Freedom in the world 2023

Freedom in the World index, 2023

 

the Corruption Perception Index, 2022

 

No one travels like Kim Jong Un

No one travels like Kim Jong Un ... literally 

 Erin Burnett Out Front 

Kim Jong Un's bodyguards stay on their feet as the North Korean leader travels to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. CNN's Jeanne Moos peeks under the red carpet.

Russia fascist ex-communist dictatorship moves towards North Korea style surrogate Internet

Russia to disconnect from the internet as part of a planned test

Russia's internet contingency plan gets closer to reality.

By Catalin Cimpanu for Zero Day      February 11, 2019

Russian authorities and major internet providers are planning to disconnect the country from the internet as part of a planned experiment, Russian news agency RosBiznesKonsalting (RBK) reported last week.

The reason for the experiment is to gather insight and provide feedback and modifications to a proposed law introduced in the Russian Parliament in December 2018.

A first draft of the law mandated that Russian internet providers should ensure the independence of the Russian internet space (Runet) in the case of foreign aggression to disconnect the country from the rest of the internet.

In addition, Russian telecom firms would also have to install "technical means" to re-route all Russian internet traffic to exchange points approved or managed by Roskomnazor, Russia's telecom watchdog.

Roskomnazor will inspect the traffic to block prohibited content and make sure traffic between Russian users stays inside the country, and is not re-routed uselessly through servers abroad, where it could be intercepted.

A date for the test has not been revealed, but it's supposed to take place before April 1, the deadline for submitting amendments to the law --known as the Digital Economy National Program.

The test disconnect experiment has been agreed on in a session of the Information Security Working Group at the end of January. Natalya Kaspersky, Director of Russian cyber-security firm InfoWatch, and co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, presides over the group, which also includes major Russian telcos such as MegaFon, Beeline, MTS, RosTelecom, and others.

RBK reported that all internet providers agreed with the law's goals, but disagreed with its technical implementation, which they believe will cause major disruptions to Russian internet traffic. The test disconnection would provide ISPs with data about how their networks would react.

Finanz.ru also reported that local internet services Mail.ru and Yandex.ru were also supportive of the test disconnection.

The Russian government has been working on this project for years. In 2017, Russian officials said they plan to route 95 percent of all internet traffic locally by 2020.

Authorities have even built a local backup of the Domain Name System (DNS), which they first tested in 2014, and again in 2018, and which will now be a major component of the Runet when ISPs plan to disconnect the country from the rest of the world.

Russia's response comes as NATO countries announced several times that they were mulling a stronger response to cyber attacks, of which Russia is constantly accused of carrying out.

The proposed law, fully endorsed by President Putin, is expected to pass. Ongoing discussions are in regards to finding the proper technical methods to disconnect Russia from the internet with minimal downtime to consumers and government agencies.

The Russian government has agreed to foot the bill and to cover the costs of ISPs modifying their infrastructure and installing new servers for redirecting traffic towards Roskomnazor's approved exchange point. The end goal is for Russian authorities to implement a web traffic filtering system like China's Great Firewall, but also have a fully working country-wide intranet in case the country needs to disconnect.

Опять ничего не будет. Точно - ничего и нет.

Ничего не изменится после обстрела "Томагавками" авиабазы Асада. Всё это - дешёвка. 
Театральщина.
Эскалации не будет. Существенной интервенции США в Сирии тоже не будет. Военное присутствие РФ в Сирии останется.
ДНР и ЛНР тоже останутся, Крым у "них" - тоже. 
Чтобы он вообще пропал этот Крым, провалился куда-нибудь, исчез с карты мира. Ненужная вещь как и эта сирийская Пальмира. Все равно там никогда не бывать. Как не бывать во Французской Полинезии, где прохлаждается Обама.
Опять будет ругань в Совбезе ООН, ругань по рашкинскому госТВ, ругань по западному ТВ. Будут неоправданный оптимизм и пустое злорадство, точнее - грёзы всяких местных оранжевых, этих мерзких рашкинских свиней, и всяких гадких хохлов на Украине.
Ничего не будет. Опять Путин, Шойгу, Матвиенко, Собянин, Полтавченко, "Единая Россия", Навальный, Ходорковский, Касьянов, белоленточное жульё. 
Скушно. Очень скушно...


P.S. Так и есть. Даже и ругани особой нет. Как надоели эти дешёвки, эти фейковые персонажи с их фейковыми новостями.

