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February 12: Russia, Ukraine, Lead

U.S. Battles Putin by Disclosing His Next Possible Moves Declassified information is part of a campaign, backed by Britain, to complicate what officials say are Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine. ......... After decades of getting schooled in information warfare by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the United States is trying to beat the master at his own game. ....... hinted that Russian officers had doubts about Mr. Putin. ....... All told, the extraordinary series of disclosures — unfolding almost as quickly as information is collected and assessed — has amounted to one of the most aggressive releases of intelligence by the United States since the Cuban missile crisis, current and former officials say. ........ the administration is warning the world of an urgent threat, not to make the case for a war but to try to prevent one. .........

The hope is that disclosing Mr. Putin’s plans will disrupt them

......... giving Mr. Putin a chance to reconsider the political, economic and human costs of an invasion. ........ Before the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration released intelligence that officials said justified pre-emptive action, including purported intercepts of Iraqi military conversations, photos of mobile biological weapons labs and statements accusing Baghdad of building a fleet of drones to launch a chemical attack on the United States. The material was all wrong, reliant on sources who lied, incorrect interpretations of Iraq’s actions and senior officials who looked at raw intelligence and saw what they wanted to see. ..............

“In Iraq, intelligence was used and deployed from this very podium to start a war,” Mr. Sullivan said on Friday. “We are trying to stop a war.”

.......... a full-fledged information battle. ........ these disclosures are freaking the Kremlin and the security services out ........ The Ukrainian government has expressed unease with the American disclosures. President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that “too much information” about a possible Russian offensive was sowing unnecessary fear. .......... how difficult it is for any democracy to go toe-to-toe with an autocratic state, like Russia. Unconstrained by truth, the Kremlin is simply better at such unconventional warfare. ....... “Remember, Vladimir Putin is a K.G.B. guy. He doesn’t think like Biden does” ....... When masked men began taking over government buildings in Crimea in February 2014, Moscow said they were part of a locally led pro-Russian uprising. Only after Crimea was taken over was it clear the “little green men” were Russian military forces. ............ was “aimed at undermining and discrediting Russia’s fair demands for security guarantees, as well as at justifying Western geopolitical aspirations and military absorption of Ukraine’s territory.” ........... Senior Obama administration officials recalled their frustration when the intelligence agencies would not allow the White House to tell NATO, let alone the public, what Washington knew about Russia’s moves. ....... The United States or its allies could release information about Mr. Putin’s top lieutenants, for example, or the oligarchs who support him. That could sow doubt about people’s loyalty, or expose their wealth. ......... .

Madness and scaremongering continues..what if we would say that US could seize London in a week and cause 300K civilian deaths? All this based on our intelligence sources that we won’t disclose.Would it feel right for Americans and Britts?It’s as wrong for Russians and Ukrainians https://t.co/Zai1tpowO7

— Dmitry Polyanskiy (@Dpol_un) February 6, 2022

‘We understand all the risks,’ Ukraine’s leader says, but still urges calm. . President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Saturday continued to play down American warnings of an imminent Russian invasion, urging calm and saying he had not seen intelligence showing that Moscow was poised to attack. .........

and ridiculed news media reports that Russia could be planning to invade on Wednesday.

......... The Ukrainian leader has for weeks voiced frustration with the American messaging in the crisis, criticizing the Biden administration for sowing panic in Kyiv and spooking foreign investors. .

Moscow dismisses U.S. warnings of war as propaganda.
7 Simple Exercises To Strengthen Your Relationship . Romantic relationships take work during the best of times, but the pandemic has created a unique set of challenges — and opportunities — for many couples. ........ About one-third of couples said that their relationships improved during the pandemic, in part because they learned better communication skills and enjoyed spending time together. ....... Keep track of the good stuff. ....... cooking dinner or cleaning up ...... Ramping up the positive and kind gestures in a relationship may help insulate your relationship from the inevitable bad days. ........ Generosity was defined as “the virtue of giving good things to one’s spouse freely and abundantly,” such as simply making them coffee in the morning, showing affection often or being willing to forgive. ........ Hold hands. ......... The Beatles were just singing about love when they wrote “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” but science has proved them right. .......... when the woman was holding her husband’s hand, the calming effect was even greater and was similar to the effect of a pain-relieving drug ........... research suggests that a supportive marriage or committed partnership gives the brain the opportunity to outsource some of its most difficult neural work. This basically means that when partners take our hands, they are also carrying some of our emotional burden. .......... Read to each other. .......... people grow closer to each other when we reveal something about ourselves and share new thoughts and ideas. ....... relationships benefit when couples experience new things together. ....... Accept the small problems. .......... Write down one or two of your partner’s annoying habits that create occasional conflict in your relationship. (Often, these small conflicts involve domestic chores, such as paying bills, doing laundry or making the bed.) ............ identify a positive trait that might help explain the behavior. Maybe your husband drops his things in the entryway every night. Is it because he’s rushing to see the kids before bedtime? Is your wife grumpy after work? Maybe it’s because she skipped lunch during work so she could be home sooner with the family. ......... Rather than trying to force change, acceptance therapy encourages partners to learn to accept each other’s differences. When partners feel accepted and understood, they are more likely to change willingly, often making more changes than requested. ............ Share your perfect day. ........... Imagine your perfect day, and share it with your partner over a meal. Discuss it in as much detail as possible so that you reveal information about your likes, dislikes, hopes and dreams. ........ facilitate closeness between strangers, they created a series of questions to help people get to know each other quickly. “What would constitute a ‘perfect’ day for you?” is on the list of those questions. .......... Feel each other’s heartbeat. ........ eye contact and touch create feelings of closeness ...... Practice gratitude together. ...... Showing gratitude on a daily basis is a common mindfulness practice proven to boost happiness, help us get better sleep and even reduce illness. .......... gratitude “a booster shot” for romantic relationships. The bottom line is this: The more you practice gratitude toward your partner, the more connected you’ll feel. .

We Underestimated Putin Once. We Can’t Make That Mistake Again. . history shows we should not underestimate Mr. Putin’s willingness to violate another country’s sovereignty. ........... There was nothing the Ukrainian military could do — years of corrupt management had left it ill equipped and unprepared. Attempts to retake Ukrainian bases and rescue their personnel would inevitably have led to a blood bath. ......... Even if we had seen troop movements weeks or months in advance, we never would have imagined Mr. Putin would take such a risky and blatantly illegal action. ........ with Mr. Putin amassing some 100,000 troops at the Ukrainian border, threatening to invade and redraw the global chessboard. To stop him, we must learn the lessons of Crimea and stand up to Russian aggression. ............ By late February 2014, more than 100 anti-Yanukovych demonstrators had been shot in cold blood. As the protests swelled and the government lost control of the situation, Mr. Yanukovych fled to Russia. While we were focused on that situation, Mr. Putin made his brazen move on Crimea days later. ........ it was because of our focus on Donbas that the United States and the international community effectively set aside the Crimea situation and set the stage for the crisis today. ........ We took the international pressure off Mr. Putin’s revanchist violations of sovereignty in Ukraine — just as we had done in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of another neighbor, the Republic of Georgia, in 2008. (Russia still occupies 20 percent of its territory.) ........ Donald Trump downplayed Russia’s meddling in our elections and was willing to break U.S. law to withhold assistance to Ukraine, an action that led to his first impeachment by the House of Representatives. He also questioned the value of NATO, the alliance protecting eastern European states from Russian violations of their sovereignty. ......... Yes, Russia is a nuclear power and Europe depends on its energy supplies, but the world should stop being intimidated into excusing Moscow’s actions. ........ If Mr. Putin is allowed to invade Ukraine again unscathed, then what’s to stop other authoritarian powers from doing the same elsewhere? ......... To emphasize the pariah treatment, the Biden administration should, along with allies, expel Russia from international forums and impose export controls across all continents, as we do to confront Iran and North Korea. .

