CNN pulls back the curtain on Russian oligarchs who will now face sanctions

Matthew Chapman
February 22, 2022

Annual Direct Line with Vladimir Putin in Moscow - Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual "Direct Line with Vladimir Putin" live call-in show. - -/Kremlin/dpa

On CNN Tuesday, reporter Tom Foreman profiled many of the Russian oligarchs — the country's wealthy elites, whose support keeps Vladimir Putin in power — who are being targeted by U.S. and NATO sanctions in the effort to punish the Kremlin for the invasion of Ukraine.

"Many Russian oligarchs who often spend a lot of time outside Russia at their foreign properties have deep ties to Putin," said Foreman. "Newly named to the U.S. sanctions list: Dennis Bortnikov, an official at a Russian bank and son of the director of the Federal Security Service, the modern KGB; Peter Fradkov, with ties to the defense industry; Vladimir Kiriyenko, who has also been sanctioned; and the list could grow."

Foreman also noted that the United Kingdom is placing sanctions on other oligarchs: Gannady Temchenko, and Boris and Igor Rotenberg.

"Temchenko is one of the richest people in Russia, with Forbes estimating his worth at $24 billion," said Foreman. "The Rotenbergs have strong interest in gas and energy companies, and plenty of Russian banks and businesses are also on the list" — and, he noted, they played a key role in integrating assets from Crimea into the Russian economy after Putin's invasion in 2014.

"These individuals have kind of a tacit agreement with the state," said Edward Fishman, a former State Department official sitting down for the segment. "They support Putin politically, as a result, they're allowed to benefit from kleptocratic practices."

"Some of Putin's pals were hit with sanctions when Crimea fell in 2014," continued Foreman. "Analysts believe that did slow Russia's roll into Ukraine. And this time, many [like Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI)] say 'the economic consequences for Putin should be steep,' and for 'the oligarchs, their wives and mistresses, and their assets that they shelter abroad.' These sanctions could freeze accounts for these rich Russians, it could limit their travel, stop investments. even keep their grown kids from attending universities in the West. What we don't know is if all this rocking the yachts will make any difference to Vladimir Putin. Right now, the smart money says, maybe."

Watch below:
Tom Foreman profiles Russian oligarchs facing new U.S. sanctionswww.youtube.com

What are the net worth's of the three Russian businessmen (OLIGARCHS) sanctioned by the UK?

Andrew Gaudion

Tuesday 22 Feb 2022

Gennady Timchenko (left) and brothers Boris (middle) and Igor Rotenberg have been hit with sanctions (Picture: PA)

As the crisis in Ukraine continues to escalate, the UK has imposed sanctions on Russia, targeting five Russian banks and three ‘very high net worth’ individuals.

The men in question are Gennady Timchenko and Boris and Igor Rotenberg – three mega-rich individuals who are reported to be ‘very close to the Putin regime’.

Mr Johnson told Parliament on Tuesday: ‘Any assets they hold in the UK will be frozen, the individuals concerned will be banned from travelling here, and we will prohibit all UK individuals and entities from having any dealings with them.’

But what exactly is the net worth of the three men, and why have they been sanctioned?

What are their net worths?

Brothers Igor and Boris Rotenberg are estimated to be worth $1.2 billion (around £885.6 million) each, according to an annual assessment of wealth and assets published by Forbes in 2021.

The brothers co-own the StroyGazMontazh (SGM) group, the largest construction company for gas pipelines and electrical power supply lines in Russia.

President Putin is said to be close to the sanctioned businessmen (Picture: Mikhail Tereshchenko/TASS)

Gennady Timchenko has a mindboggling estimated net worth of $22 billion (over £16 billion).

Timchenko founded and owns the private investment group, Volga Group, which specialises in investments in energy, transport, and infrastructure assets.

Why have they been sanctioned?

The three men are considered to be close confidants of President Vladimir Putin – with Mr Johnson describing all three men as ‘Putin’s cronies’.

According to Forbes, they have all already been sanctioned by the US since 2014 and have assets in the West, with the hope being that the sanctions will force President Putin to rethink his actions in Ukraine.

Sanctions are often imposed to encourage certain countries or individuals to change their course of action in the hope of restoring peace and maintaining order.

Boris Johnson announces Russian sanctions against five banks and three individuals

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Mr Johnson believes that Vladimir Putin is bent on a ‘full-scale invasion’ of Ukraine, and has accused the Russian president of ‘establishing the pretext of a full-scale offensive’ and ‘plotting the destruction of a peaceful neighbour’.

In his statement to parliament, the PM said ‘we have to face the possibility that none of our messages has been heeded and that Putin is implacably determined to go further in subjugating and tormenting Ukraine.

‘This the first tranche, the first barrage of what we are prepared to do and we hold further sanctions at readiness to be deployed,’ he said.

Why a Russian war in Ukraine would be particularly deadly for civilians

PUBLISHED February 22, 2022
WRITTEN BY Airwars Staff
Web link

As tensions mount over risks to civilians from Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, Airwars examines lessons from Moscow's seven year Syria war.

On February 21st Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he would recognise the independence of two separatist regions inside Ukraine, with Russian troops reportedly moving there – steps widely seen as edging towards a full conflict. If Russia does, as has been predicted, invade part or all of Ukraine in the coming days, there are reasons to believe it will be a particularly bloody conflict for civilians – as well as an opaque one.

Russian actions in Syria, which Airwars has tracked since they began in 2015, suggests the country’s military does little to mitigate civilian harm. And should any conflict intensify in Ukraine, local and international civilian harm monitoring is likely to be deeply challenged, an Airwars assessment has found.

