Taliban Remain Serious Threat in Provinces Around Kunduz - by VOAvideo
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Even though Afghan security forces have regained control of the northern city of Kunduz from the Taliban after fierce fighting, the security situation in the region is still tenuous. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem traveled to Baghlan Province, neighboring Kunduz, and has this report on the situation there.
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/taliban-remain-serious-threat-in-provinces-around-kunduz/3013380.html
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/taliban-remain-serious-threat-in-provinces-around-kunduz/3013380.html
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Violence Escalates In Jerusalem And West Bank
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Pakistan plans to appoint a recently retired army general as its new national security adviser, senior officials have told Reuters, indicating yet another step forward in the Pakistani military’s effort to increase its control of the country’s government.
Lieut. General Naseer Khan Janjua will soon be appointed to the key diplomatic and strategic post and will accompany Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on an upcoming visit to the U.S., Reuters cited one military and two civilian officials as saying.
Janjua retired from the armed forces last week and will reportedly replace current national securityadviser Sartaj Aziz, who also holds a key post in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“The army chief feels that Sartaj Sahib ’s attention is divided,” the military source told Reuters. “So it has been decided that General Janjua will be appointed the national security adviser and Sartaj Aziz can give his full attention to the foreign office.”
In his new role, Janjua will oversee Pakistan’s security affairs, including negotiations with nemesis India.
Aziz is a key confidante of Sharif, who was deposed by a military coup during his previous term as Prime Minister in 1999 before being re-elected in 2013.
Sharif has often been at odds with the military leadership during his current term as well, adopting a far more reconciliatory attitude toward India than the military would like (although the strategy has thus far failed to improve frosty relations between two countries that have fought three wars since their independence in 1947).
Scheduled bilateral talks between Aziz and his Indian counterpart in September were called off at the last minute over a disagreement on the agenda — with Pakistan insisting that the disputed region of Kashmir must be part of the dialogue and India demanding it be restricted to Pakistan’s alleged sponsorship of cross-border terrorism.
Periodic skirmishes between the two armies on the border they share are also a common occurrence despite a 2003 cease-fire agreement, and hard-line nationalist parties in India affiliated with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party have gone as far as preventing Pakistani artists and authors from conducting events in the country.
“The army had advised the PM against engaging Modi, but [Sharif] had insisted that he would pursue peace talks,” the military official told Reuters. “He is very disappointed by Modi’s response, and he has realized that perhaps the advice he got then was correct.”
Janjua’s appointment has been months in the making, a senior minister in the Pakistan government added, saying the country’s army chief has ultimately “convinced” Sharif of the necessity of government-military cooperation on foreign policy.
“This is not about the PM conceding to the army chief or the army being a bully, not at all,” said the military official. “This is about both sides deciding together.”
[Reuters]
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(TEL AVIV, Israel) — The U.S. military is confirming that an airstrike in Syria by the U.S.-led coalition has killed a top al-Qaeda commander.
The Pentagon says a Saudi national known as Sanafi al-Nasr was “a longtime jihadist experienced in funneling money and fighters” for the terrorist network.
A statement from the U.S. Defense Department says coalition forces conducted the airstrike on Thursday over northwest Syria.
The U.S. says he was a leading figure in the Khorasan group — a secretive cell of al-Qaeda operatives who U.S. officials say were sent from Pakistan to Syria to plot attacks against the West.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter says the military operation “deals a significant blow” to the Khorasan group’s plans to attack the U.S. and its allies.
A U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the strike publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity said an American drone targeted and struck the militant.
JERUSALEM — An Eritrean migrant shot by an Israeli security guard and then attacked by bystanders who mistook him for an assailant in a deadly bus station attack has died of his wounds, Israeli hospital officials said Monday.
The mistaken shooting of the migrant, for reasons that remain unclear, reflected the shattered nerves among Israelis after months of seemingly random lone-wolf attacks by Palestinians.
“It’s terrible,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon. “It shows you what a terrible situation we are in.”
The daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot left no ambiguity as to exactly why the man, identified as Mulu Habtom Zerhom, was shot. Monday’s headline read: “Just because of his skin color.”
