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Thread: Eurasia Topics

  1. #476
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    You introduced the allegation, I'll await your opinion/"available" sourced evidence and reply, "if I can be bovvered"
    Ah, it appears the chinky-friendly HooHoo selective memory is at work once again.

    Here's a little reminder.

    Two Canadians jailed in China mark 500 days in confinement - The Globe and Mail

  2. #477
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Ah, it appears the chinky-friendly HooHoo selective memory is at work once again.
    One wonders what off-topic response the cretin will come up with this time

  3. #478
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by panama hat View Post
    One wonders what off-topic response the cretin will come up with this time

    Since I have no answer, here's a picture of a baboon.


    Eurasia Topics-1200px-olive_baboon_ngorongoro-jpg

  4. #479
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Two Canadians jailed in China mark 500 days in confinement - The Globe and Mail
    Glad to here the lights are still on. No mention of broken security cameras yet.

  5. #480
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    Eurasia Topics-screen-shot-2020-05-31-13-a

    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    Glad to here
    Eh? You're glad to be in the UK instead of China? Oh yes, I bet you are

  6. #481
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    Wondering what do the Chinese media show today? Hopefully nothing so bad as I see now live (but not from China) on some TV stations (e.g. TRT)...

  7. #482
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    Quote Originally Posted by panama hat View Post
    You're glad to be in the UK
    Another factual error.

  8. #483
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    Another factual error.
    Prove it

    Eurasia Topics-screen-shot-2020-05-31-13-a

  9. #484
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    Quote Originally Posted by panama hat View Post
    Prove it
    A source for your allegation will prove your allegation.

    Or my reply, "Another factual error." to be true.

    Last edited by OhOh; 31-05-2020 at 10:25 PM.

  10. #485
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    Drawing Battlelines: US Openly Targets China’s OBOR


    Eurasia Topics-hsr4242-jpg


    "Judging by US foreign policy – China is a massive global threat – and by some accounts – the “top” threat. But a threat to what?AFP would report in its article, “Trump nominee to lead intel community sees China as top threat,” that:

    President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US intelligence community said Tuesday that he would focus on China as the country’s greatest threat, saying Beijing was determined to supplant the United States’ superpower position.
    Were China doing this by using news agencies like AFP to lie to the public to justify invading Middle Eastern nations, killing tens of thousands of innocent people, installing client regimes worldwide, and using its growing power to coerce and control nations economically and politically when not outright militarily – US President Donald Trump’s “pick” – John Ratcliffe – might be justified in focusing on China and its “determination” to “supplant the United States’ superpower position.”
    However, this is not what China is doing.
    China Building Rather than Bombing

    China is – instead – using economic progress to rise upon the global stage. It makes things. It builds things. It creates infrastructure to bring these things to others around the globe who need or want them, and enables other nations to make, build, and send things to China.
    One example is China’s One Belt, One Road initiative (OBOR) also referred to as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This includes a series of railways, highways, ports, and other infrastructure projects to help improve the logistical connections between nations, accelerating economic development.Only in the US could the notion of building railways connecting people within and between nations seem like a dangerous idea.By building such networks, people are better empowered to trade what they are making and what they seek to buy and sell. China, which possesses the largest high-speed railway network on Earth carrying 2 billion passengers a year, is extending this network beyond its borders – deep into Southeast Asia and even across Eurasia via Russia and beyond. Alongside it are a raft of other projects ranging from ports to power plants, and more.The political and economic power China is gaining by expanding real economic activity both within its borders and beyond them, and both for China itself as well as for its trading partners – represents a global pivot away from America’s century-long unipolar global order and closer toward a now emerging multipolar world order.

    The US with a population of over 300 million and some of the best industrial potential in the world could easily pivot with this sea change – but entrenched special interests refuse to do so. Paying into a genuinely pragmatic method of generating wealth and stability exposes Washington and Wall Street’s various rackets, making them no longer tenable. So instead, US special interests are labeling China’s One Belt, One Road initiative a global threat and China itself as one of America’s chief adversaries.
    Fighting Fire with Fire or Pushing Rope Uphill?

