#brussels based communication agency

[pageinextremisbranding]

ESMA's branding journey: a strategic and impactful approach

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) recently underwent a branding overhaul, entrusting the mission to revitalise its image to the innovative agency, #Pageinextremis. This was no small feat, as ESMA is a highly respected institution that plays a crucial role in ensuring the stability and integrity of the EU's financial markets. But #Pageinextremis was up for the challenge.

Working closely with the ESMA Communication team, they developed a visual identity that fully encapsulates the institution's strategy for 2023-2028, focusing on sustainability, technology, and data innovation. The new logo and visual identity is a bold and modern design that represents the dynamic nature of the financial markets, reflecting the institution's professionalism and authority.

With the new visual identity, ESMA aims to better connect with its stakeholders. This unique design is a testament to that commitment. It is a significant step forward in modernising the financial industry and better connecting with stakeholders. The institution's mission is to ensure the stability and integrity of the EU's financial markets, and this new design reflects that mission.

Overall, the new visual identity is a powerful and impactful representation of ESMA's mission and values, sure to captivate its audience. The hard work and dedication of the team behind this project —Solveig Kleiveland, Sarah Vandenbergh-Edwards, Emilie Brakha, Greta Di Pierri, Iris Hude, Dan Nacu-Manole and David Cliffe— have paid off, resulting in a visual identity that truly represents the institution.

At #pageinextremis, we understand the power of a strong brand. With 28 years of branding experience under our belt, we have developed a unique methodology for a successful branding process that will take your brand to new heights.

Our process begins with the Clarify phase, where we align the organisational effort with the brand strategy. By starting from the overarching strategy and distilling it to the level of the brand strategy, we ensure that everyone is on the same page. We also change perspective and put ourselves in the shoes of the audience, partners, analysts, competitors, and potential future employees. This allows us to see things from different angles and develop a brand strategy that resonates with everyone.

In the Define phase, we clearly define the audience segments, key messages targeted to each of them, brand architecture, brand positioning, and value proposition. This ensures that your brand speaks the correct language to the right people.

The Personalisation phase is where we create a visual identity that reflects the brand's essence and personality and differentiates it from the competition. We want your brand to stand out and be easily recognisable. We achieve that by creating a visual identity that is unique and memorable.

Once the visual identity is established, we move on to the Implement phase, where we roll out the new brand across all communication channels, including websites, social media, marketing materials, and signage. This ensures that your brand is consistent and cohesive across all touchpoints.

Finally, we come to the Measure phase, where we monitor the effectiveness of the new brand and make adjustments as needed. We continuously evaluate the brand's impact on the organisation's reputation and bottom line to ensure we achieve our goals.

It's important to remember that a simple cosmetic and aesthetic approach is to be avoided as it would hardly have any impact, even in the short term. At #pageinextremis, we don't believe in shortcuts.

#Brussels based communication agency #Branding #Brand Strategy #logodesign

[pageinextremis]

A Canvas of Collaboration: Unveiling OCA's Online Annual Report by #Pageinextremis

In sustainability, narratives require a canvas that's as organic and transparent as the missions they represent. This belief united the Organic Cotton Accelerator (OCA) and #Pageinextremis, setting the stage for creating the Online Annual Report 2022. As you delve into this digital narrative, the essence of a profound collaboration between OCA and #Pageinextremis unfolds, painting a vivid picture of nature intertwined with data.

The journey began with a shared vision - to encapsulate OCA's mission and accomplishments in an organic, transparent format. The close collaboration between the seasoned communicators at #Pageinextremis and the advocates of organic cotton at OCA led to a fusion of creativity and purpose.

Pageinextremis delved into the ethos of OCA, crafting a comprehensive online annual report that doesn't just enumerate accomplishments but narrates a saga of sustainable impact.

The report is a user-centric experience, meticulously crafted for easy navigation, engaging storytelling, and transparent disclosure of OCA's 2022 journey. Every section is a testament to the collaborative endeavour, where OCA's mission resonates through # Pageinextremis' innovative design and communication strategies.

Heads of Communication seeking to amplify their ventures' impact will find rich inspiration in this partnership. It exemplifies how, with the right communication ally, your mission's story can resonate globally.

Communication Managers striving for a blend of professionalism, innovation, and human-centric narratives would appreciate the harmonious combination of these elements in the report.

This online annual report transcends traditional yearly reviews. It's a narrative showcasing how like-minded entities can collaboratively create something insightful and engaging.

As you traverse through the Online Annual Report 2022, the symbiotic relationship between OCA and #Pageinextremis is palpable, underscoring what can be achieved when innovative minds collaborate with purpose.

We invite you to explore the OCA Online Annual Report 2022 at annual-report-2022.organiccottonaccelerator.org and witness a sustainable narrative elegantly crafted through close collaboration between OCA and #Pageinextremis.

#brussels based communication agency #communication agency brussels

[pageinextremisdigital]

Charting a Greener Path: Navigate the Landscape of EPS Insulation with EUMEPS

In an era where eco-friendly solutions are not just an option but a necessity, Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) emerges as a lighthouse of green transformation. 

EUMEPS is at the forefront of this movement, advocating EPS insulation as a material and a gateway to a more sustainable, energy-efficient Europe. 

Their engaging story, detailed on "The Perfect Green Fit" website, weaves together the narrative of EPS as both an economically savvy and environmentally accountable alternative, ideally in line with the EU's ambitious goals for a climate-neutral 2050.

Set sail on an enlightening expedition through the EUMEPS lens, uncovering a wealth of benefits that EPS insulation brings to the table in the construction and building worlds. 

From its superior thermal qualities and lightweight nature to its ease of application and potent carbon footprint reduction capabilities, the story is as captivating as it is instructive. 

EUMEPS doesn't just limit the EPS tale to insulation; it expands its role to encompass a broader scope where it becomes instrumental in paving the way for a greener, more energy-efficient tomorrow.

Far from being just an informational resource, the comprehensive overview of "The Perfect Green Fit" website is a clarion call. 

Individuals and enterprises must become active contributors to a sustainable future. 

Focusing intently on environmental advantages, economic practicality, and adaptability, the narrative finds common ground with all stakeholders in the construction industry, laying out a vivid, eco-conscious roadmap in line with the European Green Deal.

Take the plunge into the transformative world of EPS insulation via "The Perfect Green Fit" website. 

You'll find that adopting EPS isn't merely a choice—it's a meaningful stride towards constructing a resilient, environmentally responsible future.

In a true spirit of collaboration, the insightful narrative and eco-conscious roadmap presented on "The Perfect Green Fit" website results from a synergistic partnership between the communication team of EUMEPS and #pageinextremis. 

We're thrilled to have been a part of this vital initiative, adding our communication acumen to EUMEPS's industry expertise. 

Together, we've crafted a platform that's not just an informational resource but a catalyst for change. 

#brussels based communication agency #digital communication #page in extremis agency

[mariacallous]

Tatjana Zdanoka MEP has spent decades openly advocating for Moscow from both Riga and Strasbourg. The Insider can today reveal that Zdanoka was working on behalf of the FSB’s Fifth Service, reporting to two different handlers from at least 2004 to 2017.

Tatjana Zdanoka, a Latvian member of the European Parliament, has been a trusted asset of Russian intelligence since at least 2005, The Insider, in collaboration with the news site Delfi Estonia, Latvia’s Re:Baltica investigative journalism center, and Sweden’s Expressen newspaper, can disclose. Leaked emails between Zdanoka and her two known Russian case officers include explicit, detailed reports from Zdanoka to her handlers describing her work as a European legislator, particularly as those official duties relate to fostering pro-Kremlin sentiment in her native Baltic region. Other correspondence involves arranging physical meetings in Moscow or Brussels between Zdanoka and her Russian handler, along with requests for funding from Russian sources to underwrite her political activities in Latvia and the European Parliament. At least once she requested money for organizing a rally to commemorate the Red Army’s victory in World War II.

In an emailed response to The Insider, Zdanoka stated: “I cannot consider this text to be questions put to me because it is based on information that you supposedly have, which by definition, you should not have.”

The Insider has confirmed that Zdanoka’s two documented handlers have been officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB. According to the emails, her first case officer was a veteran FSB cadre from the St. Petersburg central directorate, Dmitry Gladey, 74, who ran Zdanoka from approximately 2004 to 2013. After 2013, Zdanoka was in regular contact with Sergei Beltyukov, an FSB operative since 1993.

Zdanoka told The Insider she has met “thousands of people” and cannot remember anyone named Beltyukov, which may be because he communicated with her using the cryptonym “Sergey Krasin.” The Insider followed up by asking if Zdanoka could confirm knowing anyone by that name or meeting him in person. She did not respond in time for publication of this story.

Zdanoka did, however, confirm knowing Gladey for decades, having met “in the early 1970s at a tourist base in the North Caucasus, where they were learning to ski.” However, she denied having any knowledge that Gladley is a Russian spy. “I can testify that the only people with whom I have sat at the same table, and with the certain knowledge that they are/were Russian FSB officers, are Vladimir Putin and Sergei Naryshkin,” Zdanoka said. (Naryshkin is the current director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the successor of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate.)

Alice Bah Kuhnke, an MEP from Sweden’s Green Party and the former Minister of Culture and Democracy in Stockholm, is vice president of the Greens/European Free Alliance to which Zdanoka belonged until April 2022. Kuhnke said news of Zdanoka’s espionage struck her as “terrible [but] unsurprising.After all, we [both] receive ongoing reports in the European Parliament, as parliamentarians. And I know, since I was a minister in the government of Sweden, about how Russia and Putin's agents work, and they have networks everywhere.”

[coochiequeens]

Men are holding conferences to discuss how to have a child without a legal mother. Women opposed to surrogacy need to start organizing.

A national surrogacy organization will host a conference and expo—aimed at gay couples and individuals wishing to learn about surrogacy and gay parents that have already used surrogacy strategies—at Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted St., from June 2-3.

New York City-based Men Having Babies (MHB) is organizing the event.

Yanir Dekel, MHB's Los Angeles-based Marketing & Social Media Coordinator, explained that MHB originated at New York City's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, where a group of gay men wishing to become biological parents began meeting in the mid-2000's.

"Up until then, it was expected that you would adopt—doing [in-vitro fertilization] was something that lesbians would do," said Dekel.

The group began bringing in speakers who instructed participants on ethical surrogacy strategies. Around the world, surrogacy is tied into national and local rights issues—LGBTQ+ individuals might be prohibited from attempting surrogacy, for example, while women who become surrogates might have few legal rights.

MHB "wanted to be human-rights advocates and make our own families," Dekel said, adding that the group developed "out of the needs of the community. We're a community organization. We're not a surrogacy agency. We're a non-profit organization."

The urge to have biological children is a human trait from which gay men are often not exempt, he explained.

"They want to see their their genes moving forward," Dekel added. "For me and my husband, we wanted two kids, and with the same egg donor. One of them is my biological [child] and the other is my husband's. To me, I saw it as a biological connection between my husband and myself."

Some couples and individuals are motivated to choose surrogacy by the lack of control they would have were they to pursue adoption as their main route for having children.

"You have to wait for other people to want you—it's not a proactive thing that you can make happen," said Dekel. "People are waiting two or three years, and eventually become tired of waiting. They say, 'I want to have control over the process. I'm going to do it myself.'"

MHB generally has conferences in seven or eight locations nationwide, as well as in cities such as Brussels, Berlin, Taipei and Tel Aviv.

"We're going where people have need [for information," Dekel said. "In America, we're trying to expand our work. … We're trying to serve the community across the board."

An important part of MHB's advocacy is not only instructing the community about surrogacy, but keeping gay parents in social networks with one another.