Dr. Nitza Neuman-Heiman, deputy general director of Soroka Medical Center, told Army Radio that Zerhom arrived at the hospital in “very serious condition” and died late Sunday from both gunshot wounds and the injuries sustained during attacks by bystanders. The hospital said he suffered gunshot wounds to the abdomen.
The attack, at the central bus station in the southern city of Beersheba, was among the bloodiest in a monthlong wave of violence. A 19-year-old Israeli soldier was killed and nine people were wounded when an Arab assailant armed with a gun and knife opened fire.
Israeli news websites posted security camera footage that shows Zerhom, crawling on the floor and a security guard shooting him. Footage also showed a mob of shouting Israelis crowded around the man as he lay in a pool of blood. A bench was rammed at him and he was kicked in the back of the head, as an Israeli officer and a few bystanders tried to protect him.
An Israeli identified only by the first name Dudu told Israeli Army Radio that he regretted participating in the attack on the Eritrean migrant.
“I understood from people he was a terrorist. If I would have known he wasn’t a terrorist, believe me, I would have protected him like I protect myself,” he said. “I didn’t sleep well at night. I feel disgusted.”
Police are seeking to arrest those Israeli civilians who “aggressively beat” and kicked the Eritrean man “while he lay on the floor and posed no threat,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
During a month of violence, nine Israelis and the Eritrean have been killed in a wave of shootings and stabbings by Palestinian assailants. Forty-one Arabs — including 20 identified by Israel as attackers — have been killed, with the rest dying in clashes with Israeli troops.
The attacks, carried out seemingly randomly by attackers with no known membership to organized militant groups, have unnerved Israel.
Zerhom was in Beersheba to renew his Israeli visa, his employer at a plant nursery, Sagi Malachi, told Army Radio.
About 34,000 Eritrean migrants are in Israel. They say they are fleeing persecution and conflict and seek refugee status. Israel does not grant them refugee status, but does not deport them to Eritrea in line with international law so as not to endanger their lives. Migrants must renew Israeli visas every month or two, according to migrant activists.
African migrants began pouring into Israel in 2007, with their numbers steadily growing until Israel built a fence along the Egyptian border in 2012. Many Israelis fear the influx threatens the country’s Jewish character, with one right-wing Israeli lawmaker calling migrants a “cancer.” Migrants say they experience racial discrimination in Israel.
“The death of an asylum seeker at the hands of security guards and an angry mob is a tragic but foreseeable outgrowth of a climate in which some Israeli politicians encourage citizens to take the law into their own hands,” said Sari Bashi of Human Rights Watch
Israeli police identified the assailant as 21 year-old Mohannad al-Okbi, an Arab citizen of Israel, from the Bedouin town of Hura in southern Israel. He was shot and killed in the attack. Security officers arrested one of al-Okbi’s relatives on suspicion that he assisted the attacker, Samri said.
The Israeli security agency Shin Bet said the attacker had no past record of involvement in militant activity.
The violence began last month with clashes between young Palestinian men and Israeli forces at the most sensitive holy site in Jerusalem — a hilltop compound revered by both Jews and Muslims. The violence quickly spread to the rest of Jerusalem, across Israel and into the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The clashes were fueled by Palestinian allegations that Israel seeks to change the status quo banning Jewish prayer at the site, allegations Israel denies.
Israel has accused Palestinian and Muslim leaders of inciting violence against Israel. Palestinians say the violence is in response to anger over the Jerusalem holy site and also nearly 50 years of occupation and lack of hope for the future.
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MOSCOW (Reuters) - A French military jet was involved in a dangerous incident with an aircraft carrying the speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, Russia's foreign ministry said on Monday.
LONDON (Reuters) - President Xi Jinping will be feted by the royal family and leading politicians during a trip this week which Prime Minister David Cameron hopes will cement Britain's lucrative place as China's closest friend in the West.
Hundreds of migrants stood in the rain, unable to continue after Slovenia refused to let them enter its territory from neighboring Croatia. Slovenia has announced a daily quota of 2,500 migrants. Most migrants had previously traveled from Croatia into Hungary, but this route has been cut off since Hungary completed a fence along its border with Croatia on October 16. (Reuters)
BERKASOVO, Serbia/LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - Buses packed with migrants backed up on Serbia’s border with Croatia on Sunday, their passage to western Europe slowed by a new diversion through Slovenia, which vowed to limit the influx.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States approved conditional sanctions waivers for Iran on Sunday, though it cautioned they would not take effect until Tehran has curbed its nuclear program as required under a historic nuclear deal reached in Vienna on July 14.
