction, is called Nusantara. It is being built from the ground up, about 800 miles from the current capital. Joko promises that the city will be a model of environmental stewardship, carbon neutral within a few decades.
Unlike Jakarta, which is in Java, the region that has long dominated the country’s politics and economy, Nusantara is in Borneo, where residents have felt overlooked. “Indonesia is more than Jakarta,” Joko told Hannah on a recent tour of Nusantara. “Indonesia is more than Java. So we must make the capital in a place that is far away.”
But it remains unclear whether his grand plans will succeed. Joko wants the new capital to open next year, before his second — and, by law, final — term as president ends. Not all his potential successors support the plan. And it seems to be behind schedule: No residential towers have been built, and the lead architect is worried that the rapid construction schedule could compromise safety.
“People want Nusantara to succeed because it means that the developing world — despite all the problems that were placed in its path by the legacy of imperialism, by the legacy of colonialism — that a country can succeed on its own terms and can be a successful democracy and can create its own vision for itself,” Hannah said. “But it’s a very, very challenging thing to do.”
by mmmm8 Had no idea - thanks for posting!
by ponchi101 Extremely odd.
But what do you do with the actual city? Let it sink and vanish? What sort of environmental issues would that bring (just imagine the effect of hundreds of thousands of septic tanks leaching into the water).
by ti-amie
A certain orange blob wants to do the same thing...
by ti-amie I haven't posted about it but things in Peru haven't calmed down either.
by ponchi101 Meanwhile, a little bit further north, in the Republic of Colombia, us Venezuelans that live here are telling Colombians that, when your president starts saying that he needs more years to fix the country, and attempts to take over the judicial branch of government, it is time to head for the hills.
What Drop Shot told me years ago: moving from one L. American country to another is simply changing cabins in the Titanic.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 7:38 pm
Meanwhile, a little bit further north, in the Republic of Colombia, us Venezuelans that live here are telling Colombians that, when your president starts saying that he needs more years to fix the country, and attempts to take over the judicial branch of government, it is time to head for the hills.
What Drop Shot told me years ago: moving from one L. American country to another is simply changing cabins in the Titanic.
What a sad state of affairs.
by Suliso Perhaps here is part of the answer why South America and non-oil Middle East is not doing so well economically? Mathematics and science seems to be taught way better in Eastern Europe (a bit old data, though).
by ponchi101 All I can I say is: math was frequently loathed by my fellow students and friends. So no wonder Vennieland is not even in the graph.
And I always say that math in S. America is taught in such a way that it is a turn down.
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed May 17, 2023 7:38 pm
Meanwhile, a little bit further north, in the Republic of Colombia, us Venezuelans that live here are telling Colombians that, when your president starts saying that he needs more years to fix the country, and attempts to take over the judicial branch of government, it is time to head for the hills.
What Drop Shot told me years ago: moving from one L. American country to another is simply changing cabins in the Titanic.
Didn't he just get elected last year? Usually the prepping doesn't start till the year before the election.
by ponchi101 That is not what he is talking about. The presidential terms in Colombia are 4 years, and Santos made re-election not an option. You do not get a second term, but there is a clause that would allow for such an extension via a referendum. That is what he is aiming for. So, in order to start such a process, he needs to start early enough.
I am not sure if the referendum is to force four more years, or to allow him to run again.
Anyway, these baboons here are discovering that he is a POS and his disapproval rating is around 67%. He has a lot of work to do.
by ti-amie Here in the States they want to bring back child labor because it's okay for kids 14 years old to work in bars (!). In England it's debtors prisons.
Secret Home Office policy to detain people with NHS debt at airport found unlawful
Policy was uncovered by defenders of two women repeatedly detained when trying to re-enter the UK
Diane Taylor
Fri 26 May 2023 19.57 BST
A secret Home Office policy to detain people with the right to live in the UK at air and seaports has been found to be unlawful in the high court.
The policy applied to those with unpaid NHS debts and was only uncovered through evidence gathered from charities and lawyers fighting the cases of two mothers who were repeatedly detained.
The women were held at ports when trying to re-enter the UK after trips abroad to visit family, because they had outstanding debts to the NHS for maternity care – debts which Home Office was aware of when granting them leave to remain in the UK.
While the women were only detained with their children for short periods they did not know when they would be released.
Border Force officials detained and investigated them because they were flagged on the Home Office system as having unpaid NHS debts.
In a judgment handed down today Mr Justice Chamberlain found that the two women and their young children were falsely imprisoned by the home secretary without justification. He also found that Suella Braverman had breached her duty to consider the equality impact of the policy on women, who are known to be disproportionately affected by NHS charging.
The Home Office was asked during the course of the case to confirm the policy existed and publish it, but refused to do so. It has now finally disclosed the policy and said it is being rewritten.
The women who brought the case are from Mali and Albania respectively. The woman from Mali is a survivor of FGM and ran up NHS debts due to several miscarriages and a stillbirth. Her debt is being challenged due to her being a victim of FGM. The Albanian woman is paying off her NHS debt.
Ruling in the women’s favour the judge found the Home Office’s unpublished policy to stop people at air and seaports was unlawful.
In his ruling he said: “If such a policy is not published, there is a danger that a practice will develop … which can only be discerned by piecing together the accounts given by a large number of individuals to their respective lawyers. The result may be that large numbers of people are unlawfully detained before the practice can be identified and the illegality exposed.
“By that time, however, it is likely that it had been applied to a very large number of people. It would have been much better for all concerned if the policy had been published and its illegality recognised earlier.”
Both women welcomed the judgment. The Albanian woman, who was detained at least eight times, said: “I was detained with my children every time we travelled home to see my family for the last eight years. It made us dread approaching immigration control as we just did not know how long they would hold us or even if they would let us through.
“I am really relieved that the judge agreed with us that the officers cannot use detention powers in this way. I welcome the Home Office’s decision to change its policy for people like me who have been living lawfully in the UK for years and who just want to be able to return home.”
Janet Farrell, of Bhatt Murphy Solicitors, who represented both the women, said: “The detention of our clients was humiliating and distressing. This judgment shows how vital it is that policies concerning the use of coercive powers such as detention are published so victims can hold the government to account in court in a meaningful way.”
A government spokesperson said: “The Home Office is carefully considering the implications of the judgment. Amended guidance will be updated and published shortly.”
by Owendonovan Haven't they already made that musical?
by ti-amieAmerican ‘stolen’ as a baby finds family in Chile
Rafael Romo
By CNN's Rafael Romo
Updated 3:22 PM EDT, Sat May 27, 2023
Scott Lieberman, an American who lives in San Francisco, always knew that he was adopted from Chile. What he did not know was that he had been stolen as an infant.
“I lived 42 years of my life without knowing that I was stolen, not knowing what was happening down in Chile during the 70s and 80s and I just, I want people to know… There are families out there that can still be reunited,” Lieberman said.
During the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-90), many babies were funneled to adoption agencies. Some of the children came from rich families, taken or given up to protect reputations. Other babies from poorer backgrounds were simply stolen – as it appears was the case with Lieberman.
In the last decade, CNN has documented multiple cases of Chilean babies who were stolen at birth. Authorities in the country say priests, nuns, doctors, nurses and others conspired to carry out illegal adoptions, with the main motive being profit.
Chilean officials say the number of stolen babies could be in the thousands, but the country’s investigation into the controversial adoptions has languished over the years. Some who took part in the illegal adoptions have died. Many clinics or hospitals where the babies were allegedly stolen no longer exist.
When Lieberman found out about the scandal a few months ago, he began to wonder if the same thing had happened to him – and began to piece together the story of two families deceived, in Chile and in the United States.
Scott Lieberman as a child.
Courtesy of Scott Lieberman
Stolen children
Lieberman’s story starts in late 1979 in the town of Cañete, located in south central Chile’s Biobío region. His mother Rosa Ester Mardones, then 23 years old, had just found out she was pregnant. Since she was unmarried and in a difficult financial situation, she sought help, according to her daughter Jenny Escalona Mardones, who is two years older than Lieberman.
Escalona told CNN that Catholic nuns went to visit her mother and offered her a job in Santiago, the capital, where “she would do domestic work at a house belonging to a doctor.”
Once in Santiago, she was also helped by a social worker who, according to Escalona, seemed particularly interested in Mardones’ case. Over the course of her pregnancy, Escalona said, the social worker made her mother sign multiple documents that the young woman from the countryside didn’t fully understand.
The baby was born on August 21, 1980, at Santiago’s Clinica Providencia. He was healthy, but Rosa Ester Mardones barely got to see him after delivery. The social worker took custody and took the baby away, even before his mother had left the hospital, Escalona said.
When Mardones sought the social worker to inquire about the baby, she was threatened.
“Don’t come here looking for the baby anymore; because, if you do I will call the police, and they will arrest you,” Escalona said her mother was told.
“Your son is now in the Netherlands or Sweden. He’s in a different country. You’re a poor, single woman, and you’re not capable of raising another child. You signed your parental rights away, anyway.”
During the dictatorship, asking too many questions was risky. For a woman like Mardones, getting help from the police would’ve been unthinkable.
The baby was indeed in a different country, but not in Europe. An American couple had adopted him and done all the paperwork to legally take the baby home with them to the United States, where the infant, now named Scott Lieberman, would grow up.
‘I feel more complete’
In an interview with CNN, Lieberman, now 42 years old, said his adoptive parents never suspected they were adopting a baby boy who was stolen from his biological mother.
It was not until late last year when Lieberman, who works as a video editor, read a story about illegal adoptions in Chile, that he began to wonder if that had been his case too.
With the help of “Nos Buscamos” a Chilean nonprofit organization seeking to reunite children who were taken away from their biological parents, he found out he had a half-sister. With the help of MyHeritage, an online genealogy company, Lieberman and Escalona took DNA tests that confirmed they are related.
Lieberman showed CNN his Chilean birth certificate and birth record as well as his American adoption documents.
On April 11, Lieberman flew to Chile to meet his biological family. His mother had died of bone cancer in 2015, at the age of 58. She never knew her son was adopted by an American family and would return to his native Chile less than a decade later.
He instead met his half-sister at the Concepción Airport. She doesn’t speak English and his Spanish is basic, but there were no words needed. Despite being strangers a few weeks before, they were now hugging as if they had known each other their entire lives. No one, including those around them, had a dry eye.
Asked how he felt about returning to his native country, Lieberman said: “Very good. Almost all my family is here. It’s incredible. So much love!” Members of his extended family had also shown up and he later met with his biological father as well.
His sister, Escalona, said she felt “very happy,” yet lost for words.
Scott and his half-sister, Jenny Escalona, at their mother's grave in Chile.
Courtesy of Nos Buscamos
Lieberman believes he was fortunate, especially when he thinks about those mothers and children who haven’t found each other.
“She knew I existed. There are other mothers who were told their children were stillborn. They don’t know that their child could still be alive in another country,” Lieberman said.
Lieberman spent 12 days in Chile, visiting his biological mother’s tomb along with his sister.
“I didn’t feel that my life wasn’t complete before. I had a lot of love from my family growing up. I have a lot of love from my friends. But now, it’s weird, but I do feel more complete. loved in a way that I’ve never felt before,” Lieberman told CNN after returning to San Francisco from Chile.
Escalona now believes the nuns who went to visit her mother when she became pregnant, as well as the doctor in whose house she worked, conspired with the social worker to steal her half-brother from her mother.
Escalona said her mother never told her anything about her brother. She believes a combination of shame, pain and sadness prevented her mother from letting her know the truth.
“Never, ever, did my mother talk about the fact that she had had a child and that he had been stolen. It was the painful truth that she kept to herself for many years. I even think that her pain took her away,” Escalona said.
What Escalona knows is from a close relative who helped her mother. That relative was with her mother during the pregnancy and knew details about the baby’s birth and how he was taken away from her mother, Escalona said.
The truth has helped Escalona understand things about her mother that once seemed puzzling, including her mother’s decision to live near Santiago’s airport during the last years of her life.
“She liked going to the airport and she would ask us to go with her. She would just sit down and watch people, especially those who were arriving,” Escalona said.
She now believes her mother hoped her son would come back.
Her mother moved back to Cañete just before she died, but would often say: “I can no longer hear the airplanes.”
by ti-amieIndia train disaster: signal fault identified as cause, says minister
Train was diverted on to wrong tracks, says railways minister as efforts to clear wreckage continue
Hannah Ellis-Petersen South Asia correspondent
Sun 4 Jun 2023 15.15 BST
India’s railways minister has said the country’s deadliest train crash in more than two decades was caused by an error in electronic signals that sent a train on to the wrong tracks.
Ashwini Vaishnaw said the full investigation into Friday’s crash in the eastern state of Odisha, which killed at least 275 people and injured more than 1,000, was still under way but “the root cause has been identified”.
According to preliminary findings, a green signal was given to the Coromandel Express train to move forward, at which point the train switched tracks from the main line to the loop line where a stationary freight train, laden with heavy iron ore, was parked.
The impact of the collision, which took place as the Coromandel Express was travelling at 80mph, was momentous. The crash caused the engine and the first four or five coaches to jump the tracks, topple and hit the last two coaches of the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express heading in the opposite direction, causing several carriages of that train to also derail.
Vaishnaw would not confirm if the human error or interference had played a role in the signalling malfunction. “Who has done it and what is the reason will come out of an investigation,” he added. The railways ministry has also sought a criminal investigation into the incident by the Central Bureau of Investigation, a government agency.
Two officials of the Railway Board also confirmed that the train had been given a green signal to proceed down the loop track and had not been over the speed limit at the time of the collision.
Jaya Varma Sinha, a member of the Railway Board, said failure of the track management system was the main focus of investigations. The computer-controlled “interlocking system”, which is in use across the whole railway network, coordinates and controls the signals to oncoming trains.
It is supposed to automatically direct a train to an empty track at the point where two tracks meet, but it appears this did not happen on Friday. Sinha said she had spoken to the driver, who survived the crash, and confirmed he had not jumped a signal.
“It is supposed to be tamper-proof, error-proof. It is called a failsafe system, even if it fails the signal will turn red and the train will be stopped,” said Sinha. “However, as it is being suspected, there was some kind of a problem in the system.”
More than 1,000 rescuers have been working since Friday to locate survivors in the aftermath of the collision. On Sunday, as the operation was completed and all the remaining bodies were pulled from the wreckage, the process began of clearing the mangled carriages and relaying the tracks so service could resume along one of India’s busiest rail routes.
“All bodies have been removed. Our target is to finish the restoration work by Wednesday morning so that trains can start running on this track,” said Vaishnaw as he visited the collision site on Sunday.
The death toll, earlier estimated at 288, was revised down on Sunday after it was found that some bodies had been counted twice, according to a statement by a senior Odisha state official.
Five more bodies were brought to a school being used as a mortuary near the scene of the accident early on Sunday, where health workers struggled to deal with the scale of the decomposing bodies in the hot temperatures. Almost 100 ambulances were deployed to bring the bodies, many of which were mutilated beyond recognition, to hospitals and cold storage facilities in Odisha’s capital, Bhubaneswar, until they were claimed by relatives.
Friday’s incident was the worst since 1995, when two trains collided near Delhi, killing 358 people. The accident has thrown a spotlight on the safety of the Indian railways at a time when the prime minister, Narendra Modi, has spent billions on a sleek modernisation of the British colonial-era railway network, which carries about 13 million passengers daily.
Despite government efforts to improve rail safety, which have brought down fatalities to zero in the past two years, several hundred accidents occur every year on India’s railways, the largest train network under one management in the world, the majority of them due to derailment.
by ponchi101 To which all I can say is:
BORIS JOHNSON WAS STILL IN PARLIAMENT?
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2023 9:39 pm
To which all I can say is:
BORIS JOHNSON WAS STILL IN PARLIAMENT?
He stepped down as Prime Minister, but he was still an elected member of Parliament until an election, or resignation.
by ti-amieCanada’s Ability to Prevent Forest Fires Lags Behind the Need
Provincial firefighting agencies are stretched thin, there is no national agency and it’s hard to get approval for controlled burns — factors that have exacerbated recent outbreaks.
The headquarters of Quebec’s forest firefighting agency, in Roberval, where all operations for the northern part of the province are managed.Credit...Renaud Philippe for The New York Times
By Vjosa Isai and Ian Austen
Reporting from Toronto
June 9, 2023, 6:58 p.m. ET
Canada’s capacity to prevent wildfires has been shrinking for decades because of budget cuts, a loss of some of the country’s forest service staff, and onerous rules for fire prevention, turning some of its forests into a tinderbox.
As residents braced for what could be the worst wildfire season on record, and one that is far from over, the air slowly cleared over the Northeastern United States on Friday, but hundreds of wildfires continued to burn across Canada.
Thanks to some rain and cloud cover near wildfire areas, with scattered rains expected in parts of southern Ontario on Sunday, Steven Flisfeder, a warning preparedness meteorologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, predicted that the weekend could bring better air quality in Toronto, the country’s largest city.
“That’s going to help flush out the contaminants from the air a little bit,” he said.
More than 1,100 firefighters from around the world have been dispatched across Canada to help combat the country’s raging fire season, officials said, including groups from France, Chile, Costa Rica, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Wildfire emergency response management is handled by each of the 10 provinces and three territories in Canada, but hundreds of blazes across the country have stretched local resources thin, and renewed calls for a national firefighting service.
At a time when many Canadians are asking if the country has enough wildfire fighting resources, several experts say the government should be focused on doing all it can to prevent wildfires, a focus from which it has strayed since budget cuts imposed in the 1990s that hampered the nation’s forest service.
“We need to do more to get ahead of the problem,” said Mike Flannigan, who studies wildfires at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, a community in the heart of that province’s wildfire country. “And progress on that has been slow, primarily because we are kind of stuck in this paradigm that fire suppression is the solution.”
People who study Canada’s response say it’s been weakened by a variety of forces, including local and national budget cuts for forests, cumbersome safeguards for fire prevention and a steep reduction in the number of forest service employees.
British Columbia spent 801 million Canadian dollars (about $601 million) on fighting forest fires during the unusually hot year 2021 wildfire season, which saw fire wipe out the town of Lytton. But the province’s current wildfire prevention budget is just 32 million dollars a year.
Similar disparities exist in other provinces, which tend to invest in small, community-based programs that protect villages and towns rather than mitigating the risk of fire throughout forests, increasing the threat of out-of-control wildfires.
The small programs are helpful, involving measures like clearing forest floors on the periphery of towns and creating fire breaks between settlements and forests. But to reduce runaway wildfires, broader measures are necessary, experts said.
One of the fire prevention methods that Canada should expand, experts said, is prescribed burns, a practice that involves setting a specific area on fire under controlled conditions to incinerate trees, dead branches, brush and other materials that could otherwise be fuel for wildfires.
It also stimulates ecological restoration, clearing the canopy cover to allow sunlight to reach the forest floor and promote new growth, as well as opening the cones of some tree species to free seeds.
“It’s a great technique, but we haven’t used it that much in Canada,” said Daniel Perrakis, a fire scientist at the Canadian Forest Service. “With climate change, we’re clearly seeing different fire behavior.”
Some communities of Indigenous people — whom wildfires disproportionately affect because they often live in fire-prone areas — have hewed to the practice of controlled burning.
Two years ago, while a record-breaking heat wave exacerbated wildfires across British Columbia, some of the flames roared close to the Westbank First Nation, an Indigenous community in the Okanagan Valley. But years of thinning the forest and managing their land using cultural burning practices prevented the fire from causing any major damage to the community.
Across Canada, there are a handful of controlled burns each year, according to partial figures compiled by the National Forestry Database. Foresters seeking to perform them must go through a lengthy process to get approval from a province.
The burns are generally unpopular in places like public parks, and even more so when they go wrong. In 1995, more than 1,000 people were evacuated after a prescribed burn got out of control and threatened the town of Dubreuilville, Ontario.
In some fire seasons, the duration of the approval process exceeds the narrow window when weather conditions are favorable for controlled burns.
The rules minimize the risk of an out-of-control prescribed burn, but they increase the risk of an out-of-control wildfire.
“Essentially, you’ve handcuffed folks — foresters and silviculturists — from being able to get off successful prescribed burns because we made the rules so onerous and so restrictive” causing more wildfire fuel to be left on the forest floor, said Sarah Bros, a forester and co-owner at Merin Forest Management based in North Bay, Ontario, who has done prescribed burning. “Harvesting doesn’t do what Mother Nature does.”
Budget cuts in the late 1990s, called for by the prime minister at the time, Paul Martin — known as a “deficit slayer” — left few government agencies untouched, shrinking the Canadian Forest Service’s staff size from 2,200 to the 700 people it now employs.
“There was an incredible brain drain,” said Edward Struzik, a fellow at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy at Queen’s University in Ontario and author of the book “Dark Days at Noon: The Future of Fire.”
“People were mortified, and continue to be mortified, by the fact that we have this situation that’s unfolding, this new fire paradigm, and the forest service’s just getting chump change to address it,” he said.
Dan Bilefsky contributed reporting from Montreal. Remy Tumin contributed reporting from New York.
Vjosa Isai reports for The Times from Toronto. @lavjosa
A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto and currently lives in Ottawa. He has reported for The Times about Canada for more than a decade. @ianrausten
by ti-amieParis explosion: More than 20 injured after blast
Twenty-nine people have been injured, four of them seriously, after a large explosion in central Paris.
The blast took place in a building that housed a design school and the Catholic education system headquarters in Rue Saint-Jacques, in the fifth arrondissement of the French capital.
Emergency workers are searching through the wreckage of the building, with at least two thought to be missing.
According to witnesses, there was a strong smell of gas before the blast.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said after arriving at the scene that initial checks of camera footage suggested the explosion occurred within the building, which was next to the Val de Grâce church, Le Parisien newspaper reported.
However, the authorities have said the cause of the blast has not yet been determined.
The building was initially engulfed by fire, but the blaze was later brought under control, said Paris police chief Laurent Nunez.
The area has been cordoned off and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has been to the scene, while Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has warned people to avoid the area.
The area where the explosion took place runs south from the Latin Quarter in Paris's Left Bank area that is popular with tourists and known for its student population.
A student at Ecole des Mines on Boulevard Saint-Michel told Le Parisien: "I was in front of the Val de Grâce, I heard a huge boom and I saw a ball of fire 20 or 30m high. And the building collapsed with a huge noise. I smelled gas, but took several minutes to come to my senses."
Another witness, Antoine Brouchot, told the BBC he was at home when he heard a "big explosion".
"I stuck my head out of the window and looked towards Cochin [hospital], then I saw a big cloud of smoke and as I got closer, there was a building that had collapsed and for the moment, there is a fire."
by ti-amieIn missing submersible and migrant disaster, a tale of two Pakistans
Analysis by Ishaan Tharoor
Raja Sakundar displays a picture of his nephew, who was missing after a boat carrying migrants sank off the coast of Greece. (Nasir Mehmood/AP)
The two maritime tragedies that gripped attention in recent days could barely be more different.
Last Wednesday, a fishing trawler carrying more than 700 migrants primarily from Egypt, Syria and Pakistan went down off the coast of Greece, in one of the worst such disasters in more than a decade. Though the death toll is officially at 81, Greek authorities have only counted 104 survivors. Their testimony suggests all the women and children aboard perished. By some estimates, more than 300 Pakistani nationals on the boat died, with one account alleging many were forced to stay below deck in the hold as the ship capsized and sank.
Shocking as it is, this disaster in the Mediterranean is all too familiar to a global public largely numb to the plight of those making the perilous crossing. The migrants fell victim to a familiar chain of misfortunes: They were exploited by people-smuggling networks that stretched from their countries of origin to the coast of Libya. With the threat of violence, they were forced onto an overcrowded, unseaworthy, ill-equipped boat. The ship that took them to their deaths was stranded for days on its intended journey to Italy without help, despite apparent distress calls made by the migrants. And they endured this all in a desperate attempt to find asylum on a continent whose governments have failed to come up with a collective plan on migration and where many locals would rather push them back into the sea.
Far away in the North Atlantic, a cinematic ordeal is playing out that has news media and the global public riveted. Somewhere near the famous wreck of the Titanic, a deep-sea submersible is missing. At the time of writing, the search for the 21-foot craft, known as the Titan, was entering its fourth day after it lost contact with Canadian research vessel Polar Prince on Sunday morning. The U.S. Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Air Force had scrambled to locate the submersible over a vast 10,000-square mile search zone in the ocean, which reaches 13,000 feet deep in some areas. U.S. officials feared that the five passengers aboard, if still alive, had not much more than a day of oxygen left.
The Titan was carrying out a dive organized by OceanGate Expeditions, a private research and tourism company that has conducted trips to the Titanic wreck site. Its passengers reportedly pay $250,000 a head to go on the journey. Though the names of those on board had not been released by authorities, reporting confirmed that British businessman and explorer Hamish Harding, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush were inside the Titan. So too were Shahzada Dawood, heir to one of Pakistan’s biggest private fortunes, and his teenage son Suleman.
“[They] had embarked on a journey to visit the remnants of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean,” the Dawood family said in a statement. “As of now, contact has been lost with their submersible craft and there is limited information available.”
On social media, some Pakistanis pointed to the grim spectacle of compatriots from opposite ends of a great socioeconomic divide disappearing in the watery depths at the same time. Pakistan is in the middle of a devastating economic crisis, with the rate of inflation at a 50-year high, food shortages, energy blackouts and mounting unemployment. The conditions have compelled numerous people, especially among the poor, to seek a better life abroad.
“The desperate situation has led to the mushrooming growth of people smugglers in Pakistan,” wrote Zahid Shahab Ahmed, a senior research fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization in Australia. “In exchange for large sums of money, they offer people transportation, fake documentation and other resources for a swift departure from the country.”
“It is bad enough that the spectacular failure of the government to fulfill its part of the social contract by providing economic security to its citizens drives desperate individuals — even the educated ones — to leave the country,” noted a Monday editorial in Dawn, a Pakistani daily, further lamenting that “an inept, uncaring government has made little effort to crack down on a vast network of human smugglers who fleece desperate individuals and put them on a path strewn with hazards.”
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif declared Monday a national day of mourning, while authorities in various parts of the country arrested people suspected of links to human-trafficking networks. “Our thoughts and prayers are with you, and we pray that the departed souls find eternal peace,” the chairman of Pakistan’s Senate, Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani, said, vowing to take on the people smugglers.
That may be cold comfort to many Pakistanis, who live in what by some measures is South Asia’s most unequal society, one long dominated by influential, quasi-feudal potentates. Sharif himself is a scion of a political dynasty that also has huge business interests.
The Dawoods belong to the same world. Shahzada Dawood is vice chairman of Engro Corp., a major conglomerate that is a subsidiary of family-owned Dawood Hercules, fronted by his father, Hussain Dawood. It’s a multibillion-dollar operation that sprawls over various sectors of Pakistan’s economy, including textiles, fertilizers, foods and energy. As a result, Engro has been the beneficiary of hefty government subsidies. Both Dawood and Sharif were identified in the 2016 Panama Papers leak among the dozens of Pakistani tycoons and politicos to possess secret offshore bank accounts.
Dawood frequented the World Economic Forum, touted his vision for a “sustainable future” and business models that help uplift “low-income communities.” The Dawoods are also engaged in philanthropic work in Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Britain, where Shahzada Dawood and his immediate family are based as dual British-Pakistani citizens.
The hundreds of Pakistanis lost in the Mediterranean were chasing just a glimmer of that life. Speaking to the Associated Press, Zohaib Shamraiz, a Pakistani man living in Barcelona, described his last conversation with his uncle, Nadeem Muhamm, who was still missing. Shamraiz’s uncle had left behind three young children in Pakistan to make a better life for his impoverished family.
“I spoke to him five minutes before he got on the boat,” Shamraiz told the AP. “I told him not to go. I was afraid. He said he had no choice.”
Why Modi and Other Indian Leaders Stay Single
India’s politicians need a lot of time to attend to 1.4 billion people. And with corruption widespread, those without families are often seen as less likely to steal.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one of many Indian politicians who have abstained from family life. The public perception is that “they belong to the people,” said Ajoy Bose, a journalist and author.Credit...Sajjad Hussain/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Suhasini Raj
June 22, 2023
Updated 12:41 p.m. ET
Follow live updates as President Biden hosts Prime Minister Narendra Modi for meetings and a state dinner.
When President Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, take their place on the red carpet at the White House on Thursday to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, there will be an asymmetry of sorts in the picture-perfect setting.
Mr. Modi will go stag.
While a family-centric image is often a political selling point in the United States, in India, many top leaders — the prime minister chief among them — are proudly unattached, to make a statement that no other commitment can come between them and the nation.
Work-life balance? Not for politicians in the world’s largest democracy, who stay busy attending to the needs of 1.4 billion people and compete with one another in their declarations of sleep deprivation. (Mr. Modi clocks only four hours of slumber a night, his aides say.)
“Every moment of my time, every pore of my body, is only for my countrymen,” the prime minister said in 2019 after winning re-election.
India may seem a strange place for expressions of solitary political devotion. Here, family comes before self and arranged marriages keep families strung together. Dynastic families remain important in politics: Nearly a third of new members of Parliament have had a relative in elective office or a prominent party position, according to one study.
Jill Biden, the first lady, and President Biden welcoming Mr. Modi at the White House for a private dinner on Wednesday.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
But in a country tired of official corruption, with lawmakers enriching themselves and their families and ensuring political futures for their children, many voters have come to believe that single politicians are less likely to steal.
“The very strong perception,” said Ajoy Bose, a journalist and author, “is that they have no personal interest. That they belong to the people.”
Many young Indians come under intense pressure to get married. In the political and spiritual spheres, however, “a single person is not considered selfish, but someone who has made a sacrifice and is looked up to like a god or goddess,” Mr. Bose said.
Prominent in the group of unmarried politicians are Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Indian National Congress party, and Mamata Banerjee, the top politician in the state of West Bengal and a forceful opponent of Mr. Modi’s. (She is said to get even less sleep, just three hours a night.)
Others include Naveen Patnaik, the powerful chief minister of Odisha State; Yogi Adityanath, the Hindu monk who runs India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, and is seen as a potential successor to Mr. Modi; and Mayawati, the leader of one of the biggest political organizations for lower-caste Indians. (Mr. Bose, who wrote a biography of Ms. Mayawati, said she would hold important meetings in her bedroom and greet bureaucrats in her nightgown.)
Before them, of course, was Mohandas K. Gandhi, who after being thrust into an arranged marriage at age 13 and having four children swore off sex in his 30s and submerged himself in gaining India’s independence from Britain.
Nobody in the current cohort, however, has leveraged singlehood more effectively than Mr. Modi, said Neerja Chowdhury, a political commentator and editor.
“His team has carefully crafted that image. Whether on the stairs of the airplane, or at the inauguration of an underpass, or seated on a bullet train, you only find Mr. Modi in the frame,” Ms. Chowdhury said. “The political messaging is, ‘I am there for you. I will take care of things.’”
Today, Mr. Modi, 72, lives by himself in the sprawling prime minister’s residence, his work seemingly the totality of his existence. But his life story is not so simple.
When he was a teenager, he abandoned an arranged marriage and wandered the Himalayas, searching for spiritual meaning. He rose up the ranks of a right-wing Hindu organization and became a preacher.
In the early 2000s, when he ran for state office, he left blank a space on an election questionnaire asking about his marital status. It was only during his first run for prime minister, in 2014, that he disclosed that he had been married, having always portrayed himself as unattached.
He is believed to have never lived with his wife. He said in an interview with a Bollywood actor in 2019 that he had “detached” himself from his family at a young age and learned “to leave all the pleasures of life.”
“Whether on the stairs of the airplane, or at the inauguration of an underpass, or seated on a bullet train, you only find Mr. Modi in the frame,” Ms. Chowdhury, the political commentator, said of the prime minister’s public photos.Credit...Manish Swarup/Associated Press
Many voters have been swayed by Mr. Modi’s carefully crafted image — one of an incorruptible leader who is also a kind of spiritual guru, detached from the demands of family and marriage.
“For Modi-ji,” said Parneet Ghuman, the owner of a fleet of taxis in New Delhi, “the country is his family.”
Mr. Modi himself has played this notion up.
“I’ve no familial ties,” he said at an election rally in 2014. “Who would I try to benefit through corruption?”
Some Indians have been inspired by Mr. Modi to also remain single and single-minded. Among them is Sandhya Leima, who works with an organization in India’s northeast that goes door to door to promote the prime minister’s government programs.
“I am touching 40 and will remain single,” she said. “Like Mr. Modi, I want to be able to dedicate my life for the country.”
by Suliso Something "funny" is happening in Russia right now, but really unclear what exactly.
by mmmm8 The prevailing theory in Russia is that Prigozhin is being used to set up the Ministry of Defense and its lead Sergey Shoigu to take the blame for the military failures and make Putin look cleaner. The story will be that Putin was being misinformed and misled by the minister.
by ti-amie Thank you both. There's more being posted but it's really confusing. This was the clearest thread I found.
by ponchi101 If I had one dollar for every time I heard a "Chavista" say "he is uninformed" when one asked them about some local disaster, I would need to work ever again.
They all use the same handbook.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
Meanwhile there are cat fights going on in the US House of Representatives
by ti-amie This man is the Bureau Chief of the Financial times not some blue-check Elmo fanboy.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie The folks providing the video here are followed by Mr. Vindman so I assume it's legit.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by mmmm8 That last statement is correct. Many if not most established independent Russian and Russia-focused journalists and those in independent media (including Max Seddon) are now working from abroad, mostly Latvia.
It is very difficult to understand what is happening vs what is a narrative being pushed. If there is a coup attempt, there is no available information of how large the Wagner group even is!
by ti-amie mmmm8 do you think it's safe to say that if the underbosses are fighting something is up? This is just me spitballing.
by ti-amie Jason Jay Smart
@officejjsmart
WHERE YOU GOING?! YOU SCARED?!
The jet of the Belarus Dictator Lukashenko family took off from Belarus and is now in the sky over Turkey .
Upon entering Russian airspace, the aircraft turned off the transponders and turned them on only over Kalmykia, when exiting Russia .
by ponchi101 If this were a TV comedy show, the script would go:
"Meanwhile, at the US Congress..."
And shots if Lorena Bobbit (aka Lauren Boebert) doing her looney act.
by ti-amie
by mmmm8
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sat Jun 24, 2023 1:28 am
mmmm8 do you think it's safe to say that if the underbosses are fighting something is up? This is just me spitballing.
I've stopped with predictions for Russia on February 24, 2022.
The skepticism is pretty high still that this all could be scripted
What we know as a fact is that the war is not going well for Russia.
by Suliso At this stage it doesn't look scripted to me anymore. Just following what Ukrainians are saying on Twitter. They're likely to understand better.
by Suliso Now it's 100% not fake - Prigozhin is moving to Moscow. I still think it's more likely he fails than not, but within a week max either him or Putin will be dead/in exile.
by mmmm8 Yes. Apparently his forces occupied Rostov (without much fighring it seems, only heard reports of one potnetial shooting exchange). Rostov is one of Russia's biggest cities.
There are military acrivities in another region (Voronezh) and looks like Moscow is being fortified.
Fun fact, Prigozhin has no military educaton or real experience before the war in Ukraine (he spent his youth in prison instead).
Putin's reportedly has authorized his death.
by Suliso A bit late for Putin. He could have arranged a window or tea easily enough half a year ago. Now he will need a serious military force to do it and it's unclear whether he has enough fully loyal forces.
by ponchi101 Who can offer the oligarchs more? With Putin, they know they can do a lot, but he has hurt them financially with this war.
What can Prigozhin offer them and the army?
These coup's usually hinge on that.
by ti-amie I trust the information people here post more than the blue check's on that s**tsite of Elmo's.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by Suliso
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sat Jun 24, 2023 6:48 pm
I trust the information people here post more than the blue check's on that s**tsite of Elmo's.
It's nice that you trust us, but unfortunately in this case we don't know anything firsthand. For that sources inside Ukraine or Russia are needed...
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sat Jun 24, 2023 6:48 pm
I trust the information people here post more than the blue check's on that s**tsite of Elmo's.
It's nice that you trust us, but unfortunately in this case we don't know anything firsthand. For that sources inside Ukraine or Russia are needed...
I say that because I believe that the major news/media outlets in Europe maintain bureaus in major cities there unlike the US media and news outlets that closed their bureaus to cut costs and now find themselves having to sort through the noise of Elmo's blue check rando's and bot farms.
