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Category: Politics

Yes, Chinese spy balloons flew over the U.S. when President Trump was in office too

Yes, Chinese spy balloons flew over the U.S. when President Trump was in office too

Matt Novak writes: [S]everal reports have been published in the past two days that give us a better sense of when spy balloons operated by New Cold War adversaries have sailed into U.S. airspace. Bloomberg News reported on Friday that Chinese balloons flew over the U.S. while President Trump occupied the White House. “The balloon spotted this week over Montana was not the first time the U.S. has detected Chinese balloons over their territory—with previous incursions occurring during the Trump…

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The inside story of how the U.S. shot down the Chinese balloon

The inside story of how the U.S. shot down the Chinese balloon

David Ignatius writes: The Chinese have been dispatching intelligence-collection balloons for years. The Pentagon official said Saturday night that five Chinese balloons have circumnavigated the globe, and China has conducted 20 to 30 balloon missions globally over the past decade. The balloons don’t appear to gather much more intelligence than could Chinese satellites in low Earth orbit. Balloons can hover longer over collection targets like the ICBM field in Montana that was overflown a few days ago, but they’re not…

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An investigation into The Nation that CJR commissioned but refused to publish

An investigation into The Nation that CJR commissioned but refused to publish

In 2018, Duncan Campbell was commissioned by the “voice of journalism” and “watchdog of the press”, Columbia Journalism Review, to write an investigation into the venerable New York magazine The Nation, and its apparent support for Russia’s territorial ambitions. In 2020, after a full fact check, legal review and edit, the article was cancelled two days before the scheduled publication. In 2022, months after Putin’s full invasion of Ukraine, the CJR again refused to publish the article. Duncan Campbell wrote:…

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Supreme Court justices used personal emails for work and ‘burn bags’ were left open in hallways, sources say

Supreme Court justices used personal emails for work and ‘burn bags’ were left open in hallways, sources say

CNN reports: Long before the leak of a draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, some Supreme Court justices often used personal email accounts for sensitive transmissions instead of secure servers set up to guard such information, among other security lapses not made public in the court’s report on the investigation last month. New details revealed to CNN by multiple sources familiar with the court’s operations offer an even more detailed picture of yearslong lax internal procedures that could have endangered…

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Soaring death toll gives grim insight into Russian tactics

Soaring death toll gives grim insight into Russian tactics

The New York Times reports: The number of Russian troops killed and wounded in Ukraine is approaching 200,000, a stark symbol of just how badly President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion has gone, according to American and other Western officials. While the officials caution that casualties are notoriously difficult to estimate, particularly because Moscow is believed to routinely undercount its war dead and injured, they say the slaughter from fighting in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut and the…

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Making Ukrainian victory possible

Making Ukrainian victory possible

Josep Borrell, Vice-President of the European Commission, writes: I, for one, have long argued that we must provide Ukraine with the means to push Russia out. Tanks are necessary for Ukrainian forces to break through the current stalemate of trench warfare and to regain the momentum they had last fall when they retook Kharkiv Oblast and Kherson. Reaching the “tank agreement” took time and intense discussions, including at the European Union Foreign Affairs Council. The breakthrough came when Germany agreed…

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Kremlin-linked group arranged payments to European politicians to support Russia’s annexation of Crimea

Kremlin-linked group arranged payments to European politicians to support Russia’s annexation of Crimea

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project: Since Russia launched its brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, condemnation of Vladimir Putin’s overseas aggression has reached a fever pitch. Yet Russia can still rely on the occasional friendly voice in Europe: Last November, for example, far-right Italian local legislator Stefano Valdegamberi penned an op-ed decrying the EU’s decision to designate Russia a terrorist state as “a serious mistake” that “foments conflict by denying historical truth.” But what Valdegamberi didn’t mention was…

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Blinken postpones China trip as suspected spy balloon detected over U.S.

Blinken postpones China trip as suspected spy balloon detected over U.S.