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israel and the United States signaled on Sunday they were starting to put disputes over the Iran nuclear deal behind them, announcing resumed talks on U.S. defense aid for Israel as it hosted Washington's top general and a joint air force drill.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Eritrean migrant, shot by a security guard and kicked by an angry Israeli crowd that mistook him for a gunman, was identified on Monday as one of the dead from an attack on a bus station in the southern city of Beersheba.
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's domestic intelligence agency is closely monitoring anti-Islam movements like PEGIDA following a march last week in which demonstrators held up a mock gallows with a noose marked for Chancellor Angela Merkel, a spokesman for the interior ministry said.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A drone shot down by Turkish warplanes in Turkish air space near Syria on Friday was Russian-made, but Moscow has told Ankara the unmanned aircraft did not belong to Russia, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told broadcaster AHaber on Monday.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan scrambled fighter jets to prevent possible incursions by Chinese planes a record high number of times for the July-September period, the Defence Ministry said on Monday, with Tokyo and Beijing at loggerheads over disputed islets.
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BAKU (Reuters) - Azeri President Ilham Aliyev fired his National Security Minister Eldar Mahmudov in a surprise move two weeks ahead of a parliamentary election.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey wants fresh EU funding to help tackle the migration crisis rather than the early disbursal of money already earmarked for it, and wants the sum reviewed annually, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Monday.
BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Rebels battling the Syrian army and its allies south of Aleppo say they have received new supplies of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles from states that oppose President Bashar al-Assad since a major government offensive began there on Friday.
GENEVA (Reuters) - Russia is always in favor of talks in any format, the speaker of Russia's upper chamber of parliament said on Monday, in reply to a question about a U.S. plan for a meeting on Syria involving Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan.
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron unveiled a new strategy on Monday to combat extremism, saying the battle was "perhaps the "defining one of this century", but his proposals were condemned by Muslims as demonizing their communities and set to fail.
TRAPANI, Italy (Reuters) - NATO and its allies opened their largest military exercise in more than a decade on Monday, choosing the central Mediterranean to showcase strengths that face threats from Russia's growing military presence from the Baltics to Syria.
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RIYADH (Reuters) - Hit by falling oil prices, Saudi Arabia has set up a new body that aims to improve the efficiency of government agencies while giving more influence to the powerful young Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
The Taliban, in response to what it viewed as negative coverage, threatened to kill anyone working for two of the country’s leading television channels, making personal threats to the journalists.
It's good that people are more demanding, but the epidemic of food intolerance has gone way over the top.
Big Ben's bongs could fall silent if repairs costing up to £40m are not carried out, politicians have warned. Report by Cara Legg.
One assailant and an Israeli soldier are killed at a bus station - the latest attack in a month-long wave of violence in Israel. Report by Cara Legg.
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Does the UK have a new "special relationship?"
An Israeli soldier was killed in a gun attack Sunday at a bus station in Beersheba, southern Israel, according to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
Thousands of migrants and refugees are stranded in Serbia as countries farther west in Europe tighten restrictions on their borders.
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Eurotunnel services are suspended in both directions after an intrusion on the platforms at the terminal in Calais.
Tensions are building among thousands of migrants trying to reach Western Europe via the Balkan states, as new border controls come into effect.
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At least 70,000 Syrians have fled a government offensive on rebel-held areas south of the city of Aleppo in the past three days, an activist says.
Police in Israel are investigating an attack by bystanders on an Eritrean, who died after being mistaken for a gunman and then shot and beaten at a bus station in Beersheba.
A former Moldovan PM, Vlad Filat, is held on suspicion of involvement in a notorious $1bn banking scam.
10 Things to Know for Monday by By The Associated Press
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Monday:...
BEIJING (AP) -- China's economy decelerated in the latest quarter but stronger spending by consumers who are emerging as an important pillar of growth helped to avert a deeper downturn....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Chinese hacking attempts on American corporate intellectual property have occurred with regularity over the past three weeks, suggesting that China almost immediately began violating its newly minted cyberagreement with the United States, according to a newly published analysis by a cybersecurity company with close ties to the U.S. government....
