EA lays off 350 amid major organizational changes
▻https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-03-26-ea-lays-off-350-amid-major-organizational-changes
Company reorganizing marketing, publishing, operations teams, decreases presence in Japan and Russia
#Jobs
Jonas Gahr Støre Worried About Increased Tension in the Arctic
▻https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/jonas-gahr-store-worried-about-increased-tension-arctic
There is no conflict between upholding a sanction regime while at the same time having good political contact with Russia. Because even in times with increasing global tension, there is room for initiatives to new cooperation projects, Støre says to High North News.
Five years since the annexation of the Crimea
Five years have passed since the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula, when Russia used military force to annex a part of another European country in times of peace.
Morozov’s House | izi.TRAVEL
▻https://izi.travel/en/5398-morozov-s-house/en
The elegant building which looks like a Moorish castle is the house of Arseny Morozov.
This exotic house on Vozdvizhenka was built by the architect Viktor Mazyrin for his friend Arseny Morozov who was from a family of wealthy industrialists. When they travelled together through Spain and Portugal, Arseny noted a castle he liked and he decided to build something like it for himself. And he did, only in Moscow it looked a bit out of place. It was all done in a deliberately Moorish style – the Arabic arch, the windows, the canopies and cornices, the wall-carvings, the decorative work in the form of sea shells, nautical ropes and chains.
The people of Moscow did not like Morozov’s house at all, and even Arseny’s mother allegedly expressed her disapproval like this: “Before only I knew that you were a fool, now all of Moscow will know!” But time has gone by, and now the eccentric house is popular, it clearly adds decorative colour to Vozdvizhenka. It is now the Government Reception House of the Russian Federation.
C++ Russia 2019 : April 19-20, Moscow
▻http://isocpp.org/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=All+Posts&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fisocpp.org%2Fblog%2F2
C++ Russia 2019 will be held in Moscow, April 19–20, 2019.
Two days, three tracks and dozens of deep technical talks about C++: concurrency, performance, architecture, environment — all you need to make your code perfect.
C++ Russia 2019: Moscow, April 19–20, 2019 by Sergey Platonov
From the article:
Keynote by Nicolai Josuttis and Anton Polukhin. Also at the conerence: Philip Nash, Valentin Ziegler, Ivan Čukić, Viktor Kirilov, Andrey Davydov, Alexander Granin and many others.
C++ Russia is not only talks, but also networking with hundreds of colleagues from Russia and Europe. Due to dedicated discussion zones, all the speakers have after their talks all the questions will be answered. If you need to solve any practical issue right now — you can find Ask Expert (...)
#News,_Events,
If Palestinians have 22 states, Israeli Jews have 200
The notion that the Palestinians have 22 states to go to is a blend of malice and ignorance: The Palestinians are the stepchildren of the Arab world, no country wants them and no Arab country hasn’t betrayed them
Gideon Levy
Mar 16, 2019 1
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-if-palestinians-have-22-states-israeli-jews-have-200-1.7023647
Here we go again: The Palestinians have 22 states and, poor us, we have only one. Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t the first to use this warped argument; it has been a cornerstone of Zionist propaganda that we’ve imbibed with our mothers’ milk. But he returned to it last week. “The Arab citizens have 22 states. They don’t need another one,” he said on Likud TV.
If the Arab citizens of Israel have 22 countries, the state’s Jewish citizens have almost 200. If the prime minister meant that Arab citizens could move to Arab countries, it’s obvious that Jews are invited to return to their country of origin: Palestinians to Saudi Arabia and Jews to Germany.
Netanyahu belongs in the United States much more than Ayman Odeh belongs in Yemen. Naftali Bennett will also find his feet in San Francisco much more easily than Ahmad Tibi in Mogadishu. Avigdor Lieberman belongs in Russia much more than Jamal Zahalka belongs in Libya. Aida Touma-Sliman is no more connected to Iraq than Ayelet Shaked, whose father was born there. David Bitan belongs to Morocco, his birthplace, much more than Mohammad Barakeh does.
To really understand Israel and the Palestinians - subscribe to Haaretz
The notion that the Palestinians have 22 states to go to is a blend of malice and ignorance. Underlying it are the right wing’s claims that there is no Palestinian people, that the Palestinians aren’t attached to their land and that all Arabs are alike. There are no greater lies than these. The simple truth is that the Jews have a state and the Palestinians don’t.
The Palestinians are the stepchildren of the Arab world. No country wants them and no Arab country hasn’t betrayed them. Try being a Palestinian in Egypt or Lebanon. An Israeli settler from Itamar is more welcome in Morocco than a Palestinian from Nablus.
There are Arab states where Israeli Arabs, the Palestinians of 1948, are considered bigger traitors than their own Jews. A common language, religion and a few cultural commonalities don’t constitute a common national identity. When a Palestinian meets a Berber they switch to English, and even then they have very little in common.
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The suggestion that Israel’s Arab citizens move to those 22 states is despicable and mean, well beyond its reference to a common language. It portrays them as temporary guests here, casting doubt on the depth of their attachment to their land, “inviting” them to get out. The amazing thing is that the ones making such proposals are immigrants and sons of immigrants whose roots in this country still need to withstand the test of time.
Palestinians are attached to this country no less than Jews are, possibly more so. It’s doubtful whether the hysterical clamoring for foreign passports would seize the Arab community as it did the Jewish one; everybody was suddenly of Portuguese descent. We can assume that there are more people in Tel Aviv dreaming of foreign lands than there are in Jenin. Los Angeles certainly has more Israelis than Palestinians.
Hundreds of years of living here have consolidated a Palestinian love of the land, with traditions and a heritage – no settler can match this. Palestinians have za’atar (hyssop) and we have schnitzel. In any case, you don’t have to downplay the intensity of the Jewish connection to this country to recognize the depth of the Palestinian attachment to it.
They have nowhere to go to and they don’t want to leave, which is more than can be said for some of the Jews living here. If, despite all their woes, defeats and humiliations they haven’t left, they never will. Too bad you can’t say the same thing about the country’s Jews. The Palestinians won’t leave unless they’re forcibly removed. Is this what the prime minister was alluding to?
When American journalist Helen Thomas suggested that Jews return to Poland she was forced to resign. When Israel’s prime minister proposes the same thing for Arabs, he’s reflecting the opinion of the majority.
