Encouragement

Pro-EU leader wins Moldova election despite alleged Russian meddling

Moldova's pro-EU President Maia Sandu has claimed a second term after a tense election run-off seen as a choice between Europe and Russia.

The Moldovan Central Electoral Commission confirmed Sandu's victory on Monday morning.

Sandu won 55% of the vote, according to preliminary results, and in a late-night speech on Sunday she promised to be president for all Moldovans.

Her rival Alexandr Stoianoglo, who was backed by the pro-Russian Party of Socialists, had called for a closer relationship with Moscow.

During the day the president's national security adviser said there had been "massive interference" from Russia in Moldova's electoral process that had "high potential to distort the outcome".

Russia had already denied meddling in the vote, which came a week after another key Eastern European election in Georgia, whose president said it had been a "Russian special operation".

Stoianoglo, who was fired as prosecutor general by Sandu, has denied being pro-Kremlin.

In a joint statement congratulating Sandu on her re-election, the European Commission and the EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell said there had been "unprecedented interference by Russia".

As polls closed, both Sandu, 52, and her rival thanked voters, with Stoianoglo speaking in Russian as well as Romanian. Although Romanian is Moldova's main language, Russian is widely spoken because of its Soviet past.

Turnout at 54% was high, especially among expat voters at polling stations abroad.

Stoianoglo took an initial lead on the night and was the more successful candidate in Moldova itself with more than 51% of the vote. Sandu won in the capital Chisinau, and she was completely dominant among expat voters.

As she overtook her challenger late on Sunday night, there was cheering at her campaign headquarters and chants of "victory".

In a hoarse voice she praised her compatriots for saving Moldova and giving "a lesson in democracy, worthy of being written in history books".

Then, moving into Russian, she said: "I have heard your voice – both those who supported me and those who voted for Mr. Stoianoglo. In our choice for a dignified future, no-one lost... we need to stand united."

Maia Sandu’s foreign policy adviser, Olga Rosca, told the BBC she was proud of the result.

Asked whether she was surprised that Stoianoglo had won in Moldova itself, she said the vote in Moldova and abroad should be seen as one and the same: “We never divide people into Moldovans at home and expatriates - we see Moldovans as one family.”

With elections coming next year she said the president had “clearly indicated she has heard the mood for change. On several occasions between the [two presidential] votes she said the fight against corruption must be intensified and justice reform must be accelerated – she’s committed to this work”.

The final result will be declared on Monday.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Sandu, saying "it takes a rare kind of strength to overcome the challenges you've faced in this election.

"I'm glad to continue working with you towards a European future for Moldova and its people," her message on X said.

Casting his ballot, Alexandr Stoianoglo had promised to be an "apolitical president", and that he had voted for "a Moldova that should develop in harmony with both the West and the East".

Stoianoglo polled particularly well in rural areas and the south, while Sandu was ahead in the cities and with young voters.

After casting her ballot, Sandu had warned of "thieves" who sought to buy their vote and their country.

Presidential national security adviser Stanislav Secrieru said Russia had organised buses and large charter flights to bring voters to polling stations.

Bomb scares had briefly disrupted voting in Moldova, at UK polling stations in Liverpool and Northampton and at Frankfurt and Kaiserslautern in Germany, he added.

A Soviet republic for 51 years, Moldova is flanked by Ukraine and Romania and one of Europe's poorest countries. It has a population of 2.5 million and an expat population of 1.2 million.

Moldova's authorities have long warned that a fugitive oligarch called Ilan Shor has spent $39m (£30m) trying to buy the election for Moscow with handouts to 138,000 Moldovans.

Shor, who is based in Moscow, denies wrongdoing but did promise cash payments to anyone prepared to back his call for a "firm No" to the EU.

Commentators and politicians had warned that a Stoianoglo victory could radically change the political landscape in the Danube and Black Sea region, not because he was some kind of "Trojan horse", but rather because Russia has thrown its weight behind him.

There were queues at polling stations in Moscow, Italy and among voters from a mainly Russian-speaking breakaway region of Transnistria, who had to cross the River Dniester into Moldovan-controlled territory to vote. Transnistria is home to a Russian military base and a huge arms depot.

Moldova's election commission said it was aware of reports of organised and illegal transports of voters by air and land in Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Turkey, and appealed to the public to report further violations.

Although Sandu had easily won the first round of the vote, several candidates swung behind Stoianoglo, although the third-placed candidate refused to back either of the two.

The first round coincided with a nail-biting referendum on backing a change to the constitution embracing the commitment to join the EU.

In the end the vote passed by a tiny margin in favour, and Maia Sandu said there had been clear evidence of attempts to buy 300,000 votes.

La Claque

France election: How the far-right lost

• Marine Le Pen's RN comes third in parliamentary election
• She had predicted it would win and form government
• Opponents united to keep far-right out of power
• Party leaders, supporters say its time will come soon

PARIS, July 7 (Reuters) - The champagne was on ice at the far-right National Rally's (RN) headquarters, but the celebratory mood swiftly turned to disbelief when the first projected results from Sunday's parliamentary election appeared on TV screens.

For days, Marine Le Pen had confidently predicted that her party would triumph with an outright majority and her protege Jordan Bardella would be prime minister. Instead, the National Rally was on course to come third, behind a left-wing alliance and President Emmanuel Macron's centrist bloc.

It was undone to a large extent by tactical dealmaking between centrist and leftist opponents, who pulled more than 200 candidates from three-way races to avoid splitting the anti-RN vote.
The projected result brought to a shuddering halt what had appeared to be the far right's relentless rise in France, carefully engineered by Le Pen who had sough to clean up her party's image and tap the grievances of voters angry over living costs, strained public services, and immigration.

To be sure, Le Pen and her party have suffered disappointment before, most recently her 2022 defeat to Macron in the presidential election, and have managed to bounce back more strongly than before.