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Yemen’s government spokesman says it has accepted an invitation from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss the implementation of a U.N. resolution that calls for the end of the fighting.
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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks during a meeting of the Alabama Democratic Conference in Hoover, Ala., on Saturday. (Photo: Mark Almond/AP)
The credibility of the Republican-led Benghazi committee came under fresh attack Sunday after the CIA informed the panel that it does not view a 2011 email forwarded by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as including any classified information. The committee chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., had cited Clinton’s handling of the March 18, 2011, email as a prime example of her misusing her private email server to receive and send highly classified information.
The email was sent by her close friend and adviser Sidney Blumenthal and forwarded by Clinton to an aide. It contained the “name of a human source” for the CIA in Libya and was therefore “some of the most protected information in our intelligence community, the release of which could jeopardize not only national security but human lives,” Gowdy wrote in an Oct. 7 letter.
But late Saturday night, a CIA official informed the committee that the agency does not view that email, among 127 previously undisclosed messages sent by Blumenthal to Clinton that the panel plans to release this week, as having any portions that need to be redacted because they include classified information.
The CIA finding prompted Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the panel’s ranking Democrat, to demand that Gowdy publicly apologize for his “irresponsible” allegation. It was, he charged in a letter released Sunday morning, further evidence that the GOP-led committee is making false charges “in order to attack Secretary Clinton for political reasons.”
Gowdy quickly responded in his own lengthy email, conceding the CIA did not seek any redactions in the Blumenthal email but maintaining that it may still have included information “that ordinarily would be considered highly sensitive.”
Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Gowdy then released the full text of the March 18, 2011, message from Blumenthal, minus the identity of the supposed Libya intelligence source. But Gowdy included Blumenthal’s full subject line, which did have the name of an individual apparently blanked out in the rest of the email: Mousa Kousa, Libya’s foreign minister (and previously its intelligence chief), who made a highly publicized defection to the United Kingdom that same month.
The email was filled with seemingly inside information about Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s plans to respond to a United Nations resolution authorizing the use of military force against his regime. The information purportedly came from a former top CIA official and a business associate of Blumenthal, Tyler Drumheller. Drumheller, Blumenthal wrote, had obtained this information from the CIA’s source, apparently Mousa Kousa.
After receiving the email from Blumenthal on her private email account, Clinton forwarded it to a special assistant on her staff, Lauren C. Jiloty, with a two-word instruction: “Pls Print.”
The fact that the CIA did not seek any redactions in the email “appears to mean either Mr. Blumenthal conveyed false and unreliable information to Secretary Clinton about Libya, or the review process [by executive branch agencies] is faulty or has been politicized,” Gowdy wrote in a letter Sunday responding to Cummings.
The new flap over the Blumenthal email comes as the committee is preparing for a possibly climactic showdown this Thursday, when Clinton is slated to testify before the panel.
The Benghazi committee has been on the defensive ever since last month when House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, during a TV appearance on Fox News’ “Sean Hannity Show,” appeared to gloat about how the committee was responsible for Clinton’s plummeting poll numbers.
“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” McCarthy said. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”
McCarthy has since dropped out of the race for House speaker, and the Clinton campaign, Cummings and other committee Democrats have repeatedly blasted the committee as a “taxpayer-funded” partisan political witch hunt.
Gowdy has pushed back, insisting that the committee is diligently seeking all facts related to the Sept. 11, 2011, Benghazi attacks, which led to the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. Gowdy has contended that the repeated emails from Blumenthal are relevant because they may show that Clinton was relying for policy advice on Libya from an outside political adviser who had no expertise on the country and, at the time, had a business arrangement with Drumheller to help a U.S. company, Osprey Global Solutions, secure security and medical contracts from Libyan rebels fighting Gadhafi.
Sidney Blumenthal, an adviser to Hillary Clinton, arrives to be deposed by the House Select Committee on Benghazi in the U.S. Capitol in June. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)
But the committee has so far been unable to point to any examples of Clinton actually acting on Blumenthal’s advice. And Cummings charged Sunday that Gowdy misrepresented a portion of Blumenthal’s March 18, 2011, email relating to the supposed Libyan intelligence source. In his letter, Gowdy had redacted the identity of the source “due to sources and methods” — a standard phrase used by the intelligence community to protect classified information.
