It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
SHARKS SWIM TOGETHER
Toronto lawyer Jeremy Diamond deserves more than a reprimand, tribunal rules
Jeremy Diamond’s misleading advertising misconduct requires more than a reprimand, a Law Society Tribunal has concluded, rejecting a joint submission between the Toronto personal injury lawyer and prosecutors.
Last year, Diamond admitted before a disciplinary panel that between 2013 and 2017 he had improperly marketed personal injury legal services that he did not provide, failing to disclose “clearly and prominently” that Diamond & Diamond referred thousands of potential clients to other lawyers for fees.
In written submissions, Diamond argued his role was “not dissimilar to that of many senior lawyers who focus on business development and firm management, while serving as a mentor for junior lawyers and maintaining some involvement in individual cases.”
Diamond’s legal team, led by Toronto criminal lawyer Brian Greenspan, and law society prosecutors jointly submitted that a reprimand was the appropriate penalty, proposing Diamond pay $40,000 in costs.
However, Malcolm Mercer, tribunal chair, said he was concerned that the proposed reprimand would amount “to a mere slap on the wrist.”
That triggered more hearings, including over Diamond’s attempt to have Mercer removed as panel chair. That failed, and subsequently more arguments were held last fall on whether a reprimand was a sufficient penalty.
Last week, the tribunal released its decision containing detailed reasons why a reprimand — the most lenient penalty available to the tribunal — would be “unhinged from the circumstances of the misconduct in this case.”
“In our opinion, a reprimand is so lenient, in the context of failures of honesty and integrity in communications to very large numbers of potential clients over a lengthy period of time, that a reasonable and informed person would be concerned that the regulation of legal professions does not take honesty and integrity seriously,” the panel wrote.
After the tribunal indicated last year that it wasn’t prepared to go along with the penalty, Diamond filed a motion to withdraw his admissions of professional misconduct.
“I was never aware and I did not contemplate that a potential penalty could exceed a reprimand here,” Diamond said last year. “Had I known that that was a possibility, I would never admitted to the misconduct, and would have had a hearing.”
There are no minimum or maximum penalties for lawyers found guilty of professional misconduct, and the range can include suspension or even disbarment. Past tribunals have not accepted joint submissions on costs and have increased proposed penalties.
Last year, Greenspan said that for a guilty plea to stand, “an accused must be aware of the criminal consequences as well as the legally relevant collateral consequences.” Since that wasn’t the case here, he argued, “we say there is no alternative but to abort this hearing at this stage and go back to square one.”
Greenspan declined to comment but confirmed arguments will be held on the withdrawal motion later this month.
FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich speaks out against the war in Ukraine
by ChessBase
3/15/2022 – The American magazine "Mother Jones", seven times winner of the "Magazine of the Year" award from the American Society of Magazine Editors, just published interviews with 36 prominent personalities from the world of chess about the war in Ukraine. One of them is FIDE President and former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who spoke out against the war: "My thoughts are with Ukrainian civilians. ... Wars do not just kill priceless lives. Wars kill hopes and aspirations, freeze or destroy relationships and connections." | Photo: David Llada
Note: The author is Mother Jones staff editor Daniel King of the United States, not to be mistaken for ChessBase author and popular chess commentator GM Daniel King.
Two weeks ago, the world’s top chess authorities voted to sharply rebuke Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The unanimous decision by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) to ban Russians from competing under their own flag, and strip the country of the Chess Olympiad slated for Moscow this summer, is extraordinary not just because it sidelines Russia from the game it had dominated for half a century, but because of who joined the chess world in repudiating Russia: former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich.
In an interview with Mother Jones, Dvorkovich, who is now president of FIDE, voiced his opposition to the war, becoming one of the very few, or only, former senior Kremlin officials to openly criticize it. "Wars are the worst things one might face in life…including this war," Dvorkovich tells me from Russia, where he says he is "safe with my family and friends."
Dvorkovich, who served at the Kremlin for 10 years, joins scores of chess leaders in decrying Vladimir Putin’s invasion. "My thoughts are with Ukrainian civilians," Dvorkovich tells me. "Wars do not just kill priceless lives. Wars kill hopes and aspirations, freeze or destroy relationships and connections."