Russia in Syria: bleak record on civilian harm

Moscow’s record in Syria offers insights into what to expect from any Russian intervention in Ukraine.

Since the first of tens of thousands of airstrikes in support of President Bashar Al-Assad’s government in September 2015, Airwars has recorded 4,621 incidents in which Russia is alleged to have caused civilian deaths or injuries.

From these, Airwars currently estimates that a minimum of at least 4,172 civilians have been killed by Russia alone – with at least 16,000 additional claimed civilian deaths occurring in events contested between both Russian and Syrian regime actions.

Overall, Russia has been linked to as many as 23,400 alleged civilian deaths in Syria. And more than 41,000 civilians have also allegedly been injured.

Russian involvement in Syria has been characterised by a heavy reliance on unguided munitions, including cluster bombs and thermobaric missiles. Videos uploaded by the Russian Ministry of Defence in the early years of the conflict demonstrated the low levels of accuracy achieved when using unguided munitions.

Moscow has also faced persistent and well-substantiated allegations that it deliberately targets health workers and medical facilities throughout Syria. Amnesty International has called this a “strategy of war” to push back rebels. Markets, civilian-only neighbourhoods and even refugee camps have also reportedly been targeted by Russian strikes.

More recently, Russia has been criticised for targeting civilian infrastructure, such as poultry farms and water treatment facilities in Idlib, which is the last opposition-held region in Syria. Rights groups say this may amount to war crimes. And Human Rights Watch has already raised concerns about the shelling of residential areas in Ukraine by Russian-backed groups, a tactic Russia has been repeatedly accused of pursuing in Syria.

Denial of casualties

Russia is far from the only foreign power that has killed civilians in Syria’s decade-long war – in fact four of the five permanent United Nations Security Council members continue to bomb the country.

Yet while there are deep flaws in the civilian harm policies applied by the United States, Britain, France and others, they do at least have known policies.

To date, Russia has not publicly accepted responsibility for a single civilian death during six and a half years of war in Syria. It is currently unclear if Russia has any comprehensive mechanisms in place for either preventing civilian harm from its air and artillery strikes, or for accounting for civilian casualties. Extensive reports of Moscow’s deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure and hospitals suggests the opposite.

Airwars has tried multiple times to engage with Russian authorities on civilian harm concerns, with no success. In 2018 President Putin was asked by Fox News about civilians killed by Russian airstrikes. “You know, when there [is] warfare going on — and this is the worst thing that can happen [for] humankind – [victims] are inevitable, and there will always be a question of who’s to blame. I think it is the terrorist groups who are to blame who destabilized the situation in the country,” he noted.

Ukraine casualties: a challenge to track

Should war again come to Ukraine, a comprehensive review by Airwars suggests that ensuing civilian casualties risk being poorly documented.

A relatively low level conflict began in 2014, when Russia seized the Crimea Peninsula, and pro-Russian separatists later took over parts of the eastern Donbas region – areas internationally recognised as being within Ukraine’s borders.

Since then, even while fighting has continued at a low intensity, the quality of data about civilians killed and injured on both sides has remained poor. While the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights releases regular reports on human rights in Ukraine, it is not a comprehensive dataset. Estimates of civilian casualties are fragmented, and also do not focus on civilian harm resulting from both sides.

Currently, official Ukrainian government sources only provide data on military casualties. Unfortunately, Ukrainian media and international organisations often then rely on UN and OSCE data in their reporting on civilian harm. There are also no well-established Ukrainian monitoring organisations similar to the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

As a result, the civilian death toll of the conflict since 2014 remains opaque. International media reports suggest that at least 10,000 people may have died to date, with some estimates as high as 50,000. Yet the latest OHCHR report counted only 3,092 civilian deaths up until February 2020.

There are also widespread reports of ongoing civilian harm in the Russian-backed separatist regions, resulting from Ukrainian actions. These have come via Donetsk Public Republic (DPR) Ombudsman on Human Rights reports; and Luhansk Public Republic (LPR) Ministry of Foreign Affairs updates. The latest aggregated data from DPR/LPR official sources was reported in November 2021 with estimates of nearly 9,000 civilians killed within DRP/LPR territory since April 2014.

Urban casualties

With dire predictions that tens of thousands of civilians could be killed in a full-scale conflict between Russia and Ukraine – particularly with its likely focus on urban areas – this would quickly overwhelm the capacities of casualty monitors at the United Nations and OSCE, as well as within Donbas, Airwars believes.

Other recent city battles – such as Mosul, Raqqa, Gaza and Tripoli – have seen sometimes extreme civilian casualties, even where some belligerents attempted to reduce harm.

John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, said he was concerned about large numbers of civilians potentially being killed in urban environments.

“Basically any possible Russian invasion route that has been discussed goes through heavily populated areas,” Spencer told Airwars.

“Hitting any target, no matter how important, in heavily populated neighbourhoods is likely to result in civilian harm”

Data shows nowhere in Syria is safe for return

Feb 22, 2022

The past year has seen a trend toward normalization with the Assad regime, accompanied by a push by some nations to force or coerce displaced Syrians to return — or deny them asylum outright. In response, a flurry of reports have been released in recent months by advocacy groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, that highlight the abuses that innocent Syrians risk facing upon return. These reports focus on the stories of survivors and their loved ones as they come into contact with the Government of Syria (GoS) and its security apparatus upon return, and have qualitatively demonstrated that despite a reduction in military operations, arbitrary arrest, revocation of rights, enforced disappearance, torture, extortion, rape, and death still abound and have not been eliminated from the regime’s playbook.

