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Russia's defense ministry on Thursday announced it would hold naval drills in the "east Mediterranean" in September and October, adding to the U.S.' concerns over Moscow's military build up in Syria.
The exercises include three warships from Russia's Black Sea Fleet, including the Saratov landing ship, the Moskva guided missile ...
President Obama's former top adviser on Middle East policy says the time has come for the administration to rethink its demand that Syrian President Bashar Assad must step down — a stipulation that has underpinned the White House's approach to Syria's war for the past four years.
The burgeoning humanitarian ...
President Obama announced Friday that the U.S. and Chinese governments have reached an agreement to not "conduct or knowingly support" cyberattacks against each other.
Mr. Obama revealed the deal during a White House press conference alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping. It comes just days after the administration acknowledged that Chinese ...
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WASHINGTON (AP) - Somber against a backdrop of grand pageantry, President Barack Obama laid out a fresh threat of sanctions against China for alleged cybercrimes on Friday, even as he and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached an agreement not to conduct or support such hacking. "It has to stop," Obama ...
President Xi Jinping, set to visit Washington for an official state visit on Friday, is sponsoring the most severe repression of China’s civil society since the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, according to rights activists who have also criticized the Obama administration’s efforts to become a closer economic partner with Beijing.
Since becoming leader of China’s Communist Party in 2012 and president the following year, Xi has launched a sweeping crackdown against all forms of dissent from the government. Human rights groups estimate that more than 2,000 activists have been harassed, detained for some length of time, or tortured by authorities as a result of their advocacy. Human rights lawyers, journalists, non-government organizations (NGOs), citizen activists, Christians, and minority Tibetans and Uyghurs have all been targeted.
Kody Kness, vice president of the Christian human rights group China Aid, said on Wednesday at a Capitol Hill event that the first three years of Xi’s authoritarian rule “have been the worst three years in decades.”
“It’s an unprecedented crackdown on those seeking religious freedom and those seeking freedom of expression, at a level not seen since the Cultural Revolution,” he said.
Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, in which the dictator incited a youth rebellion against other leaders of the Party and accused them of straying from communist ideology, ultimately resulted in about 1.5 million deaths and the imprisonment or harassment of millions of others.
As the son of a senior Party official who was targeted during the Cultural Revolution, Xi learned to value stability and solidarity among the ruling class, rather than internal division. He has sought toroot out corrupt officials and potential rivals from the Party, promote a return to ancient Chinese values of morality and respect for authority, and encourage the repudiation of Western notions of freedom, democracy, and human rights. Dissidents, who often embrace those Western values as universal rights, have thus faced a new wave of repression under Xi.
In a speech this week, Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser, said that differences between the United States and China on issues such as human rights and cyber security will not be “papered over” during Xi’s visit. However, activists say that while U.S. officials often raise concerns about human rights abuses to their Chinese counterparts, the issue is treated as secondary in importance to other economic and security discussions.
“Do you raise [human rights] just to check the list of issues, or do you raise an issue because you know it’s important?” said Bhuchung Tsering, vice president of the International Campaign for Tibet, at the China Aid event.
Some dissidents have urged the Obama administration to cancel the summit with Xi unless all political prisoners are released. More than 20 human rights lawyers and activists remain in detention as part of a crackdown that began in July, joining hundreds of other political and religious prisoners.
Obama has previously expressed the view that more economic engagement with China could lead to more political freedom in the country. “There has been an evolution in China over the last 30 years since the first normalization of relations between the United States and China,” he said at a 2011 press conference with Hu Jintao, the former president of China. “And my expectation is that 30 years from now we will have seen further evolution and further change.”
A group of CEOs from top American companies, including Apple, Facebook, and Goldman Sachs,urged Obama and Xi last week to complete a bilateral investment treaty that would further cement a “positive and enduring commercial relationship, which is an essential anchor for global economic growth.”
Yet activists say that while the U.S. engagement policy has generated billions in profits for both American and Chinese businesses, it has not resulted in greater freedom for the Chinese people or regional stability. Yang Jianli, president of the group Initiatives for China, said at a hearing last week for the Congressional-Executive Commission on China that it is “both morally corrupt and strategically stupid” to support a regime that “ruthlessly represses its own people, denies universal values to justify its dictatorship, and that challenges the existing international order to seek its dominance.”
“China uses its economic power gained with the help of the West to build a formidable, fully modernized military, that has reached every corner of the earth,” he said. “With this unprecedented power, China is now forcefully demanding a re-write of international norms and rules.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), a Republican presidential candidate and staunch critic of the administration’s China policy, has said that U.S. officials must take measures to penalize Beijing for human rights abuses, including visa bans for rights violators.
