NATO, Russia exchange barbs reminiscent of Cold War days - Military Times: Vershbow, the alliance's deputy secretary-general, told a conference in Latvia that President Vladimir Putin's "aim seems to be to turn Ukraine into a failed state and to suppress and discredit alternative voices in Russia.
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History, Religion Hamper Efforts to Counter IS Propagandaby webdesk@voanews.com (Mohamed Elshinnawi)
The militant group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS) has proved adept at radicalizing young Muslims, and Western countries, including the U.S., are finding that history and long-held beliefs in the Middle East put them at a disadvantage when countering IS’s recruitment efforts. A popular IS propaganda message is that the West in general and the United States in particular are at war with Islam. They also promote a narrative that Western interference is largely responsible for the historic grievances of the Islamic world. Omer Taspinar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution said the collective memory of most Arab states is based on a sense of being victimized by a conspiracy of external powers. “Victimhood is very convenient because it allows you to escape responsibility and accountability. Since you are never guilty, someone else has to be at fault for causing all the problems,” said Taspinar. “You unleash the media and blame the West on the grounds that they are racist, orientalist, imperialist, etc. and as a result, the citizenry of these states believe their destiny is not in their hands.” Adel Iskandar, Assistant Professor of Global Media at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver pointed out that most of the state borders in the region were drawn by colonial powers. He said the role played by the West in the region left deep scars in the national psyche. Iskandar said the militants’ message about the West being at war with Islam must be shown as false, but it can’t be the U.S. presenting a counter narrative critical of the IS interpretation of Islamic teaching. “It has to be a concerted effort by Muslims against ISIS rather than the U.S., which is perceived as a Judeo-Christian society by ISIS,” he said. While religious authority figures in the Muslim world and Islamic associations in the West have condemned IS ideology as ‘hateful’, Iskandar said IS was quick to dismiss them, saying they either did not conform to Islamic teachings or they had been compromised by western societies and ideologies. “It is not just about condemnation, it is more about revisiting the scriptures themselves to see where and how these interpretations have been misused by ISIS,” he said. Former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip Crowley said that alternative interpretation must be handed down community by community. Over time, he believes that more personal approach will help persuade average people that what IS describes is just a mirage. Crowley also admitted that what he calls the “U.S. credibility problem in the Middle East” plays into the hands of those trying to radicalize young Muslims. “We have to narrow the gap between what we are perceived to say and what we are perceived to do,” the former U.S. diplomat said. Iskandar agrees and said IS wins followers by telling impressionable young people that they are helping to confront American imperialism. “The most convincing way to deliver a real blow not only to conspiracy theories but also to those who claim that the U.S. is on the wrong side of history in the Middle East is to basically talk the talk and walk the walk,” Iskandar added. “We need to get our policy right, defeat ISIS, continue to make progress on the Arab-Israeli front, find ways to stabilize the situation in the region and produce effective and real politics into these countries,” Crowley said.
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On February 27, Russian democratic opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was shot dead in the center of Moscow. Leonid Martynyuk, Nemtsov’s colleague and co-author, discusses the opposition leader’s political career and puts forward a theory about who could have ordered his killing.
 Military Times |
NATO, Russia exchange barbs reminiscent of Cold War days
Military Times Vershbow, the alliance's deputy secretary-general, told a conference in Latvia that President Vladimir Putin's "aim seems to be to turn Ukraine into a failed state and to suppress and discredit alternative voices in Russia, so as to prevent a Russian ... Baltic states shiver as Russia flexes musclesBBC News David Cameron: Britain could take Russia sanctions to 'whole different level'Telegraph.co.uk Russia expert warns Western powers 'are in the logic of 1914' on Putin, UkraineSydney Morning Herald Business Insider -ValueWalk all 110 news articles » |
1 Man Pleads Guilty, 2 Indicted in Massive Data Breachby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
The U.S. Department of Justice said Friday that one man had pleaded guilty and two others had been indicted for what prosecutors called the largest data breach in U.S. history. Giang Hoang Vu, a Vietnamese citizen, entered a guilty plea Thursday. Another Vietnamese suspect, Vie Quoc Nguyen, is still at large. A Canadian, David-Manuel Santos Da Silva, has been charged with helping the other two launder stolen money. The breach is the subject of a congressional investigation. Prosecutors said the defendants allegedly made millions of dollars by stealing more than 1 billion email addresses and using them to send spam, or unwanted computer messages generally used to try to sell goods. The three worked out of Canada, the Netherlands, and Vietnam from 2009 until 2012, when Dutch police arrested Vu. Acting U.S. Attorney John Horn said the case "reflects the cutting-edge problems posed by today's cybercrime cases, where the hackers didn't target just a single company; they infiltrated most of the country's e-mail distribution firms." Horn called the scope of the intrusion "unnerving." But U.S. officials said the case demonstrated that those carrying out data theft and fraudulent schemes could not remain anonymous. The Justice Department's announcement came on the same day British police said they had arrested a 23-year-old man for allegedly taking part in a cyberattack on the Pentagon's computer system last June. He was one of 56 people arrested in a nationwide crackdown in Britain on cybercrime. The Pentagon said the hackers stole information on about 800 people, including email addresses and telephone numbers, but U.S. national security was never at risk as a result of the theft.
