#I/WE = IVAN GOLUNOV

[fapfapfashion]

On June 10, for the first time in their history, the business newspapers Vedomosti, Kommersant, and RBC published identical front-page spreads. They were all dedicated to the case against Meduza correspondent Ivan Golunov. By 11:30 AM local time, all three newspapers had nearly sold out in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They also published a joint message arguing that Golunov’s June 6 arrest and the attempted drug distribution charges against him were highly dubious and possibly related to his work as a journalist. English-language image files of the “I/WE = IVAN GOLUNOV” design are downloadable here.

[omgstupendousbouquetbasement]

Russia Jails Kremlin Critic Navalny for 10 Days

A Moscow court jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny for 10 days on Monday after finding him guilty of breaking the law when he took part in a street demonstration last month.

The Kremlin critic was among more than 500 protesters detained by police while rallying in Moscow to call for the punishment of police officers involved in the alleged framing of a journalist.

The protest came after police abruptly dropped drug charges against investigative journalist Ivan Golunov, a rare U-turn by the authorities in the face of anger from his supporters who said he was targeted for his reporting.

The authorities had hoped freeing Golunov and promising punishment for those who allegedly framed him would appease his supporters but they decided to go ahead with a protest nonetheless.

"Ten days of detention for a rally against arbitrariness," Navalny wrote on Twitter after the verdict. "It's unpleasant, but I think I did the right thing. If we remain silent and sit at home, the arbitrariness will never stop."

Navalny, Russia's most prominent opposition figure, has served several stints in jail in recent years for organizing anti-government demonstrations.

The European Court of Human Rights in November ruled that Russia's repeated arrests and detention of Navalny in 2012 and 2014 were politically-motivated and breached his human rights, a ruling Moscow called questionable.

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[not-a-statement]

Все, ребят, приехали!

Жители города Киселевска Кемеровской области - той самой, где дети погибли - записали видеообращение премьер министру Канады Джастину Трюдо с просьбой забрать их из России.

Забрать из России. Вы представляете насколько нужно отчаяться чтобы просить главу другого государства, и даже не соседа Владимира Александровича Зеленского, что было бы логично, не поссорь нас чекист со страной неба в подсолнухах, а вообще с другого континента, помочь людям.

Я на митинги не хожу, у меня канала на ютубе нету - я слишком глуп и не эрудирован для этого - да и у меня всегда установка была другая. Сначала сделать для себя и своей семьи, чтобы деньги были, дом и возможности, а потом политика.

Но это даже не оппозиционные настроения. Это просто ощущение масштабного, тотального кризиса. Социальной катастрофы. Мне всегда не особо было интересно копаться в подноготной кремля - настроение портить себе не люблю - но это уже за гранью добра и зла. Знаете, выражение такое есть - а после нас хоть трава не расти? Так ведь уже не растёт. В прямом смысле - все пылью угольной покрыто. И люди в отчаянии уже даже не несменяемому на коленях обращаются, они за океан мольбы шлют. Это о чем говорит? Как по мне, о том, что за собой эта вертикаль, уходя, ещё и гранату закинет.

Храм, Шиес, наркотики у Голунова, многострадальный Кузбасс - весело живем, господа!

End of the line, folks!

Citizens of Kiselevsk, a small town in Kemerovskaya region - the very same which took lots of kids lives last year - out of despair uploaded a footage begging for help addressing it to...prime minister of Canada Justin Trudeau.

Here they are - standing in the wind, not even realizing that the mic is not capturing what they are saying properly, hopelessly fiddling with the last straw they are trying to hold on.

I know, guys who will read this long post, that you can’t probably understand a thing from what they’re saying, but here’s a gist:

Kemerovskaya region is a very rich part of Russian Federation. As for many others around Russia this land abounds (sorry, had to google this verb) with natural mining resources. In this case - coal.

Now, you probably know (or probably not) that mining comes in many different technologies - some of them are cheaper and more dangerous, some of them are more of the modern age. And to make it short - what kind of technology - in terms of safety and probability to cheapskate on it - is used in this wonderful land?

I think you got it right.

I never was in opposition to any political forces in this country, I’m not a youtuber or even a good speaker - guess you’ve already noted that. But this becomes less a political game and more a disaster. Social, ecological, economical and loads more of clever words. Why?

Well, in Russian we have a phrase - Even if grass doesn’t grow after me, I won’t care. Or he. Or she, they...you got it, right?

And this gets literally it. Cheap technology of coal mining in Kiselevsk causes surroundings of these people in the video to be covered in coal dust.

Dust on the grass, dust on the roofs, dust in lungs and so forth.

And they don’t even ask mr KGB agent to help them - they are asking the man from around the world, probably because he’s more concerned about people than money.

Last thing.

It will all come to an end. Illegally incarceration of Ivan Golunov (luckily the journalists community won this fight), giant polygons for garbage storing in suburbs of big cities, now Kiselevsk. I think we’ll be lucky if it’s only grass that won’t grow after govern...ahem...goons leave.

If you wondering what’s modern Russia all about (who am I kidding?) that’s all you need to know.

