Tag Archives: russia

The Fifth Ring: How Conspiracy Theories are Born

by Curtis Tangredi Posted on February 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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As we all know, there was a glitch in the Olympic opening ceremonies yesterday. But not everyone saw it:

Somehow it seemed fitting when a set of floating snowflakes suddenly transformed themselves into Olympic rings — but only four of them. The fifth snowflake never changed.

Russian television viewers, however, saw all five rings, as the show’s producer Konstantin Ernst recognized the malfunction shortly before it occurred and immediately ordered an image from rehearsals to be transmitted in its place. “It would be ridiculous to focus on the ring that would not open,” said Ernst later. “It would be silly.”

That’s quick thinking! But I suspect it’s going to give birth to a thousand conspiracy theories. After all, millions of Russians saw all five rings, so why are all the Americans and Europeans saying there were only four? It must be Photoshop trickery from westerners designed to make Russia the butt of jokes. Right?

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The Fifth Ring: How Conspiracy Theories are Born

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Sochi Cheat Sheet: 18 Olympians Worth Rooting For

by huklx2 Posted on February 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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Yesterday, during slopestyle qualifiers at the Winter Olympics, Dutch snowboarder Cheryl Maas became the first Olympian to act in direct opposition of Russia’s bigoted anti-gay law when she stared into a television camera and shoved a rainbow-colored unicorn glove at the lens. In doing so, the defiant winter veteran—one of only six openly gay competitors in Sochi—carried on a long tradition of athletes injecting a little character and dissent into the Games, reminding us just why we love sports to begin with.

Considering the staggering tales of mismanagement, corruption, and regional terrorist threats, here are 17 more Olympians we’re hoping do the same:

THE FIVE OTHER OPENLY GAY ATHLETES

SSA TV/Youtube

Partly because of boycotts, and partly because of Russia’s anti-LGBT law, just five other gay athletes—all women—are joining Maas in openly competing in this year’s Games. Four of them—Ireen Wüst (a gold-medal-winning Dutch speed skater), Sanne van Kerkhof (a Dutch short-track speedskater), Barbara Jezeršek (a Slovenian cross-country skier), and Anatasia Bucsis (a Canadian speed skater) are also previous Olympians. For Belle Brockhoff, an Australian snowboarder who came out as gay specifically to protest the Russian law, Sochi is her first Olympic competition. In an interview with the BBC, she explained: “I want to go there because I’m not afraid of these laws and I want others that live in Russia, who are homosexuals, to see that.”

SHIVA KESHAVAN

Imago/Zuma

Last year, the Indian Olympic Association was suspended on allegations of corruption. As a result, none of India’s three Olympic athletes will be allowed to compete under the Indian flag in Sochi. But luger Shiva Keshavan is sliding anyway—and he’s doing so in a multicolored, patterned cap intended to represented his home village. Keshavan is no stranger to fighting the odds: At 16, became the youngest luger in history, and now competes without a coach or winter sports infrastructure. Despite Keshavan winning gold in the 2011 and 2012 Asia cups, acting IOA president Vijay Kumar Malhotra insists that the Indian winter athletes don’t stand a chance of winning. Still, this will be Keshavan’s fifth Olympiad—with or without his country’s official backing.

LANNY BARNES

WBUR/Flickr

Perhaps this year’s quintessential Olympic tale of selflessness, Lanny and Tracy Barnes’ story will melt the icy cockles of your cynical heart. The twin sisters were both expected to qualify for Sochi, but during the final round of US biathlon qualifiers, Lanny fell too ill to compete and was forced to stay home. Tracy, though, made the cut. A week later, Tracy sacrificed her spot so Lanny could race instead. “Love is selfless dedication,” she explained in an interview. “Love means giving up your dream so somebody else can realize theirs.” Though they’re both Olympic veterans, Tracy’s withdrawal comes only four years after barely missing the 2010 Olympics.

NORWEGIAN CURLING TEAM

Cameron Yee/Flickr

In recent years, curling has seen an unexpected and surging growth in popularity. If you tuned in to the 2010 Vancouver Games, you might recall Norway’s amazing patterned pants during its silver-medal-winning performance. In Sochi, the team will don even more outrageous outfits: 1970s-inspired red, blue, and white zig-zag suits referencing the nation’s flag. Appreciation for the team’s loud sense of style even spawned a Facebook page with more than 540,000 fans—nearly as many people as live in Oslo.

YOHAN GOUTT GONCALVES

Yohan Goutt Goncalves/Wikimedia Commons

Goncalves is the first athlete to ever compete in the Winter Olympics for East Timor, a country that’s never seen snow. In fact, the country’s annual temperature stays around 85 degrees. Competing in the ski slalom, Goncalves wants to go to Sochi as a “diplomat” to show that there is “more to East Timor than war.” That’s more than we can say about his mariachi-suited slalom competitor.

JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM

Olympics/Youtube

Heading to the Winter Olympics for the first time in more than a decade, the Jamaican bobsled team has fans hoping for Cool Runnings 2.0. Jamaica’s inaugural bobsled run, in the 1988 Calgary Olympics, ended in a disastrous crash. Upon arriving in Sochi, the team was further hindered as a result of the airport temporarily losing the competitors’ clothes and equipment. Still, 12 years since their last appearance, and crowd-funded by more than $184,000, the two-man team is looking for redemption.

US WOMEN’S SKI JUMPING TEAM

Mht54321/Wikimedia Commons

2014 marks the first year women’s ski jumping will be an Olympic event, with advocacy by American Lindsay Van largely responsible for bringing it there. In an interview on Rock Center With Brian Williams, Van explained how sexism kept the event out of the Olympics for years. (In 2006, International Ski Federation President Gian Franco Kasper said, “It’s like jumping down from, let’s say, about two meters on the ground about a thousand times a year, which seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.”) Now, along with teammates Jessica Jerome and Sarah Hendrickson—a medal favorite who’s recovering from an ACL injury—Van finally will see her hard work come to fruition at the Olympics.

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Sochi Cheat Sheet: 18 Olympians Worth Rooting For

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Russia begins offshore drilling in Arctic

by MargaretteFAOC Posted on December 23, 2013

Russia begins offshore drilling in Arctic

By

Jiri Rezac / Greenpeace

The Greenpeace activists who scaled Russia’s first Arctic offshore oil rig during a September demonstration have been given amnesty, but Russia is extending no such courtesies to the Arctic environment or the climate.

The rig that the Arctic 30 helped bring to the world’s attention has begun pumping oil. From Agence France-Presse:

The landmark announcement marked the formal start of Russia’s long-planned effort to turn the vast oil and natural gas riches believed to be buried in the frozen waters into profits for its ambitious government-run firms. But it also outraged campaigners who see the Arctic as one of the world’s last pristine reserves whose damage by oil spills and other disasters would be enormously difficult to contain. [State-owned oil company] Gazprom made its announcement in a statement that stressed the company also had rights to 29 other fields it planned to exploit in Russia’s section of the Arctic seabed. …

[B]oth Gazprom and the Kremlin view [this drilling endeavor] as a stepping stone in a much broader effort to turn the Arctic into the focus of future exploration that makes up for Russia’s declining oil production at its Soviet-era Siberian fields.

Greenpeace reminds us that this is a dangerous gamble. From a press release:

The offshore Arctic is the most inhospitable operating environment imaginable. Freezing temperatures, thick ice, months of perpetual twilight, giant storms and hurricane-force winds pose a unique technical risk to any oil company. There is no proven way of cleaning oil spilled in ice and even a small accident would have devastating consequences on the Arctic’s fragile and little-understood environment.

To realise its goal of opening up more of the Arctic to oil exploration, which Russia aims to turn into its “resource base of the 21st century,” Gazprom has signed an exploration deal with Shell that will provide it with new capital and much-needed expertise in offshore drilling, even though Shell’s own attempts to drill in the Alaskan Arctic were hit by repeated accidents and embarrassing safety blunders.

Shell is providing “expertise”? Seriously? “Repeated accidents and embarrassing safety blunders” is putting it kindly.


Source
Russia pumping oil at Arctic rig, Agence France-Presse
Gazprom begins first production at Arctic 30 oil platform, Greenpeace

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Russia begins offshore drilling in Arctic

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Pussy Riot and Arctic 30 "Hooligans" to be Released from Russian Prison

by qdyedut Posted on December 19, 2013

Mother Jones

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The two jailed members of the punk band Pussy Riot are set to be released from prison following an amnesty bill passed by the Russian parliament last night. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were convicted of “hooliganism” and sentenced to two years in prison after they staged a protest against Putin and the Russian Orthodox church last year.

Also likely to be released are the members of the “Arctic 30,” a group of Greenpeace activists who staged a protest against drilling in the Arctic by boarding a Russian oil rig in September. The activists have spent two months in jail under charges of hooliganism. Peter Wilcox, the American captain of the Greenpeace ship that was raided by Russian authorities, says that while he’s happy to be going home, “I should never have been charged and jailed in the first place.”

The passage of the amnesty bill comes amid growing scrutiny of the Putin administration’s crack-down on gay rights. In June, Putin signed into law a bill banning the “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations to minors.” President Obama announced Tuesday that he and Michelle Obama will not be attended the 2014 Winter Olympics, which will be held in Russia this February. Instead, Obama will be sending delegates: Tennis champion Billie Jean King and ice hockey medalist Caitlin Cahow, both of whom are openly gay.