"As a gay dad myself, I want my kids to see families that look like ours, and I want to hang out with gay men whom I can talk about gay stuff with—talking about Mariah Carey, for example," Dekel explained. "I cannot talk about that with straight guys."

#anti surrogacy sunday #babies are not commodities #surrogacy exploits women #Babies created by an egg donation then another woman has a surrogate have no mother with a legal right to visit and check in #Men Having Babies (MHB) #Some straight couples wait two or three years to have bio kids #No one is entitled to bio kids

[ammg-old2]

The dinner at Andrey Kurkov’s apartment was special. Kurkov and his British wife, Elizabeth, had invited a handy group of guests: Brazil’s ambassador to Kyiv, who was still in the Ukrainian capital after many of his diplomatic colleagues had fled; the head of the city’s medical history museum, which had its own subterranean morgue; and two writers working for Politico and the New York Review of Books. I apologised for being late. Kurkov brought me a bowl of borshch. It was delicious.

There was honey vodka, Odesan wine and pork zakusky. Kurkov passed around fascinating material taken from the files of the Bolshevik secret police. The daughter of a KGB general had discovered them in an attic after her father’s death. They were source material for Kurkov’s latest novel, and included records of interrogations – some typed, others written in curling Cyrillic letters. The papers dated from 1917 to 1921, when the Red Army had swept away a short-lived independent Ukrainian parliament based in Kyiv and had reclaimed the city for Lenin’s new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Among the files were black-and-white photos of police suspects. They included three young men – one with crimped black hair, wearing a white blouse. Circus performers, the records said. There were portraits of a bourgeois young woman, smiling, debutante-like. And more conventional prison-style mugshots of arrestees with shaved heads. Most, I suspected, vanished into the vortex of the 1920s and 30s. Was history repeating itself a century later, with Moscow once more snuffing out Ukraine’s independence with another invasion?

Despite the premonitions, war that evening seemed unreal. Surely, Putin was bluffing. His uncompromising posture – on Nato and European security – was a gambit, was it not? The international community had listened politely to Putin’s tirades, shot through with familiar anti-western grudges and paranoia. In theory, Ukraine might join Nato. To say it couldn’t would be to violate the country’s democratic rights. But – whisper it in Brussels, where the headquarters of Nato is located – nobody expected Ukraine to join the alliance soon, if ever.

Putin, though, appeared to dwell in a strange and unreachable realm. There was an unexplained urgency to his machinations, a sense of haste. Was he ill? A neuroscientist had written to me diagnosing Parkinson’s disease, based on a review of the president’s rare public appearances, where he had difficulty moving his right arm. Cancer, perhaps? Or steroid addiction, which might explain his puffy cheeks?

Related to this was the more diffuse question of Putin’s mental wellbeing. Most Ukrainians I spoke with thought he had gone nuts. Former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said he behaved logically within warped parameters. She described him to me as “absolutely rational, cold, cruel, black evil”, adding: “He’s driven by a sense of historical mission.” And then there was the issue of ultimate concern, too awful to contemplate. Was Putin crazy enough to launch a nuclear bomb?

One Ukrainian intelligence officer I spoke to said Putin lived in an alternative reality. He had convinced himself ordinary Ukrainians were “rural Russians” who would rise up and welcome their Russian liberators. The Kremlin’s spy agencies were complicit in this fantasy, the person suggested. This misconception would have large consequences.

Whatever the reason, Putin had gone beyond what you might imagine to be rational considerations of self-interest. The US, the EU and the UK had threatened the Russian government with massive retaliation should it attack Ukraine. This included a package of devastating sanctions that would destroy Russia’s economy if it was enacted. Did Putin really want to return Moscow to a pre-globalised existence without Visa card payments, Big Macs and aircraft parts – a sort of grey 21st-century USSR?

And then there was Kyiv. It was a colourful, modern European city of 3 million people. With its cafes and restaurants, Bolt cars and food-delivery guys on pedal bikes labouring up ancient cobbled boulevards, it felt like a cosmopolitan Berlin or Prague. You could order a taxi or an artisanal pizza by app. There was an art-house cinema and an underground bar not far from the French Renaissance opera house. (The bar was down a flight of steps, in an unmarked basement, open Wednesdays and Saturdays, by password only.) A contemporary capital, in short, where hipsters navigated the hills on electric scooters.

That evening, on the brink of war, people were out and about as usual. Kyivites had come up with a term for a possible Russian invasion – “Day X” – never quite believing it would happen. I was staying in a hotel on Yaroslaviv Val. The street was close to the heart of the capital. I walked past pavement florists selling tulips from buckets, and a violinist, busking in her usual evening spot and playing Édith Piaf’s La Vie en Rose.

It was inconceivable that Russian missiles might soon be landing amid such varied humanity and beauty. Kyiv’s art nouveau mansions were painted in the faded colours of a Victorian stamp album: lilac, buff, cerise and imperial green. My street was home to the Polish embassy. Across the road was the House of Actors, originally a synagogue, built in an imposing Moorish revival style. Four doors farther along was a late 19th-century building called the Baron’s House, a neo-gothic fantasy with a turret and two demonic gargoyles above the door. They had seen and outlasted war, revolution and Nazi occupation.

The dinner done, I embraced Kurkov and his wife before leaving to walk home. Their flat, it seemed at that moment, had everything you might wish for in life: love, good conversation, books, paintings and a tub filled with spring narcissi next to a kitchen window. Why would you ever leave such a place? But like most residents in the city, they had an emergency plan should the worst happen. Out on the street, I took a call from a well-placed contact who had served in Ukraine’s foreign ministry. He knew people, information, rumour. It was approaching midnight. The sky was a dark shiny velvet.

The invasion, he said, would begin at 4am.

#current events #politics #russian politics #ukrainian politics #russo-ukrainian war #2022 russian invasion of ukraine #war in donbas #russia #ukraine #vladimir putin

[newstfionline]

Thursday, October 13, 2022

Weaker Growth, Growing Risks (WSJ) Global economic growth is likely to slow next year more than previously expected, the International Monetary Fund said, warning living conditions will worsen as soaring inflation harms people’s lives around the world. The IMF attributed the weaker outlook primarily to the effects of inflation, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the slowdown in China brought on by frequent Covid-19 lockdowns and problems in its property sector.

Deadly landslide in Venezuela (Washington Post/AP) Rescuers worked to clear rocks and mud from the streets of a north-central city in Venezuela on Tuesday, three days after it was hit by a massive and deadly landslide, and expanded their search for any bodies buried under the sludge. Officials raised the death toll from the slide in Las Tejerias to at least 43 and warned that it could go up further as bodies are found downstream from the hardest-hit neighborhoods. At least 56 people were said to be missing. The disaster left Venezuelans blaming the socialist government of President Nicolás Maduro for failing to protect the country’s most vulnerable communities against a disaster caused by foreseeable weather conditions.

With winter fast approaching, Europe scrambles to prepare for energy shortages (Yahoo) Patrick Vranckx, a bakery owner in Temploux, Belgium—50 miles southeast of Brussels—is panicked. His Boulangerie Pâtisserie Vranckx, which sells hand-molded bread and pastries to about 400 customers every day, is already struggling to keep up with skyrocketing energy costs, and winter promises even greater pain. “We won’t be able to hold out many more months,” he told Yahoo News, noting that electricity prices have quadrupled over the past year. With delivery of Russian natural gas, which last year provided 40% of Europe’s supplies, now down to a trickle, OPEC cutting oil production, hydropower crippled by this summer’s drought, renewable electricity not fully in force, and temperatures already falling as winter approaches, Europe is bracing for the worst energy crisis the continent has ever known. Government officials and energy agencies are warning of possible blackouts as the cold sets in. Across the continent, everything from coal to wood is scarce. Tom Goethals, who normally delivers cords of firewood grown in Belarus and Russia to 30 pizzerias and 300 customers in Brussels, had to switch to a French supplier because of shortages and high transportation costs. Demand, meanwhile, has gone through the roof.

They’re ‘World Champions’ of Banishing Water. Now, the Dutch Need to Keep It. (NYT) The story of the Netherlands’ centuries of struggle against water is written all over its boggy, low-lying landscape. Windmills pumped water out of sodden farmland and canals whisked it away. Dikes stopped more from flooding in. Now, climate change is drying out great stretches of Europe, and, once again, the Dutch are hoping to engineer their way to safety—only this time, by figuring out how to hold onto more water instead of flushing it out. From California and Texas to India and China, many parts of the world are grappling with widening swings between very wet conditions and very dry ones. The extra heat near the earth’s surface from global warming is, in many regions, increasing the chances of both punishing droughts and violent rainstorms. Societies like the Netherlands must now plan for both extremes, even though the best preparations for one can be at odds with the best preparations for the other. “We are world champions in making land dry,” said Peter van Dijk, a blueberry grower based in the country’s south. “Now we are trying to turn that system around, because we overshot.”

Kyiv braces for prolonged hardship as Russia threatens more strikes (Washington Post) With Kyiv facing rolling electricity outages, authorities on Tuesday raced to repair the damage from a barrage of Russian missiles that slammed into the heart of the Ukrainian capital, in a significant escalation of the nearly eight-month-old war that drew international condemnation of Moscow. Many Kyiv residents hurried on Tuesday to make whatever preparations they could ahead of potential cuts to power, heat and water—fearful that the missile strikes, which killed at least 20 people across Ukraine on Monday, were a bleak prelude to what they will face repeatedly in coming months. In Kyiv, authorities said they were working to protect vital infrastructure while acknowledging the limits of what they could do without more comprehensive air defenses for the city of an estimated 3 million wartime residents.

Belarus army would likely have little impact in Ukraine war (AP) Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko this week has reignited fears that his army could join Russian forces in Moscow’s war against Ukraine, but the authoritarian leader appears reluctant to lend his troops to the effort, despite perceived pressure from Moscow. Russia has already used Belarus, its longtime and dependent ally, as a staging ground to send troops and missiles into Ukraine. Analysts say if Belarus’ small and inexperienced military gets involved, the additional troops could help Moscow cut off some key transportation corridors, but likely wouldn’t significantly boost Russian President Vladimir Putin’s capabilities on the battlefield. “The Belarusian army is weak and demotivated, and it is not willing to fight with Ukraine, which means that Lukashenko will try to give Putin anything but Belarusian soldiers,” Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “Lukashenko is letting Putin know: ‘I will help, but I won’t fight.’”

Graft convictions extend Suu Kyi’s prison term to 26 years (AP) A court in military-ruled Myanmar convicted the country’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on two more corruption charges Wednesday, with two three-year sentences to be served concurrently, adding to previous convictions that now leave her with a 26-year total prison term, a legal official said. Suu Kyi, 77, was detained on Feb. 1, 2021, when the military seized power from her elected government. She has denied the allegations against her in this case, in which she was accused of receiving $550,000 as a bribe from Maung Weik, a tycoon convicted of drug trafficking. Suu Kyi had already been sentenced to 23 years’ imprisonment after being convicted of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies, violating coronavirus restrictions, breaching the country’s official secrets act, sedition, election fraud and five corruption charges.