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Malaysia Airlines, One Year Later: Similar Disappearance Could Happen Again by webdesk@voanews.com (Carolyn Presutti)
On March 8, 2014 a Malaysia Airlines flight took off from Kuala Lumpur enroute to Beijing. All transmission from the plane ended 40 minutes after take-off. The plane has not been found and is presumed to have crashed into the ocean. Exactly what happened and whether this type of incident could occur again remain unresolved issues. “Good night -- Malaysian 370.” Those were the last words heard from a Malaysia Airlines plane before it vanished from radar. A year later, the plane and the 239 people on board have not been found. U.S. commercial airline pilot Captain Ian Gebow said the traditional 30-minute to 60-minute communication between plane and ground needs to be constant when planes are over wide bodies of water when radar is sparse. "What we really need is real-time data tracking for when an act occurs," he said. "We are creating a generation of pilots who are monitors, as opposed to professional aviators ... a generation of pilots who use automation as a crutch rather than an aide," said Gebow. ICAO seeks changes The International Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO], which sets global standards for the airline industry, is recommending that planes report their positions every 15 minutes and every minute during distress. Less than an hour after MH 370 departed Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, all communication from the plane ceased, and it dropped off radar. The first search area was along the original flight path. But the search areas kept shifting, especially after Malaysian military radar found a final transmission further north -- and that the plane could have flown another seven hours. The discrepancy exists because traditional radar does not track over oceans, and the plane was only equipped to report its location every 60 minutes. ICAO Council President Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu spoke via Skype. "Once we implement this system and we're able to track flights every one minute, that will increase our ability to locate flights." "Again, I can say this organization is one of 191 member states. We set global standards for harmonized implementation. It is necessary for us to get all our members to agree to a particular standard that we have to put in place," said Aliu. Better technology Underwater devices searched the ocean floor for MH370, hoping to hear a signal from the flight data recorders. But the recorder batteries only last 30 days. The US Federal Aviation Administration and other global organizations are extending the battery requirements to 90 days, effective in five years. This also is a problem. Search vehicles heard pinging sounds they thought were coming from the plane, but were actually from marine life. Former FAA Accident Investigator David Soucie has written a book on MH370. He suggests the frequency be changed. “...So that it’s a distinguishable pattern. It’s a pattern that may be able to have a Morse Code situation that tells us what aircraft it actually came from or at least that was from an aircraft,” he said. Experts also suggest unsinkable flight recorders. “If you get it floating on the surface,with some sort of locator, both visually and by electronic means, I think that will both expedite the recovery process and also save millions upon millions of dollars in the search,” said Captain Gebow. Already the MH370 search is the most expensive in aviation history -- estimated at more than $90 million. "It's a matter of how much money you want to spend to find an aircraft that has crashed in the middle of the ocean," said Soucie. Experts agree missing aircraft are rare, but could happen again. They say the probability drops once all this new technology is installed on new planes. That will happen seven years from now.
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European Union foreign ministers are meeting for a second day in the Latvian capital, Riga, on March 7 for talks focusing on the war in eastern Ukraine.
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British Prime Minister David Cameron has said the UK is prepared to take sanctions against Russia to a “whole different level” if Russian aggression intensifies in Ukraine. Cameron said that Russia has “ripped up” the rule book and cannot expect to still have access to international markets and finance.He added that the West must be prepared to “settle in for a long and determined position” against Russia and that further incursions into Ukraine should be punished.
The US has reacted angrily to a deal struck by Cyprus to allow Russian warships greater access to its ports, breaking a united western front against President Vladimir Putin. Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades signed the co-operation agreement with Putin in Moscow last week, despite promising to seek NATO membership during his election campaign 18 months ago. Shortly before Anastasiades guaranteed Russia docking access at Limassol, Moscow extended the terms of a €2.5 billion loan ($2.7 billion) to give Cyprus more time to pay it back. The article quotes Marie Harf, deputy spokeswoman for US Secretary of State John Kerry, as saying: “We have stressed with our European allies and partners the importance of unity, impressing Russia to stop fuelling the conflict in eastern Ukraine. That’s certainly something we feel very strongly about.”