    To combat this adversary – the US is not building bigger and better global networks to facilitate economic progress – but is instead marshalling the summation of its “soft power” to hinder and sabotage it. It has ringed China with a series of sociopolitical conflicts, cultivating opposition groups in various nations aimed at destabilizing them and spoiling them as constructive economic and infrastructure partners for Beijing.
    The US is leveraging its still massive media monopolies to portray these political conflicts as otherwise inexplicable opposition to closer ties with China and against infrastructure projects jointly developed with China.In some nations – like Cambodia – this has all but failed with swift and definitive action taken by the Cambodian government against US proxies to clear them from Cambodia’s media, political, and public space. In nations like Thailand, the opposition has been left to linger – neutralized at the moment but ever threatening to overturn sociopolitical stability if given the opportunity.Nations like Japan, South Korea, and even Australia – who are generally perceived as being staunch US allies – have even begun slowly but surely shifting their foreign policy to benefit from the economic rise of China.Australia – for example – has even been recently threatened by the US after the state of Victoria signed a trade deal with China.An ABC article titled, “US threatens Australia’s intelligence ties over Victoria’s ‘Belt and Road’ pact with China,” would report:

    The US Secretary of State has said his nation could “simply disconnect” from Australia if Victoria’s trade deal with Beijing affects US telecommunications.
    Mike Pompeo said while he was unaware of the detail of Victoria’s agreement, he warned it could impact the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partnership with Australia.

    Of course, the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing partnership is an abusive combine of invasive surveillance used to enhance the power and profits of the special interests that created it – not to actually protect the people living in any of the “Five Eyes” partner nations.
    While US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hints at possible security risks associated with doing business with China and its telecom giant Huawei – “Five Eyes” governments have regularly been exposed and confirmed to be partnering with Western tech giants to violate privacy and spy on innocent people.

    It is just one example of how the US seeks to shape the world and bend nations into joining or doubling down on its abusive axis and steering them away from constructive partnerships.

    Australia’s economic trade is mainly done within Asia – not with the West. As China continues to rise, common sense will compel Australia to continue building better and more constructive ties with Beijing and divesting from otherwise costly and unconstructive alliances with nations like the US built on military intervention, spying, and political subversion.
    The US finds itself pushing the geopolitical rope of hegemony up hill – offering up unconvincing criticisms of China and its foreign policy while offering no viable alternative.
    Delusion is the Worst Defense

    Op-eds like Foreign Policy’s “One Belt, One Road, One Big Mistake,” help illustrate the West’s thinking regarding China’s rise and its OBOR project.
    The article claims:

    This might not matter if BRI projects were driving favorable political outcomes. They aren’t. Prolonged exposure to the BRI process has driven opposition to Chinese investment and geopolitical influence across the region.

    FP can make this claim because it entirely omits any mention of the vast sums of money and effort the US has spent to create this opposition. The example FP uses is the Maldives – never mentioning that the pro-Beijing government there was overturned by a convicted criminal literally hiding in Western Europe and fully supported by the US State Department in his bid to return to power.

    Thus – this isn’t an example of OBOR failing to create a favorable political outcome for Beijing – it is an example of US soft power overturning these favorable political outcomes nonexistent American alternatives to OBOR are incapable of doing. How durable these US successes are is a matter of debate.

    The article also claims:

    Far from being a strategic masterstroke, the BRI is a sign of strategic dysfunction. There is no evidence that it has reshaped Asia’s geopolitical realities. The countries that have benefited most from it are those that already had strong geopolitical reasons for aligning themselves with Chinese power, such as Cambodia and Pakistan.

    Here again – FP depends on omitting facts including the fact that many nations previously bent to US foreign policy are exiting out from under it via China’s One Belt, One Road.

    Thailand is a perfect example of this – having recently replaced much of its US military hardware with Chinese alternatives including tanks, armored personnel carriers, ships, and even submarines. Thailand is also in the process of building a joint high-speed railway with China that will connect it to China via Laos to the north and with Malaysia to the south.


    It’s not that the Western media doesn’t know this – they choose simply to ignore this reality and shield its readership from it – a bit of delusion in hopes its soft-power methods can continue gaining them victories and reversing China’s gains faster than China can make and cement them.


    As to what the US is doing to counter OBOR, Foreign Policy and many others populating the West’s echo chambers feel criticism – however baseless – as well as brushing off the sea change OBOR is slowly creating – is good enough.


    Of course it is not. In an international order where might makes right, the US finds itself with diminishing might and a growing inability to convince the world it is “right.” Luckily for the US and much of Western Europe strong-armed into following Washington’s cues, the rest of the world still seeks to constructively work with the West and inevitably will do so.
    It will just be a matter of weathering the damage being done by the current circle of special interests still dominating Western foreign policy, waiting for them to wane and disappear from positions of power and authority and be replaced by leadership willing and able to move the West into a constructive role amid a multipolar world.