Europe Thinks Putin Is Planning Something Even Worse Than War . In the final weeks of World War I, a German general sent a telegram to his Austrian allies summarizing the situation. It was, he wrote, “serious, but not catastrophic.” The reply came back: “Here the situation is catastrophic, but not serious.” .............

“The U.S. thinks Putin will do a full-blown war,” he said. “Europeans think he’s bluffing.”

........ The many decades of peace in Western Europe, combined with the continent’s deep dependence on Russia’s oil and gas, incline officials to assume aggressive Russian moves must be a ruse. .........

the situation was “dangerous, but ambiguous.”

......... they see him as more malicious. War, they reason, is not the Kremlin’s game. Instead, it’s an extensive suite of tactics designed to destabilize the West. For Europe, the threat of war could turn out to be more destructive than war itself. ......... The Kremlin wants a symbolic break from the 1990s, burying the post-Cold War order. That would take the form of a new European security architecture that recognizes Russia’s sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space and rejects the universality of Western values. Rather than the restoration of the Soviet Union, the goal is the recovery of what Mr. Putin regards as historic Russia. ........... the Kremlin, whatever it might do next, won’t stay still. Russia will not simply step back ...... Europeans and presumably Ukrainians believe that a hybrid strategy — involving military presence on the border, weaponization of energy flows and cyberattacks — will serve him better. ......... The policy of maximum pressure, short of an invasion, may end up dividing and paralyzing NATO. ......... To see how that might play out, we need only look to Germany. Before the crisis, Germany was America’s closest ally in Europe, boasted a special relationship with Moscow and was the most important partner for Eastern and Central Europe. Today, some in Washington have questioned the country’s willingness to confront Russia, Berlin’s relationship with Moscow is fast deteriorating, and many Eastern Europeans are agitated by Germany’s apparent reluctance to come to their support. Germany’s difficulties are a hint of what could come if Mr. Putin continues his brinkmanship, without providing the certainty of an actual invasion. ............. Germany, crucially, has not changed — but the world in which it acts has. (The country is “like a train that stands still after the railway station has caught fire” ............. Today, geopolitical strength is determined not by how much economic power you can wield, but by how much pain you can endure. Your enemy, unlike during the Cold War, is not somebody behind an iron curtain, but somebody with whom you trade, from whom you get gas and to whom you export high-tech goods. Soft power has given way to resilience. .............. “If you invite a bear to dance, it’s not you who decides when the dance is over,” the Russian proverb goes. “It’s the bear.” .

D.C. and Joyce — Both Incomprehensible

when Mitch McConnell is the guy calling out his own party that many top Republicans are freaking out.

. ........ Nixon had the plumbers. Trump’s the one who needed them.

Can Democrats See What’s Coming? . If you had to distill the ambitions of the Democratic Party down to a single word, you might well choose “Denmark.” But “France” would also work. Or “Germany.” Any Western European nation, really, with the social insurance options many of us envy: universal health care and affordable child care, to name but a few. Much of modern American liberalism is designed to close those gaps, to build here what already exists there. .......... But what about building here what does not already exist there? ......... Over the past few years, social insurance programs did much to ease suffering, but it was mRNA vaccines that did the most to protect human life. And this points toward a place where American liberalism could dream bigger dreams. ........... technology is central to how we make the future look different from the past. To leave that to the market, or to think it apolitical, is abdication. .......... The rich needed more reason to work. The poor needed more punishment if they didn’t work. Corporations needed more reason to invest. Their prescription followed logically: tax cuts for the rich, spending cuts and work requirements for the poor and a bonanza of financial and environmental deregulation. ......... the effort to impose a global minimum tax. That would raise U.S. tax revenues, which could finance more investments, and push companies to compete based on production and innovation, rather than by gaming tax systems. ............. Build Back Better is a grab-bag of longstanding Democratic proposals jammed together into a superbill designed to evade the filibuster. Or maybe I should say: That’s what it was. But Build Back Better is, at this point, a dead letter. ..........

a horror of where markets are leading us — into climate crisis.

.......... The government’s role is to step in when markets fail, and

climate change is a market failure

. .............. In most of these bold areas, business often is risk averse. .......... “This isn’t about government controlling the means of production,” he told me. “It’s about government controlling the ends of production. Deciding what we are producing toward, what we are building for.” ........... authorize between $250 billion and $350 billion to reinvigorate American semiconductor manufacturing, rebuild critical supply chains, finance regional innovation hubs across the country .............. added support for admitting more high-skilled immigrants, which is the single easiest way to build our supply of talent ............. Venture capitalists can brag about their failures, but bureaucrats are flayed for them. ....... That the Obama administration funded Solyndra is canon. That the same program threw a lifeline to a struggling electric car manufacturer named Tesla is trivia. ....... Democrats have run scared from accusations of big government for decades, and so they continue to try to show that they will leave the market to its magic, the scientists to their beakers, and confine government to cushioning the blows or looking after the children. .......... “The New Dealers or World War II builders are dead and gone. My lifetime has been a story of a shift toward another sensibility of economics and politics, where that kind of aggressive government building is looked down upon as backward and inefficient. There’s been an ascendance of thinking markets can solve the problem more quickly.” ...........

The market would build more housing if local zoning czars would let them.

Companies were clamoring to sell more rapid tests earlier, but the F.D.A. wouldn’t let them. All across the country, nuclear and solar and wind projects are being tied up in red tape. ............

Good regulations are good, bad regulations are bad. But bad regulations are hard to unwind, and they’re often unseen.

............. in many localities, it seems the restrictions on local zoning make it extremely hard to build affordable housing and keep prices high. ........... If Democrats want to claim a bigger role for government in shaping our future, they need to be the ones who are most outraged when it is government that is holding us back. ....... But to do that, they need a vision of America’s future that’s not just lifted from Western Europe’s past.

Business Booms at Kroger-Owned Grocery Stores, but Workers Are Left Behind A number of the stores’ nearly 500,000 employees have reported being homeless, receiving government food stamps or relying on food banks.