 Business Insider |
Russia can't afford to pay state employees
Business Insider Russian President Vladimir Putin signed three new decrees into law that will slash government salaries — including his own and that of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev — by 10% from 1 May. The government has also announced plans to cut the number of ... and more » |
Recovering The Bodies In Donetskby Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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The battle for Donetsk airport was some of the fiercest in the Ukrainian war so far. After 242 days, the Ukrainian government forces retreated from the ruined terminal buildings at the end...
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 VentureBeat |
Russia takes 'guidance' from the EU in its battle with US tech firms
VentureBeat According to the report, the new law would require international companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Apple to may more taxes in Russia, and it seems this move is aligned with a recent change of law in the European Union, which Russia is not a part ... Google and Apple may be forced to pay more tax in RussiaGigaom all 4 news articles » |
Britain Arrests Suspected Pentagon Hackerby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
British authorities have arrested a 23-year-old man in connection with a hacking attack on the U.S. Defense Department last year. Britain's National Crime Agency, or NCA, issued a statement Friday saying the suspect was one of 56 people arrested in a week-long crackdown on cybercrime. The agency said the Pentagon hackers obtained contact information for some 800 people, including email addresses and phone numbers, when they infiltrated the network last June. They also got information for about 34,400 devices the Defense Department uses to communicate with employees around the world, but the NCA says "no sensitive data was obtained" that could compromise U.S. national security interests. The British agency says it is working with the FBI and the Pentagon to "investigate and pursue those in the UK who conduct their cyber criminality both nationally and internationally." Jeffrey Thorpe of the Pentagon's criminal investigative service, or DCIS, said the arrest Wednesday underscores "the joint ongoing efforts among international law enforcement to stop cyber criminals in their tracks." "DCIS Special Agents will use every tool at their disposal to pursue and bring to justice those that attack the Department of Defense," the NCA statement quoted Thorpe as saying. Cybersecurity has been a major focus in the U.S. recently, after high-profile attacks against Sony Pictures Entertainment, JP Morgan Chase and other companies. Last month, U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order aimed at encouraging businesses and organizations to share more information about cybersecurity threats with the government and each other. The government itself has suffered its own share of cyberattacks, including the hacking of unclassified computers at the White House and State Department, as well as the Twitter and YouTube accounts of U.S. Central Command, which oversees the military campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. Some of the recent cyberattacks have been blamed on hackers in Russia, China and North Korea.
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Moscow Closed GULAG Museum Because It Doesn’t Want a ‘Territory of Freedom,’ Kovalev Saysby paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Paul Goble
Staunton, March 6 – Sergey Kovalev, a human rights activist who was once an inmate in the Perm camp memorialized by the only museum in Russia that had been devoted to GULAG victims, says that the shuttering of that institution and its replacement by a museum praising their jailors took place because Moscow doesn’t want that “territory of freedom” to exist.
In an interview he gave to Open Russia’s Roman Popkov, Kovalyev says that the former museum was a place where for a decade Russians could come together to freely discuss the past and the present of their country.But Moscow doesn’t need or want that and has closed the Perm-36 Museum to block it from happening (openrussia.org/post/view/3229/).
Russian officials, he continues, claim that the grants the museum had received from abroad were from people who “are interested in the destruction of the country.” And consequently, Kovalev says, “the liquidation of the Perm-36 Museum is part of a struggle with enemies the regime itself has invented.”
The rights activist points out that under Stalin, Perm-36 was a very small camp, but later it became a special facility for the incarceration of former judges, prosecutors and militiamen who had committed crimes. Only in 1972 did it become a camp for political prisoners, most of whom were brought there from the notorious Mordvinian camps.
The difference in size matters, Kovalev says. Stalin-era camps were very large and the site of mass killings, but precisely because they were large, prisoners had a slightly easier time of it because their jailors could not supervise them as closely. Brezhnev-era camps were smaller – there were about 140 in Perm-36 when he was there -- and inmates more closely monitored.
Russians should know this history, he continues, but the authorities did not close down the museum in the first instance “to destroy memory.” Rather, Kovalev says, “the chief cause behind the liquidation of the museum … was because people called the Perm-36 Museum a territory of freedom.”
Every year for the past decade, the museum held a festival attended by several thousand people and organizes seminars in which no one felt constrained from “speaking the truth” about what had happened in Russia and what is happening now, Kovalev says. For the Putin regime, that was a real problem.
That they intended to go after the museum became obvious when stories began to appear in the Perm press saying that prisoners were treated well and featuring quotes from former jailors who said they were proud of their past service.They even suggested that he, Kovalev, had denounced others, assertions that were total falsehoods.