“[Obama] has hoped that being more friendly with China will make it more responsible,” Rubio wrotein a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. “It hasn’t worked.”
“To achieve a new era of productive relations between our nations, America must stand on the side of the Chinese people rather than their autocratic rulers,” he added.
Activists have called on Obama to at least raise the specific names of political prisoners in meetings with Xi, both privately and publicly. They say that applying public pressure on the Party often leads to better treatment for detainees.
Top administration officials have previously been criticized for not mentioning the specific cases of prisoners in public, such as with the prominent human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng. Gao, who says he has been tortured and detained several times by authorities in the last decade, was reportedlykidnapped again on Thursday after recounting his persecution to the Associated Press.
“In our country, these people would be called heroes,” Kness said. “In China, they’re in prison.”
Xi will only feel more emboldened to repress dissenters if Obama does not aggressively press him on human rights abuses, said Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uyghur Congress, at the China Aid event.
“If President Obama and his administration do not raise human rights violations and the repression of all religions and ethnicities under Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, than Xi will see this in a way, the silence of the U.S., as a green light to further repress,” she said.
The post Visiting Chinese President Ushers in Worst Repression Since Mao’s Cultural Revolutionappeared first on Washington Free Beacon.
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A senior editor at the New York Times became embroiled in a testy back-and-forth exchange with a Jewish pro-Israel reader of the publication, who had criticized it for launching a website aimed at tracking how Jewish lawmakers are voting on the Iranian nuclear deal, according to emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Times’ “Jew tracker” was described as anti-Semitic and offensive by pro-Israel officials who slammed the paper for feeding into stereotypes about Jewish power and money.
The controversial chart listed all lawmakers who voted against the nuclear deal and highlighted in yellow whether or not that person was Jewish. The chart also included the number of Jewish persons living in each lawmaker’s district.
Following a report by the Free Beacon on the tracker, the New York Times altered the site by removing the column identifying members as Jewish. The paper also edited the report to remove overt references to the relationship between each lawmaker’s religion and his position on the Iran deal.
Despite altering the website to address the material critics viewed as offensive, a senior New York Times editor praised the tracker and fought back against one Jewish critic who had written to express outrage over the post.
“Are you so ignorant that you don’t understand the historical significance of what you’re doing? Are you so tone deaf? Why don’t you include addresses so that people’s homes can be attacked?” wrote the reader, who requested anonymity, to Greg Brock, a senior Times editor.
“My parents were Holocaust survivors and the first thing the Nazis wanted to know is: where are the Jews? This merely furthers the classic anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty,” the reader added.
In a response, Brock defended and praised the tracker, saying he wished the Times has published it “sooner.”
“I’m not going to get into the gutter with you with name calling and saying your email is ‘stupid’—as you said of us,” Brock wrote. “But it would be helpful if you did your homework. You’ll find that we are in excellent journalistic company. I just wish the Times had thought of it sooner so we do not appear to be copying others.”
Brock maintained that Jewish publications, which are written for local Jewish communities, have run similar reports detailing which lawmakers voting for and against the deal are Jewish.
“Do you ever read the Jewish press—some of the finest journalism around, in my humble opinion,” the editor argued. “If you search online right now, you will see that these publications have been keeping a running count of the voting position of Jewish senators and representatives for weeks.”
Brock’s response prompted further outrage from the Jewish reader.
“Do you understand that dual loyalty is a classic anti-Semitic trope? Do you understand that the accusation that Jews are voting against their national interests and for their faith-based communal interest is a call to violence?” the person wrote. “Somehow, the sensitivity you show to racial issues is lost when your target is Jewish.”
“Do you understand that you’re creating a hostile environment for Jews whether they agree with theNYTimes editorial position or not?” asked the reader, who further described the post as “stupid” and offensive.
Brock declined to comment further for this report.
The original Times graphic included a column titled, “Jewish?” It also included “State and estimated Jewish population.”
Jewish leaders chastised the Times for feeding into what they called Jewish stereotypes.
“It’s a grotesque insult to the intelligence of the people who voted for and will vote against [the deal],” said Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which combats anti-Semitism.
This type of reporting “does a disservice to the issue and that’s the exact opposite job of the New York Times,” Cooper said. “They have some explaining to do. Why’d they do it? Shame on the New York Times for the timing and implications of this piece.”
After outrage erupted online and elsewhere, the Times’ public editor, Margaret Sullivan, addressed the controversy, praising the Times for altering the “insensitive graphic.”