But for now, the outcome was a bitter pill to swallow.

"The results are disappointing and they don't represent what French people want," said Jocelyn Cousin, 18, who had come to party HQ expecting a victory party.

The RN's momentum had appeared unstoppable after it trounced the centrists in European elections in early June and came first, ahead of the hastily assembled leftist New Popular Front, in the first round of the parliamentary vote on June 30.

Le Pen and Bardella attributed their party's setback on Sunday to the what Bardella called the "disgraceful alliance" the anti-RN forces, who he said had caricatured the party and disrespected its voters.

But IPSOS pollster Brice Teinturier pointed to the RN's own shortcomings, including revelations before the run-off that several of its candidates had expressed xenophobic views, raising questions over whether the party had really ditched its more toxic past.
"What happened is also that RN candidates themselves showed in this campaign that they either were not ready or had in their ranks candidates that are antisemitic, xenophobic or homophobic," Teinturier told France 2 television.

'TIDE IS RISING'

Florent de Kersauson, an RN candidate in Brittany in western France, acknowledged the fallout had been damaging. But he also said voters may have felt the party was arrogant in predicting an absolute majority.

"I thought it was strange that they said that," said Kersauson, who lost his race against a pro-Macron candidate. "It seemed like something that was very hard to achieve."
Bardella and Le Pen strove to put a brave face on their result. The party had increased its share of seats in the National Assembly to a record high, they noted, vowing to keep fighting until they won power.

"The tide is rising, but it didn't rise quite high enough this time," said Le Pen, who is likely to mount her fourth presidential campaign in 2027. "Our victory has merely been delayed."
That was also the feeling among many of the supporters gathered at party HQ in Paris.
"I see our victory coming. People are going to understand that the National Rally is not so horrible. I believe it will happen in 2027. I have a lot of hope and I'll continue to fight," said Elea da Cunha, 17.

Frederic-Pierre Vos, a close associate of Le Pen and former RN party lawyer elected in a constituency north of Paris, said the hung parliament thrown up by the election would mean an ungovernable France, providing fresh opportunities for RN in 2027.

Yet despite the party's fighting talk, Sunday's outcome was a clear setback.

Business newspaper Les Echos ran a front page showing a grim-faced Bardella with the headline "la claque" or "the slap".

Trump's Friend

Kim Jong Un

Robot Zone

About That China Thing

I have to wonder if Xi's general discombobulation is one reason China continues to fuck with Taiwan.

Or maybe it's just that he's eliminated everybody who would advise him not to do stoopid things.

7 Things

Quick little roundup.

1) Abortion rights advocates won big victories in three states yesterday.

• In Ohio: Voters passed a constitutional amendment to guarantee abortion access, making it the latest state to take this step since Roe v. Wade was overturned last year.
• In Virginia: Democrats took control of the General Assembly, meaning they can stop Republicans, led by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, from introducing new abortion limits.
• In Kentucky: Voters reelected a Democratic governor who attacked his Republican opponent for supporting the deep-red state’s near-total ban on abortion.

2) Ivanka Trump will testify in her father’s New York civil fraud case today.

• The details: She is not a defendant in this case. But she will be the state’s last witness following testimony from her father, Donald Trump, and two of her brothers.
• In related news: The former president will skip a Republican primary debate in Miami tonight and host a rally nearby instead. The debate starts at 8 p.m. Eastern on NBC News.

3) Israel’s endgame in the Gaza Strip is unclear after a month of war.

• What to know: Israel’s prime minister said Monday that Israel would control Gaza’s postwar security for an “indefinite period,” which reportedly concerned U.S. officials.
• In the U.S.: The House voted yesterday to censure the only Palestinian American member of Congress, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), over her comments about the war.

4) The Supreme Court appears likely to allow gun bans for domestic abusers.

• What happened? Justices seemed to agree yesterday that a federal statute preventing people under domestic-violence protective orders from possessing guns is constitutional.
• Why it matters: This case is the first big test of the court’s ruling last year which requires judges to decide challenges to the Second Amendment by finding examples in history.

5) Northern Greenland’s ice sheets are rapidly retreating.

• What to know: The vast floating ice shelves have lost 35% of their total volume since 1978, according to new research.
• Why it’s worrying: The ice shelves hold back glaciers from flowing into the sea. If more are lost to warming oceans, it could lead to significant sea level rise.
• In related news: Last month was the planet’s warmest October on record.

6) Nintendo is making the Legend of Zelda into a live-action movie.

• The details: The creator of the wildly popular video game series, Shigeru Miyamoto, revealed yesterday that he’s working on the film but said it will “take time” to finish.
• It will be tricky to pull off: The series’ main character, Link, doesn’t speak out loud. And the innovative games are famous for letting players choose their own pathways.

7) Cats might be more affectionate and articulate than we thought.

• How we know: Researchers watched 150 hours of cat videos to learn more about how felines express themselves. They found that cats can make nearly 300 facial expressions.
• What’s your cat saying? When cats are happy, they typically move their ears and whiskers forward and outward. When unhappy, they flatten their ears and lick their lips.

China

1980s: The Canadians are buying up all the businesses - we're doomed!

We weren't doomed

1990s: The Japanese are buying up all the commercial real estate - we're doomed!

We weren't doomed

2000s: The Arabs are buying up all the resorts and apartments and condos - we're doomed!

We weren't doomed

2010s: Foreigners are buying up all the US debt bonds - we're doomed!

We weren't doomed

2020: The Chinese are buying up all the farm land - we're doomed!

Jeezus H Fuq, what's wrong with these people?

I'm not saying, "Don't worry, be happy". There's plenty to worry about. But I will say there's always an under-taste of fuckery whenever I hear some "conservative" telling us horrible things are about to happen.

China’s economic woes may leave U.S. and others all but unscathed

The forecast for escaping economic damage could deteriorate if Beijing cheapens the currency to boost exports

Judith Marks, the chief executive of the elevator maker Otis Worldwide, returned in April from a 10-day trip to China saying “all signals look positive” for the country’s recovery from its draconian covid lockdown.

