[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 5:02 pm

That graph depicts 5.91% as higher than 6.5%.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 5:03 pm

Chamomile wrote:That graph depicts 5.91% as higher than 6.5%.

Numbers, right? Who understands that?

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Mon Feb 09, 2015 6:23 pm

Using image search on that, led me to this:

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 10:11 pm

So. Greece again. It looks like the current game plan, what with Germany shooting down the Tax Anticipation Notice idea and still demanding complete surrender complete with "formally demanding the removal of Varoufakis through their ambassador in Athens".

Speaking as an ignorant-ass colonial, I think that Syriza stalls for a few weeks while pretending to flirt with complete surrender but it's only to milk sympathy points and get their house in order. And then it's time for a default + eurozone exit. There's no other way out for them unless they're willing to go down in history as Neville Chamberlain 2.0 by way of Golden Dawn and not even getting a cushy Very Serious Person job to show for it.

Reynard · Post by **Reynard** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 11:07 pm

> unless they're willing to go down in history as Neville Chamberlain 2.0 by way of Golden Dawn and not even getting a cushy Very Serious Person job to show for it.
I wouldn't bet against it. Neither former, nor latter.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Feb 19, 2015 11:35 pm

If Greece caves to the terms, Golden Dawn has a good chance of winning one of the next elections on an anti-austerity platform. If Greece doesn't cave to the terms, the default tanks their economy and Golden Dawn has a good chance of winning one of the next elections on a "look how bad the current administration fucked this country up" platform.

There is the almost zero chance that Germany stops trying to kill the jews put a stop to this whole democracy thing use the debt as leverage to set another country's domestic policy for them. There is the slim chance that, after an exit, Syriza manages to get the country's shit back in order fast enough/keep the people's loyalty long enough to avoid being ousted. And there is the long shot hope that the people at the ECB will set their careers on fire promising to keep the Greek banks solvent even if an agreement isn't reached (thereby saving the euro as a whole considerable loss and instability, stopping actual nazis from seizing the reins in at least one country, and putting a stop to vast amounts of pointless human suffering).

But at this point it wouldn't be a bad bet to say that Greece is on the path towards being ran indefinitely by fascist nazis courtesy of the German government.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Feb 20, 2015 7:04 am

There is no Grexit, at least not at this time. The fact is that the amount of money needed isn't very large in international terms. If Germany wants to go whole hog on the crazy train, the Greeks can and will get their bridge loan from Russia or China at the last moment. Russia gave a 2.5 billion dollar restructuring loan to Cyprus, you don't think they'd come in to rescue fucking Greece?

The big question is what would happen to the Eurogroup if their small minded dickishness resulted in Greece giving them the finger and getting a loan from Russia instead. While that would not trigger a Greek Exit, it could trigger mass political chaos. Certainly Putin would go on the air telling everyone that the Euro project had failed and it was every country for themselves. And he wouldn't be wrong.

Probably the ECB sees this writing on the wall and will extend "emergency funds" to Greece until a deal is made that the Eurogroup is willing to sign. I genuinely don't understand how German leaders can so thoroughly not understand the situation they are in. But apparently there's a whole school of German Economics that they buy into that continues to insist that Austerity is the answer to all the problems and the reason that Greece hasn't recovered is that it didn't cut spending enough.

Not enough spending cuts.

I guess I'd be more surprised by the insularity and insanity of the German intellectual tradition if I wasn't constantly exposed to the American right wing.

-Username17

Reynard · Post by **Reynard** » Fri Feb 20, 2015 9:51 am

DSMatticus:
> But at this point it wouldn't be a bad bet to say that Greece is on the path towards being ran indefinitely by fascist nazis courtesy of the German government.
Germans have nothing to do with it. Once you hit crisis you go radical. Current politics give a choice between nationalist and socialist.

Guess which option rich elite is going to choose?

FrankTrollman:
> Russia gave a 2.5 billion dollar restructuring loan to Cyprus, you don't think they'd come in to rescue fucking Greece?
That's not certain.