Say what you want about the site formerly known as Twitter but in a situation like this it was an invaluable source of on the ground information. Now that is suppressed by the algorithm in order to promote RW loonies screaming about the CIA attacking poor Vlad who is valiantly fighting back against the forces of darkness. It's really horrible.
Don't forget CNN once had a huge overseas presence too.
by Suliso It still kind of is, but you need more time and experience to sort out truth from clickbait. News organizations, even very good ones, will not be always in the right place at the right time. There are a lot of bots, particularly Russia-Ukraine war related, but after following for some time limited number of posters one notices anyway who's just talking and who's news/opinions are later confirmed by mainstream media or some other hard evidence. Not a 100% fool proof way, but it's the best one could do.
by mmmm8 I've mostly been getting information from (independent) Russian media - they're mostly outside the country, but they engaged journalists and witnesses on the ground. Almost all the international media I tried that were offering continuous coverage of this (all European) had reporters reporting from Ukraine and not Russia. The exception today was Al Jazeera, they seemed to have the best coverage.
by mmmm8 Anyway, it's over now, I guess? Lukashenko says he got the deal...
Wagner troops are leaving Rostov.
by Suliso I just can't believe all will be forgiven here. Prigozhin made Putin look very weak and also his forces shot down 6 military helicopters while on the dash to Moscow.
They reportedly found boxes of cash in a van outside his offices. Reportedly $4 billion rubles (USD 48 million).
by mmmm8
Suliso wrote: ↑Sat Jun 24, 2023 7:26 pm
I just can't believe all will be forgiven here. Prigozhin made Putin look very weak and also his forces shot down 6 military helicopters while on the dash to Moscow.
But also what happens to Wagner troops now? They make up about 12% of the armed forces in Ukraine reportedly.
It's all very confusing. He never had any specific demands in his "march of fairness," the whole thing is odd.
by ti-amie‘I hope he wins’: how tense Rostov-on-Don residents welcomed Prigozhin’s forces
In the southern Russian city, the Wagner group boasted of taking key buildings without firing a shot amid an uneasy calm
Andrew Roth
Sat 24 Jun 2023 20.12 BST
Fighters of Wagner mercenary group stand guard in a street near the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on Saturday. Photograph: Reuters
As forces from Wagner occupied key buildings in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don in Russia on Saturday, some local residents met them as heroes, bringing them water and sweets even as Russian president Vladimir Putin decried their armed insurrection as a “stab in the back”.
“Finally, we can welcome them home,” said Evgeny, 36, a supporter of the war who has been among those crowdfunding and ferrying goods into occupied Ukraine. “The army has been fighting incorrectly from the beginning and they put too much [pressure] on these guys. In Bakhmut, everywhere. And you see what happens? Our own army is trying to stop us from winning this war.”
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who essentially launched a coup targeting the defence ministry before later calling off the action, was acting “totally correctly”, he said. “I hope he wins.”
Videos from the city showed soldiers in full tactical gear being feted by locals taking selfies with infantry fighting vehicles, shaking hands and otherwise adapting to the new reality in a Russian city in effect occupied by the country’s largest paramilitary force.
Evgeny, like others, said the situation in the city was “calm, but tense”, but said that the armed men, who likely include trained mercenaries and convicts recruited from prisons, were behaving “adequately”. Two other people in Rostov-on-Don contacted by the Observer said that they were “nervous” about the troops but that things were calm for now. They were worried about the potential for a clash with regular troops in the coming days.
On a busy street corner, Lyudmilla, a woman in a sundress, brought a packet of biscuits to a Wagner soldier standing guard outside a local municipal building. Another man brought the soldier a bottle of water.
“Why am I bringing food? Because we are kind people,” she said on camera. “It’s not just me doing it. People are bringing pirozhki, apples, chips. Everything there in the store has been bought to give to the soldiers.”
But some locals reacted extremely negatively to the arrival of the Russian mercenaries. “Have some shame! Are you the protectors of our fatherland or not?” said one man pushing a bicycle past five Wagner fighters. “Why are you starting this mess here?”
Prigozhin, who has been cultivating the image of a populist who speaks truth to power, will need public support if he has any chance of surviving the aftermath of what Putin called his “internal mutiny” and “treason”.
“Why does the country support us? Because we have come with a march of justice,” Prigozhin said in a voice memo that he released on his Telegram account yesterday morning. “We have come without shooting, we haven’t touched a single conscript, we haven’t killed a single person … We took the headquarters in Rostov without firing a single shot.”
Gunfire and explosions could be heard around the military headquarters yesterday afternoon, as video showed a crowd of people at one point running away from the site. Other clashes have taken place on the city outskirts, and an oil depot in Voronezh was set alight. Prigozhin deployed some of his forces in a surprise raid towards Moscow, but later ordered them to halt “to avoid bloodshed”.
But overall, life in Rostov-on-Don continued somewhat normally yesterday. In the centre, a man played on an accordion, while locals milled past the armoured personnel carriers that Wagner had ridden in on. Other footage showed Wagner soldiers stocking up on supplies at the local supermarkets and buying lunch at the Russian version of McDonald’s.
Many others appeared angry about the soldiers’ arrival. “I’ve always admired you, why didn’t you go to Moscow?” one man asked a Wagner fighter as 20 other people looked on. “I always supported them as long as they were fighting.”
“I think everybody just wants calm, they want to be left alone,” said Dmitry, a driver from a small city near Rostov who visited the city on Saturday and saw the Wagner troops. “I can’t say many people really support them or not. They’re also angry about the war and how it is going.
“Most importantly people don’t want the city to become like Belgorod, like Shebekino,” he said.
Belgorod, a city further north, has been shelled several times in the course of the war, but life there largely goes on as normal. Shebekino, a town on the border with Ukraine, has largely been evacuated, as shelling and cross-border raids by anti-Kremlin militants have raised fears that the Kremlin can no longer defend its border cities.
What could happen next will depend heavily on Wagner’s next moves. Wagner could face stiff resistance if it moves on Moscow, but if it chooses to dig in in Rostov, then that could lead to a protracted fight with the military. “It would get messy,” said Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at the Center for Naval Analyses.
by ti-amieWagner rebel chief halts tank advance on Moscow ‘to stop bloodshed’
Putin denounces former ally Yevgeny Prigozhin’s ‘treason’ as mayor tells capital’s citizens to stay at home
Andrew Roth and Pjotr Sauer
Sat 24 Jun 2023 19.30 BST
Wagner troops on the streets of Rostov-on-Don on Saturday after taking the Russian city without any resistance Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Russia last night appeared to have averted an immediate descent into civil war after mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said he would order his Wagner fighters to end their march on Moscow and return to their bases in southern Russia.
At the end of an extraordinary day, during which a visibly angry Vladimir Putin had made an emergency television broadcast railing against the “deadly threat to our state”, Progozhin said that he wanted to avoid shedding Russian blood and would order his troops back to their bases instead.
“Now the moment has come when blood can be shed,” he said. “Therefore, realising all the responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be shed from one side, we will turn our convoys around and go in the opposite direction to our field camps.”
The decision followed negotiations with the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, both Prigozhin and Lukashenko’s press services reported. The terms appeared to include an amnesty for Wagner fighters who had participated in the insurrection, although it was not clear whether Prigozhin would still face punishment for his role in launching what was in effect the country’s first armed coup in decades.
“The negotiations lasted throughout the day,” Lukashenko’s press pool reported. “As a result, we came to an agreement on the inadmissibility of unleashing a bloody massacre on the territory of Russia.”
The Kremlin had earlier been forced to mobilise its forces and prepare defences as Prigozhin sent a convoy of armed troops towards Moscow.
Officials dug anti-tank ditches into federal highways, erected machine-gun emplacements at the city limits, and deployed infantry fighting vehicles on the streets of Moscow, while Putin vowed that the Russian state would deal brutally with its largest armed insurrection since the fall of the Soviet Union.
As the mercenaries’ convoy headed towards the capital, Moscow residents were urged by the city’s mayor to stay at home. Sergei Sobyanin said that Monday would be a “non-working day” in order to “minimise risks”.
The convoy of lorries, infantry fighting vehicles and other military hardware had been hoping to take advantage of the element of surprise and reach Moscow before it was intercepted by a larger detachment of Russian regular troops, according to analysts and military bloggers.
Putin appeared on television earlier on Saturday in an emergency broadcast, issuing a nationwide call for unity in the face of a mutinous strike that he compared to the revolution of 1917.
“Any internal mutiny is a deadly threat to our state, to us as a nation,” said a visibly angry Putin.
Prigozhin, the Putin ally who had amassed power and influence as the head of the Wagner paramilitary group, had declared war on the Russian ministry of defence, seizing the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and shooting down three military helicopters in what he called a “march of justice”.
Armed by the Kremlin to fight in Ukraine, the maverick warlord was now redirecting his forces at his enemies inside Russia in the most serious threat to the Kremlin since the 1991 Soviet coup d’état attempt.
In his televised address on Saturday morning, Putin said “the fate of our people is being decided”, accusing the Wagner group of “armed mutiny” and vowing to “neutralise” the uprising.
“It’s an attempt to subvert us from inside. This is treason in the face of those who are fighting on the front,” Putin told the Russian public. “This is a stab in the back of our troops and the people of Russia.” The response, he promised, would be “brutal”.
In videos posted on social media early on Saturday, Prigozhin, who late on Friday vowed to take revenge against the Kremlin’s military leadership, said he was at the headquarters of the Southern Military District (SMD) in Rostov-on-Don and demanded the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, come to the city, 1,000km south of Moscow.
Wagner fighters in Rostov on Saturday. Photograph: Reuters
In a bizarre scene, Prigozhin appeared alongside two senior Russian generals who appeared to have been forced to film a video with him as he demanded that the top brass come down to Rostov for negotiations.
“We have arrived here; we want to receive the chief of the general staff and Shoigu,” Prigozhin said in one video. “Unless they come, we’ll be here; we’ll blockade the city of Rostov and head for Moscow.”
In Ukraine, where three people in Kyiv were killed in Russian airstrikes overnight, the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, commented: “Everyone who chooses the path of evil destroys himself. Whoever throws hundreds of thousands into the war, eventually must barricade himself in the Moscow region from those whom he himself armed.”
In the UK, a Cobra security meeting was called and in Estonia, which neighbours Russia, the prime minister, Kaja Kallas, said there was strengthened security on the border.
Putin, meanwhile, sought to calm jittery allies, speaking with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, and the presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Officials in the Moscow were said to have been blindsided by Prigozhin’s betrayal and declaration of war on the defence ministry. “It’s real shock and hysteria, nobody understands what to do,” a former defence ministry official told the Observer, citing his conversations with former colleagues.For the first time on Saturday he also directly criticised Putin, saying the RUssian leader had been “deeply mistaken” in calling him a traitor.
Prigozhin claimed to have seized the SMD headquarters “without firing a shot”. Automatic gunfire and several explosions were heard later in the day in Rostov-on-Don, as Wagner sought to dig in by laying mines and establishing checkpoints in the city centre.
Prigozhin’s forces appeared to have taken the military by surprise, at least for now. “It’s still early,” said Michael Kofman, a military analyst at the Asian news channel CNA. “They took advantage of a situation where there was probably confusion and a lack of orders.”
Late on Friday, Prigozhin claimed a Russian rocket attack had killed scores of his fighters, and he vowed to take “revenge” and “stop the evil brought by the military leadership of the country”. In a virtual declaration of war against his rivals in Russia’s military, Prigozhin said he controlled 25,000 fighters and together “we are going to figure out why the chaos is happening in the country”.
“Anyone who wants should join. We need to end this mess,” he said.
Russian security services have moved swiftly against the Wagner boss, denouncing Prigozhin for “treachery” and ordering the mercenary group’s fighters to detain their commander. They raided a Wagner headquarters in St Petersburg on Saturday, seizing boxes of cash estimated at £37m.On Saturday morning, Prigozhin was seen meeting Russia’s deputy defence minister and the deputy head of the GRU, Russia’s main intelligence directorate. In the clip, Pirgozhin said he planned to march on to Moscow, adding that he had shot down three Russian helicopters that tried to resist him.
Several senior Russian officials called on the country to unite behind Putin. The foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, urged Russians to rally around the president, while the head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, led a prayer for Putin. Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya who is a powerful ally of Putin, called Prigozhin a traitor and said he was sending Chechen troops to squash the mutiny.
As of Saturday afternoon, Prigozhin now looks isolated, with several former military allies denouncing his rebellion. But his troops appeared to have taken Rostov without any resistance and questions will rise over the military’s loyalty.
“It is tough to gauge current loyalties at the moment. I am confident that the military hierarchy stands with the government, and there won’t be any switching of allegiances,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of the political analysis firm R Politik. “Yet, lower in the ranks, it’s a different story. If orders to open fire are issued, how will individual soldiers react?”
Britain’s defence ministry said on Saturday that the Russian state was facing its greatest security challenge of recent times, following what it said appeared to be a move by Wagner group mercenary forces towards Moscow.
“Over the coming hours, the loyalty of Russia’s security forces, and especially the Russian National Guard, will be key to how this crisis plays out,” Britain’s defence ministry said in a regular intelligence update.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskiy, said the events in Moscow showed that the “Ukrainian counteroffensive finally destabilised the Russian elites, intensifying the internal split that arose after the defeat in Ukraine”.He added: “Today we are actually witnessing the beginning of a civil war.”
2m ago
16.11 EDT
The Wagner mercenary force chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, will move to Belarus under the deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to end the armed mutiny that Prigozhin had led against Russia’s military leadership, the Kremlin said on Saturday night.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Lukashenko had offered to mediate, with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s agreement, because he had known Prigozhin personally for around 20 years.
6m ago
21.02 BST
Summary
It’s about 11 pm in Moscow. Here’s a quick overview of everything that’s happened so far today:
In an abrupt about-face, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin halted his mercenary troops and ordered them to move out of Rostov. In a statement, Prigozhin said that he wanted to avoid the spilling of “Russian blood”.
Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko's press office was the first to announce that Prigozhin would be backing down, saying that Lukashenko had negotiated a de-escalation with the Wagner head after talking to Vladimir Putin. Lukashenko said that Putin has since thanked him for his negotiation efforts.
Putin has not publicly commented on Lukashenko’s deal with Prigozhin.
Before Prigozhin called back his troops, Wagner had entered the Lipetsk region, about 360km (225 miles) south of Moscow, overnight. Putin had reportedly taken a plane out of Moscow heading northwest in the afternoon, though it is unclear where he went or his current whereabouts.
Nina Khrushcheva is Nikita Khrushchev's grand daughter?
by ti-amie
by ti-amie And the speculation begins
Seth Abramson
@sethabramson@bird.makeup
I’m not saying this happened—at all; there’s no evidence of it—but if you told me Putin had secretly offered Prigozhin the presidency of Belarus (in place of Lukashenko, who Putin can kill at any time) *that* I could buy as sufficient incentive for Wagner instantly standing down.
(After all, Prigozhin already has his army, he just needs a country to rule with it.)
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Excuse me for being ignorant in Russian matters, but: does this guy Prigozhim really believe that Putin will let him live after this? That is not in the manual for dictators.
This guy bought himself some time; he won't be dead tomorrow, but I would never take another morsel without somebody else biting it first and then waiting a good 1/2 hour, nor I would go anywhere above a first floor.
by ti-amie As for being ignorant about Russian matters:
If, and it's a big if based on exactly what the person is saying in that tweet, if the head of Wagner survives if I'm Lukashenko I'd be taking the same precautions. Don't forget the gloves though. Didn't someone get poisoned by something on his door knob in London?
by ti-amie
by ti-amie From the Guardian:
36m ago
23.53 BST
Former US intelligence officials have said that Wagner’s march on Moscow has revived fears about what would happen to Russia’s nuclear stockpile in the event of domestic upheaval, Reuters reports.
Despite an agreement on Saturday by Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to call off the insurrection, the episode signalled that President Putin’s grasp on power could be waning.
Images of tanks on Russian streets brought to mind the failed 1991 coup by communist hardliners that raised concerns about the security of the Soviet nuclear arsenal.
“The IC [intelligence community] will be super-focused on the [Russian] nuclear stockpile,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA officer who oversaw the agency’s clandestine operations in Europe and Eurasia.
“You want to know who has control of the nuclear weapons because you’re worried that terrorists or bad guys like [Chechen leader Ramzan] Kadyrov might come after them for the leverage they can get,” said Daniel Hoffman, a former senior CIA officer who served as the agency’s Moscow station chief.
US officials said they did not see an immediate threat to the security of Russia’s strategic and tactical weapons.
“We have not seen any changes in the disposition of Russian nuclear forces,” said a National Security Council spokesperson in response to questions from Reuters. “Russia has a special responsibility to maintain command, control and custody of its nuclear forces and to ensure that no actions are taken that imperil strategic stability.”
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sat Jun 24, 2023 9:59 pm
And the speculation begins
Seth Abramson
@sethabramson@bird.makeup
I’m not saying this happened—at all; there’s no evidence of it—but if you told me Putin had secretly offered Prigozhin the presidency of Belarus (in place of Lukashenko, who Putin can kill at any time) *that* I could buy as sufficient incentive for Wagner instantly standing down.
(After all, Prigozhin already has his army, he just needs a country to rule with it.)
That sounds wildly absurd to me. Lukashenko brokered the deal. Prigozhin has never lived in Belarus - it would cause huge unrest there. Of course, one of the posts above suggests anything absurd might be true. But it really seems Lukashenko is getting something out of this too.
I would go with Occam's Razor - they had a literal gun to his head.
by Suliso In politics and war most often the simplest explanation is the right one. Also we should not discount the possibility that one or more of participants are simply stupid.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by Suliso He and possibly several others have been arrested. Several sources report now.
There is no striking the king half heartedly. You either strike hard or not at all. Those guys should have known it.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
Suliso wrote: ↑Wed Jun 28, 2023 7:37 pm
He and possibly several others have been arrested. Several sources report now.
There is no striking the king half heartedly. You either strike hard or not at all. Those guys should have known it.
When you go after the king you can't miss.
by ponchi101 "You don't shoot the devil in the back"
"Why not?"
"What if you miss?"
Kaiser Souze.
by mmmm8 Looks like Surovikin may have been outed by US media who got the info from US intelligence. It sounds to me like a purposeful leak by US intelligence to see what Putin will do.
by ti-amie
mmmm8 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 29, 2023 12:37 am
Looks like Surovikin may have been outed by US media who got the info from US intelligence. It sounds to me like a purposeful leak by US intelligence to see what Putin will do.
by ponchi101 All I will say is that if US Intelligence needed to see what Putin would do, they really know nothing about the man.
His solution for everything involves defenestration, polonium 204 or cyanide laced corn-flakes. That's how he solves problems.
by dryrunguy This morning, I caught a brief glimpse of the crest of the mountain on the other side of the valley where I live. Since about Noon today, I haven't been able to see it all because of the smoke. And what's happening here is NOTHING compared to what's happening in many parts of Canada and the U.S.
Someone in a meeting today stated the smoke has been reported in Portugal.
by ti-amie The AQI here is 133 and rising.
by mmmm8
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Fri Jun 30, 2023 12:13 am
This morning, I caught a brief glimpse of the crest of the mountain on the other side of the valley where I live. Since about Noon today, I haven't been able to see it all because of the smoke. And what's happening here is NOTHING compared to what's happening in many parts of Canada and the U.S.
Someone in a meeting today stated the smoke has been reported in Portugal.
My friend in Zurich (!) says it's been making her cough all day!
by Suliso In Zurich??? I'm in Basel, 70 km away, and everything feels normal here.
by skatingfan
mmmm8 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 30, 2023 6:02 pm
My friend in Zurich (!) says it's been making her cough all day!
Maybe it's a bit psychosomatic.
The smoke that has made its way into Europe has done so via the jet stream – strong winds in the upper levels of the atmosphere. This means the smoke will not lead to dramatically worse surface air quality like the Northeast US experienced a few weeks ago.
“Whilst the smoke is high up in the atmosphere, it may make for some vivid sunrises and sunsets in the next few days,” the Met Office, the UK’s national weather service, wrote on Twitter.
by ti-amieBrazilian court bars Bolsonaro from running for office
By Marina Dias
Updated June 30, 2023 at 3:27 p.m. EDT|Published June 30, 2023 at 11:33 a.m. EDT
BRASÍLIA — Brazil’s top elections court voted Friday to bar Jair Bolsonaro from running for office for eight years — a period that covers the next presidential election — for making what members of the panel said were claims he knew to be false about the integrity of the country’s voting systems.
As president, Bolsonaro, sometimes called the “Trump of the Tropics,” repeatedly asserted without evidence that the voting systems in Latin America’s largest country were vulnerable to fraud. The seven-member Superior Electoral Court voted 5-2 Friday to convict the right-wing populist of abuse of power for undermining faith in the country’s young democracy.
The ruling, if it survives an expected Supreme Court appeal, means Bolsonaro, 68, won’t be able to run for president until the 2030 election, when he’ll be 75. It is the first time in the court’s 90-year history that it has applied the ban to a former president.
Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing. After the verdict, he said he was “stabbed in the back.”
“I would not like to become blocked from running for office,” he said. “But in politics — and this sentence is not mine — ‘nobody kills, nobody dies.’”
The former army officer won the presidency in 2018 on promises to clean up corruption in government. During his four-year term, he gutted protections for the Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous inhabitants, widened Brazil’s culture-war divisions and presided over one of the world’s deadliest coronavirus outbreaks. And now he’s being investigated for alleged corruption himself.
He left office in December after losing to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva by the narrowest margin in the country’s presidential election history. He did not concede the race, but fled to Florida before his term ended, skipping Lula’s inauguration and the ceremonial passing of the presidential sash, a ritual meant to affirm the country’s democracy.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the president of the electoral court, said the verdict Friday would “confirm our faith in democracy” and “our degree of repulsion toward the shameful populism that has been reborn from flames of hateful and anti-democratic speech and statements that propagate disgraceful disinformation.”
Bolsonaro’s election as an outsider, actions and style in office, defeat after a single term and election denialism mirror those of his ally Donald Trump.
But the trial showed the differing responses of Brazil and the United States to their insurrections.
Trump, who is battling criminal indictments on charges of mishandling classified materials and falsifying business records, is running to return to the White House.
But Bolsonaro is now prohibited from seeking any office through the end of the decade.
The difference? Brazil has the Superior Electoral Court, which is empowered by the constitution to remove politicians from office and bar them from running again. The United States has no comparable authority.
The verdict Friday was the first in several investigations against Bolsonaro. He remains accused in multiple criminal and electoral cases.
Bolsonaro’s attorney, Tarcísio Vieira de Carvalho, said he was considering grounds for an appeal to the Supreme Court.
At issue before the court were Bolsonaro’s comments at a meeting with foreign diplomats last summer in the presidential palace. In a 45-minute address that was broadcast on national television, the panel found, he made false claims about the voting system’s vulnerability to fraud. They say the comments created the environment in which thousands of his supporters stormed the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court on Jan. 8 in hopes of overturning his election loss.
The complaint was brought by Brazil’s left-wing Democratic Labor Party. Moraes, head of the electoral court, has been accused by Bolsonaro’s supporters of persecuting the former president politically.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers argued that the meeting was an “act of government” with “suggestions for the electoral process.” Bolsonaro did not attend the trial, but commented from the sidelines.
“Is it fair to revoke the political rights of someone who gathered ambassadors?” the former president said to reporters Monday. “We cannot passively accept in Brazil that possible criticism or suggestions for improving the electoral system is seen as an attack on democracy.”
And on Thursday: “It’s unfair to me, for God’s sake,” he said. “Show me something concrete that I did against democracy. I played within the bounds of the constitution the whole time.”
The court, made up of a rotation of three Supreme Court justices, two other federal judges and two lawyers, found that Bolsonaro’s comments to the diplomats were part of a script that led to the Jan. 8 insurrection. In a 382-page opinion, presiding judge Benedito Gonçalves wrote that the former president “was fully, personally responsible” for attacking the electoral system and “violated his duties as a president” during the meeting.
“It is not possible to turn a blind eye to the anti-democratic effects of violent speeches and lies that jeopardize the credibility of the electoral system,” Gonçalves wrote.
Supreme Court justices agree.
“We have never had a president who has so unequivocally attacked the institutions like Bolsonaro did,” Justice Gilmar Mendes, a two-time president of the electoral court, told The Washington Post.
“And there was a context,” Mendes continued. “When he meets with ambassadors and diplomats in his position and announces defects in the electronic ballots that he knew did not exist, he is seriously abusing his power as president.”
According to the newspaper O Globo, judicial authorities warned Bolsonaro at least 31 times between July 2021 and August 2022 that he could be punished for attacking the electoral system.
Brazil’s top prosecutor for electoral cases, Paulo Gustavo Gonet Branco, said at the outset of the trial that the former president’s rhetoric “went far beyond freedom of expression.”
“Bolsonaro’s allegations were not just reckless; they were known to be unfounded,” he said.
No one in Brazil has shown Bolsonaro’s capacity to energize the right. But his allies are already seeking his replacement. They hope that casting the former president as a victim of a corrupt system will strengthen their cause.
One candidate to succeed him, supporters say, is his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro. Another is Tarcísio de Freitas, Bolsonaro’s conservative former infrastructure minister and now governor of São Paulo state, Brazil’s largest.
“President Bolsonaro’s leadership as a representative of the Brazilian right is unquestionable and endures,” Freitas tweeted. “Tens of millions of people count on your voice. We are together, Mr. President.”
by ponchi101 Talk about a country between Scylla and Charybdis.
by ti-amie
by mmmm8 Very good points - Sweden was Russia's greatest rival for a couple centuries, which is not often remembered elsewhere because Sweden declined compared to other European colonial empires.
by ti-amie This gallery is something and it's only Tuesday
This frigging forum has code to avoid receiving or delivering mails to mails with certain extensions. And the US military doesn't?
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 18, 2023 5:05 pm
Take steps to address the issue.
This frigging forum has code to avoid receiving or delivering mails to mails with certain extensions. And the US military doesn't?
SMH
by ti-amie There is horrific video out of Manipur state in India. The violence shown happened this past May. How was this not widely talked about until now?
by Owendonovan I don't see this ending well, at all. Bibi may have just killed Israel.
Changes to Judiciary Deepen Split in Israel as Opponents Weigh Options
The law is the first step by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to curb the influence of the judiciary. The nation’s largest union is weighing a general strike.
After a night of furious mass protests that shut down major roadways and included threats of a general strike, Israelis on Tuesday confronted a divided nation, some celebrating and some seething over the passage of a highly contentious law that limits the Supreme Court’s ability to check governmental power.
The law is the first step in a broader effort by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — the most ultranationalist and religiously conservative in Israeli history — to curb the influence of the judiciary, which Mr. Netanyahu’s supporters say stands in the way of their vision for the country.
Mr. Netanyahu, fresh from receiving a pacemaker over the weekend, delivered a televised address on Monday evening in which he suggested he might pause the broader judicial overhaul until late November. His message, however, failed to quell the public unrest. Well past midnight, protesters flooded the streets of Jerusalem and other cities, burning tires and facing down police forces firing water cannons.
Quiet generally prevailed across the country on Tuesday, with most protesters who had camped out near the Parliament having packed up after a city eviction order, and police officers barring a small group of demonstrators from approaching the building.
But how the deeper political crisis might be resolved remains unclear. Opposition activists said they had already asked Israel’s Supreme Court to review the law limiting its powers. A decision could take months, but the case would set up a crisis among the branches of the Israeli government.
Here’s what else to know:
The Israeli Medical Association, which represents 97 percent of Israel’s doctors, declared a strike in much of the country for Tuesday, saying its members outside Jerusalem, the capital, would handle only emergencies and critical care needs. Separately, the country’s largest union has threatened to declare a general strike, after widespread work stoppages in March helped push Mr. Netanyahu to suspend some of his overhaul plans.
Israel’s nationalist right celebrated the law’s passage. “From today, Israel will be a little more democratic, a little more Jewish, and we will be able to do more in our offices,” the ultranationalist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told reporters on Monday. “With God’s help, this will be just be the beginning.”
After Parliament approved the judicial law 64 to 0, with opposition lawmakers in the 120-member Knesset boycotting the vote, the White House said it was “unfortunate” that it had passed with “the slimmest possible majority.” In a statement, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said that the United States supported Israeli leaders’ efforts “to build a broader consensus through political dialogue.” https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/07/25 ... e-protests
by ponchi101 I have too many negative impressions about him to be impartial. But this is indeed a step too far. He basically wants no checks and balances.
Also: a pacemaker? How, if he does not have a heart?
by ti-amie What is happening in Israel right now is a preview of what would happen in the US if TFG ever got back in office. Everyone of voting age in the US should be paying attention.
by mmmm8 One of the key things Israel had going for it in an argument for why it gets away with certain things (like the Occupation) was that it was the strongest democracy in the Middle East. Don't think gutting the democratic rule is going to serve in the long-term. This is really bad.
by ti-amie Presidential candidate in Ecuador assassinated.
by ponchi101 Unrelated. But the level of violence in neighboring Colombia is also going up, with some local leaders also assassinated by guerrilla groups.
Of course, when your current president was a guerrilla, I gather the current guerrillas are encouraged.
by Suliso Also unrelated, but I wonder how it's going in El Salvador these days.
by ti-amie
Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2023 6:02 pm
Also unrelated, but I wonder how it's going in El Salvador these days.
The US press only has the bandwidth to cover selected countries in Western Europe and of course now Ukraine. El Salvador?
by ponchi101
Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2023 6:02 pm
Also unrelated, but I wonder how it's going in El Salvador these days.
Bukele remains popular as he continues to crack down gangs, which were effectively ruling the streets of the country. Due process for all these imprisonments is absent, but most people seem not to care.
The economy is not a factor, and since BT stabilized, they have suffered no more in that aspect.
In all: deck B of the Titanic. Not sinking as fast as others (Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico), not deck E, already below water (Venezuela, Argentina) but still one place where I would not even go on vacation.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
This looks familiar - and it shouldn't
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie "When you go for the king you'd better not miss"
Omar, The Wire
by ti-amie Tristan Snell
@tristansnell@mstdn.social
Dmitry Utkin, founder of Wagner and second in command to Prigozhin, also killed in the crash.
Putin took a few months to get revenge for the Wagner attempted coup — but he got it.
Lulled Prigozhin and Utkin into a false sense of security and then struck.
by ti-amie
by Suliso Not the sharpest tool in the box this Prigozhin guy.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101
Suliso wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 8:01 pm
Not the sharpest tool in the box this Prigozhin guy.
Indeed. Even political "amateurs" like us called this. I remember saying he should never again go above a 1st floor.
by Owendonovan It's always so subtle with Vlad.....
by dryrunguy Pure coincidence. I'm just SURE of it!
by dryrunguy BTW, the NY Times is reporting that the Russian plane was likely brought down by "a blast". Could be anything. But more interesting, they included this little gem attributed to Putin. Always a class act:
Vladimir Putin for the first time spoke about the Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s apparent death, saying he “made some serious mistakes in life.”
by ti-amie
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 6:04 pm
BTW, the NY Times is reporting that the Russian plane was likely brought down by "a blast". Could be anything. But more interesting, they included this little gem attributed to Putin. Always a class act:
Vladimir Putin for the first time spoke about the Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s apparent death, saying he “made some serious mistakes in life.”
Per The Guardian he also sent his condolences.
by ti-amie
Phil Stewart
@phildstewart
Pentagon officially saying on-the-record there is no information to suggest a missile took down the aircraft.
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 6:04 pm
BTW, the NY Times is reporting that the Russian plane was likely brought down by "a blast". Could be anything. But more interesting, they included this little gem attributed to Putin. Always a class act:
Vladimir Putin for the first time spoke about the Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s apparent death, saying he “made some serious mistakes in life.”
Per The Guardian he also sent his condolences.
Before or after the insult? Not that it matters...
by skatingfan India could be behind killing of Canadian Sikh - Trudeau
By Nadine Yousif
BBC News, Toronto
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the Indian government could be behind the fatal shooting of Canadian Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Mr Nijjar was shot dead outside of a Sikh temple on 18 June in British Columbia (BC).
Mr Trudeau said Canadian intelligence has identified a credible link between his death and the Indian state.
He raised the issue with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the recent G20 summit, he said.
"Any involvement of a foreign government in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil is an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty," Mr Trudeau said on Monday in the House of Commons.
"It is contrary to the fundamental rules by which free, open and democratic societies conduct themselves," he said.
Mr Nijjar was a prominent Sikh leader in the province of BC and a vocal backer of a separate Khalistani state. Supporters of his have said that he was a target of threats in the past because of his activism.
India has previously said he was a terrorist and led a militant separatist group - accusations his supporters call "unfounded".
Mr Trudeau said Canada has expressed its concerns to high level security and intelligence agencies in India, and said he has been working on this issue with Canada's allies.
"I continue to ask with a great deal of firmness that the government of India cooperate with Canada to shed light on this situation," he said.
Azerbaijan may launch an invasion of Armenia if the West fails to respond robustly to its takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia’s ambassador to Britain has warned.
Varuzhan Nersesyan said it was probably “too late” to prevent an exodus of ethnic Armenians from the enclave, but said firm security guarantees might not be enough to protect the few who remain and avert another war.
“Now that they see the international community’s reaction is a soft one… it’s not excluded that they may be tempted to carry out another attack on the Republic of Armenia,” he told the Telegraph.
“It is a serious situation and here the international community has a preventive and preemptive role to play, not to allow any country that is becoming a bully in international relations to threaten neighbouring countries and to present unfounded territorial claims.”
Azerbaijan launched what it called an “anti-terrorist” operation against an ethnic-Armenian separatist controlled region of Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh, on Sept 19.
The assault lasted 24 hours and ended with Azerbaijani forces claiming full control of the region for the first time since a war in the 1990s.
It has resulted in a vast refugee crisis as tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians flee down the narrow mountain road connecting the region with the Republic of Armenia.
by ti-amie Can someone more familiar than I am with this part of the world explain what is going on here and why?
by skatingfan
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sun Oct 01, 2023 9:20 pm
Can someone more familiar than I am with this part of the world explain what is going on here and why?
I don't think I have the qualifications, but basically a break away region of Azerbaijan that was majority Armenian has been taken over militarily by Azerbaijan, and now there is a stream of thousands of ethnic Armenians fleeing to Armenia. If you just look at a map of the region it becomes obvious that conflict was inevitable, but of course, these territories were not designed to be independent states. The first war was in 1994, and the most recent conflict started again in 2020, and has been on-and-off again since then.
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sun Oct 01, 2023 9:20 pm
Can someone more familiar than I am with this part of the world explain what is going on here and why?
I don't think I have the qualifications, but basically a break away region of Azerbaijan that was majority Armenian has been taken over militarily by Azerbaijan, and now there is a stream of thousands of ethnic Armenians fleeing to Armenia. If you just look at a map of the region it becomes obvious that conflict was inevitable, but of course, these territories were not designed to be independent states. The first war was in 1994, and the most recent conflict started again in 2020, and has been on-and-off again since then.
Thank you. The Armenian Genocide was last century right?
by ponchi101 Have never been able to understand how you can have a country that is completely enclosed by another (Lesotho), of these republics in Asia that have sections of themselves completely enclosed by another country.
Makes no sense to me. Then again, what do I know?
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 01, 2023 11:00 pm
Have never been able to understand how you can have a country that is completely enclosed by another (Lesotho), of these republics in Asia that have sections of themselves completely enclosed by another country.
Makes no sense to me. Then again, what do I know?
I thought that Lesotho was the only country like that but I was obviously wrong.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 01, 2023 11:00 pm
Have never been able to understand how you can have a country that is completely enclosed by another (Lesotho), of these republics in Asia that have sections of themselves completely enclosed by another country.
Makes no sense to me. Then again, what do I know?
I thought that Lesotho was the only country like that but I was obviously wrong.
Estwanti, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, Singapore, Brunei - not to mention the unrecognized countries - then there are the territorial areas cut off from the main country.
by Suliso It's not uncommon in Europe to have small parcels of land of one country completely enclosed in another. Not a problem if both neighbors are on friendly terms.
by mmmm8
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sun Oct 01, 2023 9:20 pm
Can someone more familiar than I am with this part of the world explain what is going on here and why?
The more obvious is stated above. Most Armenians I know believe Turkey has a big hand in this - I would imagine this is true, but I haven't done the research. There is also concern not only for the people but for a lot of Armenian heritage sites that are in the region. There is a lot of generational trauma from the Armenian genocide, so a lot of painful reactions and I think it's accurate that the world reaction has been very muted - because Azerbaijan is swimming in oil.