These advocacy reports serve as a valuable contribution to the bank of available information. However, critics claim that a focus on isolated incidents solely within one control area, specifically those that are held by the GoS, cannot be extrapolated to reflect larger trends in Syria. As a result, a claim can be made that other parts of the country, for instance the northeast, are safe for return on the basis that there are ongoing stabilization projects, a U.S. presence, and fewer military incursions. Some also argue that northwest Syria is safe for the return of refugees from Turkey, given the latter’s control of the area. These are not fair assessments, however; they do reflect how the lack of information and testimonies from Syrians themselves misguides policymakers, leading to return policies built upon flawed baselines. The presumption that Syria is now safe for return is often motivated by political expediency and a false equivalency between “safety” and reduced military operations in a particular area, rather than an in-depth understanding of conditions on the ground and the challenges that returnees face. These challenges are often invisible in nature — intentionally or otherwise — due to the way that the Assad family has ensured its continuing rule for decades; enforced disappearances and torture are and have long been primary tools used to terrorize the Syrian people, and thereby solidify regime control by silencing victims and preventing their experiences from coming to light. This results in an information vacuum and widespread self-censorship throughout the country, especially today.

With the GoS and other actors obstructing the U.N. from implementing independent and robust monitoring mechanisms throughout the whole of Syria, data regarding the frequency of violations experienced by returnees is thus incomplete. Within this environment of fear, protection monitoring is severely hindered, making the regularity of violations against returnees notoriously difficult to establish. Many returnees simply refuse to participate in surveys, while others do not feel comfortable answering some of the questions. Moreover, researchers and monitors have no access to Syria’s highly complex prison system, which is necessary to assess the situation and produce a clear picture of what is happening. Absent international cooperation, Syrian civil society is thus forced to take up the lengthy and painstaking process of collecting valid data, exposing themselves to incredible risk in the process.

In an attempt to close the gap, and with pressures for return increasing, the Voices for Displaced Syrians (VDSF) and the Operations and Policy Center (OPC) undertook a first-of-its-kind research project to establish the minimum frequency and types of violations experienced by returnees throughout the whole of Syria, informed by their perspectives and experiences. Despite the known difficulties, the report aimed at obtaining an understanding of at least the minimum frequency with which violations occur, which is a critical step in discussions about return. Indeed, if the safety of returnees cannot be ensured at that baseline, then the true regularity at which violations occur likely suggests even more dismal safety prospects for the average Syrian who has fled. This should enable policymakers to make more informed decisions around return to Syria.

The project took a systemic approach and surveyed 300 returnees across all four control areas in the country, assessing the findings against the U.N.’s 22 Protection Thresholds that must be met before mass voluntary returns can be initiated. The final report details violations on multiple scales including physical, psychosocial, material, and legal safety. Moreover, the project distinguishes itself from previous research by defining returnees not only as refugees who have returned to Syria from abroad, but also internally displaced Syrians who return to their area of origin from a different control area. The sample was split equally between returnees from abroad and from within the country, which allowed the research to capture greater nuance on the challenges internal returnees experience as well.

As expected, many Syrians surveyed did not feel comfortable providing details about sensitive issues that might lead them to become targeted, meaning that frequency and severity of incidents are undoubtedly undercounted. Therefore surveys alone remain an imperfect tool for getting the clearest picture of reality, especially in war zones where random sampling is difficult. Despite these limitations, surveys are valuable in that they improve our understanding to the extent possible under the circumstances. The lower baseline that has been established through this report is valuable in that it demonstrates that previously documented violations are far from isolated incidents and are not limited to GoS-held areas, which means safety for returnees cannot be guaranteed. The report also acts as a blueprint for future monitoring initiatives and an example of how to gain a more nuanced understanding of individual experiences that are hard to capture in an environment of severe repression.

Return experiences

Notably, within the whole returnee sample, a full 41% reported that they did not return to Syria voluntarily. Meanwhile, of those who stated that they did, 42% of them said that push factors played a larger role in their decision; these factors included a poor living situation in host areas, an unstable security situation, and the inability to continue studying. This means that a large portion of those who self-report their return as voluntary still do not meet the U.N.’s definition of voluntary return, having been driven through various forms of coercion or force from their place of displacement.

Moreover, 24% of returnees who cited pull (rather than push) factors as a primary motivation for their return were pulled by family reunification. The majority of this subsample were returnees from abroad; this suggests that restrictive policies around family reunification in host countries are a major force behind Syrians’ decision to go back, potentially acting as a form of coercion.

“The living situation in Syria is very difficult, and if it wasn’t for my family pressuring me, I would have never returned.”
— Returnee from the EU to Damascus

“Life without our loved ones is intolerable. There is no point in being in heaven without your people.”
— Returnee from Germany to Jaramana

At the whole-of-Syria level, regrets about return were split, with just over half of returnees (52%) feeling confident about their decision, and the other half either regretting it entirely or expressing doubts and uncertainties.

Physical safety is at risk

Returnees were asked about their experiences with violence and harassment. At the whole-of-Syria level, 17% reported they or a loved one faced arbitrary arrest or detention during the past year alone, despite the reduction in armed hostilities and Covid-19 lockdowns during this period. Moreover, 11% reported that they or a loved one experienced physical violence or harm, with an additional 7% preferring not to answer.