For Central Europe, when using multiple plausible simulations from seven different climate models and assuming different precipitation trends, the frequency of compound hot-dry events varies. In a future 'dry storyline', these compound events occur significantly more frequently than in a future 'wet storyline'. Maps (b) & (c) illustrate this using the example of Central Europe: in the case of the 'dry storyline', on average across all simulations, both extremes may occur concurrently at least every four years on average, while in the case of the 'wet storyline', it is every ten years. In the historical time period from 1950-1980, compound hot-dry events occurred every 25 years on average. Credit: UFZ
Prolonged droughts and heat waves have negative consequences both for people and the environment. If both of these extreme events occur at the same time, the impacts, in the form of wild fires, tree mortality or crop losses—to name a few examples—can be even more severe. Climate researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) have now discovered that, assuming a global temperature increase of two degrees in the course of global warming, the future frequency of these simultaneously occurring extreme events is primarily determined by local precipitation trends. Understanding this is important, since it enables us to improve our risk adaptation to climate change and our assessment of its consequences, as they write in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The fact that global warming will increase temperatures over land masses, increasing the frequency of droughts and heat waves, is a certainty—as is the fact that climate change will alter the average amount of precipitation on land. However, it has remained unclear until now under what conditions both extreme events will occur together, known as compound hot-dry-events. The UFZ researchers have defined these events as summers in which the average temperature was higher than in 90% of the summers between 1950 and 1980, and precipitation was simultaneously lower than in 90% of those years.
"In the past, periods of drought and heat waves were often considered separately; there is, however, a strong correlation between the two events, which can be seen in the extremes experienced in 2003 and 2018 in Europe. The negative consequences of these compound extremes are often greater than with one single extreme," says UFZ climate researcher Dr. Jakob Zscheischler, last author of the study. Until now, however, it was not known what the future simultaneous occurrence of these extremes depends on—the uncertainties in the occurrences estimated via routinely used climate model simulations were too large to arrive at robust pronouncements.
The researchers have now used a novel model ensemble, comprising seven climate models, to reduce and better understand these uncertainties. Each model simulation was carried out up to 100 times in order to account for natural climate variability. They examined the historical period between 1950 and 1980, comparing the results with those of a potential future climate that is two degrees warmer than preindustrial conditions.
"The advantage of these multiple simulations is that we have a much larger volume of data than with conventional model ensembles, enabling us to better estimate compound extremes," explains Dr. Emanuele Bevacqua, first author and climate researcher at the UFZ. The researchers were able to confirm the previous assumption that the average frequency of compound hot-dry events will increase with global warming: while the frequency lay at 3% between 1950 and 1980, which statistically is an occurrence every 33 years, in a climate that is two degrees warmer, this figure will be around 12%. This would be a four-fold increase compared to the historical period studied.
The climate researchers were also able to determine from the simulations that the frequency of compound hot-dry events in the future will be determined not by temperature trends, but by precipitation trends. The reason for this is that, even with a moderate warming of two degrees, local temperature increase will be so great that in the future, every drought anywhere in the world will be accompanied by a heat wave, regardless of the exact number of degrees by which the temperature increases locally. The uncertainty in the warming leads to an uncertainty in the prediction of compound hot-dry event frequencies of only 1.5%. This discounts temperature as a decisive factor for uncertainty. For precipitation, however, the researchers calculated an uncertainty of up to 48%.
"This demonstrates that local precipitation trends determine whether periods of drought and heat waves will occur simultaneously," explains Emanuele Bevacqua. For Central Europe, for example, this implies that in the case of a 'wet storyline' with increasing precipitation, concurrent droughts and heat waves will occur on average every ten years, whereas in the case of a 'dry storyline' with decreasing precipitation, they will occur at least every four years. For Central North America, these events would be expected every nine years ('wet storyline') and six years ('dry storyline'). These regional storylines for precipitation trends can be used as a basis for decisions on adaptation (for example, to evaluate best and worst case-scenarios).
