— For the past five months, Swedish television SVT has had access to a large quantity of classified documents detailing Danske Bank’s dealings with Swedbank. There were a large number of transactions between the banks’ clients between 2007 and 2015.
The analysis reveals that 50 of Swedbank’s customers that show several risk indicators of suspected money laundering have funneled a total of USD 5.8 billion through the bank.
Little — or lesser — birdies (BackChannels, aloft on small wings and little nourishment refers to itself) have been known to tweet first thing in the morning.
The strangest thing about this is that Roger Waters learned about the Branson-backed Cucuta concert by reading The Daily Mail. (Full disclosure: I listened to a *lot* of Pink Floyd in highschool) https://t.co/DldDtXS7Tf
Perhaps this whole rig x era x technology is the dark side of the moon, for we're all here meeting. @rogerwaters Background: https://t.co/GGBKh8dnq0 The dissolving of the Soviet Union 26 years ago (Dec. 25, 1991) left behind phantoms in conflicts and kleptocratic dictatorships.
Reheat the coffee; warm up a slice of caramel cake; watch that Swedbank documentary — what can a poor boy to do but to play online as a street fighting — c’mon you Phantoms of the Soviet! — ham?
“Mick” 1969
Right spirit, but (oy) what a long, strange trip . . .
The whole liberal world order appears to be falling apart – nothing is as it once was. When Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and started the bloody conflict in Eastern Ukraine in 2014, many considered him to be the major cause of global destabilisation. Nobody could have known that just a few years later the US President, of all people, would seriously challenge the current international order. Donald Trump questions free trade just like he questions the Western set of values or NATO. This has massive consequences – not just for us Europeans.
Remarks by German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger covered a full palette of issues at this month’s Munich Security Conference, but as he has noted without defining the most central problem, i.e., that of placing the Feudal world in the future of the Modern one, an American President (“of all people”), a feudal lord himself in his more familiar domains, has come to lead a part of the charge right back into a bloody and barbaric western civilizational past.
Mike Pence, now associated with a glowing encomium about his leader that brought no applause — ” . . . I bring greetings from the 45th President of the United States of America, President Donald Trump” –> dead silence — delivered a bit of a mashup for the “Inaugural John McCain Ceremony”
Politico (“Munich Insecurity Conference”), caught a comment on Turkey that seems to BackChannels positively surreal given the distance President Erdogan has created between the potential of a democratic Turkey and the reality of an Islamist sultanate:
“We will not stand idly by while NATO allies purchase weapons from our adversaries,” he said, in an apparent reference to Turkey’s plan to buy the Russian S-400 missile defense system. “We cannot ensure the defense of the West if our allies grow dependent on the East.”
Pence may have been taking sideways aim at Nord Stream 2, a perhaps more delicate matter than the selling of Russian defense missiles to a “NATO alley” for the purpose, one might suppose, of defending itself from the seller.
Let’s start with “East v West”, i.e., “Moscow v Washington” -> “Feudal Absolutism (and Totalitarianism) v Modern Democratic Liberalism” -> and on this blog, “Medieval v Modern”:
As Venezuela’s political crisis is unfolding, the unwavering support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his allies for the embattled Nicolas Maduro has been a wide-discussed theme in international media. For some, by standing by Maduro against the “U.S.-backed coup ”, Turkey is only paying its respects to the Venezuelan president, who expressed solidarity with Erdoğan during the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016. Interestingly, Venezuela was among the first countries to back Turkey during the botched coup attempt in Turkey. Maduro’s immediate support to Erdoğan came at a time the Western allies of Ankara were slow to show their reaction over the coup attempt.
What in the hell is Turkey doing in NATO (FB Presence in Part)?
You tell me.
Those dictatorships!
They know how to hang together.
God willing.
For the time being, some Venezuelans have figured out that money has meaning, and they have gone to ground, literally, to dig up gold that they sell to the Venezuelan state (who else?) and the state sells on to . . . Turkey!
