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mariacallous · 2 years ago

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There was an atmosphere of nervous excitement in the offices of the Belarusian opposition in Vilnius and Warsaw late June as Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin rebelled against the Kremlin elite and marched on Moscow. It seemed that troubles inside Russia might keep President Vladimir Putin preoccupied and leave his ally in Minsk to fend for himself.

For the first time in three years, since Aleksandr Lukashenko allegedly rigged the elections and forced opposition leaders into exile, there was cautious hope that they may find the chance they were looking for to launch an uprising, depose the autocrat, and usher in democratic governance.

“We thought that this could develop into the X hour—when the window of opportunity for our victory opens again,” Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled leader of the democratic opposition, wrote to Foreign Policy in an email. Tsikhanouskaya quickly reached out to all pro-democracy Belarusian representatives, including “the Belarusian volunteer units in the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” she said.

“We were feeling so motivated,” added Pavel Latushka, her deputy and former Belarusian minister of culture, from Warsaw. “We convened a meeting of the transitional cabinet on Zoom,” he said over the phone, and pulled out the Peramoga, or Victory Plan—which lays out the steps to overthrow Lukashenko.

“Tens of thousands of activists would go to places they needed to and start their activities,” encouraging hundreds of thousands of others to join en masse, he said, alluding to large-scale protests including sabotage actions.

But the exhilaration was short-lived. Their hopes were quashed, once again, by Lukashenko himself, who mediated between Putin and Prigozhin on June 24 and brought the Russian mutiny to an anticlimactic end. He played statesman, a loyal ally, and in his usual braggadocious manner relayed details of how he advised the Russian president against executing Prigozhin.

“I said to Putin: ‘Yes we could take him out, it wouldn’t be a problem, if it doesn’t work the first time then it would the second,” he bragged to Belarusian security officials while sharing selected chunks of his conversation with the Russian president. “I told him: ‘Don’t do it, because afterwards there will be no negotiations and these guys will be ready to do anything.’”

Lukashenko will perhaps never stop boasting about saving the day for the Kremlin, but Belarusian politicians and analysts believe his intervention was rooted in self-interest. He hoped to further a long-nurtured ambition or at the very least ensure his own survival as Belarus’s president.

Lukashenko understands that instability in Russia would spill over to Belarus and strengthen democratic forces at home threatening his rule. Some say he owes his survival to Putin, who assured him of military reinforcements amid mass protests in 2020 and sent him a billion and a half dollars in a loan to strengthen his position. If and when the democratic forces rise again, Lukashenko knows he has only one ally. But protecting Wagner from Putin’s wrath and allowing it to base in Belarus, analysts said, opened up other opportunities, too, including partnering with Wagner in its resource loot in Africa and using the mercenaries as an extra tier of personal security at home.

“On the day of the mutiny in Russia, he tried to help his senior partner, his boss, to pay him back and show his loyalty,” Pavel Slunkin, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former Belarusian diplomat, told Foreign Policy on a visit to Brussels. Slunkin believes that contrary to Lukashenko’s claims, he was merely Putin’s messenger and not a negotiator on equal footing.

While there are varied interpretations of how big a part Lukashenko actually played in bringing the Russian mutiny to an end, there is a consensus that he was directly involved.

“Putin was about to obliterate Wagner, but several hours later there is an agreement that Prigozhin will go to Belarus, and no one even touches him,” said Yauheni Preiherman, the founder and director of the Minsk Dialogue Council on International Relations. “Lukashenko did exercise his agency.”

Since brokering the deal, Lukashenko’s popularity inside Russia has skyrocketed. According to a poll by Levada Center on July 1, a week after he brokered the deal, Lukashenko was the second most popular politician in Russia, after the Russian president. For a man who wanted the top job in Russia, such high popularity could be a reason for strife with his patron. Yet Lukashenko has played a bold game.

A firm believer in the Soviet Union, Lukashenko rose from humble beginnings—from a deputy chairman of a collective farm to the position of president. In 1999, when he agreed to the treaty to form the Union State of Russia and Belarus, a supranational union, he had hoped he would become the president of the Russian Federation and Belarus. But in the end, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin chose Putin as his successor.

“I have met this guy many times, and I can tell you what he is thinking—he still wants to be the president,” of the Russian Federation and Belarus, Latushka said. “Over the last month, Lukashenko has met many governors of the Russian region,” Latushka claimed. “Now he has created maximum support in Russian society, especially among the elite, and he is sending the message ‘I am your guy,’ he is playing his own game.”

But while Lukashenko wants to lead a combined Russian and Belarusian state, he doesn’t want Putin to merge the two, rendering him jobless. He has been skeptical that Putin might one day unseat him and has at times made overtures toward the West.

Artyom Shraibman, a Belarusian scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said Russian attacks on Georgia and Crimea unsettled Lukashenko, who feared Belarus could be next. However, during every election, he has turned to Moscow’s assurances to curb dissent and stay in his chair.

“When Russia attacked Georgia in 2008, he started to flirt with the West. Then elections came in 2010, and Lukashenko cracked down on protesters. That froze relations with the West,” Shraibman said. “In 2015, relations with the West started to normalize again, and he started to release political prisoners. That was after Russia annexed Crimea. But then there was another election in 2020 with far greater public mobilization and bigger protests.” Again, Lukashenko cracked down on protesters with Putin’s backing and relations with the West collapsed, Shraibman added.

Putin needs Lukashenko, too. As he invaded Ukraine, he banked on his only ally in the region to station Russian troops and threaten the West that he would move Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus that shares a border with NATO states. But Lukashenko is by far more dependent on Putin’s goodwill, which he may have risked with his recent bluster. At first Putin thanked his Belarusian counterpart, but later seemed to downplay his role by crediting Russian security forces with stopping a “civil war.”

Furthermore, in an insult, even Wagner seems to have rejected Lukashenko’s proposal. A day after he offered refuge to Wagner fighters, he tried to sell the idea to Belarusians, vehemently opposed to hosting the mercenaries, as beneficial to the Belarusian army. “They will tell us about weapons,” he said, “which worked well, and which didn’t. And tactics, how to attack, how to defend.” Belarusian news agency Belta quoted Lukashenko on its Telegram channel confirming Prigozhin’s arrival. “I see that Prigozhin is already flying on this plane. Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today,” he said.

In an attempt to show his readiness to host Wagner, Lukashenko allowed the independent press to see thousands of tents erected in an unused military base. But two weeks after he brokered the deal they lie vacant, and Wagner fighters, along with their chief, are in Russia trying to strike a deal with the Russian president.

The Kremlin confirmed that more than 30 Wagner commanders met Putin on June 29 and presented their version of what transpired over June 23 and 24. They underscored that they are staunch supporters and soldiers of the head of state and the commander-in-chief” and wish to continue to “fight for their homeland,” in Ukraine. Putin has offered them “options for further employment and further use in combat,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

As Putin scrambled to contain the rebellion, Lukashenko found a moment to shine and prove his relevance. But the challenge to Putin has also boosted the morale of Belarusian opposition. The mutiny has exposed Putin’s invincibility as “an illusion,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “Lukashenko will not last even a day without Putin.”

“Belarus is boiling, and the only way to keep the lid on is by increasing repression,” she said, adding that there are more than 5,000 political prisoners in Belarus, with only a third officially recognized—including her husband. “But at one point, this won’t work anymore, and the lid will blow off.”

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ammg-old2 · 2 years ago

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Mr. Lukashenko has tried to position himself for greater things since he rose to power in 1994. In the late 1990s, he helped create a union-state — a confederation of sorts — between Belarus and Russia, which he must have eventually hoped to head once the ailing Russian leader, Boris Yeltsin, departed the scene. But Mr. Yeltsin’s successor turned out to be Mr. Putin, who had no intention of playing second fiddle to the head of a minor European state. Instead, as he accumulated power, Mr. Putin exploited Belarus’s deep economic dependence on Russia, especially on heavily subsidized energy, to peel away its sovereignty. Instead of heading a major world power, Mr. Lukashenko found himself trying to fend off a suffocating Russian embrace.