[instapicsil3]

A Russian Journalist was detained on drug charges, but the public outcry forced Russian authorities to drop the case. Ivan Golunov has been freed due to “lack of evidence” connecting him to the crime. Many believe the accusations were fabricated and part of a recent string of attacks on the Russian free press. On Monday, three leading Russian newspapers published identical front pages with the headline: "I/We are Ivan Golunov." http://bit.ly/2F6U8As

[hirotbr]

Three major Russian newspapers published the same headline on the front page on June 10, 2019. It is the heading "We are Ivan Golunov"(Мы Иван Голунов). Who is Ivan Golunov? This person is a newspaper reporter. This person is a little famous newspaper reporter who was investigating Russian corruption. Age is 36 years old. This person was detained in Moscow. On the other hand, Russian journalism has put up a common headline in the sense of protest. The protest against the mistreatment of their associates involves the risk that newspaper journalism, which exclusively owns expensive printing equipment and a large sales network, may begin to lose equity. Journalism is a speech agency and does not produce anything. Do nothing. It is journalism that shapes people's opinions. Who can stop it when the role of representing the opinion of the general society or the mission to despise the violence of the society has a certain pressure? When I think so, I feel uneasy about the promotion of journalism supreme principles. This is the first point. Second point. The fact that the three major papers had the same headline indicates that the three papers are no more than the same type of media and is considered by the reader as the same newspaper. There will be no competition or criticism. Therefore, the newspaper company will not check itself. The problem should be noted. Of course, we can assert that a society where journalistic freedom and free speech are sealed in a dark society. Such a society has no future. People will experience the pain of life without hope. That's bad.

[straarup29glenn-blog]

Belarusian Escort Who Claimed Evidence Of Russian Meddling Is Detained In Moscow

We rent the office in Central area of Moscow. The Ruling ANC has created these circumstances it has allowed the concretely reality of Africans to fester and eat itself up. moscow-models.org has not ruled nor led Africans of Mzantsi, rather, it has made sure that that it guidelines in such a way that its polity is weakened and rendered useless and ineefective. Due to the fact there was already widespread agreement that corporations shared duty for the crimes of apartheid, the stage was set for Mandela to clarify why key sectors of South Africa's economy needed to be nationalized just as the Freedom Charter demanded. Despite getting an overwhelming force, the Germans on 6th April 1941 also met fierce resistance on the island of Crete as 22,000 paratroopers have been met by Cretans, British, New Zealand and Australians operating covertly from the mountains and the Nazis suffered pretty much 7,000 casualties. In order to get a much better picture of what I am talking about, it is important to read my Hub titled: "South Africa and The 2010 World Cup: In the Eye of the Storm," wherein I touch up on a terrific deal of the mistreatment of the poor by the present ANC-led government in preparation for the 2010 Tournament. So that, without the need of going into the deep-finish of the historical progression of the taking of the land from Africans, I will duly note right here that Plaatjie stated that "the Union government gazetted a different Bill in January 1911, to amend an anomaly under which the African can neither purchase nor lease land, and native landowners in the Absolutely free" State(which was neither cost-free by any stretch of the imagination), could only sell their land to the White gazetted Bill proposed to legalize only in a single district of the Orange "Free of charge" State the sale of landed house by an African to one more African, as effectively as to a white man, but it did not propose to allow Africans to obtain land from White people today. In this photo taken on Friday, June 7, 2019, colleagues and pals of Ivan Golunov, a journalist who worked for the independent web page Meduza and was detained by police, look at a protester staying in a one person picket at Russian Internal Ministry developing in Moscow, Russia A prominent Russian investigative journalist has been charged with drug dealing just after 4 grams of the synthetic stimulant mephedrone were found in his backpack, Moscow police stated Friday.

[biofunmy]

In Rare Show of Defiance, Russian Celebrities Rally Behind Jailed Actor

MOSCOW — A growing number of Russian entertainers on Tuesday joined in a rare show of defiance and solidarity, in support of an actor who they say was wrongfully convicted of resisting arrest during an anti-Kremlin rally, despite clear evidence in his favor, and sent to prison.

The protest demonstrated the power of social media, where the actors and others published their video statements in support of the defendant, Pavel Ustinov, spreading the word widely even as state-run television largely ignored the case. Publicly calling out injustice in the legal system is unusual in Russia and carries real risks; most of the actors speaking out work in government-sponsored theaters and appear in state-supported films.

On Monday, a court in Moscow sentenced Mr. Ustinov, a 24-year-old actor, to three and a half years for assaulting a police officer and dislocating his shoulder while being arrested at a protest rally on Aug. 3 in central Moscow.

But in a video of the arrest, published online, Mr. Ustinov is seen walking on busy public plaza with a phone in his hand, when four police officers in riot gear walk quickly up to him, push him to the ground, beat him with rubber batons and then lead him away. It is not clear from the video why they singled him out.

The video sparked public outrage, but the judge refused to consider it as evidence in his trial, which took only two days. In his testimony, Mr. Ustinov, who has played small roles in Russian films, pleaded innocent, saying that he was a bystander, not a protester, who was attacked by members of the national guard.

He was the sixth person to be sentenced to a significant prison term in cases stemming from a wave of anti-Kremlin protests in Moscow this summer.

Aleksandr Pal, a film actor, started the campaign to support Mr. Ustinov, calling it a flash mob, and invited other actors to join.