Far From the Big City, New Economic Life Incomes are low in small-town Tennessee, but so is the cost of living. That attraction could be a key to reviving many rural areas........ “People are moving from Arizona and California, New York and New Jersey.” ........ While Jackson County’s typical household makes $35,207 a year, just over half the national average, the low cost of living allows residents to punch far above their weight in economic terms. .......... Carol Abney has 250 clients for an internet-based accounting practice she runs from her husband’s auto-repair shop in Celina, about half an hour north of Gainesboro in Clay County. “I’m booming,” she said. .......... It has long drawn summer tourists for hunting and fishing, as well as retirees who come from as far away as Ohio to settle among the rivers, lakes and hollers. ........ an exodus of workers fleeing the cost of living in big cities. The area is about an hour-and-a-half drive from Nashville, allowing for a not-unreasonable commute. Many of the new residents are coming from farther away. ......... If remote work remains widespread, their counties could benefit from a decisive price advantage. ............. the household income of a typical worker who never finished high school in Cookeville is about $43,000. In New York it is $58,000; in San Francisco, $62,000. .......... Big cities are not that good a deal for even highly educated workers. They do earn much higher wages in New York than in Cookeville — indeed, the college educated reap a bigger pay premium if they work in bigger cities than their less-educated peers. But according to the researchers, all the extra wages are eaten up by higher costs. ......... Last November, the typical home in Cookeville cost $217,303, according to Zillow. That’s one-fourth of the median price of a home in Los Angeles and one-sixth of the price in San Francisco. Median rent in Jackson County is $548 per month. ............. “The notion of ‘go to the city, young man or woman,’ is simply not true.” ...........

In 2020, 110,000 more people left Los Angeles than arrived from other parts of the country; New York City lost 150,000 people.

........ “California is the main source of people, also New York and Oregon for some reason,” Mr. Porter said of Jackson County. “Folks sell their home, move here and can buy a house that’s twice the size for half the price.” ............. They have a deal to buy the building in which the Stolen Coin sits — which they rent for $800 a month — for $54,000. ......... The explosion in sales filling the coffers in Jackson and Putnam Counties was propelled in part by the multitrillion-dollar economic rescue packages passed by Congress in 2020 and 2021. That stimulus is largely over. ........... workers who were leaving cities during the pandemic mainly moved to nearby suburbs and exurbs. ...... There is a downside to out-of-towners' snapping up cheap real estate. The median home price in Cookeville has risen over 60 percent since the end of 2016, according to Zillow, outpacing a nationwide increase of 50 percent and vastly outstripping price increases in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. .............. Local residents “don’t want people to come with the intent to change the community,” Mr. Porter said. The question, perhaps, is whether that is the price of prosperity.

Harris Says Replacing Lead Pipes Is a Priority, Despite Limited Funding Some civil rights leaders have grown frustrated with the lack of action behind administration proposals that would help Black and Latino communities. ......... Ms. Harris used the event to highlight $15 billion in funding to remove lead pipes that is part of the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package that Mr. Biden signed in November. ....... Mr. Biden initially proposed $45 billion in the infrastructure bill for lead removal. Another $10 billion is tucked in a sprawling social-safety net and climate package torpedoed by congressional gridlock. Other administration proposals that supporters celebrated for promoting racial equity have since been cut or removed entirely as Democrats try to salvage the plan, including investments in affordable housing, clean energy provisions, home health care work and reconnecting neighborhoods divided by highways. ........ “Nationwide, frustration is building given the failure to cancel student debt, expand voting rights and pass police reform” ........ lead exposure, which can damage the brain and kidneys and interfere with red blood cells that carry oxygen to all parts of the body. The neurotoxin poses a particular danger to children, whose nervous systems are still developing. ....... removing every lead pipe in the nation could cost $60 billion

If Russia Invades Ukraine, Questions Arise Over Taiwan

If Russis invades Ukraine this will be a 9/11 level event, a major departure point, and a formal start of a new Cold War where Russia and China are now allies should China invade Taiwan. But Taiwan is a tougher nut to crack. Japan and the US are pledged to go to war on behalf of Taiwan. And Russia might be mistaken in thinking China is waiting for a cue from Russia and waiting to follow its lead. As fas as China is concerned, Russia is no longer the dominant number two power, has not been a long time.

For all of Putin's rhetoric about not letting NATO come to Russia's doorsteps, will not a Russian invasion of Ukrain automatically bring NATO to the new Russia's doorstep? I don't think it is going to be easy for Putin. Ukraine could prove tougher than Afghanistan. If it is a quagmire, it could herald the end of the Putin regime in Russia, again paralleling the Afghanistan debacle bringing down the Soviet Union.

But what a terrible way to make a mistake.

Russia is not willing to treat Ukraine like a sovereign country. This is wrong.

At this point I have a hard time believing Putin might attempt a Kuwait in Ukraine. The move will be too costly for him. But Ukraine is nowhere close to joining NATO. And Putin might keep a bulk of his troops stationed on the Ukraine border a long time. Threatening war gives him great leverage. Actual invasion robs him of major leverage and might cascade into a collapse of his regime inside Russia.

A better available path is to focus on uplifting Russia's economy and doing the political work necessary to normalize relations with NATO countries to bring threat levels down to near zero. Robust trade can do that. There is no better way to make NATO irrelevant. Make them yawn.

There is no better way to make NATO irrelevant. Make them yawn. https://t.co/6GE4rbWy2N #RussiaUkraineCrisis #russia #Ukraine #UkraineCrisis #ukraine #Putin

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) February 12, 2022

Compromise will be key to ending the Ukraine crisis Will efforts at achieving peace be scuppered by those who would rather see the conflict remain frozen until one side takes all ........ The USSR did pull its missiles out of Cuba as Rifkind states, but the US reciprocated by withdrawing comparable missiles from Turkey and promised not to invade the island. ........ In 2013 in Ukraine, in the midst of a worsening political crisis, France, Germany, Russia and Poland and the then Ukrainian government led by Viktor Yanukovych and most of the Ukrainian opposition thrashed out a peace plan to take the country forward. The more nationalist elements of Ukrainian society, backed by hawks in the US and elsewhere, rejected the plan and there followed a constitutional crisis, a Russian invasion and dismemberment of Ukraine. No nuclear annihilation for the world, but a real catastrophe for the people of Ukraine. .......... In the aftermath of all of this, in 2014 and 2015, a second peace plan was put on the table, the Minsk framework, revisited in the last few days and weeks following talk of a Russian invasion. Could its provisions for devolved self-government for the east of Ukraine, alongside the sanctity of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, be the prelude to a peaceful transition that would benefit both sides of Ukraine’s body politic? Or will efforts at achieving peace be scuppered by those both inside and outside the country who would rather see the conflict remain frozen until one side takes all? ........ “Naturally, the common people don’t want war, but after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along … voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.” ...... Regarding Emmanuel Macron and the “personal assurances” over the Russia-Ukraine crisis he has received from Vladimir Putin (Report, 8 February), didn’t Neville Chamberlain obtain assurances – written, in his case – from Adolf Hitler about Germany invading Czechoslovakia back in 1938? At least Macron hasn’t been waving a piece of paper about by way of evidence. .