The Chinese rebound that seemed to be gaining momentum in April lost steam in May and reached midsummer in danger of petering out altogether. Suddenly, the world’s second-largest economy, for years a reliable juggernaut, was ailing. The core of the problem: a debt-ridden, overbuilt property sector that threatened to smother growth well short of the government’s 5 percent annual target.

Chinese weakness is bad news for companies such as Otis, based in Farmington, Conn. China is its most profitable market for new equipment sales, accounting last year for roughly one-third of orders. Through the first half of the year, China was the company’s only major market where orders were in decline.

But the elevators that Otis sells in China are made there. So while the property market slump means that fewer are needed, most of the pain will be felt at Otis facilities in China, not in the United States. For all its remarkable progress and prosperity, China is not an important enough customer of goods produced elsewhere for its woes to be contagious. At least for now.

“China has been less of a growth engine than is widely assumed,” said Brad Setser, a former Biden administration trade adviser. “The direct effects of its slowdown are going to be relatively modest. It doesn’t matter to the export side of the U.S. economy if China grows at zero or China grows at 5 percent.”

That could change if China’s slowdown proves worse than anticipated, unnerving global financial markets, or if the government artificially cheapens its currency in a bid to export its way out of the crisis at the expense of its trading partners.

But China’s downshifting economy is likely to clip just a few tenths of a percentage point off global growth, economists have said. One indication of the country’s modest impact can be seen in its trade in manufactured goods, such as industrial equipment, automobiles, furniture and appliances.

China’s imports of manufactured items for its own use, rather than to make products for customers in other countries, amount to just 3.5 percent of gross domestic product, according to Setser. And China’s reliance on foreign factories is about one-third lower than when Xi Jinping became the country’s leader in 2012 and accelerated a self-sufficiency drive.

“That’s unusually low,” said Setser, now a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. “China makes almost all of the manufactured goods consumed in China.”

Otis, which has plants in Tianjin and near Shanghai, has operated in China since the mid-1990s. Its elevators and escalators are used in infrastructure projects, such as the Tianjin metro, as well as in the residential and commercial developments at the heart of China’s real estate bubble.

Although the property market slowdown is pinching new equipment orders, demand for servicing of installed units remains strong, Marks told investors in July, when Otis reported higher quarterly sales and earnings.

To be sure, a prolonged downturn in China — or one that is deeper than expected — would be felt around the world. First to suffer would be major commodity producers. The Chinese economic miracle for decades has vacuumed up copper from Peru, ore from Australia, soybeans from Brazil and oil from Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Direct financial links between the United States and China have thinned in recent years, amid a trade war and rising geopolitical tensions. But a deeper Chinese slump could set off a “negative feedback loop,” with sinking stock and bond prices, rising volatility and a soaring dollar combining to sap consumer and business confidence in the United States and elsewhere.

Such a scenario, akin to the fallout from the 2015 Chinese stock market crash, could shave half a percentage point off global growth and 0.3 points off U.S. growth, according to Gregory Daco, the chief economist at EY-Parthenon.

“What matters to the U.S. and the rest of the world is if the China shock is translated into a broad-based deterioration in overall financial conditions,” he said.

China’s neighbors are already feeling a chill. But their decline in exports to China is primarily the result of American consumers buying fewer electronics than they did during the work-from-home phase of the pandemic rather than a consequence of Chinese domestic weakness.

China sits at the center of a pan-Asian electronics supply chain, assembling products with components shipped there from South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan.

Multinational corporations that serve the domestic Chinese market also would be hurt. The German automaker BMW depends on China for more than 29 percent of its annual revenue. More than 27 percent of Intel’s sales come from Chinese customers.

“China does matter for the global economy. Germany is a big exporter to it. It matters for commodity markets. It sets the tone for emerging Asia,” said Nathan Sheets, the global chief economist at Citigroup.

But China’s old growth model, which relied on heavy investment in public infrastructure and housing, is exhausted. After decades of frenzied growth, the country has just about all the high-speed rail lines and apartment complexes that it needs.

Chinese leaders have said they intend to pivot to an economy based on more consumer spending and service industries. But “there’s still a long way to go,” Sheets said.

The current slowdown underscores a shift in China’s global image. For years, China’s vast domestic market beckoned multinational corporations with the promise of enormous profits. And it seemed certain to surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy.

Now, the outlook is less rosy. China grew in the second quarter at an annual pace just above 3 percent, a far cry from the roughly 9 percent rate it averaged over its first three decades of economic reform. Its aging labor force is shrinking, and Xi emphasizes loyalty to the Communist Party rather than expanding the economy.

Visiting Beijing last week, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said U.S. business executives have told her that China is “uninvestable” because of the government’s increasingly erratic treatment of foreign businesses.

“China is growing slower and building less. It’s not going to be uniquely central the way it used to be,” said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The International Monetary Fund says China will contribute more than one-third of global growth this year. But that figure overstates China’s impact on its trading partners, some economists have said. Rather, it demonstrates the arithmetic truth that China, even with all its problems, is a large economy that will grow faster than its counterparts. That produces a large output gain, but most of the benefits stay at home.

China runs a sizable trade surplus with the rest of the world, meaning it sells to other countries much more than it buys from them. Chinese exporters dominate global markets for products such as electronics, footwear and aluminum, while consumers in China save much of their income rather than spending it on foreign goods.

As the Federal Reserve and other major central banks tried to cool inflation by raising interest rates over the past year, foreign demand for Chinese goods sagged. Through July, Chinese exports were down 5 percent from the same period in 2022. But imports fell nearly 8 percent, meaning the surplus widened.

“Countries that run a trade surplus basically subtract more from global growth than they contribute,” said George Magnus, an economist at Oxford University’s China Center. “It’s doing more for its own growth than it’s contributing.”