“This is a completely trumped-up case,” Mr. Pal said in his video statement, referring to Mr. Ustinov by a nickname. “From the video of his arrest it is clear that Pasha wasn’t resisting national guard servicemen and riot police, that he wasn’t chanting any slogans.”

Mr. Pal’s call was picked up by Nikita Efremov, an actor with Moscow’s Sovremennik theater and a member of a famed family of actors.

“I remember well the case of Ivan Golunov, I was amazed by how journalists got united,” he said in a video, adding “I think we can do that too.”

In June, Mr. Golunov, a prominent Russian investigative reporter, was arrested in central Moscow and charged with drug trafficking. The arrest swiftly prompted protests by journalists and their supporters, who picketed the Moscow police headquarters. In a stunning reversal, the charges were dropped days later, and several high-ranking police officers were fired.

“In terms of corporate solidarity, this is not the first time it is being expressed,” Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist in Moscow and a member of President Vladimir V. Putin’s Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, told Kommersant, a Russian newspaper. “Any unity is an effective instrument.”

Mr. Golunov’s case raised hopes of a new Kremlin flexibility in the face of public outrage. But weeks later, the police began making mass arrests during the street protests in Moscow — more than 2,000 overall.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, repeated his usual line that the Kremlin had nothing to do with the court system and that Mr. Ustinov had the right to appeal if he disagreed with the sentence.

“Of course, the president is aware and received all information about everything,” Mr. Peskov said. “However, the president also cannot either react or influence the court’s decision.”

Replicating the slogan used by Mr. Golunov’s supporters, many actors posted “I/We are Pavel Ustinov” on their social networks.

Just as in the Golunov case, the show of support for Mr. Ustinov spread to some Kremlin-friendly commentators, including Tina Kandelaki, a television producer, and Maksim Galkin, a popular television host and comedian.

“This is a huge reputational blow,” Mr. Galkin said. “This is a blow to our courts, and not the first one,” he said, adding, “this is a blow to our government too.”

Nikita Kukushkin, an actor with the Gogol Center, an avant-garde theater in Moscow, made a plea for actors to stop working with the government and “feeding this system.”

“I call on you not to cooperate with film companies, producers, and directors that offer you projects that are clearly propaganda,” Mr. Kukushkin said. “Don’t take part in productions or put on plays in theaters that were given to directors only because they expressed their loyalty to the government.”

Several leading theaters in Moscow, including Satirikon, made statements in support of Mr. Ustinov at the ends of their shows on Monday.

“It turned unbearable to remain silent,” said Yulia Snigir, a popular film actress. “You cannot put an innocent man in jail.”

Sahred From Source link Arts

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[courtneytincher]

Some of Putin’s Top Cops Are Mobsters. Even KGB Vets Are Ashamed.