Facilitating the transport of gold is Turkish Airlines, it said, noting, ”On New Year’s Day, 2018, Venezuela’s central bank began shipping gold to Turkey with a $36 million air shipment of the metal to Istanbul. It came just weeks after a visit by Maduro to Turkey. Shipments last year reached $900 million, according to Turkish government data and trade reports.”
— appears to have decided to start over with the Treasure of the Sierra Madre — i.e., with some portion of the people digging up wealth — gold — from out of the ground.
Hey, it’s money.
Oh — it’s also capitalism.
From Business Live:
The scale of Venezuela’s current social, economic and political crisis is so severe it is difficult to comprehend. Hyper-inflation has decimated the national currency and crippled the economy. Oil production — which accounts for 95% of the country’s export revenues — has halved since Maduro took power in 2013 and the industry has been further weakened by the collapse of the price of oil in 2014.
In 2018, the economy contracted by 18% and by the end of the year inflation had soared to 1-million percent. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted inflation will increase to 10-million percent by the latter half of 2019. These are dizzying figures but they only reflect one part of the complex situation Venezuela is facing.
Yada yada yada — fodder for dozens to hundreds to thousands of articles avoiding reference to the Soviet / Post-Soviet disaster now 26 years past the dissolving of Russia’s Communist passion play — and the world’s tragedy.
Off the cuff —
Zimbabwe tells the story of a dictatorship that personally reintroduced cholera to its people — and Mugabe made it possibly by denying a rival funds for sanitation chemicals (you may look that one up yourself unless the editor here goes all OCD on you).
Syria — with the help of Moscow and Tehran, Bashar al-Assad has succeeded in barrel bombing half of his state (or more) into deeply depopulated oblivion. While one may thank Mother Nature — oh, and ourselves — for the global warming damaging Syria’s agricultural economy, the necessity, eventual of mass migration may have been met with kindness and international cooperation.
BC guesses not.
Where else would you like to go in the still medieval worlds of “political absolutism”?
Yemen?
Posted by France 24 English, November 21, 2018
BC imagines power quite intoxicating if it can do to innocents what is depicted in the above video.
MOSCOW/LONDON (Reuters) – Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro has sought OPEC support against U.S. sanctions imposed on his country’s oil industry, citing their impact on oil prices and potential risks for other members of the producer group.
The Organisation for the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and top oil producer but non-member Russia will not create a formal combined body as originally planned, Reuters hasreported. In a draft document, the countries said they aim to set up an alliance rather than a formal organisation when they meet on April 17-18 in Vienna.
BC would add to the list of Moscow’s sphere-of-influence failures — well what is one to expect of criminal mercenaries and politicians!? — Crimea, Ukraine, which has been battle torn torn for five suffering years under Moscow’s false pretenses. From Michael MacKay via his Radio Lemberg:
Almost five years after the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine in Crimea, Putin’s army is still on the attack. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are bombarding and assaulting Ukrainian defenders in Donbas, as they have been doing continuously since April 2014. Yesterday, February 10, was typical in that the Russians violated the Minsk Agreement ceasefire in every sector of the battlefront.
To force on to leave one’s home for the vagaries of chance and fate — conditions are bad in Venezuela, but there is this one truth: the dictator — the malignant narcissist — is never wrong.
Vox, November 27, 2018
On more video that BC feels indicative of the true relationship between today’s feudal powers:
The “Grand Game” may be over, but the war between the Medieval of Mind and the Modern Possessed of Conscience and Empathy, the foundations of Democratic Humanism and the above-board distribution of power supporting the best reasoned rule-of-law has just begun.
Iran and other producers have opposed a tighter partnership, fearing it could be dominated by Saudi Arabia and Russia, according to officials in the cartel. Riyadh and Moscow are the world’s top two oil exporters. A Russian Energy Ministry spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment.
(The story, what with Bloomberg’s “Tic-Toc” and much else in the Mainstream Media fray, has been moving too fast for BackChannels normally placid quasi-academic treatment, bibliography and all. Inline reference and plain old bald URL’s suit in the making of points).
