Podcasts about lukashenko

Belarusian politician, president of Belarus

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Podcast Vinohradská 12
Tsikhanouskaya: Lukashenko is Putin's puppet

Podcast Vinohradská 12

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 4, 2025 25:04


Lukashenko wants to hold Ukrainian-Russian peace talks in Minsk. Is it realistic? Debates continue in the US about Radio Free Europe - how important is this news outlet for Belarusians? And will the leader of the Belarusian opposition move to Prague? Matěj Skalický interviews Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Všechny díly podcastu Vinohradská 12 můžete pohodlně poslouchat v mobilní aplikaci mujRozhlas pro Android a iOS nebo na webu mujRozhlas.cz.

Radiožurnál
Vinohradská 12: Tsikhanouskaya: Lukashenko is Putin's puppet

Radiožurnál

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 4, 2025 25:04


Lukashenko wants to hold Ukrainian-Russian peace talks in Minsk. Is it realistic? Debates continue in the US about Radio Free Europe - how important is this news outlet for Belarusians? And will the leader of the Belarusian opposition move to Prague? Matěj Skalický interviews Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

Inside 4Walls
Lukashenko sworn in as president for a seventh term((03.25.2025))

Inside 4Walls

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 27, 2025 38:03


Follow me for more content on these platforms!Twitter- https://twitter.com/Insideforwalls

La ContraCrónica
Las condiciones de Putin

La ContraCrónica

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 20, 2025 56:39


Vladimir Putin y Donald Trump mantuvieron una larga conversación telefónica este martes. Mas de dos horas se pasaron al teléfono con el mundo entero esperando a ver qué salía de allí. Trump se hizo eco de la misma en las redes sociales asegurando que la conversación había sido productiva y positiva. Informaba también que habían acordado un alto el fuego inmediato para las infraestructuras energéticas ucranianas, pero nada más. En dos horas Trump fue incapaz de convencer a Putin de que suscribiese el armisticio completo de 30 días que Volodímir Zelenski aceptó la semana pasada. A partir de aquí es fácil saber quién es el verdadero obstáculo hacia la paz. Ahora Trump, que había prometido acabar con esto en sólo 24 horas, se enfrenta al dilema de confiar en Putin sumándose a la negociación a dos bandas que le propone o presionar al Kremlin para que llegue a un acuerdo. Lo cierto es que, desde que hace dos meses llegó a la Casa Blanca, se ha decantado por presionar sí, pero a los ucranianos. Tras el poco edificante espectáculo en el despacho oval que tanto complació en Moscú, Trump suspendió la ayuda militar a Ucrania y el intercambio de inteligencia con su ejército. El grifo sólo se reabrió después de que Zelenski aceptase un alto el fuego de 30 días tras una reunión en Arabia Saudita. Pero Ucrania, un país que lucha por su supervivencia, es la parte más débil en esta negociación. Cualquier esfuerzo dirigido a obligar al Kremlin a ceder será mucho más difícil. Rusia ha reestructurado con éxito su economía con idea de prepararla para una guerra prolongada a pesar de las sanciones impuestas por Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea. Ha redirigido su comercio hacia otros mercados como China y la India y, aunque los problemas económicos que atraviesa son evidentes, nadie en Rusia se atreve, por la cuenta que le trae, a cuestionar el relato oficial de la invasión de Ucrania. El impulso que ha dado a su causa la administración Trump desde principios de año ha terminado convenciendo a Putin de que la guerra está ganada y, por lo tanto, muestra poco interés en negociar y mucho menos aún en hacer concesiones. Aunque parezca chocante Putin persevera en sus trece, como si se hubiese impuesto tranquilamente con su operación militar especial que iba a durar tres días y estamos ya en el cuarto año. La prueba la tenemos en la conversación del martes. Putin eludió cualquier intento de llegar a un acuerdo de paz que no pase por asegurarse una victoria por partida doble. Una victoria territorial apoderándose de una parte de Ucrania y otra victoria política alejando a las potencias occidentales del país para poder intervenir él directamente y transformar Ucrania en un satélite ruso similar a la Bielorrusia de Lukashenko. Eso es lo que más temen en Ucrania y en el resto de Europa, ya que envalentonaría a Putin y podría llevarle a embarcarse en más aventuras expansionistas. Le daría, además, un marchamo de legitimidad con el que no tardaría en desestabilizar a las democracias europeas desde dentro. A partir de aquí Trump tendrá que caminar sobre la cuerda floja, una posición en la que se ha colocado él mismo mostrando sus cartas antes de tiempo, validando la narrativa rusa sobre la guerra y culpando directamente a la víctima de haber provocado el conflicto. No lo tendrá sencillo ya que a Trump le cuesta ver a Putin como el agresor, un agresor al que sus predecesores no consiguieron apaciguar mediante diálogo y negociaciones. En La ContraRéplica: 0:00 Introducción 3:43 Las condiciones de Putin 28:10 Trump y su caricatura 36:07 Calin Georgescu 47:08 Aborto · Canal de Telegram: https://t.me/lacontracronica · “Contra la Revolución Francesa”… https://amzn.to/4aF0LpZ · “Hispanos. Breve historia de los pueblos de habla hispana”… https://amzn.to/428js1G · “La ContraHistoria de España. Auge, caída y vuelta a empezar de un país en 28 episodios”… https://amzn.to/3kXcZ6i · “Lutero, Calvino y Trento, la Reforma que no fue”… https://amzn.to/3shKOlK · “La ContraHistoria del comunismo”… https://amzn.to/39QP2KE Apoya La Contra en: · Patreon... https://www.patreon.com/diazvillanueva · iVoox... https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-contracronica_sq_f1267769_1.html · Paypal... https://www.paypal.me/diazvillanueva Sígueme en: · Web... https://diazvillanueva.com · Twitter... https://twitter.com/diazvillanueva · Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/fernandodiazvillanueva1/ · Instagram... https://www.instagram.com/diazvillanueva · Linkedin… https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernando-d%C3%ADaz-villanueva-7303865/ · Flickr... https://www.flickr.com/photos/147276463@N05/?/ · Pinterest... https://www.pinterest.com/fernandodiazvillanueva Encuentra mis libros en: · Amazon... https://www.amazon.es/Fernando-Diaz-Villanueva/e/B00J2ASBXM #FernandoDiazVillanueva #putin #trump Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