From its inception, the Zionist movement dreamed of expelling the Palestinians from this country. At times it fought to achieve this. The people who survived the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the expulsions of 1967, the occupation and the devil’s work in general have remained here and won’t go anywhere. Not to the 22 states and not to any one of them. Only a Nakba II will get them out of here.
But it is worse than that, par Marc Doll
▻https://www.facebook.com/SoilLifeQuadra/posts/10156656875720199
I realize there is something I have known for some time but have never said, and, since I have just spent another 4 hours of my life in climate change academia I have to get this out of my system.
Please understand that many you reading this won’t live to an old age... and likely will start scrolling after one or 2 more paragraphs... (edit...Ok I was wrong on this point. This is now my 2nd most shared post of all time..(edit)...make that my most shared)
The IPCC report and Paris accord are incredibly overly optimistic and that commits the world to a target that means the death of hundreds of millions if not more.
But it is worse than that.
Even the commitments made by countries in the Paris accord don’t get us to a 2 degree world.
But it is worse than that.
The 2 degree target is now unattainable (unless of course the entirety of civilization does a 180 today...) and is based on geo-engineering the climate of the earth as well as the sequestering of every molecule of carbon we have produced since 1987, as well as every molecule we are producing today,as well as every molecule we produce tomorrow.... with magical technologies that don’t exist, wont exist and, even if they did would likely cause as many if not more problems than they fix.
But it is worse than that.
The 2 degree target of the IPCC does not factor in the feedback loops such as the increase absorption of heat due to a drastic reduction in the albedo (reflectivity) effect caused by the 70% loss of arctic ice,..- the release of methane from a thawing arctic. (there is more energy stored in the arctic methane than there is in coal in the world). This is called the methane dragon. If the process of the release of the methane, currently frozen in the soil and ocean beds of the arctic, which may have already begun, but if it spins out of control we are looking a an 8 degree rise in temperature.
But it is worse than that.
The report which gives us 12 years to get our head’s out of our arses underestimated the amount of heat stored in the world’s oceans, as we descovered in mid-January by 40%... so no , we don’t have 12 more years.
But it is worse than that.
The IPCC report ignores the effects of humans messing up the Nitrogen cycle through agricultural fertilizers and more... Don’t go down this rabbit hole if you want to sleep at night.
But it is worse than that.
Sea level rise will not be gradual. Even assuming that the billions of tons of water that is currently being dumped down to the ground level of Greenland isn’t creating a lubricant which eventually will allow the ice to free-flow into the northern oceans; it is only the friction to the islands surface that is currently holding the ice back. Then consider the same process is happening in Antarctica but is also coupled with the disappearance of the ice shelves which act as buttresses holding the glaciers from free flowing into the southern ocean. then factor in thermal expansions; the simple fact that warmer water takes up more space and It becomes clear that we are not looking at maintaining the current 3.4mm/yr increase in sea level rise (which incidentally is terrifying when you multiply it out over decades and centuries.) We will be looking at major calving events that will result in much bigger yearly increases coupled with an exponential increase in glacial melting. We know that every increase of 100ppm of C02 increases sea level by about 100 feet. We have already baked in 130 feet of sea level rise. It is just a question of how long it is going to take to get there... and then keep on rising..
But it is worse than that.
Insects are disappearing at 6 times the speed of larger animals and at a rate of about 2.5% of their biomass every year. These are our pollinators. These are links in our food chain. These represent the basic functioning of every terrestrial ecosystem.
But it is worse than that.
58% of the biomass of vertebrae life on earth has been lost since 1970. That is basically in my lifetime!
But it is worse than that.
The amount of Carbon we add to the atmosphere is equal to a yearly a human caused forest fire 20% bigger than the continent of Africa. Yes, that is every single year!
But it is worse than that.
Drought in nearly every food producing place in the world is expected to intensify by mid-century and make them basically unusable by the end of the century... Then factor in the end of Phosphorus (China and Russia have already stopped exporting it knowing this) and the depletion of aquifers and you come to the conclusion that feeding the planet becomes impossible.
But it is worse than that.
We can no longer save the society that we live in and many of us are going to be dead long before our life expectancy would suggest.
If your idea of hope is having some slightly modified Standard of living going forward and live to ripe old age... there is no hope. This civilization is over...
..but there is hope..
There is a way for some to come through this and have an enjoyable life on the other side. Every day we delay can be measured in human lives. There will come a day of inaction when that number includes someone you love, yourself or myself.
So we have 2 options.
Wake the fuck up. If we do we will only have to experience the end of our society as we know it aka...the inevitable economic collapse which is now unavoidable, but be able to save and rebuild something new on the other side. This would require a deep adaptation. Words like sustainability would need to be seen as toxic and our focus needs be on regeneration. Regeneration of soil, forests, grasslands, oceans etc.... This is all possible.
Option 2 is the path we are on thinking that we can slowly adapt to change. This not only ensures we experience collapse but also condemns humanity to not just economic and social collapse but in a 4-6 or even an 8 degree world... extinction.
I am sick of pipeline discussions. I am sick of any argument that is predicated on the defeatist assumption that we will continue to burn oil at an ever increasing rate simply because it is what we have always done. Fact is if we do we are not just fucked, we are dead. I am sick of people who don’t understand how their food is produced, and its effect on the climate.(both carnivores who eat feed-lot meat and vegans who eat industrially-produced-mono-cropped-veggies as they are equally guilty here. The consumption of either is devastating). I am sick of the tons of shiny new clothes people are wearing without realizing 1 Kg of cotton takes over 10 thousand Liters of water and incredible amounts of energy to produce. I am sickened by the amount of that same clothing hits the landfill in near new condition. I am sick of the argument that our oil is less poisonous than someone else’s. Firstly, no it isn’t and secondly, It doesn’t fucking matter. I am sick of people that can’t even handle the ridiculously-small, only-the-tip-of- the-iceberg-of-changes we need to accept; a carbon tax. I am sick of the fact that the political will seems only capable of focusing on the individual consumer through small measures like a carbon tax but no elected Party seems to have the fortitude to enact policies that take it to the small handful of companies that are responsible for 70% of our current C02 production. I am sick of my own hypocrisy that allows me to still use fossil fuels for transportation. I am sick of those who use hypocrisy as an argument against action. I am sick of the Leadership of my country that argues we can have economic growth and survivable environment... we can’t. I am sickened by the normalizing of the leadership of our Southern neighbour who as the most polluting nation in the world officially ignores even the tragedy that is the Paris accord. I am sick of the politicians I worked to get elected being impotent on this subject. Naheed and Greg I’m looking at you. (BTW...Druh, you are an exception) I am sick that the next image I put up of my kids, cheese, pets or bread is going to gain immeasurably more attention than a post such as this which actually has meaning... I am sick about the fact that all the information I referenced here is easily discoverable in scientific journals through a simple google search but will be characterized by many as hyperbolic.