Exports have been a central ingredient in China’s economic strategy for decades. Government officials have repeatedly spoken of promoting domestic consumption. But in the past three years, China’s export sector has delivered more than one-fifth of the country’s annual economic growth, the largest share since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, according to the ChinaPower project at CSIS.

China began the year with hopes for a boom. In December, Xi reluctantly relaxed his strict zero-covid policy after rare public protests. Freed from lockdown, Chinese consumers were expected to drive an economic rebound.

But after a burst of spending, the recovery fizzled. Fresh government data this week showed Chinese factories, consumers and real estate developers all mired in a slump.

“They’re structurally in a deep hole that they’re going to have a lot of difficulty climbing out of,” said Andrew Collier, the managing director of Orient Capital Research in Hong Kong.

Chinese authorities have taken a number of steps to revive growth, including cutting interest rates. But they have made little headway. And with more than 21 percent of young people unemployed, the prospect of social unrest looms.

One lever Beijing has not pulled is manipulating the value of its currency.

The yuan this year has fallen 5 percent against the dollar, reflecting China’s slower growth and lower interest rates. The government could further cheapen the yuan by selling it on global markets. That would effectively discount Chinese goods, making them less expensive for customers paying with dollars and euros.

Swamping foreign markets with made-in-China products would raise export earnings and boost domestic employment. But it would be certain to worsen already fractious relations with the United States and Europe.

There’s no sign yet that the Chinese authorities plan to make such a move. But if the economic deterioration accelerates, they might.

After all, they have done so before. China kept its currency undervalued for years after joining the global trading system in 2001, prompting years of complaints from the U.S. government and American businesses.

The France Thing

I've been wondering about Marie Le Pen's gang - where they might factor in, and how Le Pen would play this thing.

I think I have the beginnings of my answer now.

She probably didn't directly encourage assholes to deface a holocaust memorial, and it's not likely she wrote a memo to any of the French equivalents of Proud Boys and 3%-ers saying they should rush right down to their local protest and amp things up.

But she can point at the "Muslim Problem" and then sit back and carp about "rampant violence" and the need to restore order, and how that weak sister Macron isn't able to do enough because what we really need is a strong leader to clamp down on immigration and stand up to rioters and show 'em who's boss and blah blah blah.  

Rioters in France vandalizing a Holocaust memorial
by u/padmanabhapillai in facepalm

Race riots in France could give far-right the edge Marine Le Pen needs to win in 2027

When Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old of North African origin, was shot dead by police at a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre on Tuesday morning, it looked like an event that would unite the French in shock and revulsion at the long-known violence and racism in the law enforcement community.

The killing was condemned across the political community, with President Emmanuel Macron calling it “inexplicable” and “inexcusable”, and even police authorities distancing themselves from the incident, which involved a teenager being shot at point-blank range simply because he refused to comply with the officer’s demands.

France’s far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, was initially on the back foot: this case, filmed and posted on the internet, seemed to prove the argument that minorities were systematically targeted by a police force that considers itself above the law. Meanwhile, the left-wing opposition, led by radical firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said it was the consequence of decades of neglect in the banlieues, the poor, multi-ethnic, high-density suburbs around the big cities.

But that was before the riots. The five nights since the shooting saw Paris and other French cities plunge into chaos as rioters have run rampage. Schools, police stations and city halls have been set torched, while cars, trucks and buses have been set ablaze.

Mr Macron, whose second term has already been disrupted by opposition to his pension reforms, is now facing perhaps the biggest challenge to his presidency yet. Although tens of thousands of police have been deployed to contain the violence, the anger has spread across the country, to Marseille, Lyon and Lille, with fears growing that they could disrupt the Tour de France cycling race. Mr Macron himself was obliged to cut short an EU summit in Brussels on Friday to return to Paris, and to postpone this week’s planned three-day state visit to Germany.

The rioting has also transformed the political discourse. The initial horror over the shooting of a teenager has now turned into a debate about law and order.

This is fertile territory for Ms Le Pen, who has long railed against what she sees as France’s drift into permissiveness and lawlessness. She lambasted the government on Twitter on Sunday as “a power that abandons all constitutional principles for fear of riots, which contributes to aggravating them”, adding, “Our country is getting worse and worse and the French are paying the terrible price for this cowardice and these compromises.”

She did not directly address the shooting but condemned the National Assembly for holding a minute’s silence for Nahel last week, saying, “Unfortunately, there are young people in our country every week…It’s terrible, but I think that the National Assembly should perhaps measure a little the minutes of silence that are carried out.”

And in a video address yesterday she lambasted the “anarchy”, called on authorities to declare a state of emergence or curfew, and attacked Mr Mélenchon for “conniving” and “morally exempting these criminal acts”, promising that they would face a reckoning with “the nation and history”.

This appeal to law and order is in direct contrast with her energetic encouragement of the violent yellow vest or “gilets jaunes” anti-government fuel protests in 2019 and 2020.

Ms Le Pen has detoxified her image in recent years. She changed the name of her party from the National Front to the National Rally, and in last year’s presidential campaign, her posters simply call her “Marine”, handily distancing her from her xenophobic father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

The 54-year-old put pocketbook issues at the heart of her campaign, pointing to sharply rising fuel and food prices as proof of Mr Macron’s economic mismanagement. Her pivot was aimed at working-class voters struggling with rising costs, as she campaigned in rural France and former industrial towns.

She recast her party as a movement for the forgotten masses, bypassed by globalisation and the Paris elites, and even talked up her struggles as a single mother and her cat breeding. The rebrand has worked: she has neutralised many fears of her and normalised her image, with polls today rating her the nation’s second favourite political personality, behind the former prime minister Édouard Philippe.

The riots put Mr Macron in a bind. He was quick to capture the emotion after the shooting but has so far failed to contain the momentum of the subsequent anger. If he echoes Ms Le Pen’s language, he risks being called a hypocrite over the killing.