Recomendados de la semana en iVoox.com Semana del 5 al 11 de julio del 2021

Vladimir Putin y Donald Trump mantuvieron una larga conversación telefónica este martes. Mas de dos horas se pasaron al teléfono con el mundo entero esperando a ver qué salía de allí. Trump se hizo eco de la misma en las redes sociales asegurando que la conversación había sido productiva y positiva. Informaba también que habían acordado un alto el fuego inmediato para las infraestructuras energéticas ucranianas, pero nada más. En dos horas Trump fue incapaz de convencer a Putin de que suscribiese el armisticio completo de 30 días que Volodímir Zelenski aceptó la semana pasada. A partir de aquí es fácil saber quién es el verdadero obstáculo hacia la paz. Ahora Trump, que había prometido acabar con esto en sólo 24 horas, se enfrenta al dilema de confiar en Putin sumándose a la negociación a dos bandas que le propone o presionar al Kremlin para que llegue a un acuerdo. Lo cierto es que, desde que hace dos meses llegó a la Casa Blanca, se ha decantado por presionar sí, pero a los ucranianos. Tras el poco edificante espectáculo en el despacho oval que tanto complació en Moscú, Trump suspendió la ayuda militar a Ucrania y el intercambio de inteligencia con su ejército. El grifo sólo se reabrió después de que Zelenski aceptase un alto el fuego de 30 días tras una reunión en Arabia Saudita. Pero Ucrania, un país que lucha por su supervivencia, es la parte más débil en esta negociación. Cualquier esfuerzo dirigido a obligar al Kremlin a ceder será mucho más difícil. Rusia ha reestructurado con éxito su economía con idea de prepararla para una guerra prolongada a pesar de las sanciones impuestas por Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea. Ha redirigido su comercio hacia otros mercados como China y la India y, aunque los problemas económicos que atraviesa son evidentes, nadie en Rusia se atreve, por la cuenta que le trae, a cuestionar el relato oficial de la invasión de Ucrania. El impulso que ha dado a su causa la administración Trump desde principios de año ha terminado convenciendo a Putin de que la guerra está ganada y, por lo tanto, muestra poco interés en negociar y mucho menos aún en hacer concesiones. Aunque parezca chocante Putin persevera en sus trece, como si se hubiese impuesto tranquilamente con su operación militar especial que iba a durar tres días y estamos ya en el cuarto año. La prueba la tenemos en la conversación del martes. Putin eludió cualquier intento de llegar a un acuerdo de paz que no pase por asegurarse una victoria por partida doble. Una victoria territorial apoderándose de una parte de Ucrania y otra victoria política alejando a las potencias occidentales del país para poder intervenir él directamente y transformar Ucrania en un satélite ruso similar a la Bielorrusia de Lukashenko. Eso es lo que más temen en Ucrania y en el resto de Europa, ya que envalentonaría a Putin y podría llevarle a embarcarse en más aventuras expansionistas. Le daría, además, un marchamo de legitimidad con el que no tardaría en desestabilizar a las democracias europeas desde dentro. A partir de aquí Trump tendrá que caminar sobre la cuerda floja, una posición en la que se ha colocado él mismo mostrando sus cartas antes de tiempo, validando la narrativa rusa sobre la guerra y culpando directamente a la víctima de haber provocado el conflicto. No lo tendrá sencillo ya que a Trump le cuesta ver a Putin como el agresor, un agresor al que sus predecesores no consiguieron apaciguar mediante diálogo y negociaciones. En La ContraRéplica: 0:00 Introducción 3:43 Las condiciones de Putin 28:10 Trump y su caricatura 36:07 Calin Georgescu 47:08 Aborto · Canal de Telegram: https://t.me/lacontracronica · “Contra la Revolución Francesa”… https://amzn.to/4aF0LpZ · “Hispanos. Breve historia de los pueblos de habla hispana”… https://amzn.to/428js1G · “La ContraHistoria de España. Auge, caída y vuelta a empezar de un país en 28 episodios”… https://amzn.to/3kXcZ6i · “Lutero, Calvino y Trento, la Reforma que no fue”… https://amzn.to/3shKOlK · “La ContraHistoria del comunismo”… https://amzn.to/39QP2KE Apoya La Contra en: · Patreon... https://www.patreon.com/diazvillanueva · iVoox... https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-contracronica_sq_f1267769_1.html · Paypal... https://www.paypal.me/diazvillanueva Sígueme en: · Web... https://diazvillanueva.com · Twitter... https://twitter.com/diazvillanueva · Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/fernandodiazvillanueva1/ · Instagram... https://www.instagram.com/diazvillanueva · Linkedin… https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernando-d%C3%ADaz-villanueva-7303865/ · Flickr... https://www.flickr.com/photos/147276463@N05/?/ · Pinterest... https://www.pinterest.com/fernandodiazvillanueva Encuentra mis libros en: · Amazon... https://www.amazon.es/Fernando-Diaz-Villanueva/e/B00J2ASBXM #FernandoDiazVillanueva #putin #trump

