AN ALL AMERICAN CRIME

Bill O'Reilly-endorsed investment group slapped with federal charges for Ponzi scheme

Matthew Chapman
October 13, 2022

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Jan. 21, 2015 [YouTube]

On Thursday, The Daily Beast reported that National Realty Investment Advisors, an upscale real estate investment firm with celebrity backing from disgraced former Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly, has been busted by federal investigators as a Ponzi scheme.

"After investing a few thousand dollars, the New Jersey-based group focused on high-end real estate in gentrifying neighborhoods claimed, clients might see returns of at least 12 percent. The message was repeated in thousands of emails, on huge billboards at the Lincoln and Holland tunnel, and even radio ads featuring the former Fox News host and ex-NFL star," reported Pilar Melendez. "But on Thursday, prosecutors alleged that the investment company’s president and an associate were in fact participating in a brazen $650 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of investors."

"The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey announced an 18-count indictment, including charges of securities and wire fraud, against Thomas Nicholas Salzano and Rey E. Grabato II for their role in the almost four-year-long alleged scheme. The pair also allegedly tried to evade $26 million in taxes," said the report. The founders allegedly scammed almost 400 retirees out of savings, and used them “to pay distributions to other investors, to fund an executive’s family’s personal and luxury purchases, and to pay reputation management firms to thwart investors’ due diligence of the executives.”

O'Reilly himself is not charged with any crimes in relation to NRIA, nor are any of the other celebrity endorsers.

“These defendants schemed to create a high-pressure, fraudulent marketing campaign to hoodwink investors into believing that their bogus real estate venture generated substantial profits,” said U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger in a statement. “In reality, their criminal tactics were straight out of the Ponzi scheme playbook so that they could cheat their investors and line their own pockets.”

PLAYING WITH TOY SOLDIERS
Trump knew he'd lost 2020 — and that's when he ordered abrupt military withdrawals around the globe: Jan. 6 hearing

Sarah K. Burris
October 13, 2022




Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said Thursday during a hearing held by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack that former President Donald Trump knew full-well that he lost the 2020 election. Meanwhile, he was acting on that loss, and trying to quickly withdraw troops from around the globe even though the Department of Defense urged him not to.

Kinzinger showed videos of several defense officials who testified that it was young staffer Johnny McEntee, who did nothing more than run the staffing office of the White House, and who penned the directive ordering all troops out of Afghanistan and Somalia.

"Knowing that he had a lost and had only weeks in office, President Trump rushed to complete his unfinished business," said Kinzinger. "One key example is this: President Trump issued an order for a U.S. troop withdrawal."

"He disregarded concerns about the consequences for the fragile government on the front line of the fight against ISIS and terrorists. Knowing he was leaving office, he acted immediately and signed the order on November 11, which would have required the withdrawal of troops from Somalia and Afghanistan all to be complete before the Biden administration on January 20."

RELATED: Trump’s ‘false’ victory speech was a ‘premeditated plan’ to stay in office: Jan. 6 hearing

He showed clip after clip of high-ranking military and security officials revealing that Trump wanted the "immediate" withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan. Military leaders told him it would be a disaster, but Trump didn't care. When Joe Biden entered office, it was the mess that he was forced to clean up and for which he was blamed. The implication is that it was what Trump wanted.

Watch video below or at this link.



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Former Trump official: He 'wanted people to die' in the riot so he could declare martial law and stay in power

Matthew Chapman
October 13, 2022

Capitol rioters (Photo by Saul Loeb for AFP)


On Thursday's edition of MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," during a discussion about the final January 6 Committee hearing, former Trump administration Homeland Security official Miles Taylor said he believes the former president wanted members of Congress to be killed on January 6.

Taylor, a Trump-skeptic who wrote the infamous anonymous New York Times op-ed describing himself as part of a "resistance" within the executive branch, argued the former president would have used such deaths as a pretext to declare martial law and remain in office in perpetuity.

"It made my heart race to watch today's hearing, really, because they brought up Trump's mindset, and the question was, what was his mindset?" Taylor told anchor Nicolle Wallace. "I'm going to demystify that for America right now. I've spent time with the guy in the Oval Office, the White House situation room, and Air Force One. I'll tell you what his mindset was on January 6th."

"I believe Donald Trump wanted people to die," said Taylor. "He wanted people to die who were elected officials, en masse, so he could call out the military, so he could invoke the Insurrection Act, so he could prevent the peaceful transfer of power. That's not a conspiracy theory. In fact, in hindsight, it's pretty damn clear to me this is what he had in mind from day one in office."

This plan from Trump, said Taylor, explains something that had mystified himself and other national security officials about the former president from day one: why he continually refused to condemn right-wing domestic terrorist groups every time there was a violent incident. "Why did he make excuses for domestic terrorist groups? Because he was on their side."

"We saw in testimony the other week in courts that the January 6th plotters knew they were engaging in an insurrection, an armed insurrection. That's what they intended," said Taylor. "And we have people, extremists ... two hops away from the president of the United States who were planning on making that happen. He wanted people to die on January 6th so that he could use those presidential powers to prevent our democracy from transitioning to a new president. And I think the committee presented that in extremely powerful passion."

Watch below or at this link.

Miles Taylor says Trump "wanted people to die" on January 6

Feeling “schadenfreude” about Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis may have impacted people’s views on the election

2022/10/12


A recent study examined Americans’ feelings of schadenfreude and sympathy toward Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis in 2020. The findings, published in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology, revealed that Democrats expressed more schadenfreude and less sympathy toward Trump’s diagnosis compared to Republicans. Democrats were also more likely to think that the diagnosis would sway people’s votes in the upcoming election.