The Washington Post reports: It is unclear if the balloon is following a predetermined path to loiter in certain places or is controlled directly by Chinese operators. “It is maneuverable, and I’ll just leave it at that,” Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters Friday, adding that it’s expected to continue its path over the United States “for a few days.” Within the past day, the airship moved over Montana, which is home to sensitive military installations…

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The curious case of the Chinese spy balloon

The curious case of the Chinese spy balloon

James Snell writes: In the depths of the Second World War the Japanese empire tried to start a plague of forest fires in the United States with squadrons of incendiary balloons. It failed, although six civilians were killed in a single successful balloon bombing in Oregon in May 1945. In February 1942 there was what people at the time thought was an aerial battle above Los Angeles. Later the authorities said everyone had been shooting at nothing. Although some theorists…

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Atlanta shooting part of alarming U.S. crackdown on environmental defenders

Atlanta shooting part of alarming U.S. crackdown on environmental defenders

The Guardian reports: The shooting of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, believed to be the first environmental defender killed in the US, is the culmination of a dangerous escalation in the criminalization and repression of those who seek to protect natural resources in America, campaigners have warned. The death of the 26-year-old, who was also known as “Tortuguita” or “Little Turtle,” in a forest on the fringes of Atlanta was the sort of deadly act “people who have been paying attention…

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Ignoring antisemitism only makes it stronger

Ignoring antisemitism only makes it stronger

Toby Lichtig writes: Antisemitism is back in vogue. Books, plays, exhibitions, academic studies and New Lines magazine essays alike are grappling with this age-old hatred and why it continues to morph and flare up in our present day. As I write this piece in London, some of my fellow citizens are contemplating their evening plans to go see “The Doctor” at the Duke of York’s Theatre, an adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1912 play “Professor Bernhardi,” which follows a Jewish medical…

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Anti-war Russian teen faces a long prison term after police threaten her with sledgehammer

Anti-war Russian teen faces a long prison term after police threaten her with sledgehammer

RFE/RL reports: The Russian government did not wait for the trial of Olesya Krivtsova, a 19-year-old student in the northern city of Arkhangelsk, to even begin before adding her to its list of “terrorists and extremists.”. The designation on January 10 came as Krivtsova spends her second month under house arrest, facing the possibility of more than 10 years in prison on charges of “justifying terrorism” and “discrediting the armed forces of the Russian Federation.” “The worst possibilities whirl in…

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Bellingcat chief forced to leave Vienna following security threats

Bellingcat chief forced to leave Vienna following security threats

The Moscow Times reports: Bulgarian investigative journalist and director of the Bellingcat investigative reporting group Christo Grozev is being forced to relocate from Austria, his home of nearly 20 years, due to the alleged threat posed to him by the Russian security services, the Viennese daily Falter reported on Wednesday. “I suspect that there are more Russian agents, informers and henchmen in the city than police officers,” Grozev told Falter. The journalist was reportedly forced to cancel his planned return…

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How Bellingcat uncovered the truth behind Russian missile strikes in Ukraine

How Bellingcat uncovered the truth behind Russian missile strikes in Ukraine

International Center for Journalists reports: When Christo Grozev, executive director of Bellingcat, saw that Russia was claiming its missiles were striking only military targets in Ukraine, he knew he had to go beyond just proving that was not true. Grozev wanted to also reveal the individuals who were behind the strikes hitting schools, hospitals and other civilian targets, and to show whether those targets were accidental or intentional. Grozev and Bellingcat, winners of ICFJ’s 2022 Innovation in International Reporting Award, have demonstrated a…

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Ukraine ramps up corruption fight as Zelensky races to assure wary Western allies

Ukraine ramps up corruption fight as Zelensky races to assure wary Western allies

The Wall Street Journal reports: Ukrainian authorities launched criminal cases against six former defense-ministry officials and raided the home of a former political backer of President Volodymyr Zelensky Wednesday, amid a flurry of attempts by Mr. Zelensky to show Western governments that he is serious about an anticorruption drive. With billions of dollars in aid flowing into Ukraine monthly, Mr. Zelensky is under pressure from Western backers to take a firm stance against endemic Ukrainian corruption. He also faces calls…

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How Rod Dreher caused an international scandal in eastern Europe

How Rod Dreher caused an international scandal in eastern Europe

Balázs Gulyás writes: Last week, Rod Dreher, the American author now living in Hungary, caused a diplomatic scandal that has gone largely unnoticed in his home country. Dreher’s stay in Hungary is apparently financed, at least in part, by the Hungarian taxpayers. Last year, he was a visiting professor at Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), an institution engaged in training future government cadres that operates from public funds provided by the government of Viktor Orbán. The Hungarian edition of Dreher’s most…

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