Lithuanian PM Ingrida Šimonytė: Russia ‘keeps on proving we were right’

Lithuanian PM Ingrida Šimonytė: Russia ‘keeps on proving we were right’

New Atlanticist reports: As Europe reels from Russia’s war against Ukraine, Lithuania—a Baltic country that’s intimately familiar with Kremlin domination—has emerged as a clear leader in responding to its aggression. For years, said Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė at an exclusive Atlantic Council Front Page event Thursday, her country has warned the West about the security dangers posed by a revanchist Russia—which she says “keeps on proving we were right” about seeing Moscow as a threat. “When people sometimes say, ‘Look,…

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Russians breached this Ukrainian city with propaganda, not troops

Russians breached this Ukrainian city with propaganda, not troops

The New York Times reports: Gesturing to the artillery shell lodged in the ground and a rocket protruding from the wall, Maksym Katerynyn was in a rage. These were Ukrainian munitions, he shouted. And it was Ukrainian artillery that struck his home the day before and killed his mother and stepfather. “The Russians are not hitting us!” Mr. Katerynyn barked. “Ukraine is shelling us!” But that was next to impossible: There were no Russian soldiers for the Ukrainians to shell…

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Russian escalations in Syria risk direct conflict with U.S., military officials warn

Russian escalations in Syria risk direct conflict with U.S., military officials warn

The Wall Street Journal reports: Russian forces have conducted a series of operations against the U.S.-led coalition in Syria this month, including one this week at a strategically located base in the southern part of the country, U.S. military officials said. The Russian actions have alarmed U.S. military officials, who are concerned that a miscalculation might escalate into an unintended conflict between the U.S. and Russian forces in Syria. Tensions between the two countries are already high following Russia’s invasion…

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Who is deterring whom? The place of nuclear weapons in modern war

Who is deterring whom? The place of nuclear weapons in modern war

Jeffrey Lewis and Aaron Stein write: Our reading of most nuclear crises from the Cold War is that, while both Washington and Moscow sought to avoid the use of nuclear weapons, there were always opportunities — by misperception, accident, or simply chance — for the nuclear powers to stumble into a nuclear war neither side wanted. Many officials in the Kennedy administration were confident that Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev would seek to avoid nuclear war under any circumstances, even if…

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Unions might not be Amazon’s biggest labor threat

Unions might not be Amazon’s biggest labor threat

Recode reports: Amazon is facing a looming crisis: It could run out of people to hire in its US warehouses by 2024, according to leaked Amazon internal research from mid-2021 that Recode reviewed. If that happens, the online retailer’s service quality and growth plans could be at risk, and its e-commerce dominance along with it. Raising wages and increasing warehouse automation are two of the six “levers” Amazon could pull to delay this labor crisis by a few years, but…

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Peace versus justice: The coming European split over the war in Ukraine

Peace versus justice: The coming European split over the war in Ukraine

Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard write: In the weeks and months since the invasion of Ukraine, Europeans have surprised both Vladimir Putin – and themselves – by their unity and decisiveness. Post-heroic European societies outraged by Russia’s aggression, and mesmerised by Ukrainians’ valour, provided the motivating force for Europe’s unexpected turn. They inspired their governments to adopt change on a historic scale; they opened their homes to millions of Ukrainians; they demanded tough economic sanctions; and they forced Western companies…

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‘Marching towards starvation’: UN warns of hell on earth if Ukraine war goes on

‘Marching towards starvation’: UN warns of hell on earth if Ukraine war goes on

The Guardian reports: Dozens of countries risk protests, riots and political violence this year as food prices surge around the world, the head of the food-aid branch of the United Nations has warned. Speaking in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday, David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), said the world faced “frightening” shortages that could destabilise countries that depend on wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia. “Even before the Ukraine crisis, we were facing an unprecedented…

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Renewed Belarus military buildup is a sign of Lukashenka’s desperation

Renewed Belarus military buildup is a sign of Lukashenka’s desperation

Brian Whitmore writes: With war raging in Ukraine’s east and south, there are mounting concerns that the threat to the country’s north and west, including the capital Kyiv, could soon return. Alyaksandr Lukashenka said on June 10 that Belarus may be forced to enter the war to fight for the west of Ukraine so that it is “not chopped off” by NATO. The Belarusian dictator’s remarks came as Minsk was reinforcing its electronic warfare capabilities along the Ukrainian border, according…

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January 6 hearings: Republicans will do it again

January 6 hearings: Republicans will do it again

Jonathan Chait writes: The January 6 hearings are about the events of a single day, but they implicate a much broader phenomenon: the Republican Party’s faltering commitment to democracy. The mob attack on Congress a year and a half ago was merely the most grotesque manifestation of Donald Trump’s rejection of democracy, and Trump himself merely the most grotesque manifestation of his party’s authoritarian impulses. “Parties that are committed to democracy must, at minimum, do two things: accept defeat and…

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Corporations you know are helping finance Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ caucus

Corporations you know are helping finance Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ caucus

Alex Kingsbury writes: We tend to think of the past and future threat to elections as coming from voters for Donald Trump and those whom they’d elect to office. But the success of these politicians also depends on money. And a lot of money from corporations like Boeing, Koch Industries, Home Depot, FedEx, UPS and General Dynamics has gone to politicians who reject the 2020 election results based on lies told by the former president, according to a tally kept…

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Did Margaret Mead think that a healed femur was the earliest evidence of civilization?

Did Margaret Mead think that a healed femur was the earliest evidence of civilization?

By Gideon Lasco, SAPIENS According to a commonly shared story, the anthropologist Margaret Mead was supposedly asked by a student what she thought was the earliest sign of a civilized society. There are many variations of the anecdote, but the general details are similar: To the student’s surprise, Mead replied that the first sign of civilization is a healed human femur—the long bone that connects the hip to the knee. Mead proceeded to explain, as the story goes, that wounded…

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Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else

Science reports: A decade ago, particle physicists thrilled the world. On 4 July 2012, 6000 researchers working with the world’s biggest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, announced they had discovered the Higgs boson, a massive, fleeting particle key to their abstruse explanation of how other fundamental particles get their mass. The discovery fulfilled a 45-year-old prediction, completed a theory called the standard model, and thrust physicists into the spotlight. Then came…

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Rhetoric and reality collide as France, Germany, Italy back Ukraine’s EU bid

Rhetoric and reality collide as France, Germany, Italy back Ukraine’s EU bid

Politico reports: By proclaiming their support for Ukraine and Moldova becoming official candidates for EU membership, the leaders of France, Germany and Italy on Thursday sent an unequivocal message to Vladimir Putin: the Soviet sphere of influence is dead — and it will not be resurrected by force. The leaders — French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi — also delivered another even more pointed and immediate message to Russia: The EU and…

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Russia turns to old tanks as it burns through weapons in Ukraine, European officials say

Russia turns to old tanks as it burns through weapons in Ukraine, European officials say

Bloomberg reports: Russia is scraping across the country to find manpower and weapons, including old tanks based in the Far East, having used up much of its military capacity in the first 100 days of its invasion of Ukraine, according to senior European officials with knowledge of the situation on the ground. As a result, Russia may be only a few months from needing to slow operations for a major regroup, these people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to…

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