Concerns about physical safety were more frequent in areas under GoS control than elsewhere, especially for internal returnees, who reported being targeted at a far higher rate than returnees from abroad. Indeed, nearly half (46%) of internal returnees in GoS areas reported that they or a loved one experienced arbitrary arrest or detention over the last year (compared to 18% from abroad); while 30% reported they or a loved one endured physical violence or harm (compared to 18% from abroad). This highlights that there is an urgent need for protection monitoring mechanisms not only for refugee returnees, but also for internal returnees.

Moreover, 27% of returnees across all control areas reported that they or someone close to them faced persecution due to their place of origin, for having left Syria illegally, or for lodging an asylum claim abroad. Again, these percentages were highest in GoS areas, at nearly 50%, showing how the Assad regime continues to target dissidents.

Finally, despite a reduction in active conflict, returnees reported severe restrictions on movement across the country, for a variety of reasons, but especially those related to Covid-19. In GoS areas, the reasons provided were particularly troubling. As detailed in the graph below, Covid-19 restrictions played a far smaller role than concerns around military checkpoints, kidnappings, violence, and conflict.



Finally, reports of active military recruitment came from all control areas, but in especially high numbers in GoS and Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) territories.

Return where?

Housing, land, and property (HLP) rights are another issue of importance for Syrian returnees. The survey found that, at the whole-of-Syria level, 11% of returnees who owned HLP in their area have been unable to reclaim it, with an additional 6% preferring not to answer. The main reasons cited were destruction of the home, or the home being overtaken by armed groups, each in frequencies detailed below.




In GoS areas specifically, 24% of returnees who confirmed that they owned HLP in the area said they have been unable to reclaim it, with an additional 14% preferring not to answer. This is likely facilitated by HLP laws aimed at punishing dissidents, for instance Law No. 10, which was issued in 2018. As of May 2020, at least 50,000 Syrians have lost their homes due to this legislation.

In terms of reclaiming property, it is also important to note that there are large differences between returnees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). IDPs report greater difficulty in reclaiming their property, and in much higher frequency, than returnees, which poses a significant obstacle to their ability to return. This is not surprising, as loss of HLP is a primary driver behind protracted displacement. Therefore, it is important to emphasize that the data here is unlikely to reflect the average situation for most displaced Syrians, as the research sample only included Syrians who have already returned — in other words, those who had a home to return to. The prevalence of Syrian refugees and IDPs who are unable to reclaim their HLP is therefore likely to be higher.

Documentation and protection

In terms of documentation, at least 32% of returnees reported that they or a loved one have experienced at least some difficulty in obtaining documentation for children born outside Syria, foreign spouses, or others. When asked to provide details, returnees at the whole-of-Syria level reported that they struggled to obtain passports (21%), register children born outside of Syria (21%), and register a marriage (16%). One-fourth of returnees detailed that they or family members were missing official (Syrian government-issued) documentation, placing them at risk of statelessness — an issue that could become a major disaster in the future if left unaddressed.

Moreover, few returnees confirmed the presence of justice and law enforcement channels to help them sufficiently address violations they have suffered in their communities; a full 27% of returnees stated that these channels do not exist at all, while 15% stated that they do. Narrowing in on GoS areas specifically, returnees reported that these channels were virtually nonexistent (only 3% overall and 0% in Damascus City said they exist). For comparison, this number stood at around 20% in Syrian Interim Government/Syrian Salvation Government (SIG/SSG) and AANES territories.

Also concerning is that even where law enforcement channels may exist, levels of comfort and trust in them may not. The graph below demonstrates that returnees across all of Syria would have a generally low level of comfort in contacting local law enforcement, were they to be victims of a crime or physical violence.




The big picture

The 22 Protection Thresholds established by the U.N. are currently the main indicators being used to justify a move into large-scale and facilitated returns. Given the report’s findings, we assessed that 16 thresholds are currently considered “not met,” while four can be considered “partially met,” and two are too unclear to make a well-informed determination, requiring further research. In other words, none of the thresholds were considered sufficiently met, which is to say that conditions are not suitable to allow the facilitated return of Syrian refugees and IDPs. This holds true across all areas of Syria, but especially so in areas held by the Assad regime, where most of the recent push for return by host countries has been happening.

Indeed, the data indicates that policies aiming to push Syrians to return prematurely are not based on evidence, as even the lower baseline shows. Recent efforts to normalize relations with the GoS are therefore troubling, as data indicates that its treatment of dissidents and returnees, the root cause of mass displacement in Syria, have not changed and show no signs of doing so. Stakeholders should take note that recent policies around returns are thus not grounded in evidence but in an effort by the GoS and other parties to the conflict to foster a carefully constructed illusion of safety and stability in the country — and thereby, legitimacy in the global arena — to fulfill their own political ends. As a result, innocent Syrians are now doubly harmed not only by a regime that continues to pursue them through inhumane and covert judicial, political, and security means, but also by international policies enabling these trends to continue unabated, by perpetuating and legitimizing the false image of safety being painted.

Recommendations

In conclusion, it is important to reiterate that the dangers of premature return throughout the whole of Syria are very serious. All host countries should end the use of force, coercion, and incentives to drive Syrians back to Syria before it is safe, especially while there is a near complete absence of monitoring and safeguarding measures. The fundamental principle of non-refoulement as established in the 1951 Refugee Convention should hold firm at the core of all stakeholder policies, and the categorization of any area as “safe” should not be determined solely on the basis of whether or not military operations are being carried out there. Syrians are subject to many types of risks and violations, as our research shows; these can be both explicit and implicit, and based on varied factors including political affiliations, area of origin, religion, gender, tribe, and more.