US warns of ‘distinct possibility’ Russia will invade Ukraine within days Joe Biden due to speak with Putin by phone on Saturday ...... Officials tell Americans to leave Ukraine in next 48 hours ....... The US has warned of the “very distinct possibility” of a Russian invasion of Ukraine in the next few days, potentially involving an overwhelming attack on Kyiv ...... Biden has told other Nato and EU leaders that the US believes Putin has decided to carry out an invasion of Ukraine, which could happen in the next few days ........ “If you stay you are assuming risk with no guarantee that there will be any other opportunity to leave, and there is no prospect of a US military evacuation in the event of a Russian invasion” ....... “If a Russian attack on Ukraine proceeds, it is likely to begin with aerial bombing and missile attacks that could obviously kill civilians without regard to their nationality. A subsequent ground invasion would involve the onslaught of a massive force with virtually no notice. Communications to arrange a departure could be severed and commercial transit halted.” .

CIA has been secretly collecting data on Americans in bulk, senators say The program operates under the authority of Executive Order 12333 ..... Their letter to the top intelligence officials was partially declassified on Thursday. The two accused the CIA of conducting the program "entirely outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection, and without any of the judicial, congressional or even executive branch oversight that comes with FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] collection." .......

The program operates under the authority of Executive Order 12333, the document that broadly governs intelligence community activity and was first signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

....... The two senators said they appreciated the recommendations, but their "letter also stressed that the public deserves to know more about the collection of this information. The DNI and the CIA Director have started this process. We intend to continue to urge them to achieve the transparency the American people deserve." .

Pentagon sends another 3,000 U.S. troops to Poland amid threat of Russian attack on Ukraine . President Biden has ruled out any possibility that American troops will fight in Ukraine. ....... “They are being deployed to reassure our NATO allies, deter any potential aggression against NATO’s eastern flank, train with host-nation forces, and contribute to a wide range of contingencies.” ....... Russia will invade in a “very swift time frame.” ......... “There will be no opportunity to leave and no prospect of a U.S. military evacuation in the event of a rush invasion,” Sullivan told reporters at the White House. Missile strikes or aerial bombing could come before an invasion, he said, so “no one would be able to count on rail or air or road departures.” ........ At the Pentagon, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke by phone Friday with his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, and held additional conversations with U.S. allies at NATO and in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania and the United Kingdom, the Pentagon said. ....... Several hundred U.S. National Guard troops remained in Ukraine as of Friday on a mission to train Ukrainian forces, defense officials said. Kirby has said previously they could be withdrawn quickly if necessary. .

Facing maximum pressure from Russia, Zelensky refuses to blink at the negotiating table . With Russian warships and tanks encircling his country amid dire warnings from the United States about an impending invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has shown himself to be resistant to the pressure he faces from Russia — and from Europe, too. ......... A key obstacle, according to diplomats familiar with the discussions, was Kyiv’s opposition to negotiating with the pro-Russian separatists with whom they’ve been in a deadly but low-intensity conflict for the past eight years. Fighting in the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk has continued despite a cease-fire agreement. Up to 14,000 people have been killed since violence broke out in 2014. ....... Russia has called on Ukraine to grant greater powers to the breakaway regions within Luhansk and Donetsk, an area known as the Donbas. Moscow holds that pro-Russian separatists should have a say, if not veto, over the policies of a Ukrainian federal government — a notion Kyiv opposes as it could preclude Ukraine from becoming a member of NATO or the European Union. ........ For the Zelensky government, granting greater autonomy to the breakaway regions could require constitutional reforms that are deeply unpopular. Direct talks with the separatists, whom many Ukrainian officials consider “terrorists,” also are deeply controversial. ....... That resistance comes despite concerns that if talks fail, Russian President Vladimir Putin could walk away from diplomacy and order a military assault on Ukraine. But Zelensky has other matters to consider as well. ..........

Zelensky could face stiff resistance in parliament to any deal seen as giving in to Russia’s demands, and which lays the groundwork for a state-within-the-state in Donbas run by Moscow’s proxies.

....... The purpose of Russia’s interpretation of the Minsk agreements was to create a “Yalta Two” — or a division of Europe similar to what took place after World War II, Ariev said. He added that he was steadfastly opposed to a “Finlandization” of Ukraine, a reference to the neutral status of Finland during the Cold War that ensured its independence. .

White House Warns Russian Invasion of Ukraine Could Happen at Any Time A host of countries, including the United States, have told their citizens to leave Ukraine immediately........ Ukraine warned that drills by Russia and Russian-backed separatists had left the country all but encircled and its ports effectively blockaded, the latest evidence of a shift in tone after weeks in which Ukraine’s leaders had downplayed the threat of an attack. .......... U.S. intelligence officials had initially thought Mr. Putin would wait until the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing later this month before deciding whether to go ahead with an offensive, to avoid antagonizing President Xi Jinping of China, a critical ally. In recent days, however, new intelligence and further Russian troop deployments prompted a change in their assessment. American officials said it was still unclear whether Mr. Putin had made a decision to invade. .......... acknowledged the possibility that the mention of a particular date could be part of a Russian disinformation effort ......... Russia has made a series of demands of the West, including scaling back the NATO military presence in Eastern Europe to 1990s levels and guaranteeing that Ukraine could never join NATO. ........ “What I do know about Putin is he likes uncertainty,” said Michael A. McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia. “He has leveraged that in the past for advantage. He is forcing Biden’s hand and everybody else’s.” ....... Next week, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is scheduled to visit Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv and Moscow, fresh from a visit to Washington where he and Mr. Biden promised a “united” front on shutting down Nord Stream 2, a lucrative Germany-to-Russia gas pipeline project, should Russia invade Ukraine. .........

Russia’s foreign ministry dismissed American talk of war as mere propaganda.

....... “A coordinated information attack is being conducted against Moscow,” the ministry said in a statement, along with a list of previous Western warnings of a possible imminent invasion. That messaging, it said, is “aimed at undermining and discrediting Russia’s fair demands for security guarantees, as well as at justifying Western geopolitical aspirations and military absorption of Ukraine’s territory.” .........

“The White House’s hysteria is as revealing as ever. The Anglo-Saxons need war. At any price.”

....... Mr. Sullivan disagreed with the idea that informing Americans of Russia’s military capabilities was the same as calling for a war. ........ the potential deaths of 25,000 to 50,000 civilians, 5,000 to 25,000 members of the Ukrainian military and 3,000 to 10,000 members of the Russian military ......... an attack would likely start with missile and aerial attacks, and continue with a ground invasion. ..... Russian-backed separatists were holding military exercises in the slice of eastern Ukraine they controlled, at the same time that Russia holds exercises near Ukraine. .......... “If there’s a war tomorrow, Putin has calculated that Zelensky will be blamed for not preparing for war,” Mr. McFaul said, referencing President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. “That doesn’t get a lot of attention in our press, but that’s a very big part of his strategy. Ideally, he would like to see democracy in Ukraine fall, and Zelensky personally fall.” .......... Ukraine this week began its own nationwide military exercises to coincide with joint Russian and Belarusian exercises to the north of Ukraine, in Belarus, only 140 miles from Kyiv. ....... To the south, the Russian Navy announced on Thursday the closure of large swaths of the Black Sea for live-fire exercises by its fleet that will effectively blockade Ukrainian ports, including the port of Odessa. The naval exercises were scheduled to begin Sunday and last six days. ........ Separate talks in Moscow on Thursday between the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, also went nowhere, with Mr. Lavrov comparing them to “the conversation of a mute person with a deaf person.” .