An interesting detail is that the forcefully deposed head of state in Nagorny Karabakh is formerly a very prominent Russian financier - he lead one of the most prestigious hedge funds back in the oughts, as well as a tech cluster that was a joint venture with the government (back when Russia did useful things). He gave up his Russian citizenship to have a role in the NK government. I once went to an economics seminar led by this guy!
I thought that Lesotho was the only country like that but I was obviously wrong.
Estwanti, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, Singapore, Brunei - not to mention the unrecognized countries - then there are the territorial areas cut off from the main country.
[/quote]
But some of those are not like this. Eswatini is landlocked, but has borders with two countries. Monaco is on the coast; you can reach other countries by sea. Singapore and Brunei too.
These surrounded enclaves are that, surrounded. Like Suliso says, if you neighbors are friends, no issues. But in this case, and seeing how so many countries in Asia are ancestral enemies, I can't understand it.
by mmmm8 Had to look up why Lesotho has been able to maintain independence... Apparently, the people were "ornery" (i.e. resisted takeover)
by Suliso Big war has broken out between Hamas and Israel. Full reocuppation of Gaza strip probably the only realistic option now...
by Owendonovan How many more countries at war does it take for it to be considered another world war?
by Suliso Major ones?
by ponchi101 Russia invading Ukraine, Palestine and Israel. Are there any other?
Seems peaceful in comparison to the past.
by Suliso It's all Russia and Iran... Not independent events in my opinion.
by ti-amieSix people accused of assassinating Ecuador presidential candidate are killed in prison
The suspects were being held over the murder of journalist and anti-corruption campaigner Fernando Villavicencio
By
Our Foreign Staff
7 October 2023 • 4:26am
Six people accused of assassinating an anti-corruption presidential candidate in Ecuador were killed in prison on Friday.
The suspects who were implicated in the attack in August on Fernando Villavicencio were killed at a jail in the Guayas province, Ecuador’s prisons agency, SNAI, said.
Ecuador’s government condemned the killings which come barely a week before a crucial run-off election.
President Guillermo Lasso pledged “neither complicity nor cover-up” in getting to the bottom of the crime, in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Here the truth will be known,” he said.
Mr Lasso announced he was calling off a visit to Seoul and returning from a trip to New York to handle the incident.
The killings took place in Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil, the South American country’s largest city.
SNAI said in a statement the six men were all Colombian nationals. It gave no more details of the killings.
The government has said authorities are determined to identify those behind Mr Villavicencio’s murder.
Mr Lasso previously suggested Mr Villavicencio was the victim of a gang assassination.
Mr Villavicencio, a prominent journalist, was gunned down less than two weeks before a first-round general election.
Police arrested the six Colombians on the day of the assassination. A seventh suspect, also Colombian, was shot and killed by police, while other suspects were later arrested.
The US agreed to send FBI agents to assist Quito officials with the investigation.
Business heir Daniel Noboa, who holds a narrow lead in some polls ahead of the run-off, said in a social media post that the government must provide details of what occurred at the prison and that peace must be restored in the country.
His main rival for the presidency is Luisa Gonzalez, a protege of leftist former President Rafael Correa. She has said that surging crime is unprecedented and that voters should not allow “terror” to stop them from voting for change.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 07, 2023 6:26 pm
Russia invading Ukraine, Palestine and Israel. Are there any other?
Seems peaceful in comparison to the past.
Azerbaijan and Armenia, Serbia massing troops on Kosovo's border, Hungary being prickly, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 07, 2023 6:26 pm
Russia invading Ukraine, Palestine and Israel. Are there any other?
Seems peaceful in comparison to the past.
Azerbaijan and Armenia, Serbia massing troops on Kosovo's border, Hungary being prickly, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Sudan and Myanmar are still happening.
The thing about World War though, in the past and in my view, is that it has to be a single conflict that is extended across multiple regions.
So... at least we are not in a World War?
by Suliso People throw around the term "WW III" way too easily. Same for "war". War is what happens in Ukraine now or Israel, anything significantly less is not it.
by texasniteowl On one hand I feel stupid for asking this, but on the other hand...can anyone recommend a "for dummies" explanation/history re: Israel, Gaza, Palestine, Hamas, etc.?
by ti-amie Texas do you want to start with the Crusades or the 20th century?
by Suliso I feel one ought to start much earlier than that if full picture is desired.
by ti-amie
Suliso wrote: ↑Sun Oct 08, 2023 8:05 pm
I feel one ought to start much earlier than that if full picture is desired.
Well he did say he wanted the Cliff Notes version but yeah you can go further back.
by texasniteowl lol. ok. let's start with the 20th century. my school days are far behind me, not that they ever covered much about the middle east anyway. iirc, Israel was "created" rather recently to provide a Jewish homeland after WW2. Which displaced Palestinians. So peoples of 2 different religions wish to occupy the same lands (not to mention non-Jewish Israelites). That is about the level of what I "know". I'm aware there have been periods of heightened conflict from before I was born, but ins and outs re: various peace talks or treaties, borders, and settlements I am not well versed on.
by ponchi101
Suliso wrote: ↑Sun Oct 08, 2023 8:05 pm
I feel one ought to start much earlier than that if full picture is desired.
4,000 year old conflict?
by skatingfan
texasniteowl wrote: ↑Sun Oct 08, 2023 8:44 pm
lol. ok. let's start with the 20th century. my school days are far behind me, not that they ever covered much about the middle east anyway. iirc, Israel was "created" rather recently to provide a Jewish homeland after WW2. Which displaced Palestinians. So peoples of 2 different religions wish to occupy the same lands (not to mention non-Jewish Israelites). That is about the level of what I "know". I'm aware there have been periods of heightened conflict from before I was born, but ins and outs re: various peace talks or treaties, borders, and settlements I am not well versed on.
Immediately after Israel is created it's neighbours declare war. Several wars later in 1967 Israel takes control of the territory it has now includes the Gaza Strip, which is where the current conflict started. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are governed by Hamas, and Hamas is backed by Russia, and Iran. Hamas is a terrorist organization at its core, and has never been interested in a peaceful co-existence with Israel. I'm skipping over a lot.
by Owendonovan The Global Context of the Hamas-Israel War
The Hamas attack is a sign of a new world order.
David Leonhardt
By David Leonhardt
Oct. 9, 2023
Updated 7:43 a.m. ET
You’re reading The Morning newsletter. David Leonhardt and Times journalists guide you through what’s happening — and why it matters. Russia has started the largest war in Europe since World War II.
China has become more bellicose toward Taiwan.
India has embraced a virulent nationalism.
Israel has formed the most extreme government in its history.
And on Saturday morning, Hamas brazenly attacked Israel, launching thousands of missiles and publicly kidnapping and killing civilians.
All these developments are signs that the world may have fallen into a new period of disarray. Countries — and political groups like Hamas — are willing to take big risks, rather than fearing that the consequences would be too dire.
The simplest explanation is that the world is in the midst of a transition to a new order that experts describe with the word multipolar. The United States is no longer the dominant power it once was, and no replacement has emerged. As a result, political leaders in many places feel emboldened to assert their own interests, believing the benefits of aggressive action may outweigh the costs. These leaders believe that they have more sway over their own region than the U.S. does.
“A fully multipolar world has emerged, and people are belatedly realizing that multipolarity involves quite a bit of chaos,” Noah Smith wrote in his Substack newsletter on Saturday.
Zheng Yongnian, a Chinese political scientist with ties to the country’s leaders, has similarly described the “old order” as disintegrating. “Countries are brimming with ambition, like tigers eyeing their prey, keen to find every opportunity among the ruins of the old order,” Zheng wrote last year.
A weaker U.S. …
Why has American power receded? Some of the change is unavoidable. Dominant countries don’t remain dominant forever. But the U.S. has also made strategic mistakes that are accelerating the arrival of a multipolar world.
Among those mistakes: Presidents of both parties naïvely believed that a richer China would inevitably be a friendlier China — and failed to recognize that the U.S. was building up its own rival through lenient trade policies, as the political scientist John Mearsheimer has argued. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. spent much of the early 21st century fighting costly wars. The Iraq war was especially damaging because it was an unprovoked war that George W. Bush chose to start. And the humiliating retreat from Afghanistan, overseen by President Biden, made the U.S. look weaker still.
Perhaps the biggest damage to American prestige has come from Donald Trump, who has rejected the very idea that the U.S. should lead the world. Trump withdrew from international agreements and disdained successful alliances like NATO. He has signaled that, if he reclaims the presidency in 2025, he may abandon Ukraine.
In the case of Israel, Trump encouraged Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, to show little concern for Palestinian interests and instead seek a maximal Israeli victory. Netanyahu, of course, did not start this new war. Hamas did, potentially with support from Iran, the group’s longtime backer, and Hamas committed shocking human rights violations this past weekend, captured on video.
But Netanyahu’s extremism has contributed to the turmoil between Israel and Palestinian groups like Hamas. An editorial in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, yesterday argued, “The prime minister, who has prided himself on his vast political experience and irreplaceable wisdom in security matters, completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession.” Netanyahu, Haaretz added, adopted “a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.”
… but still powerful
Even with the rise of multipolarity, the U.S. remains the world’s most powerful country, with a unique ability to forge alliances and peace. In the Middle East, the Trump administration persuaded Israel and four other countries — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco — to sign unprecedented diplomatic agreements, known as the Abraham Accords. In recent months, the Biden administration has made progress toward an even more ambitious deal, between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Hamas attacked Israel in part to undermine an Israeli-Saudi deal, many experts believe. Such a deal could isolate Iran, Hamas’s patron, and could lead to an infusion of Saudi money for the Palestinian Authority, a more moderate group than Hamas (as Thomas Friedman explains in this column). But if the recent Hamas attacks lead Israel to reduce the Gaza Strip to rubble in response, Saudi Arabia will have a hard time agreeing to any treaty.
“This will slow considerably if not kill the Saudi Abraham Accords deal,” Mara Rudman, a former U.S. diplomat, told The Times.
In these ways, you can think of Hamas’s attacks as an attempt to prevent a reassertion of American power — and instead to continue pushing the world toward multipolarity.
Israel asks Chevron to shut down its gas field near Gaza.
Russia, fighting its own war, takes a neutral stance on Israel and Gaza.
An Israeli man describes the moment his wife and children became hostages.
I understand that some readers may question whether the long era of American power that’s now fading was worth celebrating. Without question, it included some terrible injustices, be they in Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala or elsewhere. But it also made possible the most peaceful era in recorded history, with a sharp decline in deaths from violence, as Steven Pinker noted in his 2011 book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” And the number of people living in a democracy surged.
Smith concluded his Substack newsletter on the new Middle Eastern war this way:
Over the past two decades it had become fashionable to lambast American hegemony, to speak derisively of “American exceptionalism,” to ridicule America’s self-arrogated function of “world police” and to yearn for a multipolar world. Well, congratulations, now we have that world. See if you like it better.
by ti-amie Ragıp Soylu
@ragipsoylu
BREAKING — Egyptian Intelligence Minister called Netanyahu ten days before Hamas attack and warned him of "something unusual, a terrible operation" that was about to take place from Gaza.
Egyptians were "surprised by the indifference shown by Netanyahu".
— Yedioth Ahranoth
Netanyahu’s office denied the Egyptian party's claim, saying that "the report of a warning that came from Egypt before the outbreak of the war is incorrect and false”
Netanyahu’s Office: "The Prime Minister has not spoken or met with the Egyptian intelligence chief since the formation of the government - neither indirectly nor directly."
A senior Israel political official on the Egyptian report: "Not only was there no message, to the contrary, the Egyptians pressed [in favour] of Hamas and increase the quota of workers and act for civilian relief"
— Channel 12
From Xitter
by Owendonovan Can't tell Bibi anything he doesn't already know.
by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Oct 09, 2023 6:36 pmFrom Xitter
Do I pronounce this as one would in Spanish?
by ti-amie Editorial | Netanyahu Bears Responsibility for This Israel-Gaza War
Haaretz Editorial
Oct 8, 2023
The disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is the clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister, who has prided himself on his vast political experience and irreplaceable wisdom in security matters, completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession, when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions, while embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.
Netanyahu will certainly try to evade his responsibility and cast the blame on the heads of the army, Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet security service who, like their predecessors on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, saw a low probability of war with their preparations for a Hamas attack proving flawed.
They scorned the enemy and its offensive military capabilities. Over the next days and weeks, when the depth of Israel Defense Forces and intelligence failures come to light, a justified demand to replace them and take stock will surely arise.
However, the military and intelligence failure does not absolve Netanyahu of his overall responsibility for the crisis, as he is the ultimate arbiter of Israeli foreign and security affairs. Netanyahu is no novice in this role, like Ehud Olmert was in the Second Lebanon War. Nor is he ignorant in military matters, as Golda Meir in 1973 and Menachem Begin in 1982 claimed to be.
Netanyahu also shaped the policy embraced by the short-lived “government of change” led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid: a multidimensional effort to crush the Palestinian national movement in both its wings, in Gaza and the West Bank, at a price that would seem acceptable to the Israeli public.
In the past, Netanyahu marketed himself as a cautious leader who eschewed wars and multiple casualties on Israel’s side. After his victory in the last election, he replaced this caution with the policy of a “fully-right government,” with overt steps taken to annex the West Bank, to carry out ethnic cleansing in parts of the Oslo-defined Area C, including the Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley.
This also included a massive expansion of settlements and bolstering of the Jewish presence on Temple Mount, near the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as boasts of an impending peace deal with the Saudis in which the Palestinians would get nothing, with open talk of a “second Nakba” in his governing coalition. As expected, signs of an outbreak of hostilities began in the West Bank, where Palestinians started feeling the heavier hand of the Israeli occupier. Hamas exploited the opportunity in order to launch its surprise attack on Saturday.
Above all, the danger looming over Israel in recent years has been fully realized. A prime minister indicted in three corruption cases cannot look after state affairs, as national interests will necessarily be subordinate to extricating him from a possible conviction and jail time.
This was the reason for establishing this horrific coalition and the judicial coup advanced by Netanyahu, and for the enfeeblement of top army and intelligence officers, who were perceived as political opponents. The price was paid by the victims of the invasion in the Western Negev.
The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.
by Owendonovan Well, Netanyahu certainly can't be tried for the crimes he committed now. What. A. Mess.
Try talking to anyone about this without some kind of impassioned point being made to try and make you look like you're in the wrong, from either side.
by dryrunguy This morning's NY Times newsletter has a really good summary of the tunnel system in Gaza commonly known as the Metro. Some of this I did not know, so I thought I would share it here.
::
A maze of tunnels
There is a transportation network below Gaza, one that Israel is trying to destroy.
The network is made up of tunnels, where most Hamas fighters are likely living alongside stockpiles of weapons, food, water and, now, more than 200 Israeli hostages. Parts of the tunnels are large enough for vehicles to drive in them.
The Israeli military first launched an intense air attack targeting these tunnels and has now sent in ground troops to destroy them. Eliminating the tunnels would go long way toward breaking Hamas’s control over Gaza.
In today’s newsletter, we’ll explain why the tunnel network is so important — and why Israel will not have an easy time dismantling it.
‘The metro’
Tunnels have existed under Gaza for years. But after Israel withdrew its forces and settlers from Gaza nearly two decades ago, Hamas vastly expanded the underground network. Hamas has a long history of terrorist violence — both the U.S. and the European Union consider it a terrorist group — and the tunnels allow its members to hide from Israeli air attacks.
Israel created further incentive for tunnel construction by tightening the blockade of Gaza after 2007. The main rationale for the blockade was to keep out weapons and related material, but Israel’s definition is so broad that the blockade also restricted the flow of basic items. In response, Gazans have used the tunnels — which extend south into Egypt — to smuggle in food, goods, people and weapons. Some people refer to the hundreds of miles of tunnels as “the metro.”
(This story, by our colleagues Adam Goldman, Helene Cooper and Justin Scheck, has more details.)
Egypt’s government has also viewed the tunnels as a security threat. A decade ago, Egypt tried to destroy some tunnels along its border with Gaza, by dumping sewage into them and leveling houses that concealed entrances, as Joel Roskin, a geology professor at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, told our colleagues.
In the current war, Hamas will use the tunnels to hide and to attack Israeli soldiers from unexpected places. “By using the tunnels, the enemy can surround and attack us from behind,” said Col. Amir Olo, the former commander of the elite Israeli engineering unit in charge of dismantling tunnels.
The civilian toll
The battle over the tunnels is a major reason that this war already has a high civilian death toll. More than two million people live above the tunnels — a layer of human life between many Hamas targets and Israeli missiles.
Hamas has hidden many weapons under hospitals, schools and mosques so that Israel must risk killing civilians, and face an international backlash, when it fights. Hamas fighters also slip above and below ground, blending with civilians.
These practices mean that Hamas is responsible for many of the civilian deaths, according to international law, as David French, a Times Opinion writer and former military lawyer, has explained. Deliberately putting military resources near civilians and disguising fighters as civilians are both violations of the laws of war.
António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, has said Israel is also violating international law by continuing to bomb southern Gaza — partly to destroy tunnels — after first ordering people to evacuate there for safety.
While Israel says its strikes are precise, Palestinians say that the bombing has felt vengeful and unfocused. One man lost 45 members of his extended family. Overall, Hamas says, at least 8,000 people have died in the war, and the U.N. has confirmed the deaths of at least 2,360 children.
One issue is that bombs that hit tunnels can still kill civilians through a kind of aftershock. When bombs explode underground, buildings above can collapse into a crater. “The craters become mass graves,” said Eyal Weizman, the director of Forensic Architecture, a research group.
Whatever the appropriate mix of blame between Israel and Hamas, the human toll has led to widespread criticism of Israel. And as its ground incursions continue, the toll will surely grow. The more than 200 hostages held by Hamas, likely in the tunnels, will also be at risk.
Air, then ground
The first stage of Israel’s campaign against the tunnels has been its air war. The military has launched more than 7,000 airstrikes on Gaza since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed more than 1,400 Israelis. That air war continues, along with the ground operation.
Israel has dropped special bombs that don’t explode until after they have burrowed into the ground. Another type of weapon, called “sponge bombs,” creates an explosion of hardening foam to seal off tunnels. If tunnel entrances are sealed, fighters can’t pop out of them in surprise attacks.
The ground operation allows Israel to take additional steps to demolish tunnels. An Israeli reservist soldier described one technique, called “purple hair,” to our colleagues:
Israeli troops drop smoke grenades into a tunnel, and then watch for purple smoke to come out of any houses in the area. The smoke, the soldier said, signals that a house is connected to the tunnel network and must be sealed off before soldiers descend into the tunnels. The smoke moves like strands of hair throughout the tunnel system, he said.
This description helps make clear why urban warfare tends to be so deadly. “It will be bloody, brutal fighting,” said Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the former leader of U.S. military operations in the Middle East.
by ti-amie Just in case you think MAGA hasn't gone international or that Florida Man syndrome is limited to the US. There is video but I'm not posting it. If you want you can find it in the link.
Horrifying Moment Man Casually Shoots Dead 2 Eco-Protesters Blocking Panama Highway; American Lawyer Arrested
Kenneth Darlington, 77, an American professor and lawyer who has had past brushes with the law in Panama, was arrested at the scene
Published 11/09/23 06:23 AM ET|Updated 7 hr ago
Nick Gallagher
A lawyer and professor from the U.S. is suspected of shooting and killing two protesters as they blocked a highway in Panama to protest a controversial mining contract.
A group of teachers had been blocking traffic along the Pan-American Highway in Chame, roughly 50 miles outside of Panama City, for about two weeks as a form of civil disobedience, Newsroom Panama reported.
The protesters appeared to have barricaded the road with rocks, tires, and other debris to halt traffic.
Video footage from a news agency reporting on the protest captures the chilling moment a man approaches the group in the moments before the attack. He's seen arguing with several demonstrators before casually drawing a pistol and pointing it in various directions.
At one point, the man tries to move some of the protesters' barriers himself. The footage then cuts to the aftermath of the shooting, with demonstrators screaming and rushing to the aid of the gunshot victims — and later, officers hauling the suspect into the back of a police vehicle.
Alternate footage appears to show the man continuing to move debris out of the roadway even as protesters care for the dying victims.
The suspect, Kenneth Darlington, 77, reportedly holds dual citizenship in Panama and the U.S. He was previously arrested in 2005 when Panamanian police officers raided his home, uncovering two "weapons of war." At the time, he said those firearms were only collector's items, and he was released after posting bail.
Darlington also allegedly worked as a spokesperson for Marc Harris, an accountant who was charged with money laundering in Panama that same year, per Newsroom Panama.
One of the victims, Abdiel Díaz, died at the scene, AFP reported. The other, Iván Rodríguez, 62, was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The demonstrators were protesting against a contract that would allow a Canadian company — First Quantum, and its subsidiary, Minera Panama — to continue operating the nation's largest copper mine, which reportedly generates 5% of the country's GDP, according to the Washington Post.
Protesters have argued that Panamanians themselves should get to decide how to use their country's natural resources — and that these riches should ultimately be preserved.
The protests are thought to be the largest since the 1980s, when Panamanians marched to show their opposition to military dictator Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega.
by ti-amie AND there's a new island off the coast of Japan!
by ti-amie
Temperature differences from average over the past week in central South America. (WeatherBell)
Taylor Swift concertgoer died
By Matthew Cappucci and Jason Samenow
November 19, 2023 at 1:14 p.m. EST
Unprecedented heat for mid-November is roasting Brazil and other parts of South America amid a record stretch of hot weather for the planet.
The heat in Rio de Janeiro, a city of nearly 7 million people, has proved disruptive and deadly. During sweltering temperatures Friday night, a woman died at a Taylor Swift concert. It was so hot Saturday that Swift postponed her concert scheduled for that night. “The safety and well-being of my fans, fellow performers and crew has to and always will come first,” read a message posted to Swift’s Instagram story on Saturday afternoon.
Even though it’s still spring in the Southern Hemisphere, temperatures have climbed well above what’s typical even in summer, which is more than a month away.
A stagnant area of high pressure, El Niño and human-caused climate change have converged to generate this excessive heat.
How hot it’s been
Rio has seen a suffocating combination of heat and humidity for days. On Friday, when the woman died at the concert, midday temperatures topped 100 and dew points, a measure of humidity, were in the upper 70s. Any dew point over 75 degrees is oppressively humid.
At a dew point of 77, about 23 grams of water, or about 1.55 tablespoons, are present in every cubic meter of atmosphere. That’s the weight of roughly nine pennies.
Heat indexes on Friday — a measure of how it feels factoring in humidity — exceeded 120 degrees. Climate historian Maximiliano Herrera tweeted the heat index reached as high as 137 degrees in Rio’s suburbs Saturday.
The higher the heat index, the less sweat can evaporate off our bodies. That’s because the air is already closer to its moisture-storing capacity. At high heat indexes, less heat can evaporate from our skin and cool us down as a result. That can lead to difficulties in regulating our body temperatures. If left unchecked, heat exhaustion and heat stroke can occur.
Saturday’s temperatures around Rio were both dangerously high and record-setting. Rio’s Jacarepaguá-Roberto Marinho Airport reported a heat index of 131 degrees on Saturday morning, the product of a temperature nearing 97 degrees and a dew point of 86. Most of the city’s other airports saw high temperatures between 105 and 107 degrees.
According to Herrera, the town of Seropédica, a suburb about 25 miles west-northwest of Rio and 15 miles inland, hit 108.7 degrees, a November record.
Record-high temperatures also spread into Peru and Bolivia. On Saturday, highs of 102.6 in Tingo de Ponaza, Peru, and 102.2 degrees in Cobija, Bolivia, set November records, according to Herrera.
The heat first moved into Brazil about a week ago. The BBC reported that red alerts were issued for nearly 3,000 towns and cities because of “unbearable” heat. On Nov. 12, it said, Rio hit 108.5 degrees, a record for the month.
The intensity of the heat is forecast to ease some after Sunday but temperatures are predicted to remain warmer than normal through the next week in central South America.
What’s driving the heat
Contributing to the heat has been counterclockwise-spinning surface high pressure system just offshore of Brazil. That’s induced warm, humid northerly winds, pumping in the same kind of humidity characteristic of the Amazon rainforest. There’s also a “heat dome,” or ridge of hot, sinking air at higher altitudes. While deflecting away the jet stream and any inclement weather and cloud cover, it’s promoting hot sunshine.
High-altitude weather map shows a heat dome — or zone of high pressure aloft — just east of Brazil, which promotes sinking air and sunshine. (TropicalTidBits.com)
The heat is also being boosted by a strengthening El Niño, the climate pattern associated with warmer-than-normal ocean waters in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
Furthermore, the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme heat events, like this one, are increasing because of human-caused climate change. The planet just observed its warmest 12-month period on record and the past five months have all been the warmest observed.
According to the United Nations, Brazil has warmed by 0.9 degrees during just the past few decades. Land use changes, including deforestation of the Amazon, is expected to accelerate that pace of warming.
ti-amie wrote: ↑Tue Nov 21, 2023 12:35 am
TL;dr the heat index a few days ago was 137F
I read the whole article surprised it was in Fahrenheit and then saw it was from the Washington Post haha
Understood. I'm a typical US educated person. Celsius, like the metric system is totally foreign to me. According to the converter on Google it would be about 58.3 Celsius.
by dryrunguy The NY Times is reporting that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a "brief" cease fire to facilitate hostage release.
Let's see what "brief" means.
by ti-amie New Amauta
@NewAmauta
Argentina has a new far-right president
Javier Milei, an "anarcho-capitalist", chief economist at the World Economic Forum, & considered Argentina's Trump, will now govern the Latin American power
Milei campaigned on dollarization to replace the peso with the dollar, erasing their central bank, & subordinating Argentine sovereignty to US monetary policy
And, he wants to overturn Law 26.160 which ended all court cases that'd displace #Natives off their land
Elon Musk weighs in on Dublin riots claiming country’s PM ‘hates the Irish people’
SpaceX owner is currently battling accusations that he has allowed antisemitic content to be shown alongisde major advertisers’ ads on X/Twitter
Graig Graziosi
2 hours ago
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of X/Twitter, said that Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar "hates the Irish people" after the nation announced its intent to "modernise" its laws against hate and hate speech.
The interaction took place on Mr Musk's social media platform. He was responding to a an account named "Sir Doge of the Coin" — a reference to the Doge coin meme cryptocurrency — who shared a snippet of a news story about the legislative initiative and complained that the "Irish government want all of your freedoms."
"Irish children were stabbed by a foreign man in Dublin yesterday yet the government twist the story and use the backlash as an opportunity to pass new hate speech laws," the owner of the meme crypto account wrote. "The Irish government want all of your freedoms."
Mr Musk, the wealthiest man on the planet and the owner of one of the most influential social media platforms, responded to the meme account — whose pfp is a cartoon Shiba Inu in medieval armour — by saying "Ironically, the Irish PM hates the Irish people."
Mr Musk has long claimed he is a “free speech absolutist,” though his adherence to those principles is questionable.
The exchange was an outgrowth of the current tension in Ireland after three children and an adult were stabbed near a school in Dublin. Critics of the government's immigration policy have painted the stabbing to be evidence that stricter control over who is allowed into the nation is needed.
One of the children, a five-year-old, remains in "very serious condition," and the adult, a female teacher, is still in "serious condition," CNN reports.
Since the stabbing on Thursday, police in Ireland have reported that right-wing agitators have stirred up violent protests and mobilised angry mobs on to Dublin's streets.
“These are scenes that we have not seen in decades. But what is clear is that people have been radicalised through social media," Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said during a press briefing on Friday. He went on to describe the rioters as "a complete lunatic hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology," CNN reports.
“These criminals did not do what they did because they love Ireland, they did not do what they did because they wanted to protect Irish people, they did not do it out of any sense of patriotism, however warped,” Mr Varadkar told a news conference. “They did so because they’re filled with hate, they love violence, they love chaos, and they love causing pain to others.”
Police said they arrested 34 people in the ensuing riots.
Mr Musk's comments come at a time when his company, X/Twitter, is under fire for reportedly serving antisemitic content next to major advertisers' ads.
He has both denied and seemingly confirmed those reports in a civil lawsuit he has brought against MediaMatters, the watchdog group that initially reported the issue.
by ti-amieSmith says she'll reveal details next week on threat to invoke sovereignty act
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith gives the state of the province address in Edmonton on Wednesday October 25, 2023. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Fransson)
Brittany Ekelund
CTVNewsEdmonton.ca Digital Producer
Published Nov. 25, 2023 5:05 p.m. EST
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she will reveal details next week on her threat to invoke her government's sovereignty act over federal clean energy regulations.
Smith told her provincewide radio call-in show on Saturday that she's "had it" with federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, saying he "doesn't care about the constitution" and noting Ottawa has recently lost two court cases dealing with disputes over federal-provincial jurisdiction.
The Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, which Smith's government passed last year, would allow the province to reject federal laws or regulations when the province thinks they cause harm to Alberta. It has not been tested in court.
Last month, Smith laid out conditions under which her government would enact portions of the law.
She told reporters an "aggressive'' cap on oil and gas emissions including methane, a cap on emissions from fertilizer use or a 2035 target for a net-zero electricity grid are all lines in the sand.
Smith told the radio audience Saturday that people will have to wait until Monday to "see the architecture" of how the act will be invoked, but noted Alberta won't put electricity providers at risk of going to jail if they don't meet what she called Ottawa's "unachievable" targets.
"I have to tell you that I didn't want to do this. I really did, from the very first conversation I had with (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau, I wanted to work with him on this. We put it together the table with the negotiators so we could find areas of common ground," Smith said.
"But Steven Guilbeault, I don't know, he's a maverick. He doesn't seem to care about the law, he doesn't care about the constitution. I do, and we're going to make sure we assert that."
Smith has previously said utilities executives would face jail time if they don't meet federal emissions targets, a claim which Calgary Liberal MP George Chahal called "ludicrous" last month.
Smith maintains there's reason to believe power generators could achieve a later target of 2050. Sooner, she's said, could put the grid at risk of failure during peak periods.
Her United Conservative Party's throne speech in October repeated previous promises to enact portions of the sovereignty act if Ottawa brings in climate change measures that the province deems aren't in its interest.
A Federal Court ruling on Nov. 16 struck down a cabinet order underlying Ottawa's ban of some single-use plastics, which Guilbeault has said the government will appeal. And in October, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that federal legislation dealing with the environmental effects of major developments was unconstitutional because it sought to regulate activities within provincial jurisdiction.
"They've lost two court cases now -- one at the Supreme Court level and one at a Federal Court level -- saying they have to stay in their lane," Smith said of the Feds on Saturday.
"Their lane is clearly not electricity. Electricity, if anyone wants to read the constitution under Sec. 92, falls to the provinces."
Guilbeault released draft regulations in early August to establish a net-zero energy grid by 2035. He has said Canada does not want to be left behind as the United States and other G7 countries move toward clean electricity.
He's also said any claim that building a clean electricity grid in Alberta will lead to blackouts is misinformation, designed to inflame rather than inform.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 25, 2023
by ti-amieEuropean Nation Reports Epidemic Caused By Bacteria Linked to Chinese Outbreak
The bacteria is a known pathogen
Published 11/29/23 05:25 PM ET|Updated 15 min ago
Mansur Shaheen
anish officials have declared a current outbreak caused by Mycoplasma pneumoniae an epidemic. It is the same bacteria health officials in China have blamed for a spate in cases that has overwhelmed some children’s hospitals.
The Statens Serum Institut (SSI), a Government funded research institute in Copenhagen, declared the epidemic Wednesday, according to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.
“Since the summer, there has been an increase in the number of respiratory infections with Mycoplasma pneumoniae, and the occurrence has now reached an epidemic level with significantly more cases than usual,” SSI wrote in a statement translated into English by the Avian Flu Diary.
"In the past five weeks, the number of new cases has increased significantly, and we are now seeing significantly more cases than usual, and that there is widespread infection throughout the country,” Hanne-Dorthe Emborg, M.D., senior SSI researcher, said in a statement.
Over the last week, 541 new cases of M. pneumoniae have been reported in Denmark, a three-fold increase in case figures from five weeks earlier.
The bacteria is largely known across the world. In Denmark, officials say the infection would reach epidemic level in the nation every four years before the COVID-19 pandemic began and disrupted regular infection patterns.
However, increased focus has been placed on the infection after a recent outbreak in China. In Beijing, a city of more than 20 million residents, and the province of Liaoning, children’s hospitals have reportedly been overrun by a surge of pneumonia cases among the youth.
by ti-amie David Adler
@davidrkadler
BREAKING: President-elect Javier Milei has appointed Rodolfo Barra as the new Attorney General of Argentina. Barra is pictured here, a member of the neo-Nazi 'Tacuara Nationalist Movement'.
by ti-amieMaduro vote to claim Guyana’s territory backfires as Venezuelans stay home
Turnout was minimal in vote on referendum intended to rubber-stamp Venezuela’s claim to Essequibo region
Luke Taylor in Bogotá
Mon 4 Dec 2023 19.57 GMT
The government of Guyana has breathed a sigh of relief after a referendum intended to rubber-stamp Venezuela’s claim to about two-thirds of the tiny South American country’s territory appeared to have backfired.
Nicolás Maduro had hoped to leverage his country’s century-long claim to the disputed Essequibo region to mobilise public support but voting stations across the country were largely quiet on Sunday as most voters shunned the issue.
The turnout appeared so underwhelming that the Venezuelan government has been widely accused by analysts of falsifying the results.
“The Venezuelan people have sent Maduro a very strong message and I do hope that Maduro has taken note of what they’ve said,” said Robert Presaud, Guyana’s foreign secretary, on Monday.
Guyanese officials would not comment directly on the results but sources close to the government told the Guardian they were “relieved” by the surprisingly poor turnout.
Venezuela has laid claim to the oil-rich Essequibo region ever since it gained independence from Spain in 1811, alleging that its borders were drawn up unfairly in an act of international collusion.
The dispute is being reviewed in the international court of justice but Maduro has pleaded for weeks on TikTok and national TV for the Venezuelan public to back the government to take matters into its own hands.
Among the five questions asked on Sunday were whether Venezuela should ignore the international arbitrators at the Hague, grant Venezuelan citizenship to Essequibo’s English-speaking inhabitants and convert the 160,000 sq km of territory into a new Venezuelan state.
Both Guyana and Venezuela have increased military activity on their borders in recent weeks as tensions between the bickering nations reached unprecedented heights. Brazil also sent troops to its jungle frontier over the weekend as fears grew that the vote could spark military action.
But voting stations across the country were largely empty, national and international media reported.
“I have seen no independent reports of queues anywhere in the country. It looked like a normal Sunday in Caracas,” says Phil Gunson, analyst at international crisis group. “It was a resounding failure for Maduro.”
Nonetheless, Maduro was quick to hail the vote – in which 95% of those who voted yes to the government’s five questions – as a victory.
“It has been a total success for our country, for our democracy,” Maduro told supporters in Caracas on Sunday evening, praising the “very important level of participation”.
Venezuela’s government has said that more than 10.5 million people voted in the referendum – which would be a higher number than voted to re-elect Maduro’s more popular predecessor, Hugo Chávez, in 2012.
Venezuela’s electoral authority said it had extended the voting window on Sunday evening due to “massive participation”.
The government figures have been widely scrutinised, however, given that analysts say they do not correspond with the scenes at voting stations.
“They haven’t admitted it explicitly but it’s obvious [they rigged the results],” Gunson said.
An image purported to have been shared and later deleted by Venezuela’s electoral authority showed a table with about 2 million votes for each of the five questions, suggesting that they tallied the number of votes rather than voters to spin the public relations disaster.
The Venezuelan government has not published any detailed or regional results, adding to doubts around their validity. “If the government stands by their claim that this is a massive success they should have no difficulty in publishing the breakdown of votes,” said Geoff Ramsey, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
“This is a massive PR disaster for Maduro. They’ve been firing the propaganda machine on all cylinders for months but despite their best efforts turnout is way below what we expected,” he added.
Intelligence collected by Guyana and its allies suggest the actual turnout was fewer than 1.5 million people – less than a 10th of the population – said a source close to the Guyanese government who described the move as “rigonomics”.
“I think Maduro miscalculated in a very, very big way,” the source added.
Guyana remains on high alert given the unpredictability of the Venezuelan president, Guyana’s foreign minister, Hugh Todd said.
“What we see from afar is that he is operating as a one man-show, as a dictator telling the people what they need and not the other way around,” Todd told the Guardian.