In all policy discussions, Syrian voices — those inside Syria and in the diaspora — must not be neglected. All actors must work to elevate Syrian perspectives and experiences and place them at the center of policy discussions regarding the future of Syria and its people. In this respect, there is an urgent need for joint monitoring mechanisms that pull from nuanced, multi-stakeholder research, and which are capable of safely and accurately monitoring conditions on the ground and Syrians’ experiences with return. Indeed, a lack of genuine engagement means that existing mechanisms are unable to capture safety issues that displaced Syrians face, both within and outside Syria, thereby contributing to forced and coerced returns. This can be solved by greater commitment to collaborating and working with displaced Syrians and Syrian civil society, which will help ensure that their voices and experiences are captured and translated into informed policy.

Finally, voluntary returns are unlikely to happen without a genuine political settlement that includes mechanisms of justice and accountability, both of which remain of paramount importance. Where justice mechanisms are absent inside the country, the U.N., INGOs, and donor countries must not cease in pressuring the GoS and all parties to the conflict to provide adequate and accessible documentation — local or otherwise — to all Syrians, in a way that does not obstruct any individual from accessing humanitarian aid, judicial procedures, law enforcement, health care, education,
freedom of movement, legal rights, or their own property.

Source: Middle East Institute

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of the Observatory.

EU imposes Russia, Myanmar, Syria & terrorism sanctions

February 22nd, 2022 | Maya Lester QC

Yesterday (21 February 2022), the EU Council made multiple designations under its Russia, Myanmar, Syria and terrorism sanctions regimes.

Russia

5 people involved in the Russian State Duma ‘elections’ that took place in Crimea and Sevastopol in September 2021 have been added to the EU’s Russia sanctions list: Aleksei Yurievich Cherniak (Member of the State Duma); Leonid Ivanovich Babashov (Member of the State Duma); Tatiana Georgievna Lobach (Member of the State Duma); Nina Sergeevna Faustova (Head of the Sevastopol electoral commission); Aleksandr Evgenevich Chmyhalov (Deputy Head of the Sevastopol electoral commission).

The Council said that the designations “are not linked to the current security situation”, referring to escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Press Release.

Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/236 & Council Decision (CFSP) 2022/241.

Myanmar

22 people have been designated alongside the Htoo Group, IGE (International Group of Entrepreneurs), Mining Enterprise 1 (ME 1) and the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) in the EU’s fourth round of Myanmar sanctions. The EU has adopted a derogation which provides for the making available of certain funds to MOGE where necessary for the decommissioning of oil and gas or the termination of contracts. Press Release.

Council Regulation (EU) 2022/238, Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/239 & Council Decision (CFSP) 2022/243.

Syria

5 members of the Makhlouf family were designated following the death of Mohammed Makhlouf, a listed Syrian businessman, in September 2020. The EU said that there is a risk that assets inherited by Mr Makhlouf’s heirs will be used to support the Syrian regime and contribute to the repression of civilians. Listed people: Hala Tarif Almaghout (widow); Ghada Adib Mhanna (widow); Shalaa Mohammed Makhlouf (daughter); Kinda Mohammed Makhlouf (daughter); and Sara Mohammed Makhlouf (daughter). Press Release.

Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/237 & Council Implementing Decision (CFSP) 2022/242.

Terrorism

Al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent (AQIS) and its leader Osama Mahmood have been added to the EU’s terrorism sanctions list. Also added were Aziz Azam, spokesperson of ISIL-K (Islamic State’s Khorasan Province) and Da’esh – Hind Province. Press Release.

Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/235 & Council Decision (CFSP) 2022/240.

Asda workers near Glasgow say they are struggling to make ends meet

Asda workers claim that they have had to turn to foodbanks amid 'cost of living crisis'

By Sarah Campbell @sz_campbellDigital Journalist


Members of staff at Asda have claimed that they have been forced to turn to foodbanks to make ends meet amid a cost of living crisis.

The Sunday Mail reports that a survey carried out but the GMB union with almost 800 Asda employees has shone a light on the worsening financial struggle.

Over 500 workers said that not being able to stretch their wages far enough has started to have a negative impact on their mental health.

Almost half of those surveyed said that they had been forced to borrow money from friends and family members to make ends meet while five per cent said that they had taken time off work because they could not afford to travel to their shift.

Seven per cent have said that they have had to rely on food banks for basic provisions.

Although Asda has announced an upcoming pay increase to £9.66 an hour starting in April, workers say that this is not enough to help them stay afloat.

Others have pointed out the stark contrast between the planned increase compared with Supermarket giants reported profits of £368million in 2020.

Bishopbriggs Asda worker and mum of one Diane Brownlee, 41, told the Sunday: “Asda has made record-breaking profits since the beginning of lockdown, with directors paying themselves eye-watering bonuses.

“Workers have been putting their lives on the line by going into work throughout the
pandemic. But our hard work hasn’t been recognised. We kept people fed during the pandemic.

“With the pay increase, I can no longer afford to work in Asda. And I certainly can’t afford to shop there without my staff discount. Asda bosses told us we are frontline staff. But many of us feel like we are on the breadline.”

GMB Scotland organiser Robert Deavy hit out at the below-inflation pay increase saying: “Asda bosses should be shamefaced at the prospect of staff being unable to afford the food they stock on the shelves and any politician worth their salt should be stunned – there is no ‘levelling up’ or ‘fair work’ in Asda.