Effetto notte le notizie in 60 minuti
Putin: “Si al cessate il fuoco ma per una pace duratura”

Effetto notte le notizie in 60 minuti

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 13, 2025


Il presidente russo Vladimir Putin, parlando in una conferenza stampa congiunta insieme al presidente bielorusso Lukashenko, ha affermato di essere aperto ad una tregua “ma ci sono ancora molte questioni da discutere”. Parliamo di questi ultimi aggiornamenti insieme al nostro Gigi Donelli. Trema la terra nei Campi Flegrei. Con noi Carlo Doglioni, Presidente dell'Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia e Laura Viggiano, in diretta da Bagnoli. Roma, ladro ucciso dopo rapina: arrestato vigilante per omicidio volontario. Ci racconta tutto Ilaria Sacchettoni, giornalista de Il Corriere della Sera. Infine, Giovanni Capuano ci aggiorna sui risultati di un’altra serata di coppe europee: in campo Roma, Lazio e Fiorentina.

It's All About Punk Show
It's All About Punk Show #134

It's All About Punk Show

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 5, 2025 60:26


On this episode: three years of full-scale war in Ukraine. Fuck imperialism, fuck colonialism, fuck Putin, fuck Trump, fuck Netanyahu, fuck Lukashenko, fuck war. Talking about my sober february and introducing you to a lot of great new — and not only new — music. This episode was broadcast live on FSK Radio 93.0 Hamburg (https://www.fsk-hh.org/) on March 3, 2025.Cover photo: OUST performing at The Minds in Amsterdam / 2023. Made by Rob RouleauxIf you have questions about this show or you want to contribute, just contact me: itsallaboutpunkshow@gmail.comIf you want to support my radio show, you can buy me coffee here: https://ko-fi.com/itsallaboutpunkshow Featuring:САЛЮТ! / ЗАВIРЮГА / ЛЕВКО / HEADACHEE / ΣΚΟΤΟΔΙΝΗ / CATHEDRALE / MOIST CREVICE / CRIMINAL ASSAULT / DISGUSTING NEWS / OUST / PARATONNERE / FRANTIC FORMS / GNOME / SLUGGER / GRIT / JUSTICE DEVINE / THE DOGS / EMBARGO / KRYSZTAŁAvailable on:YouTube / Mixcloud / Spotify / Apple Podcasts / Castbox / Overcast / Pocket Casts / RadioPublic 

VoiCEE - Podcast from Central and Eastern Europe
The VoiCEE podcast: what Belarus's "sham" elections mean for the country and the region

VoiCEE - Podcast from Central and Eastern Europe

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 28, 2025 24:10


In this episode, our host Joshua Coe speaks with journalist Mark Temnycky, who wrote for New Eastern Europe about the recent re-election of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.Nicknamed “Europe's last dictator”, Lukashenko won another term in office last month with a proclaimed 87% of the vote. But election observers say there has not been a free and fair election in the country since he came to power in 1994.Temnycky tells us about Lukashenko, his close ties to Russia, and the Belarusian opposition — both inside and outside the country.Read “Thirty years of Lukashenka” and “The 2025 Belarusian presidential election” by Mark Temnycky, published by New Eastern Europe.In this podcast series, we look at the region from different angles and perspectives, attempting to capture its diversity and understand emerging trends. Above all, we want to give a voice to a region that is often talked to rather than listened to.The VoiCEE is brought to you by a network of independent English-language media in Central and Eastern Europe: Reporting Democracy, VSquare, New Eastern Europe, Notes from Poland, Kafkadesk, Insight Hungary, Internews Ukraine, Transitions, Ukraine World.To not miss any news and insight from our network, sign up for our newsletter here and follow us on X.