Schadenfreude, a German word that has been adopted by the English language, describes a feeling of pleasure at another person’s misfortune. This emotion tends to occur within competitive environments, often when there is a conflict between two groups. Study author Joanna Peplak and her co-authors wanted to explore the role of schadenfreude within a particularly heated intergroup context — the latest U.S. presidential election.

“I have been interested in schadenfreude (i.e., feeling pleasure in others’ misfortunes) for some time now and have been primarily conducting research on individual and development differences in children’s and adolescents’ experiences of schadenfreude in social interactions,” explained Peplak, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California-Irvine.

“My primary research questions include: When and why do individuals experience schadenfreude? Do frequent experiences of schadenfreude influence how we treat others? Although schadenfreude is primarily thought to be immoral, can it reflect moral facets as well?”

“For this paper, I was interested in investigating similar questions except in the political context—specifically in response to former President Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis within weeks of the Presidential Election. My goal was to shed light on the emotions that contribute to partisanship and voting behavior,” Peplak said.

In October 2020, it was announced that then president Donald Trump had contracted COVID-19. The 2020 election campaign was particularly competitive given Trump’s controversial politics and the ongoing pandemic. Because Trump was perceived by many to have mishandled the COVID crisis, some Americans may have felt that he deserved his diagnosis, particularly Democrats.

Peplak and her colleagues opted to investigate feelings of schadenfreude (and its opposite, sympathy) among the American public in response to Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis. The researchers also explored whether these feelings influenced citizens’ voting intentions.

About a week after Trump’s diagnosis was announced, 506 Americans answered an online questionnaire. With both open-ended questions and scale items, the survey assessed participants’ levels of schadenfreude and sympathy concerning Trump’s diagnosis. Participants were next asked whether they thought the diagnosis would affect their and other Americans’ voting intentions in the upcoming election.

In general, the respondents reported slightly more sympathy than schadenfreude. As expected, Democrats demonstrated more schadenfreude than toward Trump compared to Republicans. But even among Democrats, the levels of schadenfreude were not high (about 3 on average on a 5-point scale).

“Given the political climate prior to the 2020 Presidential Election and the influx of media responses that displayed individuals’ schadenfreude, I was surprised that feelings of schadenfreude in the sample of Democrats we surveyed for this study were relatively low,” Peplak told PsyPost. “This may be because our participants took COVID-19 diagnoses seriously. That is, even though Democrats may not have liked and/or agreed with former President Trump, their feelings of schadenfreude following his diagnosis may have been tempered by the relative severity of the diagnosis.”

The researchers next assessed the nature of participants’ feelings of schadenfreude and sympathy. There are said to be different subtypes of schadenfreude depending on the cognitions behind the emotion — deservingness-based schadenfreude, competition-based schadenfreude, and malice-based schadenfreude.

By coding participants’ responses to the open-ended questions, the researchers ascertained that the higher schadenfreude and lower sympathy among Democrats was motivated by deservingness beliefs and very little malice. For example, of the total sample, 43% indicated that they felt Trump deserved his diagnosis, 16% expressed care for his well-being, and only 5% expressed malice. These themes were associated with participants’ level of schadenfreude — Americans who expressed that Trump deserved the diagnosis or expressed malice toward him demonstrated higher schadenfreude.

Interestingly, respondents felt that Trump’s diagnosis would impact others’ voting intentions more than their own. Democrats were especially likely to anticipate a shift in votes. Across the sample, of those who thought votes would change, most (76%) thought it would sway more votes toward the Democrats. When they expressed why they thought this, most felt that Trump’s diagnosis would help voters recognize Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic.

Neither schadenfreude nor sympathy was linked to anticipated shifts in voting intentions. However, feeling that Trump deserved his diagnosis was. The authors report, “Those who believed then-President Trump’s diagnosis was deserved (cognition strongly associated with schadenfreude) were four times more likely to believe the public would change their vote to the Democratic Party.”

Peplak said the study provided three important takeaways:

“1. The groups that you belong to and associate with shape your emotional reactions. We found that schadenfreude was higher in Democrats and sympathy was higher in Republicans following former President Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis.”

“2. Schadenfreude might not always reflect hatred or malice. We found that many participants experienced schadenfreude following former President Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis because they believed it reflected deservingness or justice following his mismanaged response to the pandemic.”

“3. Experiencing schadenfreude in response to a political event may (indirectly) influence voting behavior. We found that the more Americans believed Trump’s diagnosis was deserved (a belief strongly related to experiences of schadenfreude), the more likely they were to think others would change their vote to the Democratic Party in the 2020 Presidential Election.”

Overall, the study shed light on how emotionally charged political events may influence the public’s thoughts about an upcoming election. But the authors noted that their study only examined voting intentions and not voting behavior. It would be interesting for future research to explore whether emotions like schadenfreude might actually change voting behavior and influence election results.

“There is still much to be learned about schadenfreude in the political arena and whether and how feeling schadenfreude might change behavior,” Peplak said. “For example, future work should seek to answer questions such as: Does expressed schadenfreude (e.g., via social media) expand political party divided? Does schadenfreude based in correcting injustice motivate us to correct our own injustices?”