Michael Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Kremlin/ReutersMOSCOW—Crime scandals involving Russia’s most powerful law enforcement agency have rocked this capital, exposing some phenomenal corruption at the heart of President Vladimir Putin’s power structure. Ranking officers of the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, are allegedly involved, as are members of some of its most elite units. In April, authorities arrested three officials from the FSB’s Department K, which deals with economic crimes and financial counterintelligence. Kirill Cherkalin, the former head of the unit, and Andrey Vasilyev and Dmitry Frolov, his associates, were jailed on suspicion they took huge bribes from banks and other commerce they were supposed to supervise. A video purported to show the equivalent of $185.5 million being hauled out of Cherkalin’s residence. The initial charge against him involved a single bribe worth $850,000.The Liberation of Ivan Golunov Felt Like a Burst of Freedom in Russia, but Not for LongOne might think those arrests made by the internal affairs division of the FSB would make other criminals in the security force lie low. But no. Others were allegedly robbing banks. Last week RBC, one of Russia’s most respected newspapers, reported the arrests of four FSB agents from the Alfa and Vympel special forces units, and two more from Department K. The number has since grown to 15 suspects, according to press reports. But the FSB has confirmed only two arrests.While supposedly conducting legitimate searches, or shepherding shipments of currency, the accused are supposed to have removed the heavy ballistic plates from their bullet-proof vests and stuffed them with money instead, but such details have not been confirmed officially.There must be massive turmoil in the depths of the gloomy FSB headquarters, the nerve center of Russia’s police power located just across Lubyanka Square from the buildings of the Kremlin’s administrative offices. All of Russia’s leading newspapers reported that Instead of providing security, FSB agents robbed the Metallurg Bank, reportedly controlled by a former officer in Military Intelligence (the GRU) named Yury Karasev. If true, that’s an interesting wrinkle since the FSB and GRU are rival secret services.Moscovskij Komsomolets, a newspaper with a circulation approaching one million copies, says in its Friday report: “Generals of the special services were shocked to hear about the arrests of FSB agents accused of a bank robbery on Ivan Babushkin Street and of stealing 140 million rubles ($2.2 million.)” Veteran agents of the Soviet KGB, the predecessor of the FSB, said they were disgusted by the scandal.“This is the first time in the entire history of the Russian secret police when we see the triumph of greed that surpasses greed—so many officers of elite departments committing crimes,” retired Maj. Gen. Aleksei Kandaurov told The Daily Beast. “The FSB is not a security service any longer, it has changed its status completely: it is now a service that enforces Putin’s rule, and in exchange abuses its authority for purposes of enrichment.”Gen. Kandaurov remembers the last days of the KGB, which had an infamous heritage dating back to the Cheka at the time of the revolution, and the NKVD under Joseph Stalin. As the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 there was popular rage against the Communist regime’s symbols and its obsession with secrecy, but the officers of the KGB—among them one Vladimir Putin—saw themselves as defenders of a regime and indeed an empire that they had served all their lives. They worked on fixed salaries.On the night of August, 22, 1991, Kandaurov watched from the window of his office as thousands of protesters demanded the removal of the statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the Bolshevik leader Vladmir Lenin appointed to be the director of the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-revolution and Sabotage (Cheka). Dzerzhinsky is seen as the symbol of the Bolseviks’ political repressions and mass killings. “We represent in ourselves organized terror—this must be said very clearly,” Dzerzhinsky proclaimed during the period known as the Red Terror that began in 1918.The modern state security agency, FSB, has been reviving the memory of Dzerzhinsky just as Putin has burnished the reputation of Joseph Stalin. Today many officials hang portraits of the secret police founder on their walls. In 2017 the agency celebrated the 100th anniversary of Cheka-NKVD-KGB-FSB, as a proud successor. But veterans see the current organization as an inglorious pretender to the fame of the older ones.“FSB agents should stop hiding behind the KGB reputation, behind Dzerzhinsky. If he were alive, he would have executed most of these corrupt officers as his ideological enemies,” Kandaurov told The Daily Beast.  When the KGB Wanted You Dead, This Is How They Killed YouRussia has glorified “Alfa” and “Vympel” as legendary, heroic special operators who saw service in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s and many other more secretive theaters. At the Balashikha Cemetery near Moscow there are sad rows of tombstones where each is marked with an “A” or “V” for the soldiers of these units who gave their lives rescuing hostages during the Beslan school siege in September 2004. In the past few years Russian special operators have died anonymously in secret operations in Ukraine.“Today’s thugs in the special forces put shame on all the past heroes,” a retired KGB officer and corruption fighter, Gennady Gudkov, told The Daily Beast. “The FSB violates its authority for ‘operative activities,’ which was given to them to stop transactions for terrorism or drug deals. Now a group of elite FSB and special forces units used their authority to rob a bank; but the bank informed Moscow police investigators and the organized criminal group was arrested.”A channel on the Telegram messaging service covering the latest news about Russian gangsters, oligarchs and bureaucrats, said on Monday that authorities fired the head of Moscow’s FSB Directorate, Alexey Dorofeyev.Last month police tried to stop an investigation by a Medusa Project reporter, Ivan Golunov, into Dorofeyev’s links to a corrupt funeral business. After spending months researching figures and beneficiaries of the funeral industry, Golunov discovered some links connecting shadowy figures and senior FSB officers. But somebody decided to stop the reporter from publishing: police planted drugs on Golunov and kept him behind bars for five days, while thousands of people joined protests in support of the journalist.Russian veterans of secret services gossip about three “towers” of FSB power: the richest one is allegedly supported by the almighty Putin’s ally, Igor Sechin, the head of the vast Rosneft energy company; the second one also enjoys enormous financial resources and is backed by another of Putin’s long-time friends, Sergey Chemizov, the head of the Russian arms export agency; the third, the weakest financially, nonetheless has the best network of secret agents and is backed by the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin. Some see a connection between these rivalries and the revelations about high-level criminality.“It feels like everything is falling down,” a major general of the FSB reserve, Alexander Mikhailov, told reporters last week. “I want to tell you that all the old employees are shocked by what is happening. During my entire service in the Moscow KGB, and I worked there for 20 years, there were only three criminal cases.”“None of the people from the old guard understands where that number of criminals in the system came from,” said Mikhailov. “It is also disturbing that today we are confronted with the widest range of units that are involved in criminal activity. We repair it in one spot and it breaks down in another one.”There are no checks and balances at FSB management, Gudkov pointed out. “The Soviet KGB was massively repressive, you can blame that service for anything, but not for corruption. The worst we could hear about was a colleague sleeping with somebody’s wife or some secret agent bringing a pair of sneakers for a colleague from abroad—that was already a big enough scandal to write a report,” Gudkov remembered. “Even in our worst nightmare we could not imagine officers stealing millions of dollars, robbing banks. What will we hear next? The Russian Federal Security Service robbing the Kremlin’s treasury or the Central Bank’s reserves?”  Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