However, even if we know that precipitation trends are decisive for the occurrence of concurrent droughts and heat waves, it is still difficult to predict them any more reliably: "Climate change may shift the distribution of precipitation in certain regions. The pattern of precipitation depends on atmospheric circulation, which determines regional weather dynamics through numerous interactions over large parts of the globe," says Emanuele Bevacqua. Since the dynamic of many of these processes is not yet fully understood, it is difficult to reduce these uncertainties any further.
This finding—that a trend in one variable determines the future occurrence of two simultaneous extreme events with a global temperature increase of two degrees—may also be used for other compound extremes. For example, it can be applied to the interaction of tropical storms and heat waves, or of marine heat waves and acidity extremes in the oceans. "In these cases, it is the trend in storm frequency or ocean acidification, respectively, that is the deciding factor which determines the concurrence rates of the two extreme events in the future," says Jakob Zscheischler.Global warming intensifies precipitation extremes in China
IT'S A MYTH Every tool in the toolbox: Why we need carbon capture, utilization and storage in the fight against climate change
By Jonathan Wilkinson & Steven Guilbeault | Opinion | March 14th 2022 Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson (left) and Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault make the case for carbon capture utilization and storage, a technology with its supporters and detractors. Photos by Alex Tétreault and Josie Desmarais
When it comes to climate change, here’s what we know:
Science tells us that emissions must go down — urgently. Steadily, we have to chart a path to net-zero emissions, meaning we put fewer polluting emissions in the air than we take out. And realistically, this can only happen if we use every tool at our disposal.
Later this month, our government will release a detailed plan for how Canada will cut emissions on the road to net-zero by 2050. This plan will be ambitious — after a devastating year of forest fires, flooding, deadly heat waves and more, Canadians are calling for nothing less. But it will also be achievable. And alongside a whole range of measures to cut emissions, that’s where innovative technologies like carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) come into play.
What is CCUS? Basically, it’s the deployment of technologies that capture carbon dioxide from heavy industries — think cement, steel, fertilizer, oil and gas — and then either permanently store it deep underground by inserting it into rock formations or completely repurpose it to make new products like soap or cement.
Since too much carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air is what drives climate change, taking it out of the air is an intuitive solution. And as Canadian industry shows, it works.
Take for example the cement plant CO2MENT in Richmond, B.C., that uses a CCUS “capture unit” to pipe the airborne pollution through a rotating set of filters that screen out the carbon particles from the air and reuse them for CO2-cured concrete, thus storing it permanently.
According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Net‐Zero Emissions by 2050 scenario, the scale-up of CCUS needs to be rapid and immense — with 1.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide per year captured globally by 2030, rising to 7.6 gigatonnes per year in 2050. This is approximately 15 per cent of total greenhouse gas reductions and 190 times what is captured today. Moreover, the IEA finds that without CCUS, the cost of reaching global 2050 net-zero goals will increase by approximately US$15 trillion.
With our abundance of natural resources and skilled labour, Canada is well-positioned to lead global growth in CCUS. And since Canada is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, it’s in our national interest to do so. As we continue to use fossil fuels in our cars and in our homes over the short- to medium-term, CCUS needs to be a key part of the transition to a net-zero economy.
Canada is already among the global leaders in this startup industry. We now host five of the world’s 21 CCUS facilities. One out of every six tonnes of CO2 that have been captured globally with CCUS is Canadian. We’re fourth in the number of CCUS patents granted, behind the U.S., China and the European Union. This technology is still in its early stages, but is already employing thousands of Canadians. It has the potential to make a big dent in cutting pollution, while creating sustainable jobs and economic growth across the country.
As a government, we want to make sure we support this innovation. That’s why we’re proposing a tax credit to help drive the growth of Canadian CCUS technologies in industries like concrete, steel, plastics, fuels and hydrogen. The oil and gas industry, which contributes 26 per cent of Canada’s overall emissions but also employs over 70,000 people directly, shouldn’t — and won’t — be excluded. That said, the tax credit cannot be used for CCUS activities designed to extract more petroleum.