The study, “Schadenfreude and Sympathy Following President Trump’s COVID-19 Diagnosis: Influence on Pre-Election Voting Intentions”, was authored by Joanna Peplak, J. Zoe Klemfuss, and Peter H. Ditto.

COMMODITY FETISH

David Hockney ode to French Riviera sells for £24 million

Agence France-Presse
October 13, 2022


David Hockney's 1969 painting 'Early Morning, Sainte-Maxime'

 has sold for more than £24 million

David Hockney's 1969 painting "Early Morning, Sainte-Maxime", inspired by a French Riviera sunrise, sold for over £24 million ($27.3 million) at a London sale Thursday -- more then double the pre-sale estimate.

The piece dates from a transitional phase in the British artist's early career, between his seminal, highly stylized Californian swimming pool paintings and the "naturalism" that came to define his later work.

The work showcases his increasing fascination with light, capturing "glass-like waters bathed in the sparkling light of a new day", said auction house Christie's.

"It is a work of rare, near-cinematic beauty that -- in both subject and style -- ushers in a thrilling new dawn."

The work was created at the height of Hockney's romance with Peter Schlesinger, representing a time of "personal contentment and professional triumph", said the auction house.

It was included in Hockney's first retrospective in London in 1970, and was unseen in public for over three decades.

The work belongs to a group of four paintings based on photographs that Hockney, now aged 85, took during his 1968 European trip with Schlesinger, having recently returned from four years living in California, where he had met his partner.

"Notably, the imagery would ultimately come full circle: it was with a poignant sunset that Hockney ultimately bade farewell to his lover in the deeply emotive 1971 painting 'Sur la Terrasse'," said Christie's.

Hockney later said that the idea of painting moving water in a "very slow and careful manner was (and still is) very appealing to me.

"It is a formal problem to represent water, to describe water, because it can be anything -- it can be any color, it's movable, it has no set visual description," he added.


Hockney's 1972 work "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" sold for $90,312,500 in New York in 2018, which at the time was the highest auction price realised for a living artist.

Thursday's winning bid came in at £20,899,500, which works out at £24,219,427 once the buyer's premium is included.

© 2022 AFP

Auctioneers unveil Microsoft co-founder's $1 billion art collection

Agence France-Presse
October 13, 2022

Work by artists including David Hockney will be included in the sale of the century -- the biggest ever art auction Frederic J. BROWN AFP

Auctioneers unveiled the most expensive art collection ever to go under the hammer Wednesday, which belonged to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and is valued at $1 billion.

Five centuries of touchstone works featuring some of the most significant creators in history are being sold next month.

The collection of more than 150 pieces includes work by Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin and Jasper Johns.

"I think this is a sale that sort of exhausts superlatives," said Johanna Flaum, vice-chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art at auctioneers Christie's.

"This is... the most valuable collection ever sold at auction. It's really a once-in-a-generation type of event."

Highlights include "La montagne Sainte-Victoire" by Paul Cezanne, which is expected to fetch at least $120 million, and "Verger avec cypres" by Van Gogh, whose hammer price is estimated at over $100 million.

Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975, becoming fabulously rich as the company grew into the computing behemoth it is today.

By the time he died in 2018 at the age of 65, he had bought some of the most important works created in the last half a millennium.

"The collection is quite wide-ranging, it really makes Paul Allen a unique collector in that sense," said Flaum.

The previous most expensive collection sold at auction was the Macklowe collection whose two tranches netted $922 million.


The auction will take place in New York on November 9 and 10. All proceeds due to Allen's estate are to be dedicated to philanthropy, in line with his wishes.

Parts of the collection will be available for public viewing in Los Angeles, London, Paris, Shanghai and New York ahead of the sale.

© 2022 AFP

THE LAW OF THREE

For the third time in recorded history, we will have three La Niña winters


By Karen Graham
Published October 8, 2022

Dried up Little Washoe Lake in Nevada is seen in July 2021 after prolonged drought. — © AFP

L​a Niña is expected to be in place this winter for the third year in a row, making the phenomenon the third time in recorded history with three straight La Niña years.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration *NOAA) is already predicting a 93 percent chance La Niña continues from November through January next year.

During August, below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) persisted across the central and east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean. Not only have there been SST departures in the Tropical Pacific during the last four weeks, but SST departures globally have been significant,

During the last four weeks, equatorial SSTs were below average across most of the Pacific Ocean
and in the western Indian Ocean. Equatorial SSTs were above average around Indonesia and in
small parts of the Atlantic Ocean. Source NOAA Climate Prediction Center

New research led by the University of Washington suggests that climate change is, in the short term, favoring La Niñas. The study was recently published in Geophysical Research Letters.

El Niño and La Niña are the warm and cool phases of a recurring climate pattern across the tropical Pacific—the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or “ENSO” for short. The pattern shifts back and forth irregularly every two to seven years, and each phase triggers predictable disruptions of temperature and precipitation.

Global Impacts of El Nino and La Nina

El Niño and La Niña have weaker impacts during Northern Hemisphere summer than they do in the winter. Summer impacts include warm conditions in northeastern Australia and cooler-than-average conditions across India and Southeast Asia.

Generally, the polar jet stream in a La Niña winter buckles north over the North Pacific, then sweeps into the Pacific Northwest, dislodging cold air from Alaska into the Northwest, the northern Rockies, and Northern Plains.

But in the Eastern part of the country, the jet stream tends to swing to the north, as high pressure dominates over the South and Southeast, pushing warmer air up the East Coast. This is a typical winter pattern during La Niña. The actual conditions can vary with La Niña’s strength and other factors influencing the weather on shorter time scales.