Michael Klimentyev/RIA Novosti/Kremlin/ReutersMOSCOW—Crime scandals involving Russia’s most powerful law enforcement agency have rocked this capital, exposing some phenomenal corruption at the heart of President Vladimir Putin’s power structure. Ranking officers of the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, are allegedly involved, as are members of some of its most elite units. In April, authorities arrested three officials from the FSB’s Department K, which deals with economic crimes and financial counterintelligence. Kirill Cherkalin, the former head of the unit, and Andrey Vasilyev and Dmitry Frolov, his associates, were jailed on suspicion they took huge bribes from banks and other commerce they were supposed to supervise. A video purported to show the equivalent of $185.5 million being hauled out of Cherkalin’s residence. The initial charge against him involved a single bribe worth $850,000.The Liberation of Ivan Golunov Felt Like a Burst of Freedom in Russia, but Not for LongOne might think those arrests made by the internal affairs division of the FSB would make other criminals in the security force lie low. But no. Others were allegedly robbing banks. Last week RBC, one of Russia’s most respected newspapers, reported the arrests of four FSB agents from the Alfa and Vympel special forces units, and two more from Department K. The number has since grown to 15 suspects, according to press reports. But the FSB has confirmed only two arrests.While supposedly conducting legitimate searches, or shepherding shipments of currency, the accused are supposed to have removed the heavy ballistic plates from their bullet-proof vests and stuffed them with money instead, but such details have not been confirmed officially.There must be massive turmoil in the depths of the gloomy FSB headquarters, the nerve center of Russia’s police power located just across Lubyanka Square from the buildings of the Kremlin’s administrative offices. All of Russia’s leading newspapers reported that Instead of providing security, FSB agents robbed the Metallurg Bank, reportedly controlled by a former officer in Military Intelligence (the GRU) named Yury Karasev. If true, that’s an interesting wrinkle since the FSB and GRU are rival secret services.Moscovskij Komsomolets, a newspaper with a circulation approaching one million copies, says in its Friday report: “Generals of the special services were shocked to hear about the arrests of FSB agents accused of a bank robbery on Ivan Babushkin Street and of stealing 140 million rubles ($2.2 million.)” Veteran agents of the Soviet KGB, the predecessor of the FSB, said they were disgusted by the scandal.“This is the first time in the entire history of the Russian secret police when we see the triumph of greed that surpasses greed—so many officers of elite departments committing crimes,” retired Maj. Gen. Aleksei Kandaurov told The Daily Beast. “The FSB is not a security service any longer, it has changed its status completely: it is now a service that enforces Putin’s rule, and in exchange abuses its authority for purposes of enrichment.”Gen. Kandaurov remembers the last days of the KGB, which had an infamous heritage dating back to the Cheka at the time of the revolution, and the NKVD under Joseph Stalin. As the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 there was popular rage against the Communist regime’s symbols and its obsession with secrecy, but the officers of the KGB—among them one Vladimir Putin—saw themselves as defenders of a regime and indeed an empire that they had served all their lives. They worked on fixed salaries.On the night of August, 22, 1991, Kandaurov watched from the window of his office as thousands of protesters demanded the removal of the statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the Bolshevik leader Vladmir Lenin appointed to be the director of the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-revolution and Sabotage (Cheka). Dzerzhinsky is seen as the symbol of the Bolseviks’ political repressions and mass killings. “We represent in ourselves organized terror—this must be said very clearly,” Dzerzhinsky proclaimed during the period known as the Red Terror that began in 1918.The modern state security agency, FSB, has been reviving the memory of Dzerzhinsky just as Putin has burnished the reputation of Joseph Stalin. Today many officials hang portraits of the secret police founder on their walls. In 2017 the agency celebrated the 100th anniversary of Cheka-NKVD-KGB-FSB, as a proud successor. But veterans see the current organization as an inglorious pretender to the fame of the older ones.“FSB agents should stop hiding behind the KGB reputation, behind Dzerzhinsky. If he were alive, he would have executed most of these corrupt officers as his ideological enemies,” Kandaurov told The Daily Beast.  When the KGB Wanted You Dead, This Is How They Killed YouRussia has glorified “Alfa” and “Vympel” as legendary, heroic special operators who saw service in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s and many other more secretive theaters. At the Balashikha Cemetery near Moscow there are sad rows of tombstones where each is marked with an “A” or “V” for the soldiers of these units who gave their lives rescuing hostages during the Beslan school siege in September 2004. In the past few years Russian special operators have died anonymously in secret operations in Ukraine.“Today’s thugs in the special forces put shame on all the past heroes,” a retired KGB officer and corruption fighter, Gennady Gudkov, told The Daily Beast. “The FSB violates its authority for ‘operative activities,’ which was given to them to stop transactions for terrorism or drug deals. Now a group of elite FSB and special forces units used their authority to rob a bank; but the bank informed Moscow police investigators and the organized criminal group was arrested.”A channel on the Telegram messaging service covering the latest news about Russian gangsters, oligarchs and bureaucrats, said on Monday that authorities fired the head of Moscow’s FSB Directorate, Alexey Dorofeyev.Last month police tried to stop an investigation by a Medusa Project reporter, Ivan Golunov, into Dorofeyev’s links to a corrupt funeral business. After spending months researching figures and beneficiaries of the funeral industry, Golunov discovered some links connecting shadowy figures and senior FSB officers. But somebody decided to stop the reporter from publishing: police planted drugs on Golunov and kept him behind bars for five days, while thousands of people joined protests in support of the journalist.Russian veterans of secret services gossip about three “towers” of FSB power: the richest one is allegedly supported by the almighty Putin’s ally, Igor Sechin, the head of the vast Rosneft energy company; the second one also enjoys enormous financial resources and is backed by another of Putin’s long-time friends, Sergey Chemizov, the head of the Russian arms export agency; the third, the weakest financially, nonetheless has the best network of secret agents and is backed by the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin. Some see a connection between these rivalries and the revelations about high-level criminality.“It feels like everything is falling down,” a major general of the FSB reserve, Alexander Mikhailov, told reporters last week. “I want to tell you that all the old employees are shocked by what is happening. During my entire service in the Moscow KGB, and I worked there for 20 years, there were only three criminal cases.”“None of the people from the old guard understands where that number of criminals in the system came from,” said Mikhailov. “It is also disturbing that today we are confronted with the widest range of units that are involved in criminal activity. We repair it in one spot and it breaks down in another one.”There are no checks and balances at FSB management, Gudkov pointed out. “The Soviet KGB was massively repressive, you can blame that service for anything, but not for corruption. The worst we could hear about was a colleague sleeping with somebody’s wife or some secret agent bringing a pair of sneakers for a colleague from abroad—that was already a big enough scandal to write a report,” Gudkov remembered. “Even in our worst nightmare we could not imagine officers stealing millions of dollars, robbing banks. What will we hear next? The Russian Federal Security Service robbing the Kremlin’s treasury or the Central Bank’s reserves?”  Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