“The graphic, as almost everyone now seems to agree, was insensitive and inappropriate,” she wrote. “I would add that it was regrettably tone-deaf. It shouldn’t have appeared in that form to begin with. Given that it did, Times editors took the right action in listening to the objections and changing it.
The post New York Times Editor Unloads on Jewish Critic appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.
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Moscow claimed Friday that the White House presented a false account of how next week’s meeting between President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin was arranged.
Reuters reported that Kremlin adviser Yury Ushakov told journalists that the Obama administration “distorted” the truth by claiming that Putin requested the meeting, which will occur following his remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in New York Monday.
According to Moscow, the Obama White House proposed the meeting.
“Details of such preparations are usually not public,” Ushakov said Friday. “But since the American side has decided to present its version, which distorts what happened … I will point out straight away that the statement by the White House Press Secretary [Josh] Earnest that the Russian president sought the meeting, repeatedly asked about its organisation, does not correspond to the truth.”
Earnest said Thursday that the Russian government had made “repeated requests” to meet with Obama.
“I think it is fair for you to say that based on the repeated requests we’ve seen from the Russians, that they are quite interested in having a conversation with President Obama,” the White House spokesman said.
Ushakov told reporters that Moscow “expects more tactful and professional attitude to such kinds of subjects from the U.S. partners.”
The meeting between the two leaders precipitated after Russia began increasing its military activity in Syria. Though the Obama administration has warned Russia that increasing military aid to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime will exacerbate the Syrian civil war, Moscow has continued to send troops and equipment to the country.
Ushakov said Friday that Syria would be the main focus of the conversation between Obama and Putin but that the two would also broach the subject of the chaos in Ukraine.
The post Russia: Obama Administration Lied About Meeting with Putin appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.
Syria Now Middle Ground In A New Regional War?by therearenosunglasses
Syria is now in the middle of a new, more dangerous Cold War Sep 24, 2015Pavel Koshkin RD Interview: Professor Emeritus of Columbia University Robert Legvold argues that Russia and the U.S. are in the second phase of a new Cold War that has the potential to exacerbate the situation in Syria and become another […]
Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.
IRAQ and SYRIA
President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet. The leaders will meet next week in New York, amid escalating tensions over Moscow’s involvement in Syria, and US hopes that a diplomatic solution to the conflict might be reached. [Wall Street Journal’s Carol E. Lee] White House press secretary Josh Earnest went to great length to emphasize that President Putin had pushed for the meeting, not the other way around, highlighting the delicacies of the situation, write Peter Baker and Michael R. Gordon. [New York Times]
The White House and the Kremlin are in disagreementover the priority for the talks between the leaders, with the White House emphasizing eastern Ukraine and the Kremlin the situation in Syria. [Reuters’ Roberta Rampton and Denis Dyomkin] Tom McCarthy and Alec Luhn further discuss the miscommunications between the US and Russia ahead of the meeting, at the Guardian.
Iran has reportedly rejected White House openness to talks between President Hassan Rouhani and President Obama, despite Tehran playing a key role in any Syria resolution, report Carol E. Lee et al. [Wall Street Journal]
The US will refuse to discuss a Russian draft statement that Moscow had hoped the UN Security Council would approve, an effort to bolster its position on the Syrian conflict ahead of the General Assembly next week. [Al Jazeera]
The Economist asks “why is Russia doing this just now?” exploring the various explanations and multiple “parts to the answer.”
Yazda International and Free Yazidi Foundation are calling on the ICC to investigate allegations of genocide committed by ISIS against the Yazidi community in Iraq. Members of the group, backed by the Kurdish regional government, met with ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, presenting their new report on the subject. [VICE News’ Rachel Browne]
ISIS’s social media presence has diminished since the death of a top recruiter in a recent drone strike, US intelligence officials say. [NBC News’ Richard Esposito]
YEMEN
Saudi Arabia is pushing against efforts in the UN Human Rights Council for an international inquiry into the conduct of parties to the Yemeni conflict. A Dutch resolution to the council calls for the high commissioner for human rights to send a mission to Yemen. [New York Times’ Nick Cumming-Bruce] Amnesty International added its voice today, calling for an investigation into violations of international humanitarian law on all sides to the war. [Reuters]
The Yemeni branch of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an attack Thursday on a Houthi controlled, Shi’ite mosque in Sana’a that killed 26 people. [Wall Street Journal’s Mohammed Al-Kibsi and Asa Fitch]
“Six months into this war the situation is not quite a stalemate but both sides do appear increasingly entrenched.” Frank Gardner analyzes “one of the most under-reported” conflicts of recent times, for the BBC.
