Night Wolves. Russian killing machine factory -Euromaidan Press
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Night Wolves. Russian killing machine factory
Vladimir Putin riding with the Night Wolves
2015/04/25 • Analysis & Opinion
Article by: Wojciech Mucha
Editor’s note. As of 25 April 2015, the Night Wolves had been denied Schengen visas and permission to pass on the territories of the countries of their route; however, the motorcycle squad had departed from Moscow. We however are publishing this article as it reveals the network connected to the Wolves.
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Several Eastern European countries are bolstering cooperative military training in response to Russia's military intervention in Ukraine and annexation of the Crimean peninsula. The Baltic states, where fears of Moscow's military expansionism are rapidly rising, are leading these efforts.
A US aircraft carrier and a guided-missile cruiser are leaving the waters off Yemen and heading back to the Gulf after an Iranian naval convoy also turned back from the area, officials said Friday.
Poland plans to bolster armament efforts of neighboring countries through government, bank and export loans as a response to Russia's increased military presence in Ukraine.
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- The Demographics of Latino Eligible Voters. Three-quarters (74%) of Latino eligible voters are U.S. born and 26% are immigrants who hold U.S. citizenship. Some 17% of Hispanic eligible voters hold a bachelor's degree or more.Oct 16, 2014
Latino Voters and the 2014 Midterm Elections | Pew ...
<a href="http://www.pew" rel="nofollow">www.pew</a>hispanic.org/2014/.../latino-voters-and-the-2014-midterm-electio...
Latino vote - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Voting demographics[edit] A study by the Center for Immigration Studies projected that in November 2012 Hispanics would comprise 17.2 percent of the total U.S. population, 15 percent of adults, 11.2 percent of adult citizens, and 8.9 percent of actual voters.Inside the 2012 Latino Electorate - Pew Hispanic Center
<a href="http://www.pew" rel="nofollow">www.pew</a>hispanic.org/2013/06/03/inside-the-2012-latino-electorate/by MH Lopez - 2012 - Cited by 13 - Related articlesJun 3, 2013 - I. Inside the 2012 Latino Electorate. PHC-2013-05-latino-electorate-1-1 A record 11.2 million Latinos voted in the 2012 presidential election, but ...An Awakened Giant: The Hispanic Electorate is Likely to ...
<a href="http://www.pew" rel="nofollow">www.pew</a>hispanic.org/.../an-awakened-giant-the-hispanic-electorate-is-li...by P Taylor - 2012 - Cited by 23 - Related articlesNov 14, 2012 - The record number of Latinos who cast ballots for president this ... The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.Latino Voters and the 2014 Midterm Elections | Pew ...
<a href="http://www.pew" rel="nofollow">www.pew</a>hispanic.org/.../latino-voters-and-the-2014-midterm-elections/Oct 16, 2014 - A record 25.2 million Latinos are eligible to vote in the 2014 midterms, or 11% ... faster growth of the Hispanic electorate compared with other groups. ... But this masks the large variability in the percentage of Hispanics across ...
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It is a good week for Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., one of the confirmed Republican Party presidential candidates.
New polling data has Rubio ahead against fellow GOP candidates and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Although the margin of victory is narrow, Rubio received more support than former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, with 15 percent to 13 percent, respectively. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker ranked third with 11 percent.
All other Republican presidential candidates provided in the Quinnipiac University poll received less than 10 percent of the vote. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a confirmed Republican presidential candidate, received 9 percent, ahead of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's 8 percent.
Rubio's bounce to first place comes one month after he was ranked eighth place in Quinnipiac University's March poll. In March, Rubio received 5 percent of support, losing to Walker -- previously in first place -- and Bush, who maintained second place.
Rubio also managed to prove a challenge to Clinton. In a hypothetical general election match-up between Clinton and Rubio, the former secretary of state received 45 percent of the vote as the Florida senator received 43 percent. The two-point spread was the narrowest margin in comparison to Clinton and any other GOP presidential candidate in the poll.
"The youngest member of the GOP presidential posse moves to the front of the pack to challenge Hillary Clinton whose position in her own party appears rock solid," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "This is the kind of survey that shoots adrenalin into a campaign. Marco Rubio gets strong enough numbers and favorability ratings to look like a legit threat to Hillary Clinton."
As Malloy mentioned, Clinton's favorability rating received mix results. While her favorability rating is higher compared to the GOP field, her unfavorable rating is also as high. Clinton's favorability rating ticked at 46 percent, one-percentage point lower from her unfavorable rating of 47 percent.
"Yes she is a leader, but can she be trusted? Mixed reviews for Hillary Clinton on key character traits," Malloy added.
Rubio's favorability rating was 35 percent, the highest in the GOP field. His unfavorable rating was 25 percent. More millennials, however, "haven't heard enough" about Rubio to form an opinion about him when asked about his favorable and unfavorable rating. Walker received a small unfavorable rating, of 21 percent, but 54 percent of respondents said they did not know enough about the Wisconsin governor to form an opinion.
Despite the unfavorable rating, Clinton was still the preferred presidential candidate among the Democratic field. She received 60 percent of the support between Democrat and Democratic-leaning survey respondents, which is an increase from March's 54 percent. Vice President Joe Biden ranked second with 10 percent. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was previously in second place with 14 percent on the March poll, but no numbers were provided in April's polling data.