July 10, 2019 at 09:35AM via IFTTT

[omgstupendousbouquetbasement]

Russia Jails Kremlin Critic Navalny for 10 Days

A Moscow court jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny for 10 days on Monday after finding him guilty of breaking the law when he took part in a street demonstration last month.

The Kremlin critic was among more than 500 protesters detained by police while rallying in Moscow to call for the punishment of police officers involved in the alleged framing of a journalist.

The protest came after police abruptly dropped drug charges against investigative journalist Ivan Golunov, a rare U-turn by the authorities in the face of anger from his supporters who said he was targeted for his reporting.

The authorities had hoped freeing Golunov and promising punishment for those who allegedly framed him would appease his supporters but they decided to go ahead with a protest nonetheless.

"Ten days of detention for a rally against arbitrariness," Navalny wrote on Twitter after the verdict. "It's unpleasant, but I think I did the right thing. If we remain silent and sit at home, the arbitrariness will never stop."

Navalny, Russia's most prominent opposition figure, has served several stints in jail in recent years for organizing anti-government demonstrations.

The European Court of Human Rights in November ruled that Russia's repeated arrests and detention of Navalny in 2012 and 2014 were politically-motivated and breached his human rights, a ruling Moscow called questionable.

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[political-fluffle]

For too long, the west has turned a blind eye to Russian atrocities in a string of wars, says Guardian columnist Natalie Nougayrède

"Ever the opportunist, he takes what’s on offer, he glides, he smirks. And he watches with glee as we huff and puff at his provocations, whose over-riding purpose is to keep us on edge and play on our divisions.

This is now international showtime for Putin. After all, few people outside Russia paid much attention to his four-hour annual Direct Line TV show last week. I did watch part of it though, and what struck me was that Putin is getting older, and that he’s deploying particularly intensive PR work to try to neutralise a flurry of domestic tensions.

Russian friends tell me the country “feels like 2010, when things were starting to bubble up”, ahead of the street protests that broke out during the following two years. Russia’s economy isn’t doing brilliantly. Putin’s decision to have the investigative journalist Ivan Golunov released and the handing over of the initiative to local protesters in Ekaterinburg in a recent dispute over the building of a cathedral were unexpected developments. OK, this wasn’t the end of political repression, but these were gestures that seemed an attempt to signal a softer touch – if only for now.

As Fiona Hill, one of the best Russia analysts around and now a departing Trump adviser, wrote in her 2012 book, Mr Putin, Operative in the Kremlin: “Uncovering the ‘real Putins’ requires looking beyond the staged performances and the deliberately assumed guises that constitute the Putin political brand.” File the comment to the FT about liberalism being “obsolete” in that category. A few years ago, take note, he was saying the exact opposite, telling us: “I’m a liberal.” Words tossed out like this have little meaning. They’re like small grenades or stink bombs aimed at deepening our self-doubt, despondency and fractiousness.

To fathom this, read Peter Pomerantsev’s book, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, a memoir from inside Russia’s state propaganda machine. Putin will love western far-left and far-right criticisms of “liberalism”, just as he enjoys whatever anger can be fired up among eastern European politicians who are understandably worried about his next territorial encroachment. To his domestic audience it’s all perfect proof that Russia is back, and its leader is a slick mastermind. Putin is so good at exploiting our obsessions and weak spots: it’s a tactic he’s long perfected to deflect attention from his own record."

Vlad's only principle is greed.

[rolandfontana]

Eight+ Things to Read About China and Other Things, Part 5

This is part 5 of our series on eight+ things to read about China and a lot more. We constantly get emails from readers asking what to read on China and all sorts of things related and even barely related to China and this series is intended to constantly and consistently answer these questions.

As I said in our initial post on this, our plan is to list out eight (or so) articles we benefitted from reading and think you our readers would also benefit from reading, along with a very brief explanation why the particular article was included. More specifically:

The articles will likely include many on China and on Asia and a few on international trade, international politics, Spain and Latin America, economics and really just anything else we believe might benefit our readers or even that we just want people to read. We do not plan to choose articles that push our or any other political agenda or any other agenda for that matter, but having said that, we are not objective and our views may creep through. Our goal though is to focus on articles that are important or helpful or — most importantly — that make you think. Our posting of an article will NOT mean we agree with all of it or even any of it. Most of the articles will be from the week preceding the post but we will also sometimes throw in older articles (classics if you will) as well.

