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Category: Politics

Why Putin cannot restore the Soviet Union

Why Putin cannot restore the Soviet Union

Lesia Dubenko writes: Russia’s ultimatum toward the U.S. and NATO alongside its military build-up at the Ukrainian border reignited the talk of Russia wanting to restore the Soviet Union. As proof, multiple journalists and political observers point to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2005 remark that the collapse of the USSR was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century, and his essay from last year on the so-called historical unity of the Ukrainian and Russian nations. Although this reasoning seems substantiated,…

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Putin’s useful idiots

Putin’s useful idiots

Charlie Sykes writes: By now the cast of Putin’s useful idiots is familiar, ranging from Tucker Carlson and Josh Hawley to Candace Owens, MTG, and Maria Bartiromo. Fiona Hill, the former senior director for Europe and Russia at the National Security Council, calls them “the ultimate stooges,” but at least for now, these right wing voices do not speak for most congressional Republicans, who have tended to take a far more hawkish stance. But Putin can be forgiven if he…

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In Afghanistan, Biden has turned a crisis into a catastrophe

In Afghanistan, Biden has turned a crisis into a catastrophe

Ezra Klein writes: Ninety-five percent of Afghans don’t have enough to eat. Nearly nine million are at risk of starvation. The U.N.’s emergency aid request, at more than $5 billion, is the largest it has ever made for a single country. “The current humanitarian crisis could kill far more Afghans than the past 20 years of war,” David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, wrote recently. And we bear much of the blame. We have turned a crisis into…

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Texas GOP revolts against Trump’s favorite cowboy

Texas GOP revolts against Trump’s favorite cowboy

Politico reports: Maybe it was his move to raise taxes and fees on farmers. Or his regular practice of alienating state lawmakers. Or his decision to pick a fight with the BBQ industry. Or the bribery scandal surrounding his political consultant. Sid Miller has accumulated so many enemies and courted so much controversy in his two terms as Texas agriculture commissioner that even his conservative credentials and Donald Trump’s endorsement might not be enough to save him in the state’s…

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Can rights of nature laws make a difference? In Ecuador, they already are

Can rights of nature laws make a difference? In Ecuador, they already are

Katie Surma writes: Until recently, so-called “rights of nature” provisions that confer legal rights to rivers, forests and other ecosystems have been mostly symbolic. But late last year, Ecuador’s top court changed that. In a series of court decisions, the Constitutional Court translated the country’s 2008 constitutional rights of nature provisions into reality, throwing the future of the country’s booming mining and oil industries into question. The most important of the decisions came in the Los Cedros case, where the…

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Does the U.S.-Russia crisis over Ukraine prove that the Cold War never ended?

Does the U.S.-Russia crisis over Ukraine prove that the Cold War never ended?

Robin Wright writes: In his final State of the Union address, in 1992, President George H. W. Bush sounded almost ecstatic. “The biggest thing that has happened in the world in my life, in our lives, is this: by the grace of God, America won the Cold War.” The ideological struggle between the U.S.-led West and the Soviet-dominated East—which played out in proxy wars around the world over four decades—had not simply ended, the President declared. The U.S. had triumphed….

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Russia extends Belarus military drills for thousands of troops as Ukraine violence escalates

Russia extends Belarus military drills for thousands of troops as Ukraine violence escalates

The Wall Street Journal reports: Russia will extend its military drills with Belarus because of rising violence in Ukraine’s Donbas region, the government in Minsk said, as Russian President Vladimir Putin accepted a new round of talks with Kyiv in the midst of warnings of an imminent Russian invasion. Mr. Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron said after speaking Sunday that they agreed to continue seeking a diplomatic solution. Russia has amassed as many as 190,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders,…

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Former top White House Russia adviser details the sharp contrast between Trump and Biden

Former top White House Russia adviser details the sharp contrast between Trump and Biden

John Harwood writes: Fiona Hill doesn’t know whether President Joe Biden can lead Western allies to ward off Russia’s threat to Ukraine. But unlike his predecessor, he’s trying. Hill has a special vantage point on this slow-rolling crisis that US officials say could bring war in Europe at any moment. As a White House national security aide, she advised then-President Donald Trump on Russia and Ukraine — and became a star witness in impeachment proceedings that resulted from his conduct….