However, the longer the violence continues, the more Ms Le Pen will benefit. She can continue to blame the authorities for the chaos, saying this is the inevitable result of the moral laxity she has always warned against. And with Mr Macron term-limited, Ms Le Pen can look to the next presidential election, in 2027, as her moment.

Punching Back

It was a bad idea to fuck with Ukraine, and Putin keeps getting very strong and very loud messages about it.

So I'll say it again - Putin will not survive this. It's likely going to take a good while longer, but this spells the end for Vladimir Putin.

On the other hand, it could happen a lot more quickly than I expect. The cracks have really begun to show, and in spite of his doubling down - and tripling down, and fourpling down, trying to bull his way through - at some point, which we may or may not be able to see coming, the whole thing could easily collapse in a big fuckin' hurry.

Ukraine has been making some very bold moves. This one reminds me of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in 1942.

Drones fly deep inside Russia; Putin orders border tightened

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Drones that the Kremlin said were launched by Ukraine flew deep inside Russian territory, including one that got within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of Moscow, signaling breaches in Russian defenses as President Vladimir Putin ordered stepped-up protection at the border.

Officials said the drones caused no injuries and did not inflict any significant damage, but the attacks on Monday night and Tuesday morning raised questions about Russian defense capabilities more than a year after the country’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

Ukrainian officials did not immediately take responsibility, but they similarly have avoided directly acknowledging responsibility for past strikes and sabotage while emphasizing Ukraine’s right to hit any target in Russia.

Although Putin did not refer to any specific attacks in a speech in the Russian capital, his comments came hours after the drones targeted several areas in southern and western Russia. Authorities closed the airspace over St. Petersburg in response to what some reports said was a drone.

Also Tuesday, several Russian television stations aired a missile attack warning that officials blamed on a hacking attack.

The drone attacks targeted regions inside Russia along the border with Ukraine and deeper into the country, according to local Russian authorities.

A drone fell near the village of Gubastovo, less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Moscow, Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the region surrounding the Russian capital, said in an online statement.

The drone did not cause any damage, Vorobyov said, but it likely targeted “a civilian infrastructure object.”

Pictures of the drone showed it was a small Ukrainian-made model with a reported range of up to 800 kilometers (nearly 500 miles) but no capacity to carry a large load of explosives.

Russian forces early Tuesday shot down another Ukrainian drone over the Bryansk region, local Gov. Aleksandr Bogomaz said in a Telegram post.

Three drones also targeted Russia’s Belgorod region on Monday night, with one flying through an apartment window in the capital, local authorities reported. Regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said the drones caused minor damage to buildings and cars.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine used drones to attack facilities in the Krasnodar region and neighboring Adygea. It said the drones were brought down by electronic warfare assets, adding that one of them crashed into a field and another diverted from its flight path and missed a facility it was supposed to attack.

Russia’s state RIA Novosti news agency reported a fire at the oil facility, and some other Russian reports said that two drones exploded nearby.

While Ukrainian drone strikes on the Russian border regions of Bryansk and Belgorod have become a regular occurrence, other strikes reflected a more ambitious effort.

Some Russian commentators described the drone attacks as an attempt by Ukraine to showcase its capability to strike deep behind the lines, foment tensions in Russia and rally the Ukrainian public. Some Russian war bloggers described the raids as a possible rehearsal for a bigger, more ambitious attack.

Andrei Medvedev, a commentator with Russian state television who serves as a deputy speaker of Moscow’s city legislature and runs a popular blog about the war, warned that the drone strikes could be a precursor to wider attacks within Russia that could accompany Ukraine’s attempt to launch a counteroffensive.

“The strikes of exploding drones on targets behind our lines will be part of that offensive,” Medvedev said, adding that Ukraine could try to extend the range of its drones.

Russia hawks urged strong retaliation. Igor Korotchenko, a retired Russian army colonel turned military commentator, called for a punishing strike on the Ukrainian presidential office in Kyiv.

Another retired military officer, Viktor Alksnis, noted that the drone attacks marked the expansion of the conflict and criticized Putin for failing to deliver a strong response.

Also on Tuesday, authorities reported that airspace around St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, was temporarily closed, halting all departures and arrivals at the main airport, Pulkovo. Officials did not give a reason for the move, but some Russian reports claimed that it was triggered by an unidentified drone.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it was conducting air defense drills in western Russia.

Last year, Russian authorities repeatedly reported shooting down Ukrainian drones over annexed Crimea. In December, the Russian military said Ukraine used drones to hit two bases for long-range bombers deep inside Russian territory.

Speaking at Russia’s main security agency, the FSB, Putin urged the service to tighten security on the Ukraine border.

In another development that fueled tensions across Russia on Tuesday, an air raid alarm interrupted the programming of several TV channels and radio stations in several regions. Russia’s Emergency Ministry said in an online statement that the announcement was a hoax “resulting from a hacking of the servers of radio stations and TV channels in some regions of the country.”

- more -

Слава Україні

🌎🌏🌍❤️🇺🇦

We can't let these people down

Today's Beau

Justin king - Beau Of The Fifth Column

It ain't over. Because it's never over.

"...a more perfect union..." is a reminder that we have to keep working on it.

Democracy is not something we have

if it's not something we do.

Simone Sanders - Ruth Ben-Ghiat

"There's a whole shared coup knowledge"

Today's Explainer

Here's a guy who kinda knows what he's talking about - as long as we take what he says as an outline of what's happening, and what some of the possible outcomes could be, and not consider him some kind of Magic Eight Ball.

His conclusions about Putin's massive fuckup in Ukraine seem pretty solid. I just wish these guys would try a little harder to stay out of the predictions business.

This is generally centered on Hungary, but as he points out, nobody stands alone.