“Ninety-five per cent of people voted yes, so he can still claim a victory out of that … We are not jubilant. We’re still very cautious,” he said.
The Essequibo is home to only 120,000 of Guyana’s 800,000 people but the vast swath of jungle is rich in natural resources including copper and gold.
Maduro’s rhetoric over the region has become more bellicose since massive oil reserves were discovered in 2015 but the weekend’s plebiscite is seen foremost as a way to gauge how many people he can mobilise in presidential elections expected for next year.
The opposition candidate María Corina Machado is widely predicted to defeat Maduro if the election is a free contest and the US is threatening to snap back recent sanctions relief if the dictator does not permit a fair election.
The Essequibo is the only issue that unites Venezuelans across the political spectrum but the vote suggests people care more about more pressing issues, such as the economic collapse which has driven more than 7 million people to flee the country, Gunson said.
If Maduro is unable to rally the people under the banner of Venezuela’s claim to the Essequibo, there are few options left but to rig the contest.
“This leaves an enormous gap where there used to be a resemblance of a strategy. What are they going to do now? They have an unpopular president heading for a disaster in anything remotely approaching a free and fair election,” he said.
by ponchi101 Increased military activity along the border between Guyana and Venezuela. A few extra donkeys and three dozen bayonets probably arrived.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2023 11:12 pm
Increased military activity along the border between Guyana and Venezuela. A few extra donkeys and three dozen bayonets probably arrived.
by ti-amieThousands of tons of dead fish wash ashore in Japan - three months after the nation released treated Fukushima radioactive water into the sea
By DAVID AVERRE and AP
PUBLISHED: 15:13, 8 December 2023 | UPDATED: 16:57, 8 December 2023
Thousands of tons of dead fish have washed up on a beach in northern Japan, prompting speculation that the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant has wrought havoc on local ecosystems.
The sardines and some mackerel washed ashore in Hakodate on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Thursday morning, creating an unsettling sliver blanket that covered almost a mile of shoreline.
Officials could not come up with an explanation for the phenomenon, but Takashi Fujioka, a Hakodate Fisheries Research Institute researcher, posited a number of theories as to why the fish could have died en-masse.
He said they may have become exhausted due to a lack of oxygen while moving in a densely packed school in shallow waters, or may have suddenly entered cold waters during their migration and succumbed to shock.
There have been several recorded cases of similar phenomena springing up on several parts of Japan's coastline.
But this particular phenomenon occurred just three months after Japanese authorities began releasing treated radioactive water back into the sea - a move which angered its neighbours including China and South Korea.
China has since banned Japanese seafood and criticised the country as being 'extremely selfish and irresponsible', with the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper The Global Times writing it could open 'Pandora's box' and trigger fears of a 'real-life Godzilla'.
South Korean protestors also attempted to enter the Japanese embassy in Seoul carrying banners which read 'The sea is not Japan's trash bin'.
Thousands of tonnes of fish are seen washed up on shores in Japan
The sardines and some mackerel washed ashore in Hakodate on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Thursday morning
The phenomenon created an unsettling sliver blanket that covered almost a mile of shoreline
Local residents observing the shoreline in Hakodate said they had never seen anything like it.
Some gathered the fish to sell or eat, prompting the town to urge residents not to consume the fish in a notice posted on its website,
The decomposing fish could lower oxygen levels in the water and affect the marine environment, Fujioka said.
'We don't know for sure under what circumstances these fish were washed up, so I do not recommend eating them,' he concluded.
In March 2011 the Fukushima power plant was wrecked after an earthquake and subsequent tsunami destroyed the plant's cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt.
Now, an undersea tunnel is being used to discharge the radioactive water treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System, which uses a process called isotopic dilution to render the water less dangerous.
This process sees tritium - a less harmful radioactive isotope - added to the contaminated water which is subsequently mixed with 'clean seawater', diluting the concentration of more harmful substances.
Japanese officials maintain that the treated water is safe.
But critics say a lack of long-term data means it is impossible to say with certainty that tritium poses no threat to human health or the marine environment.
Greenpeace said the radiological risks had not been fully assessed and that the biological impacts of tritium 'have been ignored'.
by ti-amie Duna Press Jornal
@dunapressjornal
The individual who tried to attack Milei with a bottle is a fervent Kirchnerist
Javier Milei was sworn in this Sunday as president of Argentina. At the ceremony an assassination attempt went unnoticed while he was traveling with his sister, Karina Milei , to the Casa Rosada . A member of the public threw a bottle at him, which passed a few centimeters above his head and hit one of the agents guarding him. The attacker is Gastón Ariel Mercanzini...
ti-amie wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 11:35 pmThousands of tons of dead fish wash ashore in Japan - three months after the nation released treated Fukushima radioactive water into the sea
By DAVID AVERRE and AP
PUBLISHED: 15:13, 8 December 2023 | UPDATED: 16:57, 8 December 2023
Thousands of tons of dead fish have washed up on a beach in northern Japan, prompting speculation that the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant has wrought havoc on local ecosystems.
The sardines and some mackerel washed ashore in Hakodate on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Thursday morning, creating an unsettling sliver blanket that covered almost a mile of shoreline.
Officials could not come up with an explanation for the phenomenon, but Takashi Fujioka, a Hakodate Fisheries Research Institute researcher, posited a number of theories as to why the fish could have died en-masse.
He said they may have become exhausted due to a lack of oxygen while moving in a densely packed school in shallow waters, or may have suddenly entered cold waters during their migration and succumbed to shock.
There have been several recorded cases of similar phenomena springing up on several parts of Japan's coastline.
But this particular phenomenon occurred just three months after Japanese authorities began releasing treated radioactive water back into the sea - a move which angered its neighbours including China and South Korea.
China has since banned Japanese seafood and criticised the country as being 'extremely selfish and irresponsible', with the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper The Global Times writing it could open 'Pandora's box' and trigger fears of a 'real-life Godzilla'.
South Korean protestors also attempted to enter the Japanese embassy in Seoul carrying banners which read 'The sea is not Japan's trash bin'.
Thousands of tonnes of fish are seen washed up on shores in Japan
The sardines and some mackerel washed ashore in Hakodate on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Thursday morning
The phenomenon created an unsettling sliver blanket that covered almost a mile of shoreline
Local residents observing the shoreline in Hakodate said they had never seen anything like it.
Some gathered the fish to sell or eat, prompting the town to urge residents not to consume the fish in a notice posted on its website,
The decomposing fish could lower oxygen levels in the water and affect the marine environment, Fujioka said.
'We don't know for sure under what circumstances these fish were washed up, so I do not recommend eating them,' he concluded.
In March 2011 the Fukushima power plant was wrecked after an earthquake and subsequent tsunami destroyed the plant's cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt.
Now, an undersea tunnel is being used to discharge the radioactive water treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System, which uses a process called isotopic dilution to render the water less dangerous.
This process sees tritium - a less harmful radioactive isotope - added to the contaminated water which is subsequently mixed with 'clean seawater', diluting the concentration of more harmful substances.
Japanese officials maintain that the treated water is safe.
But critics say a lack of long-term data means it is impossible to say with certainty that tritium poses no threat to human health or the marine environment.
Greenpeace said the radiological risks had not been fully assessed and that the biological impacts of tritium 'have been ignored'.
ti-amie wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 11:35 pmThousands of tons of dead fish wash ashore in Japan - three months after the nation released treated Fukushima radioactive water into the sea
By DAVID AVERRE and AP
PUBLISHED: 15:13, 8 December 2023 | UPDATED: 16:57, 8 December 2023
Thousands of tons of dead fish have washed up on a beach in northern Japan, prompting speculation that the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant has wrought havoc on local ecosystems.
The sardines and some mackerel washed ashore in Hakodate on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Thursday morning, creating an unsettling sliver blanket that covered almost a mile of shoreline.
Officials could not come up with an explanation for the phenomenon, but Takashi Fujioka, a Hakodate Fisheries Research Institute researcher, posited a number of theories as to why the fish could have died en-masse.
He said they may have become exhausted due to a lack of oxygen while moving in a densely packed school in shallow waters, or may have suddenly entered cold waters during their migration and succumbed to shock.
There have been several recorded cases of similar phenomena springing up on several parts of Japan's coastline.
But this particular phenomenon occurred just three months after Japanese authorities began releasing treated radioactive water back into the sea - a move which angered its neighbours including China and South Korea.
China has since banned Japanese seafood and criticised the country as being 'extremely selfish and irresponsible', with the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper The Global Times writing it could open 'Pandora's box' and trigger fears of a 'real-life Godzilla'.
South Korean protestors also attempted to enter the Japanese embassy in Seoul carrying banners which read 'The sea is not Japan's trash bin'.
Thousands of tonnes of fish are seen washed up on shores in Japan
The sardines and some mackerel washed ashore in Hakodate on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Thursday morning
The phenomenon created an unsettling sliver blanket that covered almost a mile of shoreline
Local residents observing the shoreline in Hakodate said they had never seen anything like it.
Some gathered the fish to sell or eat, prompting the town to urge residents not to consume the fish in a notice posted on its website,
The decomposing fish could lower oxygen levels in the water and affect the marine environment, Fujioka said.
'We don't know for sure under what circumstances these fish were washed up, so I do not recommend eating them,' he concluded.
In March 2011 the Fukushima power plant was wrecked after an earthquake and subsequent tsunami destroyed the plant's cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt.
Now, an undersea tunnel is being used to discharge the radioactive water treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System, which uses a process called isotopic dilution to render the water less dangerous.
This process sees tritium - a less harmful radioactive isotope - added to the contaminated water which is subsequently mixed with 'clean seawater', diluting the concentration of more harmful substances.
Japanese officials maintain that the treated water is safe.
But critics say a lack of long-term data means it is impossible to say with certainty that tritium poses no threat to human health or the marine environment.
Greenpeace said the radiological risks had not been fully assessed and that the biological impacts of tritium 'have been ignored'.
Maybe that radioactive water should just stay where it is?
by dryrunguy The NY Times is reporting that the volcano in Iceland has finally erupted after a torrent of earthquakes signaling the event. Apparently, the eruption is located in close proximity to a power plant.
by ti-amie
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Tue Dec 19, 2023 12:50 am
The NY Times is reporting that the volcano in Iceland has finally erupted after a torrent of earthquakes signaling the event. Apparently, the eruption is located in close proximity to a power plant.
Hoping everyone remains safe.
by Suliso It looks spectacular (the fissure is 4 km long)
by dryrunguy This morning NY Times newsletter indicated the Icelandic volcano is not a threat to people. That's good news.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie I'm shocked I tell you. SHOCKED! Who could've seen this coming?
/s
Headline Bot
@headlines_bot@m.ai6yr.org
PBS: Protests have kicked off in Argentina against the austerity and deregulation measures announced by newly elected President Javier Milei, whose government has also warned against blocking streets.#news #PBS https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/thousan
by Suliso Sure, but that's a wrong question to ask. The tough one is - will these policies help economically in the long term (5+ years)?
by ponchi101 I am currently in Argentina.
MOST people are in agreement that these measures needed to be implemented. And, most important, THEY WERE PRECISELY WHAT MILEI SAID HE WOULD DO, during his campaign. So, there is no surprise in this.
As Suliso says, the question is whether these new regulations will help. Because what Milei is doing is bringing down all the rules and regulations that had been imposed during all the left-wing governments. He is not implementing new laws, he is erasing old ones.
The few people I have been talking to are cautiously optimistic. With a capital C.
by Suliso Argentina needs to go back to exporting goods and services. Only the private sector can provide that and if they're allowed more free reign there will be more money for things which fall in the public sector (roads, education etc). Not straight away of course... Also clearly a country can't be completely with no regulations (safety, environmental, financial etc.), but from what I've been reading there is way too much now.
I was in Argentina recently. All that official and black market dollar rate is nonsense... There is some potential to do better. Agriculture and tourism for sure. Hopefully some manufacturing too.
I have always enjoyed BA.
But I am here because my life has been upended in the most extreme way. FOR THE BETTER.
I will write about it soon. But let's just say, I may be moving to BA next year. Permanently.
by Suliso Congratulations already then! BA seems a good place to be. There is still some grandness about it.
by ti-amieMilei’s controversial mega-decree officially takes effect
The executive order, which radically reshapes the country’s economy, will be enforced for a minimum of two months
BUENOS AIRES HERALD
President Javier Milei’s controversial executive order reshaping Argentina socially, economically, and politically went into effect on Friday.
Last week, Milei released an 86-page document known as a decree of necessity and urgency (DNU, by its Spanish acronym) that contained 366 articles. The DNU declared a financial, fiscal, and administrative “emergency” in Argentina while mandating widescale deregulation, the repeal of hundreds of laws protecting Argentine workers, and limitations on benefits such as severance pay and maternity leave.
While DNUs are constitutionally required to go through Congress, they are binding until they’re overturned. DNUs only require a simple majority in one of the congressional chambers to become law, although the judiciary has the authority to reject them as well.
Before Congress can consider a DNU, it must first pass through the Bicameral Legislative Procedure Comission, a group of eight senators and eight deputies in charge of analyzing whether the executive branch’s order qualifies as a decree of “necessity” and “urgency.” The body must then submit an opinion with the signatures of an absolute majority to both chambers within 10 days.
The commission’s members include the senators Juan Carlos Pagotto (La Libertad Avanza), María Teresa González (Union por la Patria), Mariano Recalde (UxP), Anabel Fernández Sagasti (UxP), Silvia Sapag (UxP), Luis Juez (Propuesta Republicana), Víctor Zimmerman (Unión Cívica Radical), Carlos Espínola (Unidad Federal), and Juan Carlos Romero (Cambio Federal), as well as deputies Oscar Zago (LLA), Lisandro Almirón (LLA), Máximo Kirchner, Ramiro Gutiérrez (UxP), Hernán Lombardi (PRO), Francisco Monti (UCR), and Nicolás Massot (Cambio Federal).
Another hurdle awaits Milei’s order after the commission’s ruling: Because his administration has called for extraordinary congressional sessions, the DNU can’t be voted on in a plenary session of either chamber of Congress until March 1. In the interim, however, its measures will be enforced, meaning that Argentines will experience the order’s more than 300 reforms for a minimum of two months.
On Wednesday, Milei introduced a 351-page bill with the aim of “[freeing] the productive forces of the nation from the shackles of the oppressive state in order to once again become a world power.” The legislation would give the president the power to bypass Congress in order to legislate and sweeping authority to privatize public companies.
The announcement was met with nationwide cacerolazos, and Argentina’s trade union federation, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT, by its Spanish acronym), has since called for a national strike on January 24.
by ti-amieBelarusian president signs law granting him lifelong immunity from prosecution
Alexander Lukashenko’s law also bars exiled opposition leaders from standing in presidential elections
Associated Press
Thu 4 Jan 2024 13.32 EST
The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has signed a new law granting him lifelong immunity from criminal prosecution and preventing opposition leaders living in exile from running in future presidential elections.
The law theoretically applies to any former president and members of his or her family. In reality, it is only relevant to the 69-year-old Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for almost 30 years.
The new measure appears aimed at further shoring up Lukashenko’s power and eliminating potential challengers in the country’s next presidential election, which is due to take place in 2025.
The law significantly tightens requirements for presidential candidates and makes it impossible to elect opposition leaders who have fled to neighbouring countries in recent years. Only citizens of Belarus who have permanently resided in the country for at least 20 years and have never had a residence permit in another country are eligible to run.
Belarus was rocked by mass protests during Lukashenko’s controversial re-election in August 2020 for a sixth term, which the opposition and the west condemned as fraudulent. At that time, Belarusian authorities detained more than 35,000 people, many of whom were tortured in custody or left the country.
Lukashenko has also been accused of involvement in the illegal transfer of children from Russian-occupied towns in Ukraine to Belarus.
According to the text of the new law, Lukashenko, were he to leave power, “cannot be held accountable for actions committed in connection with exercising his presidential powers”.
The law also says the president and members of his family will be provided with lifelong state protection, medical care, and life and health insurance. After resigning, the president would also become a permanent lifelong member of the upper house of parliament.
The opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled to neighbouring Lithuania in 2020, said the new law was Lukashenko’s response to his “fear of an inevitable future”, suggesting Lukashenko must be concerned about what would happen to him when he left power.
“Lukashenko, who ruined the fates of thousands of Belarusians, will be punished according to international law, and no immunity will protect him against this, it’s only a matter of time,” Tsikhanouskaya said.
The country’s political opposition is seeking an investigation into the disappearances of opposition politicians and the removal of Ukrainian children from Ukraine.
“We will ensure that the dictator is brought to justice,” Tsikhanouskaya said, emphasising that there were still about 1,500 political prisoners behind bars in Belarus, including the Nobel peace prize laureate Ales Bialiatski.
by skatingfan That's never worked before, but good luck.
by Owendonovan
ti-amie wrote: ↑Thu Jan 04, 2024 10:41 pmBelarusian president signs law granting him lifelong immunity from prosecution
Alexander Lukashenko’s law also bars exiled opposition leaders from standing in presidential elections
Associated Press
Thu 4 Jan 2024 13.32 EST
The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has signed a new law granting him lifelong immunity from criminal prosecution and preventing opposition leaders living in exile from running in future presidential elections.
The law theoretically applies to any former president and members of his or her family. In reality, it is only relevant to the 69-year-old Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for almost 30 years.
The new measure appears aimed at further shoring up Lukashenko’s power and eliminating potential challengers in the country’s next presidential election, which is due to take place in 2025.
The law significantly tightens requirements for presidential candidates and makes it impossible to elect opposition leaders who have fled to neighbouring countries in recent years. Only citizens of Belarus who have permanently resided in the country for at least 20 years and have never had a residence permit in another country are eligible to run.
Belarus was rocked by mass protests during Lukashenko’s controversial re-election in August 2020 for a sixth term, which the opposition and the west condemned as fraudulent. At that time, Belarusian authorities detained more than 35,000 people, many of whom were tortured in custody or left the country.
Lukashenko has also been accused of involvement in the illegal transfer of children from Russian-occupied towns in Ukraine to Belarus.
According to the text of the new law, Lukashenko, were he to leave power, “cannot be held accountable for actions committed in connection with exercising his presidential powers”.
The law also says the president and members of his family will be provided with lifelong state protection, medical care, and life and health insurance. After resigning, the president would also become a permanent lifelong member of the upper house of parliament.
The opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled to neighbouring Lithuania in 2020, said the new law was Lukashenko’s response to his “fear of an inevitable future”, suggesting Lukashenko must be concerned about what would happen to him when he left power.
“Lukashenko, who ruined the fates of thousands of Belarusians, will be punished according to international law, and no immunity will protect him against this, it’s only a matter of time,” Tsikhanouskaya said.
The country’s political opposition is seeking an investigation into the disappearances of opposition politicians and the removal of Ukrainian children from Ukraine.
“We will ensure that the dictator is brought to justice,” Tsikhanouskaya said, emphasising that there were still about 1,500 political prisoners behind bars in Belarus, including the Nobel peace prize laureate Ales Bialiatski.
skatingfan wrote: ↑Fri Jan 05, 2024 2:00 am
That's never worked before, but good luck.
It does, if you never leave power.
And if you do, make sure the puppet has no ideas of his own.
by ti-amieEcuadoreans Split on Presidents’ Drastic New Measure to Combat Drug Gangs
Vowing to bring peace back to a shattered country, the President Daniel Noboa has deployed the military to take on what he calls “terrorist” groups.
The police detained men that they said were part of an armed group that temporarily took over a television channel on Wednesday in Guayaquil, Ecuador.Credit...Carlos Duran Araujo/EPA, via Shutterstock
By Annie Correal and Genevieve Glatsky
Annie Correal and Genevieve Glatsky reported from Bogotá, Colombia.
Jan. 10, 2024
Updated 5:28 p.m. ET
A sense of dread took hold in Ecuador on Wednesday, with the streets empty, schools closed and many people afraid to leave their homes after the disappearance of two gang leaders on Monday set off prison riots, police kidnappings and the on-air storming of a TV station.
Even for a country accustomed to violence, the events that have rocked Ecuador this week were shocking.
“I feel like the world I knew before is gone,” said María Ortega, a schoolteacher in Guayaquil, a sprawling coastal city. “You can know how things start, but not how they’ll end.”
It began with violence erupting in prisons across the South American country as soldiers surged into a penal compound in Guayaquil, after the disappearance of a powerful gang leader, Adolfo Macías, from his cell. Inmates at various prisons took prison guards captive, and dozens of detainees escaped, including another prominent gang leader.
The violence soon spilled over into cities and towns, where drug gangs run rampant. Explosions were reported, police officers were kidnapped, hospitals were seized and cars set on fire. People scrambled to get home, jumping on the back of trucks as bus service stopped in Guayaquil, and the police and armed people exchanged gunfire, including near a school.
By the end of a bloody day, at least 11 people had died throughout the country, according to the authorities, including a well-known musician, Diego Gallardo, 31, who was in his car on the way to pick up his son from school in Guayaquil when he was hit by a stray bullet.
The unrest peaked on Tuesday afternoon, when armed men briefly took over TC Televisión in Guayaquil during a live broadcast, taking anchors and staff hostage and demanding to deliver a message to the government not to interfere “with the mafias.”
Not long after, the country’s president, Daniel Noboa, declared an “internal armed conflict” and directed the military to “neutralize” the country’s two dozen gangs, which the government labeled “terrorist organizations.”
Mr. Noboa framed the declaration as a watershed moment.
“We are fighting for the peace of the nation,” the president said on Wednesday in a radio speech to the nation, “fighting also against terrorist groups that today are made up of 20,000 people. They want me to call them groups of organized crime because it is easier. When they are terrorists, and when we live in a state of conflict, of war, other laws apply.”
In Ecuador, the presidential declaration was widely seen as a turning point in the crisis that has subsumed the once-peaceful nation over the past two years, as the country of nearly 18 million has been dominated by an increasingly powerful narco-trafficking industry.
International drug cartels from as far as Albania have joined forces with local prison and street gangs, unleashing a wave of violence unlike anything in the country’s recent history. Homicide rates have soared to record levels.
Mr. Noboa signaled the start of a new fight to push back against the gangs and to bring peace back to Ecuador.
“We are not going to let society die slowly,” he said.
An image released by the government shows President Daniel Noboa, who has directed the military to “neutralize” the country’s gangs, during an appearance on a radio show on Wednesday.Credit...Ecuadorean presidency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The commander of Ecuador’s armed forces, Jaime Vela Erazo, said criminal groups, which he called terrorists, had become military targets. He made clear the government’s intention to apply a heavy hand.
“We will not back down or negotiate,’’ he said in a statement. “Good, justice and order cannot ask for permission or bow their heads to terrorists.”
Around the country, many were divided over what the government’s move might mean, with some expressing support and calling it a much-needed step to crack down on gang violence, and others viewing it as a slippery slope to a militarized state that targets innocent civilians.
“The declaration of internal conflict worries me enormously,” said Katherine Casanova, a 28-year-old social worker who said her family had recently been attacked by armed men near Guayaquil. “Although in the midst of pain I want to cling to something that makes me feel a modicum of security, I fear the repercussions of declaring an internal conflict, of militarizing. It will probably be my people who, once more, are among the dead.”
Mr. Noboa’s declaration came on the heels of a proposed referendum that would lengthen sentences for crimes like murder and arms trafficking, target money launderers and create a special court system to protect judges.
Many have compared Mr. Noboa’s proposed referendum and enhanced security moves to President Nayib Bukele’s autocratic campaign in El Salvador against drug gangs — a comparison Mr. Noboa has made himself.
The government’s measures are “much more aggressive” than previous steps to quell gang violence, said Fernando Carrión of the Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences, a regional research and analysis group, who studies violence and drug trafficking.
“The population looks favorably on this decision,” he said, but added that tackling such large and entrenched gangs would be challenging.
Drawing the military into the conflict, experts said, could lead to prolonged violence and bloodshed, as it did in Colombia, where Plan Colombia, a U.S.-backed policy that took hold some 20 years ago, has been criticized for treating much of the population as internal enemies.
“The situation could be prolonged and get worse and reach a historic point,” said Glaeldys González, a fellow at the International Crisis Group focusing on Ecuador.
“What I see as more worrisome,’’ she added, “is the president’s declaration of an internal armed conflict — the question is how that is going to translate into practice.’’
“Who will be classified as a ‘terrorist’ or a member of a ‘terrorist group’?’’ Ms. González said. “It’s an open question, and the armed forces seem to have discretion over who are the targets.”
On Wednesday, even as the streets grew mostly quiet, the country’s prisons had not yet been secured, with nearly 140 guards and staff still held hostage, according to the prison authorities.
An empty street in Quito on Wednesday. Many people, fearful of more violence, stayed indoors.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
As gangs have proliferated, the country’s crumbling prisons have served as their headquarters and recruiting centers. About one-fourth of the country’s 36 prisons are believed to be controlled by gangs.
Mr. Macías, the leader of a group called Los Choneros, disappeared on Sunday from the Guayaquil prison that his gang mostly controls. Fabricio Colón Pico, the leader of another gang, Los Lobos, went missing early Tuesday from a prison in the central city of Riobamba. Both men were still at large on Wednesday.
On the streets, people were divided over the government’s vow to confront the gangs and retake control of prisons that have been incubators of so much of the country’s upheaval.
“I’m scared, I’m anxious,” said María José Chancay, a music producer in Guayaquil, whose friend, Mr. Gallardo, died while caught in crossfire on Tuesday. “I feel that the measures taken by the authorities are not going to do any good and are going to bring more violence.’’
But others said the government needed to take a firm hand if the country was going to stop the bloodshed. Videos posted on Wednesday and shared on social media showed shoppers in a grocery store in Guayaquil clapping and cheering as a procession of soldiers entered.
“I have mixed feelings” about the security measures said Ms. Ortega, the schoolteacher. “I must admit that even though it is terrifying, I am relieved. And I feel horrible for thinking and feeling that.”
José María León Cabrera contributed reporting from Quito, Ecuador, and Thalíe Ponce from Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Annie Correal reports from the U.S. and Latin America for The Times. More about Annie Correal
A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 11, 2024 of the New York edition with the headline: Ecuador Buckles Under Gang Violence, and Fear. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
by ti-amieAndrew Tate loses appeal against ruling that stops him leaving Romania
Bucharest court upholds restriction on online influencer, who is charged with human trafficking and rape
Associated Press in Bucharest
Tue 30 Jan 2024 19.55 CET
A Romanian court has rejected an appeal by the online influencer Andrew Tate to ease judicial control measures imposed while the legal case continues in which he is charged with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.
The Bucharest court of appeal’s decision on Tuesday upheld a ruling by another court on 18 January that extended by 60 days the geographical restrictions against Tate, 37, stipulating that he cannot leave the country.
Tate, a British-American former kickboxer, lost his appeal more than a year after he was first arrested near Bucharest along with his brother, Tristan, and two Romanian women. Romanian prosecutors formally indicted all four in June last year and they have denied the allegations.
The case is still being discussed in the preliminary chamber stages, a process in which the defendants can challenge prosecutors’ evidence and case file. No trial dates have been set.
Andrew Tate, who has 8.7 million followers on the social media platform X, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him. He was previously banned from various prominent social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and for hate speech.
After their arrest, the Tate brothers were held for three months in police detention before being moved to house arrest. They were later restricted to the areas of Bucharest municipality and nearby Ilfov county.
Earlier in January, Tate won an appeal challenging the seizure of his assets by Romanian authorities, which were confiscated in the weeks after he was arrested. It is not clear when the next court hearing on his asset seizures will be.
Romanian authorities had seized 15 luxury cars, 14 designer watches and cash in several currencies worth an estimated €3.6m (about £3m). Romania’s anti-organised crime agency said at the time that the assets could be used to fund investigations and for compensation for victims if authorities could prove they were gained through illicit activities.
by dryrunguy I guess I'll put this here. The NY Times is reporting that Aleksei Navalny has died in prison, according to Russian state media.
by ashkor87
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 3:04 pm
I guess I'll put this here. The NY Times is reporting that Aleksei Navalny has died in prison, according to Russian state media.
Putin sees no need to pretend any more...who taught him that, I wonder ?!
by Suliso Navalny could have stayed in Germany. It was foolish to go back. He helped no one by doing it.
by Fastbackss
Suliso wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 4:52 pm
Navalny could have stayed in Germany. It was foolish to go back. He helped no one by doing it.
He was quoted on his reasons for not doing so.
But it's tough for me to feel like the known (likely) consequence was worth it - and being a martyr doesn't help the cause.
Sure maybe he couldn't have been as effective from Germany, but criminy at least then would have still had some level of impact.
by ti-amieFor Putin nemesis Alexei Navalny, long-feared death arrives in Arctic prison
By Robyn Dixon, David M. Herszenhorn and Catherine Belton
February 16, 2024 at 1:41 p.m. EST
A view of the entrance of the prison colony in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenetsk region of Russia, where Alexei Navalny was detained and where he died on Friday. (Antonina Favorskaya/AP)
RIGA, Latvia — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the defiant anti-corruption crusader and democracy champion who was President Vladimir Putin’s despised nemesis, died suddenly in an Arctic Russian prison colony Friday, penitentiary officials said, removing the most prominent figure inside Russia willing to challenge the Kremlin’s rule.
His death — foretold as almost inevitable, including by Navalny himself — sent shock waves across Russia and was quickly condemned by global leaders, some of whom joined Russian opposition figures in calling it a state-sponsored murder. Navalny, 47, had appeared in a court hearing by video link the day before, seemingly in good health and with his trademark humor intact.
Navalny’s family and his team, who continued to run his political operation in exile, had warned that his life was in danger since his arrest in January 2021, when he returned to Russia after recovering in Germany from being poisoned with a banned nerve agent. An investigation led by Navalny and Bellingcat, an investigative journalism organization, had identified a team of Russian federal security agents as responsible for the assassination attempt, and his supporters noted that in prison, he was in the clutches of the very government that had already tried to kill him several times.
In a dramatic appearance Friday at the Munich Security Conference, Navalny’s wife said she did not know whether to believe the reports from Russian authorities of his death because “they always lie.”
“But if this is true, I want Putin and everyone around him to know that they will be held accountable for everything they did to our country, to my family. And this day will happen very soon,” Yulia Navalnaya said. “I want to call on the international community and all people to unite and defeat this evil.”
The couple have two children — a daughter, 23-year-old Darya, and a teenage son, Zakhar.
Navalny had long resisted being called a “dissident,” a description he associated with hopeless opposition. Instead he sought to be viewed as a politician with aspirations of challenging Putin in a free and fair election. But last summer, after Russia’s politicized judicial system added 19 years for extremism to previous sentences totaling more than 11 years, Navalny wrote a long post on social media comparing himself to former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky and accepting his fate as a political prisoner.
Navalny’s death comes as Putin is campaigning for near-certain reelection next month with no serious opposition. A candidate who sought to run on an antiwar platform, Boris Nadezhdin, was disqualified by Russian election authorities because of alleged irregularities with signatures required to win a place on the ballot.
The loss of Navalny’s strong, fearless voice — which continued to resonate on social media even from the brutal prison colonies where he was often held in solitary-punishment cells — is a devastating blow to Russia’s opposition and the liberal antiwar activists still resisting Putin, mainly from outside the country.
Since ordering the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Putin has accelerated his shift from an authoritarian “managed democracy” to a more totalitarian regime, with escalating repression of his political opponents. Many, such as Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, longtime associates of Navalny, are in prison, while others fled the country.
In a column this week, Kara-Murza, a Washington Post contributor, nonetheless struck an optimistic note and said Nadezhdin’s upstart campaign “has exposed the lie behind the Kremlin claims of solid public support for Putin and for his war … This doesn’t mean that change will happen tomorrow or next month. But a society that feels more empowered and more confident about itself is suddenly a force to be reckoned with. And that is bad news for any dictator.”
Whatever official cause of death might be cited, few observers doubted that Navalny’s death was caused directly or indirectly by the Russian authorities, coming after the poisoning attempt in August 2020 and three years of ill treatment since his return.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose country remains under attack by Russian forces that now occupy one-fifth of its territory, said the Russian leader was to blame.
“Obviously, he was killed by Putin, like thousands of others tortured and tormented by this creature alone,” Zelensky said at a news conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “Putin doesn’t care who dies as long as he maintains his position.”
“I’m literally both not surprised and outraged by the news-reported death of Navalny,” President Biden said. “But make no mistake … Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. Putin is responsible.”
Analysts warned that Putin, increasingly isolated and hostile to the West, no longer cares about the condemnations of global leaders. Some noted that Putin has never faced real accountability for a string of deaths of other opponents who are believed to have been assassinated by Russian agents or proxies for the state, including Anna Politkovskaya, a crusading journalist who was shot in the foyer her apartment building in Moscow in 2006; and Boris Nemtsov, a close associate of Navalny, who was shot on a bridge near the Kremlin in 2015.
Some of the sharpest reactions came from leaders of neighboring countries that were once part of the Soviet Union.
Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs was one of the first leaders to declare Navalny’s death to be a murder. Navalny “was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter. “That’s a fact, and that is something one should know about the true nature of Russia’s current regime.”
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, whose mother and grandmother were deported to Siberia in Soviet times, posted: “Navalny’s death is yet another dark reminder of the rogue regime we’re dealing with — and why Russia and all those responsible must be held accountable for each of their crimes.”
The Kremlin denied any involvement in Navalny’s death, calling statements to the contrary by leaders across the world “unacceptable.”
“There is no statement from medics, no information from forensic experts, no final information from the FSIN [Federal Penitentiary Service], no information about the cause of death,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “And such statements are coming.”
Putin for years almost always refused to utter Navalny’s name, often referring to him by awkward euphemisms such as “the Berlin clinic patient,” as he was being treated in Germany following the poisoning. Putin did not mention his death when he met Friday with students and workers in Chelyabinsk in southwestern Russia. According to a reporter in the Kremlin pool from the state RIA Novosti news agency, Putin’s meeting took place after he was informed of Navalny’s death.
After antagonizing so many of Russia’s most powerful people with his anti-corruption activism and his relentless crusades against election fraud and other government malfeasance, Navalny was so often asked why he was still alive that he said he grew bored of the question.
“If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong,” he said in an Oscar-winning 2022 documentary about his life. “We need to utilize this power to not give up, to remember we are a huge power that is being oppressed by these bad dudes.”
In December 2020, four months after Navalny was poisoned while on a campaign trip to Siberia, Putin brushed off a question at his annual news conference about evidence that government agents were behind the attack. He chillingly insisted that if the Russian authorities wanted to kill him, Navalny would already be dead.
“Who needs him?” Putin asked the hall full of journalists, chuckling. “If they really wanted to, they probably would have finished it.”
But Navalny and a team including Bellingcat’s Christo Grozev tracked down the members of the Federal Security Service team that had tailed Navalny repeatedly before his death, and Navalny even managed to coax a taped confession by phone from one of the agents who had been sent to clean up the poison smeared on Navalny’s underpants.
Russia’s elites, many of them deeply uneasy over Putin’s war on Ukraine and his moves to sever Western ties, were stunned and shocked by Navalny’s death. Some said it sent a chilling message to all Russians, marking a new chapter in Putin’s efforts to re-create a closed, deeply repressive Soviet-style regime, with no dissent tolerated.
“This is terrible for everyone. This will be used to frighten people even more,” said one Russian businessman, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “It is a new page in the history of this regime.”
The Russian authorities “will frighten people by saying you will end like Navalny,” the businessman added. “They don’t need to put 100 people in jail. It is enough to have the death in jail of just one.” The risk of opposing the Putin regime previously “was that you might sit in jail for a few years and then be set free. But now it seems they are not afraid to kill you in jail.”
A Russian official said it was impossible to say how Navalny could have died so suddenly after appearing to be in good spirits in a court appearance via video a day earlier.
“From the worst, most macabre causes, anything is possible. They already tried to poison him once,” the official said. “For now, there is nothing to say, apart from to express horror.”
Andrei Kolesnikov, a Russia-based analyst with the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, said that by repeatedly punishing Navalny and sending him to harsh isolation cells, the prison authorities had gradually killed him.
“You have to understand they did this on purpose,” he said.
According to Navalny’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, Navalny was sent into isolation cells 27 times, often for trivial matters, most recently Wednesday for 15 days. In all, he spent around 300 days in solitary confinement.
Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said on Telegram that: “This is not an accidental death in any way. This is a targeted political assassination,” he said, saying Putin was responsible.
Amid a heavy police presence, Navalny supporters in Moscow laid flowers at the Solovetsky Stone on Friday, a memorial to the victims of political repression. There were similar spontaneous memorials in other Russian and foreign cities.