Among millennials, an age group of people 18-through-34-years old, the group favored Clinton with 49 percent to 39 percent for Rubio. Clinton's support increased when millennials are asked to pick between Bush and the former secretary of state. Clinton received 53 percent to Bush's 33 percent.
The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted between April 16 and April 21 with 1,353 registered voters nationwide, including 567 Republicans and 569 Democrats.
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For the latest updates, follow Latin Post's Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO or contact via email: m.oleaga@latinpost.com.
© 2015 Latin Post. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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While visiting Russia last week, Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner made it clear to a gathered group of businessmen that their investments in her country would be most welcomed.
Despite the fact that Russia’s commercial interests in Latin America have grown over the past decade, the fruits of a free flowing trade between Russia and the region have been overshadowed by Putin's greater need for political allies.
As quoted in the Financial Times, Diana Negroponte, a Cold War specialist at the Wilson Center, summed up the situation, saying, “Russia needs friends, not only in trade but also at the U.N., and it is looking for them wherever it can.”
Negroponte points out that a country like Argentina, which has had a history of tense relations with western powers like the U.S. and the U.K., would make a perfect ally for Russia.
The two nations are certainly sharing what seems to be a quid pro quo relationship.
De Kirchner thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for his support in her government’s legal dispute with “holdout” hedge funds, which have interrupted foreign investment in Argentina, as well as Argentina's controversial claim over the Falkland Islands.
In return for Putin’s support, Argentina abstained in a 2014 U.N. vote that called on member states not to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Russia has previously pointed out the supposed similarities between the Falklands and Crimea.
As reported in the Daily Express, Alexei Pushkov, the head of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, wrote via his Twitter account, "Take notice, London. Crimea has immeasurably more grounds to be part of Russia than the Falklands to be part of Britain."
According to Negroponte, Russian trade dealings with Latin America has jumped from $3 billion in 2000 to around $24 billion in 2013.
Aside from Argentina, the analyst has observed that Russia is actively strengthening its ties with Latin countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela -- nations which have all had their own respective tensions with Washington.
© 2015 Latin Post. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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WASHINGTON — The secrecy surrounding the National Security Agency’s post-9/11 warrantless surveillance and bulk data collection program hampered its effectiveness, and many members of the intelligence community later struggled to identify any specific terrorist attacks it thwarted, a newly declassified document shows.
The document is a lengthy report on a once secret N.S.A. program code-named Stellarwind. The report was a joint project in 2009 by inspectors general for five intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and it was withheld from the public at the time, although a short, unclassified version was made public. The government released a redacted version of the full report to The New York Times on Friday evening in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush secretly told the N.S.A. that it could wiretap Americans’ international phone calls and collect bulk data about their phone calls and emails without obeying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Over time, Stellarwind’s legal basis evolved, and pieces of it emerged into public view, starting with an article in The Times about warrantless wiretapping in 2005.
The report amounts to a detailed history of the program. While significant parts remain classified, it includes some new information. For example, it explains how the Bush administration came to tell the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, Royce C. Lamberth, about the program’s existence in early 2002.
James A. Baker, then the Justice Department’s top intelligence lawyer, had not been told about the program. But he came across “strange, unattributed” language in an application for an ordinary surveillance warrant and figured it out, then insisted on telling Judge Lamberth. Mr. Baker is now the general counsel to the F.B.I.
It also says that Mr. Baker developed procedures to make sure that warrant applications using information from Stellarwind went only to the judges who knew about the program: first Judge Lamberth and then his successor, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.
The White House would not let Judge Kollar-Kotelly keep a copy of a letter written by a Justice Department lawyer, John C. Yoo, explaining the claimed legal basis of the program, and it rejected a request by Attorney General John Ashcroft to tell his deputy, Larry Thompson, about the program.
The report said that the secrecy surrounding the program made it less useful. Very few working-level C.I.A. analysts were told about it. After the warrantless wiretapping part became public, Congress legalized it in 2007; the report said this should have happened earlier to remove “the substantial restrictions placed on F.B.I. agents’ and analysts’ access to and use of program-derived information due to the highly classified status” of Stellarwind.
In 2003, after Mr. Yoo left the government, other Justice Department officials read his secret memo approving the program — most of which has not been made public — and concluded that it was flawed.
Among other things, the report said, Mr. Yoo’s reasoning was premised on the assumption that the surveillance act, which requires warrants for national security wiretaps, did not expressly apply to wartime situations. His memo did not mention that a provision of that law explains how it applies in war: The warrant rule is suspended for the first 15 days of a war.
The report has new details about a dramatic episode in March 2004, when several Justice Department officials confronted Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time, in the hospital room of Mr. Ashcroft over the legality of the program. The officials included Mr. Thompson’s successor as deputy attorney general, James B. Comey, who is now the F.B.I. director, and the new head of the office where Mr. Yoo had worked, Jack Goldsmith.
The showdown prompted Mr. Bush to make two or three changes to Stellarwind, the report said. But while the report gives a blow-by-blow account of the bureaucratic fight, it censors an explanation of the substance of the legal dispute and Mr. Bush’s changes.
Last year, the Obama administration released a redacted version of a memo that Mr. Goldsmith later wrote about Stellarwind and similarly censored important details.
Nevertheless, it is public knowledge, because of documents leaked by the former intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden, that one part of the dispute concerned the legality of the component of Stellarwind that collected bulk records about Americans’ emails.