I am confused as to who I am more upset with. Those who have fallen for the denier propaganda, those who choose to be willfully ignorant, those who understand this issue and throw their hands up in a fit of lazy despair or those who are as cognitive as I am to the urgency of this issue yet continue living day-to-day feeling self-satisfied with their recycling, electric car, voting record or some other equally inane lifestyle modification while waiting for society to hit the tipping point so they don’t have to actually put their values into practice (which despite my recent life changes still more or less includes me). All that said...
There is a path forward.
But every day we delay the path forward includes fewer of us. Build community, build resilience, work for food security, think regeneration, plant food producing trees, think perennial food production, turn your waste products into resources, eat food that does not mine the soil and is locally produced, eat meat that is grass fed in a holistic or intensively rotated (ideally holistically grazed in a silvopasture ) that is used to provide nutrients to vegetation, get to know a farmer or become one yourself, park your car, do not vote for anyone who either ignores climate change or says we can have our cake and eat it too, quit your job if it is fossil fuel related (it is better than losing it... which you will), stop buying shit, stop buying expensive cars and overly large houses and then complain that local planet saving food costs more than Costco. Stop buying things that are designed to break and be disposed-of, let go of this society slowly and by your own volition (its better than being forced to do it quickly), Rip up your lawn and plant a garden with perennial veggies, fruit bushes, fruit trees and nut trees. Learn to compost your own poop (it is easy and doesn’t stink). Buy an apple with a blemish, Get a smaller house on a bigger lot and regenerate that land, Plant a guerrilla garden on a city road allowance. Return to the multi-generational house, Realize that growth has only been a thing in human civilization for 250 years and it is about to end and make preparations for this change. Teach this to your children. Buy only the necessities, don’t buy new clothes-go to the thrift store. Don’t use single use plastic or if you do re-purpose it, Unplug your garberator and compost everything, Relearn old forgotten skills. Don’t let yourself get away with the argument that the plane is going there anyway when you book a holiday. Understand that there is no such thing as the new normal because next year will be worse, Understand before you make the argument that we need to reduce human population ... meaning the population elsewhere... that it is not overpopulation in China or India that is causing the current problem... It is us and our “western” lifestyle, Understand that those that are currently arguing against refugees and climate change are both increasing the effects of climate change and causing millions of climate refugees... which will be arriving on Canada’s doorstep because Canada, due to our size and Northern Latitude, will on the whole have some of the best climate refuges. Understand that the densification of cities is condemning those in that density to a food-less future. Stop tolerating the middle ground on climate change. there is no middle ground on gravity, the earth is round, and we are on the verge of collapse.
–----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At last check over 25000 shares. Thank you for reading.
Thanks to Dr. Eric Rignot, Rupert Read , Dr. Jim Anderson, everyone at Berkely Earth those that put keep C02.earth and Environmental Advanced Sciences on FB upto date and so many other climate scientists who’s work have inspired this piece. Thanks as well to the 16 yr old Gretta Thunburg who gave me the courage to take what was in my head and put it to paper,. I encourage you to dig deep. Listen to talks where scientist are talking to scientists. They are less likely then to use the conservative filters they impose on themselves and you will get to the cutting edge.
*on a personal note, since I post about my children, I don’t accept friend requests from people I haven’t met. That said as of today, I have figured out how to enable the “follow” button on my account. I have been blown away by all the fantastic and heartfelt messages and commitments to change I have received due to this post and look forward to reading them.
Venezuela’s Electric Grid Was Attacked From Abroad: Russia | News | teleSUR English
▻https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Venezuelas-Electric-Grid-Was-Attacked-From-Abroad-Russia-20190315-00
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Friday her country considers that Venezuela’s blackout was due to a cyber attack from abroad, the same version provided by the Venezuelan government for the massive loss of electric services across most of the country for five days.
“According to the country’s legitimate government headed by President Nicolas Maduro, as well as to information from other credible sources, Venezuela’s power grid was attacked from abroad,” Zakharova said and pointed out that “it was an attempt to remotely influence control systems at major electrical substations where Canadian-made equipment is installed.”
Could #facebook and #whatsapp Become Major Players in the Remittance Market with #crypto?
▻https://hackernoon.com/could-facebook-and-whatsapp-become-major-players-in-the-remittance-marke
It is safe to assume that anyone with a working internet connection has heard of Facebook and its subsidiary, Whatsapp. Bloomberg reported on Dec 21, 2018, that Facebook is working on a cryptocurrency that will let users transfer money on its Whatsapp messaging app. Are Cryptocurrencies at the precipice of mass adoption?Facebook boasts of the largest active user base of 1.7 billion after more than a decade of existence. That number could have been more if countries like China, Iran, North Korea, and Bangladesh had not banned Facebook. On the other hand, Whatsapp has 1.5 billion users in 109 countries. The most popular countries include India, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and many other countries. Facebook is primed to become a major player in the remittance market due to the sheer number (...)
Opinion | Stephen Kinzer: We’re edging closer to nuclear war - The Boston Globe
▻https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/03/07/edging-closer-nuclear-war/upTrxiHlrXiO0Xo40EqsfM/story.html
Once while waiting for a flight at an airport in Ecuador, I stared at a giant map of the country that was painted on the terminal wall. It looked odd. Ecuador seemed much larger than I remembered. Finally I realized that on this map, its borders had been drawn to include territory in the Amazon that Ecuador lost to Peru in the 19th century and still claims. A banner over the map proclaimed: “Ecuador Was, Is and Will Always Be an Amazon Nation.” The dispute over this territory has set off several wars between Peru and Ecuador. The last one, in 1995, led to several hundred casualties. In a world where nuclear weapons are widely spread, political passion could turn an obscure dispute like this into global catastrophe.
That world is emerging. The Trump administration has been moving systematically to undermine accords that have kept nuclear proliferation within possibly manageable limits over the last half century. Most recently it announced that the United States will withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, which regulates several classes of nuclear missiles. Steps like this produce little if any military gain and damage the United States in the court of world opinion.