One Nation Under Xi: How China’s Leader Is Remaking Its Identity (NYT) Across Tibetan villages in southwest China, Communist Party officials have been spreading the top leader Xi Jinping’s gospel of national unity: that every ethnic group must fuse into one indivisible China with a shared heritage dating back over 5,000 years. Thousands of officials in Ganzi, a Tibetan region of Sichuan Province, have been paired with families to collect information and give out gifts of rice, cooking oil and beatific portraits of Mr. Xi—all to hammer home his message of an encompassing Chinese identity, from Xinjiang in the west to the contested island of Taiwan in the east. The nationalist impulse behind this campaign is increasingly central to Mr. Xi’s efforts to reshape China, with far-reaching consequences for education, social policy and politics. While appeals to the motherland have long been part of the party’s tool kit, Mr. Xi has taken the imperative to new heights, calling for a unified “community of Chinese nationhood” as a bulwark against threats at home and abroad. In his vision, all Chinese people, regardless of ethnicity, are bound by cultural ties that reach back earlier than the first emperors. The implication is that anyone who defies Mr. Xi’s priorities is also betraying China’s ageless, sacred values.

Xi’s looming third term in China raises threat of war over Taiwan (Washington Post) From a young age, Wang You-cheng and his friends in Taiwan debated what seemed like a theoretical question: If China were to attack, would they be willing to fight to protect their home? “Taiwan is one of the most dangerous places in the world,” said the 17-year-old. It’s a reality dawning on more of the island’s 23 million people as Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s determination to “resolve the Taiwan question” grows in tandem with his ambition to realize China’s place at the top of the global order. Xi is expected to secure a third term next week, granting him an extended reign and more latitude to realize the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” Unification with Taiwan, by force or negotiations, is a core part of that vision.

Protests galvanize Iranians abroad in hope, worry and unity (AP) As anti-government protests roil cities and towns in Iran for a fourth week, tens of thousands of Iranians living abroad have marched on the streets of Europe, North America and beyond in support of what many believe to be a watershed moment for their home country. From those who fled in the 1980s after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution to a younger generation of Iranians born and raised in Western capitals, many in the diaspora community say they feel an unprecedented unity of purpose and affinity with the demonstrations at home sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by Iran’s morality police. In the past month, large crowds of people of Iranian origin in dozens of cities from London to Paris to Toronto have turned out every weekend for rallies in solidarity with protests that erupted in Iran after Mahsa Amini died in custody after she was detained for allegedly violating strict Islamic dress codes for women.

Rethinking a relationship (Washington Post) President Biden is kicking off a process of reevaluating, and potentially altering, the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia following the announcement by a Saudi-led coalition that it would slash oil production, the White House said. That move by OPEC Plus last week to cut its oil output by 2 million barrels a day could boost oil prices in the United States and worldwide, potentially hurting consumers during a tough winter, and its timing a month before the midterm elections was a political blow to Biden that some in the president’s circle saw as a personal shot at the president. Since then, calls to revisit America’s support for Saudi Arabia have emerged in Congress and elsewhere. Officials said Tuesday that Biden is doing so, but they offered no details on how the relationship might shift or what policies the president is considering.

747 clinches it (Foreign Policy) An impressively large brown bear named 747 has emerged as the champion of Fat Bear Week, a competitive single-elimination contest that saw 12 tubby bears living in Alaska’s Katmai National Park vying for the title of Fattest Bear. Also the 2020 winner, 747 was widely known as the chunkiest competitor and is believed to weigh around 1,400 pounds. He ultimately secured 11,000 more votes than the runner-up, who was named 901. But this year’s competition wasn’t without scandal: organizers revealed that the tournament had been plagued by voter fraud, although they quickly reassured fans that they were able to identify and eliminate the fake votes. “Like bears stuff their face with fish, our ballot box, too, has been stuffed,” it tweeted.

#headlines #news

[chathispano12]

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[brucesterling]

Lebanon.  Always weirdly eager to be worse than everybody else

Aid and support for Lebanon follow massive blast in Beirut. A massive explosion at the city’s port on Tuesday left at least 135 people dead and 5,000 injured while hundreds more are still missing. The blast caused widespread destruction, displacing some 300,000 people according to UN estimates. UNHCR said some of the severely affected areas included neighbourhoods that hosted refugees and that it had received unconfirmed reports of several refugee deaths. Many of Beirut’s intensive care units were already near capacity with COVID-19 patients before the blast put three hospitals out of use and damaged two others. UNHCR said it would expedite its efforts to expand hospital bed and ICU capacity. The agency is also making its in-country stocks of shelter kits, plastic sheets, and other relief items available for immediate distribution and opening its reception centres across the country for critical cases. The explosion came at a time when Lebanon was already in the midst of a severe economic crisis that had pushed many Lebanese and refugees deeper into poverty. The port where the blast occurred was the main entry point to the country for many essential supplies as well as food aid for the region. The World Food Programme said the damage was likely to exacerbate the country’s already grim economic and food security outlook.

We have been watching, in horror, the devastation and despair caused by a vast explosion in Beirut. Our team has been wading through the hundreds of conspiracy theories that are swirling around the internet, as some use the disaster to pursue their own political aims.

• Feeding the conspiracies are unanswered questions about how ammonium nitrate, which is banned in Lebanon, got to Beirut port and was allowed to stay there for six years in violation of the nation’s law and all public safety procedures.

• We tracked down the producers of the ammonium nitrate in Georgia, who sold it — in an apparently legal transaction — to an explosives factory in Mozambique. The trader and owner of the ship that carried the cargo is a Cyprus-based Russian businessman who has now been questioned by Cypriot police. According to the crew, he ordered the ship to change course and sail to Beirut instead of continuing to Mozambique. “I don’t know how he got the permission to dock in Beirut with that illegal cargo,” the Russian captain of the ship told Russian website MediaZona.

• Negligence and corruption are the known causes. This disaster couldn’t have come at a worse time for Lebanon, which, before Tuesday’s explosion, was already in the throes of overlapping economic, political and public health crises. One likely effect of the blast, according to health professionals in Beirut, will be a worsening of the coronavirus pandemic. Virus monitoring has already halted. We have more below, so keep reading.

BEIRUT        

EU HELP: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged some €33 million for “first emergency needs, medical support and equipment, and protection of critical infrastructure” during a call with Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Thursday, according to a readout from the Commission. She stressed that the EU attaches great importance to “the unity and stability of Lebanon.” Verbatim, and good luck: “She emphasized that this tragic moment for Lebanon should be the occasion to unite all political forces around a national effort to respond to the many challenges the country is facing,” the readout said.

Translation: The hope in EU capitals is that Tuesday’s massive explosion in Beirut would make the need for reform obvious to all, including the Lebanese elite and those profiting most from the power-sharing arrangements among them. Recent protests suggest that trust in the old system of distributing power according to religious proportional representation is dwindling.

A more pressing question for both world leaders and Lebanese locals: How can any authority allow highly explosive material to be stored, unprotected, in a warehouse for years, leading it to blow up the homes of 300,000 people, killing at least 145 and wounding thousands more? (Overnight, Lebanese security forces used tear gas against protesters, who accused the government of negligence.)

MACRON SPELLS IT OUT: French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a stern warning along these lines to Lebanese leaders after landing in Beirut on Thursday, saying that other than emergency humanitarian aid, there would be no international money without sincere reform. Macron was the first world leader to visit Beirut after the explosion.

This is noteworthy: “Lebanon is facing political and economic crises and an urgent response to this is required,” Macron said. “If reforms are not made, Lebanon will continue to sink,” he added, referring to the energy sector, public tenders and corruption. Later in the day, Macron announced he will organize an international aid conference in the coming days to raise funds — but aid would go directly to NGOs and the people who need it, he said, implying it would circumvent the government in order to avoid corruption.

Deadline: “It’s time for responsibility in Lebanon,” Macron said at a press conference at the end of his visit. “We raised funds in the past, but we can only do it if the Lebanese authorities take their responsibilities to allow us to fully help Lebanon.” Macron gave the country’s leaders until the end of the month to begin a reset of the political system, reports Rym Momtaz from on the ground in Beirut — her must-read dispatch here.

IS LEBANON THE NEXT MIGRATION CRISIS? Hundreds of thousands are now homeless, and the country has the highest per-capita concentration of refugees in the world already — more than 1 million Syrians live in Lebanon. A question asked by some of the few officials at work in Brussels over the past couple of days is whether this might turn into a migration issue for the EU, Jacopo Barigazzi writes in to report.

Reality check: “The country was already facing an economic, social and political crisis and it is likely this situation will result in increased tensions between host communities and refugees — and make refugees more vulnerable,” Camille Le Coz, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute told Playbook. But “so far, no information indicates that more refugees will decide to head to Europe — and it is likely that most of them cannot afford the journey,” she said.

Corona makes it all more difficult: For the local population, “as a result of the economic crisis, a number of Lebanese have tried to move to Europe,” said Le Coz. But even before the explosion, reports indicate that even those who have European passports face increased difficulties — because of border closures, and because a Lebanese banking crisis and restrictions on cash withdrawals have made it hard to access savings.

[pageinextremisbranding]

Is 2022-2023 the academic year of the bear for the BEPS international school?

2022-2023 will be an exceptional year for BEPS. The international school will celebrate its 50th anniversary throughout the year. To crystallise the ongoing strengthening of its activities, BEPS has just launched a new logo and visual identity.

Since 1972 BEPS International School has served the International Community of Brussels by providing quality education for children. BEPS International School is committed to providing high-quality education and developing a love of learning in our children. They are encouraged to become confident, independent learners and global citizens.

The bear is a historical element of the BEPS' visual identity. With the rebranding, the international school revisits its bear metaphor with a modern, symbolic and student-centred approach.

The new logo felt like a totemic emblem for children will facilitate their sense of belonging to a broad, friendly community: the BEPS family.

BEPS shares a video on social networks revealing the new brand to its audience, which tells you more about the close connection between the bear and the BEPS brand.

BEPS is also introducing its IB-DP and IB-CP programmes and opening a new Early Years centre, a new Secondary CoLearning space and a whole Media Center.

BEPS stands in one of the most beautiful Brussels areas, surrounded by the Bois de La Cambre green.

The brand new BEPS logo results from a genuine collaboration between the BEPS team and the creative unit of the branding agency, #pageinextremis.

The communication agency #pageinextremis has over 28 years of experience guiding organisations on the road to defining and articulating their uniqueness. The multidisciplinary communication agency team translates your organisation's core idea into intelligent and adequate visual systems.

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[mariacallous]

Kosovo’s President, Vjosa Osmani, and its Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, confirmed that they are open for new mayoral elections in four Serb-dominated municipalities in the north of the country, in line with a request from Western officials.

Kurti said on Thursday, after talking with three US senators, that “removing violent mobs in front of municipality buildings and full implementation of the Brussels Agreement is the way toward de-escalation until new elections”.

He confirmed he also spoke with US Principal Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer on de-escalation measures.

Kurti has continued to call Serb protesters in the north “a mob” and “a fascist militia” since the outbreak of violent clashes on Monday.

Meanwhile, protesters gathered again in front of the municipality building in Zvecan/Zvecane on Friday morning. Some carried slogans saying: “We are not criminals, we just want freedom”, and: “You will not drive us out of our homes”.

Four days after violence erupted in three of the northern municipalities against newly-elected ethnic Albanian mayors who were installed last Friday under police guard, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the EU urged new elections.

During the second European Political Community EPC summit in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, Kosovo President Osmani met Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic under the auspices of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell, and with Macron and Scholz present.

After the meeting, Borrell said: “We have three clear requests: new local elections now, ensuring the participation of Kosovo Serbs and starting the work to establish the Association of Serbian Majority Municipalities within the EU-facilitated Dialogue”.

“Failure to do so will have serious consequences for our relations,” Borrell added on Twitter.

Osmani previously told the media in Chisinau that legal procedures make it possible to hold elections.

“I informed them [European leaders] that our legislation allows this possibility and we are ready to consider it based on the law on elections of Kosovo,” Osmani said.

Macron announced previously that Germany and France had urged both Kosovo and Serbia to back new elections in the north of Kosovo “as soon as possible”.