IIRC there were Russian (oligarchs') money in Cyprus banks. Also, current financial stability of Russia itself is somewhat dubious at the moment. Apart from sanctions their own Central Bank is acting batshit insane.

> I genuinely don't understand how German leaders can so thoroughly not understand the situation they are in.
Provided they are actually interested in keeping Greece in EU or even EU itself at all.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Fri Feb 20, 2015 3:25 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:There is no Grexit, at least not at this time. The fact is that the amount of money needed isn't very large in international terms. If Germany wants to go whole hog on the crazy train, the Greeks can and will get their bridge loan from Russia or China at the last moment. Russia gave a 2.5 billion dollar restructuring loan to Cyprus, you don't think they'd come in to rescue fucking Greece?

The big question is what would happen to the Eurogroup if their small minded dickishness resulted in Greece giving them the finger and getting a loan from Russia instead. While that would not trigger a Greek Exit, it could trigger mass political chaos. Certainly Putin would go on the air telling everyone that the Euro project had failed and it was every country for themselves. And he wouldn't be wrong.

Probably the ECB sees this writing on the wall and will extend "emergency funds" to Greece until a deal is made that the Eurogroup is willing to sign. I genuinely don't understand how German leaders can so thoroughly not understand the situation they are in. But apparently there's a whole school of German Economics that they buy into that continues to insist that Austerity is the answer to all the problems and the reason that Greece hasn't recovered is that it didn't cut spending enough.

Not enough spending cuts.

I guess I'd be more surprised by the insularity and insanity of the German intellectual tradition if I wasn't constantly exposed to the American right wing.

-Username17

Obviously they need 100% spending cuts.

angelfromanotherpin · Sat Feb 28, 2015 12:53 am

Russian opposition leader shot dead.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:49 am

That BBC article is very heavily framed (like, Berezovsky? No). Obviously the rt.com articles are telling a completely different story of his strong opposition to Islamic terrorism and social-media death threats he's been getting for a few months regarding his statements about Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Which is also very heavily framed. In RT the protest is the annual spring anti-government rally that's been happening for decades. In BBC it's the anti-war march against Putin's involvement in the Ukraine. Both are no doubt partly true, except that Russia is not at war in the Ukraine any more than Germany is, so that's just fucking weird.

http://rt.com/news/236363-nemtsov-kille ... an-moscow/

Rolling updates, killing may be attempt to destabilise Russian government. Well, may have the effect of destabilising it, which is similar. Probably true, Putin would have killed him months ago rather than right before a huge long-planned protest.

http://rt.com/news/236359-nemtsov-kille ... olitician/

--

Disturbs the fuck out of me that I can't tell which one's more biased. Again, I'll probably have to side with all of the above, respecting that the BBC is only seeing one point and RT is not seeing that point much at all.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Feb 28, 2015 11:26 am

AFAIK, the investigation team's current theories are:

Provocation for the upcoming political rally
Murder because of his political actions and his work in Yaroslavl's government
Political reasons, destabilization of political situation in Russia
Murder over money Nemtsov was getting from his Ukrainian partners
Islamists

Reynard · Post by **Reynard** » Sat Feb 28, 2015 2:32 pm

None of the theories make much sense.

Putin being behind the murder is simply retarded. Especially murder literally in the middle of Moscow. Yeltsin might've ordered crap like this (and gotten away with it). Putin is too much into "clean hands policy". At worst, accident/suicide/disappearance/whatever might've been arranged. KGB/FSB doesn't have a habit of publicly gunning down people mafia-style.

Islamic or Ukrainian angles look too bogus to be seriously considered. RT should work harder. Even CIA-murder appears more probable.

It has to be either finance or internal politics. Apparently Russian Central Bank is preparing for some major events (not unlike 1998). Everyone there is running around like a headless chicken, at very least. I.e. some big money are on the move. Billions could vanish. And IIRC Nemtsov was quite involved in Russian finance.