SURVEILLANCE, TECHNOLOGY and PRIVACY
Privacy activists announced the launch of a campaign to push for a global treaty against mass government surveillance, at an event in New York yesterday. Appearing through video link, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden discussed the draft treaty bearing his name. [The Intercept’s Murtaza Hussain; VICE News’ Samuel Oakford]
NSA Director Adm Michael Rogers emphasized the need for bulk collection during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday, saying that ending the practice would “significantly reduce […] operational capabilities.” [The Hill’s Julian Hattem]
“We don’t actually know what was actually exfiltrated.” James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, conceded that the US government still does not know what was stolen in the OPM hack, during an appearance at Georgetown University. [Foreign Policy’s Elias Groll]
“Industrial control systems” that support data centers pose a hacking risk as they can open a back door to breaches, writes Robert McMillan. [Wall Street Journal]
UKRAINE and RUSSIA
UN agencies have been ordered out of parts of eastern Ukraine by Luhansk based Russian-backed separatists. [BBC] The UN’s top humanitarian official has expressed alarm at the reports, calling for all parties as well as those “with influence over [them]” to ensure the resumption of humanitarian efforts in the region. [UN News Centre]
Russian President Vladimir Putin will speak at the UN General Assembly on Monday, the leader’s first appearance there for a decade. His appearance is said to be an effort to show he will not be isolated from the international community, reports Andrew Roth. [Washington Post]
ISRAEL and PALESTINE
Israel’s security cabinet approved a series of measures yesterday aimed at cracking down on violent protests by Palestinians in Jerusalem, including greater power for security forces to open fire. [New York Times’ Isabel Kershner; Wall Street Journal’s Joel Greenberg]
The Shin Bet security services will not be required to record footage of its interrogations, contrary to the recommendations of a 2013 committee. [Haaretz’s Barak Ravid]
AFGHANISTAN
Officials are reviewing new drawdown options for Afghanistan, skeptical of White House plans to scale back military presence in the country. The recommendations include keeping thousands of American troops stationed there past 2016, according to officials. [Wall Street Journal’s Julian E. Barnes and Gordon Lubold]
“The very strange case of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.” Wade Goodwyn discusses the facts surrounding Bergdahl’s disappearance from his base in 2009, at NPR.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
An email relating to Libya is being examined by the FBI “as it tries to determine whether aides to Mrs Clinton mishandled delicate national security information when they communicated with their boss,” report Eric Lipton and Michael S. Schmidt, discussing the ongoing controversy relating to the former secretary of state’s private email server. [New York Times]
China’s President Xi Jinping arrived in Washington DC yesterday afternoon for his first official state visit. The leaders will have a series of meetings and a joint press conference today, culminating in an official state dinner tonight. [The Hill’s Cory Bennett]
A parole board has cleared another Guantánamo “forever prisoner” for release; Saudi national Mohammed Shimrani was once suspected of being a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. The decision means that 53 of the 114 detainees at the US Naval base in Cuba are cleared for release. [Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg]
President Obama is expected to cross paths with Cuban President Raúl Castro at the UN General Assembly next week in New York, the White House said yesterday. [The Hill’s Jordan Fabian]
Read on Just Security »
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 KGOU |
U.S.-China Cyber Agreement Doesn't Address Intellectual Property, Non-State Actors
KGOU The rules under discussion would have done nothing to stop the theft of 22 million personal security files from the Office of Personnel Management, which the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., recently told Congress did not ... and more » |
Latin Post |
Obama administration backs off bypass of smartphone encryption
Santa Fe New Mexican WASHINGTON — An Obama administration working group has explored four possible approaches tech companies might use that would allow law enforcement to unlock encrypted communications — access that some tech firms say their systems are not set ... Obama administration explored ways to bypass smartphone encryptionWashington Post all 17 news articles » |
opensource.com |
Encryption back doors: Is there more to this debate?
opensource.com "I think that it's a mistake to require companies that are making hardware and software to build a duplicate key or a back door even if you hedge it with the notion that there's going to be a court order. And I say that for a number of reasons and I've ... |
United States officials have denied reports that a group of Syrian rebels trained by the American military surrendered to an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria almost as soon as they were deployed there from bases in Turkey.