Reuters news agency reported that Macron said he and Scholz had given Kosovo and Serbia a week to respond to their proposals.

Local Serbs deny the legitimacy of the recent elections that they boycotted en masse, and in which only 3.47 per cent of people voted.

The protests started last Friday, which was the first day of work for the newly elected mayors of Zubin Potok, Leposavic/Leposaviq and Zvecan/Zvecane, when dozens of citizens and policemen were injured.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

HOW SCIENTISTS AROUND THE WORLD TRACK THE SOLAR CYCLE Every morning, astronomer Steve Padilla takes a short walk from his home to the base of a tower that soars 150 feet above the ground. Tucked in the San Gabriel Mountains, about an hour’s drive north from Los Angeles, the Mount Wilson Observatory has long been a home for space science -- it’s Padilla’s home too, one of the perks to his work as Mount Wilson’s Sun observer. Mount Wilson has several solar system sentinels; the telescope perched at the top of this tower keeps constant watch on the Sun. Observers study the Sun closely, so we can better understand the life and activity of our star. Padilla boards the outdoor elevator. He clips himself to a safety harness, which is attached to the open-air cab, the same one used every day since the telescope went into operation in 1912 (the cables have since been replaced). “It can be a little scary on windy days,” Padilla said. At the top, Padilla adjusts a set of mirrors that projects an image of the Sun into an observing room far below. Back on the ground, he uses an array of pencils, varying in graphite weight, to sketch the dark spots mottling the face of the Sun. This daily chore is the foundation of the sunspot number, our longest record of solar activity. Humans have observed sunspots -- dark blotches that arise from strong magnetic activity -- for more than 1,000 years, and tracked them in detail since the invention of the telescope, for the past 400. Even with the modern-day host of spacecraft studying the Sun, taking the time to draw sunspots remains the chief way they’re counted. Surveying sunspots is the most basic of ways we study how solar activity rises and falls over time, and it’s the basis of how we track the solar cycle. Sunspots correspond with the Sun’s natural 11-year cycle, in which the Sun shifts from relatively calm to stormy. At its most active, called solar maximum, the Sun is freckled with sunspots and its magnetic poles reverse. (On Earth, that would be like if the North and South Poles flip-flopped every decade.) During solar minimum, sunspots are few and far between. Often, the Sun is as blank and featureless as an egg yolk. Understanding the Sun’s behavior is an important part of life in our solar system. The Sun’s powerful outbursts can disturb the satellites and communications signals traveling around Earth, or one day, Artemis astronauts exploring distant worlds. NASA scientists study the solar cycle so we can better predict solar activity. As of 2020, the Sun has begun to shake off the sleep of minimum, which occurred in December 2019. Solar Cycle 25 is underway, and scientists are eager for another chance to put their understanding of solar cycle signs to the test. “The most important thing to remember with predictions is, you’re going to be wrong,” said Dean Pesnell, a solar cycle expert at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “You’re never going to be perfect. It’s what you learn from that, that allows you to make progress in your predictions.” During drowsy solar minimum, Padilla observed more spotless days. “There are no spots to draw, so I just have a paper with nothing on it,” he said. Even the absence of sunspots is a useful observation: Tallying up spotless days is one indicator that the Sun’s mood is shifting toward minimum. (Instead of sunspots, dark coronal holes cloud the Sun’s poles at minimum.) On the other hand, in solar maximum, hundreds of spots can form at once. Some drawings can take several hours to complete. “The Sun has its own pace that we cannot speed up,” said Frédéric Clette, director of the World Data Center for the Sunspot Index and Long-term Solar Observations, or SILSO, at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels, which tracks sunspots and pinpoints the solar cycle’s highs and lows. “Sometimes, we have a hard time tempering the impatience of people who expect to know overnight if the Sun is truly waking up again.” Around the world, observers conduct daily sunspot censuses. They draw the Sun at the same time each day, using the same tools for consistency. Together, their observations make up the international sunspot number, a complex task run by SILSO. Some 80 stations around the world contribute their data. Exactly how many stations are included in each day’s count depends on a number of factors like weather (clouds and high winds obscure view of the Sun), or maybe a solar observer has a last-minute appointment. Despite the interference of daily life, these manual surveys are still the most reliable, long-term record of sunspots we have. “Satellites can do a lot of things better than a drawing by hand,” said Olivier Lemaître, a Royal Observatory of Belgium solar observer. “But consider a satellite with a 10- to 15-year lifespan -- that’s just one solar cycle. You can’t compare it to anything else outside that lifespan.” But long-term studies are the backbone of solar cycle science. With extensive historical records, scientists can trace the arc of decades-long patterns in the Sun’s behavior. When it comes to counting sunspots, it’s not so much about the accuracy or resolution of the observations as the consistency of the data itself. Even while their city was shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, an observer from the Royal Observatory team made their way each day to the telescope tower, to keep the record intact. Lemaître approaches each sunspot drawing methodically, outlining a family of sunspots before shading in finer details. The delicate pencil work belies the powerful explosions sunspots can unleash. Sunspots arise from clusters of intense magnetic energy. Buoyed by their magnetic force, they rise through churning solar material like a grain of rice in a boiling pot. Sunspots appear darker because they’re cooler than their surroundings; the magnetic knot at their core keeps energy from radiating out past the Sun’s surface. When enough magnetic energy builds over the sunspot, a powerful eruption can burst free -- like an exploding soda bottle -- spewing light and solar matter. If they happen to be facing Earth, these solar storms can disrupt satellites, astronauts, and communications signals like radio or GPS. Earth’s upper atmosphere might expand in response, slowing satellites in orbit the way gravel roads slow down cars, eroding satellites’ lifetimes. Although changes on the Sun aren’t usually visible to us without the help of scientific instruments, they impact the space around Earth and other planets. Chasing Solar Minimum Deep inside the Sun, electrified gases flow in currents that generate the Sun’s magnetic field, which fuels its mighty outbursts. During solar minimum, the Sun’s magnetic field is relaxed. At the height of the solar cycle, it’s a tangled mess of magnetic field lines. Understanding this flow, called the dynamo, is key in the effort to predict what the Sun will do next. Since 1989, the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel -- an international panel of experts sponsored by NASA and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- has met each decade to make their prediction for the next solar cycle. The prediction includes the sunspot number at maximum and the cycle’s expected start and peak. The effort requires assessing many different models and navigating many personalities. “We each have our favorite predictions, or the ones we have the most confidence in,” said Lisa Upton, a solar physicist at Space Systems Research Corporation in Westminster, Colorado, and prediction panel co-chair. “Our duty is to come to a consensus. If we take all of our opinions and models, where is the most overlap, and where can we agree the solar cycle is going to land?” Scientists are always chasing solar minimum, but they can only recognize it in hindsight. Since minimum is defined by the lowest number of sunspots in a solar cycle, scientists have to see the numbers steadily rise before determining when they were at the bottom. To complicate things, solar cycles often overlap. As one cycle transitions to the next, both old and new sunspots emerge on the Sun at once. Sunspots often appear in groups, which are like magnets, each with a positive and negative end. As the Sun’s magnetic field slowly flips, so does the polarity of sunspot groups. Where one cycle’s sunspots drift across the Sun with their positive end in the lead, the next cycle’s spots walk negative foot first. On top of that, sunspots in the Sun’s two hemispheres also have opposite orientations. Each sunspot’s unique magnetic signature makes it possible to determine which cycle produced it -- the old one or the new. When the Sun stirs from solar minimum, besides counting the sunspots, scientists want to make sure all the spots rising to the surface are actually new. “I just caution people, because as excited as we are for the new cycle to come, we have to wait until we actually reach minimum,” Upton said. “It can be six to eight months past minimum before we can say minimum has actually occurred.” Indeed, not until September 2020 did scientists confirm the Sun reached solar minimum in December 2019. Invisible Indicators Besides sunspots, other indicators can signal when the Sun is reaching its low. If the Sun’s magnetic field were a jigsaw puzzle, one piece is still missing: the magnetic field at the poles. Although scientists can’t measure the polar magnetic field as accurately as other parts of the Sun, estimates provide clues. (Soon, ESA, the European Space Agency, and NASA’s Solar Orbiter will send new images of the Sun’s poles.) In previous cycles, scientists have noticed the strength of the polar magnetic field during solar minimum hints at the intensity of the next maximum. When the poles are weak, the next maximum is weak, and vice versa. The past few cycles, the strength of the magnetic field at the Sun’s poles has steadily declined; so too has the sunspot number. Now, the poles are roughly as strong as they were at the same point in the last cycle, Cycle 24. “This is the big test for our models -- whether Cycle 25 will play out about the same as Cycle 24,” Pesnell said. Another indicator of solar cycle progress comes from outside the solar system. Cosmic rays are high-energy particle fragments, the rubble from exploded stars in distant galaxies. During solar maximum, the Sun’s strong magnetic field envelops our solar system in a magnetic cocoon that is difficult for cosmic rays to infiltrate. In off-peak years, the number of cosmic rays in the solar system climbs as more and more make it past the quiet Sun. By tracking cosmic rays both in space and on the ground, scientists have yet another measure of the solar cycle. While minimum may lack the fireworks of solar maximum, it’s useful for scientists. They make their forecasts, and wait to see how their estimates play out. Some consider it a time to return to the basics. “In solar minimum, you can ask more difficult questions than at maximum,” Pesnell said. One area of solar study, called helioseismology, involves scientists collecting soundwaves from inside the Sun, as a way of probing the elusive dynamo. During solar minimum, they don’t have to worry about soundwaves bouncing off the sunspots and active regions characteristic of solar maximum. When sunspots disappear from view, scientists have a chance to finetune their models -- without all the solar drama. TOP IMAGE....Sunspot drawings from SILSO at the Royal Observatory of Belgium. Surveying sunspots with daily hand-drawn drawings is the most basic of ways we study how solar activity rises and falls over time, and it’s the basis of how we track the solar cycle. Credits: SILSO/Royal Observatory of Belgium LOWER IMAGE....Images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory show the Sun near solar minimum in October 2019 and the last solar maximum in April 2014. Dark coronal holes cover the Sun during solar minimum, while bright active regions—indicating more solar activity—cover the Sun during solar maximum. Credits: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory/Joy Ng

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #news #NASA

[newstfionline]

Saturday, December 26, 2020

Getting creative to help the homeless (AP) After three years on the streets, Tiecha Vannoy and her boyfriend Chris Foss plan to weather the pandemic this winter in a small white “pod” with electricity, heat and enough room for two. Portland this month assembled neat rows of the shelters, which resemble garden sheds, in three ad-hoc “villages”—part of an unprecedented effort unfolding in cold-weather cities nationwide to keep people without permanent homes safe as temperatures drop and coronavirus cases surge. “We just get to stay in our little place. We don’t have to leave here unless we want to,” said Vannoy, wiping away tears as they moved into the shelter near a downtown train station. “It’s been a long time coming. He always tells me to have faith, but I was just over it.” ... “Those (are) folks who would under normal circumstances maybe come into a drop-in center to warm up, or go into the subway to warm up, or go into a McDonald’s to warm up—and just not having those options available to them. What then?” asked Giselle Routhier of the Coalition for the Homeless in New York City.

Raise your mittens: Outdoor learning continues into winter (AP) Cindy Soule’s fourth graders in Maine’s largest city have studied pollination in a community garden. They solved an erosion problem that was damaging trees. They learned about bear scat. Then came a fresh layer of snow and temperatures that hovered around freezing—but her students were unfazed. Bundled up and masked, they scooted outside with their belongings in buckets. They collected their pencils and clipboards, plopped the buckets upside down in the snow, took a seat and went to work. The lesson? Snow, of course, and how snowflakes are formed. Schools nationwide scrambled to get students outdoors during the pandemic to keep them safe and stop the spread of COVID-19. Now, with temperatures plummeting, a smaller number of schools—even in some of the nation’s most frigid climes—plan to keep it going all winter long, with students trading desks in warm classrooms for tree stumps or buckets.

