Russian children sing of their readiness to die if called upon by Putin
A ruling party MP in Russia has produced a video clip in which children enthusiastically sing of their willingness to ‘fight the final battle” for ‘Uncle Vova’, otherwise known as President Vladimir Putin. They also promise not only to hold on to Crimea which Russia has illegally annexed, but also to reclaim Alaska …read more Source:...
Watch List: Nov. 14, 2017
The items listed below represent potential emerging issues that our analysts are tracking. These can be long term or short term, but will be updated daily. If an item on our Watch List becomes critical, we will email you a full analysis explaining its significance. Each Saturday, we will follow up our daily Watch List for each week with our...
Explainer: how the latest earphones translate languages
ShutterstockIn the Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, Douglas Adams’s seminal 1978 BBC broadcast (then book, feature film and now cultural icon), one of the many technology predictions was the Babel Fish. This tiny yellow life-form, inserted into the human ear and fed by brain energy, was able to translate to and from any language. Web...
U.S. Media Brace for Russian Retaliation
Lawmakers, media regulator said close to imposing stricter rules on foreign media and ‘undesirables.’ …read more Source: Transitions Online...
Persecution of anti-corruption activists must stop in Ukraine
Following an escalation of attacks, Transparency International and its chapter in Ukraine are calling on the authorities to protect civil society from the abuse, including physical beatings, that activists are facing. During the past few months, two anti-corruption activists from the city of Kharkiv that work on investigations with Transparency...
Crimea: Persecution of Crimean Tatars Intensifies
Expand Law enforcement officials during a search in Bakhchysarai, Crimea on January 26, 2017 @ 2017 Anton Naumlyik RFE/RL (Berlin) – Russian authorities in Crimea have intensified persecution of Crimean Tatars, under various pretexts and with the apparent goal of completely silencing dissent on the peninsula, Human Rights Watch said today....
Russia-protected torturer-killers of 16-year-old pro-Ukrainian schoolboy sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment
Three men have been sentenced to life imprisonment for the savage torture and killing in 2014 of 16-year-old Stepan Chubenko. Without a regime change in Russia, there is little chance that the three former Donbas fighters – Vadim Pogodin, leader of the so-called ‘Kerch battalion’, and two subordinates – Mikhail Sukhomlinov and Yury...
German Lessons for the Russian World
Russia / Europe The “Russian world” concept, actively promoted one way or another for at least ten years, has virtually become an official ideological doctrine since the annexation of Crimea. It certainly has a whiff of nationalism, and it is no coincidence that even the regime’s staunchest supporters were swift to draw parallels between...
Mocking Trump Doesn’t Prove Russia’s Guilt
If the bloody debacle in Iraq should have taught Americans anything, it is that endorsements by lots of important people who think something is true don’t amount to evidence that it actually is true. If endorsements were the same as evidence, U.S. troops would have found tons of WMD in Iraq, rather than come up empty.So, when it comes to...
Russia is placing tortured Ukrainian political prisoner’s life in danger
Having driven Ukrainian historian Stanyslav Klykh close to insanity through torture, psychotropic drugs and a Kafkaesque ‘trial’, Russia is now placing the 43-year-old’s life in danger. His mother reports that, instead of providing her son with proper diagnosis and treatment, they injected him with some unidentified medication which...