Appeals Court to Reinstate Lawsuit Against FBI by Insane Clown Posse Fans
Bay Area Indymedia Filed by the ACLU of Michigan in January 2014 on behalf of four Juggalos and the two members of Insane Clown Posse (ICP), the lawsuit argues that the fans were wrongly listed as a “hybrid” gang in 2011 in the Justice Department's National Gang Threat ... |
The Boston Globe |
'Black Mass' film skips corrupt FBI agent's utility job
The Boston Globe As the Bulger story hits the big screen in the Johnny Depp movie “Black Mass,” what's missing from the drama is that after Connolly retired from the FBI in 1990 he spent a decade bouncing around the business community as an executive at Boston Edison, ... The Murky World Of FBI InformantsWBUR all 129 news articles » |
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WBUR |
The Murky World Of FBI Informants
WBUR New Yorker: Assets and Liabilities – “Nobody knows how many confidential informants are working for the F.B.I. at any time, but in a 2008 budget request the bureau put the number at fifteen thousand. After the degree of official complicity in Bulger's ... 'Black Mass' film skips corrupt FBI agent's utility jobThe Boston Globe all 120 news articles » |
Newsweek |
Why Are FBI Agents Trammeling the Rights of Antiwar Activists?
Newsweek Five years ago this week, FBI agents raided the homes of six political activists of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) in Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin, as well as the office of the nonprofit Anti-War Committee. Those activists are ... |
September 25, 2015, 6:44 PM (IDT)
Russian, Syrian and Iranian military commanders have set up a coordination cell in Baghdad in recent days to try to begin working with Iranian-backed Shiite militias fighting the Islamic State, Western intelligence sources report. Describing the arrival of Russian military personnel in Baghdad, one senior US official said, "They are popping up everywhere."
September 25, 2015, 7:27 PM (IDT)
Russian pilots were seen for the first time Friday flying fighter and bomber jets over northwestern Syria, US military and intelligence sources reported. They appeared to be studying the terrain ahead of future combat missions. Also Friday, Russian marines took over the checkpoints around Latakia, accompanied by Syrian officers serving as interpreters. DEBKAfile: This action was taken to bar suicide bombers’ access to the Russian facilities.
Fox News |
Russians, Syrians and Iranians setting up military coordination cell in Baghdad
Fox News EXCLUSIVE: Russian, Syrian and Iranian military commanders have set up a coordination cell in Baghdad in recent days to try to begin working with Iranian-backed Shia militias fighting the Islamic State, Fox News has learned. Western intelligence ... Putin's military intervention in Syria, explainedVox Israel and Russia to coordinate Syrian military effortsWashington Times Israel military says it is coordinating with Russia on SyriaU.S. News & World Report Telegraph.co.uk all 890 news articles » |
"There is no other solution to the Syrian crisis than strengthening the effective government structures," the Russian president says
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Middle East editor Richard Spencer outlines the real motivation for Russia's support of the Assad regime in Syria
The subterranean grandeur of the metro ignites an orphan’s short life, recalled from beyond the grave
“My mother died when I was eight and I died four years later.” It sounds like a bleak premise for a novel: the posthumous reminiscences of a Moscow orphan who, in his short life, faces domestic violence and ubiquitous racism. But exiled Uzbek writer Hamid Ismailov weaves this story of mundane misery and visceral decay into a luminous elegy for late-Soviet Moscow. He uses the city’s famously palatial metro stations to construct a fictionalised memoir inspired by episodes from his own unsettled life.
Threatened with arrest because the Uzbek government felt his journalism had “unacceptably democratic tendencies”, Ismailov fled Tashkent in the early 1990s and eventually settled in London, where he now works for the BBC. In between, as a refugee, he spent many peripatetic months in Moscow; his daughter attended four different schools in one year because the family were constantly chasing opportunities for work and housing. In The Underground Ismailov has fused her experiences with other strands of inspiration, giving the young narrator an ethnically diverse heritage similar to that of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.
Related: Landscapes of Communism by Owen Hatherley review – a dissenter’s tour of Soviet architecture
Continue reading...Russian troops in Syria could end up helping Isis, report claimsby Julian Borger Diplomatic Editor
Analysts say involvement ‘underlines contradictions of Kremlin’ as troops are in areas where they are likely to fight groups opposed to Isis
The deployment of Russian troops in Syria could end up helping Islamic State as they have been sent to areas where they are most likely to fight other groups opposed to Isis, according to a new report.
The Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) report comes ahead of a US-Russian summit meeting at the UN on Monday, when Barack Obama will question Vladimir Putin on the intention behind Russia’s deepening military involvement in Syria, according to US officials.
Continue reading...
Russian diplomats believe Putin's trip and new Syrian gambit will reopen doors in the West.
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· · · ·
Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised the “creativity” and “openness” of Americans as he prepares for an address to the United Nations in New York next week and key talks with President Barack Obama.