Russia, Turkey enter talks to reopen important Aleppo-Gaziantep Highway
▻https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/russia-turkey-enter-talks-to-reopen-important-aleppo-gaziantep-highway
The Russian and Turkish forces met in the northern city of ‘Azaz on Sunday to discuss the reopening of the imperative Aleppo-Gaziantep Highway. (...) If the Aleppo-Gaziantep Highway is reopened, this would be a major boost for the Syrian economy because it will allow residents to once again resume trade and commerce in Turkey.
Don’t Believe the Russian Hype – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/07/dont-believe-the-russian-hype-a2-ad-missiles-sweden-kaliningrad-balti
Moscow’s missile capabilities in the Baltic Sea region are not nearly as dangerous as they seem.
[…]
Drawing on expertise at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, we have published a report—“Bursting the Bubble”—that takes a closer look at Russia’s A2/AD capabilities in the Baltic Sea Region. We find that Russia’s long-range missile systems, though capable, fall notably short of the Kremlin’s maximalist claims. The technological limitations of the Russian missile systems, vulnerabilities apparent from their field operations in Syria, and the range of possible countermeasures available to NATO, suggest that Russia’s no-go “bubbles” are smaller than claimed, more penetrable, and arguably also burstable.
Claims of far-reaching Russian A2/AD capabilities are mainly based on three systems: the S-400, the Bastion anti-ship system, and the Iskander ballistic missile. But early analyses have often equated maximum range with effective range, underestimated the inherent problems of hitting moving targets at large distances, and ignored a wide range of possible countermeasures. Together, this has led to the widespread overestimation Russia’s missile capabilities.
[…]
Finally, it is vital that nonspecialist security professionals critically examine Russian A2/AD capabilities. Exposed to a flurry of announcements in recent years about new Russian #Wunderwaffen, no one should accept Russia’s stated capabilities at face value at a time when Moscow has every incentive to exaggerate, both to gain political influence and boost export sales.
Bursting the Bubble? Russian A2/AD in the Baltic Sea Region: Capabilities, Countermeasures, and Implications.
4/03/2019
Rapportsammanfattning - Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut - FOI
▻https://www.foi.se/rapportsammanfattning?reportNo=FOI-R--4651--SE
Abstract
States with the ability to use a combination of sensors and long-range missiles to prevent adversaries from operating in an exclusion zone, or “bubble”, adjacent to their territory are said to possess anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities. This study examines Russia’s A2/AD systems and their implications for the Baltic Sea region. Much has in recent years been made of Russia’s new capabilities and the impact they might have on the ability of NATO member states to reinforce or defend the vulnerable Baltic states in case of crisis or war. On closer inspection, however, Russia’s capabilities are not quite as daunting, especially if potential countermeasures are factored in. In particular, surface-to-air missile systems currently create much smaller A2/AD bubbles than is often assumed and a number of countermeasures are possible. Experiences from Syria also raise questions about the actual capabilities of such systems in combat, relative to their nominal capabilities.
Anti-ship and anti-land systems pose a greater threat but, here too, countermeasures are available. The dynamics of this strategic vortex affect Sweden directly and indirectly. This is one of the reasons why Sweden’s security is increasingly interlocked with that of its neighbours and of the transatlantic alliance.
U.S. Cancels Journalist’s Award Over Her Criticism of Trump – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/07/u-s-cancels-journalists-award-over-her-criticism-of-trump-internation
Jessikka Aro was to receive a “#Women_of_Courage” prize. Then officials read her Twitter feed.
Jessikka Aro, a Finnish investigative journalist, has faced down death threats and harassment over her work exposing Russia’s propaganda machine long before the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. In January, the U.S. State Department took notice, telling Aro she would be honored with the prestigious International Women of Courage Award, to be presented in Washington by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Weeks later, the State Department rescinded the award offer. A State Department spokesperson said it was due to a “regrettable error,” but Aro and U.S. officials familiar with the internal deliberations tell a different story. They say the department revoked her award after U.S. officials went through Aro’s social media posts and found she had also frequently criticized President Donald Trump.
The year women became eligible to vote in each country
▻https://matadornetwork.com/read/year-women-became-eligible-vote-country
La tâche rouge ...
Suffrage happened in 1920 in the United States, three years behind Russia and Canada but 91 years ahead of Saudi Arabia, as noted by this map depicting the year women became eligible to vote in each country. Countries began joining the fray en masse by the mid-twentieth century, but the leader of the pack comes from far down under — women in New Zealand obtained voting rights in 1893. This map was uploaded to Reddit and shows the year women became eligible to vote in each country.
A quick glance at the map tells only part of the story, however. Pay close attention to the asterisks, as the year noted for some countries signifies only limited suffrage, often only for white women or in conjunction with specific requirements such as homeownership or marriage. Belgium’s 1919 suffrage granted widows and the mothers of servicemen killed in World War I, or widows and mothers of servicemen “shot and killed by the enemy” the vote but didn’t extend the same rights to all women until 1948. Australia granted women excluding Aboriginals the right to vote in 1902. For a more complete list of exclusions, view the notes at the far bottom of the infographic.
#droits_civiques #droit_des_femmes #droit_de_vote #démocratie #govrnance #cartographi #visuaisation #cartoexperiment #arabie_saoudite
The Soviet Communist Origins of International Women’s Day
▻https://www.messynessychic.com/2017/03/10/the-soviet-communist-origins-of-international-womens-day
I’ve been informed that the way we celebrate Women’s Day in western society is a little bit weak compared to the way they do it in Russia– which might have something to do with the fact that the Soviets basically invented the holiday. Long before the world had International Women’s Day, Soviet Russia had ‘Working Women’s Day’, where it was first declared a national holiday as early as 1917. The United Nations didn’t adopt the March 8th celebration until 1975 when it became an official international holiday in the West, and the communist-associated “worker” element was hastily dropped from the holiday’s title.
