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[Descan]

OwlBread, go win the lottery and buy a newspaper or two. :3

[Owlbread]

OwlBread, go win the lottery and buy a newspaper or two. :3

Oh how I want to, but newspapers in this country are a minefield for entrepreneurs. Small papers are dying all of the place and big ones are struggling, more people are using the internet for news, yet they remain strong and profitable overall. Strong enough that buying one is a sensible venture? That is uncertain.

[Loud Whispers]

London Apollo theatre collapses.

[Max White]

And now for something completely different: Where do you even get one of those things?

[Helgoland]

Wulff, ex-president of Germany, practically found not guilty. The media look like total assholes, but everyone ignores it.

[hector13]

Wulff, ex-president of Germany, practically found not guilty. The media look like total assholes, but everyone ignores it.

Seems a bit silly.

Couldn't find that article in English, but this one said he was on trial for accepting 719 Euros to pay for his hotel and sustenance while staying there, from a film director. In return he wrote a letter to Siemens on the director's behalf in order to procure funding for a project.

In the grand scheme of things, that's hardly corruption, particularly if you consider things like the expenses scandal(s) here in the UK, which was public money.

In saying that, however, he does seem to have some history of making questionable decisions.

[Duuvian]

Opinion piece on Ukraine by:
Mykola Riabchuk

Mykola Riabchuk is a political and cultural analyst in Kyiv. His last book "Glechschaltung. Authoritarian Consolidation in Ukraine, 2010-2012" was published in both Ukrainian and English.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/12/ukraine-across-dividing-lines-2013121672720957494.html

Notably:

Historically, Ukrainian anti-Soviet/anti-colonial identity has been always predominantly pro-Western. In October this year 53 percent of respondents in a nationwide survey [Ua] supported Ukraine's EU membership - roughly the same number as those who voted in 2004 for the "orange" presidential candidate and last year for the "orange" parties in the parliamentary elections.

The same survey reveal that 35 percent of respondents oppose Ukraine's European integration, and 12 percent remain undecided. The margin is noticeable, but if the data is broken down to the age groups, it looks even more staggering: The youngest respondents [Ua] (18-29 years old) are twice more supportive for the EU than the oldest (60+).

[Guardian G.I.]

Former Russian oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky leaves prison after being pardoned by President Putin.

[t. fortsorter]

Putin has been pardoning a lot of people lately~
I've been waiting for the BBC to cover it, but here's an article!
Two members of Pussy Riot, the Greenpeace activists, Khodorkovsky... I wonder what motive he may possibly have, haha~

[Sergarr]

I bet it's the Olympics

[Helgoland]

Yup, seems like a conscious PR move.

[Owlbread]

It's the Olympics, yeah. He wants it to go as smoothly as possible so he's letting people go, which is wise given that Russia's human rights record will be under great scrutiny.

The restive North Caucasian militants won't let him get away with it though, they're planning attacks. Putin is going to hold this god forsaken Olympics on the anniversary of the butchering of an entire nation, in its former capital; thousands of men, women and children, killed in a forgotten genocide, hundreds of thousands exiled. Their skulls and bones still litter the ground in remote valleys. No matter how much that man tries he can't airbrush them out of history; the ghosts of the Caucasus will haunt Russia forever and civilians are going to pay with their lives.

This can't go on. There needs to be peace and reconciliation and neither of those things are happening when men and boys are still being driven "into the hills" to take up arms by oppressive and corrupt local governments. Unfortunately I can see no end in sight.

[Sergarr]

I guess if you use the article referencing the 19th century, we might as well remember the conquistadors. But we don't call Spain the genocidal state now, don't we?

[Guardian G.I.]

Circassians, like Crimean Tatars, were not innocent people that were persecuted by Russians for no reason. They used to go on raids into Russian territory, pillage settlements, kidnap people and sell them to slavers from the Ottoman Empire. I doubt that any European ruler or American president from those times would react kindly and democratically to such a threat to his country's border areas.

[misko27]

I guess if you use the article referencing the 19th century, we might as well remember the conquistadors. But we don't call Spain the genocidal state now, don't we?

The South Americans do; or at least they'd have quite a argument for doing so.


Putin certainly would like for the Olympics to go smoothly, and all sorts of stuff is in the way. It remains to be seen whether it will have a noticeable effect on the event, but I would expect more out of Putin before Sochi is over.