Russian police have launched an investigation into US tech giant Apple on charges of “homosexual propaganda” over emojis featuring same-sex couples used on its iOS operating system.
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 New York Times |
Who Wanted to Meet First? Russia Says It Was Obama
New York Times After the White House announced on Thursday that President Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would meet on Monday in New York, Mr. Obama's press secretary, Josh Earnest, emphasized that it was Russia that had wanted the meeting. A no-show for a decade, Russia's Putin is heading to the UNWashington Post Vladimir Putin addresses Russia's intentions in SyriaCBS News White House: Sanctions, oil leave Russia damagedUPI.com Washington Free Beacon -Washington Times-Vox all 1,757 news articles » |
 Fox News |
Russians, Syrians and Iranians setting up military coordination cell in Baghdad
Fox News EXCLUSIVE: Russian, Syrian and Iranian military commanders have set up a coordination cell in Baghdad in recent days to try to begin working with Iranian-backed Shia militias fighting the Islamic State, Fox News has learned. Western intelligence ... and more » |
 CNN |
Russian fighter jets enter Syria with transponders off
CNN Washington (CNN) A U.S. official told CNN Thursday that Russian fighter jets turned off their transponders as they flew into Syria in an apparent attempt to avoid detection. The official said the fighters flew very close to a transport plane that had... Russian troops in Syria could end up helping Isis, report claimsThe Guardian Pentagon: Russian Drones, Pilots Scouting Targets in SyriaDaily Beast US Moves on Russia Ties; Iran Holds Back Wall Street Journal Los Angeles Times -Newsweek- Washington Times all 986 news articles » |
 Yahoo News |
Vladmir Putin addresses Russia's intentions in Syria
CBS News The White House said Thursday that President Obama will meet face-to-face with RussianPresident Vladimir Putin on Monday in New York. Syria's civil war will undoubtedly come up. Putin just sent a fleet of Russian warplanes to prop up the Assad ... A no-show for a decade, Russia's Putin is heading to the UNWashington Post Russia announces naval drills in 'east Mediterranean'Yahoo News Obama to meet with Putin at UN next weekUSA TODAY ABC News -NBCNews.com -Aljazeera.com (blog) all 1,477 news articles » |
Obama-Putin Meeting: Kremlin, White House Spar Over Who Invited Whom by support@pangea-cms.com (Mike Eckel)
By all accounts, the conversation that U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin will have in New York is likely to be serious and substantive over issues like Syria and Ukraine.
September 10, 2015
Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for September 4- 10, 2015
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September 18, 2015
Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for September 11-18, 2015
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said that Russia’s presence in Syria reinforces President Bashar al-Assad and "increases their moral responsibility in crimes committed by the regime."
Russia’s Market Mythology by Stephen Blank
Samuel Johnson famously advised James Boswell and his circle to “clear your mind of cant.” This is equally sound advice for students and commentators about Russia but it is not always followed. As a result much of contemporary writing about Russia falls prey to various mythologies. One of the pervasive and most stubborn of these is that Russia, unlike its Soviet predecessor, has a market economy and is therefore less vulnerable to economic crises that could undermine the system. This myth, however, is belied by the facts and as Khrushchev reminded his colleagues, “facts are stubborn things.”
Undoubtedly observers are misled because Russia seems to possess many of the institutions of a market economy: corporations, banks, a stock exchange, etc. But none of these factors constitute what is essential for the existence of a market economy and the advent of capitalism, whatever its form. These factors are private ownership of the means of production, as secured by law, and the sanctity of contracts. Neither of these exists in Russia or is likely to emerge anytime soon. In an age of mixed public-private enterprises throughout all the major Western economies there is, of course, no such thing in reality as pure capitalism, although it exists in theory. Nevertheless for a capitalist economy — i.e. one where there is a market that more or less governs economic trends, activities and developments — to exist, there are certain basic necessities that Russia not only lacks but also that its government is determined to uproot or supplant and replace with the state.
First of all there is no right to private property in law. This means that nobody in Russia can actually securely own property. Regardless of what is written on paper, every property owner knows that it can be taken away (or alienated) from him anytime the government wants to do so. In a true market economy this cannot be done, except by force of a legitimate law democratically legislated and adjudicated. In Russia — as the Khodorkovsky, Browder-Magnitsky and Yakunin cases show for all their differences — when Mr. Putin decides he wants to remove the owner of a property either from power or from liberty, or from Russia, he and his officials who are also equally complicit in these deeds do so unceremoniously. Indeed, as Peter Baker and Susan Glasser long ago showed, even high-ranking officials who own major state corporations and direct them serve and own these properties merely as a condition of their utility and service to Putin. Once that service is over or their utility as servitors fully compromised Putin removes them. The same was true under Communism for the Nomenklatura , or ruling class. They had rank, access to privileges, etc. but when their usefulness ended, if they were lucky they were retired or, if worse, exiled to the Gulag or shot along with their families.