Just so you know, Putin’s recent purchase of a part of Venezuela’s oil resources is part of his (Moscow’s) 49 percent stake in CITGO.
And what does Putin really want: a world beset and bloodied by a revanche in feudal absolutism wandering around intoxicated by supporting and conflicting medieval worldviews.
Venezuela’s President on deck appears less proud about extensions of Yankee democratic good will while altogether more practical:
Posted to YouTube January 1, 2019.
BackChannels will not beat the majors, but it may yet make some points. Herewith, three videos posted on YouTube within the last 24 hours –>
That last: political criminals!
For other glorious examples of Soviet Communist and post-Soviet socialist era success and the success of other feudal elites propped up by their mafia and military, BackChannels suggests spending time online involved with Syria — political disaster of the 21st Century! — and Zimbabwe (with Robert Mugabe gone, the state appears on the cusp of positive / responsible change).
BackChannels has heard Venezuela describe as ” a dictatorship of corrupt soldiers who traffic with oil, drugs and weapons. They have kidnapped the country. Maduro does not dare confront them and has been kidnapped in the government palace pretending to be president.”
Perhaps Venezuela’s now defecting soldiery will put a stop to her suffering at the hands of military and political criminals.
Lagos, Nigeria (CNN)Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has come under intense scrutiny for suspending his country’s Chief Justice just weeks before a general election, a move that critics have attacked as tyrannical and unconstitutional.
Buhari defended his decision on Twitter, saying corruption allegations against Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen — who has been accused of failing to disclose bank accounts in foreign currencies — are “grievous.” But the move was labelled a “coup against democracy” by the President of the Nigerian Senate, and prompted an outcry from the country’s major opposition party, which halted its presidential election campaign temporarily in protest.
And so Nigeria’s lawyers staged a two-day strike against President Buhari’s thoroughly autocratic judgment, decision, and exercise of seemingly unquestionable power.
In addition to the latest imbroglio involving Nigeria’s chief justice, a matter not overlooked by the U.S. State Department, Buhari has been accused of permitting Fulani gang raids against Christian farming villages (whose firearms have been confiscated in advance by the state — in Nigeria, urban thugs may own arms illegally — who’s to know? — while farmers are made to provide easy targets for burn-and-shoot raiders armed with AK-47s and gasoline) and of packing his highest-level security offices with Muslims, and so in essence channeling power and wealth to the Muslim community while slowly displacing Christian power.
BackChannels asked its Nigerian source for suggestion as to who would make a better — more balanced, higher integrity — politician, now or in the future, for Nigeria’s leadership. The names returned were Fela Durotoye, Jimi Agbaje, Kingsley Moghalu, and Oby Ezekwasili. The Nobel Prize-winning writer Wole Soyinka was mentioned as well, but BackChannels suggested he may well remain Nigeria’s soul in letters and perhaps the natoin’s most influential intellectual. With context, here is what Soyinka had to say (in the Daily Nation) about this month’s Nigerian Presidential Elections (February 16):
Mr Buhari, 76, came to power in 2015 and is seeking a second term in the February 16 vote. His main challenger is 72-year-old Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president.
“For the avoidance of doubt, let me make my position quite clear because I don’t want any ambiguity; I, Wole Soyinka, will not be voting for either,” he was quoted in local media as saying on Thursday at a forum in Lagos.
Herewith some starting reference to good-for-Nigeria political personalities as mentioned by BackChannel’s source. The bolded names have been linked to their respective Wikipedia pages; tweets, news, and news headers remain recent; note: Oby Ezekwasili has dropped out of the Presidential race to help swing her fan base vote to a candidate better positioned, perhaps, to beat the incumbent President Buhari; Omoyele Sowore, not mentioned in casual conversation, has been added by BackChannels for showing up fast on this subject — Nigeria’s upcoming elections — on the web.