Watch the “punk prayer” that got the Pussy Riot members locked in prison:

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Pussy Riot and Arctic 30 "Hooligans" to be Released from Russian Prison

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How Bolivia Became Obama’s No. 1 Foreign Policy Screwup of the Year

by sspcc1a Posted on December 16, 2013

Mother Jones

What was President Obama’s biggest foreign policy screw-up of the year? There are several worthy contenders, but Dan Drezner nominates Obama’s decision to block the flight home of Bolivian President Evo Morales due to suspicions that NSA leaker Edward Snowden might be on board:

Now, why was this such a big deal? It was a two-fer. First, in going after Snowden so aggressively, the administration put the lie to its claims that Snowden’s revelations weren’t that big of a deal….Second, and more significantly, the desperate and clumsy attempt to grab Snowden dramatically altered the perception by other governments about their preferences.

….When the U.S. forced Morales’ plane to make an emergency landing, [] Washington signaled that it was equally willing to f**k with the sovereignty franchise. At that point, all bets were off for countries predisposed to not helping the United States. Russia kept Snowden, Latin America kept polishing its resentment against the U.S., the rest of the world kept paying attention to Snowden’s revelations, and the United States lost significant hypocritical capabilities.

Would Snowden be in custody today if Obama hadn’t done this? Drezner figures there’s a good chance. I don’t happen to agree, since I have a hard time imagining a scenario in which Russia would be willing to turn over an American spy, but it’s a plausible guess.

In any case, you can lump this together with the fallout from revelations about spying on foreign leaders and bulk collection of overseas data and documents, and it certainly puts the Snowden leaks in the top two foreign policy events of the year for the United States. I’d still put Iran ahead of it if the current talks produce a breakthrough, but that’s it. If the talks fail, or produce only modest progress, then Snowden will be a clear #1.

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How Bolivia Became Obama’s No. 1 Foreign Policy Screwup of the Year

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Is global warming stoking an Arctic cold war?

by MWITeddyzlcxpgq Posted on December 12, 2013

Is global warming stoking an Arctic cold war?

By

Shutterstock /

Sergey Kamshylin

Militarization and geopolitical maneuvering is heating up in the Arctic as once-frozen tundras melt into the sea, unearthing a bonanza of oil fields and shipping routes.

Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin this week ordered his military brass to pay “particular attention to the deployment of infrastructure and military units in the Arctic.” He said Russia would open two new Arctic airbases and noted that a long-deserted Russian airbase on the Novosibirsk Islands was recently reopened.

That followed the November announcement by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel of the Pentagon’s first-ever Arctic military strategy.

Putin’s orders were widely seen as a direct response to new efforts by Canada to claim the seabed beneath the North Pole as its own territory. The South Pole is divided among seven countries like the center of pre-sliced frozen pizza; but the United Nations doesn’t consider that any country currently controls the North Pole. From the BBC:

The submission [to the U.N.] will further assert that Canada owns the Lomonosov Ridge, an undersea mountain range between Ellesmere Island, Canada’s most northern landmass, and Russia’s inhospitable east Siberian coast. Russia insists that it is the ridge’s true owner. In 2007 Russian scientists carried out a mission to the region and came back claiming the shelf for the Russian Federation. Divers even planted a flag on the seabed.

All this international posturing must surely have left the mood dour in Santa Claus’s North Pole-based toy factory. On the flip side, if he is blown to smithereens as “collateral damage” during a new cold war, the Western world might finally be weaned off its addiction to late-December materialism.


Source
Putin orders Russian military to boost Arctic presence, BBC

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Is global warming stoking an Arctic cold war?

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Climate change will make the Arctic a new battleground. Here’s how America will fight

by JudithCedillo Posted on November 25, 2013

Climate change will make the Arctic a new battleground. Here’s how America will fight

By

Ash

The Arctic is melting, so the U.S. is rolling up there with its guns and ammo.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel laid out the Pentagon’s first-ever Arctic strategy — a military strategy designed to keep the fast-melting region peaceful and clean as it is plundered by drillers and traversed by shippers. From his speech on Friday [PDF]:

Climate change is shifting the landscape in the Arctic more rapidly than anywhere else in the world. While the Arctic temperature rise is relatively small in absolute terms, its effects are significant – transforming what was a frozen desert into an evolving navigable ocean, giving rise to an unprecedented level of human activity. Traffic in the Northern Sea Route is reportedly expected to increase tenfold this year compared to last year. …

With Arctic sea routes starting to see more activities like tourism and commercial shipping, the risk of accidents increases. Migrating fish stocks will draw fishermen to new areas, challenging existing management plans. And while there will be more potential for tapping what may be as much as a quarter of the planet’s undiscovered oil and gas, a flood of interest in energy exploration has the potential to heighten tensions over other issues – even though most projected oil and gas reserves in the region are located within undisputed exclusive economic zones.