This was a clear signal, he continues, because earlier the Perm administration had helped the museum in significant ways; and what he does not say but what follows from this is that the decision to transform the museum from one about the victims to one about those who victimized them was not made there but higher up the power vertical.
Because the regional government never provided enough for the museum’s operation and because grants from abroad did not cover the shortages, he says, the Perm-36 Museum ran up debts of approximately 600,000 rubles (10,000 USdollars) and had no choice but to file for bankruptcy, something from which it is unlikely to emerge in a good way under current conditions.
The Russian authorities have not only closed the museum and seized its enormous archive, something Kovalev says is especially damaging, but they have closed down “the ‘Territory of Freedom’ [which] had existed for more than ten years.” Unfortunately, “the evolution of [the Russian] state is in no way leading to freedom.”
The powers that be “closed us and destroyed us for political reasons,” the former GULAG inmate adds. “They don’t need” such a place.
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Data were stolen in June from a messaging service used by the department’s employees, including email addresses and phone numbers for about 800 contacts.
Snowden Would Like to Return to Genevaby webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
Edward Snowden has made a public appeal for Switzerland to grant him asylum, saying he would like to return to live in Geneva, where he once worked undercover for the Central Intelligence Agency. The fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor, wanted by Washington for leaking details of mass U.S. surveillance programs, spoke from Moscow by video link to a Geneva audience after a viewing of “Citizenfour”, an Oscar-winning documentary about his case. “I would love to return to Switzerland, some of my favorite memories are from Geneva. It's a wonderful place,” he told the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights on Thursday night, where he was asked about seeking asylum. “I do think Switzerland would be a sort of great political option because it has a history of neutrality,” he said, praising its multicultural diversity and human rights record. Snowden said he had appealed to 21 countries, “the majority in central and Western Europe”, for asylum after the United States canceled his passport and he was stopped from going to Ecuador. “Unfortunately no country said yes,” he said, blaming “political interference” by the Obama administration. Snowden was accredited to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva from March 2007 to February 2009, tapping communications systems. “Switzerland still has an active U.S. espionage presence, I think that is true of other countries as well ... espionage is illegal in Switzerland,” he said. Snowden, 31, reiterated that he would not return to the United States unless offered a “fair trial”. “I am working very hard with my lawyers to try to get reliable guarantees of a fair trial. Unfortunately the Department of Justice is unwilling to agree in that regard. “The only thing they have said at this point is that they would not execute me, which is not the same as a fair trial.” Sherif Elsayed-Ali of Amnesty International said in a debate after the film by Laura Poitras that Snowden deserved asylum. “Edward Snowden is without a doubt a whistleblower and someone who should be protected. He should not even be tried, because what he did was to expose government over-reach and things that should not be happening.” Under current Swiss laws, an applicant has to be on Swiss territory to lodge an asylum request. Snowden currently has asylum in Russia. Historian Hubertus Knabe said in the debate: “It's so tragic that he got asylum where democracy does not exist and the secret police has such an important role that the former head of it is now president.”
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Могла ли информация убитого политика об участии России в войне в Украине стать причиной его гибели?Обсужда...
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From: Радио Свобода
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СИЛЫ БЫСТРОГО РАЗВЕРТЫВАНИЯ В ЕВРОПЕ БУДУТ УВЕЛИЧЕНЫ Originally published at - http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/media/video/nato-on-russia/2670287.html.
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Q. The opposition takes to the streets, but the regime holds on tight as ever. Is Russia going to change?
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More than 160 rich Russians applied for visas in the first nine months of 2014, compared with 96 in the same period in 2013 after David Cameron and his allies imposed sanctions on Vladimir Putin.
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Writers of Tomorrow need 18m roubles after fruitless search for backers, in a country where television is dominated by news of Vladimir Putin’s exploits
It is 2018, and, somehow, Russia’s liberal opposition has pulled off a shock victory in presidential elections. The new president’s team arrives in the deserted offices of the Kremlin to take up the posts they have dreamed of for years, and get down to running the world’s biggest country.
Unfortunately, running a nuclear superpower is not that easy, it turns out. Russia’s new president is soon faced with problems varying from a power blackout affecting the whole of Moscow to the hacking of his Twitter account.
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В Москве участники акции в поддержку "узников Болотной", которые проходят 6 числа каждого месяца, в эту пятни...