In a 2013 interview with The Punch Newspaper, Agbaje talked about how he began in politics: “It had to do with the Moshood Abiola/Bashir Tofa presidential election”, he said. “I saw the annulment as a personal insult and an assault on the Nigerian people. This led to my first entry into what I would call activism, working with other concerned professionals” such as Prof. Pat Utomi, Dr Ayo Ighodaro, Asue Ighodalo, Billy Lawson, Oby Ezekwesili, Tola Mobolurin and Hassan Odukale.[8][9] Jimi was in one form of resistance group or the other which ultimately led him to join the socio-political organization, Afenifere where he served as national treasurer.[10]
The campaign convoy was on its way out of the palace, when the hoodlums, numbering about 40, chased and threw stones at Agbaje’s vehicles.
There were minor injuries involving shattered vehicle window glass, and tear gas was used to disperse the mob according to the above piece published yesterday in Sahara Reporters. How the hoodlums were organized and by whom? That would be something to know and report. For the time being, the news tells of the tone of elections in a wealthy oil producing nation sadly rife with corruption.
The Young Progressives Party is making a lot of impact in the North and has gained wide acceptance. We where thrilled to see the liberation on People's faces at the ward rally at Dan Agundi Ward, one among the B wards of Kano Municipal Federal Constituency. pic.twitter.com/r5mYthgzjm
Hahaha @Political learner @Oukwuani . Make sure to follow my WPC on Monday to know what kind of Learning I rejected. Glad that great Vision of yours is impacting the world. Keep soaring on🚀🙏🏾 https://t.co/KGcc1tDeTq
BackChannels has referred here and there to corruption as the cancer of states. Where the Transnational Crime Organizations are strongest and bribes to the powerful would seem to be working, the money gets laundered and into the topside economy, which essentially may make the public unwittingly dependent on a growing criminal sector. Around the world, for better or worse because it’s just a fact of life at this point, public money that may be quietly, surreptitiously pried into private pockets would seem to be moved away from public community development and other services. The only way to get the brakes on nefarious processes — organized crime, embezzlement, and skimming — is to bring to power more modern politicians and their better associates in military and paramilitary services.
That’s it.
In one direction, the state sinks, and the end — or political hell — will look something like Venezuela at this hour, i.e., broken, starving, beneath common dignity and freedom; and in the better direction, the state grows a healthy economy, ordered and with funds available for all ordinary operations and the most helpful of public and social services. One may hope for Nigeria that the personalities who would be most ambitious and competent on the public’s behalf will rise to their occasions and prevail over the unerringly corrupt, nepotistic, and toadying of the breed.
Inspiration for the post: a conversation about women in combat roles and the relative physical advantage men have as regards the demands and energy required by related combat training programs and evaluations.
Problem: there may be more required across the “combat” or war fighting spectrum than the agility and strength so tested in training — and at times demonstrated in the field — as well as admired for entertainment and, perhaps, general cultural inspiration.
Variable not mentioned in this lopsided patch of talk: the span of combat mission roles. Regarding the “grunt” – okay, that’s the old industrial steel-driving guy at war and in the mess in big numbers.
From the Awesome Conversation (FTAC)
This is for fun:
But this has been perhaps the changing face of war:
The real question for the west . . . perhaps for western men and women . . . is how fast does everyone want to skidaddle back into the medieval world and its competitive frames?
Assignment / mission definition may be more the controlling variable for who goes where, not for who has ability, agility, ambition, courage, determination, discipline, etc. under stress of battle.
At the moment, the modern enemies are medieval scourges, i.e., feudal absolute powers (like Assad) and their manipulated hornets (like ISIS).
I hesitate on posting because I know (confession: from the armchair) that “field operations” have been complex as well as irrevocably changed by technologies, assets, and strategies (and politics) throughout. Is the drone’s remote jockey in front line combat? With relation to terrorist “actions”, where isn’t the front? For that matter, what isn’t combat in the age of “Hybrid Warfare” and “Information Warfare”?
Blogger; mother of four; B.A., English, University of Birmingham; M.A., English as a Second Language; post-graduate Ph.D. field: linguistics; religion: Wahabbi Muslim.