“For the last two years staff have been told they are key workers, they’ve helped keep the country fed and watered throughout the grip of Covid-19, yet after everything they’ve done for all of us, their ‘thank you’ will be a wage of just £9.66 an hour while inflation soars to a 30-year high.

“Without intervention, these daily struggles are only going to get worse and for tens of thousands of key workers in Asda it is a real possibility they’ll go from the frontline to below the breadline in 2022.”

However, a spokesperson for Asda has said that the deal which was completed with Union Usdaw will lead to a higher wage within two years.

He said: “This pay offer was negotiated with Usdaw and will see colleague hourly pay increase by 7.35 per cent over the next two years, with rates rising to £9.66 in April and to £10.06 next year.

"We are the only supermarket to pay store colleagues a bonus, worth an average of £413 this year for full-time colleagues, as part of a comprehensive benefits package, which also includes 10 per cent discount in-store and online.”

The 'groyper army' is looking to make white nationalism mainstream – it has key allies in the GOP

Jerod Macdonald-Evoy, Arizona Mirror
February 23, 2022

Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers speaking at a rally.

 (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)

The Republican state senator was clear in what she wanted in a recent post on Telegram, the encrypted messaging app that has become a haven for far-right politics and extremists.

“Dear Groyper army, please hit Ron Watkins. Love, Wendy,” she wrote.

State Sen. Wendy Rogers was asking her fans and allies in the “groyper army” to go after the QAnon conspiracy theorist turned Congressional candidate because he had alleged Rogers, who has built her political brand on spreading lies about the 2020 election, was involved in some sort of “backroom deal” that was preventing Splunk logs and routers from being examined for alleged election fraud. There is no evidence of such a backroom deal.

But who or what is the “groyper army” that Rogers, a Flagstaff Republican, was calling to act?


The self-styled online “army” that Rogers was imploring to rally to her aid is a collection of white nationalists who often use online trolling tactics against people they don’t like. Their goals broadly include normalizing their extreme and racist views by aligning them with Christianity and so-called “traditional” values.

“It’s a pretty unprecedented move,” Devin Burghart, president and executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, said about Rogers’ request. “These are things that help their ability to move from the margins to the mainstream.”

Burghart and the IREHR have been tracking white nationalist extremist groups for decades, and Rogers’ request for groypers to help her startled their researchers. And they fear it could help the group find legitimacy, something that they’ve been attempting for some time now.

The movement was birthed in part over 2,000 miles away and nearly five years ago in the warm glow of tiki torches.

The violent “Unite the Right” rally held in Charlottesville, Va., brought white nationalists together from across the country. It was marred by bloody fistfights between the racists and counter-protesters, and culminated in the death of anti-racist activist Heather Heyer, who was mowed down by a white nationalist who drove into a crowd leaving the rally.

The rally organizers faced a lawsuit for conspiring to commit violence, and a jury found them liable for lawsuits. A number of lawsuits descended upon many who helped organize the rally and a recent ruling hit the organizers with a $25 million judgment.

The violence brought national attention to the festering issues of white nationalism driving the “alt-right,” making the moniker toxic. For those working behind the scenes of white nationalist movements, a new approach was needed to court those in power and to distance themselves from what they had seen on television and headlines — something that could be digested by mainstream Republicans.

That thing has been the groyper movement, which is now moving more and more into the mainstream. Their annual conference, the America First Political Action Conference or AFPAC, is set to be the biggest one yet and with a major Arizona presence.

Rogers will be a featured speaker. She’ll be joined by former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and local groyper Anthime Joseph “Tim” Gionet, who goes by the moniker Baked Alaska online. Last year’s conference featured the first ever speech by a sitting politician, Arizona’s own Congressman Paul Gosar, R-Prescott. But AFPAC is just the start of the Arizona push by groypers.

Next month, prominent members will be holding a retreat in the state, and local politicians are doing more than just asking their “army” for support.
Enter the groypers

Groyper started off as a meme, a fatter and more grotesque iteration of Pepe the Frog, the cartoon that became something of a mascot for the alt-right as it began to coalesce into a political movement.

In the past few years, groypers have been increasingly active in internet trolling and “irl,” or “in real life,” trolling. But while many on the right focus their efforts on badgering liberals, groypers have made sport of targeting conservatives they feel have not been extreme enough.

Groypers are also largely followers of white nationalist Nick Fuentes and Patrick Casey. Fuentes is a Holocaust-denier who routinely makes antisemitic remarks and has said that Blacks in the South were better off under Jim Crow. Casey is the founder of American Identity Movement, a white nationalist group formerly known as Identity Ervopa.

The two men led the “Groyper Wars” in 2019, an effort to inject their views into mainstream conservatism, pull more young men like themselves into the movement and harass their political opponents. But while most conservative movements focus their energies on liberals, groypers instead took aim at the conservative establishment.

In 2019, they heckled Donald Trump Jr. at an event in California and asked antisemtic and racist questions at other events. They also disrupted multiple Turning Point USA events, and targeting the Arizona-based group was a main priority of Fuentes and Casey for some time.

Researchers said the strategy worked, as evidenced by the more radical positions taken since by Turning Point USA and its founder, Charlie Kirk.

“And now Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric sounds a lot more like Nick Fuentes than it ever has before,” Burghart said.