Fighting For Ukraine
Back Into Putin's Arms - February 25th 2025

Fighting For Ukraine

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 25, 2025 3:23 Transcription Available


February 25th 2025 Yuriy reflects on three years of relentless warfare on the Ukrainian front lines, sharing his raw emotions and the harsh realities of a soldier's life. Amidst despair and international betrayal, he finds hope in the unwavering support from ordinary people around the world.   You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy's Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  Subscribe to his substack: https://yuriymatsarsky.substack.com/  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)   It is February 25th.  Today marks three years and one day since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the largest war on the European continent since World War II. And exactly three years since I became a soldier.   What has changed over these years? Everything and nothing at the same time. I've received several awards, but not a single promotion- I remain a private. I'm not chasing a career, just as I didn't in my past,  peaceful life. We have a saying 'a clean shoulder board means a clean conscience.' A private has nothing on his shoulder board. No stripes, no stars.  What else? We still have the same enemy, the same thirst for victory, the same Ukraine. What has changed? Tens of thousands of countries best sons and daughters are gone- murdered by Russian invaders. Thousands more will die in the future.  We will be no deal to stop the bloodshed- Russians won't stop until they destroy us all, or until they inflict a defeat so Russian that we lose our ability to continue the war.  And it's getting harder for us. One of our key partners, the United States, is increasingly drifting toward our enemies. Just recently at the United Nation General Assembly where Americans stood in a united front with Putin and Lukashenko, it happened so quickly. Three years ago, we began resisting one nuclear-armed state then another- North Korea joined the fight against us. Now on the diplomatic front, yet another nuclear power- the United States -is beginning to support our enemies.   You know when you read history books, you can always find the moment of greatest crisis in any given era- the darkest hour. The battle on the Somme in World War I, the fall of France in World War II and so on. But for us, this entire war is one endless darkest hour where is no single moment of crisis. It's constant, or at least what's how it feels.  Three years of stolen in life, three years of endless death and pain, three years of genocide. It's incredibly difficult not to despair. Truly difficult. It's hard not to lose your mind when you read the news, that our once greatest foreign ally now refuses to call Russia an aggressor or Putin a murderer, and instead shifts the blame for genocide onto its victims. And that is why the support from ordinary people in the West is invaluable. People who continue to stand with Ukraine, even when, their governments are ready to throw themselves back into Putin's arms for a few bucks- these people are incredible. Without these people, we wouldn't have lasted this long. Never as a country nor I as a individual. Thank you, and we are not given up.  

Keen On Democracy
Episode 2246: Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a carnival of hypocrisy