George Friedman

Hostages

Max Boot is generally an OK guy these days - at least he's kinda rehabbed from his previous wingnut persona.

But just like practically all the other jaw-flappers, he never mentions the possibility that a guy like Viktor Bout may have been turned while he was in US custody, and that Putin needs to get him back in order to figure out whether or not he's some kind of double agent now, &/or to find out how much he told the Americans about Russia's shady deals - and that gives the US a chance to fuck with Putin's head some more, and blah blah blah, and ain't it fun to play this stupid cloak-n-dagger game all the fuckin' time.

I don't know enough about any of it to think I could offer up any kind of guidance.

I only know that nobody knows much of anything about the spy-craft shit, and that includes the spies and the spy masters.

I just think it'd be nice if we could count on our government to go to bat for us without thinking we're all just geopolitical pawns.

Opinion -Max Boot

It’s good that Griner is home. But the hostage bazaar has to close.

I am very glad that basketball star Brittney Griner is back in the United States after having been imprisoned in Russia on trumped-up charges. But I am also very uneasy about the method of her release. In return for her freedom, President Biden agreed to set free Viktor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer who was serving a 25-year prison sentence on charges of conspiring to sell weapons to kill Americans.

We need a serious discussion about whether this is the right policy for Washington to follow. Should we be winning the release of those currently detained at the risk of creating more hostage crises in the future?

There is legitimate cause for concern that such deals make us more vulnerable, as Republican critics now charge, but they didn’t start with Biden. President Ronald Reagan traded arms for hostages with Iran. President Barack Obama set free five senior Taliban leaders from Guantánamo Bay to return U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Afghanistan. (Obama, however, refused to pay a ransom to the Islamic State to win the release of four U.S. hostages, ordering instead a rescue mission that failed. The hostages were subsequently killed, while many European hostages were ransomed out.)

Now, Biden has chosen to pay a disturbingly high price for Griner’s freedom. It’s not entirely clear why Russian dictator Vladimir Putin wanted Bout back so badly, but he is closely linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU. Although it’s been 12 years since Bout was arrested in Thailand and extradited to the United States, he might still have smuggling networks that could be of use to Putin in waging the war in Ukraine.

Besides setting free a dangerous international criminal known as the “merchant of death,” the deal sent a message to the entire world that the United States remains in the business of paying off hostage-takers. That can only encourage more unlawful detentions of Americans.

We need a serious reconsideration of the right policy on hostages. But that’s exactly what we’re not getting. Instead of engaging on the merits of Biden’s difficult decision, MAGA Republicans are displaying breathtaking (if entirely unsurprising) bigotry, cynicism and political opportunism in their desperate desire to deny a Democratic president credit for any achievement.

Eugene Robinson: Trading Brittney Griner for an arms dealer was a good deal

Fox “News” host Tucker Carlson suggested that Griner was set free, and former Marine Paul Whelan was not, because she “is not White and she’s a lesbian.” This is nonsense. It’s a tragedy that Whelan remains in a Russian prison, but if it was so easy to release him, why didn’t Donald Trump get it done while he was in the Oval Office? Whelan has been in prison since 2018.

Now, right-wing commentators who never mentioned Whelan’s ordeal before are suddenly bringing him up to score partisan points. Likewise, Republicans who regularly applauded Trump’s hostage-release deals are expressing concern that, as House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) said, the Griner-for-Bout deal “made us weaker.”

As president, Trump took hostage deals to a whole new level — making them, for the first time, a pillar of U.S. foreign policy rather than a disreputable necessity. He boasted that he was “the greatest hostage negotiator … in the history of the United States,” crassly featured six freed prisoners at the 2020 Republican National Convention, and elevated his chief hostage negotiator (Robert C. O’Brien) to the role of national security adviser.

Trump now has the gall to attack the Griner deal as “one-sided” and a “‘stupid’ and unpatriotic embarrassment,” but he paid a substantial price for many of his own prisoner releases, which involved deals with such unsavory partners as the Taliban, the Iranians and the Houthis in Yemen.

The wheeling and dealing continues under Biden. In addition to Bout, he released a Russian cocaine smuggler in exchange for Trevor Reed, another former Marine held in Russia; an Afghan drug lord in return for Navy veteran Mark Frerichs, who was held by the Taliban; and two relatives of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro who were convicted of drug trafficking for seven Americans held in Venezuela.

All of these deals, however well-intentioned, are, unfortunately, creating inducements to seize more Americans in the future. It’s a vicious cycle that is nearly impossible to break. But we need to try. Biden, while continuing to negotiate for the release of Whelan and others who are currently imprisoned, could announce that in the future all Americans who go to Russia, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Afghanistan and other countries on the State Department’s “do not travel” list are on their own. If they are seized, we aren’t going to give up anything to get them back.

That might sound harsh and hardhearted — and may be politically impossible — but it could actually protect Americans abroad. Perhaps that’s not the right approach. But some course correction is needed if the U.S. government is to stop inadvertently offering aid and encouragement to hostage-takers.

Ukraine

Artur Rehi

Putin "pulled out" of the grain deal after Ukraine's hit on Sevastopol - except he didn't really, and nobody cared anyway, because they all know he's impotent in the Black Sea now.

Shit gets weirder and wilder as we go.

Erdogan as eu une conversation avec avec Putler.... pic.twitter.com/v35YCLPrwy

— boris (@Boristhegrand) November 2, 2022

Those Plucky Persians

For almost 2 months, Iranian women have been standing up and telling the government in Tehran to take their Morailty Police and shove it.

Yes, Morality Police really is what they named it.

Listen up, America - our own future is calling.

Students defy protest ultimatum despite crackdown across Iran

Summary

• Protests show no sign of easing amid fierce state warnings
• University students clash with security forces
• Journalists demand release of their jailed colleagues
• Rights groups report arrests of activists, students

DUBAI, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Iranian students defied warnings from the feared Revolutionary Guards that nationwide protests must end by Sunday and were met with tear gas, beatings and gunfire from riot police and militia, videos on social media showed.