Despite potential challenges, these developments create the opportunity for nations to work together through coalitions of common interest, as both Arctic and non-Arctic nations begin to lay out their strategies and positions on the future of the region.

Here is our summary of Hagel’s eight-point strategy:

1. The U.S. will not allow anybody to even think about messing with us. “We will remain prepared to detect, deter, prevent and defeat threats,” Hagel said.

2. The U.S., Alaska, and private industry will work together “to improve our understanding and awareness of the Arctic environment” — which provides the “first new frontier of nautical exploration since the days of Ericsson, Columbus, and Magellan.”

3. No pirates. “We will help preserve freedom of the seas throughout the region, to ensure that the Arctic Ocean will be as peacefully navigated as other oceans of the world.”

4. Boost infrastructure and military presence in the Arctic “at a pace consistent with changing conditions” and “balance potential Arctic investments with other national security priorities.”

5. Similar to No. 1, but with Russia and other partners. “We will enhance our cold-weather operational experience, and strengthen our military-to-military ties with other Arctic nations.”

6. Be better prepared to respond to disasters, both natural and those related to shipping, drilling and other human activities.

7. Protect the Arctic’s “environmental integrity.”

8. Support the development of the Arctic Council and other international organizations. “These engagements will help strengthen multilateral security cooperation throughout the region, which will ultimately help reduce the risk of conflict,” Hagel said.

“Throughout human history, mankind has raced to discover the next frontier,” Hagel said. “And time after time, discovery was swiftly followed by conflict. We cannot erase this history. But we can assure that history does not repeat itself in the Arctic.”


Source
Remarks by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, E2

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Climate change will make the Arctic a new battleground. Here’s how America will fight

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Chevron and Ukraine Sign Deal on Shale Gas

by Myrna Posted on November 5, 2013

The government hopes the project will reduce its dependence on Russian energy imports. See more here: Chevron and Ukraine Sign Deal on Shale Gas Related Articles Power Plants Try Burning Wood With Coal to Cut Carbon Emissions Power Plants Try Burning Wood With Coal to Cut Emissions This Little LED of Mine

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Chevron and Ukraine Sign Deal on Shale Gas

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Talks on Antarctic Marine Reserve Fail to Reach Agreement

by Myrna Posted on November 1, 2013

Talks aimed at creating one of the world’s largest marine reserves in the waters off Antarctica ended in failure in the face of resistance from Russia, China and Ukraine, delegates said. See the original post: Talks on Antarctic Marine Reserve Fail to Reach Agreement ; ;Related ArticlesActivists Feel Powerful Wrath as Russia Guards Its Arctic ClaimsDealBook: Building a Portfolio With a Focus on a Single Sector: WaterEarthquake Shakes Remote Area of Taiwan ;

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Talks on Antarctic Marine Reserve Fail to Reach Agreement

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Arr, matey: Russia charges Greenpeace protesters with piracy

by MarciaHigginbot Posted on October 9, 2013

Arr, matey: Russia charges Greenpeace protesters with piracy

By

Shutterstock

Dressing like this for the protest was the Greenpeace activists’ biggest mistake.

We told you recently that Russian law enforcement suggested that Greenpeace activists violated anti-piracy laws when they scaled the country’s first offshore drilling rig. And we told you that even President Vladimir Putin scoffed at the notion that the activists were ‘pirates’ — given that they were obviously protesters, not looters.

But the cops have persisted, charging all 30 aboard the Greenpeace ship, including journalists, with piracy — a crime that could see them each jailed for up to 15 years.

On Tuesday, a Russian court denied bail to three accused Russians, including a freelance journalist, during a hearing. Other nationals are due to receive their days in court later this week. From Reuters:

Greenpeace says the piracy charges against the activists and crew members are absurd and unfounded and that the conditions of detention have in some cases violated their rights.

“They are now prisoners of conscience, and as such they are the responsibility of the world,” said Kumi Naidoo, head of Greenpeace International.

The Netherlands launched legal proceedings against Russia on Friday, saying it had unlawfully detained the activists and others on the Dutch-registered icebreaker Arctic Sunrise.

On Wednesday, Greenpeace’s international executive director offered to stand in as security for the release of the 30 activists on bail. “I would offer myself as a guarantor for the good conduct of the Greenpeace activists, were they to be released on bail,” Kumi Naidoo wrote in a letter to Putin that was seen by Reuters, offering to move to Russia “for the duration of this affair.”


Source
Russia denies bail to three held over Greenpeace Arctic protest, Reuters

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Arr, matey: Russia charges Greenpeace protesters with piracy

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