Explosion in Nashville that damaged 20 buildings, injured 3 people an ‘intentional act’ (USA Today) Authorities believe an explosion that occurred in downtown Nashville early Christmas morning and was felt for miles was an “intentional act” sparked by a vehicle. Police responded to reports of a suspicious vehicle parked outside the AT&T building just before 6 a.m. Upon arrival, police said an officer “had reason” to alert the department’s hazardous devices unit, which was en route, when a “significant explosion” happened. Three people were hospitalized with injuries, police said. At least 20 buildings were damaged, Nashville Mayor John Cooper said. The sound of the explosion could be heard from miles away, and people reported windows shaking from South and East Nashville. “It looks like a bomb went off,” Cooper said. The downtown area will be “sealed off” for further investigation and to make sure everything is “completely safe.”

US to require negative COVID-19 test from UK travelers (AP) The United States will require airline passengers from Britain to get a negative COVID-19 test before their flight, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced late Thursday. The U.S. is the latest country to announce new travel restrictions because of a new variant of the coronavirus that is spreading in Britain and elsewhere. Airline passengers from the United Kingdom will need to get negative COVID-19 tests within three days of their trip and provide the results to the airline, the CDC said in a statement. The agency said the order will be signed Friday and go into effect on Monday. “If a passenger chooses not to take a test, the airline must deny boarding to the passenger,” the CDC said in its statement. The agency said because of travel restrictions in place since March, air travel to the U.S. from the U.K. is already down by 90%.

Many just want a hug for Christmas this year, Queen Elizabeth says (Reuters) All many people want for Christmas this year is a simple hug, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth said in her annual festive message, saying it would be hard for those who lost loved ones to COVID-19 pandemic or were separated by curbs on social mixing. In her traditional pre-recorded Christmas Day address to the nation, the 94-year-old monarch repeatedly spoke of hope for the future whilst acknowledging millions of Britons would be unable to have their usual family celebrations this year. “Of course for many, this time of year will be tinged with sadness; some mourning the loss of those dear to them, and others missing friends and family members distanced for safety when all they really want for Christmas is a simple hug or a squeeze of the hand,” Elizabeth said. “If you are among them, you are not alone. And let me assure you of my thoughts and prayers.” “Remarkably, a year that has necessarily kept people apart has in many ways brought us closer,” said the queen, adding the royals had been inspired by stories of those who volunteered to help others in need. “In the United Kingdom and around the world, people have risen magnificently to the challenges of the year and I’m so proud and moved by this quiet indomitable spirit.”

For the European Union, It’s a Pretty Good Deal (NYT) The European Union emerges from fraught negotiations with Britain over its exit from the bloc with a sense of satisfaction—that it has maintained its unity and its core principles, especially the integrity of the single market of now 450 million consumers that is the foundation of its influence. And it is now looking ahead to its life without Britain. The final deal is a free-trade agreement that recognizes Britain’s desire to leave the single market and the customs union while preserving tariff-free, quota-free trade in goods with the European Union. To that end, Britain agreed to a mechanism, with arbitration and possible tariffs for violations, that would keep its regulations and subsidies roughly in line with those of Brussels, to prevent unfair competition. But the deal will require inspections of goods to prevent smuggling. The deal also covers many mundane but crucial matters of visas, health insurance, and air, rail and road travel. It treats Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, as within the E.U. customs area to prevent the need for a hard border on the island, but requires some checks on goods going from Britain to Northern Ireland. And the deal reallocates fishing areas and quotas, given that Britain is now an independent coastal state.

Pope Francis celebrates low-key Christmas Eve Mass amid coronavirus restrictions (Fox News) Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Eve Mass on Thursday night amid coronavirus restrictions that reduced a normal crowd of as many as 10,000 congregants to a group of fewer than 100 people, according to reports. During his homily, the Roman Catholic leader urged followers to reach out to the needy, noting that Jesus Christ was considered an outsider. “The Son of God was born an outcast, in order to tell us that every outcast is a child of God,” the pope said. May the Child of Bethlehem help us, then, to be generous, supportive and helpful, especially towards those who are vulnerable, the sick, those unemployed or experiencing hardship due to the economic effects of the pandemic, and women who have suffered domestic violence during these months of lockdown,” he said.

Turkey debates law that would increase oversight of NGOs (Reuters) Turkey’s parliament began debating a draft law on Friday that would increase oversight of non-governmental organisations and which, according to rights campaigners, risks limiting the freedoms of civil-society groups. The government says the measure, covering “foundations and associations”, aims to prevent non-profit organisations from financing terrorism and to punish those who violate the law. Civil-society groups, including Amnesty International and the Human Rights Association, said terrorism charges in Turkey were arbitrary, and that the draft law would violate the presumption of innocence and punish those whose trials were not finalised.Investigations based on terrorism charges have been launched against hundreds of thousands of people under a crackdown following a failed coup in 2016. Hundreds of foundations were also shut down with decrees following the coup attempt.

Half of Russians sceptical Kremlin critic Navalny was poisoned (Reuters) Half of Russians believe that Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was either not poisoned, as he and Western governments contend, or that his poisoning was stage-managed by Western intelligence services, a poll showed on Thursday. The poll, released by the Levada-Center, shows how hard it remains for Navalny to shape public opinion in Russia even as his case attracts wide media attention in the West and his own slickly-produced videos of what happened to him this summer rack up millions of views online. Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken critics, was airlifted to Germany for medical treatment in August after collapsing on a plane in Russia. Germany has said he was poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok nerve agent in an attempt to murder him, an assertion many Western nations accept. The poll by Levada, which is regarded as more independent than state counterparts, showed only 15% of Russians believed what happened to Navalny was an attempt by the authorities to rid themselves of a political opponent. By contrast, 30% thought that the incident was stage-managed and that there was no poisoning, and 19% said they believed it was a provocation orchestrated by Western intelligence services.

Hong Kong street refrigerator keeps giving (AP) Most people who head to Woosung Street in Hong Kong’s old-school neighborhood of Jordan are visiting its popular restaurants serving everything from curries to seafood. Others may be headed for a lone refrigerator, painted blue, with a sign that reads: “Give what you can give, take what you need to take.” The door of the fridge sitting outside a hockey academy opens to reveal it is stuffed with packets of instant noodles, biscuits, tins of food and even socks and towels for anyone who may need them. Ahmen Khan, founder of a sports foundation on the same street, said he was inspired to create a community refrigerator after seeing a film about others doing the same thing. He found the refrigerator at a nearby refuse collection point and painted it blue. “It’s like a dignity, that when you go home, you open your fridge to get food,” Khan said. “So I want the people to just feel like that. Even if it’s a street, it’s their community, it’s their home, so they can simply just open it and then just put food there, and collect the food.” Khan’s blue refrigerator project went viral on social media and people have been dropping by to leave food inside.

Israeli jets fly over Beirut, explosions reported in Syria (AP) Israeli jets flew very low over parts of Lebanon early Friday, terrifying residents on Christmas Eve, some of whom reported seeing missiles in the skies over Beirut. Minutes later, Syria’s official news agency reported explosions in the central Syrian town of Masyaf. Other Syrian media said Syrian air defenses responded to an Israeli attack near the town in the Hama province. The Syrian Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying Israel “launched an aggression by directing a barrage of rockets” from the north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli towards the Masyaf area. Israeli jets regularly violate Lebanese airspace and have often struck inside Syria from Lebanese territory. But the Christmas Eve flights were louder than usual, frightening residents of Beirut who have endured multiple crises in the past year, including the catastrophic Aug. 4 explosion at the city’s port that killed over 200 people and destroyed parts of the capital.

#headlines #news

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

My experience within the hierarchy of the Moon cult during its years of expansion in Russia and in the CIS

▲ Mikhail Gorbachev at the Kremlin. Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han are on the right.

by Lev Semenov Russian University professor, ex-Unification Church member, and Priest

A presentation given to FECRIS in Brussels on April 26, 2006
 (lightly edited for readability; some corrections made)

Dear ladies and gentlemen!

I spent six and half years in the Moon cult. Having become a member on July 1, 1990 I signed an application for a total break-up with the cult on October 14, 1996. During this period of time, I was promoted from being an ordinary member all the way up in the cult hierarchy in the CIS and Baltic countries. During my numerous public presentations since I left the cult, my audience would most frequently ask two questions: How I had entered the cult and why I had left it.  Anticipating these questions now, I would like to answer them briefly in the first part of my presentation.

In June 1990 – while I was an associate professor at Tver State University – I was urgently called by the deputy rector who offered for me to take part in a conference in Sofia. Thus, I was officially sent to Bulgaria to an introductory seminar of the Unification Movement. I considered myself a Christian, but just as a vast number of Soviet people, I hadn’t been baptized. So, since I was not a practicing Christian, I certainly wasn’t able to reason and act as a real Christian. Hence when studying the New Testament I was not treating it as Holy Scripture, but just as any other historical text. It seemed to me that I could allow for unlimited freedom of interpretation. It explains why, when I came across a very untraditional treatment of the Bible in the Moon followers’ workshop, it seemed to me a curious play of mind. This unusual interpretation was interesting to me from a Biblical historiography point of view.

The second reason was due to the fact that I felt sympathy for dissidents in Soviet times and disliked the communist ideology. When I learned that Moon was called “the first, that is the main, anticommunist on the planet,” it had awakened my deep sympathy for him and a wish to join his movement.

Within just a few months, I was appointed a National Educational Department Advisor, then an Inter-religious Relations Department Director, I joined the Unification Church Board in Russia, and finally during my last two and half years, I was Vice President of this Board. Twice I was officially offered to be the head of this Board.

How did my disenchantment with Moonism start and why did I delay my break with the cult for so long?

The higher I climbed up the hierarchical ladder, the fewer secrets remained for me in the “inner kitchen” of the cult. I was discovering the hypocrisy and insincerity of its leaders. The last “straw” that broke camel’s back was a new task that I was given. The cult leaders felt Moon’s teaching was deeply alien to Russian cultural tradition. In order to convince Russians to the contrary, I was given the task to become the leader of a group of authors. Our mission was to create a book on the history of Russian culture. In this book, we had to find whatever possible points of Russian tradition that could be associated with Moon’s ideas. Russia saw the Orthodox Church as the base for its culture for a whole millennium. That is why I started studying the Holy Fathers’ Works. The depth of their thought amazed me. At the same time, it made clear to me the primitiveness of Moon’s theology. These are therefore the complementing answers to the question why I had decided to quit Moonism.

The reason why I had not done it immediately will be seen later. I realized that I had made a mistake and had joined a terrible cult. But I understood that I had to redress a wrong done to my compatriots because during my years of work there, I could have influenced some of them to join the cult. Then I decided not just to leave, but also to unmask this totalitarian cult. However, my exposures wouldn’t have had the same weight without documentary evidence. Therefore, I was collecting papers and other proof. My high position in the cult made available to me many of its secrets. Having stayed until late at night at the central office, I was able to photocopy a lot of papers. So after I had left the cult, I used these as proof in the series of open letters, articles, and reports at different conferences. These papers and material became the base for my book about the Moon cult, which I am going to finish this year.

There is one circumstance, which persuaded me that I had chosen the right way to act. In the seven years which have passed since my first public statement against Moon and Moonies, they did not attempt to deny any of my accusations. Every accusation is based on concrete facts and documents that are impossible to deny. Now let’s get directly to the theme of my report.

