Well, this is going to escalate quickly
Belarus asks for Russian intervention
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Well, this is going to escalate quickly
There must be some art to rigging elections.
Some sort of sweet spot to make it look like it might have been a genuine result, but to also cement the power of the supremo. A margin for the dictator that's too big just makes it too obvious he cheated, but a margin too small can give the opposition hope he might be overthrown. I mean, Lukachenko clearly made the former mistake with such an absurdly large victory it was kind of insulting.
More to the point, why do these guys even have elections when everyone knows they cheat?
Some sort of sweet spot to make it look like it might have been a genuine result, but to also cement the power of the supremo. A margin for the dictator that's too big just makes it too obvious he cheated, but a margin too small can give the opposition hope he might be overthrown. I mean, Lukachenko clearly made the former mistake with such an absurdly large victory it was kind of insulting.
More to the point, why do these guys even have elections when everyone knows they cheat?
Euromaidan reflected a simple reality that Ukraine was getting just about nowhere under the old post-Soviet trade bloc. It has had I think one of, if not the, worst growth rates of any ex-Soviet state. Was it really to be expected to stick with that, especially whilst looking at the huge gains made by the Baltic states and eastern Europe? Of course, in the sense that Ukraine became worse off for a time, that's mostly because Russia effectively invaded it, twice (albeit both under the guise of separatist movements).
The people of Bealrus are probably waking up to the same reality that Ukrainians have, that if things continue as is, mostly they're just falling further and further behind their neighbours. Belarus had a GDP/capita about the same as Lithuania and Poland in 1990. Now it's about a third of those countries: its people have surely noticed and want to ask some difficult questions for Lukachenko to answer. I'm sure Russia will intervene to prop him up, militarily if required.
These are growing pains that Ukraine has already suffered and Belarus has a similar right to choose. But I am not remotely sympathetic to the idea that somehow it's the US and EU's fault that Russia offers no advantage to its neighbours andt wants to keep them under control through political suppression and military force.
That's bad news for Lukachenko. Its not exactly a secret that Russia wants to annex Belarus and there are in fact rumors that Putin's scheme for dictatorship depends on it. He's now making himself dependent on a figure that wants to remove him from power.
Russia invaded twice, and twice the signatories of the Budapest memorandum (like the UK) did jack shit to stop it. You can't trust western powers to support you. Keep your nukes close-by.
Poland and the Baltic states by extension benefited from the EU moving business there (because of their low wages and flexible labor laws compared to central block nations like France and Belgium). EU companies moving their production to the east exploited them, but also raised their standard of living. Russia can't invest into its satellite states because it's much poorer.
I'd support stability and safety over perceived economic advantages. The same with the Ukraine, the EU only looks to exploit it, tap its resources and attract cheap labor. It's a matter of choice, really, between two equal routes.
Western powers aren't going to start a war with Russia unless they have to, no. Russia's strategy was to present it as insurrection, leaving their military mostly formally out of it: Russian troops were presented as "volunteers" acting on their own initiative to help Ukrainian 'patriots'. The West in return basically reciprocated in supplying arms and support to Ukraine's government (hence the infamous Trump impeachment over threats to withhold that aid). Formally sending Western military in there for action would have been deeply provocative.
Ukraine wasn't stable, though. Neither, evidently, is Belarus. They are not stable because so many of their people were/are unhappy with the status quo. Saying they should remain tied to the decaying hulk that is Russia is merely ensuring that they go down with it. Secondly, economic advancement IS a form of stability. Few populations can observe other, similar, nearby countries doing well without becoming unhappy that they aren't.
I'm not bothered by companies moving operations to lower wage eastern European states either - I wouldn't call that "exploitation" unless there were something particularly unpleasant or unfair about the treatment of workers (such as in sweatshops) - but the EU has regulations providing widespread protections for workers, so this concern is greatly minimised. What it achieves to a substantial degree is mutually beneficial growth for both them and us, without the same risks of empowering potential geopolitical adversaries such as moving production to China would entail.