While discovering the roots of Women’s Day, I also found an abundance of vintage Soviet-era cards celebrating March 8th…
#soviétisme #images #représentation #journée_internationale_de_la_femme
#Trans-Siberian railway : I quit my job after an unforgettable trip across Russia — The Calvert Journal
▻https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/9483/trans-siberian-railway-journey-documentary-photography
he Trans-Siberian railway has enticed not only travellers since it was first completed in 1904. For writers, musicians and filmmakers, the world’s longest uninterrupted single train ride promises a creative retreat on wheels. Bowie famously travelled the Vladivostok to Moscow route after finishing his Ziggy Stardust tour in Japan in 1973. Other creative minds to have traversed Russia in this way include English magical realist novelist and short story writer Angela Carter, whose journey went on to inspire her enchanting 1984 book Nights at the Circus, and more recently The Kills’s Jamie Hince locked himself on-board one of the train’s compartments to work on the band’s next record. For photographer Giulia Mangione, it had been an ambition to take the 9000 km train route from Moscow to Vladivostok since studying Russian as a student. After working on The Happy Show, her long-term photographic series on Denmark, she was looking forward to working on a travel project with a distinct beginning, middle and end.
In the Middle of Winter, Bering Strait Sea Ice Is Disappearing - Bloomberg
rubrique : Climate Changed
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-06/sea-ice-between-alaska-and-russia-shrinks-by-record-in-middle-of-winter
Ice cover should be building, but instead it’s now at a record low for this time of year.
The ice cover in the Bering Sea is at its lowest on record for this time of year after losing an area about the size of Montana at the height of winter.
It’s the second consecutive year that the ice extent in the area has retreated at record pace. It shrank from 566,000 square kilometers (219,000 square miles) to 193,000 square kilometers between Jan. 27 and March 3, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado.
Low ice levels impact local communities who rely on the ice to hunt for walrus and other wildlife during the winter, and the unprecedented change could also impact feeding habits of Arctic animals. And while that’s alarming to environmentalists concerned about global warming, ship owners carrying liquefied natural gas and other goods see it as an opportunity.
The Bering Sea is more susceptible to temperature fluctuations during the winter when thin ice moves further south and melts, but this year has been “extreme,” the boffins said.
“A major cause of the ice loss is the strong low pressure in the Bering Sea and the high pressure over northwestern Canada,” the researchers said. “Strong winds between these pressure centers drew warm air into the region from the south, inhibiting ice growth in the Bering Sea while also pushing ice to the north.”
Elsewhere in the Arctic, sea-ice extent during February was at the seventh lowest on record and on a par with 2015 levels. But the scientists in Colorado aren’t ready yet to call the end of the growing season.
Thinner ice allows Russia’s Novatek PJSC to transport LNG cargoes from its Yamal plant directly to Asia, the biggest consumer of the fuel, rather than sell or transfer them in western Europe.
National Snow and Ice Data Center sur Twitter
▻https://twitter.com/nsidc/status/1103057634985500672
Sea ice extent in the #BeringSea is at a historic low for this time of year, and experts cite warm ocean temperatures and severe storms as the causes. This is problematic for both Western #Alaskans and wildlife according to @adndotcom. Learn more here:
[lien vers le Anchorage Daily News, non actif en attente de mise en conformité avec le RGPD…]
Interviews with Three Amazing Female Web Developers Who Promote Diversity and Inclusion in Tech
▻https://hackernoon.com/interviews-with-three-amazing-female-web-developers-who-promote-diversit
The Stories Behind BlackTechPipeline, @WomenTechBot, @React_India, and @WomenCoders01Three Amazing Web Developers Who Are Doing Their Best in Engaging Women and Minorities in Web DevelopmentNot long ago I started a series of articles on women in technology at our corporate blog, at soshace.com. And so far I’ve managed to publish just one that featured five outstanding women who were promoting coding education among children, teenage girls, mothers who recently delivered babies, and different other minority groups. I am passionate about promoting equality and diversity in various fields, be it science or creative writing. Unfortunately, back where our company’s based, in Russia, we’re far behind those practices, but there is definitely a nascent trend for inclusion. Writing articles such (...)
#female-developer #girls-who-code #hackernoon-top-story #diversity-in-tech #women-in-tech
An Interview with Ryszard Kapuscinski: Writing about Suffering
▻https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jii/4750978.0006.107/--interview-with-ryszard-kapuscinski-writing-about-suffering?rgn=mai
Wolfe:
Were you trained as a journalist? Kapuscinski: No, never. I started in journalism in 1950 — I was 18, just finishing secondary school, and the newspaper people came to ask me to work. I learned journalism through practice.
Wolfe: How would you describe your genre?
Kapuscinski: It’s very difficult to describe. We have such a mixture now, such a fusion of different genres… in the American tradition you would call it New Journalism. This implies writing about the facts, the real facts of life, but using the techniques of fiction writing. There is a certain difference in my case, because I’m trying to put more elements of the essay into my writing… My writing is a combination of three elements. The first is travel: not travel like a tourist, but travel as exploration, as concentration, as a purpose. The second is reading literature on the subject: books, articles, scholarship. The third is reflection, which comes from travel and reading. My books are created from a combination of these three elements.
Wolfe:When did the idea of Aesopian writing enter into the genre, the idea of putting layers into official texts?
Kapuscinski: Well, this is not a new thing — it was a nineteenth-century Russian tradition. As for us, we were trying to use all the available possibilities, because there wasn’t any underground. Underground literature only began in the 70s, when technical developments made it possible. Before that, we were involved in a game with the censors. That was our struggle. The Emperor is considered to be an Aesopian book in Poland and the Soviet Union. Of course it’s not about Ethiopia or Haile Selassie — rather, it’s about the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The First Secretary at the time was named Gierek, and he was very much the emperor with his court, and everybody read the book as being about him and the Central Committee.
Wolfe: But you didn’t write explicitly about the Central Committee.
Kapuscinski: No, but of course the authorities knew what it was about, and so it had a very small circulation, and it was forbidden to turn it into a film or a play. Aesopian language was used by all of us. And of course, using this language meant having readers who understood it.
Cohen: The other day we were discussing the crisis of readership, and wondering whether people were still capable of doing the double reading, of taking apart a text that has been written in a complicated way.
Kapuscinski: The limitation of sources under the Communists had a very political effect on reading. People had just one book, and nothing else — no television or other diversions — so they just read the same book very carefully several times. Readership was high, and very attentive. It was people’s only source of knowledge about the world. You have to understand that the tradition of Russian literature — and Russians are great readers — is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart. This is the most intimate relationship between literature and its readers: they treat the text as a part of themselves, as a possession. This art of reading, reading the text behind the text, is missing now.
Cohen: When did you first arrive on the African continent?