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From: Радио Свобода
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Nuclear Talks With Iran Intensify Ahead of Deadlineby webdesk@voanews.com (Pamela Dockins)
Secretary of State John Kerry is wrapping up a weeklong trip to the Middle East and Europe that has focused largely on concerns about Iran nuclear negotiations. On Saturday, Kerry and the foreign ministers of Germany, Britain and France will meet in Paris to discuss the status of talks with Iran, ahead of the March 31 deadline for a framework agreement. VOA State Department correspondent Pam Dockins has the story from London.
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Могла ли информация убитого политика об участии России в войне в Украине стать причиной его гибели? Обсужд...
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From: Радио Свобода
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Staunton, March 6 – The alliance of reformers in the CPSU nomenklatura and Soviet liberals who were prepared for various reasons to cooperate with them led to the defeat of the dissidents who rejected the system as a whole and condemned Russia again to suffer once again a return “to the ideology of Russian imperialism and authoritarianism,” Mikhail Berg says.
Now, the regime no longer needs the liberals as the murder of Boris Nemtsov shows, the Moscow commentator says, and that in turn means that “the transition from the fictional democracy [of the last decades] to a real dictatorship [of the kind now on offer] … began not today but a quarter of a century ago.”
To understand what is happening now, Berg suggests, one must look back to the first years of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika.
The political struggles of that time “took place under the sign of a struggle of two in part real and in part fictional forces: reformers and conservatives, democrats and communists, liberals and retrogrades.”
The reality of these conflicts was “above all, rhetorical,” about the words people used and thus the limits of the permissible, but the fictional nature of them was that behind what seemed to be serious and irreconcilable differences were “concealed various positions of one and the same Soviet nomenklatura which as a result turned out to be the main beneficiary of reforms.”
“The victory of the reformers from the nomenklatura was secured not only by their genuinely dominating positions among the authorities of the transitional period but also by their main ally – the Soviet liberals,” Berg says. The latter provided the language of the times that “the party-Komsomol and KGB nomenklatura couldn’t come up with on its own.”
For their assistance in this regard, he continues, the Soviet liberals were “generously compensated.”
They were given much of the mass media, new and old, “the most prestigious positions in the academic (humanitarian) sector and also preferences in business connected or not connected with the ideological sphere.”
Some might see this as inevitable, but there were other possible outcomes. Had they been followed, the situation in Russia today would be very different.
At the end of Soviet times, Berg says, the Soviet liberals were opposed by those “whom one may call dissidents,” and the opposition of these two groups reflected “a struggle between those who even before perestroika agreed to cooperate with the Soviet system … and those who opposed the Soviet system because they did not consider any cooperation with it possible.”
That division existed throughout the USSR and the Soviet bloc. In those places “where the dissidents won politically important positions, reforms to various degrees succeeded.” But where the dissidents were forced out by the nomenklatura-liberal alliance, the reforms announced proved half-hearted and ultimately failed.
While it is obvious that the liberals enjoyed enormous advantages in this situation, including their alliance with the nomenklatura reformers, their victory in the Russian Federation was not a certainty as the victory of the dissidents and non-conformists in other countries proves, the commentator argues.
That is because this struggle was not only about real political power based on position but also about ideology, and there, the dissidents and the non-conformists had real advantages. In many parts of Eastern Europe, the ideas of dissident minorities triumphed. But “in Russia this did not happen.”
“The victory of Yeltsin, a liberal but highly placed representative of the party nomenklatura and also his reliance not on non-conformists but on Soviet liberals … was already a sign of the choice of [that] future with which we have to deal now,” Berg says.
Many people missed this because it seemed to them that “the victory of Yeltsin was a victory of reformers over communist retrogrades. In fact, this was a victory of the conformists over the non-conformists, and everything else was a slow repetition of what is still the only possible scenario for liberal reforms” here: the borrowing of Western technology “under liberal phraseology and then the inevitable return to the ideas and practice of Russian imperial values.”
“In this sense, the rise of Putin was made inevitable most of all as a result of the fictional political reforms (according to the version of Soviet liberals), the creation of an imitation of democratic institutions, privatization, and the principle of the division of power.” In the end, that meant the triumph of the reformist part of the Soviet nomenklatura but not its displacement.
According to Berg, the murder of Nemtsov is a sign that the situation has reached the point where those in power no longer need the liberals, where “the process of redistribution of means and power has been completed” and where the former allies of the nomenklatura are targeted for removal.
Thus, he concludes, “the transition from fictional democracy to a real dictatorship was in large measure fated to happen, but this turn of events began not today but a quarter of a century ago.”
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In unscheduled, snap proceedings today, the Baku City Nasimi District Court extended investigative reporter and RFE/RL contributor Khadija Ismayilova's pre-trial detention for an additional two months, until May 24. According to the Azerbaijani state prosecutor's office, the extension is necessitated by an investigation related to charges recently brought against RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service of operating as an illegal entity since 2008. Authorities appear to be using...