    Either way, OBOR will connect the rest of the world together leaving the West just beyond its terminus. It will be up to Western leaders – particularly in Washington – whether or not they choose to benefit from the wealth left just beyond their doorstep or not."


    Drawing Battlelines: US Openly Targets China’s OBOR | New Eastern Outlook
    A tray full of GOLD is not worth a moment in time.

  11. #486
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    Beijing sees Trump’s hand and won’t fold

    With Sinophobic hysteria reaching new heights in US, China's counter play is a massive new economic plan

    by Pepe Escobar May 30, 2020

    "Stranger things have happened.

    Everyone was expecting US President Donald Trump to go nuclear by de facto sanctioning China to death over Hong Kong. In an environment where Twitter and the President of the United States are now engaged in open warfare, the rule is that there are no rules anymore.

    So in the end, what was announced against China amounted to an anti-climax.
    The US government, as it stands, is terminating its relationship with the World Health Organization (WHO). The geopolitical repercussions are immense and that will take time to sink in. In the short term, something must be blamed for the US’ appalling Covid-19 record, so it might as well be a UN institution.

    Hong Kong’s preferential trade status will also be terminated, but in a hazy future in still undetermined terms.

    Phase 1 of the US-China trade deal still stands – at least for now. Yet there’s no guarantee that Beijing itself won’t start to doubt it.

    The bottom line: “Investors” were duly appeased, for now. Team Trump seems not to be exactly versed in the niceties of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, as the president stressed the “plain violation of Beijing’s treaty obligations with the United Kingdom.” The national security law was blasted as “the latest” Chinese aggression against its own special administrative region.

    Now compare all this with the Two Sessions in Beijing ending the day before, with an intriguing, quite Keynesian performance by Prime Minister Li Keqiang. This was compelling as much for what Li did not say as for what he chose to put on the public record.

    Let’s review some of the highlights. Li stressed that the NPC’s resolution putting forth a national security law for Hong Kong is meant to protect “one country, two systems,” and not as an “aggression.”

    Instead of demonizing the WHO, Beijing is committed to a serious scientific investigation of the origins of Sars-Cov-2. “No cover-up” will be allowed, Li said, adding that a clear, scientific understanding should contribute to global public health. Beijing also supports an independent review into the WHO’s handling of Covid-19.

    Geopolitically, China rejects a “Cold War mentality” and hopes China and the US will be able to cooperate. Li stressed the relationship could be either mutually beneficial or mutually harmful. Decoupling was described as a very bad idea, for bilateral relations and for the world at large. China, after all, will start to import more and that should also profit US companies.

    Domestically, the absolute focus – 70% of the available new funding – will be on employment, support for small and medium enterprises and measures to encourage consumption rather than investment in infrastructure building. In summation, in Li’s own words: “The central government will live on a tight budget.”

    If not completely Sisyphean in the long term, it will at least be a “daunting task” in Li’s terminology considering the previously stated end-of-2020 deadline would be to reach President Xi Jinping’s goal of eliminating poverty across China.

    Li said absolutely nothing about three key themes: the alarming Himalayan border stand-off between China and India; the prospects for Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects; and China’s complex geopolitical and geo-economic relationship with the European Union (EU).

    The non-mention of the last theme is especially noticeable after Chancellor Merkel’s quite encouraging assessment earlier this week and EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell’s remark to a group of German ambassadors that “the end of an American-led system and the arrival of an Asian century” is now “happening in front of our eyes.”

    Confirming steady rumors emanating from Frankfurt, Berlin, Brussels and Paris, China and East Asia are taking precedence as the EU’s top trading partner. This is something that will be extensively discussed at the upcoming EU-China summit next autumn in Germany. The EU is going Eurasia.

    Team Trump won’t be amused.

    Dancing with wolves, remixed


    Predictably, the Beijing leadership needs to focus on domestic consumption and reaching the next level on technological production so as not to fall into the notorious “middle-income trap.” Fine-tuning the balance between domestic stability and a very strong and wide global reach is another tak that brings Sisyphos to mind.