Keen On Democracy

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 23, 2025 39:34


Given the shameful American sacrifice of Ukraine, there will be few timelier movies than Anna Kryvenko's upcoming “This House is Undamaged”,. It will be an Orwellian documentary examining the Russian destruction of Mariupol, the Ukrainian city devastated by Putin's invasion in 2022. Krivenko, a Fellow at the Artist in Residence program, Institute for Advanced Studies at CEU, explains how Russian authorities are rapidly rebuilding and selling properties there while erasing Ukrainian history and creating the big lie of Mariupol as a historically Russian city. Kryvenko, originally from Kyiv, also discusses the parallels between Putin's and Trump's lies about Ukraine, summarizing their fundamental misrepresentation of the truth as a "carnival of hypocrisy."Here are the five KEEN ON takeaways from our conversation with Kryvenko:* The Russians are engaged in a systematic erasure of Mariupol's Ukrainian identity, not just through physical reconstruction but through an aggressive propaganda campaign that claims the city was "always Russian." This reconstruction effort began shortly after the city's destruction in 2022.* Pre-war Mariupol was not characterized by deep Russian-Ukrainian divisions as Russian propaganda claims. According to Kryvenko, language differences weren't a source of conflict before political forces deliberately weaponized them.* The rebuilding of Mariupol has a dark commercial aspect - Russians are selling apartments in reconstructed buildings, sometimes in properties where the original Ukrainian owners were killed, and marketing them as vacation properties while ignoring the city's tragic recent history.* There's a humanitarian crisis unfolding as some Ukrainians are being forced to return to occupied Mariupol because they have nowhere else to live, with Kryvenko citing statistics that around 150,000 people returned to occupied territories by the end of 2024.* The filmmaker is using a unique methodology of gathering evidence through social media content, vlogs, and propaganda materials to document both the physical transformation of the city and the narrative being constructed around it, rather than traditional documentary filming techniques.Transcript of Anna Kryvenko InterviewAndrew Keen: Hello, everybody. As the situation in Ukraine becomes more absurd, it seems as if the lies of Donald Trump and the lies of Vladimir Putin are becoming increasingly similar. Trump has been talking about Zelensky and Ukraine, what is described as a barrage of lies. As CNN reports, Trump falsely called Zelensky a dictator. It's becoming more and more absurd. It's almost as if the whole script was written by some Central European or East Central European absurdist. Meanwhile, the Russians continue to lie as well. There was an interesting piece recently in the Wall Street Journal about Russia wanting to erase Ukraine's future and its past. My guest today, Anna Kryvenko, is a filmmaker. She's the director of an important new movie in the process of being made called "This House Is Undamaged." She's a visual fellow at the Central European University, and she's joining us from Budapest today. Congratulations on "This House is Undamaged." Before we talk specifically about the film, do you agree with my observations that there seems to be an increasingly eerie synergy between the lies coming out of Washington, D.C. and Moscow, between Trump and Putin?Anna Kryvenko: I think the situation is becoming more crazy and absurd. That's a better word to use in this situation. For me, all of this looks like some carnival of hypocrisy. It's unbelievable that someone can use the word "dictator" in comparison with Vladimir Putin or speaking about this 4% of the people who support Zelensky when he says it's only four persons. It looks completely absurd. And this information comes from Moscow, not from actual Ukrainian statistics.Andrew Keen: The phrase you use "carnival of hypocrisy" I think is a good description. I might even use that in the title of this conversation. It's almost as if Trump in particular is parodying himself, but he seems so separated from reality that it seems as if he's actually being serious, at least from my position in California. How does it look from your perspective in Budapest? You're originally from Ukraine, so obviously you have a particular interest in this situation.Anna Kryvenko: I don't even know what to think because it's changing so fast into absurd situations. Every day when I open the news, I'm speaking with people and it looks like some kind of farce. You're expecting that the next day someone will tell you that this is a joke or something, but it's not. It's really hard to believe that this is reality now, but unfortunately it is.Andrew Keen: Kundera wrote his famous novel "The Joke" as a parody of the previous authoritarian regime in Central Europe. Your new movie, "This House is Undamaged" - I know you are an artist in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University - is very much in that vein. Tell us about the project.Anna Kryvenko: We're in work in progress. I was doing research in the archives and internet archives. This documentary film will explore the transformation of Mariupol, a Ukrainian city that was destroyed by the Russian invasion in 2022. I will use only archives and found footage materials from people who are in Mariupol now, or who were in Mariupol at the time of invasion, who were actually trying to film what's going on. Sometimes I'll also use propaganda images from Russia, from Russian authorities. In May 2022, Mariupol, after intense fighting, was almost completely destroyed.Andrew Keen: Tell us the story of Mariupol, this town on the old border of Russia and Ukraine. It's in the southeast of Ukraine.Anna Kryvenko: It's on the shore of the Azov Sea. It's part of Donetsk region. It was always an industrial city, most known for the Azovstal factory. In 2022, after incredible brutality of Russian war against Ukraine, this strategically important city was almost completely destroyed in May 2022 and was occupied by Russian government. About 90% of buildings were destroyed or demolished in some way.Andrew Keen: The Russians have essentially leveled the town, perhaps in the same way as the Israelis have essentially destroyed Gaza.Anna Kryvenko: Exactly. For a lot of people, we have this image of destroyed Mariupol until today. But after these terrible events, the Russians started this big campaign to rebuild the city. Of course, we know it was done just to erase all the scars of war, to erase it from the city's history. They started the reconstruction. Some people who stayed in Mariupol thought they would have new housing since they had no place to live. But business is business - Russian authorities started to sell these apartments to Russian citizens.Andrew Keen: I'm surprised Trump hasn't got involved. Given his real estate background and his cozy relationship with Putin, maybe Trump real estate will start selling real estate in Mariupol.Anna Kryvenko: I was thinking the same thing this last week. It was looking like such an absurd situation with Mariupol. But now we are in this business mode again with Ukraine and all the minerals. It's only the economical part of war they look at.Andrew Keen: He probably would come up with some argument why he really owns Mariupol.Anna Kryvenko: Yes.Andrew Keen: Coming back to the Wall Street Journal piece about Russia wanting to erase Ukraine's future and its past - you're originally from Kyiv. Is it the old East Central European business of destroying history and creating a new narrative that somehow conforms to how you want history to have been made?Anna Kryvenko: I was really shocked at how fast this idea of Russian Mariupol is repeating after two years in Russian media, official and semi-professional blogs, YouTube, and so forth. As a person working with this type of material, watching videos every day to find what I need, I'm listening to these people doing propaganda from Mariupol, saying "we are citizens of the city and it's always