The confrontations at dozens of universities, along with threats of a tougher crackdown, indicated that the demonstrations, now in their seventh week, were entering a more violent phase.

Iranians from all walks of life have been protesting since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police after she was arrested for attire deemed inappropriate.

What began as outrage over Amini's death on Sept. 16 has evolved into one of the toughest challenges to clerical rulers since the 1979 revolution, with some protesters calling for the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The top commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards warned protesters that Saturday would be their last day of taking to the streets, the harshest warning yet by Iranian authorities.

Nevertheless, videos on social media, unverifiable by Reuters, showed confrontations between students and riot police and Basij forces on Sunday at universities all over Iran.

One video showed a member of Basij forces firing a gun at close range at students protesting at a branch of Azad University in Tehran. Gunshots were also heard in a video shared by rights group HENGAW from protests at the University of Kurdistan in Sanandaj. Videos from universities in some other cities also showed Basij forces opening fire at students.

Across the country, security forces tried to block students inside university buildings, firing tear gas and beating protesters with sticks. The students, who appeared to be unarmed, pushed back, with some chanting "dishonoured Basij get lost" and "Death to Khamenei".

HISTORY OF CRACKDOWNS

• The activist HRANA news agency said 283 protesters had been killed in the unrest as of Saturday including 44 minors. Some 34 members of the security forces were also killed.
• More than 14,000 people have been arrested, including 253 students, in protests in 132 cities and towns, and 122 universities, it said.
• The Guards and its affiliated Basij force have crushed dissent in the past. They said on Sunday, "seditionists" were insulting them at universities and in the streets, and warned they may use more force if the anti-government unrest continued.
• "So far, Basijis have shown restraint and they have been patient," the head of the Revolutionary Guards in the Khorasan Junubi province, Brigadier General Mohammadreza Mahdavi, was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA.
• "But it will get out of our control if the situation continues."

JOURNALISTS APPEAL

More than 300 Iranian journalists demanded the release of two colleagues jailed for their coverage of Amini in a statement published by the Iranian Etemad and other newspapers on Sunday.

Niloofar Hamedi took a photo of Amini's parents hugging each other in a Tehran hospital where their daughter was lying in a coma.

The image, which Hamedi posted on Twitter, was the first signal to the world that all was not well with Amini, who had been detained three days earlier by Iran's morality police for what they deemed inappropriate dress.

Elaheh Mohammadi covered Amini's funeral in her Kurdish hometown Saqez, where the protests began. A joint statement released by Iran’s intelligence ministry and the intelligence organisation of the Revolutionary Guards on Friday had accused Hamedi and Mohammadi of being CIA foreign agents.

The arrests match an official narrative that Iran's arch-enemy the United States, Israel and other Western powers and their local agents are behind the unrest and are determined to destabilise the country.

At least 40 journalists have been detained in the past six weeks, according to rights groups, and the number is growing.

Students and women have played a prominent role in the unrest, burning their veils as crowds call for the fall of the Islamic Republic, which came to power in 1979.

An official said on Sunday the establishment had no plan to retreat from compulsory veiling but should be "wise" about enforcement.

"Removing the veil is against our law and this headquarters will not retreat from its position," Ali Khanmohammadi, the spokesman of Iran’s headquarters for "Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice" told the Khabaronline website.

"However, our actions should be wise to avoid giving enemies a pretext to use it against us."

The apparent hint at compromise is unlikely to appease the protesters, most of whose demands have moved beyond dress code changes to calls for an end to clerical rule.

In a further apparent bid to defuse the situation, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said people were right to call for change and their demands would be met if they distanced themselves from the "criminals" taking to the streets.

"We consider the protests to be not only correct and the cause of progress, but we also believe that these social movements will change policies and decisions, provided that they are separated from violent people, criminals and separatists," he said, using terms officials typically use for the protesters.

Today's Daddy State

Here it is - your Moment of Saddam

Former Chinese President Hu Jintao unexpectedly led out of Communist Party congress as leader Xi Jinping looks on

Former Chinese President Hu Jintao was unexpectedly led out of Saturday's closing ceremony of the Communist Party congress in a dramatic moment that disrupted the highly choreographed event. State media said late Saturday that Hu was "not feeling well" when he was escorted out, but was doing "much better" after getting some rest.

The frail-looking 79-year-old seemed reluctant to leave the front row of proceedings at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, where he was sitting next to President Xi Jinping.

- snip -

Later, state news agency Xinhua said on Twitter: "Xinhuanet reporter Liu Jiawen has learned that Hu Jintao insisted on attending the closing session... despite the fact that he has been taking time to recuperate recently.

"When he was not feeling well during the session, his staff, for his health, accompanied him to a room next to the meeting venue for a rest. Now, he is much better," Xinhua said.

No word yet on whether or not Mr Hu is expected to be submissive enough to survive his "recuperation".

A Universal Thread

Some themes are held in common by practically every human on this planet.

Aleksei Navalny explains why we need to rid ourselves of people like Vladimir Putin, billionaire zealots, and pretty much every Republican office-holder here in USAmerica Inc.

Mr Navalny, if you please:

Translating the translation:

Fuck off and leave people alone.

Let's try that for a while.

Cuz this other shit -

the shit you've been pullin' -

that shit ain't workin'.

The Ukraine Thing

On the one hand, if Putin wanted to do the thing, he woulda done the thing.

On the other hand, if he actually does the thing, then he has to do it all the way - there can be no half-measures. The invader has to win completely, while the defender just has to survive.

Conquest-n-occupation is a ridiculously expensive enterprise, and I don't see the Russian economy being able to sustain it. Especially considering how badly it's been hollowed out by crooked oligarchs. Maybe Putin can keep those guys in line and make them pony up, and maybe he can't. Maybe one of the things that's holding him back is the fact that they're all so thoroughly entrenched in money laundering through western banks that the sanctions Biden has outlined will bite hard enough to deprive Putin of the funding he has to have to keep his forces deployed.