Kirk has recently defended the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory on his YouTube channel. The “Great Replacement” theory, an idea popular among white supremacists that has inspired real world violence, holds that white Americans are being replaced by immigrants and other minority groups. It has been seized upon by extremist groups like the American Identity Movement and Generation Identity.

In 2020, the groypers would start reimagining how their movement would grow — and how to take it into the mainstream.

America First

America First Students was one of the first initiatives bearing the name “America First” to come out of the groypers. Its leader, a former TPUSA leader in Kansas and known groyper, has used homophobic slurs and has links to many prominent white nationalists.

The group was quickly promoted by both Casey and Fuentes, and other “America First” groups have been popping up across the country. America First quickly became the go-to phrase for the groyper movement.


The phrase “America First” has been a centerpiece of former President Donald J. Trump’s appeal to an overwhelmingly white voter base, but it has roots in America’s racist past.

It was used as far back as 1896 by President William McKinley, but became prominent in isolationist and xenophobic circles in the 1920s when the Ku Kluk Klan adopted it. “America First” was later promoted by American Nazi sympathizers. And David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the KKK, would use the term in 2016 when describing his foreign policy platform as a U.S. Senate candidate.

In 2020, Arizona saw the launch of its own America First Union chapter. Its Instagram and Twitter pages quickly began spreading hateful content and misinformation.

The account was one of many AFU accounts that adopted similar imagery, a wooly mammoth in front of a state flag with the name of the account. The Arizona account shared antisemitic posts, touted the “great replacement” theory, provided updates on the Arizona 2020 election “audit” and told followers to “fight for your blood and soil,” a slogan associated with Nazi Germany.

At the Jan. 6 riot in Washington D.C., flags bearing Fuentes’ America First logo can be seen throughout the day’s events. Fuentes encouraged violence against lawmakers and police in the days leading up to the failed overthrow of the 2020 election.

“What can you and I do to a state legislator besides kill them?” Fuentes said days before the insurrection. He later couched his comments: “We should not do that. I’m not advising that. But, I mean, what else can you do, right? Nothing.”

The latest stage of the movement’s evolution has seen the groyper moniker take a back seat to “America First” because it appeals so readily to mainstream conservatives and Trump voters.

“You’ll still see them use (the term) groyper, but they have really taken up America First as a tool to enter into recruitment and movement-building with the Trump base, which was initially how they formed to go after TPUSA,” IREHR Research Director Chuck Tanner said. “They’ve really taken up this America First mantle.”

Two leaders in the Arizona groyper movement would emerge In 2021: Kyle Clifton, the man behind the AFU account, and Greyson Arnold. Both gained notoriety on the far right when they confronted a Jan. 6 riot attendee named Ray Epps, furthering a conspiracy theory that Epps was a federal informant.

Arnold, who goes by “American Greyson” online, is behind a popular Telegram account dubbed “Pure Politics.” The channel often shares posts by Fuentes, Rogers and others; comments in the channel’s exclusive chat are often riddled with racist and antisemitic messages.

Greyson and Clifton both have been active in Arizona politics, as well.

Rogers met with both Greyson and Clifton when she did an interview with the groyper-aligned American Populist Union.

Greyson has also met a number of other local politicians, including Congressman Paul Gosar, R-Prescott.

Greyson interviewed Gosar at an event in Lake Havasu City and appeared in a video Gosar posted to his Twitter account where he helped pick up trash along the U.S.-Mexico border nearl San Luis.

He has also shared content from groyper accounts on Gab that have signaled their intentions to bring white nationalism into the mainstream without using violence.

“‘W**nats’ are mad when politicians like Paul Gosar and Wendy Rogers come on Gab,” a post by one popular groyper account shared by Greyson said. “They are success averse, they simply want their little internet ghetto to say racial slurs and talk about how much they dislike jews…as much as you guys hate us, we will drag you to success kicking and screaming!”

The term “w**nats” is used by the alt-right to describe people within the white nationalist movement that generally advocate for violence, antisemitism and accelerationism, the idea that violent acts are required to drive radical changes to lead to a white ethno state. The New Zealand Christchurch shooter was a firm believer in these ideals.

On his Telegram account, Greyson has shown that he is getting closer to politicians and getting the groypers closer to that success, posting a picture with Gosar and claiming he is “interested in 76fest.”
The groypers come to Phoenix

In March, Phoenix will be the site of 76Fest, a three-day groyper conference. Last year’s event was described by one of the event’s headliners as “Hitler Youth, without the Hitler.”

The event is to be a who’s who of the groyper movement and includes workshops like “Aesthetic Warfare” and is organized in part by Clifton.

One confirmed speaker for the event is Lauren Witzke, who formerly was a host of the online show TruNews, which posted antisemitic content and interviewed Rogers twice. Witzke also said in an interview that the groypers were instrumental in her failed U.S. Senate campaign.

“They’re equipping the next generation of Republican leaders,” Burghart said about the groypers. “This is an attempt to mainstream white nationalist ideas. This isn’t just about meme wars, this isn’t just about trolling. This is an effort by Holocaust-deniers and supporters of fascism to move these ideas into mainstream Republican ideas.”

The Arizona Mirror reached out to both Gosar and Rogers about their connections to prominent Arizona groypers, their comments, the history of the movement and asked if they’d be planning to attend any Groyper events such as 76Fest or the Fuentes’ sponsored America First Political Action Conference, also known as AFPAC.

Neither Gosar or Rogers replied to the Mirror’s request for comment.

Gosar attended Fuentes’ AFPAC conference in 2021, the first ever sitting politician to do so.