But Cummings said the State Department, not the CIA, had requested the committee not reveal the individual’s name publicly over the weekend, “not for classification reasons but to protect the individual’s privacy and avoid bringing additional undue attention to this person.”
“The letter is accurate and reflects our communication with the CIA,” said Alec Gerlach, a State Department spokesman, when asked Sunday about the contents of Cummings’ letter. A CIA spokesman declined comment.
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 Reuters |
Turkey should not become 'concentration camp' for migrants, PM says
Reuters ISTANBUL Turkey wants fresh funding from the European Union in exchange for stopping migrants streaming to Europe but should not be expected to turn itself into a "concentration camp" for refugees, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Monday. Turkey Stocks Head for August High on Merkel Backing; Bonds RiseBloomberg Germany's Angela Merkel Begs for Refugee Help from TurkeyBreitbart News Turkey 'not concentration camp', won't host migrants permanently: PMYahoo News VICE News-Bangor Daily News-International Policy Digest all 73 news articles » |
The large-scale manoeuvres by alliance forces take place amid Moscow's growing military presence from the Baltics to Syria.
 Fox News |
Saudi Arabia Hajj Disaster Death Toll at Least 2110
ABC News The crush and stampede that struck the hajj last month in Saudi Arabia killed at least 2,110 pilgrims, a new Associated Press tally showed Monday, after officials in the kingdom met to discuss the tragedy. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif bin Abdul Aziz ... Number of casualties in September stampede at hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia ...New York Daily News AP count shows last month's hajj disaster in Saudi Arabia killed at least 2110 ...Washington Post Saudi hajj stampede probe continuingVanguard all 134 news articles » |
Russian airstrikes are doing little to help ordinary Syrians, residents of the war-torn country’s northwest told NBC News.
Locals say they have grown used to seeing “a swarm” of up to six planes carrying out as many as 10 strikes per day in western Idlib province since Moscow started bombing earlier this month, emergency response volunteer Mohammed Khdeir said.
The 23-year-old, who lives in Jisr al Shughour, said rescue operations were being carried out every day in the area.
“Airstrikes are daily whether it’s Syrian or Russian,” Khdeir said. “Russian strikes are also more powerful, and their area of destruction…
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NewsBusters (blog) |
Halperin: 'Let's Be Honest, a Lot of FBI Agents Don't Like the Clintons'
NewsBusters (blog) Mark Halperin has alleged that FBI agents conducting the investigation of Hillary's emails are driven in part by personal animus toward the Clintons. Appearing on today's Morning Joe, Halperin said that "of all the entities in the United States that ... and more » |
A new toll shows the crush and stampede that struck the hajj last month in Saudi Arabia killed at least 2,110 pilgrims.
A Navy vessel is departing Virginia on a search for a missing cargo ship that sank in the Atlantic Ocean during Hurricane Joaquin with 33 crewmembers on board.
October 19, 2015, 5:01 PM (IDT)
The stampede at last month's hajj in Saudi Arabia caused the deaths of over 2,100 people, reports said Monday. Riyadh officially maintains that 769 people were killed and 934 were injured in the incident in Mina. The release of the new tallly came after the government held a meeting Sunday night to discuss the incident.
What’s driving Afghans and Pakistanis to risk the journey to Europe and how Radio Mashaal is reporting the crisis.
Georgian opposition parties staged a protest in Tbilisi against what they say are government moves to shut down the country's biggest private TV station.
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LIVE UPDATES: Russian jets continue to strike rebel positions near Aleppo and Homs, with signs today of close coordination with both the Syrian regime and Iran.
The previous post in our Putin in Syria column can be found here.
The Russian Language Does Not Belong to the Russian State, Shtepa Points Out by paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 19 – One of the most memorable passages of Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” is when one GULAG inmate explains to another that Moscow has decided what time it is regardless of where the sun is located in the sky, prompting the latter to speculate that the Soviet state controls even the movements of heavenly bodies.
The reaction of some Russians to the award of the Nobel Prize for literature to Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich brings that to mind because many in Moscow at least argued that even though she writes in Russian, she is not a “Russian” writer because of her rejection of Muscovite imperialism.