On the other hand, Russian opposition is fractured (always was), but right now they are trying to unite behind a single leader to depose Putin. There are too many candidates and Nemtsov was one of the less marginal. In fact, reducing numbers of opposition leaders is detrimental to Kremlin, but other opposition leaders will get to have a martyr and reduce competition.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Feb 28, 2015 8:53 pm

Reynard wrote:None of the theories make much sense.

Putin being behind the murder is simply retarded. Especially murder literally in the middle of Moscow. Yeltsin might've ordered crap like this (and gotten away with it). Putin is too much into "clean hands policy". At worst, accident/suicide/disappearance/whatever might've been arranged. KGB/FSB doesn't have a habit of publicly gunning down people mafia-style.

Islamic or Ukrainian angles look too bogus to be seriously considered. RT should work harder. Even CIA-murder appears more probable.

It has to be either finance or internal politics. Apparently Russian Central Bank is preparing for some major events (not unlike 1998). Everyone there is running around like a headless chicken, at very least. I.e. some big money are on the move. Billions could vanish. And IIRC Nemtsov was quite involved in Russian finance.

On the other hand, Russian opposition is fractured (always was), but right now they are trying to unite behind a single leader to depose Putin. There are too many candidates and Nemtsov was one of the less marginal. In fact, reducing numbers of opposition leaders is detrimental to Kremlin, but other opposition leaders will get to have a martyr and reduce competition.

Islamic angle is not bogus - Nemtsov was getting death threats because of his public opinion about Charlie Hebdo.

Ukrainian angle is finance-related. Nemtsov was getting money from Ukraine, though I don't know much about this.

In other news: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 75337.html

Reynard · Post by **Reynard** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 4:08 pm

Almost every western or pro-western politician (or journalist or celebrity or anyone) has the same public opinion about Charlie Hebdo. You'd need an army to follow-up on even fraction of death threats they are getting or claim that they are getting.

But Nemtsov alone (who is not French or Muslim or concentrates on Muslims or even member of a current goverment, btw) suddenly gets personal and undivided attention of Muslim radicals?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 4:37 pm

More importantly, the ISIS crowd does not recruit based on the number of westerners they kill, but on the publicity of their terror attacks. Successfully assassinating a high profile Russian politician and then not taking credit for it is not a thing that Al Qaeda would ever do. The fact that there isn't already a video of a guy dressed like Cobra Commander holding up the murder weapon in front of a black caliphate flag means it wasn't them.

Basically it was definitely done by one of the thuggish criminal syndicates running around Russia like it was Gotham City. The criminal syndicate in question was either one of the ones in Putin's alliance or it was not. Either way, it's indicative that Putin is rather losing control of things.

-Username17

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 6:10 pm

Reynard wrote:Almost every western or pro-western politician (or journalist or celebrity or anyone) has the same public opinion about Charlie Hebdo. You'd need an army to follow-up on even fraction of death threats they are getting or claim that they are getting.

But Nemtsov alone (who is not French or Muslim or concentrates on Muslims or even member of a current goverment, btw) suddenly gets personal and undivided attention of Muslim radicals?

This stinks of so much political ignorance that I don't even. Do you know how many pro-western politicians are there in Russia? Like a handful. Nemtsov was #2 by name recognition, right after Navalny. (Also, his mother is Jewish, which got him on the household Zionist conspirator list.) The most progressive opinion that was ever publicized by anyone in the parliament OR the administration about Charlie Hebdo is "Killing people is naughty, but honestly, they were totally asking for it". Sometimes the first part is omitted. Remember, Russia has blasphemy laws now, and Je Suis Charlie gets people locked up for months for "inciting religious hatred".

On the other hand, there are a lot of Muslim extremists, both anti-Russia (and anti-Putin) and those actively courted by the kleptocratic Putin and the more ideologically driven "separate but equal" neo-Nazi fundies. More than a million people allegedly participated in the pro-terrorism march in Grozny alone.