been Russian." They're repeating this all the time. Even when I'm hearing this - of course it was always a Ukrainian city, it's completely absurd, it's 100% disinformation. But when you're hearing this repeated in different contexts all the time, you start to think about it.Andrew Keen: It's the same tactics as Trump. If you keep saying something, however absurd it sounds or is, if you keep saying it enough times, some people at least start believing it. You're not a historian or political scientist, but Mariupol is in the part of Ukraine which had a significant population of Russian-speaking people. Some of the people that you're filming and featuring in your movie - are they Russians who have moved into Mariupol from some other part of Russia, or are they people originally from Mariupol who are somehow embracing their new Russian overlords?Anna Kryvenko: The people I'm watching on social media, most of them say they're from Mariupol. But you can find journalistic articles showing they're actually paid by the Russian government. It's paid propaganda and they're repeating the same narrative. It's important that they're always repeating "we were born in Mariupol" and "we want the city to be Russian." But of course, you can see it's from the same propaganda book as 2014 with Crimea. They're repeating the same narrative from Soviet times - they just changed "Soviet Union" to "Russia" and "the West" to "European Union."Andrew Keen: You grew up in Kyiv, so you're familiar with all these current and historical controversies. What's your take on Mariupol before 2020, before it was flattened by the Russians? Was it a town where Russian-speaking and Ukrainian people were neighbors and friends? Were there always deep divisions between the Russian and Ukrainian speaking populations there?Anna Kryvenko: It's hard to explain because you need to dig deeper to explain the Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking parts of Ukraine. But it was never a problem before Yanukovych became prime minister and then president. It was his strategy to create this polarization of Ukraine - that the western part wants to be part of the European Union and the eastern part wants to be part of Russia because of language, and they cannot live together. But it's not true. For me as a person from Kyiv, from the center of the country, with friends from different parts of Ukraine, it was never a problem. I'm from a Russian-speaking family and have many friends from Ukrainian-speaking families. It was never a question. We were in a kind of symbiotic connection. All schools were in Ukrainian, universities in Ukrainian. We were bilingual. It was not a problem to communicate.Some of this division came from Yanukovych's connections to Putin and his propaganda. It was important for them to say "we are Russian-speaking people, and because we are Russian-speaking, we want to be part of Russia." But I have friends from Mariupol, and after 2014, when war in eastern Ukraine started and Mariupol was bombed a few times, it became a really good city to live in. There were many cultural activities. I know friends who were originally from Mariupol, studied in Kyiv in theater or visual art, and went back to Mariupol because it was a good place for their art practice. Ukraine is still a bit centralized, with most activity in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, and the big cities, but Mariupol wasn't a city with internal conflict. It's weird that so fast after 2022, people started saying it was always problematic in wanting to be part of Russia. It was never like that.Andrew Keen: It's as if I lived for a year in Bosnia before the civil war, and it was almost as if ethnicity was invented by the nationalist Serbian regime. It seems as if the Putin regime is doing or has done the same thing in the eastern part of Ukraine.Anna Kryvenko: Yes.Andrew Keen: You talk to lots of friends still and you're from Kyiv originally, and obviously your professional life remains focused on the situation. In late February 2025, what's your sense of how Ukrainians are feeling given what Trump is now saying?Anna Kryvenko: I think a lot of people in Ukraine or Ukrainians abroad are feeling lonely, that they don't have support. Again we are in this situation where you have big deals about Ukraine without Ukraine. You feel like nothing, just an empty space on a map with minerals or sea access. We're just sitting there waiting while they're agreeing on deals. That's the negative layer. But it's important for all Ukrainians to be together and speak about the situation. After Trump's words about the 4% support for Zelensky, there were statistics from last year showing 57-55% support for Zelensky. Today, after these few days, new statistics show 65% support.Andrew Keen: Zelensky started his political career as a satirical comedian, and it's as if he's participating in his own comedy - as if he's almost paid Trump to promote him. What about the broader take on the US? Obviously Trump isn't all America, but he was just elected a couple of months ago. Are your Ukrainian friends and associates, as well as many people at the Central European University in Budapest, taking this as a message from America itself, or are people able to separate Trump and America?Anna Kryvenko: This is a hard question because we always know that you have a president or representative figure, but that's not the whole state. I spoke with someone from our university who was in Pennsylvania before the election, and he said all the people were pro-Trump. The logic was really simple - "he's good" and "he will stop this war" - though people sometimes don't even know which war or which country. They're just repeating the same talking points.Andrew Keen: It's sort of Orwellian in the sense that it's just war and it doesn't really matter who's involved - he's just going to stop it.Anna Kryvenko: It reminded me of how everyone was repeating about Lukashenko from Belarus that "he's a good manager" and can manage things, and that's why he's still president - not that he's a dictator killing his opponents. They use this to explain why he's good and people choose him. Now with Trump, they say "he's a good businessman," but we can see how this business works. Today, someone from Trump's administration said Zelensky needs to stop being arrogant because Trump is in a bad mood. In what world are we living where this is used as an argument?Andrew Keen: Coming back to real estate, he probably sees Mariupol as a nice strip on the Black Sea, like Gaza, which he sees as a valuable strip on the Mediterranean for real estate development. I found an interesting piece online about the Russian invasion, "When Buildings Can Talk: The Real Face of Civilian Infrastructure Ruined by Russian Invaders." In a way, your project "This House is Undamaged" is your way of making buildings talk. Is that fair?Anna Kryvenko: I think it's the best description you can use.Andrew Keen: Perhaps you might explain how and why.Anna Kryvenko: This name "This House is Undamaged" might or might not be the final name. For me, it's important because after the first months when it started to be a Russian city, some people were trying to sell apartments just to have some money. The reconstruction started a bit later. They were using video websites like Craigslist. It immediately became Russian, part of Russian territory. People from different Russian regions who saw this opportunity were trying to buy something because prices were so cheap. People needed money to buy a ticket and go to other cities or to relatives. In every advertisement, there was this phrase "this house has no damages" or "this house is undamaged." You had to put it there even if it wasn't true - you could see pictures where one building had a hole, but they were still saying "this house is undamaged."Andrew Keen: It's just again coming back to the carnival of hypocrisy or the carnival of absurd hypocrisy - you see these completely destroyed homes, and then you have the signs from the Russians saying this house is undamaged.Anna Kryvenko: It was also interesting why some people