Navalny often sketched a vision of a Russia not only free, but also happy, where officials acted according to their consciences, not their material interests.
He called it the “beautiful Russia of the future.”
Herszenhorn reported from Brussels and Belton from London. Mary Ilyushina in Berlin, Francesca Ebel in London and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga contributed to this report.
ti-amie wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 9:51 pm
Analysts warned that Putin, increasingly isolated and hostile to the West, no longer cares about the condemnations of global leaders.
He has never cared.
And if Navalny ever thought that he was going to get out of Russia alive, that would have been foolish.
Message to leaders of oppositions around the world: martyrs are seldom useful. See, Biko, Stephen. And now, Navalny.
by ti-amie Michael Weiss
@michaeldweiss
Now they're hiding Navalny's corpse.
I don't know about the reliability of the source but if this is true...
by ti-amieA 'Christian' family moved to Russia to escape 'LGBTQ, trans,' but now they're 'ready' to 'get out'
The patriarch of a right-wing Canadian family of 11 had had just about enough of gay people in his country. “We didn't feel safe for our children there in the future anymore,” father Arend Feenstra told Russian media. “There's a lot of left-wing ideology, LGBTQ, trans, just a lot of things that we don't agree with that they teach there now, and we wanted to get away from that for our children.”
Yeah, if there’s one place that’s just not safe for kids, it’s Canada. Russia would be soooo much safer.
So Arend (and wife Anneesa) sold everything they had to move to sunny Russia and raise eight of their nine kids with “orthodox” values. They also gladly took donations on their social media platform from fellow right-wingers, all so they could live in Vladimir Putin’s wonderland. Russian officials assured them that they would work with them to get them established, and even help them get a farm. They did all of this just three weeks ago; long story short, they lived happily ever after.
Except they didn’t.
First, according to the family, the Russian bank where they moved the proceeds from selling their farm and belongings? It immediately froze their assets. The amount of money seemed suspicious, Arend states in a Feb. 9 video. I guess it would, since so many Russians outside of Putin’s circle are dirt poor. As a result, the family didn’t have money to live on—apparently those nice Russian officials offering to help them had disappeared.
Since no one in the family speaks Russian, they’ve also had a bear of a time trying to argue for their money—because Russia doesn’t require any bank, or any business, to hire English translators. In the meantime, they discovered that Russia is a pretty damn miserable place to be right now.
TikTok user Ukrainian.Networking translated a Russian Federation Reported Media story in a snarky post.
The Russian reporter noted that Anneesa spoke her mind in a since-deleted video on the family’s “Countryside Acres” YouTube channel.
"I'm very disappointed in this country at this point. I'm ready to jump on a plane and get out of here. We've hit the first snag where you have to engage logic in this country and it's very, very frustrating."
Hoooo boy. They just arrived and already she’s insulted Russia. Now, I’m not saying Russia doesn’t have freedom of the press, but it’s really just freedom to praise Putin and the country he controls. Anything that resembles criticism in Russia is NOT taken as kindly as it is in our godless Western dystopias. I’m also not suggesting that Russian officials paid the family a visit to remind them of where they are, but I will point out that Arend quickly posted an apology video to the Countryside Acres channel, saying that his wife misspoke and they’d deleted the video.
In that video, he reiterated that no, Russia is really, really great (subtext: “Please don’t push me out of a window”) and he spoke of his hope to resolve the issue with the bank. Commenters weren’t so sure, or kind. They pointed out that the bank will likely never release their funds and it is more likely that he will be recognized as a foreign agent.
At this point, I’m not sure the Countryside Acres farming gig is going to work out. Patriarch Arend should have agreed to be used as a tool for Russian state media. I mean, if you are going to be a Russian Asset, might as well go all-in.
I’m willing to bet that living in a country that grants gay people basic civil rights might not be looking so bad now. I was wondering if the family is desperately trying to split, so I looked up how difficult it is to leave Russia. According to the BBC, you can leave “as long as you have money and have not been called up to the army.”
Even if only for his kids’ sakes, let’s hope Arend’s only lost his money.
Apparently the oldest child opted not to make the trip. Videos are also at the link.
by ponchi101 I feel so sorry for ... the kids.
What a tool.
by ti-amie I read about this a day or two ago but I thought it was a joke. It seems now that questions are being asked about the citizenship of the children, maybe to see if they can be returned home.
by ti-amieA killing in Spain points to Russia and Putin’s sense of impunity
By Greg Miller
February 21, 2024 at 3:30 p.m. EST
The building in Villajoyosa, Spain, where Maxim Kuzminov, a Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine last year, was found fatally shot and run over by a car. (Eva Manez/Reuters)
The pastel-hued village where Russian pilot Maksim Kuzminov settled on the coast of Spain must have seemed a world away from the war he thought he had escaped last year when he defected to Ukraine. But the discovery of his bullet-riddled body last week appeared to deliver a menacing new signal from Moscow that those who cross the Kremlin — no matter how far they flee from the war’s front lines — should never consider themselves safe.
Kuzminov was killed in a barrage of gunfire and then run over with his own vehicle by assailants who then used the car to escape, according to Spanish authorities, Ukraine security officials and Spanish media reports.
The attack lacked the elaborate touches often associated with Russian assassination plots. He was not poisoned with a weapons-grade toxin or found in the wreckage of an aircraft that plunged from the sky. Yet the message behind Kuzminov’s death is the same as it has been through much of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two-decade tenure, according to Western security officials and experts.
“It is a reminder for everyone who is in exile and actively in opposition to the regime — they are all on somebody’s list,” said Eugene Rumer, a former senior U.S. intelligence official who directs the Russia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Versions of that message have been relayed repeatedly in recent months. The death of former Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin — whose plane exploded on its way to St. Petersburg weeks after he led an aborted military insurrection — showed that old, close ties with Putin are no protection.
The death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a remote Arctic penal colony last week signaled that even those serving multiyear sentences — often in solitary confinement and stripped of all meaningful ability to threaten the state — may not survive.
Kuzminov fell into a category that Putin, a former KGB officer, regards with particular scorn: traitors from within the military and security services. His presidency has been marked by a series of elaborate operations that seemed aimed at inflicting the most painful punishment possible on those accused of turning against Russia for the West.
Those targeted include Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, officer who died after being poisoned with polonium in London in 2006, according to British investigators; and Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer who survived an attack that left him and his daughter gravely ill from exposure to a nerve agent, Novichok, that is known to be produced only by a Russian lab.
Navalny narrowly survived an attempt on his own life by Russian security officials using the same substance in 2020. After recuperating in Germany, he returned to Russia in 2021 and was arrested upon his arrival.
Russia’s ability to carry out lethal operations beyond its borders was believed to have been substantially eroded by waves of expulsions of Russian spies from the country’s embassies. Europe alone has expelled more than 400 suspected Russian intelligence officers since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
The car allegedly used by Kuzminov's killers and then left in flames is seen outside the Spanish Civil Guard barracks in El Campello on Feb. 14. (Alex Dominguez/Informacion.es via Reuters)
Kuzminov’s killing showed that Russia retains some capabilities in Europe despite the decimation of its spy networks, and has found ways to adapt, officials said. “They have made mistakes but learned lessons,” said a senior Ukrainian intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
In contrast to the intricate plots against Skripal and Navalny carried out by officers working directly for Russia’s intelligence services, the attack on Kuzminov in Spain more closely resembled a mob hit. The nature of the killing has prompted speculation that Russia has turned to criminal networks to compensate for its curtailed operational presence across Europe.
If so, Kuzminov’s decision to leave Ukraine for Spain’s Mediterranean coast may have been a particularly risky, if not reckless, move.
The Alicante region has for decades been associated with Russian organized-crime syndicates, according to officials and government reports. It also has a prominent Russian expatriate population — home to as many as 16,000 of the roughly 80,000 Russians who resided in Spain as of 2022, according to government figures.
Spanish authorities have mounted intermittent operations to root out the Russian syndicates, including one that occupied investigators for seven years before culminating in sweeping arrests and property seizures three years ago.
The case, dubbed “Operation Testudo,” exposed a “large-scale criminal network” linked to Russia that involved “murder, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, trafficking of human beings and extortion,” according to a news statement issued by Europol. Given the presence of such criminal networks, “Russia could recruit criminals and not [rely on] professional intelligence agents” to carry out the killing of Kuzminov, the Ukrainian official said.
It is not clear when Kuzminov arrived in Villajoyosa, a village along a section of Mediterranean shoreline known for its concentration of transplants from Russia. He appears to have been living in Spain under a false identity and Ukrainian passport, presumably provided by Ukraine’s military intelligence service, the GUR, which touted his defection last year aboard an Mi-8 transport helicopter packed with valuable Russian jet components as a propaganda coup.
Kuzminov appeared in a Kyiv-sponsored documentary describing his decision to defect after negotiating a deal in which Ukraine helped secure the relocation of members of his family from Russia and agreed to pay him $500,000.
It is not clear whether Kuzminov’s family members moved with him to Spain. Ukraine security officials said there were indications that Kuzminov may have compromised his own security by making contact with a former girlfriend in Russia, an assertion that could not be confirmed.
A former U.S. intelligence official said the killing of Kuzminov raises questions of “whether Western intel services have done enough to encourage Russian defections and provide for the security of defectors,” something that “should be a top priority for a variety of obvious reasons.”
The Western response so far to the death of Navalny seems to underscore a lack of retaliatory options against Russia, which has defied expectations in its ability to withstand Western weapons shipments to Ukraine, economic sanctions and diplomatic expulsions over the past two years.
Britain announced Wednesday that it would punish Russia for Navalny’s death by imposing economic sanctions on the “heads of the Arctic penal colony where Alexei Navalny was killed.” President Biden has said a package of U.S. sanctions is imminent.
Serhiy Morgunov in Kyiv, Souad Mekhennet and Shane Harris in Washington, and Isabella Carril in Madrid contributed to this report.
by Owendonovan The right prayer should get them out of Russia, no? Another glaring example of the wrong people reproducing.
by ti-amieSri Lanka ends visas for hundreds of thousands of Russians staying there to avoid war
Investigation launched into order asking Russians to leave country amid blacklash over ‘whites only policy’
Shweta Sharma
Sri Lanka has told hundreds of thousands of Russians and some Ukrainians staying in the country to escape the war that they must leave in the next two weeks, immigration officers said.
The immigration controller issued a notice to the tourism ministry asking Russian and Ukrainian people staying on extended tourist visas to leave Sri Lanka within two weeks from 23 February.
Just over 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians have traveled to Sri Lanka in the last two years since the war began, according to official data.
Commissioner-General of Immigration said the “government is not granting further visa extensions” as the “flight situation has now normalised”.
However, the office of president Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered an investigation of the notice to the tourism ministry in an apparent bid to prevent diplomatic tensions.
The president’s office said that the notice had been issued without prior cabinet approval and the government had not officially decided to revoke the visa extensions, reported the Sri Lankan newspaper Daily Mirror.
The exact number of visitors who extended their stay beyond the typical 30-day tourist visa duration remains unclear.
However, concerns have been raised over thousands of Russians and a smaller number of Ukrainians staying in the country for an extended period of time and even setting up their own restaurants and nightclubs.
Tourism minister Harin Fernando told Daily Mirror that the ministry has been receiving complaints of some Russian tourists running unregistered and illegal businesses in the southern part of the country.
Raids were conducted by the authorities following discussions with the Immigration Department, he said.
It comes amid a furious social media backlash over Russian-run businesses with a “whites only” policy that strictly bars locals. These businesses include bars, restaurants, water sports and vehicle hiring services.
In a bid to boost tourism and recover from its worst economic crisis since 2022, Sri Lanka began granting 30-days visas on arrival and extensions for up to six months.
In April 2022, the nation defaulted on its $46bn (£36 bn) foreign debt. The economic crisis triggered violent street protests for several months and ultimately culminated in the resignation of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa three months later.
by ponchi101 Smart way to make the locals like you...
by ti-amie Steve Herman
@w7voa@journa.host
Meduza - On March 19, Vladimir Putin dismissed warnings from U.S. diplomats that there was an imminent risk of a terrorist attack at a crowded venue in Moscow. The Russian president called the warnings “outright blackmail” by the West and an attempt to “intimidate and destabilize our society.” https://meduza.io/en/live/2024/03/22/te ... ide-moscow
@Independent@press.coop
Gunmen in combat fatigues fire on Moscow concert hall crowds, killing and wounding several people
Russia’s top security agency, the Federal Security Service, says there are dead and wounded in a Moscow concert hall that is ablaze amid a shooting by several gunmen #press
Several gunmen burst into a big concert hall on the edge of Moscow on Friday and sprayed visitors with automatic gunfire, injuring an unspecified number of people and starting a massive blaze in an apparent terror attack days after President Vladimir Putin cemented his grip on the country in a highly orchestrated electoral landslide.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the raid, the worst terror attack in Russia in two decades that came as the fighting in Ukraine dragged into a third year. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin described the attack as a “huge tragedy.”
Russia’s top domestic security agency, the Federal Security Service, said there are dead and wounded but didn't give any numbers.
Russian news reports said that the assailants threw explosives, triggering a massive blaze at the Crocus City Hall on the western edge of Moscow. Video posted on social media showed huge plumes of black smoke rising over the building.
The attack took place as crowds gathered for a concert of Picnic, a famed Russian rock band, at the hall that can accommodate over 6,000 people. Russian news reports said that visitors were being evacuated, but some said that an unspecified number of people could have been trapped by the blaze.
The prosecutor’s office said several men in combat fatigues entered the concert hall and fired at visitors.
Extended rounds of gunfire could be heard on multiple videos posted by Russian media and Telegram channels. One showed two men with rifles moving through the mall. Another one showed a man inside the auditorium, saying the assailants set it on fire, as gunshots rang out incessantly in the background.
More videos showed up to four attackers, armed with assault rifles and wearing caps, who were shooting screaming people at point-blank range.
Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, said he was heading to the area and set up a task force to deal with the damage. He didn't immediately offer any further details.
Russian media reports said that riot police units were being sent to the area as people were being evacuated.
Russian authorities said security was tightened at Moscow’s airports and railway stations, while the Moscow mayor cancelled all mass gatherings scheduled for the weekend.
White House National Security Advisor John Kirby said Friday that he couldn’t yet speak about all the details but that “the images are just horrible. And just hard to watch.”
“Our thoughts are going to be with the victims of this terrible, terrible shooting attack,” Kirby said. “There are some moms and dads and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters who haven’t gotten the news yet. This is going to be a tough day.”
The attack followed a statement issued earlier this month by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that urged the Americans to avoid crowded places in the Russian capital in view of an imminent attack, a warning that was repeated by several other Western embassies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who extended his grip on Russia for another six years in the March 15-17 presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on dissent, earlier this week denounced the Western warnings as an attempt to intimidate Russians.
by ti-amieAt least 40 dead after explosion, gunfire hit popular Moscow concert venue
By Francesca Ebel and Mary Ilyushina
Updated March 22, 2024 at 4:56 p.m. EDT|Published March 22, 2024 at 2:14 p.m. EDT
Several gunmen opened fire Friday night at Crocus City Hall, a popular concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow, Russian state news agencies reported. Dozens of people were reported injured or killed and the building was on fire, in the most deadly terrorist attack in Russia for over a decade.
“People in camouflage, at least three, burst into the ground floor of the Crocus City Hall and opened fire from automatic weapons. There are definitely wounded,” state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing its correspondent at the scene.
“After that they threw a grenade or an incendiary bomb, which started a fire,” RIA Novosti added. “The people in the hall lay down on the floor to escape the shooting, and stayed there for 15-20 minutes, after which they began to crawl out. Many managed to get out.”
Videos shared on Russian Telegram channels and verified by The Washington Post, show four men in camouflage entering a large marbled hall and shooters firing rounds in a concert hall, misty with smoke.
Other clips show scores of bodies slumped on benches or on the ground and a large fire erupting from the building’s roof. The roof of the concert venue partially collapsed and the fire reached 3000 square meters, according to the state news service Interfax, which citied emergency services.
One graphic video showed a shooter firing for a full minute at point-blank range on a group of people trapped in an entranceway.
At least 40 people were killed and more than 100 wounded, the Tass news agency reported, citing the press office of the Federal Security Service.
Moscow region’s Health Ministry said that more than 30 regional and 20 Moscow ambulance teams have been deployed to the venue.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility, and it was unclear whether the attack was related to Russia’s war in Ukraine, now grinding into a third year. Some foreign embassies in Moscow have issued warnings in recent weeks urging their citizens to avoid mass gatherings out of concern for the risk of attacks.
Ukraine swiftly denied responsibility for the attack. “Ukraine definitely has nothing to do with these events,” said Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency blamed Russia’s security services for the operation and said they would probably use the fallout to build support for their war in Ukraine.
The attack was “a planned and deliberate provocation by the Russian special services at the behest of Putin,” GUR said in a Telegram post. Its purpose was to “justify even tougher strikes on Ukraine and total mobilization in Russia,” the agency said.
Recent intelligence reporting indicated the ISIS K terrorist group, a branch of the Islamic State that has operated in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, was active inside Russia, two U.S. officials told The Washington Post. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said March 7 that it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings” in the Russian capital, “to include concerts,” and urged U.S. citizens to avoid them.
(...)
The attack began before the start of a Friday night concert by the rock band called Picnic. The musicians were apparently in their dressing room when it started. The concert was sold out, according to ticket agencies, suggesting that as many as 6,200 people may have been in the venue.
One witness said she was about to enter with her parents when the attack began.
“We were literally three steps away from the entrance when the shooting started … and a man fell down dead in front of me,” the girl, who gave her name as Anna, told the Russian channel TV Rain in a telephone interview. “People started shouting, ‘Run, they’re shooting!’ We didn’t realize it at first, because it sounded like firecrackers.”
Another witness counted “at least five” attackers, armed with assault rifles, ammunition and armored vests.
“They act like trained fighters,” the witness told Mash, a Russian Telegram channel. “At the moment of entering the building, the guards and people standing at the door were killed. Then they blocked the main entrance.”
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin ordered assistance for those affected by the attack and said authorities would cancel all cultural, sport, and other mass gatherings for the weekend.
Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of Russia’s Federation Council, said “those who are behind this monstrous crime will suffer a well-deserved and inevitable punishment.”
Opposition figure Yulia Navalnaya called the attack “a nightmare.”
“Everyone involved in this crime must be found and held accountable,” Navalnaya, whose husband, Alexei Navalny, died last month in a Russian prison colony, wrote on social media.
Initial reports by Russian media suggested that some assailants might have barricaded themselves inside, and that there could be at least 100 people still in the building — some potentially trapped by fire on an upper floor. The scene outside the venue was chaotic as firefighters and other emergency responders worked at the site.
Moscow regional governor Alexei Vorobyev said at least 20 people had been hospitalized, four in critical condition.
Siobhán O’Grady and Kostiantyn Khudov in Kyiv, Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, and Shane Harris in Washington contributed to this report.
There is video at the link, some from inside of the hall when the shooting started.
by ti-amieRussia says 40 dead, 145 injured in concert hall raid, Islamic State group claims responsibility
Associated Press
Updated Fri, March 22, 2024 at 11:19 PM GMT+1
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on affiliated channels on social media, which couldn't be independently verified. It wasn't immediately clear what happened to the attackers after the raid, which Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin described as a “huge tragedy" and state authorities were investigating as terrorism.
by ti-amie Malcolm Nance
@MalcolmNance
THE #MOSCOW TERRORISTS: I’ve watched a half dozen videos of the terrorists action. They are attacking “Alpine style”, Fast & light. AK automatic rifles, poss IEDs & extra magazines in packs. Civilian clothes. No suicide bomb belts or vests & not fighting to death. People heard them speaking clear Russian. Amateurish tactics. My vote: Chechens/Dagestanis or Ingushetians in ISIS-Kavkaz (Russia) province.
by ti-amie
Marc Polymeropoulos
@Mpolymer
What often happens in Duty to Warn cases, with adversaries. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
Aaron Y. Zelin
@azelin
Another thing to note connecting the IS attacks in Iran and Russia this year is the fact that the US warned both countries of the potential for an attack ahead of time based on intelligence and professionalism on the issue, yet both Iran and Russia brushed it off.
by ti-amieDeath toll from Moscow concert attack rises to 133 as more bodies found
By Kelsey Ables, Francesca Ebel, Mary Ilyushina and Robyn Dixon
Updated March 23, 2024 at 2:48 p.m. EDT|Published March 23, 2024 at 2:44 a.m. EDT
Russian President Vladimir Putin told his nation in a televised address Saturday that 11 people had been detained in connection with Friday’s deadly attack on a popular Moscow concert venue, including the four gunmen who had opened fire, killing at least 133.
Putin claimed the assailants had been trying to escape via Ukraine, “where according to preliminary data, a window for them to cross the state border was prepared by the Ukrainian side.” Ukrainian officials have denied any involvement in the attack.
Late Friday, gunmen armed with automatic weapons attacked the Crocus City Hall — a massive shopping and entertainment venue on the outskirts of Moscow — and set the concert hall alight. The assault followed U.S. government warnings this month about a “planned terrorist attack” in the Russian capital.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said more bodies were found at the site Saturday, adding that the death toll was expected to rise, with 16 of the 107 hospitalized victims in grave condition and 44 in serious condition.
Putin called the attack a planned and an organized mass murder of innocent and defenseless people, and he promised swift retaliation.
“The criminals in cold blood, purposefully went to kill and shoot at point-blank range our citizens and our children, as the Nazis did who committed massacres in the occupied territories. They planned to stage a demonstrative execution, a bloody act of intimidation,” he said. “All perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of this crime will be fairly and unavoidably punished, whoever they are or whoever directs them.”
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Friday night attack, already one of the most deadly in modern Russian history, which left about 140,000 square feet of the venue in Krasnogorsk in flames, according to Russia’s emergency services. A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, told The Washington Post that the United States had “no reason to doubt” the claim from the Islamic State.
(...)
The Investigative Committee said that the preliminary causes of death were gunshot wounds and inhalation of fumes. The committee said investigations were continuing at the venue.
By Saturday afternoon, the Health Ministry had identified 41 of the victims, predominantly people between the ages of 30 and 60.
(...)
The U.S. government issued a public advisory to Americans in Russia on March 7 that described the risk of a “planned terrorist attack in Moscow — potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement Friday.
“The U.S. Government also shared this information with Russian authorities in accordance with its long-standing ‘duty to warn’ policy,” Watson said.
The warning was based, in part, on intelligence reporting about possible activity inside Russia from Islamic State-Khorasan, the Afghanistan and Pakistan arm of the Islamic State, two U.S. officials who also spoke on the condition of anonymity told The Post. Other Western embassies echoed the warning.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, has denied any responsibility for Friday’s attack, writing on social media that Ukraine “certainly has nothing to do with the shooting/explosions” and that “everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.”
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sat Mar 23, 2024 8:53 pmDeath toll from Moscow concert attack rises to 133 as more bodies found
By Kelsey Ables, Francesca Ebel, Mary Ilyushina and Robyn Dixon
Updated March 23, 2024 at 2:48 p.m. EDT|Published March 23, 2024 at 2:44 a.m. EDT
Russian President Vladimir Putin told his nation in a televised address Saturday that 11 people had been detained in connection with Friday’s deadly attack on a popular Moscow concert venue, including the four gunmen who had opened fire, killing at least 133.
Putin claimed the assailants had been trying to escape via Ukraine, “where according to preliminary data, a window for them to cross the state border was prepared by the Ukrainian side.” Ukrainian officials have denied any involvement in the attack.
Late Friday, gunmen armed with automatic weapons attacked the Crocus City Hall — a massive shopping and entertainment venue on the outskirts of Moscow — and set the concert hall alight. The assault followed U.S. government warnings this month about a “planned terrorist attack” in the Russian capital.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said more bodies were found at the site Saturday, adding that the death toll was expected to rise, with 16 of the 107 hospitalized victims in grave condition and 44 in serious condition.
Putin called the attack a planned and an organized mass murder of innocent and defenseless people, and he promised swift retaliation.
“The criminals in cold blood, purposefully went to kill and shoot at point-blank range our citizens and our children, as the Nazis did who committed massacres in the occupied territories. They planned to stage a demonstrative execution, a bloody act of intimidation,” he said. “All perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of this crime will be fairly and unavoidably punished, whoever they are or whoever directs them.”
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Friday night attack, already one of the most deadly in modern Russian history, which left about 140,000 square feet of the venue in Krasnogorsk in flames, according to Russia’s emergency services. A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, told The Washington Post that the United States had “no reason to doubt” the claim from the Islamic State.
(...)
The Investigative Committee said that the preliminary causes of death were gunshot wounds and inhalation of fumes. The committee said investigations were continuing at the venue.
By Saturday afternoon, the Health Ministry had identified 41 of the victims, predominantly people between the ages of 30 and 60.
(...)
The U.S. government issued a public advisory to Americans in Russia on March 7 that described the risk of a “planned terrorist attack in Moscow — potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement Friday.
“The U.S. Government also shared this information with Russian authorities in accordance with its long-standing ‘duty to warn’ policy,” Watson said.
The warning was based, in part, on intelligence reporting about possible activity inside Russia from Islamic State-Khorasan, the Afghanistan and Pakistan arm of the Islamic State, two U.S. officials who also spoke on the condition of anonymity told The Post. Other Western embassies echoed the warning.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, has denied any responsibility for Friday’s attack, writing on social media that Ukraine “certainly has nothing to do with the shooting/explosions” and that “everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.”
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sat Mar 23, 2024 8:53 pmDeath toll from Moscow concert attack rises to 133 as more bodies found
By Kelsey Ables, Francesca Ebel, Mary Ilyushina and Robyn Dixon
Updated March 23, 2024 at 2:48 p.m. EDT|Published March 23, 2024 at 2:44 a.m. EDT
Russian President Vladimir Putin told his nation in a televised address Saturday that 11 people had been detained in connection with Friday’s deadly attack on a popular Moscow concert venue, including the four gunmen who had opened fire, killing at least 133.
Putin claimed the assailants had been trying to escape via Ukraine, “where according to preliminary data, a window for them to cross the state border was prepared by the Ukrainian side.” Ukrainian officials have denied any involvement in the attack.
Late Friday, gunmen armed with automatic weapons attacked the Crocus City Hall — a massive shopping and entertainment venue on the outskirts of Moscow — and set the concert hall alight. The assault followed U.S. government warnings this month about a “planned terrorist attack” in the Russian capital.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said more bodies were found at the site Saturday, adding that the death toll was expected to rise, with 16 of the 107 hospitalized victims in grave condition and 44 in serious condition.
Putin called the attack a planned and an organized mass murder of innocent and defenseless people, and he promised swift retaliation.
“The criminals in cold blood, purposefully went to kill and shoot at point-blank range our citizens and our children, as the Nazis did who committed massacres in the occupied territories. They planned to stage a demonstrative execution, a bloody act of intimidation,” he said. “All perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of this crime will be fairly and unavoidably punished, whoever they are or whoever directs them.”
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Friday night attack, already one of the most deadly in modern Russian history, which left about 140,000 square feet of the venue in Krasnogorsk in flames, according to Russia’s emergency services. A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, told The Washington Post that the United States had “no reason to doubt” the claim from the Islamic State.
(...)
The Investigative Committee said that the preliminary causes of death were gunshot wounds and inhalation of fumes. The committee said investigations were continuing at the venue.
By Saturday afternoon, the Health Ministry had identified 41 of the victims, predominantly people between the ages of 30 and 60.
(...)
The U.S. government issued a public advisory to Americans in Russia on March 7 that described the risk of a “planned terrorist attack in Moscow — potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement Friday.
“The U.S. Government also shared this information with Russian authorities in accordance with its long-standing ‘duty to warn’ policy,” Watson said.
The warning was based, in part, on intelligence reporting about possible activity inside Russia from Islamic State-Khorasan, the Afghanistan and Pakistan arm of the Islamic State, two U.S. officials who also spoke on the condition of anonymity told The Post. Other Western embassies echoed the warning.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, has denied any responsibility for Friday’s attack, writing on social media that Ukraine “certainly has nothing to do with the shooting/explosions” and that “everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.”
by skatingfan Well, that answers my question about whether the confessions were voluntary. Do we have any reason to believe that these people were actually involved in the attack?
by ti-amie
skatingfan wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 1:26 am
Well, that answers my question about whether the confessions were voluntary. Do we have any reason to believe that these people were actually involved in the attack?
by ponchi101 Standard tactic of the Soviet era.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ti-amie There is a US naval base on Okinawa.
This video was posted an hour ago so...
by ponchi101 Let's hope the Japanese and Taiwanese are well prepared for this.
by ti-amie
by Owendonovan
skatingfan wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 1:26 am
Well, that answers my question about whether the confessions were voluntary. Do we have any reason to believe that these people were actually involved in the attack?
Absolutely not. Tajikistan will be annexed next.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Will Israel and Iran go to war?
And, how can two countries separated by such distances be at war, other than airstrikes?
by skatingfan
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 3:35 am
Will Israel and Iran go to war?
And, how can two countries separated by such distances be at war, other than airstrikes?
They've been at war for decades.
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 3:35 am
Will Israel and Iran go to war?
And, how can two countries separated by such distances be at war, other than airstrikes?
It's mostly proxy war from Iranian side. I'd not expect a major direct war due to distance and possible American intervention.
by ti-amieSlovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico shot and gravely injured
Fico was transported to a hospital by helicopter. His office said the “next few hours” would be decisive.
By Emily Rauhala and Ladka Bauerova
Updated May 15, 2024 at 2:24 p.m. EDT|Published May 15, 2024 at 9:44 a.m. EDT
Security officers move Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico into a car after a shooting in Handlova, Slovakia, on Wednesday. (Radovan Stoklasa/Reuters)
Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, was in “critical condition” and still undergoing surgery hours after being shot, government officials said at a hospital news conference on Wednesday evening.
Doctors are still “fighting for Robert Fico’s life,” Defense Minister Robert Kalinak said.
“He has multiple injuries and his condition is extremely serious,” Kalinak said. “We are still praying for good news, but we don’t have that news yet. He’s been in the operating room for 3.5 hours. His condition is very complicated.”
The shooting took place in the central town of Handlova, where the prime minister had attended a government meeting at the Palace of Culture. News video showed him striding with his entourage toward members of the public who were standing outside. He was shaking hands with people, reaching across a chest-high metal barrier, when a man in a button-down shirt appears to start shooting at close range. The attacker can be heard firing five shots before being tackled by security officers in dark suits.
Slovakia’s outgoing president, Zuzana Caputova, said police detained the presumed shooter.
“An attack on the prime minister is first and foremost an attack on a human being. But it’s also an attack on democracy,” she said. She urged people to refrain from “hasty judgments” before more information is known.
The president-elect, Peter Pellegrini, who takes power next month, said the attack represented “a threat to everything that up till now adorned Slovak democracy.”
“If we express different political opinions with guns in the squares, and not in polling stations, we endanger everything we have built together in 31 years of Slovak sovereignty,” he said.
The lack of information about the shooter’s motives did not stop Fico allies from casting blame.
“This assassination attempt was politically motivated and the motivation was born immediately after the elections,” Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said at the hospital.
At an earlier news conference, Lubos Blaha, deputy chairman of Fico’s party, Smer, turned to opposition deputies and said, “This is your work.”
Andrej Danko, a coalition partner, blamed journalists. “Are you happy?” he shouted at reporters.
Leaders across Europe and around the world expressed shock and outrage at the attack.
“We condemn this horrific act of violence,” President Biden said in a statement. “Our embassy is in close touch with the government of Slovakia and ready to assist.”
Fico has served multiple stints as Slovakia’s prime minister, most recently returning to power after winning an election in the fall.
He was forced out in 2018 amid public outrage over the killing of a journalist who had been investigating ties between his associates and the Italian mafia. But he staged a comeback by capitalizing on growing skepticism about the war in Ukraine and frustration with a cost-of-living crisis.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was among those who condemned the shooting. “There can be no justification for this monstrous crime,” he wrote to Čaputová, as reported by Reuters. “I know Robert Fico as a courageous and strong-minded man. I very much hope that these qualities will help him to survive this difficult situation.”
Pavol Hardos, a political scientist at Comenius University in Bratislava, said the shooting spotlighted political polarization in Slovakia — and could deepen it.
“It’s too early to say what the ramifications will be, but some government politicians already said that this amounts to a declaration of war,” he said.
He said he worried that Fico’s party would use the attack as an argument to continue its effort to exert control over radio and television, for instance. “This will be a useful excuse for doing all the things they wanted to do,” he said. “They will be able to make the necessary steps even faster than they planned.”
Slovakia’s major opposition parties, Progressive Slovakia and Freedom and Solidarity, announced after the shooting that they had canceled a planned demonstration against the government’s proposed overhaul of public broadcasting.
Progressive Slovakia rejected any connection between the attacker and its party or movement, adding in a statement, “We are concerned about the further escalation of tension in society.”
by ti-amieWhat do we know about Robert Fico's alleged shooter?
Copyright Radovan Stoklasa/Tlacova agentura SR
By Tamsin Paternoster & Euronews
Published on 15/05/2024 - 20:18
Slovakian media has described the shooter as a 71-year-old man who wrote poems and previously worked as a security guard.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is currently in hospital following a shooting that occurred following his cabinet's away-from-home session in the town of Handlova.
Slovakian media has named the shooter as Juraj Cintula from the small western town of Levice.
According to Slovak daily newspaper Dennik N, the suspected perpetrator is 71 years old, a writer and a founding member of the DÚHA Literary Club.
He has written three collections of poetry and published two novels titled 'The Message of Sacrifice' in 2010 and 'Efata' in 2015, according to the literary club's Facebook page. The latter is a novel about Slovakia's Roma community.
The Slovak Writers' Association (SSS) has registered Cintula as a member since 2015 however, have since tried to distance themselves from his association posting in a statement, "We express our indignation at such a brutal act, which has no parallel in the history of Slovakia."
Cintula reportedly owned a gun license, and previously worked as a security guard for a private security firm where he himself was the target of an attack in a shopping centre.
Markíza TV station reported on a brief video showing the suspect, which was released shortly after his arrest. In the video, he says, "I don't agree with the government's policies. Why are the media being targeted? Why is RTVS under attack? Why was Mazák dismissed from his position?"
The assassination attempt is the first on a senior politician in the history of modern Slovakia, which gained independence in 1993.
Rescue workers take Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was shot and injured, to a hospital in the town of Banska Bystrica, central Slovakia, Wednesday, May 15, 2024.Jan Kroslak/Tlacova agentura SR
Slovakia's General Prosecutor Maroš Žilinka has vowed that the attacker would face "uncompromising" punishment from law enforcement.
Allies of Fico have blamed 'liberal media' for the attack, accusing journalists of creating an environment that promoted hatred for Robert Fico and his populist policies.
Lubos Blaha, Slovakia's deputy parliament speaker and deputy chairman of Fico's Smer party has said, "For Smer, I want to sharply condemn what happened today in Handlova and at the same time express heavy disgust over what you have committed here in the past years".
"You, liberal media and political opposition. What hatred you spread against Robert Fico."
Slovakia's largest opposition party Progressive Slovakia has called off a planned protest against a controversial reform of Slovakia's public broadcasting services planned by Fico's government. The leader of the party, Michal Simecka, said the move was done to avoid an "escalation of tension".
by Owendonovan "You, liberal media and political opposition. What hatred you spread against Robert Fico."
Well, I suppose if Fico didn't spread and legislate autocratic, xenophobic, right-wing drek, the liberals wouldn't dislike him so much.
by ponchi101 Totally uninformed about Slovakia. I will read your posts.
by ti-amie
From The Guardian:
From 4h ago
19.16 BST
Crashed helicopter found by search teams, state TV reports
The helicopter that crashed has been found by search teams, Iranian state TV reported. There is no update yet on the condition of those onboard.
1h ago
21.34 BST
Patrick Wintour
The Iranian helicopter crash comes at a time when the country, faced by unprecedented external challenges, was already bracing itself for a change in regime with the expected demise in the next few years of its 85-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In the country’s hydra-headed leadership where power is spread in often opaque ways between clerics, politicians and army, it is the supreme leader, and not the president, that is ultimately decisive.
Indeed, in some ways the posts of president, and prime minister – originally based on a model of the French constitution – became overwhelmed in the drafting of Iran’s constitution in 1979, leading to advocates of a more powerful presidency to claim the role was being subsumed in a form of autocracy created in the name of religion.
by Suliso I'd expect no real change while Khamenei is alive. After maybe...
by ponchi101 I'm in BAires right now.