Putin clearly profited from the murder. It chilled, scared, and fractured the opposition; it turned the planned anti-Putin rally into a way smaller-scale pro-Nemtsov rally; and it earned Putin even moar points from the doublethinker wingnuts ("Putin was completely right to off that corrupt traitor, also, it was actually a false flag op arranged by [insert racial slur] Obama, and now The Gay Nazi West is using it to falsely accuse us, so we must stand strong with Putin for his righteous execution of Nemtsov that he didn't commit"). We will probably never know who exactly initiated the murder plot, but given all the documented instances of spying on the anti-Putin activists, it is almost impossible that it could be accomplished without an official sanction. inb4 tinfoil hat: Remember Litvinenko? I have it on very good authority he was killed by the US, after several Russian diplomats were killed or kidnapped in Baghdad (in the US-controlled territory, in realpolitik terms) and Russia threatened to commit a terrorist act of similar severity against the US if they weren't placated. In the world of realpolitik, the idea that Putin is not to blame to any extent for the murder of the #2 opposition politician a day before a rare permitted opposition rally in the most secure place in Moscow is fucking preposterous.

Reynard · Post by **Reynard** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 7:54 pm

> Do you know how many pro-western politicians are there in Russia? Like a handful.
Lots, many? Exact number would be helpful. Also, a definition of a politician in Russia. Because I sincerely doubt the numbers are so low. Most of Yeltsin's people are (essentially) pro-western. Even Putin could be considered pro-western (when US is not badgering him for reasons).

> Nemtsov was #2 by name recognition, right after Navalny. (Also, his mother is Jewish, which got him on the household Zionist conspirator list.)
Pull the other one. Hitler also got name recognition.

Even I know Navalny is a light-weight in Russian politics. He may have some Internet ratings and media coverage, but in real politics he is nothing. At best he'll be a figurehead for someone with real clout. Except that's not happening, because half of Russia will lose their shit if he becomes president and everybody knows that. He couldn't even get himself elected Moscow mayor at the peak of his popularity. And that's saying something.

Also, what happened to the escapee oligarch (Khodrkovsky)? Wasn't he somewhere near the top of opposition leaders?

> More than a million people allegedly participated in the pro-terrorism march in Grozny alone.
Yeah... Not buying this one too.

> Putin clearly profited from the murder. It chilled, scared, and fractured the opposition;
And this. What's wrong with you? Russian liberal opposition was a joke since the get-go. It's not like anything changed overnight.

The only way this "opposition" of yours could get into power is via palace coup. I.e. siding with some of the Putin's allies and becoming their puppets. Russian opposition can't do anything on their own. There is nothing to chill, scare, or fracture.

Compare Russian liberals to Russian maoists. That's chilled and scared opposition for you. No one hears about them. No one mentions them. No one discusses their agenda. They simply get convicted because they are extremists. Some just disappear.

> and it earned Putin even moar points from the doublethinker wingnuts ("Putin was completely right to off that corrupt traitor, also, it was actually a false flag op arranged by [insert racial slur] Obama, and now The Gay Nazi West is using it to falsely accuse us, so we must stand strong with Putin for his righteous execution of Nemtsov that he didn't commit").
And this. Is this from Ukrainian media?

> but given all the documented instances of spying on the anti-Putin activists, it is almost impossible that it could be accomplished without an official sanction.
Given all the documented instances of spying on the whole world, we'll have to assume US is behind each and every crime on the planet.

> In the world of realpolitik, the idea that Putin is not to blame to any extent for the murder of the #2 opposition politician a day before a rare permitted opposition rally in the most secure place in Moscow is fucking preposterous.
Blaming, as in "putting blame on" and actually thinking that Putin is involved are two different things.

Of course he is to blame for letting this happen. But to think that he actually gave an official sanction to gun down an opposition leader in the middle of his own fucking capital? Now that's preposterous.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 8:18 pm

For Nemtsov I can actually give you recognition numbers from the last year:

A Levanda poll from last year shows that only 45% of Russians even recognized Nemtsov's name; of those 45%, only 1% "trusted" him—compared to 17%, who said they did not trust him. Zuganov and Prohorov are better known than he is, and, surprisingly in case of Prohorov, are trusted more than Nemtsov. This is actually hilarious (and kinda sad) - the communist party, who did very little in the last 20 years, are trusted more than Nemtsov.