 The Economist |
Russia after Nemtsov
The Economist ON THE night of February 27th 2014, Russian soldiers without insignias—soon to be known as “little green men”—seized the parliament of Crimea. It was the start of Russia's annexation of Crimea and its war against Ukraine. Exactly a year later, Boris ... Why Sanctions on Russia Will BackfireNew York Times Italian, Russian leaders hold talks over EU-Russia ties, Ukraine crisisDeutsche Welle Russian Activist Vows to Publish Nemtsov's Ukraine FindingsVoice of America Press TV -CNN -STRATFOR all 896 news articles » |
CIA Plans Major Overhaulby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is launching a sweeping reorganization aimed at enhancing the spy agency's cyber abilities and plugging gaps in its espionage operations. CIA Director John Brennan said in an announcement Friday that the move comes after outside experts spent months analyzing the agency's management structure. He said the agency is adding a new top level position, "Directorate of Digital Innovation," to focus on cyber technology advances that have changed the way espionage is conducted. "Our ability to carry out our responsibilities for human intelligence and national security responsibilities has become more challenging'' in today's digital world, Brennan said. He said the agency must "understand all of the aspects of that digital environment.'' In another big change, the CIA is ending a long-held division between its operations and analytical branches, a system that required one group of workers to collect data and another to analyze it. The new plan would blend those divisions into 10 new "mission centers." The centers will focus on specific challenges or geographic areas of the world. The CIA is already operating several such interdisciplinary centers, including one on counter-terrorism. "I know there are seams right now, but what we've tried to do with these mission centers is cover the entire universe, regionally and functionally, and so something that's going on in the world falls into one of those buckets," Brennan said.
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Порошенко провел встречу с заместителем госсекретаря США
Коммерсантъ Президент Украины Петр Порошенко провел встречу с заместителем госсекретаря США Энтони Блинкеном, сообщает 7 марта «РИА Новости». Они обсудили ситуацию на юго-востоке Украины. В ходе встречи господин Порошенко заявил, что ополченцы не готовы отводить ... Порошенко встретился с заместителем госсекретаря СШАВзгляд Порошенко обсудил с представителем Госдепа ситуацию на УкраинеРБК Порошенко обсудил с Госдепом ситуацию на УкраинеГазета.Ru Mail.Ru -СЕГОДНЯ Все похожие статьи: 103 » |
Staunton, March 6 – The disappearance of non-Russian cultures as a result of Moscow’s assimilationist policies continue to attract attention, but there is another trend which may prove to be equally or even more important: the revival of groups Russians had only incompletely assimilated and their reconstitution as separate peoples.
One of these, says Neyola Kulomzin, who identifies himself as a Moscow-based specialist on local histories, is the Merya people which was Russified about 300 years ago but whose members now recognize themselves as different from Russians on the basis of toponomy, onomastics, and even anthropology.
This should not disturb anyone because “the contemporary Russia people is a super-ethnos composed of the parts of peoples and cultures who have disappeared,” he says; but it frightens many because it suggests that assimilation is not a one-way street and that a nation which has assimilated others in the past may be assimilated by others or dissolve in the future.
Most of the time, Kulomzin says, “the organizers of such cultural movements are from the well-educated intellectual elite which recognizes that without a national culture no region or the people who live on it will have a future.”
And consequently, the actions of “these young patriots” should be welcomed for their contribution to “a good future” for the entire country.
But he continues, “there exist other movements which have under them reliable historical-cultural potential such as the Chuds (Vologda and Arkhangelsk Russians), the Polovtsian-Kipchaks (Belarusian Russians), and the Baltic Slavic historical lands of the Vyatichis and Krivichis (Western Russians).’
And while Kulomzin does not mention it, the fact that some of these identities cross what are now international borders means that some in the Russian government may view them as a potential resource if Moscow seeks to project power into those countries. Indeed, it could mean that some of these groups enjoy official sponsorship at least covertly at the present time.
Focusing on local traditions enriches the understanding of the Motherland, he says, and prevents it from becoming simply an abstraction offered on television.
And it is part of a more general effort to protect the human as well as the natural environment from despoliation, a combination that may explain part of its attraction for many.
“In our days,” Kulomzin argues, “the return of people to their local roots is becoming ever more clearly marked,” and that trend in turn is allowing them to “again acquire a Motherland which is really worth protecting and defending from those things which destroy it,” a view based on an understanding of the country and nation as things distinct from the state.