Due to Donald Trump the fascist-communist regime in Russia and Putin's power will be strengthened and will become much more cruel

Donald Trump’s Victory Promises to Upend the International Order


By Peter Baker 

American white working people are the main supporters of Donald Trump and Putin's KGB fascist-communist Russia. The working class of Karl Marx is the main base and cause of all totalitarian fascist and communist regimes. 

American white women did much for Trump and Putin also. White women overall voted for Donald Trump by a decisive margin, and white women without college degrees broke even more heavily for the Republican nominee, according to exit polls.



Donald J. Trump’s stunning election victory on Tuesday night rippled way beyond the nation’s boundaries, upending an international order that prevailed for decades and raising profound questions about America’s place in the world.
For the first time since before World War II, Americans chose a president who promised to reverse the internationalism practiced by predecessors of both parties and to build walls both physical and metaphorical. Mr. Trump’s win foreshadowed an America more focused on its own affairs while leaving the world to take care of itself.
The outsider revolution that propelled him to power over the Washington establishment of both political parties also reflected a fundamental shift in international politics evidenced already this year by events like Britain’s referendum vote to leave the European Union. Mr. Trump’s success could fuel the populist, nativist, nationalist, closed-border movements already so evident in Europe and spreading to other parts of the world.
It is hardly surprising that much of the world was rooting for Hillary Clinton over Mr. Trump, who characterized his foreign policy as “America First.”
He promised to build a wall along the Mexican border and temporarily bar Muslim immigrants from entering the United States. He questioned Washington’s longstanding commitment to NATO allies, called for cutting foreign aid, praised President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, vowed to rip up international trade deals, assailed China and suggested Asian allies develop nuclear weapons.
Polls indicated that Mrs. Clinton was favored in many countries, with the exception of Russia. Last summer, the Pew Research Center found that people in all 15 countries it surveyed trusted Mrs. Clinton to do the right thing in foreign affairs more than Mr. Trump by ratios as high as 10 to one.
Mr. Trump’s promise to pull back militarily and economically left many overseas contemplating a road ahead without an American ally.
“The question is whether you will continue to be involved in international affairs as a dependable ally to your friends and allies,” said Kunihiko Miyake, a former Japanese diplomat now teaching at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. “If you stop doing that, then all the European, Middle Eastern and Asian allies to the United States will reconsider how they secure themselves.”
In Germany, where American troops have been stationed for more than seven decades, the prospect of a pullback seemed bewildering. “It would be the end of an era,” Henrik Müller, a journalism professor at the Technical University of Dortmund, wrote in Der Spiegel. “The postwar era in which Americans’ atomic weapons and its military presence in Europe shielded first the west and later the central European states would be over. Europe would have to take care of its own security.”
“Trump’s presidency will make the U.S. sink into a full-blown crisis, including an economic one,” said Vladimir Frolov, a Russian columnist and international affairs analyst. “The U.S. will be occupied with its own issues and will not bother Putin with questions.”
“As a consequence,” he added, “Moscow will have a window of opportunity in geopolitical terms. For instance, it can claim control over the former Soviet Union and a part of the Middle East. What is there not to like?”
Israel was another place where Mr. Trump enjoyed some support, mainly because of the perception that he would give the country a freer hand in its handling of the longstanding conflict with the Palestinians. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders and commentators worried about a broader disengagement from a Middle East awash in war, terrorism and upheaval.
“Decisions cannot be postponed,” said Yohanan Plesner, a former member of the Israeli Parliament now serving as president of the Israel Democracy Institute. “The situation in Syria is very chaotic. The unrest in the region is continuing. America has to decide whether it wants to play an active role in shaping the developments of the region.”
And even some countries that might expect to see some benefits from an American retreat worried about the implications. Counterintuitive as it might seem, China was concerned about Mr. Trump’s promise to pull American troops back from Asia.
“If he indeed withdraws the troops from Japan, the Japanese may develop their own nuclear weapons,” said Shen Dingli, professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai. “South Korea may also go nuclear if Trump cancels the missile deployment and leaves the country alone facing the North’s threats. How is that good for China?”
For American voters, that was not the point. After decades of worrying about what was good for other countries, they decided it was time to worry about what was good for America. And Mr. Trump promised to do just that, even if the rest of the world might not like it.

