By Iryna Balachuk
Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov (click here) says Russia will intervene in the event of a popular armed uprising in Belarus to overthrow the regime of its self-proclaimed president, Alexander Lukashenko.
Source: Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti
Quote: "This neighbouring country [Belarus − ed.] is our partner, ally and fraternal state. Naturally, the Russian Federation has obligations with regard to ensuring the security of Belarus, which we will do in the face of such an evident threat."
Details: He also called Poland a "hostile" state to Russia, claiming it is now "engulfed in Russophobic hysteria".
Peskov also claimed that Poland is "openly speaking of its intention to intervene directly, including by force, in the internal affairs of a neighbouring state"....
May 24, 2023
By Filipp Lebedev, Lucy Papachristpou, and Mark Telvelyan
London - The director of a top Russian science institute, (click here) arrested on suspicion of treason along with two other hypersonic missile technology experts, stands accused of betraying secrets to China, two people familiar with the case told Reuters.
Alexander Shiplyuk, head of Siberia's Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM), is suspected of handing over classified material at a scientific conference in China in 2017, the sources said....
More rampaging against the machine that Putin can't seem to get to do as he wants. The killing didn't work in Ukraine so maybe it will work somewhere else. And if the weapon systems aren't functioning well enough to defeat other's defenses it must be someone's fault and not Vladimir.
China does the exact same cyber facial recognition technology to maintain control over any freedom of expression.
By Dasha Litvinova
Yekaterina Maksimova enters a Moscow subway station in Moscow, Russia, Monday, May 22, 2023. The journalist and activist has been detained five times in the past year, thanks to the system's pervasive security cameras with facial recognition. She says police would tell her the cameras "reacted" to her — although they often seemed not to understand why, and would let her go after a few hours.
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When Yekaterina Maksimova (click here) can’t afford to be late, the journalist and activist avoids taking the Moscow subway, even though it’s probably the most efficient route.
That’s because she’s been detained five times in the past year, thanks to the system’s pervasive security cameras with facial recognition. She says police would tell her the cameras “reacted” to her — although they often seemed not to understand why, and would let her go after a few hours.
“It seems like I’m in some kind of a database,” says Maksimova, who was previously arrested twice: in 2019 after taking part in a demonstration in Moscow and in 2020 over her environmental activism.
For many Russians like her, it has become increasingly hard to evade the scrutiny of the authorities, with the government actively monitoring social media accounts and using surveillance cameras against activists.
Even an online platform once praised by users for easily navigating bureaucratic tasks is being used as a tool of control: Authorities plan to use it to serve military summonses, thus thwarting a popular tactic by draft evaders of avoiding being handed the military recruitment paperwork in person....
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When Yekaterina Maksimova (click here) can’t afford to be late, the journalist and activist avoids taking the Moscow subway, even though it’s probably the most efficient route.
That’s because she’s been detained five times in the past year, thanks to the system’s pervasive security cameras with facial recognition. She says police would tell her the cameras “reacted” to her — although they often seemed not to understand why, and would let her go after a few hours.
“It seems like I’m in some kind of a database,” says Maksimova, who was previously arrested twice: in 2019 after taking part in a demonstration in Moscow and in 2020 over her environmental activism.
For many Russians like her, it has become increasingly hard to evade the scrutiny of the authorities, with the government actively monitoring social media accounts and using surveillance cameras against activists.
Even an online platform once praised by users for easily navigating bureaucratic tasks is being used as a tool of control: Authorities plan to use it to serve military summonses, thus thwarting a popular tactic by draft evaders of avoiding being handed the military recruitment paperwork in person....
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However, in Russia these cameras are a nefarious part of life that are more than traffic reporters or heroes to marathon runners, they are the police and enforcement of silence. Putin's propaganda is not to be questioned. Period. No freedom of speech. That is authoritarianism that Americans are not exposed to and quite frankly would cause problems in the USA economy. Begin grateful for our Constitution and the freedoms it affords us should never be a political debate.
By David Chapek
Free speech (click here) is usually considered a constitutional right, which is certainly correct. It’s also often discussed as a human right—also correct. But the benefits of free speech go further. Free speech acts as a gateway toward human improvement and the betterment of society.
How, you ask? It’s simple: innovation.
Most great discoveries and achievements come not through one person’s sole genius, but through collaboration with others. Take, for example, the one and only Albert Einstein. His special theory of relativity was based not on his own solitary contemplations but on discussions with two other innovators, Marcel Grossmann and Michele Besso. Grossmann’s work in mathematics is said to have greatly helped Einstein. Who knows what would have happened had the latter worked alone?
Discussion leads to innovation.
When we are able to discuss and collaborate with one another, we are putting together our own individual gifts and talents (a principle known in economics as specialization) toward a broader purpose—in this case, discovering, inventing, or creating something. And, just as with Einstein, when we are free to collaborate, society is improved....