Kapuscinski:My first trip to Africa came when the first countries south of the Sahara became independent, in 1958. Ghana was the first African country I visited. I wrote a series of reports about Nkumrah and Lumumba. My second trip was just two years later, when I went to cover the events surrounding the independence of the Congo. At that time, I was not allowed to go to Kinshasa — it was Leopoldville at that time — but I crossed the Sudan-Congo border illegally with a Czech journalist friend, since there was nobody patrolling it. And I went to Kisangani, which was called Stanleyville then.
Cohen: Were you in Leopoldville during the actual transfer[1]?
Kapuscinski:No, afterwards. It was a moment of terrible international tension. I remember the atmosphere of danger: there was the expectation that the Congo might begin a new world war. I say this today and people just smile. But that’s why everybody was so nervous: Russians were going there, Americans were going there, the French, the United Nations… I remember one moment at the airport in Kisangani, thinking that Soviet planes were coming — all the journalists were there, and we all expected it to happen.
Cohen: At that time, in the early 1960s, there weren’t more than three regular American journalists covering Africa.
Kapuscinski:There were very few, because most correspondents came from the former colonial powers — there were British, French, and a lot of Italians, because there were a lot of Italian communities there. And of course there were a lot of Russians.
Wolfe: Was there competition among this handful of people?
Kapuscinski: No, we all cooperated, all of us, East and West, regardless of country, because the working conditions were really terrible. We had to. We always moved in groups from one coup d’état to another, from one war to another… So if there was a coup d’état of leftist orientation in some country I took my Western colleagues with me and said “look, let them come in,” and if there was one of rightist orientation they took me, saying “no, he’s okay, give him a visa please, he’s going with us, he’s our friend,” and so on. I didn’t compete with the New York Times, for example, because the Polish press agency is a small piece of cake, not important. And because conditions were so hard. For example, to send the news out, there was no e-mail, nothing: telex was the only means, but telex was very rare in Africa. So if somebody was flying to Europe, we gave him correspondence, to send after he arrived. I remember that during the period leading up to independence in Angola in 1975, I was the only correspondent there at all for three months. I was in my hotel room when somebody knocked on my door - I opened it, and a man said, “I’m the New York Times correspondent.” The official independence celebration was going to be held over four or five days, and a group of journalists from all over the world was allowed to fly in, because Angola was closed otherwise. So he said, “I’m sorry, but I’m the new man here, and I heard you’ve been here longer, and I have to write something from Angola, and this is the article I have to send to the New York Times. Could you kindly read it and correct things which are not real?” And he brought a bottle of whiskey. And whiskey was something which was absolutely marvelous, because there was nothing: no cigarettes, no food, nothing…The difference at that time, in comparison with today, was that this was a group of highly specialized people. They were real Africanists, and not only from experience. If you read articles from that time in Le Monde, in the Times, you’ll find that the authors really had background, a knowledge of the subject. It was a very highly qualified sort of journalism — we were all great specialists.
Woodford: Professor Piotr Michalowski[2] says that when he was growing up in Poland, people lived through your reports in a very special way: they were like a big, exotic outlet, given the state of world politics. People of all ranks and stations followed these adventures. When you went back, did regular Poles, non-educated people, also want you to tell them about what it was like to see these things?
Kapuscinski:Yes, very much so. They were very interested in what I was writing. This was a unique source of information, and Africa held incomparably greater interest for them at that time than it does now. People were really interested in what was going on because of the international context of the Cold War.
Wolfe: What did the Poles know about Africa?
Kapuscinski: They had very limited knowledge. This was very typical of the European understanding of Africa, which is full of stereotypes and biases. Nevertheless, there was a certain fascination with Africa. Maybe it has something to do with our literature: we have Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, for example, and Conrad is considered in Poland as a Polish writer. The similarity between Africa and Poland - and this is an argument I have always had with people in Africa - is that we were also a colonized country. We were a colony for 130 years. We lost independence at the end of the 18th century, and only regained it in 1918, after the First World War. We were divided between three colonial powers - Russia, Prussia, and Austria. There’s a certain similarity of experience. I’ve often quarreled with African friends about this. I’ve asked, “How long were you colonized?” "Eighty years," they’ve answered, and I’ve responded, “We were colonized 50 years longer, so what can you say about colonialism? I’ll tell you what colonial experience is.” And they’re shocked. But though there is a similarity of experience, the common people are not conscious of this.
Wolfe: At the end of the Copernicus Lecture, you said that you wrote Imperium because it was important to bring a Polish way of seeing things to your topic. How did you come to a sense that there was a Polish way of seeing things? Did it emerge from your experiences in Africa, or in relationship to Russia?
Kapuscinski: It developed in relation to Russia in particular. Our history, the history of Polish-Russian relations, is very tragic, very harrowing. There has been a lot of suffering on our side, because Stalin killed all our intelligentsia. It wasn’t just that he killed 100,000 people, it was that he purposely killed the 100,000 who were our only intelligentsia… When I started writing Imperium, I had a problem with my conscience, because if I wrote strictly from the point of view of this Polish experience, the book would be completely unacceptable and incomprehensible to the Western reader…So I had to put aside our Polish experience, and to find an angle, an objective way of writing about Russia.
Wolfe: Isn’t there something inherently difficult in writing about suffering? How does one go back and forth between a sense of causation in daily suffering on the one hand, and an understanding of the purges as a social phenomenon, on the other? How does one attempt to understand the cultural propensity of Russians to suffer?
Kapuscinski: There is a fundamental difference between the Polish experience of the state and the Russian experience. In the Polish experience, the state was always a foreign power. So, to hate the state, to be disobedient to the state, was a patriotic act. In the Russian experience, although the Russian state is oppressive, it is their state, it is part of their fabric, and so the relation between Russian citizens and their state is much more complicated. There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First of all, in Russian culture, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God. This makes the state part of the sacred… So if the state is oppressive, then it is oppressive, but you can’t revolt against it. The cult of authority is very strong in Russian society.
Wolfe: But what is the difference between Soviet suffering and something like the battle of the Marne, the insanity of World War I and trench warfare?
Kapuscinski: It’s different. In the First World War, there was the sudden passion of nationalism, and the killing took place because of these emotions. But the Soviet case is different, because there you had systematic murder, like in the Holocaust. Ten or 12 million Ukrainian peasants were purposely killed by Stalin, by starvation, in the Ukrainian hunger of 1932-3…It was a very systematic plan… In modern Russia, you have no official, formal assessment of this past. Nobody in any Russian document has said that the policy of the Soviet government was criminal, that it was terrible. No one has ever said this.