    Xi, Li and the Politburo very well know that Covid-19 hugely affected migrants, farmers and small-scale family entrepreneurs. The risk of social unrest is very high. Unemployment protection is far from Scandinavian levels. So back to business, fast, has to be the top priority.

    Enveloping this strategy is a new diplomatic offensive. Foreign Minister Wang Yi, usually meticulously nuanced and polite, is now increasingly exasperated. Earlier this week, Yi defined the demonization of China by the US over Covid-19 as “a product of the three no’s”: no grounds, no factual basis and no international precedent.

    Moreover, he described attempts to blackmail China through threats as “daydreaming.” The Global Times, for its part, has blasted the Trump administration for “typical international hooliganism” and additionally stressed that “labeling Chinese diplomacy as ‘wolf warrior’ reflects an extreme ideology.”

    The “wolf warrior” plot is bound to thicken. Beijing does seem ready to deploy its diplomatic force as wolf warriors. One should always keep in mind General Qiao Liang: if China is forced to dance with wolves, it might as well set up the rhythm.

    That applies perfectly to the Hong Kong question. Whatever Team Trump thinks, Beijing has no interest whatsoever in disturbing the Hong Kong financial system or collapsing the Hang Seng index. That’s exactly what the black block protesters last year were accomplishing.

    What we saw during this week is the result of what a task force, sent to Shenzhen last year to examine every angle of the protests, relayed back to the leadership in Beijing.

    The sources of financing for the hardcore black blocks have reputedly been cut. The local 5th columnist “leaders” have been isolated. Beijing was being very patient tackling the whole mess. Then along came Covid-19.

    The economic consensus in Beijing is that this will be an L-shaped recovery – actually very slow on the bottom of the L. So the West will buy much less from and invest much less in China.

    This implies that Hong Kong is not going to be very useful. Its best bet has already been offered many times over: integrate with the Greater Bay Area and be part of a booming Pearl river delta southern cluster. Hong Kong businesses support it.

    Another conclusion was that, whatever Beijing does, the Sinophobic hysteria in the US – and in this case also the UK – is unabated. So now is the right moment to go for the national security law, which of course is against subversion, against British-era “wigs” (judges) acting as 5th columnists and, most of all, against money laundering.

    A Global Times editorial cut to the chase: the national security law is the “death knell” for US intervention in Hong Kong.

    Cold War 2.0


    As much as Yi may have said, this time diplomatically, that we’re “on the brink” of a new Cold War, the fact is the Trump administration’s hybrid war on China – or Cold War 2.0 – is now fully established.

    US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is openly threatening Five Eyes allies and vassals, as well as Israel, with consequences if they fail to ditch any projects linked to Belt and Road.

    That is intimately linked to the avalanche of threats and measures against Huawei and everything connected to Made in China 2025, which proceeds at a fast pace but without using the terminology.

    The official Trump re-election campaign strategy “China, China, China,” detailed in a 57-page memo to Republicans, is bound to be deployed as total hybrid warfare, including non-stop propaganda, threats, infowar technologies, cyber warfare and breaking news fabrications.

    The ultimate objective shared by every Sinophobic strand, whether commercially-minded or think tank-based, is to derail the Chinese economy – a top level competitor – by any means necessary and thus cripple the ongoing Eurasian integration process whose three key nodes, China, Russia and Iran, happen to be top “threats” according to the US national security strategy.

    Once again, the gloves are off. And Beijing won’t stop counterpunching in kind.
    It’s as if Beijing had so far serially underestimated the Deep State and Beltway’s larger than life obsession with always remaining the undisputed hegemon, geopolitically and geo-economically. Every “conflict” erupting across the chessboard is and will continue to be directly linked to the twin objectives of containment of Russia and disruption of the Belt and Road.

    I previously referred to the Empire of Chaos, where a plutocracy progressively projects its own internal disintegration upon the whole world. But only now is the serious game starting, complete with Trump’s intention to test nuclear bombs again. Not against a bunch of low-life “terrorists,” but against a serious, peer-competitor: the Eurasian strategic partnership.

    It would be too much to expect Team Trump to learn from Gramscian analyses of Belt and Road, which demonstrate how the Chinese Dream – a Confucianist variant of neoliberalism – marks the evolution of China into a core production zone in the neoliberal world economy by profiting from the existing global legal structure.

    Team Trump has vociferously announced its own strategy.

    Expect serial, silent Sun Tzu counterpunches. "

    https://asiatimes.com/2020/05/beijin...and-wont-fold/

  12. #487
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    A source
    Yes, try . . . but you can't prove it.