Please do not hesitate to comment at the end of this or any other post. We cannot tell you how much we appreciate your comments, good, bad and indifferent.

Here we go, in absolutely no particular order.

1.  Hong Kong Is on the Frontlines of a Global Battle For Freedom. Time Magazine. Because it is and because the war between freedom and authoritarianism is a never-ending one and because this article fairly and accurately summarizes the issues. Because the world needs to know what is happening in the Sudan and the U.S. media has utterly failed to cover this story. Because China and Russia are helping to prop up the dictatorial regime there. See also Ivan Golunov’s Russian release: Why this case matters if you want further proof that even authoritarian regimes

2. China Is Bluffing in the Trade War: Chinese leaders say they can effectively retaliate against Trump’s tariffs. They’re wrong. Foreign Policy.  Because “the simple fact is that China needs the United States more than the United States needs China. In itself, that’s no reason to start a trade war. But if the trade war really does heat up, there’s little doubt who will win.” See also The price of apples is soaring in China, and Beijing is showing concern.

3.   Saudi Teen Faces Death Sentence for Acts When He Was Ten. New York Times.  What kind of country would execute a teenager for having attended a political rally at the age of ten?

4. Kalamazoo Central high school performs “My Shot” from “Hamilton” at graduation. 105.3fm. Because this is my high school and because the video has gone viral (well over 100,000 views so far) and because it is an urban high school that has a long history of struggles but also a long history of successes. See Obama at Kalamazoo Central High School: How did it win the honor? Because it is, in many ways, a microcosm of race in America. See A Flashback to Kalamazoo, Summer of 1967.

5. If Trump Wants to Take On China, He Needs Allies. And He Should Start with Europe. New York Times. Because we may be heading towards a bi-polar world divided between the United States and China and Europe likely will side with the United States. Because I like having allies and I see big differences between countries like Spain, France, Germany, Poland, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Israel, New Zealand, Denmark, Morocco, Rwanda, and Australia on the one hand and countries like Russia, North Korea, Iran and China on the other hand and it is not clear to me that President Trump sees such distinctions. 

6. A $100M Bet That Online Coaching Can Make a Better Manager. Wired Magazine. See also Delta saves 41 stranded students with a private flight after American Airlines cancels trip. Fox. Because as my law firm continues to grow (we’ve doubled in size in the last two years) I’m becoming ever more convinced that employee happiness correlates with client satisfaction. Because Jeff Bezos always says that “the number one thing is to be customer obsessed; figure out how to delight them” and in the law business, a delighted (not just satisfied) client is a lifetime referral source. Yet law firms are notoriously bad (compared to other industries) at customer satisfaction.

7. Rage Rooms are all the rage. NBC. Because they are. Because after walking past an axe-throwing establishment in my eldest daughter’s neighborhood I realized the apocalypse is upon us and when my daughter then told me about rage rooms, I became even more certain that the world as we know it will soon be no more.

9. Russian Doll: How Female Mentors Helped Natasha Lyonne Tell Her Story. Vanity Fair. Because Russian Doll is unique and very good and because Natasha Lyonne is uber-talented.

10. The official candy bar power rankings. LA Times. Because it matters. Because one of the ways we would divide teams for pick-up basketball games while I was in high school was between those who liked Heath bars and those who didn’t — I’m not kidding on this. Because I still think of one of my best friends from my hometown (see above) every time I see a . Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup because that was all he would buy.

11. The Secrets of Food Marketing. YouTube. This video has nearly 10 million views and there is a reason for that; the power of willful ignorance can never be underestimated. It really is quite fascinating. See also Cocoa’s child laborers.

Your thoughts?

Eight+ Things to Read About China and Other Things, Part 5 syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

[simmix1]

RT @BBCSteveR: “The police have declared war on journalists,” declares one Russian newspaper today. Reporters express outrage at the detention of a well-known investigative journalist. Out of solidarity three papers feature the same front page & headline: “I/We Are Ivan Golunov” #ReadingRussia https://t.co/hQJTdj9qvC

“The police have declared war on journalists,” declares one Russian newspaper today. Reporters express outrage at the detention of a well-known investigative journalist. Out of solidarity three papers feature the same front page & headline: “I/We Are Ivan Golunov” #ReadingRussia pic.twitter.com/hQJTdj9qvC

— Steve Rosenberg (@BBCSteveR) June 10, 2019

via Twitter https://twitter.com/simmix1 June 10, 2019 at 12:57PM

[theukone-news]

Глава МИД Британии отреагировал на задержание Голунова

((__lxGc__=window.__lxGc__||'s':,'b':0)['s']['_213858']=__lxGc__['s']['_213858']||'b':)['b']['_631253']='i':__lxGc__.b++; Дипломат добавил, что его ведомство следит за судебным процессом над журналистом. Very concerned by arrest of Russian investigative journalist, Ivan Golunov of @meduzaproject. Journalists must be free to hold power to account without fear of retribution. We are following his case closely. #FreeGolunov#DefendMediaFreedom — Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) 9 июня 2019 ... Читать далее

[global-news-station]

MOSCOW: A Russian investigative journalist facing what supporters call trumped up drugs charges appeared in court in Moscow on Saturday.