As is well-known the “Moon Empire” includes about 200 independent projects – religious, political, cultural, educational, media, industrial enterprises, etc. However, all of these organizations are controlled by Moon’s trusted people taking (often privately) prominent positions within the Unification Church hierarchy which all stem from the Unification Movement. The main (if not the only one) goal of this host of projects is to promote Moon’s ideas and to create an authority among the public worldwide. Moon himself, in a speech in Korea in April 2005, “revealed” his “coronation as the King of the world and Universal Unity”; and it was announced to the Russian Moonies gathered in Moscow on July 19, 2005, that Moon and his wife “are the ‘Savior’, ‘Messiah,’ and the King and Queen of humankind from now on.”

All this could have just been another classic case for psychiatry textbook’s megalomania section. However, Moon and his closest surrounding [leaders] continue to fulfill, with scary persistence, these plans for world domination over many decades. A huge social threat was posed by active penetration of the Moon cult in many Russian federal ministries or their institutions, including not only the Ministry of Education, but the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Defense Ministry, and both Houses of the Russian Parliament – the State Duma and the Federation Council – in the early 90s. In some cases, the same situation continues in Russia to this day.

▲ The book, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Peacemaker and Unifier, was given out in Russia.

The list of public officials and well-known politicians involved at different times and on various levels in Unification Movement events is indeed long and impressive. It consisted of both former and serving presidents at that time, prime ministers, ministers, prominent parliamentarians, diplomats, political party leaders, public figures, famous scientists, etc. Among them where politicians from the Soviet Union (later Russia), USA, UK, Japan, some South American countries, Belorussia, etc. Their direct involvement in Unification Movement events (mostly gigantic events) promoted Moon’s global image of being a “peacemaker and unifier”, whilst letting him, as a cult leader, camouflage the systematic breach of human rights in respect to ordinary cult members; that means essentially isolation from family, friends, strong blocks on information, cultists lost their former social status, they became completely financially dependent, were deprived of normal sleep, had food limitations, and were denied the free right to choose their own spouses.

Based on my personal experience of those years, and on documents which I had access to, including confidential ones, due to my position in the “Moon Church” hierarchy in Russia, I am able to disclose the nature and methods of the Moon cult’s penetration inside state, parliamentary and public structures.

It is crucial to understand how the Moon’s cult is so successful in involving the prominent politicians and in penetrating inside higher state institutions. To clarify this, let’s describe the situation as a whole. As far as I speak mostly about the political component of cult’s activity now, I’ll describe Moon’s projects in the political realm. I am sorry for the monotony of the list, but hopefully it will bring understanding.

The Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy, founded in 1982. It focuses on important domestic and foreign policy issues. Among politicians whose direct participation in some public activities of this Institute is confirmed documentarily, we see the following persons:

Dr. Eugene Rotow – former Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

Mr. Charles M. Lichenstein – former U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations.

Stephen J. Solargz – member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Eduardo Ulibarri – Editor-in-chief of the Costa Rica newspaper “La nacion Jose.”

CAUSA International, founded in 1980. According to Moonies, this organization’s aim was to criticize Marxism-Leninism, its ideological and political faults, human rights protection, struggle with totalitarianism, help in establishing societies of freedom. By the end of 80s, CAUSA International had conducted workshops in more than 30 countries. The similar goals were pursued by the International Federation for Victory over Communism organized by Moon in 1960s.

In this case the goal officially advocated by the cultists appeared attractive. However, it reveals the readiness of blatant intrusion in the inner affairs of countries with political regimes or ideological climates which are considered inappropriate by Moon. This alone sounds alarming and one wonders about the character and methods and activities of the Moon organizations scattered around the world.

An example of such a direction is Moon’s Citizens’ Federation for the Unification of the Fatherland established in 1987. Its official aim is the re-unification of South and North Korea and the creation of a “free and God fearing state”. Moonies didn’t conceal that they had been constructing House of Prayer for Re-unification and Educational Center for Re-unification “close to 38th parallel”. As is known, this is where the border lies between the two Korean states. One cannot deny that, regardless of the attitude to the North Korean regime, such construction works close to border look suspicious and could be considered to be direct sabotage.

The words said by Moon in his speeches to his followers sound quite ominous: “The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the world. (May 17, 1973)” and “The time will come, without my seeking it, that my words will almost serve as law. (March 24, 1974)”

Let’s look at Russia. Missioners of the Moon cult had started their underground activities in Russia back in 1970s. In those times this consisted of foreign missioners’ sporadic visits to USSR. They clandestinely recruited adherents. Since 1983 the Moonies’ penetration tactics have involved the insertion in our country of reliable and experienced members of the cult, specially trained for undercover work. They came as interpreters working for organizations operating jointly with foreign countries (like Peter Ladschtaetter, Austrian citizen), foreign language teachers in Moscow institutes (Monica Kunde, FRG citizen), or businessmen (US citizen Thomas Lorita), etc.

▲ Sun Myung Moon speaking during the opening plenary session of the Moscow World Media Conference on April 10, 1990.

1990 was the year that marked the Moonies’ shift to overt activities in our country. In April the Moonies managed to conduct the 11th International World Media Conference (under the cover of their World Media Association – and with considerable assistance by the then Novosti Publishing Agency). During the Conference, Moscow hosted an impressive descent of totalitarian cult leaders headed by “Reverend” Moon himself and his fourth wife Hak Ja Han Moon. Not only have they actively communicated with the Soviet community representatives and establishment, but were also granted an audience with President Gorbachev.

▲ Sun Myung Moon gives an interview to Mr. Albert Vlasov, chairman of the Novosti Press Agency, at the Moscow airport reception room.

The April meeting between Moon and Gorbachev opened the way for the broad and smooth cultists’ penetration in our country. Already in the 1990/91 academic year three thousand students and lecturers from Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tver, and other Soviet Union cities were taken to the USA for two week introductory workshops, and the cult covered all the expenses. The main part of the work with them in America was thoughtful intensive brainwashing to make them adhere to Moon’s ideas. It is no surprise that the first cadres of professional Russian managers for the Moon cult were recruited from these three thousand people who visited the States – Universities had done their best to select the best students for the trip.

Following the same method, the totalitarian cult tried to attract prominent representatives of our society’s elite: the USSR people’s deputies, scientists, journalists, etc. For example, in December 1990, 23 deputies participated in the American Leadership Conference in Washington, 50 deputies attended the next similar Conference conducted in February 1991, and the First World-wide Leadership Conference gathered about 200 USSR Supreme Soviet deputies from all 15 Soviet Republics. Those who visited the USA, or attended the series of so-called introductory workshops organized by the Unification Movement, which were conducted on a grand scale by Moonies in the former Soviet countries’ capitals, quite often have become the agents of influence for the totalitarian cult, “working off” attention paid to them and the big sums of dollars spent on them.

Of course, cultists have boosted their proselyting activities in USSR territories and later in Russia. In May 1992 they succeeded in registering the “Unification Church” at the Russian Federation Ministry of Justice; in April 1994 the Student Inter-university Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP) was created, and the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP) was registered in June 1994. Over 100,000 Russian citizens visited Moonie seminars during 1991-1993. Those seminars were held in the best Baltic and Crimean health centers. Mostly high school and university teachers, lecturers, and students were among those who attended Moonie seminars. Specialized seminars for Russian University Rectors and mass media workers were held in the summer of 1993 in Crimea. Cult leaders planned organizing special seminars for the Russian Federation Ministries of Defense and the Internal Affairs Ministry.

As a result of the planned cult activity, a certain circle of engaged people had appeared who were able, due to their official or social position, to lobby for the interests of the Moon cult. From the very onset, the Moonies have striven to establish a bond with the Russian Federation State Committee for Higher Education. A cultic program for sending dozens of Russian students to study for free at the University of Bridgeport (in Connecticut, USA) was used as a convenient ground – the Moonies had gained control through financial investment just before that. With all this going on, the Moon cult paid $80,000 for a-four year course for each student. Moonie leaders made a tricky move by allowing the candidates to be selected – guess by who – the  Russian Federation State Committee for Higher Education! Russia PR office Director gladly reports to his transoceanic patrons (and employers): “Sending more than 20 students from Russia to the University of Bridgeport due to the support of the Committee for Higher Education, we managed to guarantee them backing our course. We meet Mr. Bratkowsky and Mr. Guriev (former Vice President for RF State Committee) rather often, and they help us with invitations and multiple entry visas” (extract from Head of PR office report, February 20, 1993, section d) Committee for Higher Education).

Following their favorite principle of leaning on “prospective” members of society, the Moonies turned to the Russian Ministry of Education. Quite soon several people become friendly – ranging from department staff members to Vice Minister A.G. Asmolov, responsible for high schools. With direct support of the Ministry, the Moonies managed to conduct simultaneously over 15 workshops “Spiritual Renewal and High School Education in Russia” in November 1992. Workshops took place in the best Crimean health centers. 21 people from each 89 Russian Federation subjects have attended those workshops – all sponsored by the cult. At this workshop cultists pushed forward the infamous course “My World and I” – targeted at high schools. This course had been introduced at more than 2000 Russian high schools starting from September 1993. Republican Workshops for teachers of Tatarstan (Kazan), Kalmykia (Elista), and other republics and regions were conducted for mass introduction of this Moonie course in the schools.

Having strengthened their positions inside the system of the Education Ministry, the Moonies set out for Russian State force agencies. The General Department for Executing Punishments became the first victim of their penetration. With the support of Colonel Dolgikh – the then Head for GUIN MVD RF – the Moonies conducted several events on a federal scale. Introducing one of those workshops (in Obninsk, on July 7, 1993) Colonel Dolgikh claimed in a clear-cut military fashion addressing to Vice Heads of detention camps and Directors of schools attached to them, that from now on all pedagogical work must be conducted … according to Moon.

His subordinates were fast to react. In a short time, the Moonies had the opportunity to conduct several workshops for deviant juveniles, their parents and staff members in those correctional institutions; the Moscow regional Iksha correctional institution became one of the favorite grounds for the cultists. In 1994, the Moonies actively took part in the Home Affairs Ministry program “Teacher of the Year” at the Novotroitsk correctional institution, Mariy-El Republic. In 1995, similar event had taken place in the Kamyshin correctional institution in the Volgograd region.

The same introductory workshops were conducted for Home Affairs Ministry officers in 1994. The cult leaders were happy to receive at their disposal the second section of methodological book “From experience of learning and pedagogical work in correctional institutions schools. Part 3” issued by the General Department for Executing Punishments and Republican Institution for MVD officers Improving Qualification in 1995. The Moonies titled their section “My World and I – The Path to the Heart of an Inmate”.

The goal desired by Moon – who had created the gigantic network of his “World Empire” – was world domination, the real political power in bigger geographic areas – the bigger the better. A.V. Zhukov writes in the abstract to his PhD thesis on the Moonies’ activities in Russia: “the main striving of Moonies’ organization leaders remains the struggle for spiritual, economical, and political power worldwide…” (p.13). The direct confirmation of Moon’s secret thoughts are in his own confessions. Already in his speech “History and Our Responsibility,” delivered on July 16, 1978, Moon promises his followers: “In the future, the whole world will depend on us.”

With this in mind, the concrete moves made by the Moonies in Russia look scary. After the Home Affairs Ministry, they turned to the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense. Thus, some higher rank officers of Military Academies and representatives of different military state organizations – such as Association for military, political, and historical research, “Army and Society” association, Federation for Peace and Concord – came under the influence of Moon’s cult. Thus, the Moonies’ Conference devoted to elaboration of special learning program and textbook on so-called “Military ethics” for students of military academies has been conducted at the Military University MO RF (ex-Military Political Academy) in October 1994.

