Podcasts about Eurasia

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow 1901 #Turkey: Erdogan after the election. Svante Cornell, American Foreign Policy Council. Malcolm Hoenlein @Conf_of_pres @mhoenlein1 Svante E. Cornell is a co-founder and Director of the Institute for Security and Development Policy. He is the Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, the Joint Center operated by ISDP in cooperation with the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC). Dr. Cornell is also a Senior Fellow for Eurasia at AFPC. His main areas of expertise are security issues and politics in Southwest and Central Asia, with a specific focus on the Caucasus and Turkey. He is the Editor in Chief of the Joint Center's bi-weekly publications, the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst and Turkey Analyst, and oversees the Joint Center's Silk Road Papers series of occasional papers. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-votes-pivotal-elections-that-could-end-erdogans-20-year-rule-2023-05-13/ https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/heres-how-read-turkeys-election-results-so-far

Do you enjoy the shamelessly fringe? How about this podcast? We want to hear your voice in all it's weirdo glory! Go to ratethispodcast.com/openloopsWhat secrets does Penny Bradley hold as a secret space program and black ops whistleblower? Prepare for an unforgettable conversation that will change your perspective on the Grand Conspiracy and uncover the truth behind her time as a Super Soldier. We discuss everything from the CIA archivist who verified her story to her memories of destroying entire planets, and go so far as to delve into the impact of advanced technology and space programs on our world.IE. You think you wanna go to Secret Space Camp. Trust us, you DON'T WANNA GO TO SECRET SPACE CAMP.  Learn how Penny utilizes self-hypnosis to access her memories and navigate the complex world of government mind control, exploitation, and ancient bloodlines. Discover the dark secrets of the elite, including the ruling family of Eurasia that dates back 5,000 years. Penny shares her unique insights into regeneration tanks, the implants, and the spider-like creatures of Mars (no, no don't get confused. This isn't the doctors office for the Real Housewives....different implants, literal spider-like creatures).  Finally, we tackle the implications of the proliferation of AI and the potential dangers it poses to humanity...cause that's all the rage on TikTok these days, right?  Join us for this eye-opening and thought-provoking episode that explores the power of storytelling and the potential of advanced technologies to shape our future.  (0:00:15) - Secret Space Program Whistleblower Penny Bradley(0:12:01) - Cover Memories and the Truth(0:29:57) - Government Mind Control and Exploitation(0:44:06) - Bloodlines, Abductions, and Elite Control(0:57:57) - Dark Secrets of the Elite(1:13:55) - Navigating Shamanism and ET Lore(1:32:08) - Dangers of AI, Protecting Human NatureAnd who doesn't love listening to a good 'ole Germans floating in space story?Penny's Links:Patreon.com/user/posts?u=15523662https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100060451544465https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkr7_5XXXVIw-NkDRIH5AnQhttps://twitter.com/Penniwinklhttps://odysee.com/@NachtWaffenPilot:e?fbclid=IwAR16tuCP5wrN4UE7hJJpSIxaKb5JJeHjX8kD_cZ2gTQvHA3R6JsMYNYugqs  

Commodities in a Deglobalizing World with Jeremy Shapiro Commodities have been at the heart of globalization. Traders roamed freely and commodities priced to the marginal cost of production. Since the mid-2010s that started to change politics moved toward populism and nationalism and geopolitical competition heated it. Today, traders have to navigate a sanction minefield and the weaponization of the dollar.  Global trade is fragmenting into blocks. What does this mean for the sector, the talent and the dollar itself. Our guest is Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations and previously the senior advisor to the assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia at the U.S. Department of State and a fellow at the Brookings Institution 

* As we have studied the book of Acts, we have seen how God Sovereignly oversaw the expansion of the church from Jerusalem into Asia Minor (which we refer to today as Eurasia) and then specifically toward the European continent by guiding Paul into Macedonia and then down into the Ionian peninsula - to Thessalonica and Berea - toward the epicenter of the world culture of the day - Athens. * In each place that they have gone, they have met both reception of the message and rejection of the message - some believed, some did not. * Today, as we consider Paul's engagements in the metropolis of Athens we will see how he varied his evangelistic approach - in the presentation of God's redemptive plan - to each of his specific audiences. * This message was presented on May 7, 2023 by Bob Corbin.

I was joined by Glenn Diesen, a leading scholar of Russian foreign policy and geopolitics and one of a tiny few who oppose US and NATO support for Ukraine, to discuss the long history of Russophobia, the irrational fear and hatred of Russia that has driven western policies in Eurasia from the time of Peter the Great to the era of Vladimir Putin.   Tickets on sale for the Icarus Festival, Rutherford, NJ, June 8-11: https://www.icarusfest.com/   BECOME A MEMBER OF UNREGISTERED ACADEMY at https://www.unregisteredacademy.com/ for courses you won't find in college: The US and Ukraine: Origins of the Russo-Ukrainian War The Bible with Thaddeus Russell Plato's Republic with Thaddeus Russell Aristotle's Politics with Thaddeus Russell The New Deal with Thaddeus Russell American Slavery with Thaddeus Russell and Adam Rothman The Cold War with Thaddeus Russell History of NATO with Scott Ritter and James Carden Malcolm X with Thaddeus Russell The Religious Right with Neil Young and Gio Pennacchietti World War II: The Great Blowback with Thaddeus Russell The JFK Assassination with Larry Hancock History of the CIA with Thaddeus Russell Reading The Unabomber Manifesto   Become a PATRON OF UNREGISTERED at www.patreon.com and get: Access to Unregistered Live, the weekly live Zoom meeting with Thad and patrons of Unregistered Bonus episodes featuring interviews with Curtis Yarvin, Ben Burgis, Michael Malice, Cody Wilson, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Hotep Jesus, and Buck Johnson

Washington is obsessed with reading tea leaves — on politics, policy, social cues, and diplomatic dances. And so is the case with the much anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive this spring. Will it happen? If so, would it change the course of the war? Does Russia have the juice not only to repel it but to launch its own successful bid for more territory? We talk again to Anatol Lieven, former war correspondent, author, and Eurasia expert at the Quincy Institute about what he thinks, given his recent travels to Ukraine just a month ago.In the first segment, Kelley and Daniel talk about Biden's diplomatic strong-arming of our Asian allies in South Korea and the Philippines, as the leaders of both countries came to Washington in the last week to forge military ties amid the administration's continuing effort to "confront" the Chinese "threat" in the South China Sea.More from Anatol Lieven:The Rise and Role of Ukrainian Ethnic Nationalism, The Nation, 4/17/23Crimea Has Become a Frankenstein's Monster, Foreign Policy, 4/11/23Pentagon leak reinforces what we already know: US-NATO in it to win, Responsible Statecraft, 4/10/23 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crashingthewarparty.substack.com

Technology innovation in people and HRtech may only reach about 60% of our community. Today we're questioning that, asking how we bring the everyone with us, and question the tension between innovation and integration. Again we go back to Unleash America, this time with Caitlin Motley, Talent and Development Director for Africa, Eurasia and the Middle East at Coca-Cola, and Lydia Wu, Panasonic's Senior Director for People, Talent and Operations in North America.

Today's episode is about the escalating waves of repression in Russia, and what they mean for both the regime and what remains of the organized domestic opposition. Maria sat down with Natalia Arno, the founder and president of the Free Russia Foundation, and Miriam Lanskoy, the Senior Director for Russia and Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy, to discuss this important topic.