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Pakistan’s 'Last Self-Declared Jew' Attacked, Detainedby webdesk@voanews.com (Idrees Ali)
One of Pakistan’s most well-known Jewish citizens was allegedly beaten and held in police custody Wednesday after an argument broke out about the rights of non-Muslims in the country. In an interview with VOA, Fishel Benkhald said he was taken into custody initially by the police and then handed over to the Rangers, a paramilitary force, and questioned for hours. “They took me to the Rangers area... I was still handcuffed and I was blindfolded. ... They didn’t beat me up much, just only a little bit of manhandling, and some slaps and some, I think, punches on my back,” said Benkhald, who has been described as “Pakistan’s last self-declared Jew.” The son of a Muslim father and Jewish mother, Benkhald’s real name is Faisal, but he said he considers himself Jewish and recently adopted “Fishel.” He has received widespread international media attention for his work to help preserve a Jewish cemetery in Karachi. The disagreement between Benkhald and another individual initially broke out on Twitter, but they agreed to meet in a restaurant to discuss the issue of non-Muslims being allowed to become the president of Pakistan. Under the constitution, non-Muslims are not allowed to hold the office of the presidency. However, after a heated exchange, Benkhald said that he was beaten by at least three other people. “I was manhandled for about, let’s say, one-and-a-half minutes or two minutes," said the avid tweeter. "The beating was, like I remember, three to five punches and the last thing which I remember was a kick on my head.” Pakistan has recently come under increased scrutiny for its treatment of minorities, usually related to the country’s blasphemy law. Benkhald said that even though he was taken into police custody and then handed over to the Rangers, the people who attacked him were not placed in the police van after the incident. He said he was also questioned by the Rangers, who checked his cell phone. He claimed that he was asked why he was followed on Twitter by Israeli officials, Israeli embassies around the world, and some journalists. He was released later in the day but has still not been told of the charges he faces or why he was arrested. “I cannot go to the Rangers, but I will go to the police, because they first picked me,” Benkhald said when asked how he would respond to his arrest. The Karachi police declined to comment despite repeated attempts by VOA to reach them.
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One Thing House Of Cards Actually Portrays Accurately: Russia's Anti-Gay Laws
ThinkProgress These protests mirror real-life protests that took place around the world, largely in 2013 during the lead-up to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. In New York, for example, gay bar owners dumped out Russian vodka in front of the Russian consulate ... and more » |
US Prepares Corruption Charges Against New Jersey Senatorby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
U.S. Senator Bob Menendez said he is "not going anywhere" following media reports that the Justice Department is preparing to file corruption charges against
him. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, told reporters in his home state Friday that he has always conducted himself "in accordance with the law." "Every action that I and my office have taken for the last 23 years that I have been privileged to be in the United States Congress has been based on pursuing the best policies for the people of New Jersey and this entire country,'' he said. Officials familiar with the case told U.S. media outlets
Friday that the Justice Department charges against Menendez center on allegations
that he used his office to push the business interests of a Democratic donor and friend. CNN, which first reported the
news,said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has signed off on prosecutors' requests to proceed with charges. It said an announcement could come within weeks. The Justice Department has declined to comment on the report. A statement issued by Menendez's office Friday said many false allegations have been made about the senator's ties with a Florida ophthalmologist, Dr. Salomon Melgen. “As we have said before, we believe all of the Senator's actions have been appropriate and lawful and the facts will ultimately confirm that. Any actions taken by Senator Menendez or his office have been to appropriately address public policy issues and not for any other reason," Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright said in the statement. Menendez has been accused of breaking the law in advocating for Melgen's business interest in a contract for port screening equipment in the Dominican Republic. He also is accused of helping his friend to over bill Medicare, the government run health program for the elderly. Menendez is the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has become one of the most vocal Democratic critics of President Barack Obama's foreign policy dealings with Cuba and Iran.
him. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, told reporters in his home state Friday that he has always conducted himself "in accordance with the law." "Every action that I and my office have taken for the last 23 years that I have been privileged to be in the United States Congress has been based on pursuing the best policies for the people of New Jersey and this entire country,'' he said. Officials familiar with the case told U.S. media outlets
Friday that the Justice Department charges against Menendez center on allegations
that he used his office to push the business interests of a Democratic donor and friend. CNN, which first reported the
news,said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has signed off on prosecutors' requests to proceed with charges. It said an announcement could come within weeks. The Justice Department has declined to comment on the report. A statement issued by Menendez's office Friday said many false allegations have been made about the senator's ties with a Florida ophthalmologist, Dr. Salomon Melgen. “As we have said before, we believe all of the Senator's actions have been appropriate and lawful and the facts will ultimately confirm that. Any actions taken by Senator Menendez or his office have been to appropriately address public policy issues and not for any other reason," Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright said in the statement. Menendez has been accused of breaking the law in advocating for Melgen's business interest in a contract for port screening equipment in the Dominican Republic. He also is accused of helping his friend to over bill Medicare, the government run health program for the elderly. Menendez is the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has become one of the most vocal Democratic critics of President Barack Obama's foreign policy dealings with Cuba and Iran.