Finns Don’t Wish ‘Finlandization’ on Ukraine (or Anyone) The Cold War term for a kind of stifled sovereignty has gained attention as a possible solution to the standoff with Russia. But the nation it’s named for would rather forget about it. ....... For decades, Finland survived as an independent and unoccupied democracy in the shadow of the Soviet Union by handing the Kremlin outsized influence over its politics and hewing to a delicate neutrality during the Cold War. ........... That model — known in diplomatic circles as Finlandization — is now being invoked as a possible solution to the standoff over Ukraine, an idea that would effectively neutralize its sovereignty and possibly allow Russia a new sphere of influence for a new era. .......... “It has for Finns a negative ring to it,” said Mika Aaltola, the director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. “It has to do with a very difficult period in Finnish history.” ........ While the policy helped this nation at the fringe of the Arctic avoid the fate of Central and Eastern European countries to the south, which were occupied as part of the Soviet bloc, Finland’s independence came at the cost of swallowing no small dose of self-censorship and foreign sway. ......... If anything, Russia’s menacing of Ukraine has only encouraged Finns to debate more openly than before whether NATO makes sense for them, and the once overwhelming opposition is eroding. But Finns are also clearly aware they have a delicate relationship to manage with Russia and are careful not to unnecessarily provoke President Vladimir V. Putin. Still, that is a far cry from the concessions forced upon it during the Cold War. ........... Russia, which ruled Finland from 1809 to 1917 ....... (“They should pursue a posture comparable to that of Finland,” Henry Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post, while Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote “the Finnish model is ideal for Ukraine.”) ......... But Finns said that model rewarded politicians who did Russia’s bidding, ostracized those who balked at Russian influence, and introduced a crop of Soviet secret operatives in the country who worked closely with the Finnish elite. ......... during the Cold War, self-censorship extended from the corridors of power to the family living room. ........... overt criticism of Russia, while not illegal, was taboo. ....... “Finns understand what happens in Ukraine doesn’t stay in Ukraine” ........... In January, Finland’s liberal prime minister, Sanna Marin, told Reuters that it was “very unlikely” that Finland would apply for NATO membership during her current term in office. Conservatives called her naïve, but political analysts said it might have been a wily move to undercut her critics’ use of NATO as a political issue. .

Putin Is Operating on His Own Timetable, and It May Be a Long One The standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine could turn into a drawn-out and dangerous diplomatic slog toward a difficult settlement. .......... The Ukraine crisis is here to stay. ........... Even if he does not order an invasion this winter, he is making clear that he will keep the pressure on, backed by the threat of force, for as long as it takes to get his way. .......... the best-case scenario as a long and dangerous diplomatic slog toward a difficult settlement — a process that could consume Western resources and attention for many months. ........ Russia would suffer “far-reaching consequences” if it attacked Ukraine. ........ “I expect we’ll have this crisis with us, in various forms, for all of 2022, at least,” said Andrei Sushentsov, dean of the school of international relations at MGIMO, the elite Moscow university run by the Russian Foreign Ministry. ........

Russia’s aim, according to Mr. Sushentsov: keep the threat of war ever-present, and thus compel negotiations that Western officials have avoided until now.

..... The lesson of the chaotic Afghan withdrawal last summer, to Mr. Putin, may have been that the U.S. has no stomach for a distant conflict — and Ukraine is distant to the U.S. but not to Russia. ....... there remain numerous lower-grade options that Mr. Putin is considering that could touch off a less deadly but still costly conflict. ........ in case Mr. Putin decides that the least costly way to destabilize the Zelensky government is by turning off the power or communications. ........ Putin’s demands are so expansive — and his disdain of Ukraine’s pro-Western leaders so great — that analysts struggle to imagine a grand bargain being struck. .......... “Ukraine in NATO, from my point of view or Russia’s, would be the equivalent of nuclear war.” ........... Mr. Putin made the threat of war over Ukraine between nuclear superpowers explicit twice in recent days — in news conferences after his meetings with Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary last week and with Mr. Macron on Monday. Both times, Mr. Putin described a scenario in which Ukraine would join NATO and then, with the Western alliance’s backing, try to recapture Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014. ..........

a 2018 line by Mr. Putin. “And then not just America, but also Europe, will turn into radioactive ash.”

....... Western officials describe NATO membership for Ukraine as unrealistic anytime in the near future, but the Kremlin insists that even the possibility poses an existential threat. ........ many analysts inside Russia continue to doubt that Mr. Putin will actually order a full invasion. The risks would far exceed any of Mr. Putin’s prior military pushes, like the five-day war against Georgia in 2008 or the still-simmering proxy war in eastern Ukraine that he started in 2014. Russian missiles could miss their targets, causing civilian casualties; Ukraine could respond by attacking Russian targets across the border. .

The Kisan Andolan (Farmers' Movement) Raging Across Nepal

Ask The Government Of Nepal To Come To Dialogue With The Kisan Andolan (Farmers' Movement)
Democracy And Revolution In Nepal

भगवान राम धरती पर पैदा हुवे थे

एक झिझक
Ask The Government Of Nepal To Come To Dialogue With The Kisan Andolan (Farmers' Movement)
आखिर संविधान ढलने अवस्था किन आउन लाग्यो?
चुनाव लड्ने निर्णय स्वागतयोग्य छ
जनमत पार्टी के लिए आगे का रास्ता
पलड़ा भारी
किसान आन्दोलन ले एमाले आदि पार्टी को समर्थन लिने कि नलिने?
सड़क आन्दोलन सँग वार्ता नगर्ने तानाशाह
सार्वजनिक जग्गा वापस जनता लाई
Dr. CK Raut: February 2: मशाल जुलुस
म यस क्रान्ति को Open Source Script Writer
दुनिया को नंबर एक लोकतंत्र बनाउन कस्तो संविधान लेख्ने?
क्रान्ति तो जनता करती है, नेता कार्यकर्ता आते जाते रहते हैं
रूद्र पाण्डे र सीके राउत
फ्युजन को प्रयास
सीके राउत को किसान आन्दोलन र राष्ट्रिय राजनीति
देउबा सरकार, दमन बन्द करो, वार्ता करो
क्रान्ति एक मात्र उपलब्ध रास्ता है
First They Ignore You
गमछा, पगड़ी और लाठी
जनमत पार्टी और मैं
ज्ञानेन्द्र को चुनाव, देउबा, पुष्पक, माधव, ओली, उपेन्द्र को चुनाव
अपराधी मंत्री रेणु यादव को जेल चलान करो
क्रान्ति अपना माँग खुद पुरा करती है
सड़क क्रान्ति, सभा क्रान्ति, सदन क्रान्ति देश को राजधानी सार्नुपर्छ
दुई तिहाइ सैनिक, प्रहरी, र कर्मचारी को घर वापसी नै संघीयता हो
काठमाण्डु की ओर बढ़ रहा किसान आन्दोलन का कारवां
किसान महारैली
Democracy And Revolution In Nepal
४६ साल वालों का सफाया
. नेपाल को एकीकरण हुन बाँकी छ, राष्ट्र निर्माण हुन बाँकी छ
पृथ्वी नारायण शाह र आज को नेपाल
किसान आन्दोलन: राजनीतिक मास्टर स्ट्रोक
दुनिया को नवीनतम क्रान्ति बाट दुनिया को उच्चतम लोकतन्त्र को अपेक्षा
प्रतिक्रान्ति विरुद्ध पुनःक्रान्ति किन?
क्रान्ति, अझ बढ़ी क्रान्ति, लोकतंत्र, अझ बढ़ी लोकतंत्र
सीके राउत लाई सोधिंदै आएको अहिंसा को प्रश्न
यो सीके राउत बीपी कोइराला भन्दा दामी मान्छे हो
किसान आन्दोलन ले राष्ट्रिय रूप लिनेछ
CK PK KP SBD
तामासालिंग का किसान काठमाण्डु झर्ने बेला यो
नेपाल के इतिहास में अभी तक का सबसे शांतिपुर्ण पार्टी जनमत
किसान आन्दोलन बारे मैले नबुझेको