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow #Poland:  The rising Middle Power of Eurasia. George Friedman, Geopolitical Futures. https://geopoliticalfutures.com/poland-on-my-mind/

Astrology is an ancient science that has been around since the ancient Egyptian & Babylonian times. The planets, stars, and astral bodies' movements all influence the tides and the earth, so it makes sense since we are made up of the same elements as the earth, that they would have an impact upon us too. Throughout much of history up until the 17th Century in much of Eurasia, astrology was considered an academic discipline. In this riveting interview episode with Natlie Levin discussed is: How we can better relate to the energy called Mercury that lives within us pertaining to our mind, thought processes and how we communicate. How knowing which sign your Mercury is in can help you improve your relationship with your mind and help you understand how both you and your people communicate. Detailed is how Mercury acts in each of the 12 zodiac signs How Mercury in retrograde is nothing to fear & ways to leverage this period of time that happens a few times a year. How to skillfully and practically work with lunar and solar eclipses (and what exactly they are!). Show Notes Every single person has the archetype of mercury in their chart in a certain sign which can tell you about your mind's disposition & your communication style. Mercury represents the mind, our mental thought processes and communication. Discussed is how to understand and work with one's mercury energy from the perspective of which sign it is in within one's birth natal chart. A wise life strategy is to get to know the archetype of each planet and then you can talk to them within yourself and work with them in the manner they manifest within your birth chart. When Mercury goes into retrograde, words have more impact. Mercury is the messenger of the gods and is stopped in the sky. So wise things to ask oneself: Do I really need to say this? What am I trying to accomplish in doing so? Contemplate all of the “re” words such as: re-systemize, rethink, recalibrate, renew, refresh…also however in your life you can slow down . Society doesn't teach us that slowing down is good so it's a new way to view slowing down. Slowing down is a warrior path in a world that wants to speed us up faster and faster.We can take micro rests. “Pratyahara'' means in Sanskrit to pull one's senses inward.  Create pockets of peace.  How to work with eclipse energy is discussed. Eclipse energies are heightened. They are extra emotionally charged. Can you invite them to flow and not push them down? They can be a portal for spirits to come and go. The iInvitation is to see some big life shifts & aha moments. Sometimes physical illness can manifest. Energetically they can feel like a really weird time. Can I get as much rest as possible? Think back-to- basics. What's the new perspective and the new angle? It's an invitation to change energy. When power goes out, look for other sources of charge. Strategies to work with both solar and lunar eclipses are detailed. Astrology is meant to be supportive and to help make life doable. Astrology can help us know and accept ourselves more fully. Guest: https://www.natalielevinastrology.com/  YouTube: Natalielevinastrology.com IG : natalielevinastrology F-book - Natalie Levin  *All of my monthly mystic members get 20% off of one reading with Natalie ✨HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!: The doors for the Modern Mystic Membership are now open! Monthly Mystic Members get access to a library of over 100 tantric yoga, meditation & breathwork classes as well as short “Mystic Hack” videos which have topics including astrology, tarot cards, developing psychic abilities, grounding/protecting/growing your energy and more! Sampling of FREE videos on the elegant Mystic Membership platform:  modernmystic.love ✨✨I offer profound psychic medium readings modernmystic.love ✨I offer one-on-one  Soul Psyche Mapping Astrology Readings. Book via (*This includes a copy of your birth chart and an audio recording of the session) modernmystic.love ✨Give it a 5 star, 1 line review on Apple Music (takes literally 2 min either from an iPhone or via the Apple Music store on all other devices) or on Spotify. This is HUGE as it helps get it heard more which supports the podcast. ✨Join conscious conversation & community in the Modern Mystic Podcast Private F-book Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/959629444823656/ ✨Get inspiring insights on IG: @modernmysticlove @mystickilkenny  

In this episode of Building the Future, Dan is joined by Dr. Evelyn Farkas, the Executive Director of the McCain Institute, a nonprofit organization that focuses on democracy, human rights, and character-driven leadership. Evelyn shares insights from her government career, including as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia under the Obama administration, and discusses her work on the conflict in Ukraine. 

Welcome to the Deep Dive! We're diving deep into the geopolitics of Uzbekistan – one of only two double-landlocked states in the world. In other words – Uzbekistan is one of only two states in the entire world that whose access to the world's oceans is blocked by two states in all directions. Uzbekistan is a crossroads for the Eurasian continent, wedged between numerous foreign powers, each with their own interests in bending Uzbekistan's behavior to their favor. China, Russia, the EU, Japan, India, South Korea, the United States are all deeply interested in and fighting over Uzbekistan's and Central Asia's future. Hopefully, by the end of this podcast, you'll get a sense of Uzbekistan's opportunities, its internal and external risks, and why the future of Eurasia depends on how those opportunities and risks evolve in the coming years. --Timestamps:(00:00) - Introduction(02:53) - The Basics of Uzbekistan(06:07) - What is Eurasia?(12:08) - Russian and Chinese Interests(23:45) - Everyone Else's Interests(35:50) - Opportunities and Risks(44:33) - The Path Forward--CI LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cognitive-investments/CI Website: https://cognitive.investmentsCI Twitter: https://twitter.com/CognitiveInvestJacob LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416/Jacob Twitter: https://twitter.com/JacobShapSubscribe to the Newsletter: https://investments.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=156086d89c91a42d264546df7&id=4e31ca1340--Cognitive Investments is an investment advisory firm, founded in 2019 that provides clients with a nuanced array of financial planning, investment advisory and wealth management services. We aim to grow both our clients' material wealth (i.e. their existing financial assets) and their human wealth (i.e. their ability to make good strategic decisions for their business, family, and career).--Referenced In The Show:--Disclaimer: Nothing discussed on Cognitive Dissidents should be considered as investment advice. Please always do your own research & speak to a financial advisor before putting your money into the markets.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacyPodtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

Ukraine without Hype is joined by Armenian political scientist Karena Avedissian. Karena specializes in governance, access to justice, social movements, and new media/communications in Eurasia. We asked her about the background of the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region, recent developments of Baku tightening their grip on the region and Yerevan looking like they may give in, and the role of civil society in either country. TwitterKarena: @KarenaAv Anthony: @BartawayRomeo: @RomeoKokriatskiUkraine Without Hype: @HypeUkraine Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/UkraineWithoutHype Resources and Charitieshttps://linktr.ee/ukrainewithouthype MusicHey Sokoli (Traditional)

E359 Maryam Abolfazli is a storyteller, nonprofit leader, and mother. For twenty years, she built her career as an international economic and political development professional, working in Eurasia and the Middle East, to assist in improving the political and economic realities of women, youth, and educators. Today, she serves the political and economic development of […]

Two prominent Russian military thinkers believe the war in Ukraine will not end before 2030 and may lead to other costly and bloody conflicts from Turkey to China. 5) Russian analysts think US will instigate wars in southern Eurasia; 4) Palestinian Authority reportedly agrees to let US train security forces; 3) Death toll from starvation cult in Kenya at 67; 2) New survey finds only 44% of born-again Christians in US believe Jesus lived sinless life; 1) Elon Musk's SpaceX calls rocket explosion “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow   ##PRC: #Russia: #USA: Seapower bests Russia and PRC in Eurasia. George Friedman, Geopolitical Futures. https://geopoliticalfutures.com/author/gfriedman/

On our Latest show: A Brazilian bird brought back from the brink; Listener Audio Postcards from California and Italy; and a very colorful — and vulnerable — bird from Eurasia.