Mr. Snowden’s disclosures included a working draft version of the N.S.A. inspector general’s contribution to this report, roughly 50 pages long. The final document — with many passages redacted as still classified — was part of Friday’s release.
Another part of the newly disclosed report provides an explanation for a change in F.B.I. rules during the Bush administration. Previously, F.B.I. agents had only two types of cases: “preliminary” and “full” investigations. But the Bush administration created a third, lower-level type called an “assessment.”
This development, it turns out, was a result of Stellarwind. F.B.I. agents were asked to scrutinize phone numbers deemed suspicious because of information from the program. But the agents were not told why the numbers had been deemed suspicious, only “not to use the information in legal or judicial proceedings.”
That made some agents uncomfortable, and it was not clear how such mysterious leads fit into their rules for investigations. The Justice Department created the new type of investigation, initially called a “threat assessment,” which could be opened with lower-grade tips. Agents now use them tens of thousands of times a year.
But little came of the Stellarwind tips. In 2004, the F.B.I. looked at a sampling of all the tips to see how many had made a “significant contribution” to identifying a terrorist, deporting a terrorism suspect, or developing a confidential informant about terrorists.
Just 1.2 percent of the tips from 2001 to 2004 had made such a contribution. Two years later, the F.B.I. reviewed all the leads from the warrantless wiretapping part of Stellarwind between August 2004 and January 2006. None had proved useful.
Still, the report includes several redacted paragraphs describing “success” cases.
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The FBI recently dropped the bombshell that most of the experts in a major forensic unit gave flawed testimony about microscopic hair evidence during a 25-year period — potentially leading to wrongful executions.
Before mitochondrial DNA analysis on hair became routine in 2000, the FBI relied on hair microscopy — or using a microscope to compare hair found at the scene of a crime to samples taken from a suspect. The FBI found that all but two of 28 agent/analysts in the unit provided false testimony or prepared erroneous lab reports that were later submitted to courts.
Analysts gave testimony in 268 cases and made "erroneous statements" in 257 of those cases,according to the review. Defendants in at least 35 of these cases got the death penalty, and 33 of those cases contained errors. Five of them, however, died of natural causes while on death row, and nine of them have already been executed.
"It’s possible that some of these people who were executed were wrongly executed," Paul Cates, communications director of the Innocence Project, told Business Insider.
The 33 inmates on death row now could have been wrongfully convicted as well, Cates noted.
The Innocence Project is helping the Department of Justice locate these cases and notify the defendants. So far, 74 out of 329, or 22%, of DNA exonerations have involved faulty microscopic hair analysis, according to Cates.
The scientific basis for hair microscopy is questionable at best. Courts have recognized the practice to be "highly unreliable, according to a 2009 report in the National Academy of Sciences. In one particularly shocking case, two FBI forensic experts confused a human hair with a dog hair,according to the Innocence Project. The defendant, Santae Tribble, served 28 years in prison before DNA evidence exonerated him.
"When it comes down to it, it’s one human being eyeballing one hair compared to another hair," Lindsay Herf, post-conviction project counsel at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), told Business Insider. The NACDL is also assisting the DOJ with its ongoing investigation.
No national standards exist for what constitutes a match either, Herf explained. One expert might find 18 similarities between hair found at the crime and the suspect's while another might require 24 before calling the two samples "a match."
As of March 2015, the FBI had reviewed about 500 of 3,000 cases.
"[T]he Department and the FBI are committed to ensuring that affected defendants are notified of past errors and that justice is done in every instance," executive assistant director of the FBI's science and technology branch Amy Hess said in a statement.
Editor's note: The quote from Cates has been updated to say "possible" instead of "very possible," as Cates initially misspoke during the interview with Business Insider.
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The growing 1,200-file record is comprised of 8,900 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for the files of various FBI informants and government employees engaged in “domestic intelligence work” since the 1950s.
The man behind the archive is “an independent scholar of US right wing movements and anti-communism,” named Ernie Lazar. For more than 30 years he has been submitting FOIA requests for the FBI's files and documents—at first, on leading right-wing organizations, before expanding his scope to include left-wing, socialist and Communist groups that were also under the FBI's watch.
The list of groups that the FBI was monitoringincludes the Communist Party USA, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, the Ku Klux Klan, the American Security Council, Citizens Council Movement and States Rights Organizations. It's easy to see why they didn't form a grand coalition to tell the FBI to fuck-off; because “any enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine” only goes so far.
From an FBI FOIA hosted on the Internet Archive. Image: Internet Archive
Unsurprisingly, nearly 9,000 FOIA requests resulted in a immense amount of data—over 600,000 pages so far, enough to span five CDs. Lazar has been donating his collection to university research libraries such as Marquette, Berkeley, Kansas and NYU, but if you're not near any of these places,the Internet archive is here for you too.
While the documents themselves vary in legibility (thanks to the prolific censoring of names, amateur scanning work and messy typewriters and handwriting of the 1960s) the Internet Archive is really easy to find topics through. At the same time, it's fairly difficult to know what you’ll find. Sometimes it's a number of clippings from the newsletter of an anti-communist group that turned their ire on the National Council of Churches. There are myriad letters to J. Edgar Hoover with lots of misspellings, and lots of generic responses from Hoover's desk stating that a letter was received—but for those who asked if their church belonged to a communist organization, “for official use only” was the reply.