In their opinion, carbon capture utilization and storage has the potential to make a big dent in cutting pollution, while creating sustainable jobs and economic growth across the country. By @JonathanWNV and @s_guilbeault. #NetZero
The tax credit is an important part of our plan to mobilize substantial private capital towards clean technologies. To those who view CCUS as being too expensive, the tax credit will accelerate the private investment, driving down costs and encouraging widespread market adoption.
When it comes to climate change, there’s no magic bullet. So let’s use every tool in the toolbox. We have the ambition, the know-how, and the plan to build a bright, healthy future for everyone.
SMERSH WAS NEVER LIKE THIS Russian spies in spotlight over Ukraine shortcomings
An aerial view shows the headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor agency to the KGB, and Lubyanka Square in front of it in central Moscow on February 25, 2021. (AFP/AFP photographer) (AFP photographer) Stuart WILLIAMS, Didier LAURAS Mon, March 14, 2022, 12:07 PM·4 min read
The stuttering progress of Russia's invasion of Ukraine has thrown an unwanted spotlight on the Russian intelligence services, who observers say failed to prepare the Kremlin for the realities of the assault.
Several reports have suggested that a shadowy section of Russia's powerful Federal Security Agency (FSB) has come under particular scrutiny with its leader interrogated and reportedly even under house arrest.
This has led several commentators to question if all is well at the ominous headquarters of the FSB on Lubyanka Square in Moscow, once the home of the KGB in the USSR.
Observers believe Russia had expected to make far more rapid progress in the invasion after it was launched on February 24, with forces that were welcomed rather than face fierce resistance from Ukrainians.
"People did not make clear to (President Vladimir) Putin the reality of the situation," said a French intelligence source, who asked not to be named.
"The system is hardening up, bunkering down so that Putin does not receive too much bad news," added the source. - Claims of arrests -
In a report first carried by Latvia-based Russian news site Meduza, Russian intelligence experts Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan wrote that the first consequences of the espionage failings were now being felt.
The head of the so called 5th Service of the FSB, Sergei Beseda, and his deputy, Anatoly Bolukh, had both been placed under house arrest in an investigation, the report said.
The 5th Service is a hugely powerful branch of the FSB which oversees its operations outside Russia, notably in ex-Soviet states such as Ukraine.
It is distinct from Russia's specialist Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), headed by the longstanding Kremlin insider Sergei Naryshkin.
The head of Russia's national guard Viktor Zolotov was quoted by Russian news agencies this weekend as saying that the invasion was "not going as fast as we would like" but claimed this was in a bid to avoid civilian casualties.
France-based Russian dissident Vladimir Osechkin, who runs the gulagu-net.ru site which has exposed abuses in Russian jails, also reported the house arrests which he said were officially part of an investigation on the embezzlement of funds earmarked for Ukraine.
"But the real reason was the inadequate intelligence and incomplete and false information on the political situation in Ukraine," he said.
Osechkin's site has meanwhile also been publishing a series of letters from a purported whistleblower called "Wind of Change" claiming a climate of fear at the FSB due to its failure to warn of the resistance to the Russian invasion.
"Putin is likely carrying out an internal purge of general officers and intelligence personnel," the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said.
"He may be doing so either to save face after failing to consider their assessments in his own pre-invasion decision-making or in retaliation for faulty intelligence he may believe they provided him." - 'Poor analysis' -
FSB Dosye, an investigative site that specialises in the work of the FSB, said Monday that the reports of a full scale purge were exaggerated. Beseda had indeed been interrogated by investigators but was still in his job and not under arrest.
Bolukh had also been interrogated but had for some years no longer been the number two of the 5th Service, it said.
Beseda, according to FSB Dosye and other reports, was present in Ukraine in 2104 in a bid to assist then president Viktor Yanukovych face down a pro-Western uprising. The leader eventually fled to Russia.
The senior FSB operative was targeted by EU sanctions in July 2014 after the annexation of Crimea and outbreak of fighting in the east of Ukraine with pro-Moscow separatists.
The sanctions order says Sergei Orestovich Beseda, born in 1954, "heads a service which oversees intelligence operations and international activity."
Questions also lurk over the the role of the SVR after its chief Naryshkin was subjected to a bizarre humiliation by Putin on television on the eve of the invasion.