This episode we look at the transmission of Buddhism through the 1st to 5th centuries from India, to the Kushan Empire, and across the Silk Road to the Han and succeeding dynasties, and even to Baekje, on the Korean peninsula. For more, especially photos, please check out https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-84   Rough Transcript:   Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 84: The Middle Way through the Middle Kingdom. First things first, thank you to Bodil, Gabe, and Lauren for donating to support the show on Ko-Fi and Patreon.  If you'd like to join them, will have information at the end of the episode. Also an apology—if my voice isn't in tip-top shape, well, it seems that COVID finally found us after 3 years or so, and I'm on the tail end of it.  So thank you for your understanding. Last episode we talked about Siddhartha Gautama, aka Shakyamuni, the Historical Buddha, and his teachings, and how they spread, at least through the Indian subcontinent, with the patronage of rulers like Ashoka the Great.  The original teachings, initially taught as an oral tradition, was eventually turned into a series of writings, called the Tripitaka. As for how those writings came about, it's worth talking about the languages involved. The native language of Shakyamuni was probably a language known as Maghadi, or something similar.  But the Indian subcontinent, including the modern countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and Afghanistan, is over three times the size of western Europe.  There are at eight south Asian language families, with hundreds of different languages, depending on how you count them.  The modern state of India counts 22 official languages, not including English.  I mention this to point out that as the Buddha's disciples spread his teachings, they were, by necessity, translating it into different languages. There is a story that a student suggested to the Buddha that they make Sanskrit the official language of Buddhism.  Even then, Sanskrit was considered a language of learning and education, much as Greek or Latin was in medieval Europe, but the Buddha rejected this and insisted that his teachings be taught in people's own tongue.  This proved great for reaching people, but over time there was a fear that the oral teachings might be lost, and so they were written down. The oldest written Buddhist canon is generally agreed to be texts in Pali, commissioned in Sri Lanka.  These are sometimes called the southern Tripitaka—or Tipitaka in Pali—and it is the primary canon for Theravada Buddhists.  In the north, however, Sanskrit remained the prominent language of learning, and texts written down and transmitted in the north—particularly those that made it to China and on to Japan—were typically Sanskrit or translations of Sanskrit texts.  This is what some refer to as the Northern Tripitaka.  Both of these were transcriptions of the oral teachings that Buddhist monks were otherwise memorizing and presenting to the Buddhist community.  That oral tradition, in fact, never really went away, and these early texts were more like a reference so that monks could check their memory.  Chanting the sutras—and especially chanting from memory—remained a highly prized skill of Buddhist orators. Now, the split between northern and southern texts is convenient, but it isn't necessarily as simple as all that.  We have plenty of examples of texts, particularly in the northern traditions, that don't necessarily have an extant Sanskrit counterpart.  In fact, the oldest extant sutras of any tradition that we have today are known as the Gandharan sutras, and written in the Ghandari language using a Karosthi script.  Gandhara refers to a region centered north and west of the Indus river, in modern Pakistan, stretching to the Kabul river valley in modern Afghanistan and north to the Karakoram mountains, which is one of the interlocking ranges that form the boundary between modern Pakistan and India and modern China and the Tibetan plateau.  It is believed to be the namesake of the city of Kandahar, in modern Afghanistan. This area was important, and not just to Buddhism.  For thousands of years it has been a crossroads between the Indian subcontinent, the area known as the Middle East, and the inner trade routes of central Eurasia.  It was part of the conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, becoming part of his kingdom, but then it was lost in battle to the Mauryan empire, which Ashoka the Great ruled in the 3rd century BCE.  The area later fell to Indo-Greek rule from members of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom to the north.  The most famous ruler during this period was probably Menander I, who is also remembered as a patron of Buddhism, building more stupas and monasteries in the region. The Hellenic Greco-Bactrians were eventually displaced by tribes of the Yuezhi, who themselves were being displaced by the Xiongnu, in central Eurasia.  In this epic game of musical chairs, a branch of the Yuezhi eventually settled in the area, ruling a large territory, including Gandhara, under what is known as the Kushan empire.  They had first moved into the area of Bactria and Sogdiana probably around the 1st or 2nd century BCE, and by the 1st century CE they were exerting authority over Gandhara.   Around the time the Gandharan sutras were written down, in the 1st or 2nd centuries, Buddhism—especially Mahayana Buddhism—was flourishing in the region, and Kanishka the Great—don't you love how all of these rulers are known as “the Great”, by the way?—ruled the Kushan empire, and hence Gandhara, in the early 2nd century.  He is said to have been a great patron of Buddhism, although it was one of several religions, including Zoroastrianism, that flourished in the region at this time. The Kushan empire is believed to be the same Yuezhi that we mentioned in episode 79, when we talked about the Han diplomat Zhang Qian, who had trekked through hostile Xiongnu, or Hunna, territory across much of what is now western China in the 2nd century BCE, seeking allies against the Hunna.  At that point, the Yuezhi had had enough of war, however, and they declined to fight, preferring to settle where they were and eventually growing into the Kushan empire.  That connection with the Han dynasty, however, likely was maintained through trade routes that continued to operate across the vast expanse of central Eurasia.  The Han dynasty itself continued to send out diplomatic missions to the various states of central Eurasia, and of course there were trade routes. As the Kushan empire expanded into the Tarim basin, it met once again with the Han, who had defeated the Hunna, and then claimed routes across the oasis towns of the desert regions.  While the routes would have high and low periods, often depending on the state of various conflicts, in general it seems that Buddhist missionaries probably made it to the Han dynasty and the Yellow River region, and founded monasteries, as early as the first century CE and certainly by the second century.  And, by our best understanding, the folks in these monasteries were already doing a lot of copying and translation of texts – both as a meritorious act, and to spread the word.  Since this is around the time the Gandharan texts were written, they were likely a part of this larger tradition of copying and translating that was going on, although many of those early documents did not survive intact to the modern day. One of the earliest records of Buddhism in the Han dynasty is a record dated to 65 CE.  Liu Ying, Prince of Chu and son of Emperor Guangwu of Han, sponsored Buddhism—as well as a school of Daoism—in attempts to better understand longevity and immortality.  While he was eventually accused of treason, putting something of a damper on his patronage of the religion, it is the first mention we have in the histories of Buddhism, and in some ways it speaks to something else about the initial acceptance of Buddhism. While there were likely those well-versed in Buddhism, particularly in the community of foreigners from the Western Regions, evidence suggests that for many lay people it was just as likely about what people thought that the religion could do for them in this life as anything else.  After all, there are many stories of miraculous events, and there was the concept of reincarnation and karma—the idea that by building merit, one could improve their lot in the next life.  There was even a belief that by building merit, one could improve their lot in the current life—and apparently extend their life or even, possibly, gain immortality. Sure, there were the more intellectual and philosophical endeavors, but for many people Buddhism was just as much about what it could do for them in the here and now.  Stories of monks and other holy men fit in right alongside stories of Daoist immortals.  In Han tombs, where Buddhist imagery is found, it is often found with or in place of the Queen Mother of the West—the same image that is found on many of the bronze mirrors that traveled across to the Japanese archipelago around this time.  It was likely that many of the early stories that the laypeople heard were probably fragments as much as anything.  Even with the Tripitaka written down, much of the transmission was still done orally.  Furthermore, it was in translation—and probably a translation of a translation. The earliest stories of Buddhism's transmission—particularly the translation of texts into Sinitic characters, the lingua franca of East Asia—claim that first the Theravada canon, and then later Mahayana texts, were translated in the second century, with foreigners from Parthia and Kushan credited with the early translations.  Others would continue the work, and at first it was mostly people from the Western Regions doing the translating. One of the earliest stories of sutras making their way to the Han dynasty comes from the time of Liu Ying, when his brother, Emperor Ming, sat on the throne.  The stories claim that the emperor saw an image of a golden Buddha, and that he requested either a statue or temple be erected.  So he sent people off to Kushan, where they found two monks who would come back with them in 68 CE, bringing portraits and scripture—specifically the “Sutra of Forty-Two Chapters”, which the two monks helped translate into a Sinitic version at Baimasi, or White Horse Temple.  As such, this “Sutra of Forty-Two Chapters” has been accorded a status as the first such Buddhist work to be brought to the area that is, today, modern China, and the White Horse Temple, located in Luoyang, is counted as one of the earliest temples in the Yellow River region.  That said, there are a lot of questions as to the authenticity of this tale, though it does mirror others about the arrival of Buddhism in the East, even if we cannot verify the actual first temple or work. Although Buddhism arrived during the Han dynasty, it wouldn't really begin to fully develop until after the dynasty's fall in the 3rd century.  During the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, the metaphysical and doctrinal beliefs of Buddhism began to penetrate the elite circles in a more tangible way.  Much of the philosophical underpinnings blended well with the interest at the time in “Dark Studies” and the school of “Pure Conversation”, which we discussed back in episode 72.  While Buddhist temples, much like their Daoist brethren, found some sanctuary from the chaos that created this period in the mountains and hills—not to mention a bit of added spiritual cachet—it was really the opportunity to gain greater state patronage that also helped. Monks like Zhi Dun began to reconcile Buddhist thought and doctrine with local beliefs.  In some cases, local religious figures—including gods and other spirits—were incorporated into the Buddhist framework, often by their “conversion” to the Buddha's teachings.  This was one of the strengths of Buddhism—although it carried with it a framework of Indian religious teachings and thoughts, it was not exclusive in its cosmological outlook.  Buddhism was more focused on helping one escape the suffering of this world, which would take you beyond all such things.  As the doctrines were meant for all beings—not just humans, but for animals, spirits, gods, and even demons—there was nothing to necessarily exclude other beliefs.  This helped some of the ethnic Han dynasties to accept and even promote Buddhism.  Meanwhile, some of the non-ethnic Han dynasties patronized Buddhism for either its miraculous powers or just because it was a foreign religion, much like they were foreigners in the Yellow River Basin.  In many cases, state-sponsorship was a two way street.  Dynasts would set themselves up as holy men, claiming to be Boddhisatvas.  They would even appropriate the concept of the Cakravartin, a Buddhist “Golden-Wheel-Turning-King”, which had overtones of cosmic overlordship.  I can see how that would fit in quite well with local concepts that a sovereign might lay claim to ruling “all under heaven” and be carrying out a “Heavenly mandate”. Along the Yangzi River, Buddhist monks gained a certain amount of independence.  