You don't know. You repeat stuff journalists disseminated for your convenience. The impeachment over the alleged tit-for-tat discovered by a "whistleblower" were made with illegal wiretaps. It's a joke. US has troops in Ukraine atm.
New York Army National Guard Soldiers depart state for Ukraine training mission
NIAGARA FALLS AIR RESERVE STATION, NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y.-- Two hundred and twenty New York Army National Guard Soldiers departed from Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station for a nine-month mission to train Ukrainian Soldiers on Monday afternoon, Oct. 2.
www.army.mil
They are unstable because they were destabilized. Both this and Maidan were instigated from outside, pushed with foreign agents. CCP caught the HK agents, Ukraine wasn't able to. Russia is a "decaying hulk" but so is the EU, especially the UK. German car manufacturers are getting slaughtered wholesale and demolished by american and chinese firms. The engine of the EU is running out of fuel.
Do Polish workers get the same benefits as French workers? Then when a French company moves its production to Poland, and doesn't give them the same benefits as French, it is exploitation.
I suspect if you pretend, even a little, it makes it easy for those who want to be pretended to. Everyone knew Trump was lying about everything before the election, lots of people decided to believe him anyway.
I guess that ends Lukashenka's line balancing act. I dunno how a man that clearly wanted to be a president for life will feel about becoming... what exactly? A head of "autonomous" state unionized with Russian Federation?
France is a wealthier country than Poland, and therefore can afford higher benefits.
Here's a funny example. Couple of years ago Emmanuel Macron, in fact, tried to push for equalizing the benefits provided to the delegated workers in the EU.
In that specific case, Polish transport firms operating in France would have to ensure the exact same financial benefits for their drivers as their french counterparts. That of course ensured protest... from the Poles. Macron's proposals were treated as protectionist, since they'd effectively lower competetiveness of polish companies.
Now on paper, higher benefits seem like a good deal, and in the case of every EU country being roughly on the same wealth per capita level they'd be in practice. But since costs of living are also lower in Poland, the current deal is more preferable, for the time being.
To elaborate on that, while Belarus and Ukraine are both post-soviet republics, their populace's grievances don't exactly come from the same place(objective factors, like the economic strength nowwithstanding). Post-communist Ukraine witnessed growth of the oligarch class, not dissimilar to Russia's, while on Belarus AFAIK that was put to halt once Lukashenka came to power. OTOH Ukraine went through 4 presidents since gaining independence in '91 to euromaidan in 2014, while Lukashenka's been reigning over Belarus for 26 years now. Simple material fatigue would be an important factor in the nation being fed up with him.
No.
France is a wealthier country than Poland, and therefore can afford higher benefits.
Here's a funny example. Couple of years ago Emmanuel Macron, in fact, tried to push for equalizing the benefits provided to the delegated workers in the EU.
In that specific case, Polish transport firms operating in France would have to ensure the exact same financial benefits for their drivers as their french counterparts. That of course ensured protest... from the Poles. Macron's proposals were treated as protectionist, since they'd effectively lower competetiveness of polish companies.
Now on paper, higher benefits seem like a good deal, and in the case of every EU country being roughly on the same wealth per capita level they'd be in practice. But since costs of living are also lower in Poland, the current deal is more preferable, for the time being.
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Well, there's also an option C: Bail and seek refugee in a friendly country(in this case it'd also be Russia), and leave yours to ensuring chaos.
Though, so far, he doesn't seem to consider that.
I do know, because it was so utterly undeniable that even when the Republican senators voted to save their president, they did so on the rationale "He totally did it, we just don't think it was serious enough" or "he totally did it, it's just our voters don't want us to can him".