There are also speeches by Hoover, notes from the Communist Party telling their members to stay away from the 1965 Watts riots, and copies of a sermon titled “God The Original Segregationist” delivered in 1955.
It's funny that the letters sent among bigots back then are a lot like bigoted internet comments of today—misspelled, angry, sanctimonious. Imagine what kind of letters the FBI gets today—or don't! Just FOIA some. It may take a few decades, but you’re bound to get something back.
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Dr. Frederic Whitehurst knows a thing or two about FBI lab scandals. As a “supervisory special agent” and noted forensic scientist, he began complaining to his federal supervisors more than 25 years ago about shoddy policies and practices within the vaunted crime lab. Then, in the mid-1990s, he went public with his concerns, officially becoming a “whistleblower” by highlighting flawed forensics and testimony relating to (among other things) the Oklahoma City bombing investigation. For this he was scorned by many of his colleagues and retaliated against at work, but ultimately vindicated by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, which in 1997 issued a report endorsing some of Whitehurst’s claims. He left the FBI following a settlement with the government in 1998 and now serves as a co-chair of the National Whistleblowers Center.
We caught up with Dr. Whitehurst this week in the wake of the latest allegations of scientific misfeasance at the FBI crime lab. We now know that nearly every FBI scientist at the lab before the year 2000 — 26 out of 28 — overstated his or her “expert” conclusions about matches from analyses of hair samples collected from crime scenes and/or suspects. Hundreds of cases, at least, have been tainted, including at least one dozen cases that resulted in a sentence of death.
What does this latest forensic scandal tell about the trustworthiness of FBI analysis in all those criminal cases?
It tells us that all of them were doing the same thing. When I was at the FBI, we had people with English degrees, history degrees, doing complex chemical analysis. Our chief chemist didn’t have an undergraduate degree in chemistry. They were not scientists. They weren’t out to hurt anyone. They believed in their work. They believed what they were saying when they said it. Those people gave misleading testimony in courts of law but they believed it, and they taught it to thousands of state hair examiners all over the U.S.
But you don’t need Fred Whitehurst telling you this. The National Academies of Science already has told us that. They’ve already told us that it’s all crap. The FBI is still putting out invalidated work product, and I do not believe the FBI is going to fix this. As soon as this week’s news is last week’s news, they are going to stop the reform. What was revealed this week was known since 1998. They knew there were issues, and they did nothing about it.
Why don't more FBI scientists blow the whistle on their colleagues who are undertaking questionable lab work?
Doesn't make sense. Once you embarrass the FBI, you lose your job, your reputation, your kids can't look forward to college, your mortgage defaults, you get a job working as a correctional officer or serving coffee, no one really seems to care. You have to be insane to tell the truth at the FBI, absolutely insane. The recent Senate hearing concerning whistleblowing at the FBI spells it out very clearly. FBI managers will destroy anyone who does not give them the answers they demand.
What are some of the perverse incentives built into the system?
FBI scientists can look forward to comfortable retirements until they die. Who wants to give up all of that? If you disagree with practices at the FBI you will be put first on administrative leave, probably sent for psychiatric evaluation (really), fight alone without any assistance from any citizens you are trying to protect for years and years and years, and see the folks who remained quiet gradually move on to better jobs and great retirement paychecks.
What specific steps need to be taken to fix the problems?
We have an adversarial justice system that encourages gamesmanship, ambush, secrecy, cheating. Lab analysts go along with the practices in our adversarial justice system. Because they don't have to compete with real scientists, they don't have to question their own work product. And so they are mentally lazy. We need to establish a National Defense Forensic Institute to do what science does, try to prove the null hypothesis. Let the FBI and states and local law enforcement have their own labs. Let them slant their results. And then let defense counsel be assisted by real scientists from the Defense Forensic Institute, an organization of scientists who can publish openly, criticize openly, do research openly with the sole end of questioning government forensic lab science.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Mike Donoghue, Burlington (Vt.) Free Press 6:22 p.m. EDT April 24, 2015
Former FBI head Louis B. Freeh, seen in July 2012 in Philadelphia, nearly died after severing an artery in a leg during a car crash last year in Vermont, officials disclosed for the first time Friday.(Photo: WILLIAM THOMAS CAIN/GETTY IMAGES)
BURLINGTON, Vt. — Former FBI Director would have died within 60 seconds of sustaining a severed artery in a car crash eight months ago in Vermont if not for the life-saving actions of emergency crews, officials revealed Friday.
Current FBI leader and , D-Vt., made the remarks when questioned about Freeh's medical condition, including a leg mangled in the Aug. 25 wreck in Barnard in central Vermont.
This was the first time that public officials have provided details concerning the serious nature of Freeh's condition after the accident.
Leahy noted that Freeh had a severed artery in a leg, but first responders, along with a retired FBI agent who witnessed the crash, came to Freeh's aid.
"Louis would have died within a minute or so. They stopped the bleeding," Leahy said.
"I told him he better believe in guardian angels," said Leahy, who noted the retired FBI agent also had the same first name as Freeh.
"He credits those folks with saving his life," Comey told reporters at the news conference at . Comey was in Burlington to tour the college with Leahy.
Freeh was critically injured in the crash. State police believe the former FBI director fell asleep at the wheel on Vermont 12 near his seasonal home in Barnard shortly after noon on Aug. 25.
Comey and Leahy said Freeh is on the road to recovery eight months after the single-vehicle crash.
The officials never directly addressed a question about Freeh's losing a leg.