    Eurasia Topics-screen-shot-2020-05-31-13-a


    Ex-Detainee Describes Torture In China's Xinjiang Re-Education Camp


    By the time Chinese guards began torturing Kayrat Samarkand inside a re-education camp last spring, he says his life had prepared him for this.
    The ethnic Kazakh grew up in the mountains of China's rural Xinjiang region, just miles away from the border with Kazakhstan. When he was 11 years old, his parents died. A man from his village lured the young orphan to a nearby city with the promise of work and then sold him to a criminal gang of ethnic Uighurs, the predominant ethnic minority in Xinjiang, who managed a network of child thieves throughout China.
    "There were a lot of other children who had been kidnapped," Samarkand recalls. "Most of the others were trained to be pickpockets. They wanted me to be a beggar, so they injected me with medication that made my legs go numb. They held me down and broke both of my legs."


    Samarkand says they took him, newly crippled, to the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou to beg on the streets. By the time he turned 16, Samarkand says gang leaders had trained him to sell crystal methamphetamine. That's when police caught him selling drugs, broke up the syndicate and sent him and 40 other kidnapped orphans to a rehabilitation center in the northeastern Chinese city of Tianjin. The police paid for multiple surgeries to help heal Samarkand's legs before sending the boy to a boarding school in Xinjiang.
    Now 30, Samarkand walks with a limp and still bears the scars of his youth up and down his legs. He says those Chinese police in Guangzhou were the only people who had helped him after his parents died.
    That's why, nearly two decades later, when the police from his home village invited him for a meeting, he went straight to the station to see how he could help. It was Oct. 19, 2017.
    "They sat me down in a tiny room with cameras aimed at me," Samarkand remembers. "They cuffed me and interrogated me for 72 hours."
    Samarkand had spent eight years working in construction in Kazakhstan and had recently returned to China to see friends. He says the police kept asking him what he did in Kazakhstan, whom he met with and how religious he was. He says they were never satisfied with his answers. Finally, they let him sleep inside the cell, but he says speakers installed in the ceiling kept waking him up.
    WORLD

    Families Of The Disappeared: A Search For Loved Ones Held In China's Xinjiang Region


    "They woke me up playing the call to prayer," says Samarkand. "I think they were testing me to see if I'm religious. Later on, they woke me up with a recording of a child speaking Kazakh. The child said, 'Daddy, Mommy, please help me! You've seen what the Chinese are doing. They're awful.' Again, I think they were testing my response."
    Samarkand says he was transferred to a re-education camp, where people were separated into three groups: those who were religious, those who were suspected of being criminals, and those, like him, who had traveled abroad. All of them, says Samarkand, had one thing in common, though: They had grown up in Muslim families and communities.

    . . . more

  13. #488
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    Prolonged exposure to the BRI process has driven opposition to Chinese investment and geopolitical influence across the region.
    Very true, all those Laotian villagers being poisoned, Cambodian fishermen starving, Thai farmers with no water, they all hate the chinkies.

    But the ones in charge are sucking the chinky financial cock and can't get enough.

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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Very true, all those Laotian villagers being poisoned, Cambodian fishermen starving, Thai farmers with no water, they all hate the chinkies.
    Murdering Indonesian fishermen on their boats, poisoning Filipinos etc etc etc

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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Very true, all those Laotian villagers being poisoned, Cambodian fishermen starving, Thai farmers with no water, they all hate the chinkies.

    But the ones in charge are sucking the chinky financial cock and can't get enough.
    The ones in charge ?

    Aren't they chinese also ?

    The thai farmer have had a century to hate them.

    Not much happening on that front

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    Who is Pepe Escobar?

    Description

    Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist. He writes a column – The Roving Eye – for Asia Times Online, and works as an analyst for Russian government-funded RT and Sputnik News, as well as Iranian government-funded Press TV. In addition, he previously worked for Qatari governme​nt-funded Al Jazeera. Wikipedia




    Born: 1954 (age 66 years), Brazil

    An independent journalist and pro Chines author and blogger?



  17. #492
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    Quote Originally Posted by Switch View Post
    Who is Pepe Escobar?