They were not expected to bow to the sovereign, for example; an acknowledgment of their holy nature.  In the northern Wei dynasty, however, it was a different story.  There, the ruler was said to be no less than an incarnation of the Buddha, and a Chief Monk was selected to oversee the Sangha and no doubt ensure that the various Buddhist communities were in line with official dogma. At the same time, the government provided captured men and women to work fields to help pay for Buddhist temples and their work.  Likewise, people would make merit by donating wealth and land to temples, in hopes of blessings either in this current life or in the next life.  For their part, the temples were expected to act as storehouses or granaries—the wealth that poured into them would be used to help alleviate suffering, especially in the case of droughts or floods.  It soon became clear, however, that more wealth was going into the temples than was necessarily coming out.  There were attempts to reign in this Buddhist establishment, often by limiting the number of temples or even the number of monks, as well as limiting what people could donate.  These same edicts were undercut by the elites of the country, however, and often proved less than effectual. Along with sutras and Buddhist teachings, Buddhist images and architecture spread widely.  In India and the Western Regions, a key aspect of many temples was the stupa.  This was a mound containing a relic of some sort.  Originally these relics were said to be remnants of the Buddha, after he had been cremated.  Later, it was said that the remnants of the Buddha turned hard, like crystal, and that the original remains were gathered up and distributed to even more stupas.  Later they may contain other relics, as well. The stupa was an important part of the Buddhist temple, but over time, its character changed.  Instead of a mound like we still see in Southeast Asia, we start to see a building—a tower—which became a ubiquitous symbol of Buddhist temples in East Asia.  This multi-level pagoda originally started off with simply three levels, often made of brick and stone, but over time it grew with five or seven levels.  These towers were inspired by a description in the Lotus Sutra, a Mahayana text, that described a bejeweled seven-storey tower. Speaking of the Lotus Sutra, this was one of the many teachings that made its way to East Asia, and a hugely influential one.  It purports to tell the story of a sermon by the Buddha outside of those mentioned in the Theravada texts.  The teachings expounded upon in the Lotus Sutra had a great impact on Mahayana Buddhism and how people viewed the teachings of the Buddha.  For one, it also proposed the idea that the Buddha did not actually cease to exist when he attained nirvana, but is simply no longer visible. He still remains in the world to help all life find salvation from suffering.  That goes along with the concept of the Bodhisattva, a being who attains a Buddha-like understanding but out of compassion remains in the world to assist others. The Lotus Sutra also made claims such as the idea that anyone could attain Buddhahood, if they followed the teachings—and not just one particular set of teachings.  It opened the idea that there were multiple vehicles—that is to say different practices—that would all get you to the truth, to Englightenment.  Even the term “Mahayana” means the “Great Vehicle”, while Mahayana sees Theravada as “Hinayana”, the “Lesser Vehicle”.  Both will get you where you need to be, but Mahayana offers an exapansion of teachings and texts that Theravada Buddhism does not necessarily accept as authentic.  Indeed in Mahayana belief we also see a focus on multiple Buddhas with different specialties – not only the historical Buddha, but Vairocana, aka Dainichi Nyorai, the Great Solar Buddha, Amitabha, aka Amida Nyorai or Amida Butsu, and so on. In comparison, the Theravada school tend to be more dogmatic on various points of practice and belief, claiming that they focus on the actual teachings of the Historical Buddha and not necessarily looking for extra texts and practices.  There may have been Buddhas in previous ages that attained nirvana and departed this existence, but the Buddha of the current age is the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni.  Another Buddha, Maitreya, is not expected for another five to ten thousand years—not until the teachings of the Buddha have been forgotten and are once again required.  Acquiring freedom from this existence through nirvana is not necessarily one and the same with obtaining Buddhahood—the enlightened understanding required to save all beings. There is another school, “Vajrayana”, the “Lightning” or “Diamond” vehicle.  It focuses on tantric, or esoteric teachings, which practitioners believe provide a more direct, and faster method to enlightenment.  Many secret teachings, or mikkyo in Japanese, can trace themselves in some way to these practices, though it likely didn't make it to East Asia until the Tang dynasty or so in the 8th century, so we'll come back to it when we get to things like Kuukai and Saichou, who brought Shingon and Tendai, respectively, to Japan in the early 9th century—about four centuries from our current chronological position.  Both the Mahayana and Vajrayana schools included the teachings from the Lotus Sutra, which would become one of the most important sutras, certainly by the Tang dynasty, as well as in the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago.  Its widespread dissemination is often attributed to the famous monk Kumarajiva.  Kumarajiva was a citizen of Kucha, one of the oasis towns along the northern edge of the Tarim Basin, and site of a bustling metropolis and capital of one of the largest oasis kingdoms in the Tarim basin.  Even today, you can see remnants of the ancient city in the desert, and the dry conditions have preserved a number of artifacts, including plenty of texts referencing Buddhist and other beliefs. Kumarajiva traveled from the peripheral city of Dunhuang, another site renowned for its Buddhist roots, especially the famous Mogao caves—a series of Buddhist grottoes built into a cliff face which, along with the dry conditions, have exquisitely preserved the early sculpture and painting, as well as, again, numerous documents.  He came to Chang'an around 401, and he helped translated numerous Buddhist scriptures into Sinitic characters, which could then be shared and read by people across East Asia—everywhere in the ancient Sinic sphere of influence. Besides the Lotus Sutra, another famous text told of the Buddha Amithabha, aka Amida Butsu in Japan.  Amithabha's teachings claimed that any who would call on the name of Amithabha, or just picture them in their mind with a sincere heart, would, on their death, find themselves reborn in a Western Paradise—a “Pure Land” where there were no distractions other than to meditate on the Buddha's teachings and eventually attain freedom from this existence.  Whereas many of the teachings and theological discussions of the various Buddhist schools could get quite complex—thus almost requiring any serious student to join a monastery if they wanted to truly study a particular flavor—the teachings of Amithabha were appealing to those without necessarily a lot of time or resources.  It boiled down to a few practices that just about anyone could do.  It didn't require that you donate huge sums of money or land, or that you spend all your day copying scriptures.  One could chant the name of Amithabha in the fields as you were working, or picture them in your mind as you prepared for bed. These kinds of practices—the chanting of particular mantras or other such things—became a kind of thing people could do to help protect themselves or ward off evil.  A particular example of this practice is preserved in a text from Dunhuang, which has a colophon explaining its purpose.  According to Patricia Ebrey's translation, the text, which was copied by someone named Sun Sizhong, was an incantation that, if said 7, 14, or 21 times a day, with various somatic and material components (willow twig to cleanse the mouth, scattering flowers and incense before the image of the Buddha, and kneeling and joining the palms of the hands) it would clear away the four grave sins, the five wicked acts, and other transgressions.  “The current body would not be afflicted by “untimely” calamities, and one will be reborn into the realm of immeasurably long life.  Plus, reincarnation in the female form would be escaped forever.” On that last piece—yeah, Buddhism came with a little bit of baggage.  In ordering all of life, men were seen as inherently higher on the ladder than women.  This discrimination has been walked back or even abolished in some modern interpretations, but it was definitely present in older beliefs. Besides the power of the incantation if said 7, 13, or 21 times a day, Sun Sizhong went on to explain that if someone recited it 100 times in the evening and then at noon and it will ensure rebirth in the “Western Regions”, while 200,000 recitations gets you perfect intelligence, and 300,000 recitations, one will see Amitabha Buddha face to face and be reborn in the Pure Land. As you can probably start to see, there were many different beliefs and teachings that fell under the Mahayana teachings, and many of the texts were translations.  Even those that had been translated into Sinitic, it was often done by foreigners for whom the local Sinic language was not their native tongue, so there was always a kind of awareness that important pieces might have been lost in translation along the way.  In the 5th century, this led some monks to make the particularly long and dangerous journey all the way to Kushan and on to India, to access the original primary sources for themselves.  One of these was a monk by the name of Faxian. At the age of 62, Faxian decided to go to India to try to get to the heart of what the Buddha really taught.  He set out in 399, traveled across the Tarim Basin and into the Kashmir region and the Indus Valley—Gandhara, in modern Pakistan.  From there he traveled to central India and arrived at Patna, where he stayed and studied for three years.  He traveled around, seeking out works in Sanskrit on Buddhsit ethics and teachings, studying the local languages as well.  In 410 he made his way to the mouth of the Ganges and down to Sri Lanka, where he stayed for almost two years before boarding a ship and traveling home—traveling through the straits of Malacca and around Southeast Asia to take the sea route back to his home. The journey was perilous, and at least twice the boat lost its way.  According to the stories, some of his fellow travelers, who followed more Brahmanic teachings rather than Buddhist, believed that Faxian and his quote-unquote “heretical” teachings were what were leading them astray.  Faxian was able to maintain order and he and his books eventually made it safely to the Shandong peninsula in or around 412. He made his way down to Jiankang, aka modern Nanjing on the Yangzi river.  There he spent the rest of his life translating the scriptures he had brought back.  Others would make similar journeys, all to try to find more authentic versions of the texts—which usually meant finding the Sanskrit version—and then creating translations from those. With the growth in popularity in Buddhism, it is probably little wonder that it eventually made its way over to the Korean peninsula.  It is hard to say exactly when Buddhism arrived, but the Baekje annals in the Samguk Sagi claim that it was brought there by a monk of Central Asia descent in about 384.  One year later, we are told the king of Baekje erected a temple and caused ten men to become monks. The timing of this generally accords with some of the information in the Nihon Shoki, which claims that Buddhism first came from the Western Regions to the Han dynasty, and then to Baekje 300 years later, and then to Yamato about 100 years after that.  While the dates aren't exact, this generally accords with what we know of the way that Buddhism traveled to East Asia and to Baekje, at least. Although we have textual evidence, there isn't much archaeological evidence for Buddhism on the Korean peninsula in this time outside of urban centers.   That is where we find temple rooftiles and other indications that Buddhism was practiced, but at the time it was probably something more common amongst elites than the common people, at least in the 4th and early 5th centuries.  With the invasions by Goguryeo  and the loss of northern territory in about 475, it did gain increased patronage.  Still, it wasn't until the 6th century that it really left the urban centers, which is roughly the time we are talking about with the Yamato sovereign Ame Kunioshi, aka Kimmei Tennou. Next episode we'll get into just how Buddhism came over to the islands—or at least what is recorded and what we have evidence for—in the sixth century.  We'll also talk about its reception and its patronage by the famous Soga clan.  Until then, thank you for listening and for all of your support.  If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