After Russia illegally seized Crimea in 2014, Mr. Lukashenko’s saw his most promising chance to assert himself. Taking advantage of the estrangement between Russia and the West after the invasion and Russia’s backing of a rebellion in eastern Ukraine, he promoted the Belarus capital, Minsk, as a “neutral” venue for East-West dialogue. The city became the place where the warring parties and Russian and European leaders convened to hammer out a deal to end the crisis. The ensuing deals, christened the Minsk Agreements, spelled out provisions for a cease-fire and the reintegration of the rebellious regions into Ukraine, but were never carried out.

Nevertheless, Mr. Lukashenko had demonstrated Minsk’s potential as a meeting place. In 2018 Mr. Lukashenko inaugurated the Minsk Dialogue Forum, which brought together American, European and Russian foreign policy experts for debates on global issues and provided him a invaluable platform to present himself as a statesman uniquely qualified to ease tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Mr. Lukashenko’s second opportunity to reduce its reliance on Russia came in the form of Belarus’s booming tech industry. Since the mid-2000s, it has been a key driver of Belarus’s economic growth, accounting for 7 percent of its total G.D.P. by 2020. It was also an important export sector, sending much of its product to the West, and a magnet for Western investors attracted by Belarus’s well-educated population and low wages. The economic dividends helped provide the funds to transform Minsk itself into a comfortable European city, which enhanced its appeal as an East-West meeting place.

But Mr. Lukashenko’s good fortune came to a screeching halt after a few short years — and fully as a consequence of his own actions. His flagrant rigging of the 2020 presidential elections, in which he brazenly claimed to have won with 80 percent of the vote, touched off a huge nationwide protest movement. Mr. Lukashenko’s government detained tens of thousands of citizens. Hundreds were reportedly mistreated or tortured in custody, and dozens of websites were blocked. With his political survival at stake, Mr. Lukashenko turned back to Russia, which was only more than willing to help at the price of his country’s autonomy.

Mr. Putin stepped in to the rescue, backing Mr. Lukashenko’s harsh tactics. He approved a $1.5 billion loan to ease Minsk’s debt burden, sent in “media” experts to help discredit the protesters as pawns of foreign powers, and announced the formation of a Russian “police reserve” that could be deployed to Belarus should the situation further deteriorate.

The crackdown prompted tech workers, who had been at the forefront of the protests, to flee the country in droves. It also made Minsk off limits as a meeting place, as the West levied sanctions and isolated Mr. Lukashenko diplomatically. The situation only grew worse as Russia began using Belarus as a staging ground for the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Mr. Lukashenko, now totally dependent on the Kremlin in his bid to cling to power, was in no position to resist.

Now he has agreed to give refuge to Mr. Prigozhin and some unknown number of his infamous mercenaries who will go to Belarus with him. Mr. Prigozhin cannot feel safe in Belarus knowing the fate of others who have drawn Mr. Putin’s wrath. Mr. Lukashenko won’t benefit in any way from Mr. Prigozhin’s demise on his territory and probably hopes his sojourn is brief. Despite this uneasy arrangement, Mr. Lukashenko will likely not be able to resist the temptation to embellish his role; he’s already claimed to have offered Mr. Putin advice on how to handle the situation. He will endeavor to play the great statesman for as long as he can.

#current events #politics #belarusian politics #russian politics #russo-ukrainian war #2022 russian invasion of ukraine #minsk agreements #2020 belarusian presidential election #russia #belarus #ukraine #aleksandr lukashenko #vladimir putin #yevgeny prigozhin #wagner group

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ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly · 2 years ago

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A Belarusian court sentenced Ales Bialiatski, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October for his decades of defending human rights in Belarus, to 10 years in prison on Friday, according to Viasna, the group that he helped found.

Mr. Bialiatski, 60, has been a pillar of the human rights movement in Eastern Europe since the late 1980s, when Belarus was part of the Soviet Union. Most members of Viasna are now in prison or living in exile from the country’s authoritarian government, which is one of Russia’s closest allies and a key supporter of its war in Ukraine.

He has been in prison since his arrest in July 2021, a detention that was widely seen as part of a sweeping and brutal crackdown on dissent that unfolded across Belarus after huge street protests erupted in 2020. Viasna said on Friday that the charges against him were “financing of group actions grossly violating the public order” and “smuggling by an organized group.”

He has denied the accusations against him, and rights groups have denounced them as fraudulent. The United Nations’ human rights organization condemned his arrest as “simply politically motivated.”

Two other members of Viasna, Valiantsin Stefanovich and Uladzimir Labkovich, were also sentenced to prison on Friday, the group said. A video from the proceedings showed the three men, dressed in black, calmly seated inside a defendants’ cage inside the courtroom.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, an opposition leader who fled to Lithuania in 2020, called the sentencing “appalling.”

“Ten years for a @NobelPrize laureate shows clearly what Lukashenka’s regime is,” she said on Twitter, referring to President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, Belarus’s authoritarian leader since 1994. “We won’t stop fighting for our heroes.”

A lawyer for Mr. Bialiatski could not immediately be reached for comment.

The 2020 protests began after Mr. Lukashenko claimed 80 percent of the vote in what many Western governments said was a sham election. With tens of thousands of protesters demanding that he step down, he instead quashed the protests with the help of Russia, having thousands arrested and forcing opposition leaders into exile.

Efforts to stifle dissent continued in the following years, including the arrest of an opposition journalist in 2021 after the Belarusian authorities forced a commercial plane on which he was a passenger to land in Minsk, the capital.

Mr. Lukashenko repaid the Kremlin for its support in helping suppress the protests by allowing Russian forces to use Belarusian territory as a staging ground for their invasion of Ukraine a year ago. This week, he traveled to Beijing and met with Xi Jinping, the top leader of China, which has long punished dissent. One of that country’s best-known activists, Liu Xiaobo, was also awarded a Nobel Peace Prize while in prison, in 2010.

In Belarus, Viasna has been a leading rights organization, documenting violations and supporting political prisoners since its founding in 1996. Before that, Mr. Bialiatski was an advocate for democracy and Belarusian independence, organizing anti-Soviet protests in the 1980s.

He was in prison from 2011 to 2014 on a charge of tax evasion.

On Friday, the Twitter account for the Nobel Prize repeated a 2022 quote from Mr. Bialiatski: “It just so happens that people who value freedom the most are often deprived of it.”

— Daniel Victor and Andrew Higgins

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33-uroda · 4 years ago

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A very good article from CIS specialist outlet Meduza on the brutality unfolding in Belarus right now.

As someone who’s spent time in both Belarus and Russia, this is the first time Belarusians have really allowed themselves to believe that things can change, and ‘the last dictatorship in Europe’ can peacefully transition to a democratic state. Please don’t let them down now.

Belarus Solidarity Foundation - Support Belarusians on Strike

#belarus #protest #police brutality #belarus: tens of thousands protest in minsk #alyaksandr lukashenka #протесты в беларуси #лукашенко #human rights #europe

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authenticnewshindi · 4 years ago

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Tens of thousands protest in Minsk, as Lukashenko holds rival demonstration

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These scenes followed longtime leader Lukashenko’s contested victory in last Sunday’s election, which independent observers have criticized for not being free and fair.

Although there was no official count, CNN crew in the Belarusian capital estimated that around 50,000 people were attending the opposition protest as of 3 pm local time.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for…

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#as Lukashenko holds rival demonstration - CNN #Belarus: Tens of thousands protest in Minsk #Europe

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beardedmrbean · 3 years ago

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A Swiss-Belarusian dual citizen, Natalia Hersche, who was recognized as a political prisoner after she was sentenced in Belarus over participation in a protest rally, has been released and left the country for Switzerland.