Western sources say it appears incontestable that the strength of Ukrainian resistance and the unwillingness of local populations to welcome Russia took Moscow by surprise.
"Before such an operation, you should start by looking at the state of the population, in what situation you are going to operate," said a high-ranking French official, asking not to be named.
"There was a very poor analysis of the state of the morale of the Ukrainian and Ukraine as a whole," added the source.
SMERSH (Russian: СМЕРШ) was an umbrella organization for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Joseph Stalin. The formal justification for its creation was to subvert the attempts by Nazi German forces to infiltrate the Red Army on the Eastern Front.
SMERSH (a portmanteau of the Russian Smyert Shpionam - Смерть Шпионам - which means "Death to Spies") is a fictional Soviet counterintelligence agency featured primarily in the early James Bond novels by Ian Fleming. While modelled on the real SMERSH organisation (which existed 1943-1946), Fleming's SMERSH expa…
COMING FOR KENNEY'S JOB
Brian Jean back in the Alberta Legislature after claiming byelection win
Sean Amato CTV News Edmonton Updated March 15, 2022
The man working to swipe Premier Jason Kenney’s job took a big step towards that ultimate goal Tuesday night, winning a byelection while carrying the United Conservative Party flag.
Former Wildrose Party leader Brian Jean won the riding of Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche receiving roughly 60 per cent of the vote.
Jean has been calling for the resignation of Kenney for months, insisting that the first-term premier will lose to the opposition NDP in a general election scheduled for May 2023.
The Fort McMurray-based lawyer and businessman has been rallying people to vote against Kenney in an April 9 leadership review, even turning down door knocking help from UCP MLAs in favour of that cause.
Jean, a former MLA and MP, defeated NDP candidate Ariana Mancini Tuesday.
She also finished second to Jean in the 2015 provincial election. Mancini captured roughly 17 per cent of the vote Tuesday.
Jean resigned as a UCP MLA for the area in 2018 after he lost a leadership vote to Jason Kenney in 2017.
Kenney was asked at a news conference in Edmonton Tuesday morning who he'd be rooting for in the contest.
"Well, obviously the United Conservative Party. And obviously I encourage people to get out and vote," he said, not mentioning Jean by name.
Wildrose Independence Party leader Paul Hinman finished third with roughly 11 per cent.
The byelection was triggered when UCP MLA Laila Goodridge resigned to run for a federal seat.
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Chelan Skulski
Brian Jean after winning Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche byelection on Tuesday March 15, 2022. (CTV News Edmonton/Sean Amato)
WILL FOX WANT THEM TO COME IN Anxious wait for Ukrainian asylum seekers at Mexican-US border Ukrainians Sasha and Julia wait at the San Ysidro border crossing in Tijuana in northwestern Mexico hoping to enter the United States
(AFP/Guillermo Arias)
Mon, March 14, 2022,
After fleeing Ukraine by train and flying to Mexico via Spain, Natalia Poliakova found herself stuck at the border with the United States 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) from home seeking asylum.
"The US government says 'we'll help you' but now we've been on the street for days," Poliakova told AFP at a border crossing where a dozen Ukrainians and a handful of Russians and Belarusians were waiting.
"We're welcome (in the US) but we are not allowed" to enter, she said.
Poliakova feels the same frustration as the thousands of Central American migrants who are turned away at the southern US border each year.
In 2014, another Russian invasion had forced the 25-year-old graphic designer to leave her native Crimea and take refuge in Kyiv.
Just two months ago she had found a well-paid job in Ukraine, but left in a hurry again when Russia attacked on February 24.
After reaching the Ukrainian border, she continued to Budapest, Barcelona, Bogota and Mexico City before finally arriving in Tijuana, which borders San Diego in California.
Poliakova has used her English to help fellow Ukrainians communicate with US authorities at the San Ysidro border crossing, one of the world's busiest.
In recent days, Tijuana has seen a growing number of Ukrainians arriving to ask US border officials for asylum.
But the wait is long with a trickle of families and adults accompanied by children allowed through.