The Kingdom had to have seen this greater day coming, “greater” for connecting the privileged of Saudi Arabia with the full breadth of the world’s English-speaking and other intelligentsia, i.e., the broad if thin international band of cosmopolitan, engaged, informed, and rapidly “chatyping” personalities. Nafjan has not only fit right in with the world’s intellectual class, she appears to be in trouble with the medieval kingdom for having been raised for the modernizing path and role taken.
What is it about feudal / medieval / tribal peacocks that so sustains contempt and fear in relation to women that the royal response to mild challenge, criticism, and practical reasoning comes to a still barbarous demand: “Lock her up!”
Addendum – March 14, 2019 (added to post July 27, 2019)
NEW YORK—PEN America announced today that it will award the 2019 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award to journalist, blogger, and activist Nouf Abdulaziz, activist and social media commentator Loujain Al-Hathloul, and blogger, columnist, and activist Eman Al-Nafjan—three Saudi women imprisoned for challenging, through their writing and their activism, therestrictive guardianship system that governs Saudi women and limits theirability to travel, marry, work, or receive education and healthcare without approval from a male guardian. Abdulaziz, Al-Hathloul, and Al-Nafjan each used their digital and news-reporting platforms to speak out on women’s rights and other forms of human rights repression in Saudi Arabia, including the long-standing ban on women driving. The ban was lifted in June 2018, yet immediately thereafter, many of those who had advocated for this change were arrested. Today these three writer-activists are among those still incarcerated for their dissent, reportedly facing torture, isolation, and threats of rape. In early March, Saudi authorities announced that they are planning to indict a number of those detained on national security-related charges; initial hearings in the trials of Loujain Al-Hathloul and Eman Al-Nafjan began March 13.
Those under arrest have been branded threats to national security and have been accused of being foreign agents. They face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that the reason for the arrest is to silence the women and prevent others from participating in activism.
Rights organisations and governments around the world have called on the Saudi authorities to release all political prisoners, but to no avail.
Most people in the West, naturally enough, get their ideas about Saudi life from the media. They learn that women here are forbidden to drive, that they must be almost completely covered up when they appear in public, that unmarried women and girls can’t appear in public unaccompanied by family members.
All of this is more or less true, but it omits the reality that, for the average middle class Saudi woman who comes from a healthy family background, life is pretty good.
When everything is in place, a Saudi woman can live a comfortable life. A respectable husband is arranged for her to marry; she typically has a driver, servants and an extended family ready to give her financial and emotional support. All that’s expected of her is to have babies and fulfill social obligations.
Official statements in state media accused Loujain al-Hathloul, Iman al-Nafjan and Aziza al-Youssef of forming a “cell,” posing a threat to state security for their “contact with foreign entities with the aim of undermining the country’s stability and social fabric.” A related hashtag describing them as “Agents of Embassies”, along with a graphic showing the six activists’ faces, have also been circulating on social media and Saudi Arabian print and broadcast media. Amnesty International is concerned that if charged, the activists could face up to 20 years in prison. Now is the time to take action and defend these brave activists, who are some of the most prominent heroines of the human rights movement in Saudi Arabia.
As the world praises Saudi Arabia for recent “reforms” – including allowing women to drive – we must raise the alarm for these imprisoned defenders who have fought tirelessly for years for women’s rights in the Kingdom.
According to three separate testimonies obtained by the organization, the activists were repeatedly tortured by electrocution and flogging, leaving some unable to walk or stand properly. In one reported instance, one of the activists was made to hang from the ceiling, and according to another testimony, one of the detained women was reportedly subjected to sexual harassment, by interrogators wearing face masks.
منذ اول اعتقالات جرت بالمملكة توافقت الدولة والمجتمع على عدم التعريض والاساءة للمعتقل بالصحف، ومن حتى يلمح ويفعل ذلك محاولا التكسب ينظر له باحتقار من قبل زملائه والمسؤلين . للأسف انهارت تلك القيم في زماننا هذا ! أدناه نموذجا لوضاعة وسيلة إعلامية مرخصة pic.twitter.com/22Vznd2XYL
BackChannels 