from Russia want to buy apartments in Mariupol, in these reconstructed buildings with weird pro-Russian murals - it's like Stalinism. They don't even know where Mariupol is - they think it's somewhere near Crimea, but it's not the Black Sea, it's the Azov Sea, an industrial region. It's not the best place to live. But they think it will be some kind of resort. They're living somewhere in Russia and think they can buy a cheap apartment and use it as a resort for a few months. This is absurd because the city was completely destroyed. You still have mass graves. Sometimes they're selling apartments where they can't even find the owner because the whole family is dead.On Google Maps, someone made an alternative version where you can see all the buildings that were destroyed, because officially you can't find this information anywhere. People were putting crosses where they knew someone died in a building - entire families. And after this, people are buying their apartments. For me, this is unbearable. You can do research about what you're doing, but people are lazy and don't want to do this work.Andrew Keen: It comes back to the Journal piece about Russia literally erasing not just Ukraine's past but also its future, creating a culture of amnesia. It's chilling on so many levels. But it's the old game - it's happened before in that part of the world and no doubt will happen again. As a filmmaker, what particular kind of political or aesthetic responsibility do you have? People have been writing - I mentioned Kundera, Russian writers, Gogol - satires of this kind of absurd political power for centuries. But as a filmmaker, what kind of responsibility do you have? How does your form help you make this argument of essentially restoring the past, of telling the truth?Anna Kryvenko: A lot of filmmakers in Ukraine, with the start of invasion, just brought cameras and started making films. The first goal wasn't to make a film but to document the crimes. My case is different - not only because my family's in Ukraine and I have many friends there and lived there until my twenties. For the last ten years, since the Maidan events in 2013-2014, I started working with archive and found footage material. This is my methodology. For me, it's not important to go somewhere and document. It's more interesting to use media deconstruction from propaganda sources, maybe from Ukrainian sources also because it's a question of ideology.One of my favorite materials now is people doing vlogs - just with their camera or mobile phone going from Russia to Crimea or back. You only have two ways to go there because airports aren't working, so you go through the Kerch-Crimea bridge. Now because of Mariupol's strategic location, you can go through there, so you have two different roads. People from different Russian cities sometimes film their road and say "what is this, is it destroyed?" This is the average Russian person, and you can hear the propaganda they're repeating or what they're really thinking. For me, it's important to show these different points of view from people who were there or are there now. I don't have the opportunity as a Ukrainian citizen to go there. Through this method, in the near future when I finish this film, we can have testimonies from the inside. We don't need to wait for the war to end because we don't know how or when it ends. It's important to show it to people who maybe don't know anything about what's going on in Mariupol.Andrew Keen: Given the abundance of video on the internet, on platforms like YouTube, how do you distinguish between propaganda and truth yourself in terms of taking some of these segments to make your film? It could be conceivable that some of the more absurd videos are put out by Ukrainians to promote their own positions and undermine the Russians. Have you found that? Is there a propaganda war on YouTube and other platforms between Ukrainian and Russian nationalists? And as a filmmaker who's trying to archive the struggle in an honest way, how do you deal with that?Anna Kryvenko: Of course, there are many people, and Mariupol is the best example because the Russian government is paying people to repeat pro-Russian ideology. Sometimes you can see just an average person from Mariupol going with a camera and shooting something without speaking - this is just documentation. Sometimes you have Russian people there for some days just saying something. And of course, you get different segments of real propaganda from some ministry in Russia with drone material and big music. I'm always trying to question myself: What am I looking at? Who is speaking? On technical aspects, why is this like this? It helps me to be holistic.Of course, I'm from Ukraine, and sometimes this is the most uncomfortable - you can hear actual people from Mariupol saying something you don't want to hear because it's not your point of view on the war. But these are people really from the city giving some kind of realistic point of view on the situation. It's sad, but there were statistics at the end of 2024 that about 150,000 people were returning to occupied territories, not only to Mariupol but all occupied territories. Maybe 40% were coming back to register their property and then returning to Ukrainian territory, but many people are returning to Mariupol because they don't have anywhere to live in Ukraine. It's not hundreds but thousands of people. As Ukrainians, we're not comfortable with this because we're all in different situations. But if something's not comfortable for my point of view, it doesn't mean it's bad or good.Andrew Keen: It's an important project. I know your artist residency at the Central European University is finishing at the end of February. You're going to focus on finishing the movie. When do you think it will be ready and what are your ambitions for the finished movie? Will you put it online, in theaters? What's your ideal?Anna Kryvenko: If everything goes well, we can finish it in a year and a half because it will be a long process of editing and working with rights. We only started working on it six months ago, and it's starting to go faster. Documentary making is a long process because of funding and everything. Even though I don't need to go somewhere physically, it's still a long process with a lot of waiting. First, we're thinking about festivals, maybe a theater release, maybe we'll have some broadcasters because it's an important topic to show to a wider audience. After a year, we'll see.Andrew Keen: If "Buildings Can Talk" is the subtitle of this upcoming movie "This House is Undamaged," it's a really important project about Mariupol. Thank you for being on the show. I'm going to have to get you back when the movie is done because I can't wait to see it.Anna Kryvenko: Thank you so much. Thank you.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Anna Kryvenko (1986, Ukraine) is a video and fine art photography artist based in Prague and Kyiv. She is a Fellow at the Artist in Residence program, Institute for Advanced Studies at Central European University. She graduated from the Centre for Audio-Visual Studies at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU, Prague). Her films and performances were screened at Dok Leipzig, ZagrebDox, Visions du Reel Nyon, Fluidum Festival, Jihlava Documentary Film Festival, etc. With her found-footage film Silently Like a Comet, she won the prize for the Best Experimental Act at FAMUFEST, Prague (CZ), and a few others. Her film Listen to the Horizon won the prize for the Best Czech Experimental Documentary, Jihlava IDFF (CZ). Her first feature documentary film My Unknown Soldier won the Last Stop Trieste 2018 Postproduction Award, Special Mention at Zagreb Dox, the Special Prize of the Jury at IDFF CRONOGRAF, and the Andrej Stankovič Prize. Her newest short film Easier Than You Think won the Jury Award of the Other Vision Competition 2022 (PAF, Czech Republic).Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Keen On Democracy
Episode 2239: Frank Vogl on why Trump's financial deregulation is likely to lead to another global economic crash