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Climate change is seen as the most worrying threat to global security

Climate change is seen as the most worrying threat to global security

Bloomberg writes: Climate change is seen as a bigger threat than war by a majority of people living in some of the world’s top economies, according to new data being presented to diplomats and military officials who convene Friday for a key security meeting in Germany. The poll commissioned by the Munich Security Conference listed concern over global warming, habitat destruction and extreme weather as the top three risks named by 12,000 people surveyed globally in November. The results are…

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Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians

Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians

The Guardian reports: A massive leak from one of the world’s biggest private banks, Credit Suisse, has exposed the hidden wealth of clients involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and other serious crimes. Details of accounts linked to 30,000 Credit Suisse clients all over the world are contained in the leak, which unmasks the beneficiaries of more than 100bn Swiss francs (£80bn)* held in one of Switzerland’s best-known financial institutions. The leak points to widespread failures of due…

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Republicans wince at Wisconsin GOP crack-up

Republicans wince at Wisconsin GOP crack-up

Politico reports: Timothy Ramthun’s entry into Wisconsin’s gubernatorial primary last weekend was the car wreck no one could look away from. His campaign is built around the preposterous idea the 2020 election could still be overturned — something even sympathetic Republicans here acknowledge is impossible. His campaign website went live, only to be deactivated. His three-hour campaign kickoff featured the appearance of Mike Lindell, the pillow salesperson and conspiracy theorist. “It’s Tim time,” Ramthun, a state lawmaker, told supporters, while…

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In Ukraine crisis, the looming threat of a new Cold War

In Ukraine crisis, the looming threat of a new Cold War

The New York Times reports: Vladimir Pozner was an English-language Soviet propaganda editor in Moscow in 1962, a job that gave him rare access to American newspapers and magazines. That allowed him to follow the Cuban Missile Crisis outside the Soviet media filter, and sense a world at the brink of war. Mr. Pozner, a longtime Russian television journalist, says he now feels something similar. “The smell of war is very strong,” he said in an interview on Friday, a…

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West plans to arm resistance if Russian forces occupy Ukraine

West plans to arm resistance if Russian forces occupy Ukraine

The Observer reports: Secret discussions are under way between western allies over how to arm what they expect to be fierce Ukrainian resistance in the event of a Russian invasion that topples the Kyiv government. Boris Johnson laid bare the case for such a move in a dramatic speech to the Munich security conference where he stated it was in the collective self-interests of the west for any Russian invasion to “fail and be seen to fail”. He said that…

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Putin oversees nuclear drills, U.S. says Russian forces ‘poised to strike’ Ukraine

Putin oversees nuclear drills, U.S. says Russian forces ‘poised to strike’ Ukraine

Reuters reports: Russia’s strategic nuclear forces held exercises overseen by President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, and Washington accused Russian troops massed near Ukraine’s border of advancing and being “poised to strike”. With Western fears of war rising, foreign ministers from the G7 group of rich nations said they had seen no evidence Russia is reducing its military activity in the area and remained “gravely concerned” about the situation. After Kyiv and Moscow traded accusations over new shelling near the border,…

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Who is behind QAnon? Linguistic detectives find fingerprints

Who is behind QAnon? Linguistic detectives find fingerprints

The New York Times reports: “Open your eyes,” the online post began, claiming, “Many in our govt worship Satan.” That warning, published on a freewheeling online message board in October 2017, was the beginning of the movement now known as QAnon. Paul Furber was its first apostle. The outlandish claim made perfect sense to Mr. Furber, a South African software developer and tech journalist long fascinated with American politics and conspiracy theories, he said in an interview. He still clung…

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Grand corruption as a systemic parasite upon society

Grand corruption as a systemic parasite upon society

Sudhir Chella Rajan writes: In the 1970s, international development professionals settled on the following definition of corruption: the abuse of public power for private gain. For economic modellers and political sciences, this focus provided clear parameters to describe the institutional conditions that motivate government officials to make money on the side while providing public services. Bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, too, found the definition helpful to create programmes to reduce incentives for private gain by streamlining the bureaucracy, creating appropriate…

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