Poliakova hopes to join an aunt who lives in the United States, but said she planned to return to Ukraine in the future.
"We all want to go back home to rebuild" the country, she said.
Artem, a 23-year-old Ukrainian sailor, was in the Arctic aboard an Italian ship when Russia invaded, so he too traveled to Tijuana hoping to join family in the United States.
"I only came here because my sister lives there. If my sister lived in any other place I'd go there," he said.
A Russian woman waits on the Mexican side of the San Ysidro border crossing in Tijuana to see if she will be allowed into the United States
Ukrainians talk to a US border officer at the San Ysidro crossing in Tijuana in northwestern Mexico (AFP/Guillermo Arias)
According to figures from the US Customs and Border Protection, arrivals of Ukrainians at the Mexican-US border have increased in recent months after a drastic drop in 2020 and 2021 amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
In January, 248 Ukrainians crossed the southern US border, according to official data.
A 40-year-old from Russian ally Belarus, who identified himself as Andrei, said that he left his country with his wife on February 7, fleeing political persecution.
He wants to be reunited with relatives in the United States.
"If I go back to Belarus, I go to prison," he said.
pho-sem-dr/jh
German WWII ghosts loom large in Ukraine crisis 1Parallels with Adolf Hitler have been repeatedly drawn with Vladimir Putin over Russia's invasion of Ukraine (AFP/GEORG HOCHMUTH) GEORG HOCHMUTH Deborah COLE Mon, March 14, 2022, 8:36 PM·4 min read
The war weighs heavy on Ilse Thiele's mind these days as she sits in the floral print armchair in her Berlin living room, the television constantly tuned to the news from Ukraine.
"Of course all the memories come flooding back," the 85-year-old retired manager of an East German post office says, as she watches the streams of exhausted refugees meeting armies of volunteers just minutes away at Berlin's main train station.
"I feel so sorry for all those people, especially the children."
Thiele recalls the biting cold and ache of hunger on her own trek from Lower Silesia in today's Poland in the winter of 1944-45, when she and her mother fled the Russian advance on foot for Thuringia in central Germany.
World War II still looms large in Germans' living memory and public discourse, shaping the perception of the Ukraine invasion and the political debate over how to face the moment.
Germans, proud of their robust democracy, have reacted with outrage at Vladimir Putin's attempts to frame the war as a struggle against "neo-Nazi" aggressors plotting "genocide" on Russia's doorstep.
The Russian president argued in a speech last month that Ukrainian forces aimed "to kill innocent people, just as members of the punitive units of Ukrainian nationalists and Hitler's accomplices did during the Great Patriotic War".
- 'Epitome of evil' -
In a Twitter exchange that went viral earlier this month, Russia's South African embassy claimed Moscow "like 80 years go, is fighting Nazism in Ukraine!".
The German mission in South Africa quickly stepped in, saying it couldn't remain "silent" in the face of such a "cynical" statement while Russia was "slaughtering innocent children, women and men for its own gain".
"It's definitely not 'fighting Nazism'. Shame on anyone who's falling for this. (Sadly we're kinda experts on Nazism.)," the mission added in a tweet that drew 160,000 "likes".
Hedwig Richter, modern history professor at the Bundeswehr University in Munich, told AFP that Putin was perverting the "overwhelming international consensus" that the Nazis were the "epitome of evil" to make his case.
"It is absolutely absurd, particularly given the Jewish president of Ukraine" Volodymyr Zelensky, she said, noting that many Holocaust survivors associated Ukrainian town names now in the news with atrocities committed by the Germans.
"As a German, I am deeply offended that Putin would abuse the memory of the Germans' crimes in the Nazi period to legitimise his rule," she told AFP.
"What we're observing is how important historical remembrance is, particularly when you see how Russia, by forgetting its Stalinist crimes, is feeding an aggressive nationalism."
She said Germany had been forced to learn that the lesson of its own dark history was "not only a yearning for peace but also, in a crisis, active military defence of human rights".
Anti-war protests across Europe and throughout Germany have deployed a caricature of Putin with a toothbrush moustache in a reference to the Nazi dictator.