Sinema Is The Democrats' Sudetenland Moment
Sinema And The Filibuster
Russia And The US: Modi Should Mediate
The US Is Making A Major Mistake In Afghanistan
Ending White Minority Rule Across America
Reorganize The US Senate
Bin Laden's Fantasy, Trump's Reality

भगवान राम धरती पर पैदा हुवे थे

सारी की सारी धरती उनकी। सारा ब्रह्माण्ड उनका। उस राम भगवान को कोइ एक शहर में सीमित करे, एक मन्दिर में सीमित कर दे, ये कैसी अनहोनी बात हो गयी? राम अवतार में पैदा होने से पहले वो भगवान अदृश्य ही तो थे। किसी के आँख से दिखते नहीं थे। कुरान में जिस अदृश्य ईश्वर का जिक्र है वो ईश्वर कौन? भगवान राम अपने देह त्याग के बाद फिर अदृश्य ही तो हो गए। कह के गए फिर से आऊँगा। आए। उसके दो हजार साल बाद भगवान कृष्ण बन के। फिर से दिखने लगे। अर्जुन ने कहा मैं आपका ईश्वरीय रूप देखना चाहता हुँ। भगवान कृष्ण ने कहा वो सौभाग्य तो स्वर्ग में रह रहे देव देवीयों को भी नहीं मिलता है। फिर भी लो देखो। अर्जुन ने देखा। वहीँ खड़े कुरुक्षेत्र के और किसी ने नहीं देखा। वो देखने के लिए अर्जुन को विशेष रूप से दिव्य दृष्टि दिया गया। अर्जुन डर गए। अर्जुन ने कहा मेरे को डर लग रहा है आप वापस मानवीय रूप में आ जाइए। आ गए। अर्जुन का वही अनुरोध तो है कि महादेव मानव शरीर में दिखे धरती पर। राम और कृष्ण। ब्रम्ह के मानव अवतार येशु। ताकि लोग डर न जाए। 

भारतवर्ष में ही पहले लोगों को वर्षात के देव को पुजा करने की अनुमति दी गयी। ईश्वर की कल्पना उनके परे थी। लेकिन एक समय आया जब ईश्वर ने कहा वर्षा के देव का भी देव तो मैं हुँ। ईश्वर तो मैं हुँ। सच्चा ईश्वर। 

किसी ने समुन्दर कभी देखा ही ना हो और उसे समझाना पड़े समुन्दर आखिर है क्या? तो अँजुली में पानी रख के दिखाना पड़ेगा। समुन्दर में पानी होता है लेकिन इससे बहुत ज्यादा। वो अँजुली का पानी होते हैं ईश्वर के मानव अवतार। मानव शरीर धरती तक सीमित है लेकिन मानव मष्तिष्क ब्रम्हांड के कोने कोने तक पहुँच गयी है। ब्रम्हांड बहुत ही बड़ा है लेकिन अनन्त नहीं। ईश्वर अनन्त हैं। 

भगवान कृष्ण ने कहा है मेरे अनन्त ज्ञान का थोड़ा सा अंश इस गीता में है। वो सिर्फ गीता पर नहीं प्रत्येक धर्म ग्रन्थ पर लागु होता है। लेकिन लोग झगड़ने लगते हैं। तुम्हारा ईश्वर मेरे किताब में है ही नहीं। जो ईश्वर सारे ब्रम्हांड से बड़े हों उन्हें एक शहर विशेष में सीमित करने की सोंच चरम नास्तिकता है।  

जिस ईश्वर का ज्ञान सारे ब्रम्हांड में भी ना सीमित हो सके उस ईश्वर के ज्ञान को किसी एक पुस्तक में सीमित समझना ईश्वर को ना समझना है। 

घृणा नहीं प्रेम ईश्वर की भाषा है। समस्त मानवजाति ईश्वर के हैं। अपना पराया करने वाले ईश्वर के नहीं हो सकते। 

भारत २०० साल उपनिवेश का शिकार हुवा जरूर। लेकिन यहुदी तो इजिप्ट में ४०० साल गुलाम रहे। उन्हें कहा गया तुम्हें मुक्त करूँगा लेकिन याद रहे तुम किसी को गुलाम मत बनाना। वो सबक भारत को भी सिखना होगा। औरो की गलती मत दुहराओ।  

  

पाण्डव सपने में कलयुग के कुछ दृश्य देखते हैं। उन्हें समझ में नहीं आता। भगवान कृष्ण को समझाना पड़ता है। आज के लोगों को महाभारत के ढेर घटनाएं अजीब लगते हैं। कि ऐसा हुवा होगा क्या? कोइ तितली जो सिर्फ गर्मी के कुछ हप्ते जिए उसे जाड़े का मौसम समझाना कठिन काम होगा। बर्फ गिरती है। कैसी बर्फ? तितली पुछेगी। वो संभव नहीं। 

ब्राह्मण इस लिए ब्राम्हण होता है कि मानवीय समाज में ईश्वर के आराधना का उतना ज्यादा महत्व है। लेकिन जो ब्राह्मण ईश्वर की बात ना माने वो ब्राह्मण हुवा कैसे? गीता में भगवान कृष्ण ने स्पष्ट कहा है, चाहे व्यक्ति किसी भी जात का हो उससे समान व्यवहार करो। 

पुँजीवाद का जो सिध्दांत है उसका दुसरा पहिया है लोकतंत्र। राजनीतिक समानता उस पुँजीवाद का मेरुदण्ड होता है। समाज में असमानता बढ़ जाए वो समाज कितना भी समृद्ध क्यों न हो जाए ढह जाएगा। राजनीतिक समानता का मतलब ये नहीं कि सब का कमाइ बराबर हो। थोड़ा कम बेस तो होगा ही। राजनीतिक समानता का अर्थ सम्मान और अधिकार से जुड़ा होता है। 