Russia's arrest of the American journalist Evan Gershkovich for spying has shone a spotlight on what the US calls 'hostage diplomacy', a practice which involves imprisoning a foreign national, usually on spurious or exaggerated charges in order to extract concessions from that person's government. The increase of hostage diplomacy—by China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea—recently prompted President Biden to declare it a national emergency. This week the US announced that Mr Gershkovich is being held in Russia as “wrongfully detained”, a finding that means the American government sees him as a political hostage. As the number of detentions has increased, the US has become more willing to strike deals with foreign governments to free US nationals. Last year's high-profile prisoner swap of US basketball star Brittney Griner and Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was hailed by some as a diplomatic success story. But critics say it sets a dangerous precedent, arguing that prisoner exchanges simply encourage hostile powers to arbitrarily arrest more foreign nationals. Meanwhile, another US citizen accused of spying remains in a Russian prison. Former US marine Paul Whelan was given a 16-year jail sentence in 2020 after being arrested in Moscow in 2018. So what determines who is selected for prisoner swaps? Are prisoner swaps a good solution to a painful dilemma, or do they mean that authoritarian states simply will detain more foreigners seeking a trade-off from western countries? Photo:Evan Gershkovich, US reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Credit: Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP Shaun Ley is joined by: Dr Danielle Gilbert, fellow in US foreign policy and International security at Dartmouth college in New Hampshire Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert was detained on a visit to Iran where she was held for two years. She's now a visiting fellow in security studies at Sydney University, Australia. Professor Colleen Graffy was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy travelling around 40 countries in Europe and Eurasia, making America's case on behalf of George W.Bush's Administration. She is a law professor at Pepperdine Caruso Law School. also featuring: US diplomat Bill Richardson, director the Richardson Center which helps negotiate the release of US political prisoners and hostages held overseas. He's a former governor of the US state of New Mexico. Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, Labour Party politician, barrister, and human rights activist in the UK. Producers: Ellen Otzen and Rumella Dasgupta.