Here’s something interesting to think about – Global warming is widely expected to favor El Niños. The reason is that the cold, deep water rising to the sea surface off South America will meet warmer air.

La Nina weather pattern, Source – The Weather Channel

Anyone who’s sweated knows that evaporation has a cooling effect, so the chillier ocean off South America, which has less evaporation, will warm faster than the warmer ocean off Asia.

This decreases the temperature difference across the tropical Pacific and lightens the surface winds blowing toward Indonesia, the same as occurs during El Niño. Past climate records confirm that the climate was more El Niño-like during warmer periods.

But here we are today, stuck in a La Nina weather pattern that could be classified as a strong La Nina. This generally means that you will see much less snow from southern New England to the mid-Atlantic states, as well as in parts of the central Plains.

The Pacific Ocean off South America has actually cooled slightly, along with ocean regions farther south. Meanwhile, the western Pacific Ocean and nearby eastern Indian Ocean have warmed more than elsewhere. Neither phenomenon can be explained by the natural cycles simulated by climate models. This suggests that some processes missing in current models could be responsible.

According to the researchers, changes on either side of the tropical Pacific show that the temperature difference between the eastern and western Pacific has grown, surface winds blowing toward Indonesia have strengthened, and people are experiencing conditions typical of La Niña winters.

The researchers aren’t sure why this pattern is happening. Their current work is exploring tropical climate processes and possible links to the ocean around Antarctica. Once they know what’s responsible, they may be able to predict when it will eventually switch to favor El Niños.

US proposes redefining when gig workers are employees

AFP
October 12, 2022

Uber. — © AFP JOEL SAGET

United States labor officials proposed a rule change Tuesday that could make it easier for gig workers such as Uber drivers to be reclassified as employees entitled to benefits.

The move by President Joe Biden’s Labor Department would lower a bar set by his predecessor regarding when someone is considered an employee instead of a contract worker.

It also comes as “gig economy” companies from rideshare platforms to food delivery services strive to maintain the status quo.

The new formula includes factors such as how long a person works for a company and the degree of control over the worker, as well as whether what they do is “integral” to a business, according to the proposed rule.

“We believe the proposed regulation would better protect workers from misclassification while at the same time providing a consistent approach for those businesses that engage or wish to engage with independent contractors,” Jessica Looman of the US Department of Labor said at a press briefing.

Being classified as employees would entitle workers to sick leave, overtime, medical coverage and other benefits, driving up costs for companies such as Uber, Lyft and DoorDash that rely on gig workers.

The proposed rule change is subject to a 45-day public comment period, meaning there is no immediate impact, but share prices took a hit on the news.

Uber and Lyft shares ended the formal day down more than 10 percent, while DoorDash was down nearly six percent.

“It’s a clear blow to the gig economy and a near-term concern for the likes of Uber and Lyft,” despite uncertainty about how the new rule might be interpreted across the country, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors.

“With ride sharing and other gig economy players depending on the contractor business model, a classification to employees would essentially throw the business model upside down and cause some major structural changes if this holds.”

Uber and Lyft have consistently argued that their drivers want independence, provided benefits are added to the mix.

In California, the cradle of the gig economy, voters in late 2020 approved a referendum backed by firms such as Uber that preserved keeping drivers classified as independent contractors.

The measure effectively overturned a state law that would require the ride-hailing firms and others to reclassify their drivers and provide employee benefits.

The vote came after a contentious campaign with labor groups claiming the initiative would erode worker rights and benefits, and with backers arguing for a new, flexible economic model.

Five things to know about China’s Communist Party Congress


AFP
PublishedOctober 13, 2022

The Great Hall of the People in Beijing will be the setting for the 20th Communist Party Congress - Copyright AFP/File NICOLAS ASFOURI

China’s Communist Party will on Sunday open its 20th Party Congress, the country’s most important political meeting, which is held once every five years.

Here are five questions and answers about the opaque process that will see major leadership changes expected to bolster President Xi Jinping’s authority and grant him a landmark third term.


What’s the meeting for?



The CCP, which has ruled China since 1949, has held 19 congresses to fill its leadership ranks since it was founded in 1921.

This year, about 2,300 delegates from across the country will descend on Beijing in a highly choreographed event to pick members of the Central Committee, which is made up of around 200 people.

It will “provide important clues about which leaders may be in line for top posts, and the amount of turnover within the Central Committee — generally around 60 percent — may signal how aggressively Xi intends to reshuffle”, wrote Christopher K. Johnson, senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

The committee will select members for the 25-person Politburo and its all-powerful Standing Committee — the country’s highest leadership body and apex of power, currently comprising just seven people.

Xi is all but certain to begin an unprecedented third five-year term as party general secretary.

In 2018, he abolished the presidential two-term limit, set by former leader Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s to avoid another Mao Zedong-style dictatorship.



Who’s on the Standing Committee?



The current Standing Committee consists of Xi, Premier Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng.

These career bureaucrats who rose through the party ranks over decades call the shots in the world’s most populous country, each getting one vote on key policy decisions.

But Xi reigns supreme, setting the agenda for their frequent secret meetings.

A sweeping anti-corruption campaign since Xi came to power has brought down former ministers and Politburo members, weakening party factions and eliminating rivals.

“Xi has made important tweaks to selecting the delegates and the pool of senior leaders. These changes overturn earlier conventions designed to foster greater transparency and open competition,” wrote Johnson.