Are you now suggesting we should have started a nuclear war over Ukraine? That's quite some escalation you've moved on to. What other parts of the world should we nuke because they looked at us funny?
lol. I'm sure the USA and EU encouraged Ukraine towards better relations, but it hardly needed a secret conspiracy of intelligence service trickery. The Ukrainians were unhappy enough in the first place, and they were offered a better deal.
HK agents? You mean their own populace? Campaigning to defend the rights they had under British rule, which China signed up to guarantee by treaty 20 ago and is now reneging on?
Volkswagen and Daimler are doing well. Renault looks like it's doing fine. FIAT isn't, but oh well.
The EU is okay. It's gently and unspectacularly progressing on. But at least it's a place which, compared to Russia, its citizens get paid far more, with the security of a halfway competent legal system, and a political system that isn't indistinguishable from its organised crime syndicates. There's a reason Russians emigrate to the EU in substantial quantities, where EU citizens don't emigrate to Russia. That said, it'll be nice to visit Russia: it's got some great tourist stuff to see.
Explotation of whom? They're giving Poles jobs, and those jobs have helped lead to huge increases in personal, and thus national, growth. The West gains from investment profits and cheaper goods. The growing incomes of eastern Europe means they have more to buy stuff, including goods and services from Western Europe. There are issues and some losers, obviously, but overall it's a win-win for everyone.
Utterly undeniable, sure. It's not like most of the crap about Trump is intelligence community fabrications anyway. Golden showers and Cambridge analytica, DNC and RNC "hacks", it's like a spy thriller. They've been feeding journalists garbage for years now. There aren't any real journalists left anymore. The last good one died in a car bomb in Malta.
The signatories were asked to protect the sovereignty of Ukraine. They did nothing but exploit it. EU is toothless as ever - in Cyprus, whose land is occupied by Turkey, and now here. I mentioned they were nuclear powers because they were all nuclear weapons carriers in the NPT, and guaranteed Ukraine's peace in exchange for giving up its nukes. Ukraine could have kept their nuclear capabilities and become a regional power. I didn't imply they ought to have started a nuclear war. You go for the obvious extreme which I didn't even mention. What worth does the word of the UK has now that it had abandoned Ukraine against Russia? For what, peace? Chamberlain did it for peace in Europe. Appeasement never works.
The Ukrainians weren't offered a better deal, they were destabilized, from outside. They were thrust into the west - their president was ousted violently, and their country was thrown into chaos. Here is another example - the USA and UK, or the west in general, had nothing to do with what had happened in Bolivia, and it was an entirely internal issue.
CCP caught foreign agitators in the HK. This doesn't require more than an internet search to find. Whether you choose to believe them or not, that's on you.
I'm talking about Germany.
German car industry expects more job cuts in 2020
Germany's main automobile industry body said on Wednesday it expects global car sales to fall by 5% this year, the steepest drop since the financial crisis, and warned of more job cuts in 2020 as a result.
www.reuters.com
Could 400,000 German car industry jobs go? – DW – 07/09/2020
The car industry is in apparent decline in Germany. Some estimates predict that half its 800,000 jobs will be gone by 2030. The industry disagrees with that estimate, but the road ahead looks bumpy.
www.dw.com
Mercedes-Benz says it will focus on high-end cars to hike profits
Daimler <DAIGn.DE> Chief Executive Ola Kaellenius on Thursday said the company's Mercedes-Benz luxury brand will seek to develop its high-end luxury vehicle segment as a way to hike profits.
www.reuters.com
Germany’s Luxury Car Makers Lose their Shine
After decades of churning out huge profits and setting the standard for premium cars, Germany’s top luxury auto makers are on the retreat, hurt by increased competition, allegations of foul play and tech-heavy upstarts.
www.wsj.com
Russia won't annex Belarus. It needs it, and Lukashenko had been trolling them for two decades. Belarus operates a socialist economy. It doesnt have oligarchs because it never privatized its assets. There is no corona in Belarus, and they officially laugh about it. No masks, no restrictions, nothing. BTW Belarus has a large import-export industry. Ever since the Russian sanctions on EU food, Belarus had been exporting oranges, apples and shrimps to Russia. I can just imagine massive packing facilities, with packaging waste from the EU stacked sky-high.
eh, whatever. I am conversing with different people, different beliefs. It's very unkind of me to forget it and pin this belief on you.