Inspired by the successful start of their penetration into the Russian Army, the Moonie leaders in Russia report to their transoceanic boss about the favorable situation for the further penetration into the army structures: “Religious boom in this country has created the wide field for activity of the Fund (i.e. “Inter-religious Educational Fund”). One of the examples is introducing the post for Army officers responsible for relationships between the Army and religious organizations. Such posts have existed in the Russian Army since July 1994, with some 90 officers appointed, but none of them clearly understands how to execute this duty. The same post will be introduced later for lower ranks, and hundreds of officers will need instruction and education in the area of religion and inter-religious relations” (Report on inter-religious work in Russia in 1995, written on November 1994, section 4). The cited fragment of the Moonies’ report makes one think not only about the skillful use of the current situation, but the striking familiarity with inner Army cadre procedure…

In November 1994, Moon’s Unification Church took part in a big Moscow Conference organized by the aforementioned Federation for Peace and Concord and Association for military, political, and historical research. The invitation to take part in the Conference arrived at the International Religious Fund addressed to P. Ladschtaedtter. It was an official letter from the Federation and the Association signed by their Heads. Following Conference outcomes, the book “Religions and Safety of Russia” was issued; where an article by Moon’s church leaders in Russia was published. They tried to impose on the military their own model for the spiritual nourishment of the soldiers, which supposed direct participation of Moonie cultic preachers.

Very indicative is the letter sent by the Army and Society Association to Moon personally as a commemoration of his church’s 40 years anniversary celebrated by the cultists in May 1994. I will cite some remarkable details of this message distinguished by an extremely loyal attitude to Moonism’s leader, and signed by the President of the Association, General-Major Tchaldymov. The General stressed that the Association, which he headed, “supported the Russian Government in reforming the Army in the spirit of the perestroika ideas started by Mikhail Gorbatchev”. The following phrases deserve to be reproduced verbatim: “Having been introduced to the ideas of your teaching by representatives of your Church in more detail, we have found our basic moral goals consonant with yours. On March 26-29 me and my colleague – the Head of “Army and Religion” research center – have been given the honor of participating in the Second Conference for World Peace (that is, Moon had covered all the expenses for their stay in the US for the Conference). Conference outcomes and your ideas “discussion allows for hope to join efforts with the Unification Church in the name of values common to all mankind.” There’s no need to comment on those statements by fortunately only a few representatives of the then Russian Generals.

The Moonie missioners approached the structures of the Foreign Affairs Ministry as well. For example, the RF Foreign Affairs Ministry Diplomatic Academy has conducted the International student Conference on leadership jointly with the CARP Moonie youth student organization on February 1995, at Moscow State University. The cult has sponsored Russian, US, Chinese, North and South Korean, and Japanese students’ participation in it. The tradition of bond between elite Russian Universities, which raise future Russian diplomats, and the Korean-American cult has put down roots and is still alive. There is information on the Internet about Moon’s upcoming visit to Moscow. Some well-known professors, such as Konstantin Dolgov and Vladimir Petrovsky, lecturing at those elite Universities had taken part in the International Leadership Conference conducted by Moon in New York on 10-14 September 2005, and then had read their reports at the Moscow Moonies’ office right after Jack Corley, the big cultic functionary.

Not only has Moon’s cult been purposefully and consistently penetrating inside the ministries and state bodies, but it also has been systematically advancing towards higher representative bodies of Russia and its Presidency. Of course, here Moonies couldn’t get the biggest figures, but nevertheless they have managed to involve some medium range officials who served as the source of effective intelligence and as agents of the cults influence, lobbying their interests; which have quite justified the cultists’ expenses. I’ve already published some facts about the involvement of Federation Council Consultant, a few deputies of the RF State Duma and their assistants, members of the RF President Administration Analytical Center for general politics, Council members for religious expertise, Professors of religious study, legal experts, and some experienced lawyers, functionaries of all sorts of human rights watch organizations, and other volunteers – who nevertheless mostly acted on commercial grounds.

The Moon cult has been actively penetrating inside Russian federal structures – this fact illustrates the hugely dangerous potential of this totalitarian cult.

Of course, the Moonies paid much attention to media, struggling for their positions in Russia. In this respect, very indicative are their bonds with the Media Empire of Gusinsky. In my publications I have already stated about the Moonies’ leaders’ contacts with Mr. Gusinsky as the MOST bank President, and about their contacts with Russian Video Company notorious for lawsuits. At that time the Moonies were regularly broadcasting programs (on Tuesdays – for one or two hours) for Moscow and neighboring regions due to an agreement with the then operating private Resonans radio station. Cultists planned to expand their radio broadcast to cover the European part of Russia or even the whole ex-USSR territory. The far-reaching plans of the totalitarian cult included creating its own Moscow based TV station with powerful modern equipment for satellite TV broadcast for “the whole ex-Soviet Union territory”. There were also ideas of creating a Russian project, which would have cooperated with similar Moon enterprises in the fields of TV, video and radio already operating in Japan and the USA (a report is available which was sent to Moon’s New York Headquarters about PR-activity in Russia for the time span of December 1992 – February 1993). There always were people ready to do favors for Moon in the Soviet and then Russian central television, in the biggest print media and publishing houses (in the early 90s among them were such serious companies as Izvestiya, Literaturnaya Gazeta, Respublica publishing house – former Politizdat).

Consequently to strengthening their positions in power and force bodies, in the mass media, having the necessary support from Moscow scientists and lawyers, the Moon cult tried to become a coordinator of all totalitarian cults active in Russia. I have passed a revealing paper some time ago – a letter from Vladimir Kuropyatnik, a leader of Scientology Church Moscow branch, which he had sent to Moon personally on February 27, 1996. The letter is dedicated to cooperation between the Moonies and Scientologists. I’ll cite one passage from this message: “We are very determined and we will make it no matter what. Your goals are very much our goals.”

Speaking about the harm of theMoonies’ activities to Russian society, we see the threat to national safety on three levels: individual, family, and society at large. I won’t be stopping on each of the three levels now, I’ll just state briefly that human personality becomes dissolved and loses its individual features, turning into a typical “Moonie” under systematical cultic brainwashing. Such a “zombified” agent is ready for mindlessly accepting any directive and implementing any order from a totalitarian cult leader. A person who has been hooked loses all his or her former social bonds, quite often drops out of professional activities, becomes totally dependent on cultic leaders who even choose a spouse for him or her.

Moonies have caused much harm to many Russian families. And many young people have left their homes and their parents under the influence of cultic propaganda. This has led to the creation of self-organized public parents’ committees for saving the young people. Those parents – whose children came under the conditional emotional influence of cultists – have once heard from their children that they were just “physical parents”, whereas “Reverend” Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han Moon, were their “true parents”. No less troublesome instances for parents happened when their children who were studying at university decided to abandon their studies – sometimes just before their graduation. Many of those young people abandoned both studies and their parents, leaving their families for the Moonie “centers.” Not only parents were losing their children, but young men were leaving their wives as well.

No less is the scale of Moonie expansion for the Russian society as a whole. Moonies have come to Russia in early 90s, ready to fill in the “ideological gap” which appeared after the breakdown of the former ideology. Profiting from people’s natural thirst for spirituality, from which they had been deprived for a long seventy years, Moon’s missionaries started invading this “market,” relying on his Empire’s multimillion dollar power and using the whole arsenal of methods of influence developed by cultists during the years of their existence outside Russia, feeling sort of “spiritual colonizers.”

No surprise that the aforementioned “Divine Principle” has presented modern Russian readers (the children and grandchildren of those who had paid with their blood and their lives for victory over fascism in the Second World War) with the following “historical discovery” which is an integral part of the new “messiah’s” teaching: the Second World War was a battle of “Heavenly troops” represented by the USA, Great Britain and France with “Satanic forces” – that is Germany, Japan and Italy. What has been said about the Russian peoples’ contribution to defeating the Nazi beast? Just that the Soviet Union had “happened to be on the Allies” side, led by the United States and England…”

I’d like to hope that all these facts cast light on Moonie activities, methods, and reveal the true nature their actions. This activity is aimed at world dominance. Of course, this maniac idea of Moon is doomed. But this doesn’t lessen the real danger of the cults’ penetration inside different countries state bodies.

__________________________________________________

ABC Religion & Ethics

Humanism and atheism as civil religions

Luke Bretherton

Tuesday 4 October 2011 10:26 am

In the early 1990s I met the then Russian minister for education. He alleged that a representative of Rev. Sun Myung Moon offered him $1 million as a personal gift if he would distribute textbooks extolling the virtues of the Unification Church in all Russian schools.

The response he related to this offer was unforgettable: “I will not sell the souls of Russia’s children.” However, the minister had the wisdom to know that while he could reject the Moonies offer, he was still left with the problem of how to teach virtue to Russia’s children.

As the conversation developed, it was clear that the minister was seeking some kind of textbook in order to accomplish the task of inculcating virtue. But he was perplexed by the need to find an alternative to the godless ideology of the Communism Russia was rejecting, but without thereby embracing a sectarian dogma. …

Luke Bretherton is Reader in Theology and Politics, and convenor of the Faith and Public Policy Forum at King’s College, London. His most recent book is Christianity and Contemporary Politics: The Conditions and Possibilities of Faithful Witness (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), and he is currently writing a book on community organizing and democratic citizenship.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/humanism-and-atheism-as-civil-religions/10101100

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Press Release by the Department of Communications, Nizhny Novgorod province, Russia

Bizarre entry to Moon’s orbit as empire fell and a cult flourished

In order to rule the world, Sun Myung Moon had to start with Korea.

Sun Myung Moon’s desire to take over the League for his own financial and political ends

Fraser Committee Report on Moon org.:  “these violations were related to the overall goals of gaining temporal power.”

Sun Myung Moon was eager to infiltrate the European Parliament

Group Founded by Sun Myung Moon Preaches Sexual Abstinence in China

Sun Myung Moon’s theology used to control members

Sun Myung Moon: The Emperor of the Universe

Sun Myung Moon organization activities in Central & South America

Sun Myung Moon’s One-World Theocracy

#Russia #Unification Church #Lev Semenov #Sun Myung Moon #Hak Ja Han #Family Federation for World Peace and Unification #world domination

[militant-holy-knight]

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "has earned the title of Caliph" according to Turkish journalist Abdurrahman Dilipak.

Erdogan is the head of NATO's second-largest army; he has spies throughout Europe through a network of mosques, associations and cultural centers; he has brought his country to the top of the world rankings for the number of imprisoned journalists and has shut the mouth of German comedians with the threat of legal action. By keeping migrants in Turkish refugee camps, he controls immigration to Europe.

The worse Erdogan behaves, the greater his weight in Europe. In a 2015 meeting, Erdogan reportedly was "openly mocking" European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and other "senior European leaders", as Juncker asked Erdogan to consider how he was treated "like a prince" at a Brussels summit. According to George Friedman:

"Turkey now is the 17th largest economy in the world, it is larger than Saudi Arabia, it has an army and military capability that is probably the best in Europe, besides the UK and they could beat the Germans in an afternoon and the French in an hour if they showed up."

Turkey's 2018 military budget increased to $19 billion, 24% higher than 2017, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Erdogan has placed Turkey's military -- once a bastion of Turkish nationalism and secularism -- under his political authority. While Europe is pacifist and refuses to invest in its own security or, like Germany, support NATO's budget, Turkey is belligerent.