Emergency crews bring former FBI director Louis Freeh, 64, of Wilmington, Del., to a helicopter for transport to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., following an Aug. 23 crash on Vermont 12 in Barnard . (Photo: Rick Russell/Vermont Standard)
Comey, who said Freeh hired him for his first job, said he did not want to discuss the former director's medical issues.
"He actually is doing — for any normal human — shockingly well," Comey said.
Leahy said he was in his office recently when Freeh stopped by to check in.
"He walks with a cane. Most people wish they could move that well," the senator said. "His recovery has been remarkable."
Freeh, 64, of , told and later filed his own state accident report indicating he had no memory of the crash.
A GMC Yukon driven by former FBI director Louis Freeh had its roof removed by rescuers following a one-vehicle crash Aug. 23 on Vermont 12 near his seasonal home in Barnard. (Photo: Rick Russell/Vermont Standard)
Freeh's SUV forced three oncoming drivers to take evasive action when he crossed the center line and almost hit them head-on, witnesses reported.
One of the drivers who avoided the crash told the that he estimated Freeh's SUV was traveling 60-65 mph. The posted speed limit was 50 mph.
Freeh eventually drove off the road, struck a tree and was left with serious injuries. He was transported to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in , N.H., where he was admitted under armed guard.
He was later transferred to in .
Freeh never responded to a Free Press request for an interview but issued a general statement four days after the crash.
"May God bless all of these individuals who are so instrumental in my recovery," Freeh said in the statement, which singled out high-profile supporters and medical personnel for praise.
The statement made no mention of police, fire and rescue personnel.
The eight-sentence statement included no information about his condition, the extent of his injuries or the crash itself.
Freeh, a former federal judge in New York, served as the FBI director from 1993 to 2001. He founded , a consulting group with offices in Washington, Wilmington and New York City.
Freeh also is known for authoring a report critical of 's handling of the sex-abuse case involving football assistant coach .
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They died in the dark, some of them. Young men, volunteers mostly, cut down by bullets and bombs, fire and fever. Australians, New Zealanders, Brits and Irishmen, Africans and Indians and many, many Turks were among those killed in the fighting at Gallipoli a century ago.
Russian Hackers Read Obama’s Unclassified Emails, Officials Say by By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and DAVID E. SANGER
The hackers did not appear to have penetrated closely guarded servers that control the message traffic from President Obama’s personal BlackBerry, officials said.
70 лет спустя: от союза между Россией и Западом – к "холодной войне-2". Была ли антигитлеровская коалиция обречена на распад, и способна ли современная Россия вернуться к сотрудничеству с Европой и США? Обсуждение в Проекте Европа.
Download audio: http://flashvideo.rferl.org/clips/RU/2015/04/24/62b39bd5-ee84-4982-88ef-54bf89e3e4e8.mp3
Download audio: http://flashvideo.rferl.org/clips/RU/2015/04/24/62b39bd5-ee84-4982-88ef-54bf89e3e4e8.mp3
 Версии.сом |
Порошенко: в наступление украинские военные первыми не пойдут
Версии.сом Президент Украины Петр Порошенко вновь подчеркивает, что Украина неуклонно выполняет Минские договоренности, "поэтому в наступление украинские ВСУ первыми не пойдут". Как сообщает пресс-служба президента, в субботу на полигоне Широкий Лан в Николаевской области ... и другие » |
29 Years Ago, Chernobyl Catastrophe Destroyed Soviet Citizens’ Trust in Moscow by paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 26 – Twenty-nine years ago today, the Chernobyl Atomic Power Station suffered the worst nuclear power accident in history. Its physical consequences are still a subject of dispute. But one thing is not: the accident and the way Mikhail Gorbachev responded to it snapped any trust that had existed between the Soviet population and their rulers in Moscow.
In a commentary for “Belarussky zhurnal” yesterday, Lidiya Mikheyeva says that after Chernobyl, “people believed rumors but did not believe news and official declarations,” a development that created an even greater “catastrophe” for the USSR than was the accident itself, “a catastrophe of trust” (journalby.com/news/katastrofa-doveriya-394).
As she points out, “the Soviet government acknowledged the fact of an explosion at Chernobyl only after incontrovertible evidence obtained by Swedish scholars was published.” No Soviet official wanted to disturb the celebrations of May Day or Victory Day, and only one, the Ukrainian SSR health minister alluded to it directly before mid-May.
On May 6, the Ukrainian official recommended that Ukrainians avoid going out in to the streets and cut down on their ventilation of their apartments.
Only on May 14, did Mikhail Gorbachev speak about the accident, and the way he did so does him no credit. On the one hand, he began by saying “you all know that not long ago a misfortune came to us.” And on the other, the communist leader devoted more than half of his text to condemning “lies” and “disinformation” in the American press about Chernobyl (pripyat.com/documents/pravda-15-maya-1986-g-vystuplenie-m-s-gorbacheva-po-sovetskomu-televideniyu.html).
“If the silence of the authorities had led only to baseless anger and a storm in the international press, this would have been a lesser evil,” Mikheyeva says. “In reality, this secrecy on ecological issues by itself became a risk factor for new catastrophes” because secrecy prevented people from learning from past mistakes and correcting them.
Eleven years before Chernobyl, we now know, she continues, an accident at the Leningrad Atomic Power Plant, one similar in construction to that in Chernobyl, occurred, but fortunately, its reactor was shut down in a timely fashion. But how that happened was kept secret from even the employees of other such plants.