    Description

    Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist. He writes a column – The Roving Eye – for Asia Times Online, and works as an analyst for Russian government-funded RT and Sputnik News, as well as Iranian government-funded Press TV. In addition, he previously worked for Qatari governme​nt-funded Al Jazeera. Wikipedia




    Born: 1954 (age 66 years), Brazil

    An independent journalist and pro Chines author and blogger?


    Not atypical of the sort of like-minded chinky sycophants to whom HooHoo is attracted.

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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Not atypical of the sort of like-minded chinky sycophants to whom HooHoo is attracted.
    It’s a bit like Cyrille, quoting the blindingly opaque Guardian op ed pieces. No bias at all.

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    Nationwide vote on Russian constitutional changes to be held on July 1 – Putin

    1 Jun, 2020 13:42 / Updated 21 hours ago

    "Russians will vote on a package of amendments to the constitution on July 1, President Vladimir Putin has announced. If passed, the new constitution would allow Putin to potentially stay in power until 2036.

    On Monday, Putin agreed that the proposed date looks "quite suitable for holding an all-Russian vote on constitutional amendments," and called the scheduling "impeccable" from the legal point of view.

    Initially planned for April 22, Putin was forced to postpone the vote due to an ever-worsening epidemiological situation. A package of constitutional amendments was passed by Russia's parliament, the State Duma, in March. They swiftly gained approval from the legislative bodies of each Russian region and the country's Constitutional Court. The bill passed 383-0, with 44 abstentions – mainly members of the opposition Communist Party.

    The amendments include banning important officials from having foreign citizenships and restricting all future presidents' time in office to a total of two terms. The new constitution would also transfer more powers to the country's two houses of parliament – the State Duma and the Federation Council. For example, the appointment of a prime minister and other cabinet members proposed by the president would be subject to the approval of the State Duma.

    Controversially, the new constitution would also 'nullify' the terms already served by President Putin, allowing him to run again for a fifth term in 2024.

    Outside of structural political change, the newly amended constitution would include a controversial article defining marriage as an institution between a man and a woman. In March, the Constitutional Court determined that this amendment is legal, but does not remove the state's obligation to respect differences, including sexual orientation.

    The Court also decided that the much-debated inclusion of God in the constitution is "of a retrospective nature" and "does not declare religious belief binding." Officially, Russia is a secular state.

    According to presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, July 1 will be a day off work for all Russians, enabling everyone to vote.

    Anna Popova, the head of Russia's consumer protection watchdog, noted that July 1 would be a safe day for voting, explaining that compliance with the watchdog's recommendations would eliminate the risk of spreading coronavirus when voting on an amendment to the constitution.

    After agreeing to the date of July 1, Putin encouraged Russians to use the next month to figure out their attitude towards the proposed constitutional changes.

    "It is no coincidence that the constitution is termed the main law of the country. I very much hope that Russian citizens will take an active part in determining the parameters of the main law, by voting on the constitutional amendments,"
    the president said.

    Nationwide vote on Russian constitutional changes to be held on July 1 – Putin — RT Russia News

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    The short version:

    Putin and assorted lackeys are going to change the constitution so they can stay in power and keep robbing, and they're holding another one of those mickey mouse votes to create the illusion of democracy, despite the fact they they'll be doing the usual ballots rigging to ensure "victory".

  21. #496
    Thailand Expat helge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    keep robbing,
    Rather so they won't be placed behind bars.

    Could they get any richer ?

    Otherwise I think you are spot on

    It happens
    Last edited by helge; 03-06-2020 at 01:31 AM.

  22. #497
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    The short version:

    Putin and assorted lackeys are going to change the constitution so they can stay in power and keep robbing,
    It's quite a miracle, that despite the "keeping robbing" the country grows richer and richer ... (unlike other country going from riches to rugs - ehm, not all)

    Perhaps the resources are so huge - abysmal - remembering the kind lady leading once the state dept (not the one with Obama) avowing it 's a shame that a country with such huge resources keeps it all only for themselves...

  23. #498
    Hangin' Around cyrille's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    ...remembering the kind lady leading once the state dept (not the one with Obama)...

    Eurasia Topics-giphy-gif

  24. #499
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    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    It's quite a miracle, that despite the "keeping robbing" the country grows richer and richer ...
    How so? Define 'country' in this context.

  25. #500
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    You will love this video.

    Don't let the title put you off. Goldilocks is a forgotten irritation similar to a the only cloud in the sky momentarily shading the sun. It illustrates China warts and all.

    Trump's Biggest Failure


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