I've wondered that. I can only conclude that it's probably a lot less obvious to the people living in the country itself than it is to outside observers. Inside the borders, their external news sources are tightly controlled, and the average people they interact with day-to-day are likelier to be outwardly supportive of the government (sometimes out of fear).
Trump is, genuinely, a deeply erratic, unethical, igonrant and temperamentally unstable president. He is fertile ground for this stuff, both the true and the false.
A country having nukes means nothing more than that other countries need to be very circumspect about attacking it. They don't make the economy better, they're no use for aggressively extorting concessions, they're useless for trade. It's not that having nukes makes anyone a power, it's that being a power tends to inspire a country to get nukes.
About as much as ever. There's a reason the term "perfidious Albion" has been around for centuries, after all.
No, they were pissed off with Yanukovich. This is a man who owned a mansion where a single chandelier was worth more than his entire lifetime's salary. He was obviously as corrupt as they come, and very heavily connected to Russia, plus whatever other sins. Ukraine wanted and had been promised a really good trade deal with the EU that had been worked on for years. And then after all that hard work, before it was due to be signed, Russia leaans on Yanukovich and he abruptly cans the deal.
Then he just fled the country... off to Russia to live in stupendous luxury off his embezzled millions.
I'm not sure why you're pouring skepticism on the Western media (as above), but taking the CCP at their word. Well, you might of course be a proud Chinese patriot, it's not like I know.
I'd only read one of these articles suggests any particular medium-long term problem for the German car industry. Lots jobs is bad in a certain sense, but then automation has been managing that for years, and VW is still a huge company.
I think Moscow's only particular interest in Belarus and Ukraine is that they both accept Moscow is the boss. Sure, it doesn't want to annex them or whatever. It wants compliant buffer states between itself and the EU. But that also precludes them forging links they might want to progress.
A country having nukes means it can't be bullied or invaded. Nukes would have prevented what happened to Ukraine. It was replaced with a useless guarantee.
Again you move the topic - it's about the safety of Ukraine, not its economy, that the guarantee was meant for, and it replaced the nukes.
Western media is a joke. Last good journalist died in a car bomb in Malta, rest her soul.
Malta car bomb kills Panama Papers journalist
Daphne Caruana Galizia, a blogger whose investigations focused on corruption, was described as a ‘one-woman WikiLeaks’
www.theguardian.com
Three journalists leaving CNN after retracted article
Three CNN journalists, including the executive editor in charge of a new investigative unit, have resigned after the publication of a Russia-related article that was retracted.
money.cnn.com
Opinion | I Was a Counterterrorism Chief. Trump Knew What Russia Was Doing. (Published 2020)
Neglecting aggression by Vladimir Putin inevitably invites more of it.
Trump Got Written Briefing in February on Possible Russian Bounties, Officials Say (Published 2020)
The investigation into Russia’s suspected operation is said to focus in part on the killings of three Marines in a truck bombing last year, officials said.
Trump Still Defers to Putin, Even as He Dismisses U.S. Intelligence and the Allies (Published 2020)
Say this about President Trump’s approach to Moscow: It’s been consistent.
Taliban denies accepting bounties from Russia to kill US troops
The Taliban denied a report that it accepted bounties from Russian intelligence in exchange for killing US and NATO soldiers.
nypost.com
Professionalism in the field is a fucking joke. I'd trust Al-Jazeira and RTV before CNN. This is a hyperbole, I wouldn't trust any single news source, especially those parroting reuters or AP.
Regarding HK and the rest of it, I feel like you're purposefully trying to disagree with me on every point without even trying to entertain it.
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