The majority of people are with Milei. They understand what needs to be done.
But some people will always decide to break something.
by ti-amieHow Britain became a food bank nation
Gordon Brown
Tue 11 Jun 2024 04.58 EDT
n Leeds, a child fails to turn up at school because she and her mother are sharing her family’s one and only pair of shoes. In Liverpool, one of two brothers turns up for football training each week because they are sharing the one pair of football boots the family can afford.
In Swansea, a girl is bullied at school by her classmates because she has no trainers at all. In Wigan town centre, another teenage schoolgirl is found walking alone on a Saturday afternoon wearing her school uniform and explains that these hand-me-down garments given to her by a teacher are the only clothes she has.
These experiences of hardship, relayed to me while travelling around Britain, are just the tip of an iceberg of widespread destitution and national shame. The far more severe suffering of 3 million children at the sharpest end of our poverty emergency is unseen and unreported, often hidden even from neighbours and friends. These millions start the day going to school hungry, regularly miss out on meals and, teachers report, are exhausted and unable to study for lack of nutrition.
Most of them do not have the luxury of school breakfast clubs. Even the inspirational charity Magic Breakfast, which serves 30m breakfasts a year to 200,000 children, has been forced to reduce its service owing to shortages of supplies. One-quarter of state school pupils in England now qualify for free school meals, a record number, but at least 800,000 more schoolchildren who are living in poverty go hungry because they are not eligible. This summer’s school holidays are nearly upon us and, as the Food Foundation and Marcus Rashford’s campaign highlight, there are too few out-of-term lunch clubs.
These are austerity’s children – millions of boys and girls living through what is for them the “hungry 20s” in food bank Britain.
There are 850 cinemas in Britain today and three times as many food banks. There are 1,200 hospitals and twice as many food banks. There are more food banks than there are public libraries.
The food bank has become such a fixture in our national life that we have almost forgotten that food banks barely existed until very recently. A mere 35 were provided by the Trussell Trust in 2010 and they had to increase twentyfold to 650 in 2013 and then double again to 1,300 in 2019. With the addition of independent food banks, today’s 2,800 food banks and emergency food suppliers are now as recognisable a feature of the British landscape as the local secondary school. Food banks are opening as fast as high street banks have been closing down.
Their existence is of course a testimony to the human decency and heroic endeavours of thousands of fellow citizens who feel the pain of others and believe in something bigger than themselves. But the fact that food banks have had to come into existence in one of the richest countries in the world is a scar on our collective conscience and a permanent stain on our country’s character.
And in 2024, even though the pandemic is over and the worst of the heating bills crisis is behind us, the food crisis is actually getting worse. There are three reasons for this, and all three can be laid at the door of this government.
First, universal credit is simply too low for people to be able to afford the essentials of food, basic toiletries and heating bills. One-off cost of living payments offered occasional, brief respite over the last couple of years but have now ended with nothing to replace them. All emergency payments ran out in March.
Second, the £1bn household support fund, which pays for most local crisis services in England and is the last line of defence against destitution, is being run down, ending in October. Vital cash grants to help people with unexpected costs, funding for preventive advice and support services that can make the difference between just struggling to get by and utter destitution, are set to disappear, making a mockery of government boasts that things are getting better.
Third, for some years to come, thousands more families will be pushed on to universal credit and face deductions for loans they have to take out to cover their first five weeks on the new benefit.
What makes things worse is that the food banks and other charities that have had to take over from the welfare state as a safety net for the poorest citizens are themselves running short of money. Charities may soon have to cut back on helping the hungry so they can save the starving, for they are facing a cost of giving crisis. Many donors to food banks who have little themselves, but have generously given to help those who have nothing, are now finding they have nothing more to give.
A few weeks ago I witnessed at first hand this escalation of the food crisis in our communities. A decade ago I had spoken at a church hall meeting when my local food bank started up. Now, because of a shortage of funds, it is having to close one of its many satellite hubs, which had been serving a population of nearly 10,000 people in a set of nearby villages. The volunteers at that hub are setting up their own independent food bank in order to continue feeding more than 50 families every week.
So at one and the same time existing food banks are running out of food and more food banks – as demand grows locally – are urgently needed. As official government statistics issued a few weeks ago demonstrate, 7.2 million of our fellow citizens suffer from food insecurity, an increase of 2.5 million people since 2022. If you focus on those who face “very low food security”, the near destitute, need is up by 68% – 1.5 million more hungry people in just one year.
And there is a good reason why. Over three years, overall prices are up 20% and food prices are up 30%, but until this April benefit rates had gone up by only 13.5%. So even with this year’s uprating of 6.7%, benefits lag behind need, and ONS data shows that the most basic nutritional goods –sliced white bread and semi-skimmed milk – are up even more, by 35% and 49% respectively.
And paying the increased bills for food has to be set against rising rents, sky-high energy bills, and increased internet charges if kids are to do their homework and parents are to look for jobs and escape being sanctioned by the DWP for failing to update their online journals.
For 14 years since 2010, successive prime ministers have not listened when anti-poverty campaigners have said hunger is a bigger problem than at any time in the last 50 years. Changes that include the two-child rule and the benefits cap and housing benefit limit have, in a manner unknown since the days of the poor law, broken the link between the number of mouths a family has to feed and the income it receives.
The absence of any formal link between the level at which benefits are set and the actual cost of essentials enabled their real value to hit a 40-year low just as inflation hit a 40-year high. And so overwhelming is the need that food banks have now not just spawned a network of community pantries, larders and kitchens but they have also inspired the creation of clothes banks, toiletries banks, bedding banks, baby banks and even heating banks.
The latest innovation, one in which I have been involved, is the “multibank”, which takes a holistic view of the needs of a family and provides all these goods through social workers, teachers and health visitors from one all-purpose warehouse.
For worsening poverty is causing not only hunger but ill health and squalor. Mothers find that after skimping and scraping to feed hungry bodies, they cannot afford to buy basic toiletries to keep austerity’s children clean. According to The Hygiene Bank, 3 million people are experiencing hygiene poverty. Instead of soap becoming more available at a decent price, families are paying 13% more for liquid soap than they did a year ago. Children coming to school unwashed and without clean clothes is often the first public sign that a family is in crisis. That is why many food banks are now providing toilet rolls, nappies, toothpaste, soap and shampoo.
Go to a primary school like the one I know of in Merseyside and you will find a teacher using her own money to hand out toilet rolls every Friday to each member of the class. She gives them out to every pupil to avoid any stigmatisation of the poorest kids. Now dozens of schools have installed launderettes to wash pupils’ clothes, and soon school launderettes could become as common as food banks.
Not only are today’s poorer children smaller in size than the generation before them but with the number of tooth extractions among poor children three and a half times that of those living in the most affluent communities, dental decay has become the most common reason for hospital admission in children aged between five and nine.
Food banks are today rightly lauded as national treasures. Ministers praise their work – but completely miss the point. Food banks exist not because food bank volunteers want them to be a permanent fixture of our national life but because our welfare state safety net is so full of holes that charities have had to step in.
Food banks do not want to spend the next few decades papering over the cracks in our welfare system. Inspired by the Trussell Trust chief executive, Emma Revie, they want to do themselves out of business, and that is why they are consistently calling on governments to do more.
Seventy per cent of poor children are in working families, and instead of the indignity of breadwinners having to beg for bread, food banks want their users to enjoy the dignity of well-paid work.
Among our politicians there are still some neoliberals who wish to shrink the welfare state into nothing and let food banks pick up the slack. But for the sake of our children we need to reassemble our social security safety net, bring the era of food banks to an end – and shield every child from hunger, squalor and poverty.
by ponchi101 Considering that's the entire population, it means it was nationwide. Very odd. ALL power plants and hydroelectric dams went offline? At the same time?
by ti-amie
This looks like a scene from the Korean drama "Crash Landing on You".
by ponchi101 Crash landing on you was drama?
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2024 12:42 am
Crash landing on you was drama?
I mean it did have all the K-drama tropes so technically it was one.
For years it was the most watched drama in South Korea and is still in second place.
by ti-amie Apparently these are real?!
greg cantwell
@gregmcantwell
“Coming this fall on ABC—He’s a former Soviet agent, who’s had too many Botox shots, and one facelift too many. And he’s a husky East Asian tyrant with a taste for Courvoisier and expensive escorts. Together, they fight against Truth, Justice and the American Way!”
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 Certainly not art. But on the money.
by ti-amie
What's going on here?
See next post.
by ti-amieCoup attempt underway in Bolivia as president urges people to mobilize against it
BY PAOLA FLORES
Updated 5:50 PM EDT, June 26, 2024
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Armored vehicles rammed into the doors of Bolivia’s government palace Wednesday in what appeared to be a failed coup attempt, as President Luis Arce said the country stood firm against attacks on democracy and urged people to mobilize.
In a video of Arce surrounded by ministers in the palace, he said: “Here we are, firm in Casa Grande, to confront any coup attempt. We need the Bolivian people to organize.”
Arce confronted the general commander of the army — Juan José Zúñiga, who appeared to be leading the rebellion — in the palace hallway, as shown on video on Bolivian television. “I am your captain, and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination,” Arce said.
Military Police gather outside the main entrance as an armored vehicle rams into the door of the presidential palace in Plaza Murillo in La Paz, Bolivia, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Before entering the government building, Zúñiga told journalists in the plaza: “Surely soon there will be a new Cabinet of ministers; our country, our state cannot go on like this.” Zúñiga said that “for now” he recognizes Arce as commander in chief.
Zúñiga did not explicitly say he’s leading a coup, but in the palace, with bangs echoing behind him, he said the army was trying to “restore democracy and free our political prisoners.”
FILE - Bolivian President Luis Arce attends an Indigenous ritual before delivering his annual state of the nation address at the presidential palace in La Paz, Bolivia, Jan. 22, 2024. Armored vehicles rammed into the doors of Bolivia’s government palace Wednesday, June 26, 2024, as a top government official warned of a coup attempt. (AP Photo/Juan Karita, File) (AP Photo/Juan Karita, File)
In a message on his X account, Arce called for “democracy to be respected.” It came as Bolivian television showed two tanks and a number of men in military uniform in front of the government palace.
“We cannot allow, once again, coup attempts to take the lives of Bolivians,” he said from inside the palace, surrounded by government officials, in a video message sent to news outlets.
An hour later, Arce announced new heads of the army, navy and air force amid the roar of supporters. Video showed troops setting up blockades outside the government palace. He said the troops who rose against him were “staining the uniform” of the military and vowed that democracy would be respected.
“I order all that are mobilized to return to their units, said the newly named army chief José Wilson Sánchez. “No one wants the images we’re seeing in the streets.”
Soon after troops and armored vehicles start pulling back from Bolivia’s presidential palace
The leadership of Bolivia’s largest labor union condemned the action and declared an indefinite strike of social and labor organizations in La Paz in defense of the government.
The incident was met with a wave of outrage by other regional leaders, including the Organization of American States; Gabriel Boric, the president of neighboring Chile; the leader of Honduras, and former Bolivian leaders.
Bolivia, a country of 12 million people, has seen intensifying protests in recent months over the economy’s precipitous decline from one of the continent’s fastest-growing two decades ago to one of its most crisis-stricken.
The country also has seen a high-profile rift at the highest levels of the governing party. Arce and his one-time ally, leftist icon and former President Evo Morales, have been battling for the future of Bolivia’s splintering Movement for Socialism, known by its Spanish acronym MAS, ahead of elections in 2025.
by ponchi101 I was once told that Bolivia had had 13 coup's in its history.
This would be 14.
I have not followed Bolivian politics in a long time, but I am both surprised that they were one of the fastest growing economies, and that they are not now.
by ti-amiePowerful Hurricane Beryl roars towards Jamaica
28 minutes ago
By Vanessa Buschschlüter,
BBC News
Jamaica is bracing for a powerful hurricane as it roars towards the Caribbean island.
Beryl - a category four storm with winds near 140mph (220km/h) - is expected to pass near or over the southern coast in the next few hours, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) warns.
It predicts "life-threatening winds and storm surge" in Jamaica as well as the Cayman Islands later.
At least seven people have been killed so far as the storm sweeps through the Caribbean.
A hurricane warning is in effect in Jamaica, where the authorities have imposed a curfew from 06:00 to 18:00 local time (11:00-23:00 GMT).
Prime Minister Andrew Holness urged people to "take this hurricane seriously".
"If you live in a low-lying area, an area historically prone to flooding and landslide, or if you live on the banks of a river or a gully, I implore you to evacuate to a shelter or to safer ground," he said.
Three people died in Grenada, where it first made landfall on Monday, one in St Vincent and the Grenadines, and another three in northern Venezuela, which was hit by strong winds and flooding.
About 90% of homes were destroyed or severely damaged on Union Island, which is part of St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Parts of Jamaica have experienced disruption to power and electricity supplies, with the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) saying it was forced to pause restoration of power lines in some locations for the safety of their workers.
In a news briefing, the NHC's director, Dr Michael Brennan, said Jamaica would experience "devastating hurricane force winds".
Rainfall in some parts of the country could hit 12in (30cm), potentially leading to flooding and mudslides, the director explained, while life-threatening storm surges as high as 9ft (2.7m) above tide level are also expected.
"Everybody in Jamaica needs to be in their safe place and be prepared to stay there for at least the next 12 hours," Dr Brennan warned.
The BBC's Nick Davis said Jamaicans had been rushing to supermarkets on Tuesday to get "as much as they could as quickly as they could".
Jamaica's Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon said the island had 900 shelters to house people who needed to leave their homes.
Cumanacoa in Venezuela's Sucre state has suffered flooding
Getty Images
In Venezuela, Hurricane Beryl brought heavy rains which caused a river to overflow in the northern state of Sucre. Three people died and several are still missing.
A government delegation was hit by a falling tree while inspecting damage.
President Nicolás Maduro said Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez was among those injured. He said she was "very bruised but conscious".
In Mexico, where Hurricane Beryl is expected in the coming days, residents in Cancún have rushed to supermarkets to stock up on supplies. Some have encountered empty shelves.
Reuters
The NHC said that Hurricane Beryl was the earliest category five storm recorded in the Atlantic and had formed much earlier in the hurricane season than usual.
Meteorologists have also remarked on how quickly Beryl developed.
The storm strengthened from a tropical depression into a major hurricane in 42 hours, hurricane expert Sam Lillo told the Associated Press news agency.
In Texas, officials warned residents to prepare for the possibility of Beryl's arrival this weekend.
On Tuesday, Governor Greg Abbott told resident's near the state's Atlantic coast to "keep an eye on the gulf" and "have an emergency plan to take care of yourself and your loved ones".
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has warned that the North Atlantic could get as many as seven major hurricanes this year - up from an average of three in a season.
by ti-amieBrazil's Bolsonaro formally accused over Saudi gifts, sources say
By Reuters
July 4, 20245:56 PM EDT Updated 10 min ago
BRASILIA, July 4 (Reuters) - Brazilian federal police on Thursday formally accused former President Jair Bolsonaro of embezzlement for misappropriating jewelry he received while head of state, including luxury items given by the Saudi Arabian government, two police sources said.
This is the second time police have formally accused Bolsonaro of a crime. He was charged in March with forging his COVID-19 vaccine records.
The jewelry, some of it made by Chopard of Switzerland, was valued at $3.2 million and included a diamond necklace, ring, watch and earrings given to Bolsonaro and former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro by the Saudi government.
Some of the jewelry was seized by customs officials at Sao Paulo's international airport in October 2021 when it was found in the backpack of a government aide returning from Riyadh.
Bolsonaro's leftist successor President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for an investigation and one of his cabinet ministers called Bolsonaro's actions "smuggling."
Bolsonaro's lawyer did not return calls requesting comment.
The police officers, who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said charges were also brought against former mines and energy minister Bento Albuquerque, whose aide had returned with him from a visit to Riyadh, Bolsonaro's former aide-de-camp Mauro Cid who was allegedly involved in selling jewelry, his lawyer Frederick Wassef and his spokesperson Fabio Wajngarten.
In an investigation authorized by Supreme Court Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes, police last year searched the homes of military officers who allegedly helped Bolsonaro sell some of the jewelry in the United States.
At the time, Justice Moraes said the items had been sold and the sale had not been declared.
News website G1 reported earlier on Thursday that police had formally accused Bolsonaro.
by ti-amieHurricane Beryl heading for Yucatan Peninsula as experts warn of impact on Texas: Live updates
Hurricane Beryl devastated Jamaica on Wednesday, destroying buildings and knocking out power for 400,000 customers
Stuti Mishra
,
Jabed Ahmed
,
Katie Hawkinson
,
Amelia Neath
12 minutes ago
Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula is bracing for Hurricane Beryl, now a Category 2 storm, to make landfall early Friday morning with 110mph winds and dangerous storm surge.
The region will see life-threatening winds, up to five feet of storm surge and up to ten inches of rainfall, National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan said on Thursday afternoon.
Hurricane Beryl will then bring dangerous rip currents to the Gulf Coast over the weekend before likely hitting southern Texas Monday, the National Weather Service forecast.
“Just a reminder for people, especially in South Texas, to continue to check back for updates to the forecast,” Brennan said.
Hurricane Beryl has killed at least ten people, Reuters reports. Two of those killed — the first in St George’s, Grenada and the second in Hanover, Jamaica — died after hurricane-force winds knocked trees onto their homes.
Hurricane Beryl devastated Jamaica on Wednesday, knocking out power to 400,000 and destroying buildings. While the storm is moving away, rainfall and flash-flooding still pose a risk to the island.
Grenada was also left with “unimaginable” destruction after the storm passed through Monday, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said, damaging or destroying 98 percent of buildings.
14 minutes ago
‘Life-threatening’ conditions in Yucatan Peninsula overnight as threat to Texas grows
Hurricane Beryl, now a Category 2 storm, will bring “life-threatening” storm conditions to the Yucatan Peninsula overnight, National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan said this afternoon.
The storm is set to hit Texas by early Monday morning.
“We are forecasting some re-strengthening over the Gulf of Mexico as Beryl turns more northwestward and approaches the coast of northeastern Mexico and South Texas,” Brennan said. “We are forecasting it to be at or near hurricane strength by Monday morning, and expecting it to make landfall somewhere in that vicinity.”
Nearby residents should closely monitor the weather forecast and be on high alert for dangerous water conditions in the Gulf Coast over the weekend.
by ti-amieEurope is running out of heroin. The alternatives are much worse
Nitazines from China are penetrating Europe, causing almost 100 deaths in Latvia and Estonia last year.
June 11, 2024 5:04 pm CET
By Alessandro Ford
A highly potent family of synthetic opioids that are mass-produced in China is crossing from the Baltics into Western Europe, penetrating staid heroin markets and regularly killing their users, the EU's drugs authority warned.
Nitazenes were involved in a sharp rise in deaths in Estonia and Latvia last year — nearly 100 — while contributing to scores of overdoses in France and Ireland.
The highly dangerous substances, which are hundreds of times more potent than heroin and even stronger than the cancer pain medicine fentanyl, were missold as street-grade heroin, according to the EU Drug Report 2024 by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).
"Nitazenes are sometimes sold as ‘synthetic heroin’ and have been detected in fake medicines on the drug market," said the report, which was released on Tuesday. Their sudden arrival on city streets "can result in multiple poisonings occurring over a short period, with the potential to overwhelm local services."
While an opioid crisis on the scale seen in the United States is still far away for Europe, six of the seven new synthetic opioids reported for the first time to the EU's early warning system in 2023 were nitazenes, the highest number in a single year, with 16 found in Europe since 2019.
It's a "rapidly evolving drug market, where established illicit drugs are widely accessible and potent new synthetic substances continue to emerge," EMCDDA Director Alexis Goosdeel said in a written statement.
Produced in China, nitazenes have been on health and law enforcement agencies' radar for several years, as officials nervously eye the ongoing crisis in North America. Synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, killed some 75,000 people in the U.S. last year, adding to the 1 million who have died since an epidemic of prescription painkiller use exploded in the country around 2000.
In the U.S., painkillers made way for heroin, and heroin for synthetic opioids, sparking fears of a similar process in Europe. That is particularly worrying given the looming possibility of a heroin drought. In April 2022, the recently victorious Taliban banned all opium cultivation and heroin processing in Afghanistan, knocking out 95 percent of Afghan production, according to the U.N.
Given the country accounts for nine-tenths of world's supply, that means Europe's heroin users are consuming their way through limited stockpiles. For now, provisions have held up, but "it would be prudent to prepare for a possible heroin shortage in late 2024 or 2025," predicted the EMCDDA.
While the agency said it is too early to determine if a decline in heroin availability would lead to a larger market for synthetic opioids, EU countries should nonetheless expand treatment access, boost needle-exchange programs, and stockpile the anti-opioid drug naloxone to counteract overdoses, the report said.
Those measures would also help address another narcotic time bomb: the transformation of cocaine into a mass consumer good.
Riches to rags
When the white powder first hit Europe in the 1980s, cocaine was an elite drug, associated in popular culture with celebs and city bankers. Today it's everywhere and as its affordability has grown, so too have the negative health effects it entails.
Cocaine use "appears to be becoming increasingly common in more vulnerable or marginalized groups in some countries," the report states, such as France and Belgium. "Both cocaine injection and the use of crack cocaine is reported in a growing number of countries ...[contributing] to a number of localized HIV outbreaks in Europe in recent years."
That will only worsen as overflowing supply drives up purity, which has jumped by 45 percent in a decade. Half of the surveyed countries now report an average purity between 64 percent and 76 percent, meaning cash-strapped consumers can get high more times for the same retail price.
Gone is the glamor and with crack use spreading through major Western European cities, local and national governments are fumbling for answers. Belgium's first-ever drugs commissioner recently told POLITICO that despite the fact addiction "seems to be on the rise in Brussels region," there is no obvious solution in sight.
by Owendonovan I've enjoyed the videos from France of the left celebrating and the right crying over their election. Sorry, no fascism this time, Marie.
by ti-amie Andrew—Author of America Rises On Substack @AmoneyResists
Nothing to see here. Just official reports from the Venezuelan Foreign Minister that both
@GOP senators from Florida @marcorubio and @SenRickScott were assisting Maduro in his efforts to steal the Venezuelan election tonight.
by ti-amieMaduro declared winner of disputed Venezuelan election
The opposition, which had warned of the potential for fraud, was expected to challenge the result.
Presidential candidate Edmundo González, center, and opposition leader María Corina Machado, center right, greet supporters during a rally in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on Tuesday. (Matias Delacroix/AP)
By Samantha Schmidt, Ana Vanessa Herrero and María Luisa Paúl
Updated July 29, 2024 at 3:09 a.m. EDT|Published July 28, 2024 at 5:08 a.m. EDT
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s electoral council declared the authoritarian socialist the winner of Venezuela’s election Sunday despite partial results and independent exit polling that suggested opposition candidate Edmundo González had captured twice as many votes.
The Venezuelan opposition, which sent thousands of ordinary citizens to monitor voting centers across the country Sunday, swiftly rejected the results and said it had records showing a clear victory by González. The election outcome was immediately challenged by a host of foreign leaders, including U.S. officials.
“We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. He called on the electoral council to publish the tabulation of votes. “It’s critical that every vote be counted fairly and transparently.”
María Corina Machado, the face of the Venezuelan opposition campaign on behalf of González, said the opposition had received 40 percent of official printouts of voting center results, which showed González winning with 70 percent of the votes.
“This is not one more fraud,” Machado said in a news conference at 1 a.m. local time. “This is a gross disregard and violation of popular sovereignty.”
She stopped short of calling for protests but asked election observers and Venezuelan families to remain at voting centers well into the morning until all voting records arrive.
The pro-government electoral council, delivering results shortly after midnight Monday, said Maduro won with 51 percent of the vote to González’s 44 percent.
“I’m Nicolás Maduro, president-elect,” Maduro bellowed to a crowd of supporters outside the Miraflores presidential palace. “And I will defend our democracy, our law and our people.”
The opposition had seen the election as its best chance in more than a decade to unseat the strongman, whom many here blame for this oil-rich country’s economic collapse and the exodus of millions of citizens, hundreds of thousands of them to the United States. Maduro claimed reelection in a 2018 presidential vote that was condemned internationally as fraudulent and prompted a tightening of U.S. sanctions.
In Caracas, the sounds of banging pots and pans echoed across buildings as soon as the results were announced — the sound of protest in Venezuela.
“Maduro has a huge problem on his hands. If the government doesn’t actually back up the results with data, Maduro is inviting the biggest loyalty test he’s faced in years,” said Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who is focused on Venezuela. “This doesn’t end here. Maduro has to convince the ruling elite that he can keep things under control, but both he and the military know that he can’t govern a country in flames.”
Latin American leaders, including some leftists with friendly ties to Maduro, cast doubt on the results. In a post on social media, Colombia’s foreign minister called for an independent verification and audit of the vote count “as soon as possible.”
As votes were being counted, opposition leaders denounced what they said was a government order to voting-center workers to refuse to hand over printouts of voting results, which are used to corroborate the machine count, to opposition poll watchers.
Delsa Solórzano, an opposition electoral council observer, decried a “concerning, widespread pattern.” Multiple voting centers had removed opposition witnesses, she said, and refused to transmit the results in the printouts.
Elvis Amoroso, president of Venezuela’s electoral council, mentioned delays in transmitting results, and said he asked prosecutors to launch an investigation.
Exit polling released after voting centers began to close Sunday evening showed González taking 65 percent of the vote, more than doubling Maduro’s 31 percent, according to Somerville, N.J.-based Edison Research.
“Our fight continues, and we will not rest until the will of the people is respected,” González said in a news conference.
As night fell, violence broke out at some polling centers. When opposition supporters at the Liceo Andrés Bello in Caracas complained of being denied access to the vote count, a colectivo — a gang of at least 150 Maduro supporters on motorbikes — arrived shouting pro-government chants.
A Washington Post reporter saw the men, hooded and wearing black, begin to punch and kick those outside the polling center, injuring multiple people. “Viva Nicolás,” they shouted.
Leiner González, caught in the middle, was beaten, and his shirt was ripped.
“Please, we need change in Venezuela,” the first-time voter, 25, said, “so that there is no more violence in our beloved country from a group of criminals. We demand peace, freedom and truth. Please, we want a transition.”
In the run-up to the vote Sunday, the government barred Machado, Venezuela’s most popular politician, from running, arrested campaign workers and blocked access to state media.
Sunday saw reports of blocked access at voting centers, delays and some violence. In Maturín, a state capital about 350 miles east of Caracas, local opposition leaders said a voting center coordinator and her mother were demanding access for opposition poll watchers when members of a colectivo rode up and shot the mother in the leg.
Voting centers were scheduled to open 6 a.m. Sunday, but at a school in the Chacao neighborhood of Caracas, a group of 18 people arrived three hours early. They would wait for more than six hours, amid delays opening some voting tables.
By 9 a.m., some of the hundreds of people began to chant: “We want to vote!” Esther Pérez Villegas, whose husband was among those waiting, stepped in to help organize the lines. “Anxiety is high, very high, because of all of the uncertainty we feel,” she said.
Noemi Tovar, 61, had been in line since 3 a.m. “If I have to wait all day, I’ll wait all day,” she said.
“We’ve made lines here for many things — for food, for gasoline,” said Martha Salas, 62. “This is for so much more — for a vote.”
Edison Research, which interviewed more than 6,800 voters at 100 locations, said González outpolled Maduro among men and women, rural, suburban and urban voters, and every age group.
“Our exit poll projects a resounding victory for Edmundo González,” executive vice president Rob Farbman said. “The opposition candidate had broad support across nearly all demographic backgrounds.”
In long lines at voting centers across Caracas, voters said they hadn’t seen such large crowds in an election in many years. The opposition described the turnout Sunday as “historic.”
“I haven’t seen this kind of voter intention since Chávez,” said Vladimir Ramos, a 60-year-old engineer waiting in line. Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, founded Venezuela’s socialist state in 1999 and led it until his death in 2013.
“I think people are no longer afraid,” said Natalie Moreno, 47.
By 12:40 p.m., Maduro addressed the nation to announce the activation of Operation Remate — a word meaning “finish it off” — a government-led effort to rally supporters to the polls. Maduro campaign staff and supporters called people to pressure them to vote and offer food and supplies.
“Let’s mobilize ourselves with force,” Maduro said in a message aired by state television. “Let’s vote with strength as was planned, and with the force of the” social programs.
The government aid was flowing in the rural eastern state of Delta Amacuro. In an Indigenous community there, people were being offered bags of food in exchange of support, said Yoxsamar Jiménez, a poll watcher for the opposition.
“But that’s normal here,” she said. More concerning, she said: Poll watchers were not allowed inside, and the center’s coordinator hit Jiménez.
“To avoid violence, we couldn’t do anything so we had to leave the table,” Jiménez said. “The table is alone, and they’re doing whatever they want in that center.”
González, a former diplomat, was unknown to most Venezuelans just months ago. But as the election loomed, polls predicted he could beat Maduro by double digits.
He ran as a stand-in for longtime Maduro critic Machado, the “Iron Lady” who draws tens of thousands of Venezuelans to her near-messianic campaign caravans — and has been disqualified from running by Maduro’s supreme court.
Her campaign focused on a simple message: Vote for us, and your loved ones can come home.
“The central theme is family, in the sense that this could be the last opportunity to reunite our families,” she told The Post. “This is not just an electoral campaign. This is a redemption movement, for liberation.”
Maduro’s campaign portrayed the opposition as an extreme, right-wing threat that would bring instability.
Some voters in Caracas seemed to agree. Hector Trujillo, a 79-year-old retired architect, said he was voting for “peace” and the continued improvement of the economy. He blamed U.S. sanctions for the country’s troubles. He feared the opposition would “eliminate everything,” including the country’s welfare benefits.
Ana Rosas, 26, voted Sunday for the first time in her life. Rosas, who now lives in El Salvador, is among the millions of Venezuelans dispersed across the world — and among the scores who returned home to vote.
“I have goose bumps,” she said. “I still can’t believe I’m able to vote. I hope it makes a difference.”
In Miami, dozens of Venezuelans, unable to vote from abroad, gathered at the Dolphin Mall to watch coverage of the election. Many wore shirts of red, yellow and blue, the colors of the Venezuelan flag, that read “Venezuela Libre.”
“God willing, today the country will be free,” said Lennyn Padilla, 47, tears in his eyes. “I’m emotional because when I speak about it my throat closes up. It makes me so sad.”
Victor Manuel Morina Parra, a 59-year-old bus driver in Caracas, said he has noticed discontent among his passengers. He moved from his farm in the countryside to the Catia neighborhood of the capital, he said, because his rural town was “in a state of total abandonment.”
“We no longer have help from the government. There’s no fuel, the electricity goes out every eight hours,” he said. “That’s why we want change. For our children, for our grandchildren.”
by patrick Why am I not shocked that Rubio and Scott are in the middle of this situation. Probably was involved on Jan 6th insurrection and are involved in this year election in case Mr Delay claims fraud on a Harris win
by ponchi101 Sorry. That list of politicians are ENEMIES of Maduro. If they were interfering, it was AGAINST him.
I dislike Rubio and Scott as much as anybody else. But they have been openly against the dictatorship for a long time.
Credit where credit is due.
by ti-amie So did Maduro see the writing on the wall?
by ponchi101 No, he hasn't. A considerable number of news coming out that the opposition got 67% of the vote.
But, as somebody once said: How many battalions does the pope have?
by ashkor87 Don't know much about Venezuela but what scares me is the army may intervene..Latin America is cursed with armies that don't even need to exist..like the Pakistani army, whose main achievement has been to conquer their own country!
by ponchi101 The army has been intervening for decades now in Venezuela, in the sense that they support the government. Without the army, the regime would have fallen in 2004, when they stole the first referendum.
Granted, ALL armies in South America are superfluous, with the exception of the Colombian army, which has fought the guerrillas and drug cartels for decades too (60 years + ). But, if Colombia needs an army, so do Peru and Venezuela (and Brasil, to a point), and from that moment, the spiral continues.
And, if you bring that up: which army has a MORAL support to exist? But going down that road leads to naivety.
by ashkor87 Good point.. but to fight drug cartels, don't you need police rather than an army?
by ponchi101
ashkor87 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2024 4:33 am
Good point.. but to fight drug cartels, don't you need police rather than an army?
Not here. The drug cartels are armed to a degree that they really operate as a guerilla force. These people have heavy artillery. A "regular" police force would be overwhelmed by their fire power.
And, BTW, the police DO fight the cartels. Just not alone.
by ashkor87 It is time to recognise that drug cartels exist and flourish for one main reason- the lucrative US market for hard drugs ..in turn, the main reason it is so lucrative is because they are illegal. So what is the root cause?!
by ponchi101 Indeed. The US market is the sole reason why the drug cartels flourish. We know very well that Europeans do not consume cocaine or marihuana, and the rich people of S. America and Africa are too morally strong and proper to get involved in such an immoral trade.
C'mon, Ashkor. The USA is of course a market, but the Venezuela government is nothing more than a narco-state, fueled by the fact that Venezuela is the launching pad for drugs that ship to Europe, which is also a market. We also know that Monte Carlo lives and prospers because of drug dealing (and arms dealing).
The root cause is that people will do drugs, period. All people. The Chinese are also a very lucrative market, now that they have a large, wealthy population.
Nobody has the monopoly on addicts.
by skatingfan British Columbia
B.C. Interior braces for Chilcotin River landslide flooding
Emergency management minister says downstream impacts could be significant
CBC News · Posted: Aug 02, 2024 3:50 PM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours ago
The province is asking people to stay away from the Chilcotin and Fraser rivers due to unpredictable water behaviour. (Deb Ilnicki/Facebook)
As residents, the B.C. government and First Nations prepare for water to surge through a landslide blocking the Chilcotin River, officials are warning of unpredictable water conditions along the Chilcotin and Fraser rivers.
At a Friday afternoon news conference, Emergency Management Minister Bowinn Ma said current modelling shows water is more likely to go over the top than burst through in a sudden release.
Ma says the impacts downstream could still be significant depending on the distribution of the overtopping flow, and people along the Chilcotin and the connecting Fraser River may need to leave the area.
Ma says it would take 12 to 24 hours for water and debris from the dam to reach Hope, B.C., about 500 kilometres away.
The lake behind the dam has grown to 11 kilometres long. Ma said a new estimate of the length of the blockage is about 1,000 metres along the river.
She asked B.C. residents to stay away from the Chilcotin and Fraser riverbanks and to refrain from boating on these bodies of water.
"It's not going to go crashing over and wipe out a town or anything like that. That's only in movies. This is real life," Chief Joe Alphonse, the tribal chair of the Tŝilhqot'in Nation, told CBC News Friday. "But there will be a lot of debris that will flow, and the water is going to be really affected."
The landslide earlier this week blocked the Chilcotin near Farwell Canyon, about 285 kilometres north of Vancouver. Residents of a nearby ranch reported it Wednesday morning.
That day, the Cariboo Regional District (CRD) ordered evacuations over 107 square kilometres along the Chilcotin River, stretching from where it met the Fraser River to near Hanceville, B.C.
Since then, officials have been expecting the dam to breach. CRD chair Margot Wagner told reporters Thursday that the dam caused by the landslide was 600 metres wide and 30 metres high, and it was holding back a lake filled with debris, including fallen trees.
She said water is expected to surge past the dam in the coming days.
B.C. Water and Land Stewardship Minister Nathan Cullen said crews were assessing the situation from above. The B.C. Wildfire Service also sent helicopters to help ministry staff create maps of the slide, so they could assess the damage.
Gerald Pinchbeck with the Cariboo Regional District's emergency operations centre told CBC New Friday morning he had not received any more information, and officials aren't sure what will happen next.
Alphonse said landslides are common for the area. The Tŝilhqot'in name for the place where the landslide happened is Nagwentled, which he said means landslide area.
He said when the flood happens, he expects water levels to rise along the river system.
"We hope and we pray that it's going to happen in the current the best way possible," he said. "Use common sense. Stay away from the river banks."
One man was rescued and taken to hospital Wednesday after becoming trapped by the slide. No other injuries related to the landslide have been reported.
Alphonse said Friday that a landslide that dammed the river two decades ago burst in about four days, but this latest slide is "a lot larger than it was last time."
"This is not really anything new for us," he said. "There's not a lot we can do."
Alphonse said there's not much use in worrying about what may happen, other than hoping people don't get too close to the water should it rapidly rise after the debris clears.