How many other missed opportunities to prevent a disaster is still unknown, she says; and officials made the situation worse by acting as if there are no real dangers in the use of atomic power. The director of Chernobyl infamously said just before the accident that “an atomic reactor is as simple as a samovar” (fakty.ua/108581-quot-ekspluatacioncshiki-chaes-obracshalis-so-stanciej-kak-s-samovarom-quot).
Official silence about the accident which people nonetheless found out about via various means (x-libri.ru/elib/sherb000/00000169.htm) reflected not only the military past of all Soviet atomic power projects but also a desire to avoid sowing panic in the population. But it had the effect of completely destroying confidence in official sources because the gap between them and reality and the dangers of failing to know the truth were both too great.
Many analysts argue that Gorbachev began to promote glasnost as a result, but in fact, his media freedom was highly selective and very restricted when it came to Chernobyl. Moscow continued to reject any proposals to develop a centralized data base on the impact of the accident lest just how bad it was leak out.
As a result, Mikheyeva says, after “the ‘initial panic’ of complete ignorance in 1986 arose ‘a secondary panic,’ generated by an excess of varied and often unproven information. The result has been an information trauma which has lasted almost 30 years and the psychological burn out of people who chronically do not know whom and what to believe.”
That was true in Ukraine, the Russian Federation and elsewhere where the radiation plumes came down, but it has been especially true in Belarus whose leadership has proclaimed it “the heir of all the best, purest and brightest” from the Soviet past and thus ensured that Belarusians have not been able to overcome the problem the 1986 accident accentuated.
Belarusians have dealt “with this problem in their own way. Just as when Gorbachev said ‘You all know.’ Our people know,” Mikheyeva says, “that in extreme situations it isn’t worth waiting for truth and help from the government.” Most Belarusians “are ready to live without answers” because “only a few understand that the ecological problem … is a political one.”
“We are not Japanese,” she laments. “We are able to get accustomed to everything. Thirty years we have been living with Chernobyl, and for 20, with Lukashenka. But nothing has happened: we put up with it.” And that is “a catastrophe comparable with the explosion at the Chernobyl Atomic Power Plant.”
Today, Belarusians will mark this sad anniversary as they have in the past with a march. Its main slogan is scheduled to be “No to the Russian Nuclear Threat!” Meanwhile, in Ukraine, President Petro Poroshenko will lead the nation in commemorating the 1986 disaster (belaruspartisan.org/politic/302791/).
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 Latin Post |
Russia is looking for allies, not deals, in Latin America
Financial Times But although Russia's commercial interests in Latin America have grown over the past decade, they remain limited and are trumped by a need for political allies as the crisis continues in Ukraine, and Moscow suffers from US and EU sanctions after its ... Russia Looks for Allies in Latin AmericaLatin Post all 6 'Government grants China and Russia many concessions'Buenos Aires Herald all 4 news articles » |
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 Reuters |
Putin Accuses US of Supporting Separatists in Russia
ABC News In a new documentary, Russian President Vladimir Putin says intercepted calls showed that the U.S. helped separatists in Russia's North Caucasus in the 2000s,underscoring his suspicions of the West. The two-hour documentary, which began airing Sunday ... Russia's Putin says taking Crimea righted historical injusticeReuters all 89 news articles » |
 ИА REGNUM |
Путин: спецслужбы США контактировали с террористами в Азербайджане
ИА REGNUM Президент Российской Федерации Владимир Путин рассказал, как однажды российские спецслужбы зафиксировали прямые контакты между боевиками с Северного Кавказа и представителями спецслужб США. Об этом Путин рассказал в интервью, которое показано в документальном ... и другие » |
 Daily Caller |
Russia Today Reporter Mobbed, Robbed As She Films Baltimore Chaos [VIDEO]
Daily Caller A journalist for Russia Today was mobbed and robbed by a large group of men in Baltimore Saturday night and captured it all on live video. Paulina Leonovich was on the ground covering the protests of the recent death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray. Gray ... and more » |
 The Guardian |
Vladimir Putin's 'misinformation' offensive prompts US to deploy its cold war ...
The Guardian Russia's sprawling propaganda network may have failed to persuade much of the world that Ukraine is run by Nazis, that Crimea was annexed in a popular uprising and/or that Germany is a failed state. But the barrage of misinformation has convinced some ... and more » |
 Новостной проект INFOX.ru |
Путин рассказал о контактах спецслужб США с кавказскими боевиками
Новостной проект INFOX.ru Российские спецслужбы фиксировали прямые контакты террористов на Северном Кавказе со спецслужбами США, заявил президент России Владимир Путин. «Однажды наши спецслужбы зафиксировали прямые контакты между боевиками с Северного Кавказа и представителями ... Путин рассказал, как нехорошо поддерживать террористов на чужой территорииНовый Регион Владимир Путин рассказал о прямых контактах спецслужб США с террористами на Северном КавказеРадиостанция ЭХО МОСКВЫ В Сеть утек документальный фильм о Владимире Путине «Президент»Славянка Инфо Российская Газета-Грани.Ру-Новые Известия Все похожие статьи: 133 » |
Half of Russian Army Soldiers Now Working on Contract Basis, Defense Ministry Says by paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Paul Goble
Staunton, April 26 – Yesterday, Deputy Defense Minister Nikolay Pankov said that 50 percent of the uniformed personnel of the Russian Army are working on contract as professionals rather than as draftees, a figure that has been achieved as a result of difficulties in the civilian economy and of new benefits extended to those who sign up.