After many years of stated neutrality, the country of Finland has became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO on April 4. Finland, Russia's neighbor to the Northwest, shares more than 800 miles of border and thus their NATO membership marks a dramatic change in the political landscape in Northern Europe.Ryhor Nizhnikau is a Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute Of International Affairs in Helsinki, Finland. His expertise is on Russia, Northern and Eastern Europe and Eurasia, the European Union, and NATO.He gave a first-hand description of how Finlands new NATO membership is felt there and in Europe and why Finland made this dramatic change.Finland shares several experiences with Ukraine and Ryhor discussed international relations from outside the perspective of a superpower, a vision he hopes that Finland can bring to NATO which nurtures cooperation and rule of law between nations instead of power struggles. His hope is also that this cooperative approach could make room for the smaller powers to have a seat at the international table.

Vedanth Reddy and Nathaniel Worley sit down with Professor Daniel W. Drezner to talk about the state of globalization today. Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He is also the co-director of Fletcher's Russia and Eurasia program.

Links from the show:* Stalin as Warlord* Storms over the Balkans during the Second World War* Rate the showAbout my guest:Alfred J. Rieber has been teaching and writing Russian and Soviet history for more than fifty years. He was a participant in the first year of the Soviet-American cultural exchange in 1958-59 and has returned to the Soviet Union and Russia many times to lecture and conduct archival research. He began teaching at Northwestern and then moved to the University of Pennsylvania where he taught for twenty–five years and chaired the History Department for ten years, now holding the title of Professor Emeritus. For the past twenty-two years he has taught at Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary where he was also chair of the History Department for four years, and upon retirement was elected by the university Senate as University Professor Emeritus. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and Columbia University. In 1966 he was awarded the E. Harris Harbison Prize of the Danforth Foundation as one of the ten best teachers in the U.S. He has won additional teaching awards at Penn and CEU where he was elected professor of the year by the entire student body in 1997 and 1998. The American Philosophical Society awarded him the Henry C. Moe Prize in 1985. His book Struggle for the Eurasian Borderlands. From the Rise of Early Modern Empires to the End of the First World War, Cambridge University Press, 2014 was awarded the Bentley Prize of the World History Association and its sequel, Stalin's Struggle for Supremacy in Eurasia, Cambridge, 2016 was short listed for the Pushkin History Prize. His latest books are Storms over the Balkans during the Second World War (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Stalin as Warlord (Yale University Press, 2022)In addition , he has written and edited seven books as well as over fifty articles and book chapters on Russian and Soviet history. Among his books are Stalin and the French Communist Party, 1941-1947; The Politics of Autocracy; Merchants and Entrepreneurs in Imperial Russia; Perestroika at the Crossroads; Forced Migration in Central and Eastern Europe, 1939-1950, and with Alexei Miller, Imperial Rule. His most recent book, The Imperial Russian Project. Politics, Economic Development and Social Fragmentation from Peter the Great to the Revolution, Toronto University, appeared in December 2017.Among his many research grants are fellowships from the Ford Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation National Endowment for the Humanities, National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, and Woodrow Wilson National Foundation. He has lectured widely in the U.S. and Europe, most recently at Georgetown University, Oxford, Cambridge, the University of London (SEES), University of L'viv, Mohyla Academy in Kiev, University of Szeged, University of Bucharest, Sofia University, the Free University of Berlin, University of Geneva, University of Ulan-Ude, and the European University in St. Petersburg. Most recently, his chapter, "The Anti-Fascist Resistance during the Second World War," appeared in the New Cambridge History of Communism, in 2017 and his chapter “Russia in Asia,” will appear in 2018 in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asia. His current research and writing takes him back to the 19th century Russia for a book length manuscript entitled “Reforming Russia:  Count P.A. Shuvalov. and the Politics of Equilibrium"He is also the author of three historical detective novels: To Kill a Tsar (2010); The Kiev Killings (2013); and Siberian Secrets (2014), all published by the New Academia Press. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

  On this episode of Unsupervised Learning, Razib talks about the rise of modern humans, from their beginning as just one population among a diverse set of human species, to the dominant and only remaining lineage of hominids in the present. His reflections are colored by paleontological findings and begin with the evolution of modern humans and their distinctive physical characteristics in Africa more than 200,000 years ago, then moving on to their breakout from the ancestral continent and the disappearance of Neanderthals. It is at this point that, 50,000 years ago, ancient DNA findings and statistical genomics shape the rest of the story, as the net of modern human expansion pushes to every corner of Eurasia, and eventually makes the leap to Oceania and the New World.    Razib discusses the human phylogenetic tree, and how different populations relate to each other, but also explores the graph of relationships that illustrate how they have mixed. He also discusses the impact of the arrival of modern humans on local ecologies, as megafauna extinctions seem to correspond with the appearance of our species in Australia and the New World. Finally, he relates diverse contemporary populations to their prehistoric antecedents, outlining how the people we know today arrived at their current locations and who their ancestors were.

Ben Burgis is back for an action-packed GTAA episode. The main guest is Jacobin staff writer Luke Savage, who recently wrote an essay called "How the Right Gets George Orwell Wrong":https://jacobin.com/2023/03/orwell-hayek-nineteen-eighty-four-totalitarianism-capitalism-socialismBefore that, we get into Ben's written debate Peter Hitchens on the subject of Hitler, talk abut why ChatGPT will NEVER replace Thomas Friedman, and mull Charlie Kirk's idea that the GOP should retaliate against the arrest of Trump by arresting Bill Clinton. (Don't threaten us with a good time.)In the postgame for GTAA patrons, friend of the show Jason Myles talks about his Sublation article "Virtual Insanity: A Freak Show for Left Media":https://www.sublationmag.com/post/virtual-insanity-a-freak-show-for-left-mediaA very good time is had by all.Follow Jason on Twitter: @J_Myles_TIRFollow Luke on Twitter: @LukewSavageFollow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgisFollow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_ShowBecome a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from patron-exclusive postgames every Monday night to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:patreon.com/benburgisRead the weekly philosophy Substack:benburgis.substack.comVisit benburgis.com