The president of the Swiss Confederation, Ignazio Cassis, tweeted on February 18 that Hersche had been released after spending 17 months in prison in Belarus.

"She was met by her brother and the Swiss Ambassador to Belarus [Christine Honegger-Zolotukhin] and returned back to Switzerland. I am glad that the diplomatic efforts of Switzerland paid off," Cassis said in the tweet.

Hersche, who took part in a mass protest against official results of a disputed August 2020 presidential poll in Belarus, was sentenced in December 2020 to 30 months in prison after a court in Minsk found her guilty of "violently resisting police."

Hersche rejected the charge and pleaded not guilty.

Hersche is one of hundreds who have faced trials linked to mass protests against Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the authoritarian ruler of Belarus, following the vote in which Lukashenka claimed reelection, even though many Belarusians say the poll was rigged.

The protests were met with the sometimes violent detention of tens of thousands of people. Much of the opposition leadership has been jailed or forced into exile. Several protesters have been killed and there have also been credible reports of torture during the widening security crackdown.

While in prison, the 52-year-old Hersche three times rejected proposals by Belarusian authorities for her to officially seek clemency from Lukashenka because it would have meant admitting guilt.

She was placed in solitary confinement several times while in prison. Last month, Hersche, who was recognized as a political prisoner by the Minsk-based Vyasna (Spring) human rights center, went on a four-day hunger strike to protest against prison conditions.

Swiss diplomats had demanded that Belarusian authorities release her.

Hersche was born in Belarus in October 1969 as Natallya Kasyan. She moved to Switzerland in 2009 where she married a Swiss citizen, Robert Staeheli.

One year after she was handed the prison sentence, her husband filed for divorce.

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#nunyas news #free belarus

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Wednesday, October 28, 2020

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Colleges Slash Budgets in the Pandemic, With ‘Nothing Off-Limits’ (NYT) Ohio Wesleyan University is eliminating 18 majors. The University of Florida’s trustees this month took the first steps toward letting the school furlough faculty. The University of California, Berkeley, has paused admissions to its Ph.D. programs in anthropology, sociology and art history. As it resurges across the country, the coronavirus is forcing universities large and small to make deep and possibly lasting cuts to close widening budget shortfalls. By one estimate, the pandemic has cost colleges at least $120 billion, with even Harvard University, despite its $41.9 billion endowment, reporting a $10 million deficit that has prompted belt tightening. Though many colleges imposed stopgap measures such as hiring freezes and early retirements to save money in the spring, the persistence of the economic downturn is taking a devastating financial toll, pushing many to lay off or furlough employees, delay graduate admissions and even cut or consolidate core programs like liberal arts departments. “We haven’t seen a budget crisis like this in a generation,” said Robert Kelchen, a Seton Hall University associate professor of higher education who has been tracking the administrative response to the pandemic. “There’s nothing off-limits at this point.”

Thousands Forced to Evacuate From California Fires (NYT) Two firefighters were gravely injured and tens of thousands of Californians were forced to flee their homes on Monday as two new fires ripped through Orange County. About 90,800 residents in Irvine were put under mandatory evacuation orders because of the Silverado Fire and the smaller Blue Ridge Fire, said Shane Sherwood, a division chief for the Orange County Fire Authority. High winds and low humidity fueled the fires’ rapid growth. About 4,000 firefighters were fighting 22 wildfires across the state on Monday, according to Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency. As evening approached, the Silverado Fire had burned about 7,200 acres and the Blue Ridge Fire 3,000 acres. Later Monday night, the Orange County Fire Authority said that the Blue Ridge Fire had grown to 6,600 acres

Why N.Y.C.’s Economic Recovery May Lag the Rest of the Country’s (NYT) New York, whose diversified economy had fueled unparalleled job growth in recent years, is now facing a bigger challenge in recovering from the pandemic than almost any other major city in the country. More than one million residents are out of work, and the unemployment rate is nearly double the national average. The city had tried to insulate itself from major downturns by shifting from tying its fortunes to the rise and fall of Wall Street. A thriving tech sector, a booming real estate industry and waves of international tourists had helped Broadway, hotels and restaurants prosper. But now, as the virus surges again in the region, tourists are still staying away and any hope that workers would refill the city’s office towers and support its businesses before the end of the year is fading. As a result, New York’s recovery is very likely to be slow and protracted, economists said. “This is an event that struck right at the heart of New York’s comparative advantages,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, a Wall Street research firm. “Being globally oriented, being stacked up in skyscrapers and packed together in stadiums: The very thing that made New York New York was undermined by the pandemic, was upended by it.”

Asylum-Seekers Face Violent ICE Coercion (Foreign Policy) U.S. immigration officers have threatened, pepper-sprayed, beaten, and choked asylum-seekers from Cameroon to coerce them to sign their own deportation orders, the Guardian reports. A coalition of advocacy groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a complaint earlier this month describing a “pattern of coercion” by ICE agents at a Mississippi detention center that it called “tantamount to torture.” According to multiple accounts in the complaint, immigration officials used the coercive tactics to compel detainees to sign documents that would waive their rights to further immigration hearings. At least one individual was hospitalized as a result. One man, identified by the initials C.A., described how officers broke his fingers as they sought to force his fingerprint onto a document. “Officers grabbed me, forced me on the ground, and pepper-sprayed my eyes. … I was crying, ‘I can’t breathe,’ because they were forcefully on top of me pressing their body weight on top of me. My eyes were so hot. They dragged me outside by both hands,” said the individual, who was prevented from speaking to his lawyer before signing the document. C.A. was placed on a deportation flight on Oct. 13 but was one of two Cameroonians pulled off the plane moments before takeoff, as an investigation had begun into the allegations of abuse. At least 100 asylum-seekers, including many from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were deported on the same flight. For two consecutive years, the Norwegian Refugee Council has deemed Cameroon the world’s most neglected displacement crisis due to an insurgency in the north and a brutal government crackdown on two English-speaking separatist regions. Since 2016, the two conflicts have killed over 3,000 people and displaced more than 700,000.

Belgium’s former King meets estranged daughter for first time (Reuters) Belgium’s former King Albert has met his daughter Delphine for the first time, after she won a seven-year legal battle to prove that he is her father, earning recognition as a princess. The two met Albert’s wife, Queen Paola, last Sunday at their royal residence, the Belvedere castle, in the Brussels suburb of Laeken, the royal household said on Tuesday. “This Sunday October 25, a new chapter has opened, filled with emotions, calm, understanding and also hope,” the king, the queen and Delphine said in a statement. “Our meeting took place at the Belvedere Castle, a meeting during which each of us was able to express, calmly and with empathy, our feelings and our experiences.” “After the turmoil, the wounds and the suffering, comes the time for forgiveness, healing and reconciliation. This is the path, patient and at times difficult, that we have decided to take resolutely together.” Delphine Boel, 52, a Belgian artist, fought a seven-year legal battle to prove that the former king is her father. After a DNA test confirmed that, a court granted her the title of princess earlier this month. Albert, 86, who abdicated six years ago in favour of his son Philippe, had long contested Boel’s claim.

Germany cautions Thai king (Foreign Policy) Pro-democracy protesters in Thailand marched on the German Embassy in Bangkok to deliver a letter asking German authorities to investigate whether King Maha Vajiralongkorn “has conducted Thai politics using his royal prerogative from German soil or not.” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, speaking from Berlin, said the German government was “examining” the issue “and if there are things we feel to be unlawful, then that will have immediate consequences.”