सारा धरती भगवान राम का। भगवान राम को अयोध्या में सीमित मत करो। प्रेम भाषा भगवान राम का। राम नाम जपो तो घृणा मत बोलो। हिन्दु कहते भगवान राम बड़ा। कोइ क्रिस्चियन कहते येशु बड़ा। आखिर कौन बड़ा? उसका जवाब खुद येशु ने बाइबल में दिया हुवा है। 

February 10: Russia, India, Lata, China

Festive but fraying India’s democracy is not as healthy as this month’s elections make it seem It is not just sectarianism that is ailing the body politic . Three different sorts of communists are competing: Marxist, Marxist-Leninist and the garden variety. ....... Uttar Pradesh may be as poor as Mali, and deeply divided by caste and religion, but it is also a genuine democracy. Its voters have a meaningful choice, and often confound the pundits. ......... A shocking 43% of those who won seats in the national parliament at the most recent general election, in 2019, had been charged with crimes of some sort. For 29% the charges involved grave offences such as rape or murder. ......... Fewer and fewer bills are debated in committee; many are approved by voice votes. .......... Campaign finance is another worry. The bjp has introduced what it calls electoral bonds, which allow individuals and businesses to donate unlimited sums to political parties in secret, in effect. The bjp hoovers up three-quarters of the money donated in this way, but other parties are also happy to accept the scraps. It is impossible to allay suspicions that India’s industrialists are buying favours from the government, since no one knows who is making donations, much less whether there might be any quid pro quo involved. .......... In a world where authoritarian China seems to grow stronger by the day, it has never been more important for India not just to hold elections, but to repair the underpinnings of its democracy, too.

The next crisis What would happen if financial markets crashed? Look to history for a guide, but know that next time will be different . Having soared in 2021, shares on Wall Street had their worst January since 2009, falling by 5.3%. The prices of assets favoured by retail investors, like tech stocks, cryptocurrencies and shares in electric-car makers, have plunged. The once-giddy mood on r/wallstreetbets, a forum for digital day-traders, is now mournful. .......... Asset prices are high: the last time shares were so pricey relative to long-run profits was before the slumps of 1929 and 2001 ...........

the reinvention of finance has not eliminated hubris

......... the total borrowings and deposit-like liabilities of hedge funds, property trusts and money market funds have risen to 43% of gdp, from 32% a decade ago. ......... The second danger is that, although the new system is more decentralised, it still relies on transactions being channelled through a few nodes that could be overwhelmed by volatility. etfs, with $10trn of assets, rely on a few small market-making firms to ensure that the price of funds accurately tracks the under lying assets they own. Trillions of dollars of derivatives contracts are routed through five American clearing houses. Many transactions are executed by a new breed of middle men, such as Citadel Securities. The Treasury market now depends on automated high-frequency trading firms to function. .............

The market-based financial system is hyper active most of the time; in times of stress whole areas of trading activity can dry up. That can fuel panic.

............... Fully 53% of American households own shares (up from 37% in 1992), and there are over 100m online brokerage accounts .......... The financial system is in better shape than in 2008 when the reckless gamblers at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers brought the world to a standstill. Make no mistake, though: it faces a stern test.

India’s nightingale Lata Mangeshkar was the soundtrack of newly independent India The most celebrated of all playback singers died on February 6th, aged 92 . The young woman in “Mahal” (The Palace), made in 1949, was the great actress Madhubala, then still a teenager. But she was not the one singing. In trademark Bollywood fashion she lip-synched the words to a song recorded by a short, slightly dumpy, barefoot girl in a sweltering studio with the fans turned off, because they made too much noise. For “Aayega Aanewala” she crept towards the microphone from 20 feet away, mimicking the echoes of the song. The combination of her passionate voice with the elegant beauty of Madhubala was a peak of Bollywood’s art. ....... She came from Indore in central India, the daughter of a touring theatre producer. ....... over seven decades of playback singing, her fame grew exponentially. She performed for every Indian prime minister, sang for actresses from Madhubala to Kajol, did duets with all the famous actors and built a catalogue of more than 5,000 songs, half of them solos. Directors fought to have her in their films, and she sang in more than a thousand. Inevitably, her voice also became the soundtrack of newly independent India. Through pa systems in malls and factories, from radios in chai stalls and barbers’ stands, out of the windows of idling, hooting cars, at funerals and weddings, her songs wove India together. She seemed to be always there ............ She could never have imagined fame on such a scale. It meant that she could support her mother and her siblings and, later, get a second-hand Mercedes, indulge her love of Test cricket, buy diamonds and take holidays in Las Vegas, where she played the slots all night. ............ and she, at 13, took up acting to support the family, she could not bear to be in front of the camera. It did not love her, with her plumpness and her eyebrows, which one director told her were “too broad”. Nor could she bear to be directed what to say. By contrast to be an unseen playback singer, freely adding high emotions to the drama, felt exactly right. ........... Not that it was always easy. Her voice at first struck many as too high and thin, when the vogue was for a gutsier sound. With practice she made it fuller, improved the vital coloratura and developed her own honeyed way of singing, which others quickly copied. .........

Practise, practise, was her mantra; and then get tough.

She fought doggedly for playback singers to share in the royalties given to composers, as well as for higher fees for herself. There were frosty spells in that dispute when she refused to work with Mohammed Rafi, the playback partner with whom she sang 450 duets, and the director Raj Kapoor, whom she usually counted as a friend. .............. and in 1999 she was appointed to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament. She did not go much and did not take any mp’s perks, which included a free phone and cooking-gas connection. What did she know about politics? Her world was music, and it was wide enough to contain Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, the Beatles and Nat King Cole. Music was her god and her husband too, for she never married. ..........

When she died, of covid, people wept in the streets.

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China’s other dreams To understand China, says Megan Walsh, turn to its literature “The Subplot” is a pacy tour of contemporary Chinese literature . Some sensitive subjects, such as the Tiananmen crackdown of 1989, have always been off-limits for Chinese authors. But between the 1980s and early 2010s, Chinese novelists such as Mo Yan and Yan Lianke were able to portray the enormities of Maoism as experienced by ordinary people. That freedom has shrivelled since Xi Jinping took power in 2012: amid intensifying authoritarianism, Megan Walsh notes in “The Subplot”, the number of cultural figures imprisoned for “subverting state power” or “picking quarrels” is “the highest in the world”.

Films | Tackling bias in tech When computers are racist How to stop building racial bias into the digital future

January 28: N95, Pegasus

We Syrians Are Not Surprised by This Betrayal . In June, the World Health Organization appointed Syria to its executive board. Interpol readmitted Syria to its network in October. Algeria and Egypt have pushed to reinvite Syria to Arab League membership, and other Arab nations have gestured toward a rapprochement with Mr. al-Assad. And throughout, Mr. al-Assad’s relationships with Iran and Russia appear to have deepened. .......... the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Uighurs in Xinjiang. ......... I was 13 when protests erupted in our eastern Damascus neighborhood of Al-Qaboun, back in 2011. I remember feeling hopeful watching Syrians call for a country free of the al-Assad family, which had ruled us for 40 years. When the regime violently cracked down on protesters, countries severed ties with Mr. al-Assad and froze his regime’s assets abroad. The Arab League suspended Syria from its membership. .......... Back then, I felt betrayed by the al-Assad family, who we’d long been told was Syria’s protector. Now, nine years after fleeing my home, I feel betrayed by an international community that is inviting Mr. al-Assad back into its fold. ......... what has happened in Syria exposes the deep contradictions and flaws within the international human rights system. .......... A regime that has been known to bomb hospitals cannot be a member of the Executive Board of the World Health Organization. A regime that tortures and tracks its dissidents at home and abroad through intelligence services must not regain access to Interpol’s databases. ......... Syria is not a nuclear power or the regional power it once was. Nor is it a major energy supplier. Standing firm against his rehabilitation does not cost much. .