The assumption underlying such comments is that the Russian language belongs to the Russian state and should be used only for its purposes, an absurdity which arises out of Muscovite history and one that must be rejected not only by others but by Russians themselves, according to Vadim Shtepa.
The Russian regionalist writer says that attacks on Alexievich and the Nobel committee “reached a climax reminiscent of Soviet times, akin to the kind of ‘condemnation’ Boris Pasternak and Alexander Solzhenitsyn received” because “their works didn’t fit the ideological canons of the time” (intersectionproject.eu/ru/article/russia-world/russkiy-ne-rossiyskiy).
Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn, of course, challenged Soviet doctrine. Alexievich challenges “imperial patriotism,” an as yet unpublic but already “officially imposed” doctrine of the Moscow-centered. Anyone who challenges that by focusing not on imperial glory but “the tragedies of ‘little people’ is thus beyond the pale.
Still worse from this perspective, Alexievich is “not a citizen of Russia.” Instead, she “was born in Ukraine, lives in Belarus and writes in Russia,” a combination that one might think would make her the embodiment of the unity of the three East Slavic peoples Moscow ideologists are usually delighted to emphasize.
But not in her case. Instead, “she is accused of ‘Russophobia,’ something that may appear “strange and absurd” until one recognizes that this term “is employed in contemporary propaganda not to refer to a nation but to a state of being.” Thus anyone critical of the Russian state and its policies is a Russophobe whatever language he or she write in.
In this way, he suggests, the Russian state “arrogates to itself the right to speak on behalf of all Russian culture, even though the Russian Federation arose only in 1991 and many literary works in Russian were written abroad, beyond both its historical and geographical borders.” And that has the effect of distorting that culture into “hack propaganda.”
A related misconception is the notion that “the Russian language belongs to the Russian state” and that the Russian state can and must defend it anywhere – albeit this is a highly selective defense depending on political considerations. Thus, Latvia which does a lot for Russian language instruction is attacked, while Turkmenistan which doesn’t.
More generally, Shtepa writes, the Russian language was used historically as “a tool for the expansion of empire,” one used to Russify non-Russians. In the 19thcentury, the tsars “tried to ban Ukrainian and Belarusian.” This is echoed today in comments by some Moscow propagandists that “Ukrainian was ‘invented by the Austro-Hungarian General Staff.”
Moscow has also retained elements of this forced Russification approach, requiring for example that all languages within Russia must use the Cyrillic alphabet “in order to gain official status. That is, Shtepa says, “a blatant suppression of the laws of linguistics in favor of the interests of imperial unification.”
Not surprisingly this has a negative impact on and is opposed by many non-Russians who have “a natural desire to maintain their own cultural identities.” But however “paradoxical” it may seem, “Russians have not gained anything from this imperial Russification.” Instead, they have become among the biggest losers.
In his native Karelia, Shtepa points out, Karlian has been almost completely “liquidated,” but so too have been the various dialects hitherto spoken by Russians there. These dialects have been deemed “’incompatible with the norms of the Russian language’” and “Muscovite spelling and pronunciation have been proclaimed the only ‘norms’ recognized by the state.”
No other major world language is so state-centered. Great Britain “doesn’t dictate any single globally binding set of rules for English.” It accepts the diversity of English in the US, Australia, and elsewhere. “Germany doesn’t try to make German its ‘property.” And Latin American nations would be shocked if Spain tried to “impose common linguistic norms.”
Russian must be freed from Russia’s use of it “as a tool of imperial policy,” and indeed, Ukraine could help trigger that. There, “Russian is still associated with Russia,” but only because of Russian propaganda. “To reject Russian as a result would be analogous to American revolutionaries rejecting English because the British army spoke it.”
“The awarding of a Nobel prize to a Russian-speaking, non-Russian writer is in fact a recognition of the global role of the Russian language” and highlights the fact that the language belongs to people and not the state, Shtepa says. Indeed, it could lead to the promotion of independent Russian-langauge media outlets in Europe that would triumph over Moscow’s imperial propaganda.
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Iran's top nuclear negotiator says he expects a nuclear deal reached with six world powers to be implemented by the end of the year.
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