Who’s leaving?



Since 2002, Standing Committee members aged 68 or above have stepped down, abiding by the unwritten retirement age first employed by former president Jiang Zemin to dump an ageing rival.

If the informal rule is upheld, but as expected does not apply to Xi, two out of seven members will step down — leaving Xi, 69, Li Keqiang, 67, Zhao, 65, Wang Yang, 67, and Wang Huning, also 67.

Li announced in March that he will retire as premier, but it is unclear whether he — or some of the others below 68 — will stay on the Standing Committee.

Another nine of the Politburo’s 25 members are also due to retire, leaving a number of Xi’s close allies likely to be promoted to top posts.



Will a successor to Xi emerge?



Xi has scrapped China’s two-term presidential limit and discarded several other party norms, such as indicating a successor by his second term.

This further consolidates his personal power and raises uncertainties about how long he plans to rule, making potential successors vie for his approval.

He has already installed close allies in top positions this year, such as the new minister for public security Wang Xiaohong, 65.

Shanghai party chief and Xi ally Li Qiang has retained his post despite a controversial two-month Covid lockdown in the key city.



Will Xi reign supreme?



Analysts expect Xi to reinforce his stature as China’s most powerful ruler since Mao.

Party propaganda has gone into overdrive since last autumn to bolster Xi’s legacy, diminish the achievements of his predecessors and further enshrine him in the highest echelons of Communist Party mythology.

Each Chinese leader since Mao has had one of his personal political philosophies or ideas codified in the state constitution.

Xi’s political ideology was included in 2018 and analysts say he will be looking to shorten the clunky “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” to the pithier “Xi Jinping Thought” — putting him on a par with Mao.

Some of Russia's closest allies abstained at the UN rather than support its claim to have annexed parts of Ukraine

Sinéad Baker
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a cabinet meeting via videoconference in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022. Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool Photo via AP


UN members voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to condemn Russia's annexation of Ukrainian regions.

Only 4 countries explicitly supported Russia. Allies in its CSTO military bloc mostly abstained.
Russia's invasion has left it increasingly isolated, even among traditionally friendly nations.

Some of Russia's allies abstained from a UN vote to condemn Russia over its annexation of Ukraine, leaving just four countries voting to support Russia as it becomes increasingly isolated over its invasion.

Only four countries —North Korea, Belarus, Syria, and Nicaragua — joined Russia to vote against the resolution at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, which condemned Russia's annexation and demanded it give the territories back.

143 nations voted in support, agreeing to condemn Russia's annexation, while 35 abstained.

Among the abstentions were members of Collective Security Treaty Organization, a post-Soviet security bloc dominated by Russia and full of traditionally friendly countries.

Four of its six members abstained: Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Belarus and Russia itself are the final two members.

Experts say Russia's invasion of Ukraine has pushed them further from Russia.

Paul Stronski, an expert on Russia's relations with Central Asia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told The Moscow Times last month: "There is growing friction between the Kremlin, its proxies and local Central Asian elites."

Russia tried to make Wednesday's vote a secret ballot, which would have obscured which nations voted with Russia. But UN members rejected the suggestion and insisted the vote be public.


The General Assembly's resolutions are symbolic and will not result in any specific action in Ukraine.

Russia formally annexed the regions this month despite widespread global opposition.

It did so after conducting referendums in the four regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia — which Ukraine and Western nations dismissed as a sham.

Russia's claim is also complicated by events on the battlefield: it does not control the entirety of any of the four regions and has been losing further territory to Ukrainian advances.

DIRTY DOZEN

From jail cell to frontline: Russia turns to convicts to help flailing war effort

New bill would allow those convicted of crimes to serve in the military in exchange for early release or a reduction in their sentence.

Those convicted of certain types of crimes would technically be 

permitted by the measure to serve in the military

| Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images

BY ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH
OCTOBER 13, 2022 

Russian criminals could be freed from prison and have their convictions quashed in exchange for serving in Moscow’s flailing war effort in Ukraine, under a new bill drafted by senators.

The bill would formally allow those convicted of certain categories of crimes to perform military duty in exchange for early release, the scratching of their convictions or reduced penalties, Olga Kovitidi, a senator representing illegally annexed Crimea, said in a post on Telegram on Thursday. Kovitidi, along with her colleagues on the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building, was responsible for drafting the bill.

Kovitidi said the law would apply to those who had committed crimes of “small and medium gravity.” Those who have been convicted of calling for or participating in anti-government rallies, discrediting the Russian armed forces or calling for sanctions against Moscow would not be eligible, the senator said.

Russia has struggled to turn the tide of the war, with Kyiv launching a successful counteroffensive last month and taking back thousands of kilometers of Ukrainian territory held by Moscow’s troops. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced what he called a “partial mobilization” of reservists, which led to a significant public outcry (by Russian standards).

Videos and reports have circulated of the Wagner Group, a network of mercenaries and Putin’s de facto private army, attempting to convince prisoners to fight in the war, but the new legislation paves the way for more open recruitment.

According to Russian news daily Vedomosti, there are reports of “thousands of prisoners with unserved terms for various, including serious” crimes being sent to the front lines.

 

Ukraine bats away Lukashenko’s border threats

Despite saber-rattling from Minsk, Kyiv’s forces are playing down the risks of another invasion from Belarus.

Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko has so far avoided sending his own forces into the conflict in Ukraine | Alexander Nemenov / AFP via Getty Images

BY SERGEI KUZNETSOV
OCTOBER 12, 2022 


KYIV — Ukraine is giving short shrift to increased posturing from Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who this week pledged to conduct joint deployments with Russian forces and triggered fears that Minsk could be seeking to engineer a false flag operation on the border.

Belarus’ chief strategic significance in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine is that its territory — and importantly its airfields — are a springboard for attacks against northern Ukraine, most significantly Kyiv. Indeed, Putin used Belarus in exactly this way in the opening phases of the war.

Crucially, however, Lukashenko has avoided sending his own forces into the conflict, sensing it would be a political disaster.

Just two years ago, Lukashenko survived massive street protests against his rule by using brutal force, and the heavy casualties that the Belarusian army would probably sustain in the war against Ukraine could reignite popular anger against his rule. His direct involvement in the war would also mean more Western sanctions against a nation that has already been seriously hit by restrictions over the rigged 2020 presidential election.

Law enforcement officers respond to a protest against President Lukashenko’s rule in 2020 |

 AFP via Getty Images

Attention swung back to Lukashenko’s motives this week when he said on Monday that he had agreed with Putin to deploy a joint regional military group. He added that this order had been given two days before, apparently after the explosion of the Russia-Crimea bridge, which Moscow blamed on Ukraine. Lukashenko said that the Belarusian army would form the base of this group.

Lukashenko also made fake claims about a potential Ukrainian attack against Belarus. He issued a warning to the Ukrainian leadership in the light of supposed information on “strikes on Belarus from the territory of Ukraine.” Think tankers and independent Belarusian journalists considered this to be Minsk laying the ground for a possible false-flag operation.

“This information was immediately brought to my attention. My answer was simple: Tell the president of Ukraine and other insane people … that the Crimea bridge will be just the thin end of the wedge to them, if only they touch a single meter of our territory with their dirty hands.”

He made his statement as Russia was hitting Ukraine with barrages of missiles on Monday, and Lukashenko’s reference to the Crimea bridge was most likely a hint at Moscow’s retaliation.

Despite this escalation in rhetoric, Ukraine’s military is remaining cool-headed about potential risks from Belarus.

“The units of the Defence Forces are monitoring the situation, there are no signs of the formation of offensive groups on the territory of Belarus,” the general staff said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Ukrainian political leadership also played down Lukashenko’s provocative talk of the past days.

“Lukashenko continues to sell [Belarus’] sovereignty to Russia. The request to deploy Russian contingent in Belarus under false pretenses is the formalization of occupation,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, tweeted on Monday.

Ukraine assesses risks and is ready for any threat from the Belarusian territory, he added. “The situation is under control, currently there is no sign of repeated invasion from Belarus.”

Ukrainian forces have also added context about how much help they think Belarus is really offering Putin.

Belarus is “involved in the repair” of Russian military equipment damaged during the war in the Ukrainian territory, the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said on Wednesday.

Perhaps more significantly, the general staff added the first batch of 20 T-72 tanks was removed from storage in Belarus and sent to Russia’s Belgorod region, apparently with the aim of beefing up the army’s depleted reserves in eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the leader of the Belarusian opposition Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in 2020’s fraudulent presidential election and now lives in exile in Lithuania, urged Kyiv on Tuesday to build a joint “alliance against Russian aggression.”

So far, the relationship between the Ukrainian authorities and Tikhanovskaya’s team has been limited. Unlike many Western leaders, Zelenskyy, as well as other senior Ukrainian officials, has never officially met Tikhanovskaya, much less recognized her as the legitimate leader of Belarus.

Kyiv has always tried to distance itself from expressing direct sympathy for Tikhanovskaya, one of Lukashenko’s main political rivals, seeking not to provoke the authoritarian leader, who might then refrain from holding back and join Russia’s ground war in Ukraine.

IAEA
The Safety and Security of Small Modular Reactors

13 October 2022

Advanced reactors such as small modular reactors and other innovative designs are expected to provide considerable benefits to society and play a large role in decarbonizing our economies. These nuclear technologies can be very different from the current operating fleet. How can we ensure the effective deployment of safe and secure advanced reactors? The IAEA has completed a major project in cooperation with countries around the world to check how well existing safety standards apply to the innovative features that are being introduced. The IAEA is working on addressing the findings of this review by developing revised safety standards, technical publications and training materials.

Battling History

Medieval history powers a crisis of identity in Lithuania and Belarus

BY DAIVA REPEČKAITĖ
ARTWORK BY KATE SAPOTSKA/KARGI STUDIO

26 JULY, 2022

For Lithuanians, their country’s medieval history has been a source of pride, pageantry and identity. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic, multilingual state that sprawled across swathes of the Baltics and eastern Europe, including modern-day Lithuania, Belarus, and parts of Poland, Latvia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Russia.

The Big Idea: Battling history

Governments rewrite history to further their political goals. School boards insist on rewritten history textbooks to elevate elite groups or privilege favored narratives. But unsavory motives are only one aspect of the rewriting history project. Other impulses are noble, idealistic, and sincere.

Its heyday, historians agree, was in the late 14th century and through much of the 15th century before the Union of Lublin in 1569 formalized a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Small as Lithuania is, compared to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, it considers itself, and has broadly been considered to be the keeper of the Grand Duchy’s historical legacy. Lithuania’s coat of arms and its euro coins feature its iconic knight mounted, sword aloft, on a charging warhorse.