Belarus Opposition Calls General Strike, as Protesters Gird for Long Fight (NYT) When Belarusians took to the streets in the hundreds of thousands in August, after Mr. Lukashenko claimed a re-election victory that was widely seen as fraudulent, many predicted that it was only a matter of days or weeks until the longtime authoritarian leader stepped down. Instead, Mr. Lukashenko and the large swath of the public that is arrayed against him have settled into a drawn-out test of wills, with their country’s future on the line. Protesters continue to turn out in the tens of thousands every Sunday, chanting “Go away!” and waving the white-red-white flag of the opposition. Mr. Lukashenko responds with waves of crackdowns by the police and, backed by Russia, appears determined to wait the protests out. “In such a tense situation, absolutely anything could turn out to be the trigger that topples the system,” said Artyom Shraibman, a Minsk-based nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center. “It could end in the course of a week, or it might not die for a year. No revolution has ever gone according to plan.” The authorities’ use of violence to try to put down the protests appears to be escalating, further feeding the anger in Belarusian society. It was a bout of severe police violence early in the uprising that supercharged the protests.

World’s largest IPO shows power of mobile payments in China (Washington Post) Go to a store, hop in a taxi, or even stop by a street peddler’s cart in China, and you will see QR codes strung up on colorful laminated squares. These mobile payment codes are the default way money changes hands in China these days, and the reason Ant Group’s initial public offering is set to be the world’s largest. China’s Ant Group—the Alibaba spinoff behind the ubiquitous blue QR payment codes across the world’s second-largest economy—announced plans on Monday to raise more than $34 billion in a joint listing across Shanghai and Hong Kong. This would trounce last year’s listing of oil titan Saudi Aramco, the reigning IPO champion. Mobile payments have replaced cash and credit cards in China as the preferred payment method, thanks to easy-to-use apps made by Ant Group and its closest rival Tencent. Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay are similar in spirit to wildly popular U.S. stock trading app Robinhood, in that they are user-friendly enough that anyone with a smartphone and bank account can make complicated financial transactions with a click or swipe.

China sanctions U.S. weapons manufacturers (Foreign Policy) China will impose sanctions on three U.S.-based weapons manufacturers after the U.S. State Department approved the sale of $1.8 billion worth of weapons and equipment to Taiwan last Wednesday. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the sanctions were necessary “in order to uphold national interests.” It’s not yet clear what form the sanctions will take. More sanctions could soon be on the way, as the State Department approved a further $2.37 billion in weapons sales to Taiwan on Monday.

Vietnam evacuating low-lying areas as strong typhoon nears (AP) Vietnam scrambled Tuesday to evacuate more than a million people in its central lowlands as a strong typhoon approached while some regions are still dealing with the aftermath of recent killer floods, state media said. Typhoon Molave is forecast to slam into Vietnam’s south central coast with sustained winds of up to 135 kilometers (84 miles) per hour on Wednesday morning, according to the official Vietnam News Agency. The typhoon left at least 3 people dead and 13 missing and displaced more than 120,000 villagers in the Philippines before blowing toward Vietnam. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc ordered provincial authorities late Monday to prepare to evacuate about 1.3 million people in regions lying on the typhoon’s path. Phuc expressed fears that Molave, the latest disturbance to threaten Vietnam this month, could be as deadly as Typhoon Damrey, which battered the country’s central region in 2017 and left more than a hundred people dead.

Vaccines, not spy planes: U.S. misfires in Southeast Asia For months, by Zoom calls and then by jet, Indonesian ministers and officials scoured the world for access to a vaccine for the coronavirus that Southeast Asia’s biggest country is struggling to control. This month, their campaign paid off. Three Chinese companies committed 250 million doses of vaccines to the archipelago of 270 million people. A letter of intent was signed with a UK-based company for another 100 million. Absent from these pledges: the United States. Not only was it not promising any vaccine, but months earlier the United States shocked Indonesian officials by asking to land and refuel its spy planes in the territory, four senior Indonesian officials told Reuters. This would reverse a decades-long policy of strategic neutrality in the country. Washington’s campaign to buttress its influence in the region—part of its escalating global rivalry with China—has been misfiring, say government officials and analysts.

Bomb at seminary in Pakistan kills 8 students, wounds 136 (AP) A powerful bomb blast ripped through an Islamic seminary on the outskirts of the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday morning, killing at least eight students and wounding 136 others, police and a hospital spokesman said. The bombing happened as a prominent religious scholar during a special class was delivering a lecture about the teachings of Islam at the main hall of the Jamia Zubairia madrassa, said police officer Waqar Azim. The attack comes days after Pakistani intelligence alerted that militants could target public places and important buildings, including seminaries and mosques across Pakistan, including Peshawar.

Hopes for peace in Libya (Foreign Policy) The two main factions in Libya’s civil war agreed to a nationwide cease-fire at U.N.-backed talks in Geneva on Friday. Previous attempts to broker an end to the yearslong conflict have failed, but the new agreement has cautiously raised hopes that it will lay the groundwork for a peace deal. The cease-fire, signed by the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord and Gen. Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army, calls for all front-line forces to return to their bases and all mercenaries and foreign troops to withdraw within three months. The Libyan conflict has drawn in a multitude of international players, including Russia, Turkey, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Their actions in the coming months could make or break the cease-fire.

#headlines #news

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humanrightsupdates · 4 years ago

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Urgent Action Update: Marfa Rabkova Charged With A False Crime

Following her detention on 17 September, woman human rights defender Marfa Rabkova was charged on 25 September under Article 293(3) of the Belarusian Criminal Code and faces imprisonment of up to three years if convicted. She is a prisoner of conscience, targeted solely for her peaceful human rights work and must be immediately and unconditionally released.

Marfa Rabkova is a member of the Human Rights Center "Viasna" where she coordinates the organization’s Volunteer Service. According to Viasna, throughout the presidential election campaign, during and after the 9 August election, members of Viasna faced harassment from the authorities, including administrative arrest, arbitrary detentions and attempted prosecution in connection with their human rights activities.

Marfa Rabkova and her husband, Vadzim Zharomski, were detained on the evening of 17 September by officers of the Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption (GUBAZIK). Their apartment was searched and money, personal belongings and IT equipment were seized. Vadzim Zharomski was later released but Marfa Rabkova was remanded for ten days as a suspect under Art. 293(3) of the Criminal Code.

The detention of human rights defender Marfa Rabkova comes in the context of a drastic deterioration in the human rights situation in Belarus. During the electoral campaign period and following the presidential election on 9 August, there have been mass peaceful protests against the widely disputed official results as well as against police violence and widespread human rights violations. Throughout, the authorities have engaged in an escalating campaign against the opposition and all dissenting voices.

Thousands of people have been arbitrarily arrested by police, an overwhelming majority of them peaceful protesters or bystanders, and many apprehended in abduction-style arrest by masked plain-clothed men.

According to countless first-hand testimonies, widely available photographic and video material, and medical documents, many if not all of those detained have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment. The detention centre on Akrestsina, in the capital Minsk, where Marfa Rabkova was initially held, has become synonymous with the practice of vicious beatings and sexual violence and other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Dozens of high-profile political and civil society activists and their associates have been arrested under trumped-up charges and subsequently remanded as criminal suspects – as is the case with Marfa Rabkova. They should all be immediately released, and all other human rights violations must stop immediately.

TAKE ACTION:

Write a letter in your own words or using the sample below as a guide to one or both government officials listed. You can also email, fax, call or Tweet them.

Click here to let us know the actions you took on Urgent Action 148.20. It’s important to report because we share the total number with the officials we are trying to persuade and the people we are trying to help.