Tsarist rule too was no different, although towards the end it was much more humane. Indeed many scholars, including, among others, this author and his teacher, the late Richard Hellie (a noted specialist in medieval Russian history), accurately described Russia ten years ago as being built along the same lines as the Tsarist service state. Thus these state corporations which are owned by the people who govern and rule Russia perfectly manifest the ongoing feudal principle that property and power are fused and that all property belongs to the state, or more accurately to Vladimir Putin who can do with it as he pleases. Observers should remember that in 2011 Putin and Medvedev’s so called “castling” move (Rokirovka in Russian) demonstrated for all to see that in their eyes the entire state belongs to Vladimir Putin as his personal property and he can do with it or its component parts as he pleases. This patrimonial ownership of the state is the essence of state power in Russia and precludes the emergence of any secure property rights in law or of a market economy. And the ensuing corollary of this patrimonialism is the service state. Moreover the absence of private property rights compromises the ability to agitate for civil, human, and political rights, and as Richard Pipes observed years ago, lies at the heart of Putin’s continuing patrimonial autocracy of Putin.
Second, because there are no rights in law to property and no civil, human, or political rights, there is no concept of the rule of law — and thus the sanctity of contracts among free legal entities. Equally importantly, there can be no accountability of the Tsar (or President) to law or any legally constituted authority. This is not only a case of the Russian proverb quoted by Stalin that paper endures whatever is written on it. Rather this condition is another defining attribute of the Russian state. Economic activity at all time takes place under the sufferance of state authorities and indeed, state authorities own at least half if not more of the Russian economy, and numerous cases show that “private businessmen,” even if they possess or possessed good contacts with the Kremlin, own their empires and properties merely at the tolerance of those authorities.
Under such conditions there may be individual markets in goods and services, and Russia is clearly in many (albeit often distorted) ways vulnerable to the vagaries of the global marketplace. But under no circumstances can we say that Russia is a market economy. Similarly this kind of economy, despite the ingrained corruption, does not preclude growth, but as Angus Madison demonstrated, growth over the long term is invariably inferior to that of true market economies. Thus the continuation of Putinism consigns Russia to eternal backwardness if not wholesale corruption. In no way are such tendencies or prognoses consistent with a market economy.
We would all be better off if authors writing about Russia relearned some basic aspects of what used to be called political economy or “Economics 101” rather than succumbing to the lazy mythology of Russian studies. Whatever others may write; the stubborn reality remains that Russia today is still what it always has been, namely a patrimonial autocracy and service state.
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With legislative elections looming in Kyrgyzstan, the Russia-friendly media that dominate the country are setting the narrative. And lead Kremlin spin doctor Dmitry Kiselyov was in Bishkek to check on how they are doing. (RFE/RL's Current Time TV)
What To Look For When Putin Speaks At The UNby support@pangea-cms.com (Mike Eckel)
Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech before the UN General Assembly will be watched closely for clues to his intentions, and what he wants the rules of the new world order to be.
Today there are unconfirmed reports that Russian soldiers killed in Syria have been brought to the Russian military port in Sevastopol, Crimea.
The previous post in our Putin in Syria column can be found here.
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Shostakovich has been as misunderstood as his great opera was. It’s time to stop viewing both the man and his works through the lens of Stalinism
Dmitri Shostakovich probably had a bad feeling already, when he picked up his copy of Pravda at Arkhangelsk station on 28 January 1936. Two evenings beforehand, in Moscow, the composer had endured a shock.
The commissar himself, Joseph Stalin, had come to hear Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, which had been touring successfully for two years. Stalin did not agree with the accolades that had greeted this culmination of Shostakovich’s effervescent, avant-garde work to date; he left his seat in the Bolshoi theatre, appalled, before the final scene. Shostakovich wrote to his friend Ivan Sollertinsky: “The show went very well. I was called out by the audience and took a bow. My only regret is that I did not do so after the third act. Feeling sick at heart, I collected my briefcase and went to the station.”