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Carolyn Kaster/AP
Vice President Joe Biden ridiculed Ben Carson for his comments about gay people, marveling about the rapid acceptance of LGBT lifestyles in the United States.
“Seriously, don’t misread the political trends in history here,” Biden said, “Now every ridiculous assertion from Dr. Carson on – I mean Jesus, God!” he cried as the audience applauded and cheered. “Oh God,” he continued, as the crowd laughed.
Biden claimed that Americans universally “ridiculed” Carson for his statements, something that wouldn’t have happened in the past.
Carson has since apologized for his comments, after realizing his “choice of language does not reflect fully my heart on gay issues.”
Biden made his remarks at the Human Rights Campaign Spring Equality Convention in Washington D.C.
The Vice President prefaced his remarks by recalling his appearance on 2012 Meet the Press when he got ahead of the president’s announcement on supporting gay marriage.
He also painted a scene where perhaps one employee of a hedge fund would have mocked a waiter with a lisp by imitating his language while ordering lunch at a restaurant.
Five years ago, Biden said, the people surrounding that type of person would have “remained silent.”
“Today, the rest of that table is empowered to speak up and say ‘You horse’s tail, what the hell’s the matter with you,’” Biden said.
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AP Photo/Mel Evans
“The government’s case centers on Menendez’s relationship with Salomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist who the senator has called a friend and political supporter,” CNN reports. “Melgen and his family have been generous donors to the senator and various committees the senator is associated with.”
Breitbart News investigative journalist Matthew Boyle first broke the Menendez scandal while working for The Daily Caller before the 2012 election, right before he came to work for Breitbart News, and Breitbart News has been reporting on this story for more than two years. In Jan. of 2013, for example, Breitbart News wrote that “Menendez’s staff admitted the senator flew to the Dominican on Melgen’s private plane on three occasions and told NBC News’ Michael Isikoff that Menendez stays at Melgen’s villa while there about twice a year.”
The pair’s involvement in a “Dominican port security deal reads like the plot of a Hollywood movie,” as Breitbart News detailed in March of 2013. When Menendez was up for reelection, Breitbart News reported that Melgen donated more than $700,000, and also gave generously to New Jersey county Democratic committees.
Melgen has had legal problems of his own. “Earlier this year, the FBI raided the medical offices of Dr. Salomon Melgen, seizing documents to investigate suspicions that he was overbilling Medicare,” Breitbart News reported in Feb. 2013.
The potential indictment comes after Democrat Menendez publicly disagreed with the Obama administration on two high profile issues: its Cuba policy and its Iran policy.
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Menendez gave a brief statement in both English and Spanish, then left without taking questions from reporters. “Let me be very clear, I have always conducted myself appropriately and in accordance with the law,” he began.
“Every action that I and my office have taken for the last 23 years that I have been privileged to be in the United States Congress has been based on pursuing the best policies for the people of New Jersey and this entire country.”
Menendez boasted of his legislative record and his close friendship to Dr. Salomon Melgen, the Florida ophthalmologist and political donor who the FBI alleges has influenced Menendez’s dealings in the Senate.
“I am not going anywhere,” Menendez insisted and, citing the ongoing criminal investigation, said he could not comment further on the allegations or take questions from reporters.
The Senator’s communications director Tricia Enright sent a statement to the press very close to Menendez’s live remarks:
As we have said before, we believe all of the senator’s actions have been appropriate and lawful and the facts will ultimately confirm that. Any actions taken by Senator Menendez or his office have been to appropriately address public policy issues and not for any other reason.The senator has counted Dr. Melgen as one of his closest personal friends for decades. The two have spent holidays together and have gone to each other’s family funerals and weddings and have exchanged personal gifts. As has been reported, the start of this investigation is suspect. We know many false allegations have been made about this matter, allegations that were ultimately publicly discredited. We also know that the official investigation of this matter is ongoing, and therefore cannot address allegations being made anonymously.
The press conference seemed rushed and haphazard; Menendez appeared almost 30 minutes late (an aide blamed traffic), and he encountered a sound glitch while delivering his statement in Spanish and had to restart it after his microphone began working again.
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LANGLEY, Va. — John O. Brennan, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is planning to reassign thousands of undercover spies and intelligence analysts into new departments as part of a restructuring of the 67-year-old agency, a move he said would make it more successful against modern threats and crises.
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