 

Donald Trump’s Campaign Stands By Embrace of Putin

Sept. 8, 2016

By Jonathan Martin and Amy Chozick 


Donald J. Trump’s campaign on Thursday reaffirmed its extraordinary embrace of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, signaling a preference for the leadership of an authoritarian adversary over that of America’s own president, despite a cascade of criticism from Democrats and expressions of discomfort among Republicans.
In a fashion that would have been unheard-of for a Republican during or immediately after the Cold War, Mr. Trump has made improved relations with the Kremlin a centerpiece of his candidacy.
While railing against Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries, Mr. Trump has continually praised Mr. Putin’s government: He has hailed Mr. Putin’s tight control over Russian society, hinted that he may not defend the NATO-aligned Baltic nations formerly in Moscow’s sphere of influence, and for a time employed a campaign chief with close ties to Ukraine’s pro-Russian forces.
Hillary Clinton excoriated Mr. Trump for asserting that Mr. Putin is a better leader than President Obama, saying it was “not just unpatriotic and insulting to the people of our country, as well as to our commander in chief — it is scary.”
She seized on Mr. Trump’s assertion in the televised forum that Mr. Putin’s incursions into neighboring countries, crackdown on Russia’s independent news media and support for America’s enemies were no more troublesome than Mr. Obama’s transgressions. She said it showed that, if elected, Mr. Trump would be little more than a tool of Mr. Putin.
“It suggests he will let Putin do whatever Putin wants to do and then make excuses for him,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters Thursday morning at Westchester County Airport in New York.

Russia is the most unequal major country in the world: Study

Katy Barnato    CNBC

Russia is the most unequal major economy in the world, with almost two-thirds of its wealth controlled by millionaires, a wealth research company has said.
Sixty-two percent of Russia's wealth is held by U.S. dollar-millionaires and 26 percent of its wealth is held by billionaires, New World Wealth said in a report on Wednesday. 
Russia's economy is climbing out of recession and the International Monetary Fund sees it growing by 1 percent in 2017.
"If millionaires control over 50 percent of a country's wealth then there is very little space for a meaningful middle class," New World Wealth said.
Japan — the world's third-largest economy — was the "most equal" major country by this measure, with millionaires controlling only 22 percent of total wealth.
The U.S. was "surprisingly equal," with around one-third of total wealth held by millionaires.
"This is surprisingly low considering all the negative press that the U.S. gets in terms of income inequality," New World Wealth said.
Income inequality, along with stagnating real wages and the welfare of the working and middle classes, is in focus in the U.S. ahead of the presidential election in November.
New World Wealth ranks the U.S. eighth in the world for average wealth per person, which it puts at $151,000.
Up top on this measure was Monaco, where over 5 percent of the 40,000 residents are worth over $10 million. Wealth per capita stands at just under $1.6 million in the country.

Proportion of wealth held by millionaires:

    Russia: 62%

    India: 54%

    UK: 35%

    US: 32%

    Australia: 28%

    Japan: 22%

Putin’s Russia is a poor, drunk soccer hooligan

 
By Scott Gilmore    

Russia is not the country you think it is. Its economy is smaller than South Korea’s. Its people are poorer than Kazakhstan’s. It trails Finland in technology. And it has a smaller military budget than Saudi Arabia.
For most of the 20th century, what Moscow thought and did mattered from Havana to Hanoi. Then the collapse of the Soviet Union left behind a battered, broken shell of a country. When the Berlin Wall fell, so did Russia’s status in the world.
A boozy Boris Yeltsin was a fitting representative for a country whose average life expentency tumbled a staggering five years in the wake of the fall. There were the coups, industrial collapse, spreading corruption, and shrinking borders. After generations of fearing the Soviet Bear, the West patted it on the head, sent it some aid, and turned its eyes with expectation towards the emerging powers of Brazil, India, and China.
But Vladimir Putin’s rise to power marked a sea change in Russia’s fortunes. How the world sees Russia began to shift. The often bare-chested leader consciously cultivated a new brand, for himself, and for the country. Putin’s new Russia was a country that mattered again.
Russia hosted the Olympics, punched Georgia in the nose, took back the Crimea, invaded Ukraine, flew bombers through NATO airspace, built military bases in the Arctic, and generally flexed and posed like an oiled, aged, but still buff, body builder. And we’ve been paying increasingly rapt attention, not noticing the geriatric walker hidden just off stage. A closer look is almost shocking.
According to the International Monetary Fund’s most recent data, the Russian economy is approximately the same size as Australia and slightly smaller than South Korea. As an exporter, it is now less important than Belgium, Mexico, and Singapore.
And it is poor. The World Bank ranks Russia’s GDP per capita below Lithuania, Equatorial Guinea, and Kazakhstan. A larger proportion of its population lives below the poverty rate than in Indonesia, India, or Sri Lanka. It is ranked 67th in the world in the Global Competitive Index and 66th in the UN’s Human Development Index.
These economic woes are having serious social impacts. There are now fewer doctors than a decade ago. Life expectancy in Russia is nine years less than in the United States and is declining. Infant mortality rate is two to three times higher than most of the Western world. Its alcoholism rate is now the highest on the planet, three times North America’s; and consumption of alcohol has doubled in the past 20 years. Not surprisingly, the Russian statistical agency Rosstat has identified aging and shrinking demographics as the single biggest challenge facing the country over the next 30 years.
Intellectually, Russia is a distant speck in the rearview mirror. Once, esteemed Soviet universities educated the engineers and doctors of the developing world. Now, the United Nations ranks Russia’s education system behind nearly every other European country, and on par with the Pacific island of Palau. The technological leader that launched Sputnik now produces fewer patents per capita than Iceland. Its scientific publications are cited less often than Finland’s.
In nearly every indicator of health, wealth, and influence, Russia ranks below even the middle powers. What do they have left? Guns and bombs mostly. At 8,000 nuclear warheads, it still has 700 more than the United States. It ranks second globally for combat aircraft, military satellites, and nuclear submarines. Moscow’s military budget has increased every year since Putin’s arrival in 1999.
But even these numbers are misleading. According to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Institute, Russia’s defense budget is still less than China, and Saudi Arabia. It is roughly on par with India, France, and the United Kingdom. And it is nine times smaller than the Pentagon’s budget.
The fact is, if it wasn’t for Syria, the Crimea, and some ageing warheads, Russia would get as much global attention as Slovakia or perhaps Wales. Not coincidentally, those are two nations that recently played Russia in the ongoing European soccer championship. In both cases, the results were resounding defeats for the Russians despite their opponents being one-twentieth and one-fortieth its size, respectively. In spite of these resounding defeats, which have relegated them to the bottom of the league tables, the Russian team, and its fans, still dominated the news.
When we talk about the Eurocup, we talk about Russian hooligans rioting in the stands, attacking other spectators, and even assaulting tourists on the trains home. Or we marvel at the belligerent response from Moscow when Igor Lebedev, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian parliament and a senior official in the Russian soccer official tweeted “I don’t see anything wrong with the fans fighting. Quite the opposite, well done lads, keep it up!”
Lebedev understands a lesson that has been well taught by Putin: If you can’t compete on the field, make as much noise as you can off it. Russia is so far behind economically, technologically, socially, and politically, it just doesn’t matter anymore. But it can still get our attention, and it is.
When Russia next moves its tanks to the border, we should take it seriously. It has a lot of tanks (although less than Pakistan). But we should also remember that this is not a world power. By most indicators, it’s not even a middle power. Russia is a soccer hooligan: poor, drunk, and frustrated it can’t win anymore. It can only throw beer bottles from the bleachers.

Is Russia still a key world power?

 

By James Nixey

Russia and Eurasia Programme head, Chatham House
 

Whether Russia, one of 15 successor states to the USSR, which broke up in 1991, is still a genuine world power in 2015 is open to question.

• It remains the world's largest country and the largest oil producer
• It retains its permanent seat on the UN Security Council (one among five)
• Its nuclear arsenal (in Cold War times one of five countries, but now one of nine) has been progressively modernised
• Sustained increases in defence spending have brought it close to its goal of escalation dominance in local and regional war

But the economic base for these capabilities is steadily declining.
Russia's economy is the 10th largest in the world, producing little of value beyond hydrocarbons.
Corruption and rent-seeking extract an enormous economic toll.
It remains burdened with Soviet era infrastructure, and its ability to meet the educational and medical needs of its population is rapidly declining.
Whatever one's view, two further points for and against Russia's global standing are undeniable:

• Russia regards itself as a great power - it is not in question anywhere inside the country
• China has long since eclipsed Russia as the world's number two power behind the US

Yet for all Russia's pretence about a rebalancing of priorities towards Asia, since the fallout over Ukraine, it still measures itself against the West, and America in particular.