He said a salmon run expected late next week has already likely been affected, and "that run is now in jeopardy, and that's very concerning for us."
"We should have a fishery going on right now," he said. "We are dependent on salmon runs for healthy living. That's the main source of food for our people."
The obscure Russian-linked ‘news’ outlet fuelling violence on Britain’s streets
Channel3 Now falsely named the Southport murderer, sending conspiracy theorists and the far-Right into a tailspin. How did this happen?
Lauren Shirreff
3 August 2024 • 3:00pm
Before the fire and fury in Southport, there was a name – Ali Al-Shakati.
Al-Shakati has never existed, we now know, but that didn’t stop an obscure, Russian-linked fake news outlet from naming him as a 17-year-old supposedly Muslim asylum seeker responsible for the murder of three schoolgirls in the town on Monday.
Channel3 Now, a website that masquerades as a legitimate American news outlet but acts as an “aggregator” for real news stories as well as fake viral claims, published the claim on the back of speculation which appeared to have started on X, formerly known as Twitter.
What had begun as a trickle then became a flood, sending the conspiracy theory pouring out through social media anew, where the name was boosted by thousands of other Russia-linked accounts before being repeated by authentic Russian state media, which cited Channel3 Now in its reporting.
The claim was meanwhile picked up by far-Right figures such as Tommy Robinson – founder of the anti-immigrant English Defence League, which played a major role in instigating the riots in Southport and elsewhere this week – and notorious influencer Andrew Tate, whose posts about Al-Shakati garnered millions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes.
By Tuesday, the conspiracy had gone mainstream, propelled by the likes of entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne who claimed in a post online that “maybe [Tommy Robinson] was right all along” about the risks posed by Muslim immigrants, before later deleting the remarks. And as news of the attacker’s supposed identity spread, anger grew, sparking the riots that rocked the Merseyside town that evening before spreading out across the country.
Police were later forced to confirm that the suspect’s supposed name was false. On Thursday, the real suspect was named in court as Axel Rudakubana, who was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents in 2006.
Axel Rudakubana, the teenager who has been charged with murdering three young girls
Exactly how this little known website found itself at the centre of the chain of events is “very, very messy and uncertain”, says Stephen Hutchings, a Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Manchester and the principle investigator at (Mis)Translating Deceit, an anti-disinformation project.
There are many like it, who post hundreds of stories a day with a pro-Russian or anti-western slant intended to sow confusion and destabilise society in Britain and elsewhere, Hutchings explains, and why this one in particular gained such traction following Monday’s attack in Merseyside may never be fully understood.
But what is known, he says, is that Channel3 Now belongs to a complex web of modern day information warfare that stretches from the grief-stricken streets of Southport all the way back to the Russian city of Izhevsk, some 800 miles east of Moscow – and an obscure YouTube channel seemingly set up by amateur car rally enthusiasts more than a decade ago.
The channel’s first videos, aired in 2012, were posted with Russian titles and generic thumbnails, and showed drag racers gleefully thrashing their cars about in a snowy Izhevsk.
Like so many accounts set up in the early 2010s, when YouTube took off as a major online streaming platform, the channel went dead for several years after its owners presumably grew bored with it. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, it became active again and was renamed Funny Hours, Hutchings says. Rather than its original car-fan content, however, it was posting English-language videos about Pakistan upon its reboot.
Disinformation expert Dr Marc Owen Jones, a professor at Northwestern University’s campus in Doha, said this week that the sudden change in content published by the account suggested it had been “hijacked and repurposed” – as opposed to it being formally part of a Russian disinformation operation from the off.
Hutchings agrees, and believes that the takeover was carried out by Russian-linked actors suspected of being behind Channel3 Now as a way to shield their identities. In 2016, three years before the YouTube account’s possible “hijacking” appeared to take place, a Facebook page used to share its content was set up with the same name: Funny Hours.
The videos uploaded were bizarre. They included one focused on a tiger being beaten to death, and a match report on Manchester City’s women’s team, according to a report by MailOnline.
But a couple of years ago, things shifted. The organisation appeared to have been rebranded as Channel3 Now and the videos it shared began to resemble those of a professional news channel. Last year, channel3now.com was registered as a web domain.
Content shared on the site in the run-up to the stabbings in Southport included news pieces that appeared to have been ripped straight from British and American newswires, but also stranger stories too: a very brief obituary for American singer Shifty Shellshock, who died last month, and a piece accusing NFL player Xavien Howard of “having four women pregnant at the same time”.
Hutchings says that there is a simple explanation for the bizarre online output of both the YouTube channel and the news website. While “there is clear evidence that it does have some kind of link to Russia, the Russian state outsources a lot of its online activities to semi autonomous operations which it pays to do its work, but which are given free reign,” he explains.
“These operations feel the need to justify their often quite generous payment and rely on the same tactics that other online figures do, namely clickbait,” Hutchings says. “And a good old-fashioned conspiracy theory drives a lot of traction towards pro-Russian or anti-Western disinformation, especially one that taps into popular prejudices.”
This site is one of several “proxies” and hardly the most successful, says Hutchings, adding the Kremlin has long been “busily involved” in stoking dissent in Britain and elsewhere through such projects.
More renowned examples include the Voice of Europe website, which “has been empirically traced to specific Russian figures”. Sites such as these often amplify posts by authentic anti-immigrant or conspiracy theory accounts, says Hutchings, rather than spitting out their own original lies.
Channel3 Now, for its part, was first registered under a Lithuanian domain in 2023 and it has been reported that the site’s IP address is owned by two Pakistani nationals – further evidence that “while it would be foolish to deny that Russia is likely stoking some of the tension here, it’s more tricky to claim that the state is doing so in a targeted, closely coordinated manner”, Hutchings says.
What is clear following the riots on the streets of Britain this week is the scale of its impact. An X account used to share Channel 3Now’s articles has just 3,000 followers – yet on the same platform, posts “speculating that the [Southport] attacker was Muslim, a migrant, refugee or foreigner” generated at least 27 million impressions, according to Jones.
While the fake story undoubtedly reached huge numbers of real people, the startlingly high number of impressions likely came about because “many of Channel3 Now’s followers will not be real people but actually bots who reshare things that seem to be gaining traction online”, explains Hutchings.
A deepdive into the organisation’s website indicates it is attempting to pass itself off as a normal media outlet, seemingly in pursuit of credibility. Some of the articles published on Channel3 Now appear to be pulled from mainstream news sites and reputable, internationally significant agencies such as the Associated Press. Others are “repackaged using AI” in what Hutchings describes as an “authenticating device” designed to make the site seem trustworthy.
On Monday, it appeared to have named the Southport attacker as Ali Al-Shakati after the name was cited by commentator Bernie Spofforth, whose X account @Artemisfornow regularly shares conspiracy theory material and has a large following. Channel3 Now picked up the story just two minutes after Spofforth’s own post, which has now been deleted without further explanation.
While he doesn’t know with “one hundred percent certainty” whether the Ali Al-Shakati story was picked up by an automated programme or by a person, it “probably originated with someone real” who saw the viral potential in the story and its divisive nature, says Hutchings.
Yet who it could be is impossible to tell. The site has a single named author, called James Lawley, whose LinkedIn account states that he owns a gardening company in Nova Scotia, Canada. The site is routed through a Massachusetts-based service that anonymises website ownership details.
A reverse-search using Lawley’s image turns up no results except his LinkedIn page, and his listed company, A Cut Above Halifax, has no other mentions online – all of which suggests he may in fact not be a real person.
Further complicating efforts to understand Channel3 Now and its inner workings, the site’s YouTube channel mysteriously disappeared from the internet after the Southport attacker’s supposed identity was disproven.
Meanwhile, the organisation’s website released a statement apologising for its “misleading information” which “did not meet our standards of reliability and integrity”.
This is only another “authentication device”, Hutchings says. “If they see themselves as having any future beyond this, then they need to give the impression that they made an innocent mistake and called it out for what it is.”
Certainly, as the threat of renewed violence looms large over Britain this weekend amid plans by the far-Right to hold rallies in dozens of cities across the country, the questions about Channel3 Now and its role in our information ecosystem remain pertinent.
As recent days have shown, a fake news site and its conspiracy theories need not really be convincing all of the time to sow chaos. It only takes a single spark to start a fire.
by ponchi101 Is there a solution to this? You have to protect freedom of speech. But this is a legitimate issue.
How do you control these sites? (which leads to: how do you control FOX?)
by dryrunguy According to the NY Times, WHO has declared a global emergency over the Mpox outbreak that started in the Democratic Republic of Congo but has spread to 12 other countries on the African continent.
by ponchi101 It's the current banner news for Yahoo.
So, what could possibly go wrong, anti-vaxxers? Uhm...
by Owendonovan If only this story happened on Halloween, the" Halloween tainted by drugs" urban myth would actually be true!
A New Zealand charity apologised on Wednesday for distributing dozens of pineapple-flavoured candies that were found to be laced with potentially lethal amounts of methamphetamine.
The Auckland City Mission, that donates parcels of essentials to New Zealanders who cannot afford food, said it first became aware of the issue on Tuesday afternoon when some recipients complained about the foul-tasting candies.
Three people - a child, a teenager and a charity worker - sought medical treatment after tasting the boiled sweets, though none are currently in hospital, Detective Inspector Glenn Baldwin from Auckland police told reporters.
There was no suggestion of wrongdoing by the charity, he added.
"To say we are devastated is an understatement," the Mission said in a statement.
The candy, which was donated by an unknown member of the public, was tested by the New Zealand Drug Foundation charity, which found they contained a potentially lethal 3 grams (0.1 oz)of methamphetamine.
by ti-amieChechen warlord invites Musk to Russia after he’s filmed driving machine-gun mounted Cybertruck
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated 3:52 PM EDT, August 17, 2024
Chechnya President Ramzan Kadyrov invited Tesla CEO Elon Musk to Russia on Saturday after being filmed behind the wheel of one of the company’s Cybertrucks mounted with a machine gun.
In a clip posted on Kadyrov’s Telegram channel, the self-styled strongman was seen taking the stainless steel-clad Cybertruck for a leisurely drive before standing astride the machine gun mounted in the truck bed, draped with belts of ammunition.
In a gushing post, Kadyrov, who rules over Chechnya, a republic within the Russian Federation, described the vehicle as “undoubtedly one of the best cars in the world. I literally fell in love.”
He also said he would donate the vehicle to Russian forces fighting in the invasion of Ukraine. “It’s not for nothing that they call this a cyberbeast,” he said. “I’m sure that this beast will bring plenty of benefits to our troops.”
Kadyrov, who was sanctioned by the U.S. after being linked to numerous human rights violations, said he received the truck from Musk, although this was not independently confirmed. Messages left with Tesla seeking comment were not immediately returned.
Kadyrov also took advantage of the video clip to invite Musk to Chechnya.
“I don’t think the Russian Foreign Ministry would mind such a trip,” he said. “And, of course, we’re waiting for your new developments that will help us finish our special military operation (in Ukraine).”
by ponchi101 Ok. So he is complicit. Meaning there is at least one more person doing something.
Who?
(I know, I am asking an impossible question. But if it were our dear techno-bully, how ideal).
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2024 9:28 pm
Ok. So he is complicit. Meaning there is at least one more person doing something.
Who?
(I know, I am asking an impossible question. But if it were our dear techno-bully, how ideal).
It's the site users. What I understand is that most of the charges are against what Telegram was being used to do and not against stuff he did, although not sure about stuff towards the end of the list.
by ti-amie John Scott-Railton
@jsrailton
BREAKING: #Telegram CEO Pavel Durov charged.
6 charges related to:
Complicity in CSAM, trafficking & money laundering, organized crime.. Unresponsiveness to lawful requests Failures to declare & register cryptography services.
What a dramatic effect of simply putting every suspected gang member in jail and never letting them out... Now it could be a great place for a vacation and also I'd be willing to bet that undocumented migration out of the country is wastly reduced.
by ponchi101 Wow. Impressive indeed.
Also. Who would have thought that the solution would be that simple? In terms of the idea behind it.
What a dramatic effect of simply putting every suspected gang member in jail and never letting them out... Now it could be a great place for a vacation and also I'd be willing to bet that undocumented migration out of the country is wastly reduced.
But some of the undocumented migration out of the country were people who were targeted by the government who were not connected to the gangs.
by ti-amie Also if a heavily tattooed man is wandering the streets it's a safe bet that he may belong to a gang. Unlike the Yakuza or other Asian gangs that wear suits to cover up their ink it's too warm in El Salvador to do that.
I also agree that a lot of migration involves people who have been targeted by the government.
by Suliso No doubt some, but I think vast majority were fleeing the horrible safety situation. The country is poor, but not THAT poor. We'll see how it works out long term...
by Suliso
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 26, 2024 11:33 pm
Wow. Impressive indeed.
Also. Who would have thought that the solution would be that simple? In terms of the idea behind it.
I wouldn't have expected it to work this well either. I wonder now if it would also work in certain other super dangerous places.
There might be some factors which made it easier in El Salvador - small size of the country, high support of the population, government being in full military control over the entire country etc. Also the two main gangs seem to me rather unsophisticated (low government penetration, easily identifiable).
Of course this kind of action doesn't eliminate all crime, that's impossible in any country. However it seems mostly eliminating stupid street crime and low level racketeering is possible.
With it's young population and reasonable infrastructure El Salvador has lots of economic potential as long as it can stay safe for a prolonged period of time and avoid stupid government policies (see Argentina before Milei).
As for emigration a legal kind to US, Spain and few other places will stay very atractive for decades to come. Walking through Honduras/Mexico and then living "underground" in US not so much.
As for emigration a legal kind to US, Spain and few other places will stay very atractive for decades to come. Walking through Honduras/Mexico and then living "underground" in US not so much.
It is a hell of a lot better than many of the alternatives in S. America and C. America. That is the reason people do it, after all.
by Suliso Yes, but would it still be if your country was poor but safe?
by ponchi101 That is the reason I said many. For all its faults, Bolivia is relatively safe. And poor. And it is not a country with massive emigration, which is a sample of what you say.
by Suliso I think we agree here.
by dryrunguy The NY Times is reporting Iran launched more than 100 ballistic missiles at Israel.
It's ironic... This morning's NY Times newsletter focused on Iran's tepid response to Israel attacks.
by dryrunguy From the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
::
Rwanda experiencing first-ever outbreak of Marburg virus; 36 confirmed cases, including 11 deaths
Rwanda is experiencing its first outbreak of Marburg virus, a highly contagious and deadly hemorrhagic fever in the same viral family as Ebola. As of today, the country has reported 36 confirmed cases, including 25 under isolation and 11 fatalities, and more than 300 people are being monitored. The outbreak was officially declared on September 27, following positive test results from the National Reference Laboratory. Cases have been identified in 7 out of Rwanda's 30 districts, with more than 70% of confirmed cases involving healthcare workers, particularly those working in intensive care units. Most of the cases have been traced back to 2 health facilities in the capital city of Kigali, although the source remains unclear.
In response to the outbreak, the Rwandan Ministry of Health is collaborating with WHO to implement containment measures. The health ministry has suspended hospital visits, restricted the size of funerals of people suspected to have died of Marburg to 50 people, and outlawed home vigils and open caskets. Rwanda plans to begin clinical trials of experimental vaccines and treatments over the next few weeks. Currently, there are no licensed vaccine or specific treatments for Marburg virus. WHO is preparing to send emergency supplies from its response hub in Nairobi, Kenya, to assist in managing the situation.
WHO has assessed the risk level as very high at the national level, high at the regional level, and low at the global level. However, there are growing concerns about the potential for international spread due to Kigali's role as a regional travel hub. In Germany, 2 people suspected of having Marburg virus have tested negative, authorities said.
by mmmm8
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 6:29 pm
From the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
::
Rwanda experiencing first-ever outbreak of Marburg virus; 36 confirmed cases, including 11 deaths
Rwanda is experiencing its first outbreak of Marburg virus, a highly contagious and deadly hemorrhagic fever in the same viral family as Ebola. As of today, the country has reported 36 confirmed cases, including 25 under isolation and 11 fatalities, and more than 300 people are being monitored. The outbreak was officially declared on September 27, following positive test results from the National Reference Laboratory. Cases have been identified in 7 out of Rwanda's 30 districts, with more than 70% of confirmed cases involving healthcare workers, particularly those working in intensive care units. Most of the cases have been traced back to 2 health facilities in the capital city of Kigali, although the source remains unclear.
In response to the outbreak, the Rwandan Ministry of Health is collaborating with WHO to implement containment measures. The health ministry has suspended hospital visits, restricted the size of funerals of people suspected to have died of Marburg to 50 people, and outlawed home vigils and open caskets. Rwanda plans to begin clinical trials of experimental vaccines and treatments over the next few weeks. Currently, there are no licensed vaccine or specific treatments for Marburg virus. WHO is preparing to send emergency supplies from its response hub in Nairobi, Kenya, to assist in managing the situation.
WHO has assessed the risk level as very high at the national level, high at the regional level, and low at the global level. However, there are growing concerns about the potential for international spread due to Kigali's role as a regional travel hub. In Germany, 2 people suspected of having Marburg virus have tested negative, authorities said.
dryrunguy wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 6:29 pm
From the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
::
Rwanda experiencing first-ever outbreak of Marburg virus; 36 confirmed cases, including 11 deaths
...
Cool Cool Cool
I don't understand your reply, M8. Expand, if you don't mind.
The saying is kind of a meme, I think it originated on the TV show Community. It means this is not, in fact, cool.
by Suliso North Korea has declared South Korea a hostile state and blown up the last remaining road and rail links. Funny people, but also dangerous...
by skatingfan Are North Korean troops joining Russia’s war in Ukraine?
James Waterhouse
BBC Kyiv correspondent
Olga Ivshina
BBC Russian
Russia’s army is forming a unit of some 3,000 North Koreans, a Ukrainian military intelligence source has told the BBC, in the latest report suggesting that Pyongyang is forming a close military alliance with the Kremlin.
So far the BBC has yet to see any sign of such a large unit being formed in Russia's Far East, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has dismissed reports of North Korean involvement.
"This is not only British intelligence, it is also American intelligence. They report it all the time, they don't provide any evidence," he said.
There is no doubt Moscow and Pyongyang have deepened their levels of cooperation in recent months. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent Vladimir Putin a birthday message only last week calling him his "closest comrade".
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken of North Korea joining the war, and South Korea’s defence minister said this month that the chance of a North Korean deployment in Ukraine was “highly likely”.
The biggest question mark is over the numbers involved.
A military source in Russia’s Far East confirmed to BBC Russian that “a number of North Koreans have arrived” and were stationed in one of the military bases near Ussuriysk, to the north of Vladivostok. But the source refused to give a precise number, other than that they were “absolutely nowhere near 3,000”.
Military experts have told us they doubt Russian army units can successfully incorporate North Korean soldiers in their thousands.
“It wasn’t even that easy to include hundreds of Russian prisoners at first – and all those guys spoke Russian,” one analyst - who
is in Russia so didn't want to be named - told the BBC.
Even if they did number 3,000, it would not be big in a battlefield sense, but the US is as concerned as Ukraine.
“It would mark a significant increase in their relationship,” said US state department spokesman Matthew Miller, who saw it as “a new level of desperation by Russia” amid battlefield losses.
It was back in June that Vladimir Putin toasted a “peaceful and defensive” pact with Kim Jong Un.
And there is mounting evidence that North Korea is supplying Russia with ammunition, as recently demonstrated by the recovery of a missile in Ukraine’s Poltava region.
In fact, reports of mines and shells supplied by Pyongyang date back to December 2023 in Telegram chats involving Russia’s military communities.
Russian soldiers, stationed in Ukraine, have often complained about the standard of ammunition and that dozens of soldiers have been wounded.
Kyiv suspects that a unit of North Korean soldiers is preparing in the Ulan-Ude region close to the Mongolian border ahead of deployment to Russia’s Kursk province, where Ukrainian forces launched an incursion back in August.
“They could guard some sections of the Russian-Ukrainian border, which would free Russian units for fighting elsewhere,” said Valeriy Ryabykh, editor of the Ukrainian publication Defence Express.
“I would rule out the possibility that these units will immediately appear on the front line.”
Ryabakh is not alone in this thought.
North Korea may have some 1.28 million active soldiers but its army has no recent experience of combat operations, unlike Russia’s military.
Pyongyang has pursued the old Soviet model in its armed forces but it is unclear how its main force of motorised infantry units might fit into the war in Ukraine.
Then there is the obvious language barrier and an unfamiliarity with Russian systems that would complicate any fighting roles.
That does not preclude North Korea’s military taking part in Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, but they are most recognised by experts for their engineering and construction abilities, not for fighting.
What they do both have are shared incentives.
Pyongyang needs money and technology, Moscow needs soldiers and ammunition.
“Pyongyang would be paid well and maybe get access to Russian military technology, which otherwise Moscow would have been reluctant to transfer to North Korea,” says Andrei Lankov, director of the Korea Risk Group.
“It would also give their soldiers real combat experience, but there is also the risk of exposing North Koreans to life in the West, which is a considerably more prosperous place.”
For Putin, there is an urgent need to make up for significant losses during more than two and half years of war.
Valeriy Akimenko from the UK’s Conflict Studies Research Centre believes deploying North Koreans would help the Russian leader deal with the previous round of mandatory mobilisation not going well.
“So he thinks, as the Russian ranks are thinned out by Ukraine, what a brilliant idea - why not let North Koreans do some of the fighting?”
President Zelensky is clearly concerned about how this hostile alliance could evolve.
There have not been Western boots on the ground in Ukraine for fear of escalation.
However, if reports of hundreds of North Koreans preparing for deployment are borne out, the idea of foreign boots on the ground in this war would appear to be less of a concern for Vladimir Putin.
Additional reporting by Paul Kirby, Kelly Ng and Nick Marsh.
by ti-amie Suliso posted about NK blowing up remaining land links to SK just above your post. Something is up. Or maybe the NK leader wants more money.
by ponchi101 But I also saw an article that these N. Korean troops are deserting as soon as they reach the front. I gather that running towards you with a white flag and your arms raised is a universal language. No need to speak Ukrainian.
by ti-amieNorth Korean troops are in Russia, would be ‘legitimate targets’ in Ukraine, U.S. says
Citing newly declassified intelligence, the Biden administration said that at least 3,000 personnel are undergoing combat training in Russia, though it is unclear if they’ll join the war.
By Dan Lamothe, Missy Ryan and Michelle Ye Hee Lee
Updated October 23, 2024 at 5:56 p.m. EDT|Published October 23, 2024 at 6:20 a.m. EDT
The U.S. government has evidence that at least 3,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia receiving training, senior Biden administration officials said Wednesday, a development they said could have global implications and make those troops “legitimate military targets” in Ukraine should they enter the ongoing war there.
The disclosure, which officials said is based on newly declassified U.S. intelligence, coincides with similar pronouncements in recent days from the governments of Ukraine and South Korea. NATO and the United States had not previously confirmed the North Korean troop movements, and the administration said Washington was doing so now to convey the seriousness with which it views the matter.
“We recognize the potential danger here,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told reporters at the White House. “And we’re going to be talking to allies and partners, including Ukrainians, about what the proper next steps are going to be.”
He emphasized repeatedly that the U.S. government does not yet know for certain that any North Korean soldiers will join the fighting in Ukraine, but warned there would be consequences if they do.
“If these North Korean troops are employed against Ukraine,” Kirby said, “they will become legitimate military targets.”
For the United States and its partners, the assessment raises troubling questions about the extent to which Russia and North Korea — nuclear-armed nations and long-standing U.S. adversaries — might collaborate there and elsewhere. Speaking to reporters earlier Wednesday in Rome, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin suggested the implications could be far-reaching.
“If they’re co-belligerents — if their intention is to participate in this war on Russia’s behalf — that is a very, very serious issue,” Austin said. “It will have impacts, not only in Europe. It will also impact things in the Indo-Pacific as well.”
Austin said it was not yet clear how North Korea might benefit from this deployment of its personnel but that it suggested significant weaknesses in Russia’s military capability more than two years into President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Russian leader has previously sought drones, missiles and other munitions from allies Iran and North Korea to help offset critical shortages.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said last week that at least 1,500 North Korean special operations troops were training in Russia. They had been given Russian uniforms, weapons and IDs, and were being assigned to units composed of Siberian soldiers in a bid to conceal their nationalities, the intelligence agency reported. In a briefing to South Korean lawmakers Wednesday, the spy agency estimated that an additional 1,500 troops had moved into Russia.
Ukraine has said some North Korean advisers already are on the front lines.
At the White House, Kirby told reporters that Washington assesses that “at least 3,000” have traveled by ship to Vladivostok, a major Russian port city on the Pacific Ocean. U.S. officials did not release any satellite imagery verifying the claim, but Kirby said the North Koreans dispersed “to multiple Russian military training sites” in the country’s east. The North Koreans appear to be receiving a “basic kind of combat training and familiarization” at three sites, in what he called a “first tranche” of soldiers.
The Biden administration will continue to provide weapons and materiel support to Ukraine if North Korean forces enter the fighting there, Kirby said. He left open the possibility of other forms of escalation as well, though he did not identify what that could entail. President Joe Biden has said since the war’s start that he would not send any American troops to fight in Ukraine despite Washington’s robust military support for the government in Kyiv.
“I’m not at liberty today to go through any specific options,” Kirby said, “but we’re going to have those conversations. And we have.”
On Monday, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Wood, said that if true, the dispatch of North Korean troops was “a dangerous and highly concerning development.” A day later, the NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, said it would be “a significant escalation” — if that was the case.
Moscow and Pyongyang have repeatedly denied that there has been a deployment. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Wednesday called it a “colossal work of the media propaganda.”
“This is an indication that he may be even in more trouble than most people realize,” Austin said of Putin.
The conflict has left hundreds of thousands dead and wounded on both sides.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said last week that at least 1,500 North Korean special operations troops were training in Russia. They had been given Russian uniforms, weapons and IDs, and were being assigned to units composed of Siberian soldiers in a bid to conceal their nationalities, the intelligence agency reported. In a briefing to South Korean lawmakers Wednesday, the spy agency estimated that an additional 1,500 troops had moved into Russia.
Ukraine has said some North Korean advisers already are on the front lines.
At the White House, Kirby told reporters that Washington assesses that “at least 3,000” have traveled by ship to Vladivostok, a major Russian port city on the Pacific Ocean. U.S. officials did not release any satellite imagery verifying the claim, but Kirby said the North Koreans dispersed “to multiple Russian military training sites” in the country’s east. The North Koreans appear to be receiving a “basic kind of combat training and familiarization” at three sites, in what he called a “first tranche” of soldiers.
The Biden administration will continue to provide weapons and materiel support to Ukraine if North Korean forces enter the fighting there, Kirby said. He left open the possibility of other forms of escalation as well, though he did not identify what that could entail. President Joe Biden has said since the war’s start that he would not send any American troops to fight in Ukraine despite Washington’s robust military support for the government in Kyiv.
“I’m not at liberty today to go through any specific options,” Kirby said, “but we’re going to have those conversations. And we have.”
On Monday, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Wood, said that if true, the dispatch of North Korean troops was “a dangerous and highly concerning development.” A day later, the NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, said it would be “a significant escalation” — if that was the case.
Moscow and Pyongyang have repeatedly denied that there has been a deployment. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Wednesday called it a “colossal work of the media propaganda.”
From the beginning of Russia’s February 2022 invasion, North Korea has expressed strong support for Putin’s war in Ukraine, and the two countries signed a mutual defense pact over the summer, promising to expand military cooperation. South Korean officials have reported previously that Pyongyang has provided some 13,000 containers of weapons to Russia in as many as 70 shipments since August 2023, including missiles, antitank rockets and up to 8 million desperately needed 122mm and 152mm artillery shells.
On Monday, South Korea insisted that Russia take “immediate” action to withdraw the North Korean troops. A day later, the government in Seoul warned that it could consider supplying weapons to Ukraine in response — a move that appeared aimed at pressuring Russia, given the domestic difficulties South Korea would face if it were to send weapons to Kyiv.
Seoul is weighing diplomatic, economic and military options and could consider sending both defensive and offensive weapons to Ukraine, said a senior South Korean official, speaking during a briefing with reporters on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters.
Since the 1950-53 Korean War halted in a cease-fire, the two Koreas have maintained robust artillery and weapons stockpiles in case conflict resumes. As the war in Ukraine drags on, those stockpiles on the Korean Peninsula have come under focus. Russia has apparently been turning to North Korea for its old Soviet-era shells and weapons.
South Korea has a robust defense industry and has been backfilling the U.S. artillery supply and delivering arms, in particular K2 battle tanks and K9 self-propelled howitzers, to Poland since 2022, allowing Warsaw to send its own equipment to Ukraine.
South Korean law bans the export of arms except for a peaceful purpose and has stopped short of supplying weapons directly to Ukraine. But officials are raising alarms about the potential for Russia to provide coveted weapons technology to North Korea in return for sending troops, saying it could intensify the North’s threats against the South.
Ryan reported from Rome and Lee from Taipei, Taiwan. Mary Ilyushina in Berlin and Paul Schemm in London contributed to this report.
Flash Floods in Spain Leave More Than 95 Dead
About 1,000 soldiers from emergency response units deployed to the affected areas, and the death toll was expected to rise after one of the worst natural disasters to hit the country in recent years.
By José Bautista and Isabella Kwai
José Bautista reported from Madrid.
Oct. 30, 2024
Updated 2:55 p.m. ET
At least 95 people have died and others were missing after devastating flash floods hit eastern Spain, according to the local authorities, in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the country in recent years.
The catastrophic floods, fueled by an unrelenting deluge that began on Monday, washed away cars, inundated homes and knocked out power across eastern Spain. Rescuers waded through neck-high waters to reach some residents.
In the town of Chiva in the eastern Valencia region, practically a year’s worth of rain fell over eight hours, Spain’s meteorological agency said on Wednesday, illustrating the ferocity of the storm. Other areas across the south and east saw more than a month’s worth of rain in less than 24 hours.
The severity of the disaster became more apparent on Wednesday as the regional authorities confirmed that most of the people who had died were in the Valencia region, where the storm battered cities, villages and towns along the mountainous coastline. Others died in the neighboring province of Castile-La Mancha, where at least five other people were missing in the municipality of Albacete, local officials said. It was the deadliest flooding disaster in Spain since 1996, when floodwaters in the Pyrenees swept away a campground, killing more than 80 people.
Damage from floodwaters at an industrial complex near the city of Valencia, Spain.Credit...Miguel Angel Polo/EPA, via Shutterstock
More remain missing, but the authorities in Valencia said that they could not give an exact figure. A phone line was set up to report missing people, they added, and residents were urged not to travel in the area. The death toll, officials said, was expected to rise.
Flooding also swept the region of Andalusia in southern Spain, which includes the cities of Seville and Málaga. The region received four times the amount of rain typical for October in a single day, Spain’s weather agency said.
More than 1,000 soldiers from an emergency response team were sent to respond to the disaster, officials said, sharing videos of some people being airlifted from flooded areas into helicopters or waiting on rooftops.
“It’s been a disaster,” said Enrique Platero, a resident of Utiel, near Valencia, to the Spanish broadcaster RTVE. He said there had been no warning about the storm’s dangers. “It took us by surprise,” he said, turning away during the interview as tears came to his eyes.
Widespread areas appeared almost entirely submerged, and dozens of cars piled up in the flooding’s aftermath, according to footage released by the Civil Guard. Some buildings were reduced to sodden rubble.
The damage to roads and bridges left rescuers struggling to reach some areas, officials said on Wednesday. Some towns were still cut off by the storm, with local officials describing grim scenes as the death toll climbed. Fears were also rising for the condition of people missing.
“At the moment, we have a very negative outlook for those that remain missing, although of course we retain hope,” said Emiliano García-Page, head of the Castile-La Mancha region, to reporters on Wednesday.
“The town of Paiporta is cut off; nothing works,” said Maribel Albalat, Paiporta’s mayor, where dozens of people died, to the Actualidad Valencia, a local newspaper. “People are organizing themselves but there is no communication.”
The overflowing ravines and strong winds also damaged infrastructure supplying telecommunications and power in the region. About 155,000 customers were left without power, according to Iberdrola, an energy provider in Valencia, adding that workers were encountering difficulties in restoring service.
“It has been something out of the ordinary,” said Ricardo Gabaldón, the mayor of Utiel to RTVE, adding that helicopters and boats had been reaching stranded residents all afternoon. “The material damage is incalculable, but what worries us is the personal damage.”
Destruction in a neighborhood of Valencia on Wednesday.Credit...Ruben Fenollosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Highways leading to the region’s capital, also named Valencia, were littered with debris and covered with mud, according to footage from local media, and the subway was flooded. Regional trains on Wednesday were halted, and schools were closed in several places.
The Spanish Parliament on Wednesday held a minute of silence to mourn the victims. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez vowed in an address to help the flood-struck regions recover. “Together we are going to rebuild your streets, your squares, your bridges,” he said from Madrid. “All Spain cries with you,” he added.
The deluge is not yet over: More rain was expected on Wednesday, with Spain’s meteorological agency raising an emergency alert for the Valencia region to the highest level. A popular tourist destination, Valencia is also known for being a key agricultural producer, and grows citrus and other fruits and vegetables.
One union representing young farmers in the region, the Valencia branch of ASAJA, said that while it was too early to assess the floods’ economic impact on agriculture and livestock, it predicted that thousands of hectares of citrus, persimmons, vegetables, vines and other crops would lose their harvest this season.
Some areas recorded “historic accumulations of water,” the union said, and the force of the water in inland areas uprooted thousands of vines and other crops that had just gone through one of the driest years in history. Other farms nearer to the coast were also flooded, the union said.
Though storms are typical during the fall in Spain, local residents were shocked at the sheer amount of rain: more than 70 gallons per square yard in some villages. In the village of Chiva, more than 100 gallons per square yard of rain fell in eight hours, practically a year’s worth, Spain’s meteorological agency said.
The agency added that it expected some 40 gallons per square yard of rain before 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday over parts of Valencia, Andalusia and Murcia. The storm was moving toward the north and northwest of Spain, with rain expected to continue until at least Thursday.
Flooding is a complex phenomenon and while linking climate change to a single flood event requires extensive scientific analysis, scientists have said that climate change is causing heavier rainfall in many storms. Warmer atmosphere holds, and releases, more water.
Meteorologists have said that the rainfall in Spain is most likely the result of a sudden “cold drop,” known in Spanish as a “gota fría.” That happens when cold air moves over the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea, allowing the hotter, moist air at the surface to rise quickly and producing giant rain clouds. Then, the storm system pushes these moisture-rich clouds over land.
The Mediterranean is also getting hotter, which is making such rainfalls more violent and more frequent. In August, the sea hit its highest recorded temperature.
The record rainfall that led to devastating floods in Belgium and Germany in the summer of 2021 was made much more likely by global warming, scientists have determined.
by ti-amieDesperate hunt for survivors as mobs and looters strike shops across Valencia after 'apocalyptic' floods
31 October 2024, 18:13 | Updated: 1 November 2024, 00:31
By Danielle de Wolfe
@dannidewolfe
The desperate hunt for survivors continues after flash floods swept through Spain, as the country's death toll hit 158.
As floodwaters subsided, Spanish police announced a major crime crackdown after looters and gangs took to supermarkets and electrical stores in Valencia in a bid to scavenge goods. Picture: Getty
Search for missing people underway after devastating storm kills 104 in Spain. Picture: Getty
The water carried away cars, derailed a train and rose several feet into the lower levels of homes, as landslides caused by the floods also caused disruption.
Locals described seeing people clambering onto the roofs of their cars as a churning tide of brown water gushed through the streets, uprooting trees and dragging away chunks of masonry from buildings.
Recent hours have seen gangs reportedly caught looting electrical stores as well as supermarkets in the Valencia region.
Local police are now said to be redirecting man power away from rescue efforts and upping patrols near shops, Spanish outlet El Pais reports.
Flooding And Heavy Rain In Valencia Region Of Spain. Picture: Getty
According to reports from Spain's Civil Guard, 39 alleged perpetrators have now been arrested in the Valencia region over looting offences, with that figure expected to rise.
More than 1,000 soldiers were sent to the worst-hit areas to help with rescue efforts following the floods.
President of the Andalusian government, Juanma Morena, said a 71-year-old British man was rescued on the outskirts of Alhaurin de la Torre.
He was found with hypothermia and died after suffering several cardiac arrests.
Karen Loftus, 62, from Dorset - who was with her husband - says it was "just like a disaster movie".