Five Action Movies to Stream Now . .

Kamau Bell: Bill Cosby Is Key to Understanding America The comic and commentator discusses his new documentary, “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” and what Cosby’s story reveals about the “two runaway forces of oppression in America.” ........ Cosby was freed from prison in June 2021 after an appeals court ruled that his due process rights had been violated. .......... Cosby continues to deny all allegations against him. ...... There are two runaway forces of oppression in America: One, how we treat nonwhite people. The other is how we have treated women through the history of this country........ [Cosby is] one of the key figures for Black America and America in the 20th century. And one of the greatest standup comedians of all time. And the creator of one of the best sitcoms of all time. And, throughout a lot of his career, an advocate for Black excellence. ....... No matter what you think about Bill Cosby’s story, it is critical that we create a society that treats survivors of sexual assault better. .

Searching for America, South of the Mason-Dixon . The conviction of this book is that race and racism are fundamental values of the South, that “the creation of racial slavery in the colonies was a gateway to habits and dispositions that ultimately became the commonplace ways of doing things in this country.” In other words, the South is America, and its history and influence cannot be dismissed as an embarrassing relative at the nation’s holiday dinner table. ....... “the major metropolis of the South doesn’t have a sufficient mass transit system or a polyglot culture....” .

How Long Can I Keep Wearing the Same Respirator Mask? With the right care, your high-performance mask can last for multiple uses. ........ (The Biden administration has announced it’s giving away 400 million nonsurgical N95 masks at community health centers and retail pharmacies across the United States, with a limit of three per person.) ........... 40 hours of use per mask .......... Never try to clean your high-performance mask. ...... and keep it in a clean, dry place when you’re not wearing it. ........ an N95 is designed to handle 200 milligrams of particles, which would be equivalent to wearing it nonstop for 200 days in very polluted air such as in Shanghai. ......... Over time — several hours — the virus will die off, so we probably don’t need to worry about accumulating more than one day’s worth of infectious virus on the material. ........ the virus decays to nearly undetectable levels in 30 minutes. ........ Consider it ruined if it has gone through the wash or otherwise gotten soaked. .

The Battle for the World’s Most Powerful Cyberweapon A Times investigation reveals how Israel reaped diplomatic gains around the world from NSO’s Pegasus spyware — a tool America itself purchased but is now trying to ban. ......... For nearly a decade, the Israeli firm had been selling its surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising that it could do what no one else — not a private company, not even a state intelligence service — could do: consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone. .......... it had helped Mexican authorities capture Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo. European investigators have quietly used Pegasus to thwart terrorist plots, fight organized crime and, in one case, take down a global child-abuse ring, identifying dozens of suspects in more than 40 countries .......... criminals and terrorists had better technology for encrypting their communications than investigators had to decrypt them. The criminal world had gone dark even as it was increasingly going global. .......... Mexico deployed the software not just against gangsters but also against journalists and political dissidents. The United Arab Emirates used the software to hack the phone of a civil rights activist whom the government threw in jail. Saudi Arabia used it against women’s rights activists and, according to a lawsuit filed by a Saudi dissident, to spy on communications with Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, whom Saudi operatives killed and dismembered in Istanbul in 2018. ............

What they could see, minutes later, was every piece of data stored on the phone as it unspooled onto the large monitors of the Pegasus computers: every email, every photo, every text thread, every personal contact. They could also see the phone’s location and even take control of its camera and microphone.

........ F.B.I. agents using Pegasus could, in theory, almost instantly transform phones around the world into powerful surveillance tools ......... Phantom allows American law enforcement and spy agencies to get intelligence “by extracting and monitoring crucial data from mobile devices.” It is an “independent solution” that requires no cooperation from AT&T, Verizon, Apple or Google. The system, it says, will “turn your target’s smartphone into an intelligence gold mine.” ........... sales of Pegasus played an unseen but critical role in securing the support of Arab nations in Israel’s campaign against Iran and even in negotiating the Abraham Accords, the 2020 diplomatic agreements that normalized relations between Israel and some of its longtime Arab adversaries. .......... The current showdown between the United States and Israel over NSO demonstrates how governments increasingly view powerful cyberweapons the same way they have long viewed military hardware like fighter jets and centrifuges: not only as pivotal to national defense but also as a currency with which to buy influence around the world. ........... Foreign-service officers posted in American Embassies abroad have served for years as pitchmen for defense firms hoping to sell arms to their client states, as the thousands of diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010 showed ..........

when American defense secretaries meet with their counterparts in allied capitals, the end result is often the announcement of an arms deal that pads the profits of Lockheed Martin or Raytheon.

.......... Cyberweapons have changed international relations more profoundly than any advance since the advent of the atomic bomb. In some ways, they are even more profoundly destabilizing — they are comparatively cheap, easily distributed and can be deployed without consequences to the attacker. Dealing with their proliferation is radically changing the nature of state relations, as Israel long ago discovered and the rest of the world is now also beginning to understand. .............. By the mid-1980s, Israel had firmly established itself as one of the world’s top arms exporters, with an estimated one in 10 of the nation’s workers employed by the industry in some way. .......... Recruitment was the essential ingredient of their business plan. The company would eventually employ more than 700 people in offices around the world and a sprawling headquarters in Herzliya, where individual labs for Apple and Android operating systems are filled with racks of smartphones undergoing constant testing by the firm’s hackers as they seek and exploit new vulnerabilities. .............. There was a particular concern about Israeli companies that were staffed by former top intelligence officials; potential customers feared that their spyware might be contaminated with even deeper spyware, allowing the Mossad access to their internal systems. .......... They fed the mobile phone number of a person connected to Joaquín Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel into the system, and the BlackBerry was successfully attacked. Investigators could see the content of the messages, as well as the locations of different BlackBerry devices. “Suddenly we started to see and hear anew,” says a former CISEN leader. “It was like magic.” In his view, the new system had revitalized their entire operation — “Everyone felt like maybe for the first time we could win.” It was also a win for Israel. Mexico is a dominant power in Latin America, a region where Israel for years has waged a kind of diplomatic trench warfare against anti-Israeli groups supported by the country’s adversaries in the Middle East. .......... “its guardianship of the capital of the world — Jerusalem.” ....... “NSO was providing the means for states to spy on their own people,” he says. “From my point of view it’s straightforward. This issue is not about Israel’s security. It’s about something that got out of control.”

How a Syrian War Criminal Was Brought to Justice — in Germany When refugees won historic convictions against the Syrian torture regime, they also opened a new front in the global fight for human rights.