Distinct Eurasian niche

Regardless of hypothetical rankings or real-world measurements, Russia has carved out a niche for itself as a distinct Eurasian pole in world politics, allied to neither Europe nor Asia but seeking influence there and beyond.
Its membership of the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) group of rising powers suggests an acknowledgement that Russia has not quite arrived (there is no contradiction for Russia between this and pre-existing great power status) but also that is it is civilisationally distinct from Europe.
Certainly, there is no current desire to be part of most prominent Western-led organisations such as the European Union.
Indeed, Russia has striven to come up with its own alternatives over the years, the latest of which, a Eurasian Union, is designed precisely as a counterweight but free of the burden of Western norms and values.
Whether it will have a longer life than its antecedents, considering Russia's failing economic fortunes and other countries' evident reluctance to be joined too closely, remains to be seen.
Russia's mission beyond the quest for influence is hard to discern.
It is the world's most ostentatious foe of democracy promotion.
But its foreign aid is minimal (especially beyond the other former Soviet states - where its purpose is often regarded as a double-edged sword), and its contribution to UN-led peacekeeping has withered since the 1990s. 

---

World's largest economies by gross domestic product (GDP) (in millions of US dollars, 2014):

• US: 17,419,000

• China: 10,360,105

• Japan: 4,601,461

• Germany: 3,852,556

• UK: 2,941,886

• France: 2,829,192

• Brazil: 2,346,118

• Italy: 2,144,338

• India: 2,066,902

• Russian Federation: 1,860,598

---

Until the recent campaign in Syria, Russia had talked of itself as a global power, but behaved like a regional power.
Russia's greatest challenge is to preserve its global importance while most of the relevant indicators are dropping and its allies are few and far between (dictators, largely).
For some, Russia's natural and historical pre-eminence mean it will always be a key player.
Others fear Russia may compensate for weakness with risky foreign adventurism.
Indeed, for many, it is already doing just that. 

A new look at how Russians view Russia and the West

Business Insider

 

Matthew Speiser

Pew Research recently did some digging around in Russia to find out how Russians view their own country and their place in the world at large. In April, Pew performed face-to-face interviews with some 1,000 Russian adults of varying gender, age, and location. Here is what they found out:

Russians don't feel great about their economy

According to Pew, 73% of Russians say the economy is in bad shape while 24% say it is in good shape.
Over the past year the price of oil has fallen drastically, prompting Putin to say last October that "the global economy would suffer" if oil prices remained so low.

Many Russians believe Western powers are to blame for the bad economy

Of the 73% who believed the economy was in bad shape, Pew found that one-third point to sanctions imposed by Western nations as the root cause. The EU sanctions imposed last September target Russia's finance, energy, and arms sector.
Another one-third of respondents believe the sanctions are due to falling oil prices, and about one-quarter blame current government policies, Pew found. 

Russians love Putin

The Russian people support Putin on nearly all of his foreign and domestic policies. In particular, at least eight in ten Russians agree with how Putin handles relations with Ukraine, China, America, and the EU. Domestically, upward of 60% of Russians support Putin's initiatives to root out corruption, fix the economy, and his energy policy.
Pew notes that Putin's foreign policy approval ratings are the highest documented since the organization began surveying Russians in 2003. However, his approval ratings for how he has dealt with Ukraine have declined over the last year.

Russians do not like the US

Pew found that 15% of Russians view the US favorably, compared to 81% who view the US unfavorably.

They don't like NATO, the EU, or Germany much either

Only 12% of Russians like NATO and only 31% like the EU. Views towards Germany are at an all-time low at 35% approval. Pew notes that since 2011, opinions of the US, Germany, NATO, and the EU have all fallen drastically.

Russians also want to keep Ukraine out of NATO and the EU

Only 3% of Russians want Ukraine to join NATO, and only 14% want it to join the EU.

Russians have little faith in Barack Obama and Angela Merkel

Only 11% of Russians have faith in Barack Obama to "do the right thing regarding world affairs," according to Pew. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has the faith of 28% of Russians. Pew adds that in 2012, 48% of Russians had confidence in Merkel and 28% had confidence in Obama.


President Barack Obama toasts with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Orangerie at Schloss Charlottenburg palace on June 19, 2013 in Berlin, Germany.

Russians miss the Soviet Union

Pew's research showed that 69% of Russians say the breakup of the Soviet Union was a bad thing for Russia, while 17% say it was a good thing. Specifically, 85% of older Russians (50 and up) who grew up in the USSR say the breakup was a bad thing. Only 44% of younger Russians concur, and 27% of them have no opinion.

Russians do not believe Russia is big enough

According to Pew, 61% of Russians agree with the statement “there are parts of neighboring countries that really belong to us." In contrast, 29% disagreed. Pew notes that this feeling has been growing since the fall of the Soviet Union.

 
Russia is nearly twice the size of the US.