#belarus #amnesty international #urgent action

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islandofspice · 4 years ago

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alexsmitposts · 4 years ago

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Fakes of the Belarusian Maidan

The "potato" revolution in Minsk, which some publications have already hastened to call "the first Telegram revolution", did not happen. "Chronicles of the coup attempt" could be seen in social networks, and this despite the Internet being disabled in places. The images and messages were full of tragedy. In Telegram channels and Twitter, colorful photos "from the scene of events" and even more colorful messages about almost "shootings arranged by riot Police", the crowd "rammed by car bombs", injured protesters and even the first victim from among the protest activists began to appear. We carefully looked at both the video and photos "from the scene". And what can you see on them? Youngster against the armed forces The first photos closely resembled staged shots taken during the Moscow protests: a proud young protester stands alone against a line of Riot police "cosmonauts" bristling with shields. First, it is beautiful, and second, incredibly touching – an unarmed youngster against the armed forces. This theme is constantly exploited. Of course, such photos were taken in Minsk.

This is a good picture for the Western media – almost children against the "chain dogs of the regime". Do you think the photo was taken "purely by accident"? It is clear that the production. Photo: EPA/Yauhen Yerchak/TASS. Another picture: a young couple on a moped passing by the same line of riot police. It is also a touching shot, especially the white long dress on the girl should be touching. Well, a little provocation, test the nerves of the security forces. But also in the trend: almost peaceful protest, which is about to be crushed by the police in armor and with shields. This is a good picture for the Western media – almost children against the "chain dogs of the regime". Do you think the photo was taken "purely by accident"? It is clear that the production. As well as the bloodied heads of the protesters in another photo, which immediately flew around all the European media with comments-they say, this is how dictator Lukashenko suppresses the peaceful protest of Belarusians, who wholeheartedly strive for European integration and freedom. It turned out to be alive Somewhere we have seen all this before, but then "accidentally" it turned out that the blood is actually ketchup. It was very awkward. The awkwardness was quickly forgotten. In Minsk, everyone will also quickly forget – about as quickly as they "forgot" about the "first sacred victim" of the protest, when the police allegedly began to crush the crowd of protesters with a car. As it turned out, the victim is quite alive and did not even want to stay in the hospital. We are talking about a certain Eugene Zaichkin, who last night jumped on the bumper of a MAZ-paddy wagon, drove it for a while, holding the handles over the hood of the truck, and then, unsuccessfully jumping off, was under the wheels of the car. Interestingly, Zaichkin not so long ago moved to live in Poland, but at the" right moment " was back in Minsk. The first aid to the activist was called by the riot police themselves, and in the hospital it turned out that the guy does not even have fractures and can go home. It didn't work out. Just as there was no crowd "rammed by a truck" - this can be well understood if you carefully watch the videos. As there is no evidence that the riot police beat women and children, and "dictator Lukashenko" hastily "escaped on his plane to Bodrum". Fakes, fakes, and more fakes. However, this is nothing new-it's all within the technology of color revolutions and the art of propaganda: "the more terrible the lie, the more willing to believe it" - we did not say. There will be no bouquets of violets The exact number of protesters in Minsk is not specified, and Telegram channels write about hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of protesters. In the capital of Belarus, they gathered at three main points: at the stele "Minsk-hero city", on Victory square and on Nemiga street. It was difficult to estimate the number of people gathered in the dark, and they were constantly moving.

The protesters were managed and coordinated by the authors of several Telegram channels. The NEXTA channel, which operated from Poland, was particularly successful in this. Photo: Victor Lisitsyn/Globallookpress. Of course, the security forces used tear gas, water cannons, and stun grenades – the effect of the latter is clearly visible in the video footage, which also got into the Network. But let me ask you, in the same France free from dictators, the police met the "yellow vests" with bunches of violets? Of course not. An attempt to build a barricade on Masherov Avenue for the protesters was unsuccessful – fifteen minutes later, the security forces destroyed it. It turned out that waving flags and shouting is one thing, but getting into a fight with the riot Police is quite another, few people were ready for this, and there were no leaders among the participants of the action. Telegram-revolution on the March However, it is impossible to say that all these protests were spontaneous: before the problems with communication began, the protesters were managed and coordinated by the authors of several Telegram channels (which is why they called the events in Belarus the "Telegram revolution"). The NEXTA channel, which operated from Poland, was particularly successful in this. According to political strategist Marat Bashirov, NEXTA is registered to 22-year-old Stepan Putilo: The channel contains instructions on organizing riots and video streamers working in Belarus. Do you believe, Yes, that a 22-year-old guy organizes everything himself? Study. Many technologies will then be used in Russia in a year's time. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who managed to call herself "the winner of the last elections", appealed to both the police and the protesters to stop the violence and prevent provocation, and then quietly left, without risking becoming a "banner and icon of protest". Of course, it's safer this way, but the people – well, they will be beaten up, well, they will take some number of protesters to the police stations. But this is all without her-the" technical function " of the candidate-housewife has fulfilled. Detention of Russian journalists – what was it? What is not a production is the detention of Russian reporters, at least five people. This was reported by the Union of journalists of Russia. We are talking about Semyon Pegov, Maxim Solopov, Yevgeny Oleinik, Anton Starkov and Dmitry Lysenko. The Russian foreign Ministry intervened, and Sergey Lavrov took the issue under his personal control. Russian journalists were soon released. They were in the Minsk center for the isolation of offenders. Semyon Pegov shared his story on Vladimir Solovyov's program: It was visible provocateurs in the crowd who run up to the riot Police and say something. And I have a feeling that after such a provocation, I "flew". Because of these people who jump out and try to provoke the security forces, as a result, they grab everyone who comes to hand. There are a lot of random people who are detained, and it's not a secret. But slowly now everyone is being released. "Take helmets and gas masks with you" Meanwhile, the protests in Belarus are not going down. Today they continue, as previously reported by the same telegram channel NEXTA, the publication of which States the following: Friends, after yesterday's events, Lukashenko cannot remain in power. He lost the election, he threw his punishers with weapons against unarmed and peaceful people, he shed a lot of blood and now hopes that people will tolerate dozens of victims and even killed. It is not known what" killed " the provocateur was talking about. According to official data, there are no victims either from the protesters or from the security forces. And there are sweat victims: 39 Riot police officers and 50 protesters were injured. In total, about 3,000 people were detained in 33 cities where clashes with security forces took place.

The protesters chanted slogans, burned flares and waved national flags. Photo: Victor Lisitsyn/Globallookpress. If in Kiev six years ago, initially called to go to the Maidan, taking with them "umbrellas, thermos of tea and a good mood," then in the scenario for Minsk, this stage was skipped. Participants are offered to take gas masks, protective helmets, or better, helmets, protective shields for the knees and elbows, and instead of a "thermos of tea" - a first-aid kit. Umbrellas, however, also remembered, but in order to "protect themselves from checkers". Spikes and nails, apparently brought by someone on purpose – they could not "completely accidentally" be in the places where protesters gathered, activists yesterday scattered on the roadway. Stones, rods, rebar, as it was in the city of Pinsk, were also used. Molotov cocktails were used" What's next? The second day of protests was marked by more violent skirmishes between protesters and police, with activists in the center of Minsk throwing "Molotov cocktails" at riot police, repeating the "Ukrainian scenario" of the Maidan. And again there were fakes: some Belarusian Telegram channels launched a message that "Russian special forces soldiers have been identified on the streets of Minsk". The same throw-in appeared on the NEXTA channel. The author even accompanied the message with a "creepy video" in which a special forces officer orders the girl to get out of the car. The statement about the "presence of the Russian military" is based on the words of two "witnesses". But the fake has already been dispersed through other channels. A General strike is scheduled for today. And then… Who knows what will happen next, where else will the NEXTA coordinator send the crowd?

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awesomenews47 · 4 years ago

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Tens of thousands protest in Minsk, as Lukashenko holds rival demonstration

These scenes followed longtime leader Lukashenko’s contested victory in last Sunday’s election, which independent observers have criticized for not being free and fair.