I dunno.

What seems obvious to me is that Putin is doing the typical Daddy State asshole thing - he's working hard to convince everybody he's willing to go absolutely crazy in an effort to get us to behave stupidly and give him what he wants.

But again - I dunno.

David Ignatius - WaPo: (pay wall) - looking for that middle ground, which indicates he has no better idea about what's happening that I do. We'll see.

Opinion: Does Putin want a diplomatic solution in Ukraine? It’s not looking that way.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian saber dance continued Monday, with his top aides suggesting the possibility of diplomacy and de-escalation even as Russian troops remained poised for attack on the border of Ukraine.

Will he or won’t he invade? Putin loves to keep the world guessing. Biden administration officials, knowing they can’t read Putin’s mind, continue to prepare for both possibilities — a Russian invasion or a round of diplomacy.

Monday’s contradictory signals illustrated the strange shadow play of the Ukraine crisis. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Putin in a televised meeting that diplomatic possibilities were “far from exhausted” and recommended “continuing and intensifying them.” And Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that some of the “exercises” that have sent more than 130,000 Russian troops toward attack positions would be ending soon.

Yet U.S. intelligence detected no signs Monday of de-escalation on the ground. Instead, some Russian units continued to move forward. And the Russian news agency TASS quoted the leader of a Russia-backed separatist enclave in eastern Ukraine, saying that the situation was “unstable” and Ukrainian “professional saboteurs” might be preparing to attack. That sounded like a version of the “casus belli” that Russia seeks.

Putin seems convinced that this ever-intensifying war of nerves is helping Russia. But White House officials believe this tactic may be backfiring in two ways: Some Russian officials, uncertain of Putin’s endgame, are questioning his brinkmanship; and Western nations, unsettled by Russian bullying, are rallying around a NATO alliance that seemed depleted just two years ago.

The Biden administration may be overly optimistic about a crisis that could still be in its early stages. But officials believe that Putin’s threats have made U.S. allies in Europe and Asia recognize the importance of U.S. leadership and military power, galvanizing partnerships abroad that the Trump administration severely weakened. Officials see Putin’s actions as a wake-up call for the West — and in that sense, a big strategic boost for what had been a sagging United States.

For the Biden administration, the underlying puzzle in the Ukraine crisis is what might be called the “Putin factor.” The Russian leader turns 70 this year. He has the military power to flex his muscles and burnish his legacy by regaining a piece of the old Soviet Union. Putin operates in such isolation that foreign visitors sometimes aren’t allowed to see him; instead, some are instructed to fly to Moscow and talk by a dedicated landline to the invisible, unapproachable Kremlin leader.

U.S. officials believe that some of Putin’s advisers see danger ahead if Putin invades but they aren’t able to get this message to the boss. The sanctions that would follow an assault on Ukraine would make it hard for Russia to sell its energy abroad or to buy the technology it needs to supply its defense industry, let alone the rest of the economy. Russia’s financial reserves are large, but they would quickly be depleted as it sought to bolster its currency and pay its bills. U.S. officials reckon that under sanctions, Russia would be starved of inputs, and China, its only major ally, couldn’t fill the gaps.

President Biden has looked for a pathway for Putin to back away from this crisis. In a phone call Saturday with the Russian leader, Biden is said to have countered Putin’s claims that the West doesn’t address his security concerns by summarizing the ways America is prepared to discuss shared stability for Europe. To Putin’s insistence that the United States ignores Russia’s “red lines,” Biden counseled continued dialogue. The leaders talked about follow-on meetings, but no real channel for discussion has opened yet.

An impasse remains on Putin’s fundamental demand for a NATO guarantee that Ukraine won’t ever become a member. A statement by Ukraine’s ambassador to London that Kyiv was ready to give up its aspirations for NATO membership was quickly disavowed Monday by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in Kyiv. But even on this question, formulas may be found to finesse the difference — stating the widely understood reality that Ukraine won’t join NATO any time soon without formally guaranteeing it.

Putin’s course may already be set for Kyiv. It’s hard to imagine that he has moved a vast army to the Ukraine border twice in the past year, only to retreat. Only Putin knows what he will do next in this self-created crisis. But even he can’t answer the classic question: Tell me how this ends?

The basics - as always:

1. Ukraine gets to decide what Ukraine does, not Putin
2. NATO gets to decide what NATO does, not Putin
3. We all get to decide what we do - NOT VLADIMIR FUCKING PUTIN

Better men than Putin have been trying to conquer the world for 10,000 generations, and the world remains undefeated.

I just really don't understand why these assholes can't stop fucking with people, treat everybody fairly, and give us all a chance to live in peace.

Fuck off, Walter.

From Over There

The Fire Devil

A President sets fire to his country

The Death Of Us All

Back in 2018, 45* got together with Emmanuel Macron at the White House and they planted a tree to symbolize the partnership between the US and France, and also as a token of friendship between the two leaders.

MSN:

The French president offered the young oak to Trump on the occasion of a state visit to Washington in 2018, and the two shoveled dirt around it under the watchful eyes of their wives -- and cameras from around the world.

It was a symbolic gesture: the tree came from a northern French forest where 2,000 US Marines died during the First World War.

But a few days later, the tree was nowhere to be seen, having disappeared into quarantine.

"It is a quarantine which is mandatory for any living organism imported into the US," Gerard Araud, then the French ambassador to America, wrote on Twitter, adding that it would be replanted later.

But it was never replanted: the tree died during its quarantine, the diplomatic source said.
So let's see if we can torture this into an analogy.

The tree immigrates to the US.

It's put in a concentration camp for a while to make sure its OK for this alien to be here.

And while in custody, it dies - like everything that Trump touches.

Questions?