The work bursts with lust, ennui, sex, defiance, crime – and the politics of freedom
Shostakovich has been straightjacketed into the miserable, perennially depressed and depressive but heroic dissident
Even Pierre Boulez accused Shostakovich of writing 'cliches'
Stalin’s boorish verdict in Pravda was, for Shostakovich, the delivery of a life sentence for purgartory
Continue reading...Putin Heads to UN With Serious Syrian Agendaby webdesk@voanews.com (Charles Maynes)
Russian President Vladimir Putin travels to New York on Monday for a highly touted speech at the United Nations General Assembly — his first appearance at the international body in nearly a decade. But Putin's trip to New York is also part of a wider effort to show the world he will not be sidelined on the international stage. Russia's tacit war in Ukraine, Moscow's support for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, and the Kremlin's rollback of democratic freedoms at home have all soured relations with the West to levels not seen since the days of the Cold War. Even Putin's meeting with President Obama — announced Thursday — marks the first direct talks between the two leaders in nearly a year. Indeed, disagreements between Moscow and Washington run so deep that arguments have already broken out over what topics will be covered and how the meeting came about — with the Kremlin saying it was arranged bilaterally and the White House insisting the meeting comes in response to repeated requests from the Russian leader. Either way, White House officials say the talks reflect Obama's desire not to waste a diplomatic opportunity at a critical juncture. "Given the situations in Ukraine and Syria, despite our profound differences with Moscow, the president believes that it would be irresponsible not to test whether we can make progress through high-level engagement with the Russians," said a White House official on Thursday. Syrian gambit Yet Russian analysts say it's Putin's recent Syrian gambit more than Ukraine that willed these talks into being. Washington simply had no choice given the changing military picture on the ground in Syria. Over the past month, the Kremlin has continued to ferry arms and personnel to an air base in Syria's coastal province of Latakia, leading U.S. defense officials to conclude that Russia may be setting up a forward air operating base there. These moves prompted direct talks between top defense officials on both sides to try to ensure there are no hostile encounters between American and Russian aircraft in Syrian airspace. But while Russia has remained coy about its military objectives in Syria, Moscow-based analyst Dmitry Oreshkin says the political calculus was obvious all along. "Putin needs the West to have no choice but to meet with him," says Oreshkin. "He's already sent in troops into Syria. Putin's de facto already there so he's a player. And now the conditions are set for a deal." Just what "deal" the Russian leader might seek is open to speculation. What he has to offer — less so. In a regional summit in Central Asia earlier this month, Putin called for Western powers to join Russia in an international anti-terrorism campaign aimed at wiping out the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS. "Simple common sense and responsibility for global and regional safety require uniting efforts of the international community [to fight] such a threat," argued the Russian leader. Russia's Foreign Ministry says Putin will return to this theme on Monday. But Moscow's unwavering support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad tand insistence that Assad be part of any future peace settlement with the Syrian opposition — complicates the offer. Western nations accuse the Syrian leader of war crimes and say he must go. Russian officials have further muddied the picture by suggesting the Kremlin may go it alone in Syria should the West refuse Putin's offer. It's a threat military analysts regard as more bark than bite. "To change the situation on the ground in Assad's favor to defeat the opposition and ISIS we would need to deploy tens of thousands of troops. Maybe a hundred thousand in Syria," says Pavel Felgenhauer, a leading Russian military analyst. "That's absolutely out of the question." Public support fading? Felgenhauer questions the level of public support for an extended military campaign — particularly if Russian boots are on the ground. Already this week there have been reports of Russian soldiers refusing deployment until the nature of their mission — and benefits to family members should they fall in harm's way — is made clear. Yet observers say Putin's real aim in New York may be to offer Russian cooperation in Syria for an easing of Western sanctions imposed over Russia's actions in Ukraine. Just how receptive Obama and other Western leaders are to that message may determine just how far Putin's loyalties to Syrian President al-Assad extend. Either way, Felgenhauer says that the Russian gambit in Syria has proven a creative — if high-stakes — way to force the West to take Putin's plan for a grand anti-terror coalition against ISIS seriously. "Moscow has been promoting that plan since June and no one was taking it seriously," says Felgenhauer. "Well, they are now."
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Top US General Dempsey Leaves Mixed Legacyby webdesk@voanews.com (Carla Babb)
The top U.S. general, Martin Dempsey, is stepping down as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on October 1. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb sat down with the general, who candidly discussed some of the struggles that have shaped his legacy.
Whoever takes over will be under heavy pressure to confront Democrats and the White House to a greater degree than Representative John A. Boehner did as the Speaker of the House, meaning the job won’t get any easier.
Russia denies American assertions that the Kremlin sought the meeting between President Vladimir V. Putin and President Obama that is set for Monday.
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