Although there was no official count, Latest crew in the Belarusian capital estimated that around 50,000 people were attending the opposition protest as of 3 pm local time.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for 26…

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#as Lukashenko holds rival demonstration - CNN #Belarus: Tens of thousands protest in Minsk #europe

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mariacallous · 2 years ago

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Meduza's The Beet: Lukashenko’s war

Hello, and welcome back to The Beet!

I’m Eilish Hart, the editor of this new email dispatch from Meduza covering Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. If you missed last week’s feature about Tajikistan’s doxxing problem, it’s now available on our website. Remember, subscribers receive every issue first, so sign up here to make sure you’re on the list.

First elected Belarus’s president in 1994, Alexander Lukashenko spent the better part of the next 26 years suppressing dissent at home, while navigating frosty relations with the West and dragging his feet on further integration with Russia. This balancing act came to a sudden halt in August 2020, when a presidential election marred by political persecution, mass arrests, and election fraud ended with the authorities proclaiming a landslide victory for Lukashenko. Tens of thousands of Belarusians protested and the authorities responded with a brutal crackdown that escalated into a civil society purge. As Western sanctions poured down on Belarus, Lukashenko turned to Vladimir Putin for financial and political support.

With Putin’s backing, Lukashenko managed to stay in power. However, this came at a price. Internationally isolated and lacking legitimacy, Lukashenko threw his lot in with the Kremlin and moved forward with strengthening the Russia-Belarus Union State (more on that later). Then, in February 2022, Moscow used Belarusian territory as a launchpad in a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Eight months later, Lukashenko is still trying to avoid direct involvement in Russia’s war — at the expense of Belarus’s sovereignty.

Lukashenko’s war

By Eilish Hart

GAVRIIL GRIGOROV / EPA / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN POOL

“The Republic of Belarus has been and remains our closest neighbor, loyal ally, and reliable partner,” Sergey Shoigu intoned at a joint board meeting of the Russian and Belarusian defense ministries on November 2.

Reading from a piece of paper, Shoigu decried NATO’s increased presence in Central and Eastern Europe (a direct result of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine), painting it as an imminent threat. “Our allies will also come under attack, especially the brotherly Republic of Belarus,” he said. “Under these conditions, the Defense Ministry considers ensuring the military security of the Union State a priority task.”

Two and a half weeks earlier, thousands of Russian troops began arriving in Belarus for the formation of a new joint force. This Belarus-Russia military group, which previously existed only on paper, is ostensibly meant to defend the Union State to which the two countries formally belong. (Under the alliance’s joint military doctrine, an attack on one member is considered an attack on the entire Union State.)

The deployment prompted fears that Moscow and Minsk could be planning a renewed assault on Ukraine from the north. Alexander Lukashenko’sstatements did little to allay concerns: he accused Ukraine of “planning strikes” on Belarus, adding, “If you want peace, you must prepare for war.” Shortly thereafter, Belarusian media reported that Minsk had begun a “covert mobilization” (something Lukashenko later denied).

Military analysts, meanwhile, maintain that Russian and Belarusian troops are unlikely to launch such an attack. Lukashenko’s regime has played a supporting role in Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, thus far, allowing Russian forces to use Belarus as a staging ground but stopping short of sending Belarusian troops across the border.

By all appearances, Lukashenko would like to maintain this status quo. But the final decision on whether or not Belarusian forces invade Ukraine likely lies with Vladimir Putin, experts told The Beet. “If Putin decides he wants Belarusian troops, I don’t think Lukashenko will be able to say no,” said analyst Katia Glod, a non-resident fellow at Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). “But at the moment, for a whole series of political and military reasons, it’s just not something that would be a really great asset.”

‘Lukashenko is worried’

According to Glod, dragging Belarus into the war could actually be a liability for Putin — and the military benefits would likely be negligible. The Belarusian Armed Forces, which currently total less than 50,000 active personnel and 290,000 reservists, lack combat experience and only have a handful of highly-trained troops. Writing on Twitter, defense analyst Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting described the Belarusian Armed Forces as “relatively weak.” The Belarusian military, he explained, is “largely a mobilizational force” that would need to call up some 20,000 men to reach full peacetime strength.

Then there’s the political risks of mobilizing for war. “Lukashenko is worried. He understands that if he’s dragged into the war, if there are casualties suffered, this would have a negative effect on his legitimacy and how people perceive him — even his core electorate,” political analyst Katsiaryna Shmatsina told The Beet.

The authoritarian leader’s legitimacy has been hanging by a thread since 2020, when a blatantly rigged presidential election sparked anti-regime protests across Belarus. Lukashenko’s security forces violently suppressed the protest wave, carrying out thousands of arbitrary arrests and torturing hundreds of detainees. Amid the upheaval, Lukashenko traveled to Moscow, where he received political and financial backing from Putin, and pledged to strengthen ties with Russia. “Lukashenko wouldn’t have survived if it weren’t for Putin’s support. And the price he paid was loyalty,” Shmatsina said.

Belarusian riot police detain protesters during an anti-Lukashenko rally in Minsk. November 15, 2020.

EPA / SCANPIX / LETA

Now, the prospect of direct involvement in the war is putting Lukashenko at risk of losing what little domestic support he has left. Public opinion polls by Chatham House show that 30 percent of Belarusians support the “special military operation” (Kremlin parlance for the full-scale invasion), but only three percent think their country should join the war on Russia’s side. What’s more, only one in five believe that Belarusian military personnel would agree to take an active part in the war against Ukraine — an equal share think Belarusian soldiers “would refuse to fight or follow orders and lay down their arms.”

Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in 2020, has also claimed that neither he nor the Russian command are confident that Belarusian servicemen would follow orders to invade Ukraine.

Tatsiana Kulakevich, an assistant professor of instruction at the University of South Florida, has expressed similar views. Writing for The Monkey Cage in mid-September, she argued that many of the conscripts that make up the Belarusian army “share the public’s dissatisfaction with the Lukashenko regime,” while Belarusian special operations forces are needed at home to deter popular unrest. “Lukashenko cannot afford to give up these troops as they ensure his grip on power,” she said.

Meanwhile, some 1,500 Belarusian nationals are reportedly fighting on the Ukrainian side. The Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment, named after a Belarusian revolutionary who led an uprising against the Russian Empire in the 19th century, is the most prominent force among them. Its stated mission is the “liberation of Belarus through the liberation of Ukraine.” Glod suggested that these Belarusian volunteers may be provoking genuine fears in Lukashenko about an attack from Ukraine.

The fact that Russia continues to suffer defeats in Ukraine is likely compounding Lukashenko’s paranoia, she added: “He’s seen that Putin isn’t doing well on the battle ground. I think he now realizes that Russia might lose [the war].”

Bargaining chip

According to Lukashenko’s announcement, the Union State’s Regional Grouping of Forces (as it is officially known) will consist mainly of Belarusian troops. The Belarusian Defense Ministry later said that the Russian deployment includes just shy of 9,000 personnel. However, Muzyka was quick to point out that the joint force’s Russian component is made up of formations that “have been badly mauled in Ukraine.”

A Mi-24 helicopter performs drills at a training ground in Belarus’s Brest region as part of Allied Resolve 2022, a joint military exercise Russia and Belarus held just before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

PETER KOVALEV / TASS

“Their combat capabilities are questionable, to put it mildly,” he wrote in a tweet. “So a new grouping would primarily consist of Belarusian units and Russian reservists. Lukashenko could finally claim that the capabilities of Belarusian and Russian units are equal, and he would probably be right.”

At present, there’s little indication that this military formation is preparing an imminent attack on Ukraine, but it will likely keep Kyiv on high alert. “We have to focus more on what else Lukashenko can do and what he has done,” Glod urged. Russian forces, she recalled, have continued to launch missile and drone strikes from Belarus — and Belarusian instructors are reportedly training Moscow’s new recruits. “All of these things are potentially more dangerous than just sending troops,” she said.