Woodford: But what about Khrushchev in 1956?
Kapuscinski: I’m speaking about the present. Official Russian state doctrine and foreign policy doesn’t mention the Bolshevik policy of expansion. It doesn’t condemn it. If you ask liberal Russians - academics, politicians - if Russia is dangerous to us, to Europe, to the world, they say: “No, it’s not dangerous, we’re too weak, we have an economic crisis, difficulties with foreign trade, our army is in a state of anarchy…” That is the answer. They are not saying: “We will never, ever repeat our crimes of expansionism, of constant war.” No, they say: “We are not dangerous to you, because right now we are weak.”
Cohen:
When Vaclav Havel was president of Czechoslovakia, he was asked whether the state would take responsibility for the deaths, the oppression, the confiscations of the previous governments of Czechoslovakia, and he said “yes.” The same questions were asked in South Africa of the Mandela government. And I think Poland is now struggling with how much responsibility the government will have to take for the past. But the Russian official response has been that Stalin can be blamed for everything.
Kapuscinski:This is a very crucial point: there is a lack of critical assessment of the past. But you have to understand that the current ruling elite is actually the old ruling elite. So they are incapable of a self-critical approach to the past.
Polish-born journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski worked as an African correspondent for various Polish periodicals and press agencies from 1958 to 1980. In his book Imperium (Granta Books, 1994), he turns a journalist’s eye onto the Russian state, and the effects of authoritarianism on everyday Russian life. Kapuscinski delivered his November, 1997 Copernicus lecture: "The Russian Puzzle: Why I Wrote Imperium at the Center for Russian and East European Studies. During his visit, he spoke with David Cohen (International Institute); John Woodford (Executive Editor of Michigan Today ); and Thomas Wolfe (Communications). The following is an excerpted transcript of their conversation.
Sei Sekou Mobutu seized control of the Congo in 1965. After the evolution, the name of the capital was changed from Leopoldville to Kinshasa, and in 1971 the country was renamed Zaire, instead of the Congo. return to text
Piotr Michalowski is the George D. Cameron Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations and Languages at the Unversity of Michigan.
Kapuscinski, more magical than real
What’s the truth about Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski
▻https://www.newstatesman.com/africa/2007/02/wrong-kapuscinski-african
▻https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Kapu%C5%9Bci%C5%84ski
Whoever Predicts the Future Will Win the AI Arms Race – Foreign Policy
▻https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/05/whoever-predicts-the-future-correctly-will-win-the-ai-arms-race-russi
The race for advanced artificial intelligence has already started. A few weeks ago, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating the “#American_AI_Initiative,” with which the United States joined other major countries pursuing national strategies for developing AI. China released its “New Generation Plan” in 2017, outlining its strategy to lead the world in AI by 2030. Months after that announcement, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared, “Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”Russian President Vladimir Putin declared,
But it’s less clear how much AI will advance, exactly. It may only be able to perform fairly menial tasks like classifying photographs, driving, or bookkeeping. There’s also a distinct possibility that AI will become as smart as humans or more so, able to make complex decisions independently. A race toward a technology with such a range of possible final states, stretching from banal to terrifying, is inherently unstable. A research program directed toward one understanding of AI may prove to have been misdirected after years of work. Alternatively, a plan to focus on small and achievable advances could be leapfrogged by a more ambitious effort.
China, the United States, and Russia are each negotiating this fraught landscape differently, in ways responsive to their unique economic and military situations. Governments are motivated to pursue leadership in AI by the promise of gaining a strategic advantage. At this early stage, it’s tough to tell what sort of advantage is at stake, because we don’t know what sort of thing AI will turn out to be. Since AI is a technology, it’s natural to think of it as a mere resource that can assist in attaining one’s goals, perhaps by allowing drones to fly without supervision or increasing the efficiency of supply chains.
But computers could surpass humans in finding optimal ways of organizing and using resources. If so, they might become capable of making high-level strategic decisions. After all, there aren’t material limitations restricting the intelligence of algorithms, like those that restrict the speed of planes or range of rockets. Machines more intelligent than the smartest of humans, with more strategic savvy, are a conceptual possibility that must be reckoned with. China, Russia, and the United States are approaching this possibility in different ways. The statements and research priorities released by major powers reveal how their policymakers think AI’s developmental trajectory will unfold.
China is pursuing the most aggressive strategy, focusing on developing advanced AI that could contribute to strategic decision-making. The U.S. approach is more conservative, with the goal of producing computers that can assist human decision-making but not contribute on their own. Finally, Russia’s projects are directed at creating military hardware that relies on AI but leaves decisions about deployment entirely in the hands of generals. In all three situations, the forms of AI these governments are investing their resources in reveal their expectations of the technological future. The country that gets it right could reap huge benefits in terms of military might and global influence.
Poland defies green activists, EU with Baltic canal project | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-environment-vistulaspit-idUSKCN1QL1AN
Poland is pressing ahead with plans to dig a waterway across a narrow strip of land that separates its main eastern coastline from the Baltic Sea despite concerns among activists and in the European Union that it could damage the environment.
The #Vistula_Spit is a heavily wooded sandbank 55 km (34 miles) long but less than 2 km wide which encloses a coastal lagoon. Poland shares both the lagoon and the spit with the neighboring Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
Currently, the only access to the lagoon from the Baltic Sea is a channel at the Russian end of the spit. Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS), deeply distrustful of Russia, says a canal is needed for both security and economic reasons.
Critics say it is a costly vanity project that could become another environment-related flashpoint between Warsaw and Brussels after increased logging in Poland’s Bialowieza Forest led to a ruling by the EU’s top court that it was illegal.
Defending the project, which is estimated to cost 900 million zlotys ($237 million), Poland’s minister for maritime affairs, Marek Grobarczyk, said: “The first and basic reason for the construction ... is a threat from the east.”
“This is the border of the EU, NATO, and above all of Poland, and it cannot really be controlled now because ships can only enter the Vistula Lagoon with Russia’s approval,” he said, adding that work would start in the second half of 2019.
Russia has deployed advanced nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, while Warsaw is lobbying hard to have more NATO troops on its soil, especially since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
However an EU official said on Friday Poland should refrain from building the canal before getting the green light from the European Commission.