Historian Heinrich August Winkler stressed, in a recent essay, the singularity of Hitler's brutal military campaigns and the slaughter of six million Jews in the Holocaust -- a point of consensus in mainstream German thought.
Nevertheless he argued in the weekly Die Zeit in an article titled "What Links Putin with Hitler" that the Russian leader's obsession with a perceived "stab in the back" by the West and ultranationalist rhetoric were important parallels worthy of examination.
"Putin is now confronting Western democracies with the question of how seriously they take their much-espoused values," Winkler said, much like the initially reluctant Allies of World War II. - 'Nasty pig' -
Historian Gundula Bavendamm told AFP Germans had a visceral response to the invasion of Ukraine due to atrocities against civilians committed by the Nazis, and because every living generation had seen waves of refugees -- after World War II, from Yugoslavia in the 1990s and most recently from Syria.
But she said she found the incessant references to Hitler problematic, not least because they obscured recent historical failings by Germany, including energy reliance on Russia, meagre military spending and "our closeness to Putin -- seeing too late what kind of man this is".
"Constantly invoking our responsibility for World War II may have kept us from important self-criticism in the last 10-15 years," said Bavendamm, who runs Berlin's Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation museum.
For Thiele, the Berlin pensioner, the failure to learn from the past rips open old wounds.
"My parents lived through two world wars and I lived through one thanks to that nasty pig Hitler," she said, recalling that her late husband's communist family had been prisoners at the Nazi concentration camp Sachsenhausen.
"Do they want to start a third world war? I just can't understand how, if you know anything about war, you could start one again."
dlc/hmn/gil
Paris graffiti legend C215 on his Ukraine mural Paris graffiti legend C215 on his Ukraine muralC215's mural carries a quote from Zelensky: "I am neither a god nor an icon... hang pictures of your children and look at them whenever you want to make a decision."
(AFP/JOEL SAGET)
Sandra BIFFOT-LACUT Tue, March 15, 2022
The huge blue-and-yellow mural covering the side of a Paris apartment block is a reminder, says Paris-based artist C215, of the human cost of the war in Ukraine.
But it is also testament to the talents of a man whose graffiti skills helped him overcome a traumatic youth to become one of France's leading street artists -- a one-time Banksy collaborator who has tagged walls all over the world.
Real name Christian Guemy, the 49-year-old unveiled the huge new portrait of the Ukrainian girl last week in the 13th arrondissement of Paris.
It carries a quote from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said to his staff when he was elected in 2019: "I really don't want my photos in your offices, because I am neither a god nor an icon, but rather a servant of the nation. Instead, hang pictures of your children and look at them whenever you want to make a decision."
"It's a universal message of support," Guemy told AFP at his studio. "It challenges us to think about the ongoing humanitarian drama in Ukraine and the responsibility of politicians to do something. I can't ignore the incursions of big politics into people's daily lives." - Heroes -
Guemy's pictures are often of regular people, such as the child victims of conflicts from Syria to Kosovo to Rwanda.
He also depicts historical figures -- heroes of French republicanism such as resistance fighters or the Charlie Hebdo journalists murdered in 2015.
In his studio, stencils of Nelson Mandela and Jean-Michel Basquiat are propped up against the walls.
"Perhaps some are too simplistic for the elites, but they are clear enough to reach a very large audience, including in working class areas," he said.
"I want my works to be more important than me, to unite people in a society where everything is divisive."
Born in 1973 in Bondy, a tough suburb on the outskirts of Paris, Guemy was amused by drawing from a young age without expecting anything more from it.
"It was a place totally disconnected from culture," he said. "I grew up in the world of the night: violence, drugs, alcohol."
His mother had him when she was 13 and his grandparents raised him as if they were his parents and she was his sister.
Five years later, his mother killed herself -- a tragedy he says he has now "overcome". - 'Too tragic' -
Bright and multi-lingual, he landed a job in luxury furniture exports, but after a painful break-up, gave up his job to start doing graffiti in the streets, with no inkling of the success it would bring.
"I started stencilling my daughter's portrait around her house to signal my presence and channel my depression," he said.