At the end of a friendly meeting in Moscow, President Xi of China told President Putin of Russia that they are driving changes in the world the likes of which have not been seen for a century. Meanwhile this week President Biden kicked off a Summit for Democracy with $690m funding pledge to democracies all over the world and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, called on Europe to reassess its diplomatic and economic relations with China before a visit to Beijing next week. So what changes are President Xi talking about? Who will be running the world in 20 years time? Is conflict between rival powers inevitable? And is the model of western liberal democracy in decline? Owen Bennett-Jones is joined by: Evelyn Farkas - an American national security advisor, author, and foreign policy analyst. She is the current Executive Director of the McCain Institute, a nonprofit organisation focused on democracy, human rights, and leadership. Evelyn served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia under President Obama Martin Wolf - chief economics commentator at the Financial Times and author of The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism Professor Steve Tsang - political scientist and historian and Director of the China Institute at the SOAS University of London Also featuring: Henry Wang - founder and director of the Centre for China and Globalisation, a think tank with links to the Chinese Communist Party Nathalie Tocci - director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali and an honorary professor at the University of Tübingen Photo: Russia's Putin holds talks with China's Xi in the Kremlin in Moscow on March 21, 2023 / Credit: Reuters Produced by Rumella Dasgupta and Pandita Lorenz

The great puzzle of Russia-West relations throughout the three post-Cold War decades has been the apparent reluctance of the Kremlin to reap significant and evident benefits from collaboration with the United States and its allies. At many junctures, Moscow consistently chose confrontation over reassurance of its western counterparts and other key players. The costs of such behavior would almost invariably turn out to be high and unnecessary. Despite learning these lessons, Moscow continued to appear uninterested in reassurance. That puzzle is echoed in formal academic literature on the sources of war which is regarded as a very risky and costly undertaking. This talk will use existing theories of signaling and several high-profile cases in US-Russia relations to hypothesize about Russia's consistent reluctance to pick the low-hanging fruit of reassurance and cooperation. - About the Speaker: Mikhail Troitskiy is a Professor of Practice at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research on conflicts, security, and politics in Eurasia, Russian foreign policy and U.S.-Russia relations, arms control, and international negotiation was published with Problems of Postcommunism, Survival, Global Policy, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Russian Politics and Law, Horizons, Cambridge University Press, Routledge, Palgrave-Macmillan, McGill-Queen's University Press / CIGI, Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Nomos Verlag, and SIPRI. He is a member of PONARS Eurasia and PIN Negotiation networks of scholars.

Eliot Wajskol did the Process in 2022. Listen in as he shares an intergenerational story of hardship, a desire to build a better life, and the hope to one day live fully alive. Eliot's grandparents' and parents' lives were filled with persecution and hardship during the holocaust beyond anything most of us will ever know. Somehow, his father and mother, and her mother, survived. Eventually, they made the journey to America as refugees in 1968, with no money and very few belongings. Growing up in Ohio, one of the things Eliot struggled with in his youth was the feeling of not belonging. He realizes his parents had this feeling, too. Here in America, there was no place where they could fit in. Their experiences prior to coming were so different than everyone around them. Eliot shares that one thing he learned from Hoffman was that no matter how unique your story we all share similar feelings and emotions that are like threads through our lives. Eliot came to the Process because he felt like he had never truly lived. He shares that on the surface, everything in his life looked wonderful. But underneath the surface, there was turmoil. He was going through a divorce, hadn't been able to foster strong relationships with his two children, and was trying to rebuild his business after the Covid lockdown. Eliot shares that "...the more he was trying to hold everything together, the more he was losing absolutely everything." Just before coming to the Process, Eliot immersed himself in things that could support him in what he was feeling. He had a vision of who he knew he was deep inside but couldn't find a way to actually be. At one point, three things happened that all pointed him to the Hoffman Process. Listen in to discover more about Eliot's journey to, through, and after the Process. More about Eliot Wajskol: Eliot lives in Portland, Oregon. Woven into his weeks, you can find him at 6 am cross fit workouts, hiking, catching special moments with his high school daughter, traveling, and living life more and more fully. You can learn more about Eliot and his work helping businesses implement the Entrepreneurial Operating System here and follow him on LinkedIn. As mentioned in this episode: The USSR: "The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991." The Lódz Ghetto: History & Overview (1939 - 1945) Auschwitz and Bergen Belson Escaping 1968 Poland In 1968, Poland's communist government forced Jews to leave. Eliot's parents had to leave with only a few belongings, no passport, no documents, and were stateless. Relatives sponsored them and his Dad had to begin again in obtaining his medical license as an anesthesiologist.   https://media.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/content.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/Liz_and_Eliot_Wajskol_Podcast.mp3

Sponsor: Click here to learn more about Medi-Share, the most trusted name in health care sharing.Top headlines for Saturday, March 25, 2023The U.S. Department of Justice is being sued over what plaintiffs describe as an inadequate response to violence against churches and pro-life pregnancy centers as pro-abortion vandalism continues across the U.S.A California missionary and a French journalist abducted in Niger by an Islamic terrorist group have been released.The largest United Methodist Church congregation in Michigan has voted to leave the mainline Protestant denomination over the ongoing debate over homosexuality and same-sex marriage.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that his government will not pass a bill that would criminalize Christian evangelism, a proposal that drew concern from American Evangelicals.Subscribe to this Podcast Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Overcast Follow Us on Social Media @ChristianPost on Twitter Christian Post on Facebook @ChristianPostIntl on Instagram Subscribe on YouTube Get the Edifi App Download for iPhone Download for Android Subscribe to Our Newsletter Subscribe to the Freedom Post, delivered every Monday and Thursday Click here to get the top headlines delivered to your inbox every morning! Links to the News DOJ sued over response to pro-abortion vandalism | Politics News Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade in abortion ruling | Politics News American missionary abducted in Niger released after 6 years | World News Christian college mourns student killed by drunk driver | U.S. News Michigan's largest UMC congregation votes to leave denomination | Church & Ministries News Methodists in Eastern Europe, Eurasia planning to leave UMC | Church & Ministries News West Texas A&M president cancels 'derisive, divisive' drag show | U.S. News Israel won't pass ban on sharing the Gospel, Netanyahu says | World News

For more than a decade, Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbekistan's first president, illegally amassed a fortune in assets and property, both in Uzbekistan and abroad, estimated to total in the billions of dollars. How Karimova managed to accumulate her fortune and who helped her is the subject of a recently released Freedom for Eurasia report. Joining host Bruce Pannier to discuss Karimova's ill-gotten gains and her foreign facilitators are the three primary report authors: Leila Nazgul Seitbek, chairwoman and founder of Freedom for Eurasia; Kristian Lasslett, professor of criminology at the University of Ulster; and Thomas Mayne, research fellow at the University of Oxford.

"Women control a third of the world's global wealth today, and they make 70% of household consumption decisions. It is a segment that we all have to be focused on, because the success of the women as a whole is going to continue to drive economic prosperity for all of our countries around the world," says Ida Liu, Global Head of Citi Private Bank. In the latest episode of Living Beyond Borders, a podcast produced in partnership between GZERO and Citi Global Wealth Investments, Liu joins Eurasia Group's Celeste Tambaro for a candid conversation about the reasons why increased participation of women in the workforce and in leadership creates greater growth for companies and economies. Women were disproportionately impacted by job loss during the pandemic, but there are indications that is changing as employment numbers climb back to levels seen before March 2020. Still, there is a long way to go toward equity, as Liu and Tambaro explain. This episode features: Shari Friedman, Eurasia Group's Managing Director of Climate and Sustainability (moderator) Ida Liu, Global Head of Citi Private Bank Celeste Tambaro, Managing Director, Financial Institutions, Eurasia Group

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow #PRC: #Russia: Xi's Peace plan for Eurasia, US not invited. ? Gregory Copley, Defense & Foreign Affairs https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-offer-clarifications-russias-position-ukraine-during-xi-visit-2023-03-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/top-us-state-dept-diplomat-europe-step-down-focus-family-2023-03-20/

In this episode of 1050 Bascom, we were grateful for the opportunity to talk to Mikhail Troitskiy, Professor of Practice at UW-Madison. Prof. Troitskiy will be teaching a course called Russian Foreign Policy Since 1991: The Road to War and Beyond in the fall. Prof. Troitskiy's research focuses on conflicts, security, and politics in Eurasia, Russian foreign policy and U.S.-Russia relations as well as arms control and international negotiation. We asked Prof. Troitskiy about his research and teaching interests as well as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We enjoyed our conversation with Prof. Troitskiyand learned so much. We hope you will too.