The mayor of Utiel, a town in Spain, said Tuesday was "the worst day of [his] life".
"We were trapped like rats," Ricardo Gabaldon said.
"Cars and trash containers were flowing down the streets. The water was rising to three metres."
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Spain "weeps with" the people who are still searching for family and friends.
He told reporters: "Our thoughts go out to those whose homes and possessions have been devastated and whose lives have been covered in mud.
"We are united and we will rebuild your streets and your squares and bridges. Mr Sanchez added: "Spain will be with you."
He said the government and emergency services would be working "24 hours a day as long as the emergency goes on".
Mr Sanchez said the "devastating event" may not be over, as more storms could be on the way.
A British couple in Spain reported seeing "nine or 10" overturned lorries in a short stretch of motorway near Valencia on Tuesday ngiht.
Spanish news agency EFE said that one truck driver was missing in L'Alcudia, a town in Valencia.
Also in Valencia, the mayor of Utiel, Ricardo Gabaldon, told RTVE that several people were trapped in their homes.
Police and rescue services used helicopters to lift people from homes and cars.
An emergency rescue brigade of Spain's army deployed to help rescue efforts.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said: "I am closely following with concern the reports on missing persons and the damage caused... in recent hours."
He told people to listen to the emergency services and "be very careful and avoid unnecessary trips."
Storms were forecast to continue until Thursday, according to Spain's national weather service.
Spain has experienced similar autumn storms in recent years.
The country is recovering from a severe drought this year thanks to rainfall.
Scientists say that increased episodes of extreme weather are probably linked to climate change.
Why UNDESTANDINGLY? Why should throwing mud and eggs to the King and Queen should be accepted? Do we still live in an era in which we believe that "god punished us" for the sins of the monarchy?
I am against ALL monarchies; they are incredibly silly structures. But in this case, the King came to see how to help. Let him.
by ashkor87 Yes, they have shown true leadership by visiting in person ..don't deserve mud and eggs..since they don't direct the government anyway
by ti-amie Sorry you have to click for the video.
I'm pretty sure I heard a few mumbled "motherf****rs" when they finished...
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Richard Nairn
@RichardNairn@mstdn.ca
Serious question. Do the the rest of Five Eyes start excluding America from real intelligence again? The USA is no longer a trusted partner. It is now a threat and a direct line to #Putin #uspoli #cdnpoli #intelligence
Any bets that files are getting wiped, burned? Our own intel apparatus is in deep risk. Let the other 4 eyes take over what ops we want to protect, and go into a restricted mode, ourselves.
@RichardNairn If I were them, I would.
Biden cut off trump’s access to intel briefings, for a damn good reason.
by Oploskoffie
ti-amie wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 10:21 pm
Sorry you have to click for the video.
I'm pretty sure I heard a few mumbled "motherf****rs" when they finished...
Best document shredding I've seen for a long, long time. Probably ever. Well done ana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke and all who joined in.
by ponchi101
ti-amie wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 10:27 pm
Richard Nairn
@RichardNairn@mstdn.ca
Serious question. Do the the rest of Five Eyes start excluding America from real intelligence again? The USA is no longer a trusted partner. It is now a threat and a direct line to #Putin #uspoli #cdnpoli #intelligence
Any bets that files are getting wiped, burned? Our own intel apparatus is in deep risk. Let the other 4 eyes take over what ops we want to protect, and go into a restricted mode, ourselves.
@RichardNairn If I were them, I would.
Biden cut off trump’s access to intel briefings, for a damn good reason.
I don't think that is how high class espionage works. You don't cut Tiny off any intelligence (I know, there is a joke there). You give him the regular stuff, and the rest, you feed him junk. And then see how the Russians react.
But both sides will know that.
Problem for both sides is that he is so inept it will be hard to know what is true and what it false. The dementia will be a true randomizer.
by ti-amie PublicNews.world Feed
@publicnewsfeed@mastodon.social
US recognises opposition leader Gonzalez as Venezuela's president-elect
The US officially recognised opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as Venezuela's president-elect Tuesday, four months after disputed elections. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement, rejecting Nicolas Maduro's claimed victory, drew sharp criticism from Caracas, which dismissed the move as "ridiculous."
ti-amie wrote: ↑Wed Nov 20, 2024 1:30 am
PublicNews.world Feed
@publicnewsfeed@mastodon.social
US recognises opposition leader Gonzalez as Venezuela's president-elect
The US officially recognised opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as Venezuela's president-elect Tuesday, four months after disputed elections. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement, rejecting Nicolas Maduro's claimed victory, drew sharp criticism from Caracas, which dismissed the move as "ridiculous."
Why 4 months later? What's driving the timing? To avoid more upheaval? (Gonzalez left Venezuela)
by ponchi101 The timing is because TIny will side with Maduro, pushed by Putin. So, at the very least, Tiny will need to reverse policy, not simply state one.
by mmmm8
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2024 12:01 am
The timing is because TIny will side with Maduro, pushed by Putin. So, at the very least, Tiny will need to reverse policy, not simply state one.
But couldn't doing this in September/October have helped with the election?
by ponchi101 Don't think so, but indeed could have been an interesting thing to do. The Venezuelan population in the USA that votes is tiny, and most of them side with Tiny because he is a strong man, and he will put Maduro in place.
We are that stupid.
But yes, a few weeks after the election was stolen would have been better than now.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2024 12:56 pm
Don't think so, but indeed could have been an interesting thing to do. The Venezuelan population in the USA that votes is tiny, and most of them side with Tiny because he is a strong man, and he will put Maduro in place.
We are that stupid.
But yes, a few weeks after the election was stolen would have been better than now.
I wonder if this was the dry run...
by ti-amie
If you don't know who she is it's worth your time to search her name.
I love that the people at Vogue Germany did this. There are some who are arguing against it because it's not about fashion. I think the people who read Vogue, many of them women, should be aware of her story. She is one of the bravest women on the planet (note I said one of because there are many, many others who will not make the cover of any edition of Vogue).
by ti-amie Re Ms Pelicot's case:
by mmmm8 I know most of the perpetrators are quite old, so not as relevant in this case. But how is 20 years the max in France for this crime?
by ti-amie
by ti-amieDevon fishermen left feeling 'betrayed' by Brexit
'Brexit was sold to our fishermen as a golden opportunity, yet the truth is that many fishermen have experienced the complete opposite'
By Guy Henderson Local Democracy Reporter
08:49, 25 NOV 2024
Devon fishermen are claimed to have been left feeling 'betrayed' by Brexit - something they originally thought would benefit them.
South Devon MP Caroline Voaden told the House of Commons the fishermen "face a landscape filled with uncertainty, rather than the bright, sunlit uplands they were promised".
The Liberal Democrat MP, whose constituency includes Brixham, was speaking during a debate on fishing policy. Brixham, she said, was the most valuable port in England and Wales in terms of catch landed, recording £60 million in fish sales last year.
However, it faced what she called ‘profound challenges’, many of which had been exacerbated by withdrawing from the European Union.
She told MPs: “Despite the promises that some made during the referendum campaign – promises of greater control, increased quotas and a more prosperous future -too many of our fishers now find themselves in a precarious position.
“Brexit was sold to our fishermen as a golden opportunity, yet the truth is that many fishermen have experienced the complete opposite. Instead of gaining more control, they have met a series of hurdles that make their lives harder.”
Immediately after Brexit a number of people in the Brixham fishing industry were featured in the national press talking about how promises of easiest trade with Europe, made during the run-up to the referendum, had failed to materialise.
Mrs Voaden went on: “They are now facing massive trade barriers. The sheer cost of additional paperwork has been eye-watering, with fishermen struggling to pass on increased selling prices to their long-standing customers. This is not the control that was promised; it is a recipe for frustration and despair.”
Mrs Voaden agreed with Grimsby Labour MP Melanie Onn that the fishing industry had been ‘sold down the river’.
She added: “Funnily enough, Brixham was quite a Brexit-supporting community. As a proud remainer, I had hesitations about Brixham as part of the constituency at first, but as I tour the constituency, I find it astonishing how many people in the local fishing community openly tell me that they feel betrayed and that they were lied to with promises that could never have been met.”
by ponchi101 The poor darlings. They did not understand the deal.
Sniff, sniff.
by Owendonovan There's not a lot of teeth in this, yet, but I appreciate there's an effort being made to do something. The Facebooks, Instas, Tin Tok's etc are, to me, a cancer to society.
Australia Has Barred Everyone Under 16 From Social Media. Will It Work?
The law sets a minimum age for users of platforms like TikTok, Instagram and X. How the restriction will be enforced online remains an open question.
Two boys wearing school uniforms looking at their phones.
In Melbourne on Wednesday. Australia passed a social media ban for children despite feasibility concerns.Credit...William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Victoria Kim
By Victoria Kim
Nov. 28, 2024, 7:19 a.m. ET
Australia has imposed a sweeping ban on social media for children under 16, one of the world’s most comprehensive measures aimed at safeguarding young people from potential hazards online. But many details were still unclear, such as how it will be enforced and what platforms will be covered.
After sailing through Parliament’s lower house on Wednesday, the bill passed the Senate on Thursday with bipartisan support. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said that it puts Australia at the vanguard of efforts to protect the mental health and well-being of children from detrimental effects of social media, such as online hate or bullying.
The law, he has said, puts the onus on social media platforms to take “reasonable steps” to prevent anyone under 16 from having an account. Corporations could be fined up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (about $32 million) for “systemic” failures to implement age requirements.
Neither underage users nor their parents will face punishment for violations. And whether children find ways to get past the restrictions is beside the point, Mr. Albanese said.
“We know some kids will find workarounds, but we’re sending a message to social media companies to clean up their act,” he said in a statement this month.
As with many countries’ regulations on alcohol or tobacco, the law will create a new category of “age-restricted social media platforms” accessible only to those 16 and older. How that digital carding will happen, though, is a tricky question.
The law specifies that users will not be forced to provide government identification as part of the verification process, a measure that the conservative opposition said was included after they raised concerns about privacy rights.
It is also not clear exactly which platforms will be covered by the ban. The prime minister has said that Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and X will be included, but YouTube and messaging apps including WhatsApp are expected to be exempt.
France last year passed a law requiring parental consent for social media users under 15, and it has been pushing for similar measures across the European Union. Florida this year imposed a ban for users under 14 and required parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds, but that law could face constitutional challenges.
Leo Puglisi, a 17-year-old Australian teenager who runs a news site, 6 News, that is staffed mostly by teens, said he had full confidence that his 14-year-old brother would easily find a way to circumvent any restriction.
He described social media as an integral part of growing up today. He and his contemporaries are aware that it can cause harm, but they rely on it to find communities of people with similar interests, he said.
A blanket ban would do little to counteract the dangers of the platforms, he said.
“None of the harmful content would be removed. It just kicks the can down the road and throws you into the deep end at 16,” he said. “It might sound good on paper, but in reality it’s not practical.”
Image
A man in a suit walks toward a podium past three flags.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra this month.Credit...Mick Tsikas/AAP Image, via Reuters
But Dany Elachi, who has five children between the ages of 7 and 15, said the law would help to change the norms around social media usage. Many parents concerned about its harmful effects feel they have no choice but to let their children use it so they don’t feel left out.
“When you think your child might be isolated, that’s what puts parents under a lot of pressure,” said Mr. Elachi, co-founder of the Heads Up Alliance, a network of parents who are trying to delay their children’s use of social media and smartphones. “If everybody misses out, no one misses out.”
Kylea Tink, an independent lawmaker representing North Sydney, criticized the bill in the debate in the lower house on Tuesday as a “blunt instrument.” She said the law would stop short of holding social media companies accountable for the safety of the product they are providing.
“They are not fixing the potholes; they are just telling our kids there won’t be any cars,” she said.
During the same debate, Stephen Bates of the Australian Greens party cited his experience as a 13-year-old addicted to the video game “The Sims.” His father installed a program so his computer would automatically shut down after an hour, he recalled.
“It took me 10 minutes to figure out how to get around that,” said Mr. Bates, now a 32-year-old lawmaker. “As the youngest person in this chamber and one of very, very few people in this place who grew up with this technology and with social media, I can say that change is needed but this bill is not it.”
Now that the law has passed, social media companies have a 12-month period to meet the requirements. The task of sorting out the details of its implementation will fall to Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner.
She said the technologies behind age verification were rapidly advancing, arising from past efforts to limit underage exposure to pornography or gambling sites. A trial commissioned by the Australian government is underway to test them.
In an interview, she said she had no doubt that tech giants would find a way to comply.
“They’ve got financial resources, technologies and some of the best brainpower,” she said. “If they can target you for advertising, they can use the same technology and know-how to identify and verify the age of a child.”
by ponchi101 The last sentence is not totally accurate. Sure, they can target you for advertisement, but that is because they can see what you buy. It is not the same for age related things.
I do hope they succeed, though.
by Suliso It's a very stupid decision. Teenagers will find a way around, but for everyone else there will be a loss of privacy and greatly increased paperwork. Any kind of attempt of enforcement will cost a lot too.
by skatingfan David Frum is my first go to for analysis, but came across this interview & I thought it was an interesting perspective on the threat of new tariffs from the incoming Trump administration.
by Suliso Anyone following the restarted Syrian civil war? Aleppo has fallen within just few days and government forces are in full retreat in the north of the country. Why now is not entirely clear, but important factors must be severe weakening of their partners Hezbollah, Iran and Russia.
by Suliso The development is so fast that facts change on an hourly basis. After capturing Aleppo (pre war the largest city in Syria) only 24 h ago now the rebel forces are already in Hamas (5th largest) 140 km south. The third largest city Homs is only another 50 km further south. So far Assad has been unable to mount any meaningful resistance.
by ti-amie
Suliso wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2024 4:19 pm
Anyone following the restarted Syrian civil war? Aleppo has fallen within just few days and government forces are in full retreat in the north of the country. Why now is not entirely clear, but important factors must be severe weakening of their partners Hezbollah, Iran and Russia.
by ti-amie MeidasTouch @meidastouch.bsky.social
·
19m
JUST IN: In a major foreign policy speech, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer warns Donald Trump that he will not side with the United States over the EU after Trump allies suggested he must make a choice between the two.
by ponchi101 Putin must be having a celebratory orgy at the moment.
What a victory. Without shooting a single missile.
by mmmm8
ti-amie wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2024 3:27 am
MeidasTouch @meidastouch.bsky.social
·
19m
JUST IN: In a major foreign policy speech, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer warns Donald Trump that he will not side with the United States over the EU after Trump allies suggested he must make a choice between the two.
Reminded me of Prime Minister Hugh Grant's speech from Love Actually
by ti-amie Dave Kang
@daveckang.bsky.social
A few random thoughts about Yoon's attempted coup/martial law:
1. It is so outrageous I am having trouble getting my head around it. I was in Korea in 1987 and I remember martial law. This is one of the dumbest moves by a Korean president in its history.
2. Yoon's fate is sealed...
3. The American DC Blob loved this guy. For all the wrong reasons. The DC establishment felt it had finally found a "reasonable" Korean who desperately wanted rapprochement with Japan and was willing to sing a song at a White House dinner -- what more do you need in a Korean leader? ...
4. But the DC crowd didn't realize -- or more likely, didn't care -- that Yoon was far outside the median Korean citizen on most things. Yoon hovered in the 20s for approval ratings. And his admin was demonstrably ill-concieved and almost clownish -- from the Pelosi visit to China relations...
5. And his domestic agenda had floundered noticeably as well. He'll be remembered for comically bad decisions like moving the presidential office to Yongsan, but it was more substantive matters that mattered...
6. And...this coup attempt is the final straw. There was nothing conceivably unstable or demanding such a move. And, the language and wording is straight from the dark days of the 1970s: "pro-communist, North Korea sympathizers," etc. etc...are you kidding me?
7. Finally -- the Korean people are amazing. Congratulations to the way they stood up for democracy, the rule of law, and common decency. We could use a little of that spirit here in the U.S.
by ti-amie William Gallo
@williamgallo.bsky.social
South Korea's main opposition party says it will immediately begin impeachment proceedings if Yoon does not step down immediately.
n.news.naver.com/article/003/...
Minjoo: "Proposal to impeach Yoon as early as today... Report to plenary session tomorrow" (Comprehensive)
Entered 2024.12.04. 7:53 AM Last modified 2024.12.04. 7:59 AM Original article
Reporter Kim Ji-eun
Reporter Shin Jae-hyun
"Perfect grounds for impeachment as an act of rebellion under martial law"
"Minister of National Defense and Minister of Public Administration and Security will also be held accountable"
[Seoul = Newsis] Reporter Kim Ji-eun and Shin Jae-hyeon = The Democratic Party of Korea announced on the 4th that "President Yoon Seok-yeol's declaration of martial law is a clear violation of the Constitution," and "If he does not step down immediately, we will immediately begin impeachment proceedings in accordance with the will of the people."
In a resolution released after an emergency general meeting of lawmakers at the National Assembly that day, the Democratic Party said, "The end of the Yoon Seok-yeol regime, which has mocked the Republic of Korea and its citizens and trampled democracy, is only miserable destruction."
The Democratic Party emphasized that "the declaration of martial law itself is null and void, a serious violation of the Constitution and the law," and "This is a serious act of rebellion and perfect grounds for impeachment."
It also warned that "the 50 million citizens of the Republic of Korea and the Democratic Party will not sit idly by and watch President Yoon's crime of destroying the Constitution by trampling on the Constitution and democracy," and "President Yoon Seok-yeol can no longer avoid the judgment of the people and history." It added
that "the Democratic Party will fight to the end with all the citizens to protect the democracy and constitutional order of the Republic of Korea."
The Democratic Party plans to propose an impeachment bill against President Yoon as early as today and report it to the plenary session on the 5th. According to the National Assembly Act, the impeachment bill must be voted on within 72 hours of the plenary session report, starting 24 hours after the plenary session.
Floor spokesperson Kang Yoo-jung met with reporters after attending the general meeting and explained, “If we hurry as much as possible, we can propose it today, report it tomorrow, and vote 24 hours later. This is the fastest schedule.”
Spokesperson Kang said, “Since there is no guarantee that martial law will not be imposed again, the members of the National Assembly have agreed to expedite the impeachment proposal, report, and vote processes,” and emphasized, “I hope that the people will trust the National Assembly and put their anxious minds at ease. The Democratic Party will actively and quickly work to return to normal days.”
He added, “In order to impose martial law, the consent of the Minister of National Defense and the Minister of Public Administration and Security is absolutely essential,” and “Holding the two ministers accountable will also be done during the process of proposing the impeachment bill.”
The impeachment of the president must be proposed by a majority of the members of the National Assembly and approved by more than two-thirds of the members. Out of the 300 members of the National Assembly, 108 are from the People Power Party, so at least 8 must participate in the impeachment.
The Democratic Party will hold an emergency rally in front of the National Assembly building at noon today to condemn the illegal martial law.
by ti-amie Adam Schwarz
@adamjschwarz.bsky.social
South Korean citizens helped lawmakers scale the National Assembly walls so they could bypass military barricades and vote against martial law.
by ti-amie Adam Schwarz
@adamjschwarz.bsky.social
Follow
Lee Jae-myung, Leader of South Korea's Democratic Party, live-streamed himself scaling the walls of the National Assembly to bypass military barricades so that he could vote to overturn the President's martial law.
by mmmm8 Thanks for posting. That is a wildly delusional attempt at a coup.
by ponchi101 The rise of the lunatic strong man.
It is becoming so boring. Unless they succeed, of course.
by ti-amie Jack Greenberg (그린버그 잭)
@jackwgreenberg.bsky.social
Just after 4 a.m. here in Seoul. Some updates:
- 190 oppo lawmakers submitted a proposal for impeachment. A vote can proceed on Friday, as early as 12:49 a.m. KST.
- Yoon’s removal from ruling PPP, acceptance of entire Cabinet’s resignation, and dismissal of Defense Minister floated by Han Dong-hoon
- PPP has decided as a party to oppose the impeachment motion but some individual members have still expressed support for Yoon’s swift resignation or expulsion from the party. Impeachment would need at least 8 ruling party members to vote with the opposition.
- One prominent conservative who has called for Yoon to take responsibility and resign is Ahn Cheol-soo. As a third party candidate, Ahn had played kingmaker towards the end of the presidential campaign and helped Yoon get elected. He made his call via his Facebook page.
by ti-amie
by ti-amie Anonymous
@youranoncentral.bsky.social
At least 66,000 fake accounts and 10 million fake followers were removed on just TikTok alone, the operation was targeting Romania’s election in favour far-right candidate Călin Georgescu .
Also, an account with 299,000 followers linked to the far-right AUR party was taken down.
FANTASTIC NEWS! Romania’s Constitutional Court has just annulled the first round of the presidential election due to heavy Russian interference. The second round will not take place on Sunday and the first round will be re-run. The electoral authorities will have to validate all candidates again.
by ti-amie Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social
·
1h
Assad has fled Syria after returning from Russia, the Kremlin denied further assistance to the regime citing "their own issues", the collapse of the Assad regime may be hours away. Reportedly he is meeting with Iranian officials in Tehran. Likely to form a government in exile.
The US is now the butt of these kinds of jokes.
Onionwars @t-rimble.bsky.social
·
now
That should free him up for a cabinet position.
by skatingfanIran Begins to Evacuate Military Officials and Personnel From Syria
The withdrawals by one of President Bashar al-Assad’s key backers come amid a resurgent rebel offensive.
Iran began to evacuate its military commanders and personnel from Syria on Friday, according to regional officials and three Iranian officials, in a sign of Iran’s inability to help keep President Bashar al-Assad in power as he faces a resurgent rebel offensive.
Among those evacuated to neighboring Iraq and Lebanon were top commanders of Iran’s powerful Quds Forces, the external branch of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, the officials said.
Guards personnel, some Iranian diplomatic staff, their families, and Iranian civilians were also being evacuated, according to the Iranian officials, two of them members of the Guards, and regional officials. Iranians began to leave Syria on Friday morning, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
Evacuations were ordered at the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, and at bases of the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian and regional officials said. At least some of the embassy staff has departed.
Part of the evacuation is being carried out by planes to Tehran, while others are leaving via land routes to Lebanon, Iraq and the Syrian port of Latakia, the officials said.
“Iran is starting to evacuate its forces and military personnel because we cannot fight as an advisory and support force if Syria’s army itself does not want to fight,” Mehdi Rahmati, a prominent Iranian analyst who advises officials on regional strategy, said in a telephone interview.
“The bottom line,” he added, “is that Iran has realized that it cannot manage the situation in Syria right now with any military operation and this option is off the table.”
The orders to evacuate signaled a remarkable turn for Mr. al-Assad, whose government Iran has backed throughout Syria’s 13-year civil war, and for Iran, which has used Syria as a key route to supply weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Alongside Russia, Iran has been the Syrian government’s most powerful supporter, sending advisers and commanders to bases and the front lines and backing militias.
It also deployed tens of thousands of volunteer fighters, including Iranians, Afghans and Pakistani Shias, to defend the government and to retake territory from the Islamic State terrorist group at the height of Syria’s civil war. Some of Iran’s forces, like the Afghan Fatemiyoun brigade, had remained in Syria at military bases operated by Iran; on Friday, they were also being transferred to Damascus and Latakia, an Assad government stronghold, the Iranian officials said. A video posted on accounts affiliated with the Guards showed the Fatemiyoun in uniform taking refuge at the shrine of Seyed Zainab near Damascus.
The surprise offensive by a rebel coalition has dramatically changed the landscape of the civil war, which Mr. al-Assad had fought to a standstill, and Iran’s control over some of Syria’s territory. In a little over a week, the rebels have swept through major cities like Aleppo and Hama, captured swaths of territory across four provinces, and moved toward Syria’s capital, Damascus.
The Iranian officials said that two top generals of Iran’s Quds forces, deployed to advise the Syrian army, had fled to Iraq as various rebel groups took over Homs and Deir al-Zour on Friday.
“Syria is at the verge of collapse and we are watching calmly,” said Ahmad Naderi, an Iranian Parliament member, in a post on social media on Friday. He added that if Damascus fell, Iran would also lose its sway in Iraq and Lebanon, saying, “I don’t understand the reason for this inaction but whatever it is, it’s not good for our country.”
The rebel offensive came at a moment of relative weakness for three of Syria’s most important supporters. Iran’s ability to help has been curtailed by its conflict with Israel; Russia's military has been sapped by its invasion of Ukraine; and Hezbollah, which had previously supplied fighters to aid the Assad government’s fight against the Islamic State, has been battered badly by its own war with Israel.
The fall of more territory to rebel forces, which are led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, could also threaten Iran’s ability to supply either Mr. al-Assad’s regime or Hezbollah with weapons and advisers.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had traveled to Damascus this week, meeting with Mr. al-Assad and pledging Iran’s full support.
But in Baghdad on Friday, he appeared to make a more ambiguous statement. “We are not fortune tellers,” he said in an interview on Iraqi television. “Whatever is God’s will shall happen, but the resistance will fulfill its duty.”
ti-amie wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2024 1:51 am
Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social
·
1h
Assad has fled Syria after returning from Russia, the Kremlin denied further assistance to the regime citing "their own issues", the collapse of the Assad regime may be hours away. Reportedly he is meeting with Iranian officials in Tehran. Likely to form a government in exile.
The US is now the butt of these kinds of jokes.
Onionwars @t-rimble.bsky.social
·
now
That should free him up for a cabinet position.
Whoever, or whatever this is, seems to have jumped the gun. There are no other outlets reporting this story.
by ti-amie
by ponchi101 The war on drugs has to end. It has been one of most devastating policies for the continent, and the world, ever.
by ti-amie
ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2024 9:51 pm
The war on drugs has to end. It has been one of most devastating policies for the continent, and the world, ever.
It's a soapbox issue when you have nothing else to rant about. There's a lot of money being used to "sponsor" things like football clubs around the world to use the example given here.
by ti-amieAssad has left Damascus, senior army officers say; Syria rebels say they are in capital
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Timour Azhari
December 7, 202410:11 PM ESTUpdated 15 min ago
Summary
Assad boards plane, leaves Damascus, say senior army officers
Assad's destination unknown, officers say
Syrian rebels say they have entered the capital
After years of little movement, rebels mount lightening advance
Insurgent leader urges no reprisals
AMMAN/BEIRUT, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flew out of Damascus for an unknown destination on Sunday, two senior army officers told Reuters, as rebels said they had entered the capital with no sign of army deployments.
Thousands in cars and on foot congregated at a main square in Damascus waving and chanting "Freedom", witnesses said.
"We celebrate with the Syrian people the news of freeing our prisoners and releasing their chains and announcing the end of the era of injustice in Sednaya prison," said the rebels.
Sednaya is a large military prison on the outskirts Damascus where the Syrian government detained thousands.
A Syrian Air plane took off from Damascus airport around the time the capital was reported to have been taken by rebels, according to data from the Flightradar website.
The aircraft initially flew towards Syria's coastal region, a stronghold of Assad's Alawite sect, but then made an abrupt U-turn and flew in the opposite direction for a few minutes before disappearing off the map.
Reuters could not immediately ascertain who was on board.
Just hours earlier, rebels announced they had gained full control of the key city of Homs after only a day of fighting, leaving Assad's 24-year rule dangling by a thread.
Intense sounds of shooting were heard in the centre of the Damascus, two residents said on Sunday, although it was not immediately clear what the source of the shooting was.
In rural areas southwest of the capital, local youths and former rebels took advantage of the loss of authority to come to the streets in acts of defiance against the Assad family's authoritarian rule.
Thousands of Homs residents poured onto the streets after the army withdrew from the central city, dancing and chanting "Assad is gone, Homs is free" and "Long live Syria and down with Bashar al-Assad".
Rebels fired into the air in celebration, and youths tore down posters of the Syrian president, whose territorial control has collapsed in a dizzying week-long retreat by the military.
The fall of Homs gives the insurgents control over Syria's strategic heartland and a key highway crossroads, severing Damascus from the coastal region that is the stronghold of Assad's Alawite sect and where his Russian allies have a naval base and air base.
Homs' capture is also a powerful symbol of the rebel movement's dramatic comeback in the 13-year-old conflict. Swathes of Homs were destroyed by gruelling siege warfare between the rebels and the army years ago. The fighting ground down the insurgents, who were forced out.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham commander Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the main rebel leader, called the capture of Homs a historic moment and urged fighters not to harm "those who drop their arms".
Rebels freed thousands of detainees from the city prison. Security forces left in haste after burning their documents.
Residents of numerous Damascus districts turned out to protest Assad on Saturday evening, and security forces were either unwilling or unable to clamp down.
Syrian rebel commander Hassan Abdul Ghani said in a statement early Sunday that operations were ongoing to "completely liberate" the countryside around Damascus and rebel forces were looking toward the capital.
In one suburb, a statue of Assad's father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, was toppled and torn apart.
The Syrian army said it was reinforcing around Damascus, and state television reported on Saturday that Assad remained in the city.
Outside the city, rebels swept across the entire southwest over 24 hours and established control.
EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO ASSAD RULE
The fall of Homs and threat to the capital pose an immediate existential danger to the Assad dynasty's five-decade reign over Syria and the continued influence there of its main regional backer, Iran.
The pace of events has stunned Arab capitals and raised fears of a new wave of regional instability.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Russia issued a joint statement saying the crisis was a dangerous development and calling for a political solution.
But there was no indication they agreed on any concrete steps, with the situation inside Syria changing by the hour.
Syria's civil war, which erupted in 2011 as an uprising against Assad's rule, dragged in big outside powers, created space for jihadist militants to plot attacks around the world and sent millions of refugees into neighbouring states.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the strongest rebel group, is the former al Qaeda affiliate in Syria regarded by the U.S. and others as a terrorist organisation, and many Syrians remain fearful it will impose draconian Islamist rule.
Golani has tried to reassure minorities that he will not interfere with them and the international community that he opposes Islamist attacks abroad. In Aleppo, which the rebels captured a week ago, there have not been reports of reprisals.
When asked on Saturday whether he believed Golani, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov replied, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating".
Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group withdrew from the Syrian city of Qusayr on the border with Lebanon before rebel forces seized it, Syrian army sources said on Sunday.
At least 150 armoured vehicles carrying hundreds of Hezbollah fighters left the city, long a point on the route for arms transfers and fighters moving in and out of Syria, the sources said. Israel hit one of the convoys as it was departing, one source said.
ALLIES' ROLE IN SUPPORTING ASSAD
Assad long relied on allies to subdue the rebels. Russian warplanes conducted bombing while Iran sent allied forces including Hezbollah and Iraqi militia to reinforce the Syrian military and storm insurgent strongholds.
But Russia has been focused on the war in Ukraine since 2022 and Hezbollah has suffered big losses in its own gruelling war with Israel, significantly limiting its ability or that of Iran to bolster Assad.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said the U.S. should not be involved in the conflict and should "let it play out".
The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.
Reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Damascus, Timour Azhari in Beirut, Jaidaa Taha in Cairo, Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington; Writing by Angus McDowall, Matt Spetalnick and Michael Perry; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and William Mallard
by ashkor87 All this is the legacy of the 'great powers' - Britain, France.. who drew some arbitrary lines and created nations out of nothing.. the hapless people there are paying for it, and will continue to pay forver.. the poor people of Syria will probably have to endure an Afganistan-like Islamic state now.. the current leader is supposed to be moderate but, as we all know, moderates seldom surive - it is the most ruthless who come out on top..sigh...'the centre cannot hold'
by ti-amie Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social
·
1m
Th plane allegedly carrying Assad dropped from an altitude of over 3,650 meters to 1,070 in minutes, just outside Lebanese airspace north of Akkar. Reportedly Lebanon denied the plane permission to land. Rumours are rife, no confirmation if that was his plane or the fate of those onboard.
by Suliso
ashkor87 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 08, 2024 3:47 am
All this is the legacy of the 'great powers' - Britain, France.. who drew some arbitrary lines and created nations out of nothing.. the hapless people there are paying for it, and will continue to pay forver.. the poor people of Syria will probably have to endure an Afganistan-like Islamic state now.. the current leader is supposed to be moderate but, as we all know, moderates seldom surive - it is the most ruthless who come out on top..sigh...'the centre cannot hold'
That is true BUT it's also not obvious what lines could have been drawn in this area. That is if the goal is homogeneity instead of Indian style living together.
by ponchi101 Just like in South America, the fixation with the past remains strong in other parts of the world. It is NEVER our fault; nope, our corrupt, inefficient governments are not to be blamed, and our lack of long term planning, meaning setting up a long term goal like the Japanese and the Koreans did after WWII and the Korean war, are not the reason why we are third world.
Nope. It all goes back to something that happened over 200 years ago, at a time in which technological differences were way smaller than today.
It is not us, it was the Brits.
It is not us, it was the French.
It is not us, it was the Spaniards.
And we will never prosper and become productive, viable countries until we decide to think of the now.
by ti-amieTears of joy and sadness as ‘disappeared’ Syrians emerge from Assad’s prisons
Men, women and children, many jailed for speaking out against regime, reunite with their families
Bethan McKernan
Sun 8 Dec 2024 19.29 GMT
Share
As Syrian rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) captured city after city on the road to Damascus, forcing Bashar al-Assad to flee the country, they also opened the doors of the regime’s notorious prisons, into which upwards of 100,000 people disappeared during nearly 14 years of civil war.
Many emerged frail and emaciated into the bright December sunlight, greeted by weeping family members who had no idea they were still alive. Some struggled to comprehend that Assad was gone; a few held even longer had never even been told that he had succeeded his father, Hafez, who died in 2000.
Verified videos from Damascus showed dozens of women and small children being held in cells, the rebels opening the doors telling them not to be afraid.
The prisons infamous for torture in and around Damascus itself – including Sednaya, the most notorious, where satellite imagery showed a new crematorium was built in 2017 to dispose of bodies – were broken open early on Sunday. There are conflicting reports of underground cell blocks yet to be reached.
The photos and videos of reunited families are bittersweet. The stories of the prisoners are astonishing; they will take years to be told in full, further grim evidence of the crimes the Assad family committed against so many of their own people.
Al-Arabiya broadcast footage of a family arriving in Damascus to meet their released son, the elderly mother’s voice breaking with emotion as she embraced him for the first time in 14 years.
Raghad al-Tatary, a pilot who refused to bomb the city of Hama during the uprising against Hafez al-Assad in the 1980s, was freed after 43 years; Tal al-Mallouhi, 19 when she was arrested in 2009 for a blogpost criticising state corruption, was found alive.
One shaven-headed, shaking man in Sednaya had been so ill-treated he had lost his memory and struggled to talk. His family said he had been 20 and a medical student when he vanished 13 years ago.
Thousands of protesters were arrested during the 2011 Arab spring revolution for speaking out against the government. Leaked documents showed the state security apparatus viewed imprisonment as a key way to crush dissent. As the war deepened, the vast network of security branches, detention centres and prisons grew notorious for their brutal torture methods, which rights groups said were applied on an industrial scale.
Many Syrians were over the years brusquely informed by authorities that their relatives had been executed, sometimes years earlier.
For many, there is still an agonising wait, hoping against the odds that loved ones will be found alive. At a large bus station in central Damascus, the activist Abdulkafi al-Hamdo, who fled Aleppo with his young family in 2016 for years in exile in Idlib, filmed himself meeting anxious families waiting for cars and buses that were dropping off freed prisoners on Sunday.
One woman said her son was 18 when he was seized in 2012; she has not heard or seen anything of him since. “All these families here have a lot of fear in their hearts that their sons are dead,” she said. “Some of them have a small hope, a window of hope, that their children will be alive.”
ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2024 9:47 pm
Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has reopened. I have no idea why that man was there but the look on Madam Macron's face is all of us.
ti-amie wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2024 9:47 pm
Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has reopened. I have no idea why that man was there but the look on Madam Macron's face is all of us.
I mean, she and Trump are both orange and should be in jail for sexual offences, so...
by ti-amie
by ti-amie
by Owendonovan I think Macron is explaining what happens in a church, what the cross symbolizes, and why there's a mostly naked man being elevated in said church.
.
)
or a 
gov’t whereby Serbian citizens need special certificates when entering the country. #calmdown
that Kirchner did!"
family took off from Belarus and is now in the sky over Turkey 
.
.
President-elect Javier Milei has appointed Rodolfo Barra as the new Attorney General of Argentina. Barra is pictured here, a member of the neo-Nazi 'Tacuara Nationalist Movement'.
French press release with charges related to detention of #Telegram CEO Pavel Durov.
Complicity in CSAM, trafficking & money laundering, organized crime..