He developed a simple method -- cutting out faces in card without any prior drawing then spray-painting them.
That led to portraits of other people -- "generally people who have done a little more than life expected of them".
Soon after he began, he was spotted by members of Banksy's team and ended up collaborating with the British artist and appearing in his 2008 documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop".
He felt "too French, too tragic" to continue their partnership, but it had opened doors and he found himself travelling the world, putting together exhibitions, publishing books and helping to design video games.
The thing that he is actually proud of, however, is his work in prisons (24 and counting).
"That's the work that I want people to remember. The older I get, the more I realise that caring for the weakest, the most fragile, is what we should constantly be focused on."
ls/er/lc
NO ONE OFF LIMITS IN PUTIN'S WAR FOX News Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski Killed in Ukraine: 'His Talents Were Vast'
TUCKER CARLSON CAN'T PROTECT YOU
Greta Bjornson Tue., March 15, 2022, Pierre Zakrzewski Fox News
A cameraman for FOX news was killed in Ukraine Monday, the network confirmed.
Suzanne Scott, CEO of FOX News Media, confirmed the death of Pierre Zakrzewski in an email sent out to all FOX employees Tuesday, which was later shared with PEOPLE.
"It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we share the news this morning regarding our beloved cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski. Pierre was killed in Honrenka, outside of Kyiv, Ukraine," Scott wrote. "Pierre was with Benjamin Hall yesterday newsgathering when their vehicle was struck by incoming fire."
She continued, "Pierre was a war zone photographer who covered nearly every international story for FOX News from Iran to Afghanistan to Syria during his tenure with us. His passion and talent as a journalist were unmatched.
"Based in London, Pierre had been working in Ukraine since February," she continued. "His talents were vast and there wasn't a role that he didn't jump in to help with in the field — from photographer to engineer to editor to producer — and he did it all under immense pressure with tremendous skill. Pierre Zakrzewski Fox News
Scott wrote, "He was profoundly committed to telling the story and his bravery, professionalism and work ethic were renowned among journalists at every media outlet. He was wildly popular — everyone in the media industry who has covered a foreign story knew and respected Pierre."
Scott said that Zakrzewski also played "a key role in getting our Afghan freelance associates and their families out of the country after the U.S. withdrawal," adding, "In December at our annual employee Spotlight Awards, Pierre was given the 'Unsung Hero' award in recognition of his invaluable work."
She then quoted FOX News journalist Jay Wallace, who said of his late colleague, "Pierre was a constant in all of our international coverage. I, like countless others, always felt an extra sense of reassurance when arriving on the scene and seeing him with a camera in hand. The legacy of his positive spirit, boundless energy and eye for the story will carry on."
Zakrzewski is survived by his wife, Michelle, and his family.
Scott also shared in her letter that Hall, the FOX war correspondent who had been with Zakrzewski Monday when he died, had survived, but "remains hospitalized in Ukraine." She promised "further updates" on his condition "as needed."
Scott closed out her note by writing, "Today is a heartbreaking day for FOX News Media and for all journalists risking their lives to deliver the news."
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Zakrzewski's death comes as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues. Russian forces launched a large-scale invasion on Feb. 24 — the first major land conflict in Europe in decades.
Details of the fighting change by the day, but hundreds of civilians have already been reported dead or wounded, including children. Millions of Ukrainians have also fled, the United Nations says.
"You don't know where to go, where to run, who you have to call. This is just panic," Liliya Marynchak, a 45-year-old teacher in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, told PEOPLE of the moment her city was bombed — one of the numerous accounts of bombardment by the Russians.
With NATO forces massing in the region around Ukraine, various countries have also pledged aid or military support to the resistance. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for peace talks — so far unsuccessful — while urging his country to fight back.
Putin insists Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the best security interests of his country. Zelenskyy vowed not to bend.
"Nobody is going to break us, we're strong, we're Ukrainians," he told the European Union in a speech in the early days of the fighting, adding, "Life will win over death. And light will win over darkness."
The Russian attack on Ukraine is an evolving story, with information changing quickly. Follow PEOPLE's complete coverage of the war here, including stories from citizens on the ground and ways to help.
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