As with the Bialowieza Forest, parts of the Vistula Spit are protected under the EU Natura 2000 program.
article du marin d’octobre 2017
Pologne : un projet de canal d’accès à la #lagune_de_la_Vistule
▻https://www.lemarin.fr/secteurs-activites/environnement/29736-pologne-un-projet-de-canal-dacces-la-lagune-de-la-vistule
Pologne : un projet de canal d’accès à la lagune de la Vistule
La Pologne compte entamer en 2018 les travaux de creusement d’un canal reliant la Baltique à la lagune de la Vistule. Objectif : offrir un accès direct à la haute mer au port de plaisance polonais d’Elblag en évitant d’avoir à passer par les eaux territoriales russes.
Lagune de la Vistule — Wikipédia
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagune_de_la_Vistule
La lagune de la Vistule (en polonais : Zalew Wiślany ; en allemand : Frisches Haff ; en russe : Калининградский залив, Kaliningradski zaliv) est une baie d’eau douce située au bord de la mer Baltique et qui est séparée de la baie de Gdańsk par la presqu’île de la Vistule. Plusieurs branches de la Vistule viennent se déverser dans la lagune, dont le Nogat, ainsi que le fleuve Pregolia. La lagune est reliée à la Baltique par le détroit de Baltiisk. Politiquement, la lagune de la Vistule est partagée entre la Pologne et la Russie.
point de vue russe (il y a presque 2 ans) : la réponse est dans la question…
Polish Baltic Channel : Wise Geopolitical Investment or Waste of Money on anti-Russian Project ?
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkJRGvp2n74
Russian state TV shows map of potential US nuclear targets | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/25/russian-state-tv-map-potential-us-nuclear-targets-hypersonic-missile
Russian state television has broadcast a map of the US showing military facilities Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike, in a report that was unusual even by its own bellicose standards.
The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland. A hypersonic missile Russia is developing would be able to hit them in less than five minutes, it said.
Are the U.S. and Russia Sleepwalking Toward Nuclear Disaster? » American University in Moscow
▻http://us-russia.org/6110-are-the-us-and-russia-sleepwalking-toward-nuclear-disaster.html
The Sunday, February 24 edition of Russian state television’s flagship program News of the Week with Dmitry Kiselyov provided a detailed description of the "mirror like” response that Russia will take to any US installations of land based cruise missiles directed against Moscow following termination of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty.
La liste des incidents du USCG Polar Star continue à s’allonger. Les capacités polaires des garde-côtes états-uniens sont à la merci d’un incident…
FIRE IN ANTARCTIC OCEAN Aboard USCG’s Last Heavy Icebreaker – gCaptain
▻https://gcaptain.com/fire-in-antarctic-ocean-uscg-icebreaker-mcmurdo
The 150-member crew of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sta_r fought a fire at approximately 9 p.m. PST Feb. 10 that broke out in the ship’s incinerator room about 650 miles north of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.
After initial response efforts using four fire extinguishers failed, fire crews spent almost two hours extinguishing the fire. Fire damage was contained inside the incinerator housing, while firefighting water used to cool exhaust pipe in the surrounding area damaged several electrical systems and insulation in the room.
Repairs are already being planned for the Polar Star’s upcoming maintenance period. The incinerator will need to be full functional before next year’s mission.
[…]
“_It’s always a serious matter whenever a shipboard fire breaks out at sea, and it’s even more concerning when that ship is in one of the most remote places on Earth,” said Vice Adm. Linda Fagan, commander of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Pacific Area.
[…]
The Feb. 10 fire was not the first engineering casualty faced by the Polar Star crew this deployment. While en route to Antarctica, one of the ship’s electrical systems began to smoke, causing damage to wiring in an electrical switchboard, and one of the ship’s two evaporators used to make drinkable water failed. The electrical switchboard was repaired by the crew, and the ship’s evaporator was repaired after parts were received during a port call in Wellington, New Zealand.
The ship also experienced a leak from the shaft that drives the ship’s propeller, which halted icebreaking operations to send scuba divers into the water to repair the seal around the shaft. A hyperbaric chamber on loan from the U.S. Navy aboard the ship allows Coast Guard divers to make external emergency repairs and inspections of the ship’s hull at sea.
The Polar Star also experienced ship-wide power outages while breaking ice. Crew members spent nine hours shutting down the ship’s power plant and rebooting the electrical system in order to remedy the outages.
The U.S. Coast Guard maintains two icebreakers – the Coast Guard Cutter Healy, which is a medium icebreaker, and the Polar Star, the United States’ only heavy icebreaker. If a catastrophic event, such as getting stuck in the ice, were to happen to the Healy in the Arctic or to the Polar Star near Antarctica, the U.S. Coast Guard is left without a self-rescue capability.
By contrast, Russia currently operates more than 40 icebreakers – several of which are nuclear powered.
nouvel épisode après ►https://seenthis.net/messages/754347 il y a 6 semaines.
Kremlin says cyber attacks on Russia often launched from U.S. territory | Reuters
▻https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trump-russia-kremlin-idUKKCN1QG187
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the U.S. military had disrupted the internet access of a Russian troll farm accused of trying to influence American voters on Nov. 6, 2018, the day of the congressional elections.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters he did not know how much truth there was to that media report.
“But in general I can say that U.S. territory is constantly being used to organise a huge number of cyber attacks against various Russian organisations. That’s the reality with which we live.”
In 2018, Freedom in the World recorded the 13th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. The reversal has spanned a variety of countries in every region, from long-standing democracies like the United States to consolidated authoritarian regimes like China and Russia. The overall losses are still shallow compared with the gains of the late 20th century, but the pattern is consistent and ominous. Democracy is in retreat.
L’organisation reçoit la plus grand part de ses fonds du gouvernement étatsunien. La note de la France, 90/100 est inférieure à la plupart des pays d’Europe de l’Ouest. La note des États Unis est de 86/100.
▻https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2019/map
The Coup Has Failed & Now the U.S. Is Looking to Wage War: Venezuelan Foreign Minister Speaks Out | Democracy Now!
▻https://www.democracynow.org/2019/2/25/the_coup_has_failed_now_the
The United Nations, the Red Cross and other relief organizations have refused to work with the U.S. on delivering aid to #Venezuela, which they say is politically motivated. Venezuela has allowed aid to be flown in from Russia and from some international organizations, but it has refused to allow in aid from the United States, describing it as a Trojan horse for an eventual U.S. invasion. On Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Maduro’s days in office are numbered. We speak with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, who has recently held secret talks with Trump’s special envoy Elliott Abrams.