The Lithuanian journalist Vaidas Saldžiūnas remembers going into a souvenir shop on a trip to neighboring Belarus and seeing what looked like a Lithuanian mounted knight emblazoned across stationery, mugs and wallets. He was surprised that he felt a little indignant, as if a part of his country’s history had been appropriated.

“It’s like someone is studying the layout of your home,” says Saldžiūnas about his own response in the souvenir shop, “and nonchalantly saying, ‘here, that’s my bed, that’s my restroom, and this is where I cook.’” In other words, it was as if the Belarusians were squatting in a house long owned by Lithuanians.

He was not alone.

In 2013, Lithuania’s Ministry of National Defense announced that the efforts to appropriate medieval monarchs as Belarusians were an example of information warfare. “The conflict with the Belarusians is pre-programmed,” said Valdas Rakutis, a Lithuanian historian who is now a ruling party politician. He was speaking to the public broadcaster and appeared to be suggesting a deeper conspiracy to foment conflict.

The Lithuanian government had initially taken a less strident tone in its response to Belarus’s growing interest in reclaiming their shared medieval history. After all, it was mainly the pro-western Belarusian opposition that used the symbols to refer to a pre-Soviet history and culture and they had Lithuania’s support.

But this tolerant attitude changed when “Lithuanian” symbols began to be used by the government of Belarusian autocrat Alexander Lukashenko. In 2012, Belarus sponsored the staging of a ballet honoring Grand Duke Vytautas, who ruled the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for close to 40 years from the late-14th century.

Vytautas became a much romanticized figure during a 19th-century Lithuanian revivalist movement that paved the way for independence from the Russian Empire. And news of the ballet caused consternation in Lithuania.

Many Lithuanians were now resentful that Belarusians, over the last decade or so in particular, had begun to claim for themselves what Lithuanians had unquestioningly grown up to believe was their history.

“Eventually a generation will grow up — or maybe it already has — which will think that Lithuania is a misunderstanding and that Vilnius should be annexed to Belarus,” Rakutis told Lithuanian media.

 

Rūstis Kamuntavičius is an academic, an expert on the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania. His style is teasing and informal, often sarcastic. Kamuntavičius has little patience for the growing rancor in the competing claims and interpretations of the Grand Duchy’s history and what it means to the identity of present-day Lithuania and Belarus.

He thinks, for instance, that the Lithuanian fear of Belarusians appropriating Lithuania’s knight is both “hysterical and ignorant.”

“I’ve had fights with Lithuanians about it,” says Alex Smantser, a Belarusian expat in Canada, on the use of medieval symbols. “This [rift] emerges at various history gatherings — when they see the mounted knight symbol, they say, ‘he’s ours’ and I say ‘he’s ours’. And so it begins.”

Smantser felt so drawn to the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that he started identifying as a pagan and a Litvin rather than as Belarusian — the latter, he says, doesn’t roll comfortably off his tongue. According to academics, “Litvinism” is the ideological position that Belarus is the true heir of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

“I can read [medieval documents] with my Belarusian language. Can they [Lithuanians]?” asks Smantser. The ruling elite of the Grand Duchy had Lithuanian names but wrote in a Slavic language historians call “Chancery Slavonic.” The large Slavic population of the Grand Duchy spoke Ruthenian, a predecessor of modern-day Belarusian and Ukrainian.

“There used to be robbers, bandits,” Kamuntavičius says, only half-joking. “They convened into groups and went to kill and pillage neighbors. What difference does it make what language they spoke?” He adds that “there are few [primary] sources from the 13th century, so we’re mostly speaking about interpretations and re-interpretations. Historians construct the past, and these constructs then compete.”

In the Soviet period, Belarusian schoolchildren were taught that in the Middle Ages Lithuanian and Polish nobles oppressed Belarusian and Ukrainian serfs. As a result, few Belarusians and Ukrainians felt they could identify with the Grand Duchy’s elite and take pride in its military and cultural glories.

Even the Encyclopedia Britannica describes the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as “essentially an international or nonnational formation led by a foreign dynasty (of eastern Lithuanian pagan origins) ruling over predominantly Belarusian and Ukrainian populations.”

Meanwhile, in Lithuania, the grand dukes have always been important cultural icons. Even under Soviet rule, when national identity was suppressed, over 1,500 babies born in 1958 were named after Vytautas. Off the top of my head, I can think of a political leader, an actor, and a former classmate of mine named Vytautas.

Today, in a country of fewer than three million inhabitants, over 28,000 men owe their names to a 15th-century grand duke. Vytautas is the second most-popular name in Lithuania, after Jonas (the Lithuanian version of John).

Maryia Rohava, who researches contemporary Belarusian identity politics at the University of Oslo, says that, unlike Lithuania, Belarus has not incorporated any memorial days related to the Grand Duchy into its official calendar, and that the state tolerates rather than actively promotes identification with that period. “When I conducted my focus groups and was asking people about different periods, some did mention [the Grand Duchy] as a way of saying that we did have some proud moments, but they still didn't know how to connect it into one coherent story,” she says.

Before 2020 — when thousands of Belarusians filled the streets to protest rigged elections — the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was not seen as problematic, Rohava says. Indeed, Lukashenko was warming to medieval imagery as a means to distinguish Belarus from Russia.