Reynard · Post by **Reynard** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 8:40 pm

> Zuganov and Prohorov are better known than he is, and, surprisingly in case of Prohorov, are trusted more than Nemtsov.
Yeah. That makes more sense.

Did Prohorov (IIRC one of the oligarchs) ever got into the government? If not, then this is why he is more trusted.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sun Mar 01, 2015 8:44 pm

Prohorov tried to go for presidency in 2012, and got 8% of the votes - third place in total, second place in Moscow, St. Petersburg and foreign countries. I've never heard anything about Prohorov since then, but I don't really follow our politics.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Mon Mar 02, 2015 12:12 pm

Frank Trollman wrote:Successfully assassinating a high profile Russian politician and then not taking credit for it is not a thing that Al Qaeda would ever do. The fact that there isn't already a video of a guy dressed like Cobra Commander holding up the murder weapon in front of a black caliphate flag means it wasn't them.

So Al Qaeda never took credit for 9/11. Also did not take credit for Al Qaeda in Iraq, as I recall, totally disowned those guys.

The Caliphate thing is certainly true, where if you are crazy old-school religious anti-modernist and pro-apocalypse (waiting for Jesus right now) and also a Sunni Muslim, you have to swear allegiance to the Caliphate and either go there or just fuck up whatever country you are in to prepare the way, because it says so in the book (7th century military tactics, FTW :eyeroll: ). Al Qaeda has disowned all those guys too, but they're supposed to be losing a lot of their youth wing to it, so that doesn't mean scooby-do there wasn't loyal Al Qaeda a few days back.

That dick in Oz who got the cops to shoot his hostages for him, he also had a Caliphate flag, and was not in any group, even his wife didn't want him. Funny thing with that flag is Boko Haram had it first, as they're also the Caliphate, but their leader isn't from the right family, so they're wrong about that and will all need put to death when Jesus comes. I'm guessing they disagree on that point, but the country's an old French colony, so who the fuck knows.

The rightful Caliph is not a happy man, by all accounts. Dude's all haggard about the killing and mutilation and slavery and war within Islam (where Islam means peace, heh), and totally can't wait for the impending invasion of the Romans. But, you know, it's predestined in the book, so even though it's all so fucking horrible he's got no choice, and with luck they'll all be dead soon so Jesus will come, the end battle will be a cakewalk, and everything will be nice again.

So it's nice that he hates his job, and means well in the long run, or something.

People be crazy, but then I go reading and it seems like religious people might just be that extra little bit. But then I remember Mao and Stalin and Pol Pot and ... yeh, people be crazy. Also, my villains are weaksauce.

--

Oh, right, some Russian/Ukrainian guy got shot in the back. You know who does that sort of thing? Nazis. Rhetorically.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Mar 02, 2015 12:28 pm

Al Qaeda didn't *never* take credit for 9/11. They just didn't take immediate credit (and Bin Laden denied it initially).

It may well be that they were hoping we'd go off half-cocked and get ourselves in worse trouble by attacking a sovereign nation not responsible for the attack if they laid low.

So the point does remain that terrorists sometimes do not take credit immediately.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Mar 03, 2015 5:43 am

So. How come despite similar immigration rates to the U.S. European countries don't have the same 'waaaugh, H1-B visas or whatever the fuck are replacing all of our engineer-type people with low-paid brown people' problems?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Mar 03, 2015 7:48 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So. How come despite similar immigration rates to the U.S. European countries don't have the same 'waaaugh, H1-B visas or whatever the fuck are replacing all of our engineer-type people with low-paid brown people' problems?

The idea that Europe isn't full of crying anti-immigration dead-enders is hopelessly naive.

-Username17