Moreover, the activation of the Regional Grouping of Forces bodes ill for Belarus. According to political analyst Artyom Shraibman, the deployment points to the continued erosion of Belarusian sovereignty — “a process that began in 2020 and accelerated in 2022.” “What was on paper is becoming a reality. But at the same time, this becoming a reality is an indication that Lukashenko is giving up more sovereignty to Russia,” Glod concurred.

Indeed, Lukashenko’s Belarus is lumbering towards even deeper economic, political, and military integration with Russia, within the framework of the Union State. The agreement, signed in 1999 but never fully implemented, has been the subject of intermittent talks for decades. But the negotiations progressed significantly after Putin supported Lukashenko during the 2020 opposition protests in Belarus.

In November 2021, Putin and Lukashenko signed a package of 28 “union programs” on an array of economic and regulatory issues, and approved an updated military doctrine. Allegedly, Moscow and Minsk have implemented nearly half of these “programs” this year. And it isn’t just the activation of the Regional Grouping of Forces that’s raising red flags. A tax-harmonization agreement reached in September drew criticism, as well. “What Belarusian economists are saying is that this is essentially selling your tax sovereignty for two kopecks,” Shmatsina told The Beet.

Though Lukashenko has resisted total integration in the past, his increased political and economic reliance on Russia means his capacity to do so is markedly diminished now. Which means it may come down to what Moscow wants. “The complete loss of Belarus’s sovereignty didn’t make sense for Russia before,” Shmatsina explained. “It’s convenient to have an independent state in your neighborhood, [where] you have lots of influence. [...] But now I don’t have a clear answer or prediction.”

The first Russian troops from the Regional Grouping of Forces arriving in Belarus. October 15, 2022.

BELARUSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY

Russia’s war against Ukraine only makes things more uncertain. Putin has consistently chosen escalation and appears increasingly desperate to consolidate Russia’s gains (as exemplified by Moscow’s proclaimed annexation of partially-occupied Ukrainian regions). In this context, there’s little reason to believe that the Kremlin will loosen its grip on Belarus — even if the war drastically weakens Russia.

“I don’t agree with those optimists who say that Ukraine’s victory would mean that Belarus would be liberated,” Shmatsina underscored. “[There’s] a much gloomier prospect where Belarus becomes a bargaining chip in Ukraine and the West’s negotiations with Russia.”

That’s all for this week!

If you enjoyed this issue of The Beet, feel free to share it far and wide. If you really liked it, consider supporting our work by making a donation to Meduza’s crowdfunding campaign. Until next time,

Eilish

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xtruss · 3 years ago

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After Its Criminal Role In Iraq War, Britain Has No Right To Lecture Others On Refugees – Russia

— 14 November, 2021 | RT

London should look at its own crimes in destroying Iraq before lecturing other nations on the issue of refugees, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said, on Sunday, responding to comments by the UK foreign secretary.

The Daily Telegraph on Sunday published an 800-word public letter from chief diplomat Liz Truss, in which she praised her nation for standing with refugee-rejecting members of the EU and demanded that Russia put pressure on Belarus, over the current impasse at the Polish border.

A few thousand Middle Eastern asylum seekers are gathered at the frontier.

Truss claimed that Minsk is using them to destabilize “renewed democracies” in Eastern Europe that stand “on the frontier of freedom.”

“We are proud to be the first European country to assist Poland by agreeing to send a small team of personnel to provide engineering support to ease pressure at the border,” she wrote, referring to the deployment of a small contingent of British military personnel to the area.

Truss said the UK and NATO were prepared to deal with “21st-century methods of aggression being used by those who threaten our freedoms, economies and democracies.” She pledged London’s support for “our friends in the Baltics and Ukraine” as well as Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.

The latter four states have for years refused calls from Western European nations to accept asylum seekers on their soil. Boris Johnson’s cabinet shares their stance on migration.

The current crisis on the Belarusian border was “carefully crafted,” and “Russia has a clear responsibility,” Truss also claimed, suggesting that Britain’s “friends in Europe” must join forces with London “in opposing the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.” The project has already been completed and is waiting for the nod from a German regulator to start pumping Russian natural gas to Europe.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed Truss’ message, saying it omitted the “carefully crafted” NATO invasion of Iraq in 2003. Britain contributed thousands of troops to the operation, “helping the US occupy this nation, kill its citizens and plunder its mineral riches,” she wrote on social media.

“Britain has a clear historic responsibility for everything that happened since then in the region, including the deaths of Iraqis, the destruction of Iraq’s statehood, endless streams of refugees, the emergence of [the terrorist group] ISIS, humanitarian disasters in that part of the world,” Zakharova said.

“Until London answers for its crimes, its officials have no right to accuse anyone of anything.”

The crisis on the EU-Belarus border emerged as tens of thousands of people arrived in the country and attempted to cross over into the European bloc this year. Brussels and member states like Poland accused Minsk of orchestrating the influx, claiming that the Belarusian government was ferrying the refugees in and using them as pawns against the EU.

Belarus claims the EU only has itself to blame, citing economic sanctions imposed against it since the mass opposition protests last year, which were suppressed. Minsk says it has suffered from a shortage of resources and has had to re-allocate them to deal with more present threats like drug trafficking.

Russia says it has no involvement in the stand-off and has called on Belarus and the EU to negotiate a workable solution.

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authenticnewshindi · 4 years ago

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Tens of thousands protest in Minsk, as Lukashenko holds rival demonstration

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These scenes followed longtime leader Lukashenko’s contested victory in last Sunday’s election, which independent observers have criticized for not being free and fair.

Although there was no official count, CNN crew in the Belarusian capital estimated that around 50,000 people were attending the opposition protest as of 3 pm local time.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for…

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#as Lukashenko holds rival demonstration - CNN #Belarus: Tens of thousands protest in Minsk #Europe