Kamuntavičius traces Minsk’s efforts to claim the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s history as its own to 2005, when the Lukashenko regime started to rebuild palaces and redraw historical maps. At the time, Belarus feared being reabsorbed into Russia and also wanted to take advantage of opportunities offered by the European Union’s “neighborhood policy,” intended to foster closer economic ties in the south and the east and catalyze development.

Born and raised in Belarus, Smantser moved to Canada to escape the country Belarus had become under Lukashenko. He argues that Lukashenko should not be allowed to hijack a discussion about history. He says Lithuania’s exclusivism and its protectiveness about its medieval history is disappointing. This history, after all, is shared across several countries in the region.

The Grand Duchy’s history was rich in “memorable events and personalities,” write Belarusian researcher Marharyta Fabrykant and U.S. researcher Renee Buhr in the academic journal “Nations and Nationalism.” So locating and identifying with these icons helps small nations feel “destined for greatness, yet victimized by enemies on all sides.”

Some Lithuanian historians argue that if Slavic culture and the Duchy’s cosmopolitan heritage was given short shrift in the past it was because Lithuania was seeking to forge a national identity. They say Belarusians are dealing with a similar process of national reckoning, albeit a century later.

Fabrykant and Buhr have compared Belarus to countries like North Macedonia, with its ubiquitous statues of Alexander the Great — a historical figure claimed by the Greeks. Grand Duke Vytautas (Vitovt in Ruthenian) is also called the Great, and his baptismal name was Alexander. To celebrate him, Belarus has named its bus brand “Vitovt Electro.”

For many years, Lithuanian academics such as Kamuntavičius explored and debated these competing interpretations of histories with fellow specialists. Indeed, Kamuntavičius was better known in Belarus, where these debates had currency, than in Lithuania. But in 2013, he came to the attention of his compatriots.

That May, Kamuntavičius gave a talk to Belarusian academics in his signature playful style. Instead of glorious victories, he spoke of fear and chaos. He tried to complicate the romanticization of Vytautas, the great hero of Lithuanians. A few months later, Lithuanians became aware of the contents of Kamuntavičius’s talk. “I was called a traitor on [prime-time news],” he says.

“This person is being used as part of information warfare, a cog. Doesn’t he understand this,” asked the news show’s host, Nemira Pumprickaitė. A well-known far-right blogger wrote about Kamuntavičius that it is “difficult to believe that this is not some Kremlin propagandist speaking.”

He added that by employing Kamuntavičius, Vytautas Magnus University (yes, named after the grand duke) was revealing itself to be an “asylum of spiritual paupers.” The right-wing youth movement Pro Patria designated Kamuntavičius as an “anti-state actor,” who hides behind slogans of academic freedom and democracy. “Is [the university] a hotbed of anti-state activity,” the website’s editors asked.

“It was stressful, I received a ton of emails,” Kamuntavičius remembers, “and everyone was saying, ‘you’ve sold yourself to the Russians.’ It was the first time I felt attacked for doubting.”

In 2020 Belarusians from all walks of life took to the streets to protest the allegedly rigged elections. Police violence and arrests followed, only encouraging more people to attend mass rallies. Lithuania offered support to protesters and sheltered fleeing opposition activists, including Lukashenko’s main challenger Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Protests kept flaring up well into 2021, and repression followed.

The protests were marked by the use of the country’s “white-red-white” flag (a century-old flag adopted by the democratic opposition to Lukashenko) and a medieval knight symbol, after repressions against Belarusian Grand Duchy heritage activists became known to the protesters.

“These symbols were familiar to people from school,” says Vilija Navickaitė, who works at the Swedish International Liberal Center, “but they were lifeless and mostly theoretical.” She adds that for “some young people both the flag and the medieval symbols were a completely new discovery. Now they signify their struggle for freedom and change.”

“We have different languages, but a single history, and it shouldn’t be divided,” says Smantser, the Belarusian who now lives in Canada and strongly identifies with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He tells me that he empathizes with the Lithuanians’ attachment to their history more than he once did. “But the stance ‘it’s us, only us and no one else’ is a sign of weakness.” Living in Canada makes him believe that a multilingual state that is proud of its shared heritage is not a pipe dream.

Kamuntavičius says he has found there is now an appetite for his work in Lithuania. No one calls him a traitor or a cog in the Russian propaganda machine any longer. But it’s hard to tell what will become of this new-found willingness to explore their shared history if Belarus continues to grow closer to Putin’s Russia.

Media outlets in both Lithuania and Belarus reported earlier this month that statues of Vytautas and his cousin Jagiello, who became King of Poland in 1386, were removed from a national museum in Minsk. This suggests, as one opposition figure put it, that “Russification is underway in Belarus.”

With Lukashenko moving ever closer to Putin – a closeness that grew in part as a result of Lukashenko’s post-protests paranoia and that has culminated in his steadfast support of Russian aggression in Ukraine – perhaps the time has again come for him to play down or altogether ignore Belarus’s medieval ties to both Lithuania and Poland, not to mention Ukraine.

Will the Grand Duchy of Lithuania be a symbol of solidarity once more for only the Belarusian opposition? And will that make it easier for Lithunanians to share the symbols of a medieval history of which they believed they were the sole custodians?

Belarusians are making intriguing contemporary art, Kamuntavičius asserts, because they have learned to “live with contradictions.”

Lithuanians too must conclude, he says, that answers that were once comforting no longer apply, that history is messy and subject to interpretation.


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Daiva Repečkaitė is a freelance journalist from Lithuania. She reports on minorities, historical memory and environmental issues.@daiva_hadiva

Supported by The Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU) fund.