In recent weeks, both Rogers and Gosar have shared posts on Twitter and Gab by prominent groyper artists and groyper influencers. The Mirror also discovered that Rogers follows Harry Hughes, the National Socialist Movement’s regional director in Arizona, on Twitter.

“They rely on that legitimacy provided by those legislators to further worm their way into every recess of the Republican party,” Burghart said of people like Rogers and Gosar.

Rogers has tweeted and posted multiple times about her fondness for Fuentes who has boosted her to his followers by sharing screenshots of her posts about him.

“It’s really disturbing. They’ve got allies in positions of power in the government,” Tanner said.


Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and Twitter.

Razzie Award Founders Stand By ‘The Shining’ Nomination, But Would Rescind Shelley Duvall’s ‘Worst Actress’ Nod

Rachel West -AP

More than 40 years after the Razzie Awards nominated Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining", the organization's founders say they stand by the film's nod for Worst Director, but not its Worst Actress nomination for Shelley Duvall. Ultimately, the film won neither award, with Duvall losing to Brooke Shields in "The Blue Lagoon" and Kubrick losing to "Xanadu" director Robert Greenwald.


Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, and Jack Nicholson in "The Shining"

Though the critically-acclaimed adaptation of Stephen King's novel is considered a classic horror film, founders John J.B. Wilson and Maureen Murphy are adamant in their displeasure of the film, saying they "didn't care for" Kubrick's adaptation.

"The voting membership the very first year were largely people that Maureen and I worked with at a trailer company," Wilson tells Vulture of the inaugural 1980 awards that recognize the "worst" in film. "A group of us who had read Stephen King’s novel went to see ‘The Shining’ the night it opened at the Chinese, and we didn’t care for what Kubrick had done with the novel. The novel was far more visually astounding, far more terrifying, far more compelling, and we couldn’t understand why you would buy a novel that had all of that visual opportunity in it and then not do the topiary thing, not do the snakes in the carpet, not do the kids’ visions. If you’re going to say it’s ‘The Shining,’ you have to have certain key things in there that were not."

"And as I understand it, Kubrick was the one who decided what they cut out from the novel. So I don’t feel that badly about Stanley Kubrick," Wilson adds, while Murphy calls the famed director "overrated."

Murphy says she would rescind Duvall's nomination for Worst Actress in "The Shining".

"Knowing the backstory and the way that Stanley Kubrick kind of pulverized her, I would take that back," she says. "We’re willing to say, 'Yeah, maybe that shouldn’t have been nominated.' Everybody makes mistakes. That’s being human."

Two years ago, Wilson wrote about Duvall's nomination in a 2020 Razzie Retrospective, writing, in part, "Shelley Duvall’s shrill, one-note, over-the-top hysterical performance as Nicholson’s wife was among our ten inaugural Worst Actress nominees. In defense of Duvall, we learned later, that Kubrick apparently drove her to the brink of madness due to his abusive behaviour. He subsequently got labelled a genius (by some) and she coo-coo. We suspect he badgered her into a cowering performance and in retrospect, we would like to place the blame solely on him."

‘Superbly preserved’ pterosaur fossil unearthed in Scotland

By SYLVIA HUI

In this undated photo issued by the National Museums Scotland on Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022, University of Edinburgh PhD student Natalia Jagielska poses for a photo with the world's largest Jurassic pterosaur unearthed on the Isle of Skye. The fossil of a 170-million-year-old pterosaur, more popularly known as pterodactyl, billed as the world’s best-preserved skeleton of the prehistoric winged reptile, has been found on the Isle of Skye in remote Scotland. The National Museum of Scotland said the fossil of the pterosaur is the largest of its kind ever discovered from the Jurassic period.

 (Stewart Attwood/National Museums Scotland via AP)


LONDON (AP) — The fossil of a 170 million-year-old pterosaur, described as the world’s best-preserved skeleton of the prehistoric winged reptile, has been found on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, scientists said Tuesday.

The National Museum of Scotland said the fossil of the pterosaur, more popularly known as pterodactyls, is the largest of its kind ever discovered from the Jurassic period. The reptile had an estimated wingspan of more than 2.5 meters (8.2 feet), similar to that of an albatross, the museum said.

The fossil was discovered in 2017 by PhD student Amelia Penny during a field trip on the Isle of Skye in remote northwestern Scotland, when she spotted the pterosaur’s jaw protruding from rocks. It will now be added to the museum’s collection.

“Pterosaurs preserved in such quality are exceedingly rare and are usually reserved to select rock formations in Brazil and China. And yet, an enormous superbly preserved pterosaur emerged from a tidal platform in Scotland,” said Natalia Jagielska, a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh who is the author of a new scientific paper describing the find.

Steve Brusatte, a professor of palaeontology at Edinburgh University, said the discovery was the best one found in Britain since the early 1800s, when celebrated fossil hunter Mary Anning uncovered many significant Jurassic fossils on the southern English coast.

He said the fossil had “feather light” bones, “as thin as sheets of paper,” and it took several days to cut it from rock using diamond-tipped saws as his team battled against encroaching tides.

It “tells us that pterosaurs got larger much earlier than we thought, long before the Cretaceous period when they were competing with birds, and that’s hugely significant,” Brusatte added.

The pterosaur has been given the Gaelic name Dearc sgiathanach, which translates as “winged reptile.”

Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to fly, some 50 million years before birds. They lived as far back as the Triassic period, about 230 million years ago. They were previously thought to have been much smaller during the Jurassic period.