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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Bitcoin Rebounds After a Big Tumble: Live Updates Here’s what you need to know: Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, which bought $1.5 billion in Bitcoin last quarter.Credit…Michele Tantussi/Reuters Over the weekend, the price of Bitcoin briefly fell to around $31,000, more than 50 percent down from its high last month. It has recovered somewhat and is currently trading at around $37,000. “About $20 billion of long positions were liquidated last week,” Sam Bankman-Fried, the chief executive of the crypto derivatives exchange FTX, told the DealBook newsletter. “In terms of price movements: the biggest part of it is liquidations,” he said, suggesting the worst is over. But he also noted news from China late Friday of a crackdown on Bitcoin mining and trading. This added to other news of official scrutiny that has spooked crypto investors in recent days, from Hong Kong, Canada and the United States. Companies with Bitcoin on their balance sheets may be getting nervous. For accounting purposes, cryptocurrency is valued at its purchase price in company accounts. If it goes up in value, this isn’t reflected in a company’s accounts but if it falls, the value is impaired and puts a dent in quarterly profits. Three big corporate investors in Bitcoin are Tesla, MicroStrategy and Square. Here’s where they stand: Tesla: The electric vehicle company bought $1.5 billion in Bitcoin last quarter, at an average price of about $34,700 per coin, not far from its current price. Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, has signaled that the company isn’t selling, but it probably isn’t buying, either. MicroStrategy: The business intelligence software company has spent about $2.2 billion on Bitcoin, at an average price of $24,450. The company bought more last week and is still sitting on big gains. Square: The payments company, led by the Twitter chief Jack Dorsey, bought two batches of Bitcoin for its treasury — $50 million in October at a price of about $10,600 per coin and $170 million in February at a price of around $51,000. It took a $20 million impairment on its holdings last quarter. It doesn’t plan to buy any more, its finance chief said this month. Wizz Air, a discount carrier based in Hungary, said on Monday it had rerouted a flight from Kyiv, Ukraine, to Tallinn in Estonia to avoid flying in Belarus airspace.Credit…Andrew Boyers/Reuters Some airlines in Eastern Europe began diverting their planes to avoid Belarus airspace on Monday, a day after that country’s leader sent a fighter jet to force down a Ryanair flight, allowing authorities to seize an opposition journalist on board. The shocking move has unleashed a storm of criticism against Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the Belarus president who has clung to power despite huge protests last year. The European Union is considering penalties against the country. At least two airlines said that they were diverting flights away from Belarus airspace as a precaution, but most carriers seem to be waiting to be told what to do by the European authorities. In an interview on Monday with an Irish radio broadcaster, Ryanair’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, condemned the actions of the Belarus authorities, who ordered the plane, flying from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania, to land in the Belarus capital of Minsk and then arrested a dissident journalist on board, Roman Protasevich, and his companion. “This was a case of state-sponsored hijacking, state-sponsored piracy,” Mr. O’Leary told interviewers on Newstalk. Mr. O’Leary, however, said he was waiting for instructions from European Union authorities in Brussels about whether to steer other flights away from Belarus. “We, like all the European airlines, are looking for guidance today from the European authorities and from NATO,” he said. He added that it would be an easy matter for his flights to avoid Belarus. “We don’t fly over Belarus much,” he said. “It would be a very minor adjustment to fly over” Poland instead, he added. Ryanair, a discount airline based in Ireland, describes itself as Europe’s largest airline group. Other airlines are already making changes. AirBaltic, the Latvian national airline, said that its flights would avoid entering Belarus airspace “until the situation becomes clearer or a decision is issued by the authorities.” The rerouted flights include ones from Riga, the airline’s home base, to Odessa in Ukraine and Tbilisi in Georgia. Another airline that flies in the area, Wizz Air, said that it would alter the path of a flight from Kyiv in Ukraine to Tallinn in Estonia so as to skirt Belarus. “We are continuously monitoring and evaluating the situation,” a spokesman for Wizz Air, which is based in Hungary, said. Robert Iger, the former Disney chief executive, reportedly called the head of Time Warner in 2016 about a possible merger.Credit…Etienne Laurent/EPA, via Shutterstock After its $100 billion deal to buy Time Warner, and spending millions more to fight a Justice Department lawsuit that delayed the deal, AT&T wants a do-over. This reversal culminated in the announcement last week that it would spin off WarnerMedia, as the former Time Warner is now known, to merge with the reality-TV giant Discovery. In the three short years since AT&T closed the deal to buy Time Warner, AT&T radically upended the business by cutting staff, angering the talent and firing executives and becoming something of a Hollywood villain. Some of WarnerMedia’s most successful executives, including Richard Plepler of HBO, left or were pushed out. The company cut more than 2,000 jobs. It could have been different if a phone call in 2016 had come just a few weeks earlier, according to the DealBook newsletter. In October that year, shortly before Time Warner and AT&T first announced their deal, Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of the Walt Disney Company at the time, placed a call to Jeffrey Bewkes, the head of Time Warner, according to two people familiar with those details. The Disney leader asked Mr. Bewkes if he’d be interested in a possible merger. It was too late, Mr. Bewkes said: There was already something in the works. Mr. Iger wished him well and hung up the phone. Later, Mr. Iger called another media chief in the hopes of forging a deal. It was Rupert Murdoch. Workers handling rebar at a construction site in Singapore. Prices for rebar and other commodities fell after China said it would crack down on what it described as excessively high prices.Credit…Wallace Woon/EPA, via Shutterstock U.S. stocks were expected to rise on Monday with the S&P 500 set to open 0.3 percent higher when trading begins. Last week, the U.S. benchmark stock index dropped 0.4 percent as swings in cryptocurrency prices and concerns about rising inflation unsettled markets. The Stoxx Europe 600 was little changed. The FTSE 100 in Britain rose 0.4 percent and the CAC in France rose 0.1 percent. The DAX in Germany is closed because of a holiday. Belarus government bonds, denominated in dollars, dropped on Monday after the Belarusian government sent a fighter jet to intercept a Ryanair plane traveling through the country’s airspace on Sunday and seized a prominent opposition journalist on board. European officials are considering further penalties against Belarus. The yield on 10-year debt rose more than half a percentage point to 7.77 percent, the biggest one-day increase in the yield since August when tens of thousands of people protested the election of longtime president Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, in what was been dismissed as a sham vote. Commodity prices Metal prices, including iron ore and steel rebar, fell as Chinese officials continued to intervene in what the government sees as excessively high commodity prices. The National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement on Monday that there would be “zero tolerance” for illegal activities such monopolistic behavior or hoarding after major metal producers were called to a meeting with several Chinese government departments. Prices of agricultural products including soybeans and corn also fell. Fresnillo, the mining company, was the worst performing company in the FTSE 100 on Monday morning, with its shares falling 2.9 percent. Oil prices rose. Futures of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, rose 1.7 percent to $64.65 a barrel. Company news Cineworld shares rose 3.6 percent in London after the movie theater chain said it had a “strong opening weekend” in Britain thanks to the success of “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway.” In the United States, 97 percent of the company’s movie theaters are now open, Cineworld said, which operates Regal Cinemas, the second-largest chain in the country after AMC. Shares in Virgin Galactic soared 28 percent in premarket trading after Richard Branson’s space plane completed a test flight on Saturday to the edge of space. The company also has more than 600 customers who paid up to $250,000 each for seats on its earliest flights. Beyond Meat shares rose 4 percent in premarket trading. The largest supermarket chain in Britain, Tesco, said on Monday it was introducing a range of frozen ready meals with Beyond Meat. Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator and Republican presidential candidate, has been dropped from his role as a CNN political commentator amid controversy over recent remarks in which he seemed to erase the role of Native Americans in U.S. history. Mr. Santorum’s departure from CNN came after comments he made about Native Americans at a Young America’s Foundation event last month. “We birthed a nation from nothing — I mean, there was nothing here,” Mr. Santorum said. Daimler, the world’s largest maker of heavy trucks, whose Freightliners are a familiar sight on American interstates, said last week that it would convert to zero-emission vehicles within 15 years at the latest, providing another example of how the shift to electric power is reshaping vehicle manufacturing with significant implications for the climate, economic growth and jobs. Dexter George asked white customers who came to his shop after the death of George Floyd to support Black businesses more consistently.Credit…Ben Sklar for The New York Times While Black business ownership rates nationwide dropped by 41 percent from February 2020 to April 2020 — the largest decline for any racial group — Dexter George watched as 1,200 patrons donated $69,211 to support his 30-year-old enterprise, Source of Knowledge, a bookstore on Broad Street in Newark. Personal checks and civic grants further steadied the store’s finances. Unable to secure loans, he used some of the money to reinvest in his 2,700 square feet of retail space. “At the end of the day, you only fit in a box,” Mr. George, who was born in Tobago, said of putting the money back into the store. “Can’t take it with you.” Mr. George, 56, has kept his business operating partly by practicing caution during the pandemic, Kevin Armstrong reports for The New York Times. “There’s a lot of people we aren’t seeing again,” he said. “This virus is going around in a circle until it gets everybody.” Mr. George counted 30 customers killed by the coronavirus. Almost 1,000 people have died in Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, because of Covid-19 and the vaccination rate remains below 30 percent. Throughout the pandemic, Mr. George considered not only safety concerns, but also the costs of closures and curfews. He weighed reduced foot traffic against his mortgage of $6,500 per month for the two-story building that houses his bookstore. On his commute, he noted roller gates that remained down and “For Lease” signs going up. But Mr. George was not done building. Early in the epidemic, he created a GoFundMe page to alert customers to his status: “Covid almost killed us!” It was the contributions that revived him. Source link Orbem News #Big #Bitcoin #Live #Rebounds #tumble #Updates

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