But precisely for that combination of reasons, the Russian military is unlikely to be able to meet its plans to move toward an all-professional army anytime soon if the country maintains a military of its current size, the economy improves or the government is unable to continue to boost benefits for servicemen and women.
Even if all those things obtain, the declining size of the prime draft age or military service pool will mean that professional military personnel will effectively take people away from jobs in the civilian sector and become a choke point on the future economic development of the Russian Federation.
Moreover, the drive toward professionalism while it almost certainly would lead to a more skilled military is likely to be opposed by senior generals who still place a high value on the kind of massive force structures that is only possible with a draft and one that takes people into the service for relatively short periods.
Nonetheless, Pankov’s statement is an indication of what the defense ministry is currently trying to do.He said that “Today, we have 300,000 contract soldiers who are serving either in the ranks or as sergeants and about 200,000 officers. And, in this way, the deputy minister continued, “50 percent of our army is a contract one” (polit.ru/news/2015/04/25/army/).
According to Pankov, “interest in contract service has grown thanks to the conditions which are being created for military personnel.” More than 50,000 of those serving on contract “have been able to use military-backed mortgages” and thus obtain housing (polit.ru/news/2015/04/25/military_mortgage/).
Three weeks ago, Col.Gen. Viktor Goremykin, the chief of the defense ministry’s manpower administration, said that Moscow plans to have all the junior command staff be professionals rather than draftees and will increase the number of contractors in the ranks by 50,000 more than Pankov says the army has now (polit.ru/news/2015/04/03/contract/).
That will be an enormously expensive undertaking, and the Russian government will have to divert funds from other sectors, including education and public health, if it is to meet that goal, an indication that a professional army does not solve Russia’s military problems and may in fact be beyond its reach unless the economy remains in the doldrums or worse.
But Vladimir Putin may see one great advantage to a professional army, an advantage that he may be willing to beggar the rest of the country to get: Draft-based armies provide a closer check on leaders than do professional ones because the draftees are closer to the rest of the population and more likely to register its objections than are the professionals.
But Vladimir Putin may see one great advantage to a professional army, an advantage that he may be willing to beggar the rest of the country to get: Draft-based armies provide a closer check on leaders than do professional ones because the draftees are closer to the rest of the population and more likely to register its objections than are the professionals.
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EU leaders will hold a summit with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv on April 27.
Russian hackers read unclassified Obama emails – reportby Guardian staff and agencies
- Breach of White House systems was acknowledged earlier this month
- New York Times says hack ‘far more worrisome’ than had been thought
Unclassified emails to and from President Barack Obama were read last year by Russian hackers,the New York Times reported on Saturday.
The White House confirmed the breach earlier this month, saying it took place last year and that it did not affect classified information.
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The Finnish “day fine” system, which factors in income when calculating penalties for infractions, is causing a debate in a nation with an egalitarian streak. One millionaire, for example, was fined 54,024 euros (about $58,000) for a traffic ticket.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russian hackers who penetrated sensitive parts of the White House computer system last year read President Barack Obama's unclassified emails, the New York Times reported on Saturday, quoting U.S. officials.
Deep Support in Washington for C.I.A.’s Drone Missionsby MARK MAZZETTI and MATT APUZZO
Unwavering support from Capitol Hill is but one reason the C.I.A.’s killing missions are unlikely to change significantly, despite the revelation Thursday that a drone strike had killed two hostages.
Report: Russian Hackers Accessed Obama's Personal Emailsby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
A published report says Russian hackers who penetrated White House cybersecurity last year read some of President Barack Obama's unclassified emails. Saturday's New York Times report said the hackers, who also accessed the State Department's unclassified system, did not appear to have penetrated closely guarded servers that control message traffic from the president's BlackBerry. Either Obama or an aid carries that device at all times. But the report said hackers...
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Ukrainian businessman Len Blavatnik (pictured with his wife Emily) topped the Sunday Times Rich List after his fortune grew £3billion to £13.17billion.
 BBC News |
Russian hackers 'accessed Obama's unclassified emails'
BBC News Russian hackers who gained access to the White House computer system last year were able to read President Obama's unclassified emails, the New York Times has reported. It said the breach was far more intrusive than previously admitted. Officials have ... Russian hackers read Obama's unclassified emails last year - NYTReuters all 62 news articles » |
 DesMoinesRegister.com |
Court's same-sex marriage ruling to define our time
DesMoinesRegister.com On Tuesday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges, perhaps the most important civil rights case in a generation. The court will consider whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to license, or at least to ... and more » |
 New York Times |
Laughter (and a Few Boos) as Obama Takes Aim at Correspondents' Dinner
New York Times WASHINGTON — President Obama might have that cool, professorial exterior. But what would happen if he ever got really mad? On Saturday night, Mr. Obama offered a humorous answer to that hypothetical question as he roasted himself, Hillary Rodham ... 2015 White House Correspondents' Dinner: Barack Obama's top 10 jokesCNN At correspondents' dinner, Obama jabs at media, candidates and himselfWashington Post Obama on Biden and Pizza in Indiana at WHCDWall Street Journal The Star Online -TIME all 625 news articles » |
 Fox News |
Dozens arrested as Freddie Gray protests turn violent in Baltimore
Fox News Thousands of protesters took the streets of Baltimore Saturday in the largest Freddie Gray demonstration yet as hours of peaceful marching turned violent. At least two people were hurt in the mayhem and at least a dozen were arrested. The problems occurred ... Thousands rally for Freddie Gray; protest later turns violentThe Denver Post Red Sox view Brock Holt as new protoypeBoston Herald Freddie Gray protests turn from peaceful to violentABC2 News Washington Times all 562 news articles » |
Barack Obama lands the zingers at White House correspondents' dinner by Associated Press in Washington
The president tells diners at the fundraiser he’s bringing a new attitude to the final quarter of his presidency, and it rhymes with bucket
The president, Barack Obama, says he’s bringing a new attitude to the final quarter of his presidency: bucket!