This week's special episode of Russian Roulette features an interview on Georgia's foreign agents law conducted by our sister podcast, The Eurofile. Max Bergmann and Donatienne Ruy from the CSIS Europe, Russia, and Eurasia program sit down with Kakha Gogolashvili, Senior Fellow and Director of EU Studies at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, to discuss the recently abandoned foreign agents law, Russia's presence in the South Caucasus, and Georgia's EU membership aspirations.  Listen to The Eurofile | CSIS Podcasts  Read more: In Georgia, Civil Society Wins against Russia-Style ‘Foreign Agents' Bill (csis.org) 

Can the West's "unprecedented unity" in support of Ukraine be sustained? And after Moscow's setbacks and Kyiv's successes in 2022, has the war reached a stalemate? Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, joins host Steve Gutterman to discuss.

James Rosone is an Iraq War veteran who served 3.5 years in a combat zone as a military interrogator and contractor. During his ten years in the military and eight years as a Department of Defense and Department of State contractor, he fought and hunted down bad guys throughout the Middle East, Eurasia, and Europe. Today James is an Amazon top 100 author. EPISODE LINKS Books - https://amzn.to/3SOMz5S Twitter - https://twitter.com/jamesrosone Website - https://www.frontlinepublishinginc.com JOIN OUR KULT: https://bit.ly/koncretepatreon DANNY https://www.instagram.com/jonesdanny https://twitter.com/jonesdanny OUTLINE 0:00 - Introduction 3:44 - Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse 6:18 - Air Force Interrogation 17:18 - Breaking down the human mind 30:45 - Psychology of Iraq prisoners 38:12 - Most disturbing aspect of interrogation 56:17 - Pharmaceutical drugs for treating PTSD 1:02:50 - Witnessing war on social media 1:06:28 - Nerve blocking injections with ketamine 1:19:48 - Psychopaths 1:26:13 - Writing therapy 1:34:23 - Predicting the Ukraine Russia conflict 1:49:50 - Saudi Arabia & the military industrial complex 1:56:07 - China's new war ships 2:03:44 - The CIA & Proxy wars 2:18:40 - Physical damage from burn pits

Guest: Brock Bierman joins the show this week to discuss his work with Ukraine Focus and the USAID for Europe and Eurasia.Brock Bierman is the CEO and President of Ukraine Focus, a non-profit organization that delivers on-the-ground humanitarian aid to Ukraine.  Before joining Ukraine Focus, Bierman served as the Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development for Europe and Eurasia during the Trump Administration.Keep up to date with us on Instagram & Twitter: @TheGameOnPod

Late last month, there was a sudden and brief explosion of news reports in Russia and Ukraine about an ascendant youth movement of violence supposedly built around the subculture of anime fans. According to vague stories in the media, fistfights were breaking out at shopping malls and other public places as part of a transnational campaign by something called “PMC Ryodan.” After a large fight in St. Petersburg led to dozens of arrests of Ryodan and anti-Ryodan youths, a federal lawmaker in the State Duma even appealed publicly to Russia's Interior Ministry, demanding a ban on all content associated with “PMC Ryodan.” There was mass police action in Ukraine, too, where officials called PMC Ryodan an instrument of “Russian propagandists” leading an “informational-psychological operation” to “destabilize the internal situation in Ukraine.” It turns out that the hysteria surrounding this youth subculture almost completely misunderstood the sporadic violence. Semantically, the first thing to grasp is that “PMC,” or private military company, is used facetiously when describing the Ryodan group. Members of this anime fan community are actually more likely to be the targets — not the instigators — of the brawls breaking out at youth hangouts. In fact, it seems the group got its “PMC” nickname after its followers started fighting back against the jocks who like to bully them. The PMC Ryodan scare was especially perplexing abroad, where casual observers typically view Russian youth culture through the lens of a pro-Kremlin/anti-Kremlin dichotomy. But most young people in Russia, just like most people anywhere, don't live and breathe polemics at every moment of the day with every fiber of their being. So, what can we say about Russia's youth culture beyond the familiar Kremlin-based divide? The Naked Pravda asked two scholars for answers. Timestamps for this episode: (6:41) Dr. Kristiina Silvan, a postdoctoral fellow in the Russia, EU's Eastern Neighborhood, and Eurasia research program at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, describes the differences between contemporary Western sociological methodologies and research approaches from the USSR. (10:06) Dr. Felix Krawatzek, a senior researcher at the Center for East European and International Studies in Berlin, compares survey studies and fieldwork. (13:04) The political vs. apolitical (22:34) Russian-language culture and subcultures spreading internationally online (25:31) The significance of so-called “soccer hooligans” and gopniki (32:13) The 1990s as a reference point

On this week's episode of "America: Changed Forever", the Department Of Homeland Security is under scrutiny for a program: allegedly gathering intelligence domestically. Host Jeff Pegues talks with Carrie Bachner, a former career senior legislative adviser to the DHS Under Secretary for Intelligence. In our exclusive interview Bachner warns of civil liberty violations. And, a DOJ task force has been working to hold Kremlin-aligned Russian elites accountable for their support of Vladimir Putin and for their efforts to evade sanctions. Is it working? We'll hear from former State Department official Max Bergmann who serves as the Director of the Europe, Russia, Eurasia program and the Stuart Center on Northern European Studies. Fox News is in the news quite a bit lately.....First in a lawsuit that says they “recklessly disregarded the truth” and now because Tucker Carlson denies the insurrection of January 6. Carlson deleted scenes of rioters attacking police officers and defiling the Capitol from extensive footage given only to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Congressional Reporter for HuffPost Arthur Delaney offers his analysis. The Federal Reserve Chair testified on the Hill. CBS News Reporter Sarah Ewall-Wice covers the Treasury Department and economic policy. She forecasts how this is going to impact Americans' household budgets.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Summary: Carl Delfeld joins us in this episode to discuss the ramifications of the Ukraine war to the US, Russia, and China, and its role in the ongoing struggle for power. The situation at hand has allowed China to rise up even more, and Carl contends that it will be easy for them to dominate Eurasia, as they are already a superpower in Asia to some degree. They are still facing their own challenges, however, specifically with the real estate market and accumulation of debt. Moreover, Carl says that the biggest mistake would be for the US to become complacent, and emphasizes the need for smart diplomacy moving forward. Tune in for more insight.  Useful Links: Financial Survival Network Power Rivals: America and China's Superpower Struggle

In this week's episode, you will hear a conversation Max had in December 2022 with Dr. Jeffrey Mankoff, discussing Jeff's book, Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security. Jeff argues that the imperial histories of contemporary China, Iran, Russia, and Turkey are critical in studying the international actions of these four Eurasian powers today.