Ever since his Justice and Development Party (AKP) became Turkey's dominant political force in 2002, for Erdogan, elevating the public role of Islam has been more than a slogan. At public gatherings, the Turkish president has made the "rabia", a hand gesture of four fingers raised and the thumb hidden, to protest the overthrow of Egypt's Islamist then President Mohamed Morsi by Egypt's military. Erdogan evidently sees himself as a global Islamic leader with national elections to win. Through four million Turkish Muslims in Germany and vast communities in the Netherlands, France, Austria and beyond, Erdogan does indeed have enormous influence in Europe.

As a leader of the Ummah [Islamic community], Erdogan challenged the leader of Christianity. In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a famous lecture at Germany's University of Regensburg, where he diagnosed Islam as inherently flawed. During his address, the Pope quoted a 14th Century Christian emperor:

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

The Muslim world erupted in anger. In an apology tour of Erdogan's Turkey, Benedict XVI reversed his firm position of just two years before and supported Turkey's joining the European Union. The year before becoming Pope, then-Cardinal Ratzinger had said that Turkey should never join the European Union. "Europe is a cultural continent, not a geographical one," Ratzinger said to Le Figaro.

"It is its culture that gives it a common identity. The roots that have formed it, that have permitted the formation of this continent, are those of Christianity. [...] In this sense, throughout history Turkey has always represented another continent, in permanent contrast with Europe. There were the wars against the Byzantine empire, the fall of Constantinople, the Balkan wars, and the threat against Vienna and Austria. That is why I think it would be an error to equate the two continents."

Ratzinger said the something similar in another instance, that "Turkey in Europe is a mistake":

"The European continent has its own Christian soul and Turkey, which is not the Ottoman Empire in its extension but still constitutes its central core, has another soul, naturally to be respected".

Both Benedict and Erdogan understood that Islamic Turkey has been the nemesis of Christian Europe -- from October 7, 1571, when Europe inflicted a catastrophic defeat on the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto, until September 12, 1683, when Europe again defeated the Turks at the outskirts of Vienna, the city they had historically tried to capture as a base for the conquest of the rest of Europe.

It was in the half-century that followed the fall of Constantinople in 1453 -- the great Eastern Christian center, whose collapse marked the end of the Byzantine Empire -- that Christian Europe started to expel the Ottoman Turks from the continent. Now it seems as if Erdogan, by other means, is trying to pursue a historic Turkish revenge on Europe. Erdogan is seemingly using this ideology of conquest to cement his internal and external power.

Erdogan's most powerful tool in his relations with Europe has been migrants. "You cried out when 50,000 refugees were at the Kapikule border", Erdogan said in 2016, referring to the border with Bulgaria. "You started asking what you would do if Turkey would open the gates. Look at me — if you go further, those border gates will be open. You should know that".

Last month, during his military operation against the Kurds, Erdogan repeated the same threat:

"Hey EU, wake up. I say it again: if you try to frame our operation there as an invasion, our task is simple: we will open the doors and send 3.6 million migrants to you."

Europe, unable to control its own borders, is stalling. Since he came to power, Erdogan, in a building spree, has reportedly built 17,000 mosques (one fifth of Turkey's total). The largest is located in Camlica, the Asian shore of Istanbul. From Mali to Moscow, by way of Cambridge and Amsterdam, Erdogan is ceaselessly active in "diplomatizing" his religion. The "biggest mosque in the Balkans" is Turkish and is located in Tirana, Albania. "The largest in West Africa" was built by Erdogan in Accra, Ghana. "The largest in Central Asia" he built in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The "largest mosque in Europe" will be his new Turkish mosque in Strasbourg. He is planning to open Turkish schools in France.

Erdogan has empowered Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), which now has 120,000 employees and a budget the size of twelve other ministries combined. In 2004, with 72,000 employees, the Diyanet was about half that size. This is the religious network with which Erdogan has a foot in European affairs.

In Germany, Turkey controls 900 mosques out of a total of 2,400. These Islamic centers not only serve members of the Turkish diaspora, but also stop them from assimilating into German society. Speaking with Turks in Germany, Erdogan urged them not to assimilate, and called the assimilation of migrants in Europe "a crime against humanity". He apparently wants them to remain part of Turkey and the Ummah, the global Muslim community.

Last year, Austrian authorities announced the closure of several Turkish-controlled mosques after "children in a Turkish-financed mosque re-enacting the first world war battle of Gallipoli." According to The Guardian:

As many as 60 Turkish imams and their families face expulsion from Austria and seven mosques are due to be closed under a clampdown on what the government has called "political Islam".

Austria's chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said the country could no longer put up with "parallel societies, political Islam and radicalisation," which he said had "no place in our country".

Erdogan, however, knows that against Europe, numbers are on his side. "Make not three, but five children. Because you are the future of Europe," Erdogan told the Turkish diaspora. Eurostat, the official statistics agency of the European Union, shows that in terms of birthrates, Turkey is ahead of Europe. In one year in Turkey, more than 1.2 million children were born, while only 5.07 million children were born in all of the EU's 28 member states. What would Europe look like if 80 million Turks joined the EU?

Already in 1994, when Erdogan was campaigning to become the mayor of Istanbul, he talked about "the second conquest of Istanbul". (The first conquest was the defeat of Christian Constantinople in 1453.) According to the exiled Turkish novelist Nedim Gürsel, Erdogan, when he was mayor of Istanbul, took it upon himself to commemorate the Turkish conquest of Constantinople. "Celebrating a conquest that took place more than five centuries ago may seem anachronistic, I would even say absurd, to European leaders", Gürsel writes. "For Erdogan, the capture of Constantinople is another pretext for challenging the West and giving back to its people its repressed pride". Last January, Erdogan chose the tomb of an Ottoman forebear to pledge a victory over Syria.

"You will not turn Istanbul into Constantinople", Erdogan said after the Christchurch massacre. Erdogan is obsessed with history and takes it far more seriously than Europeans do. "We will change Hagia Sophia's name from a museum to a mosque", Erdogan said earlier this year. The Hagia Sophia, built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in AD 537, was for 900 years the greatest cathedral in Christendom – until 1453 when the Ottoman Empire defeated the Byzantines and took over Constantinople; then it became one of Islam's greatest mosques. In 1935, President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk turned it into a museum; Erdogan has pledged to turn it back into a mosque, and recited a Muslim prayer in the formerly Christian site.

Erdogan has also been expanding Turkey beyond its borders – starting with Cyprus, the Greek Islands, Suakin Island (Sudan) and Syria. "We are a big family of 300 million people from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China", Erdogan said in a recent speech from Moldova. The borders of Turkey, he stated in Izmir, span "from Vienna to the shores of the Adriatic Sea, from East Turkistan (China's autonomous region of Xinjiang) to the Black Sea".

To expand his country's influence, Erdogan is also using Turkey's military. "Not since the days of the Ottoman Empire has the Turkish military had such an extensive global footprint", the journalist Selcan Hacaoglu reports. The Turkish-American political scientist Soner Cagaptay titled his new book, Erdogan's Empire.

Mosques, migrants and the military are now Erdogan's new weapons in his campaign against the West.

#news #politics #history #terrorism

[brucesterling]

*I like the alarmingly tiny little “home” below the vast futuristic AI there.

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-1893_en.htm

European Commission - Press release Artificial intelligence: Commission takes forward its work on ethics guidelines Brussels, 8 April 2019

The Commission presents today next steps for building trust in artificial intelligence by taking forward the work of the High-Level Expert Group.

Building on the work of the group of independent experts appointed in June 2018, the Commission is today launching a pilot phase to ensure that the ethical guidelines for Artificial Intelligence (AI) development and use can be implemented in practice. The Commission invites industry, research institutes and public authorities to test the detailed assessment list drafted by the High-Level Expert Group, which complements the guidelines.

Today's plans are a deliverable under the AI strategy of April 2018, which aims at increasing public and private investments to at least €20 billion annually over the next decade, making more data available, fostering talent and ensuring trust.

Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip said: “I welcome the work undertaken by our independent experts. The ethical dimension of AI is not a luxury feature or an add-on. It is only with trust that our society can fully benefit from technologies. Ethical AI is a win-win proposition that can become a competitive advantage for Europe: being a leader of human-centric AI that people can trust.”

Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel added: “Today, we are taking an important step towards ethical and secure AI in the EU. We now have a solid foundation based on EU values and following an extensive and constructive engagement from many stakeholders including businesses, academia and civil society. We will now put these requirements to practice and at the same time foster an international discussion on human-centric AI."

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can benefit a wide-range of sectors, such as healthcare, energy consumption, cars safety, farming, climate change and financial risk management. AI can also help to detect fraud and cybersecurity threats, and enables law enforcement authorities to fight crime more efficiently. However, AI also brings new challenges for the future of work, and raises legal and ethical questions.

The Commission is taking a three-step approach: setting-out the key requirements for trustworthy AI, launching a large scale pilot phase for feedback from stakeholders, and working on international consensus building for human-centric AI.

1.Seven essentials for achieving trustworthy AI

Trustworthy AI should respect all applicable laws and regulations, as well as a series of requirements; specific assessment lists aim to help verify the application of each of the key requirements:

Human agency and oversight: AI systems should enable equitable societies by supporting human agency and fundamental rights, and not decrease, limit or misguide human autonomy.

Robustness and safety: Trustworthy AI requires algorithms to be secure, reliable and robust enough to deal with errors or inconsistencies during all life cycle phases of AI systems.

Privacy and data governance: Citizens should have full control over their own data, while data concerning them will not be used to harm or discriminate against them.

Transparency: The traceability of AI systems should be ensured. Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness: AI systems should consider the whole range of human abilities, skills and requirements, and ensure accessibility.

Societal and environmental well-being: AI systems should be used to enhance positive social change and enhance sustainability and ecological responsibility. Accountability: Mechanisms should be put in place to ensure responsibility and accountability for AI systems and their outcomes.

2. Large-scale pilot with partners

In summer 2019, the Commission will launch a pilot phase involving a wide range of stakeholders. Already today, companies, public administrations and organisations can sign up to the European AI Alliance and receive a notification when the pilot starts. In addition, members of the AI high-level expert group will help present and explain the guidelines to relevant stakeholders in Member States.

3. Building international consensus for human-centric AI

The Commission wants to bring this approach to AI ethics to the global stage because technologies, data and algorithms know no borders. To this end, the Commission will strengthen cooperation with like-minded partners such as Japan, Canada or Singapore and continue to play an active role in international discussions and initiatives including the G7 and G20. The pilot phase will also involve companies from other countries and international organisations.

Next steps

Members of the AI expert group will present their work in detail during the third Digital Day in Brussels on 9 April. Following the pilot phase, in early 2020, the AI expert group will review the assessment lists for the key requirements, building on the feedback received. Building on this review, the Commission will evaluate the outcome and propose any next steps.

Furthermore, to ensure the ethical development of AI, the Commission will by the autumn 2019: launch a set of networks of AI research excellence centres; begin setting up networks of digital innovation hubs; and together with Member States and stakeholders, start discussions to develop and implement a model for data sharing and making best use of common data spaces.

Background

The Commission is facilitating and enhancing cooperation on AI across the EU to boost its competitiveness and ensure trust based on EU values. Following its European strategy on AI, published in April 2018, the Commission set up the High-Level Expert Group on AI, which consists of 52 independent experts representing academia, industry, and civil society. They published a first draft of the ethics guidelines in December 2018, followed by a stakeholder consultation and meetings with representatives from Member States to gather feedback. This follows the coordinated plan with Member States to foster the development and use of AI in Europe, also presented in December 2018.

For more information

Communication: “Building trust in human-centric artificial intelligence”

AI ethics guidelines

Factsheet artificial intelligence

High-Level Expert Group on AI

European AI Alliance

Artificial Intelligence: A European Perspective

Artificial Intelligence Watch