Related: White House Correspondents' Dinner 2015: President Obama and Cecily Strong – as it happened
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An Afghan official says a gunman shot and killed an acting police chief and a civilian in southern Uruzgan Province.
The US leader proves himself a master of comic timing as he gets laughs during a traditional turn at a gala dinner.
Reports have emerged about young Chechen women who met North Caucasus militants online and traveled to Syria to join them.
 Arkansas Online |
CIA's efforts stem scrutiny of strikes
Arkansas Online President Barack Obama, followed by White House press secretary John Earnest, walks into the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, Thursday, April 23, 2015, to make a statement. The president took full responsibility for deaths of ... and more » |
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Over a million people have been forced to flee their homes because of the war in Ukraine. Many of these internally displaced people have struggled to find a new life. Produced by: Erik Olsen...
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From: The New York Times
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Just two years ago, the Supreme Court struck down part of the federal anti-gay marriage law that denied a range of government benefits to legally married same-sex couples....
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate proponents of a bill empowering Congress to review and potentially reject any Iran nuclear deal must first win a battle with some colleagues determined to change the legislation in ways that could sink it....
Indonesia Urged to Spare Drug Traffickersby webdesk@voanews.com (Phil Mercer)
Rights groups are urging Indonesia to abandon plans to execute nine convicted felons, including two Australian drug traffickers. Nine death-row drug convicts have been given official notifications that their executions by firing squad could be carried out within 72 hours. The government in Canberra has also pleaded with Jakarta to spare the lives of two Australian citizens sentenced to death for their part in a plot to smuggle 8 kilograms of heroin from the Indonesian holiday island of...
Putin wants to limit his global isolation by stepping up engagement in the region
National Monitor |
Critics blast Obama as new drone strike accidentally kills hostages
National Monitor Obama apologized for the botched operation, but critics around the country say that the U.S. drone war campaign needs a complete overhaul. President Barack Obama acknowledged recently that a U.S. drone strike targeting a compound that often hosted al ... and more » |
HRW: Egypt's Trial of Morsi ‘Badly Flawed’by webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
The trial of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, deposed by the army and sentenced to 20 years in jail, was "badly flawed" and appears to have been politically motivated, Human Rights Watch said on Sunday. A court on April 21 convicted Morsi and 12 other Muslim Brotherhood members of violence, kidnapping and torture over the deaths of protesters in 2012. They were acquitted of murder, which carries the death sentence. The rise to power of the Brotherhood, a decades-old...
Russian state TV is showing a new film in which President Vladimir Putin portrays himself as having protected the country, in his early years in power, against terrorists he suggests had Western support.
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Putin says US helped North Caucasus separatists against Russia in the 2000s by Associated Press in Moscow
- Russian president cites intercepted calls as he makes assertion in documentary
- Bush said he would ‘kick the ass’ of intelligence officers involved, Putin says
Intercepted calls showed that the US helped separatists in Russia’s North Caucasus in the 2000s, Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed in a new documentary in which he underscored his suspicions of the west.
The two-hour documentary, to be aired on the state-owned Rossiya-1 TV channel later on Sunday, is dedicated to Putin’s 15 years in office. It focuses on Putin’s achievements as well as challenges to his rule – which the producers and Putin blame on western interference.
Continue reading...
Russia's Putin says taking Crimea righted historical injustice
Reuters MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow's seizure of Crimea righted a historical injustice, according to news agency reports on Sunday citing a new documentary film. The annexation of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in ... and more » |
Critics warn over reversing privatisations as state aims to break billionaires’ stranglehold on economy
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) -- James Holmes was growing volatile well before he put on a gas mask and body armor, strapped on a rifle, shotgun, pistol and ammunition, and slipped into a midnight premiere of the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises."...
 Deutsche Welle |
Putin accuses US of supporting North Caucasus separatists
Deutsche Welle Russia's President Vladimir Putin has accused the US of providing support to militants in Russia's North Caucasus region. Putin declared his suspicions in a documentary to mark 15 years since he first became president. In a new documentary celebrating 15 ... and more » |
Businesses urge Supreme Court to strike down state bans on same-sex marriage
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Dozens Arrested After Violence Erupt at Baltimore Protestsby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Police arrested at least 34 people in (the eastern U.S. city of) Baltimore on Saturday as thousands of protesters marched in anger over the death of a 25-year-old man, who was critically injured while in police custody. Days of largely peaceful demonstrations turned sporadically violent as the rally reached the city center, with several storefronts and car windshields smashed. Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts told reporters smaller groups split off from the main protest and...
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