Ivan Golunov, 36, a Moscow-based reporter for the Meduza independent news site has been charged with attempted dealing of a “large amount” of designer drug mephedrone and cocaine.

Supporters and his defence team said he had received death threats and suggested the drugs were planted to punish him for his reporting.

“We have reasons to believe that Golunov is being persecuted for his journalistic work,” Meduza said in a statement.

The respected site is based in EU member Latvia to avoid Russian censorship, but some journalists live in Russia. Golunov has investigated subjects ranging from Russia’s shady funeral industry to corruption in Moscow city hall.

Golunov was taken to court from a Moscow hospital where doctors examined him and rejected lawyers’ claims that he had broken ribs and concussion, while saying he had scratches on his back and a bruised eye.

A ruling was expected on whether to extend his detention.

Golunov, who was arrested on Thursday, earlier told a representative of Russia’s presidential rights council, which advises Vladimir Putin that police had punched him and stood on his chest, while police denied he was beaten.

Golunov’s detention has prompted international concern.

The US Embassy in Moscow wrote on Twitter: “We call for the release of Ivan Golunov,” saying he “should not suffer persecution over his professional activities”, while the British Embassy called his case “concerning”.

Around 20 supporters protested outside the Russian Embassy in Berlin with slogans such as “Free Golunov”.

‘We’ll bury you’

Meduza founder and CEO Galina Timchenko told journalists outside court Golunov had received death threats over his reporting.

“Ivan received threats. Two months ago they became almost daily,” she said.

“They said ‘we’ll bury you forever’,” she said.

One of Golunov’s lawyers, Dmitry Dzhulai, told AFP it appeared the drugs had been planted on Golunov.

Moscow police admitted that they posted photographs of drugs paraphernalia wrongly captioned as showing Golunov’s flat.

“Everything indicates that the authorities are planting drugs on their targets to shut them up with a jail sentence,” said Natalia Zvyagina, director of Amnesty International’s branch in Russia.

‘Escalation of persecution’

Russian journalists and rights groups see the case as an example of the persecution of independent reporters, with many saying Golunov was not known to take drugs.

Outside the Moscow court on Saturday, several journalists held up placards with slogans including “I am the journalist Ivan Golunov. Arrest me too.”

Police detained four people, an AFP video journalist saw.

On Friday, dozens of journalists protested against Golunov’s detention outside Moscow police headquarters and were themselves briefly detained.

Reporters Without Borders warned his arrest could mark “a significant escalation in the persecution” of independent journalists in Russia.

Journalists at Russia’s dwindling number of independent media resources frequently face criminal probes, physical attacks and official pressure. Drugs accusations, however, are not common.

The post Russian investigative journalist on drugs charges faces court as supporters cry foul appeared first on ARYNEWS.

http://bit.ly/2MChCUd

[omgstupendousbouquetbasement]

Russia Jails Kremlin Critic Navalny for 10 Days

A Moscow court jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny for 10 days on Monday after finding him guilty of breaking the law when he took part in a street demonstration last month.

The Kremlin critic was among more than 500 protesters detained by police while rallying in Moscow to call for the punishment of police officers involved in the alleged framing of a journalist.

The protest came after police abruptly dropped drug charges against investigative journalist Ivan Golunov, a rare U-turn by the authorities in the face of anger from his supporters who said he was targeted for his reporting.

The authorities had hoped freeing Golunov and promising punishment for those who allegedly framed him would appease his supporters but they decided to go ahead with a protest nonetheless.

"Ten days of detention for a rally against arbitrariness," Navalny wrote on Twitter after the verdict. "It's unpleasant, but I think I did the right thing. If we remain silent and sit at home, the arbitrariness will never stop."

Navalny, Russia's most prominent opposition figure, has served several stints in jail in recent years for organizing anti-government demonstrations.

The European Court of Human Rights in November ruled that Russia's repeated arrests and detention of Navalny in 2012 and 2014 were politically-motivated and breached his human rights, a ruling Moscow called questionable.

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[omgstupendousbouquetbasement]

Russia Jails Kremlin Critic Navalny for 10 Days

A Moscow court jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny for 10 days on Monday after finding him guilty of breaking the law when he took part in a street demonstration last month.

The Kremlin critic was among more than 500 protesters detained by police while rallying in Moscow to call for the punishment of police officers involved in the alleged framing of a journalist.

The protest came after police abruptly dropped drug charges against investigative journalist Ivan Golunov, a rare U-turn by the authorities in the face of anger from his supporters who said he was targeted for his reporting.

The authorities had hoped freeing Golunov and promising punishment for those who allegedly framed him would appease his supporters but they decided to go ahead with a protest nonetheless.

"Ten days of detention for a rally against arbitrariness," Navalny wrote on Twitter after the verdict. "It's unpleasant, but I think I did the right thing. If we remain silent and sit at home, the arbitrariness will never stop."

Navalny, Russia's most prominent opposition figure, has served several stints in jail in recent years for organizing anti-government demonstrations.

The European Court of Human Rights in November ruled that Russia's repeated arrests and detention of Navalny in 2012 and 2014 were politically-motivated and breached his human rights, a ruling Moscow called questionable.

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