Keen On Democracy

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 16, 2025 36:18


The zealously anti-regulatory Trump is back and anti-corruption activist Frank Vogl is very worried. Vogl warns that MAGA's increasingly deregulated America financial landscape could make the 2008 crash look like a minor bump in the economic road. With Trump putting the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on "pause" and DOGE kingpin Elon Musk openly dreaming of turning X into a bank, we're watching traditional financial regulation shrivel to the minimal levels of Calvin Coolidge's 1920's. Meanwhile, Melania is launching crypto tokens, Putin's kleptocracy has been legitimized by the Ukraine “peace” negotiations, and the increasingly unaccountable banks are begging to gamble with our money again. What could possibly go wrong? Here are the five KEEN ON takeaways from this conversation with Frank Vogl:* Financial Deregulation Concerns - Frank Vogl warns that Trump's administration is actively dismantling financial regulations, including pausing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and weakening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He fears this deregulation could lead to a financial crisis potentially worse than 2008.* Three-Pronged Financial Risk - Vogl identifies three interconnected areas of concern:* Traditional banks seeking reduced capital requirements and fewer restrictions* Unregulated expansion of Silicon Valley firms (like X/Twitter) into banking* The growing crypto market and its potential for money laundering and speculation* Regulatory Enforcement Weakening - The Trump administration is systematically weakening regulatory agencies by appointing anti-regulation leaders and reducing staff (e.g., the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation lost 500 staff). This reduction in oversight capacity could enable financial abuse and fraud.* International Corruption Implications - The suspension of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and potential lifting of Russian sanctions could create a vacuum in global anti-corruption enforcement, as no other country (including the UK or Switzerland) is positioned to take over America's leadership role in fighting international financial crime.* Big Tech and Government Contracts - There's growing concern about the relationship between the Trump administration and tech leaders, not just for potential government contracts but also for their control of media platforms. Vogl argues this could be problematic for democracy if proper procurement and transparency processes aren't followed.FULL TRANSCRIPT: Frank Vogl Warns of a New Financial Crisis Under Trump 2.0Interview with Frank Vogl February 16, 2025Two months into Donald Trump's second presidency, financial corruption expert Frank Vogl returns to Keen On to discuss the dismantling of America's financial regulatory system and its potential consequences. Vogl, co-founder of Transparency International and author of "The Enablers: How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption, Endangering Our Democracy," warns of parallels to both the 1920s and 2008 financial crisis, but with new digital-age complications.Andrew Keen: Hello, everybody. It is Sunday, February 16th, 2025. A couple of years ago, we did a show with my old friend Frank Vogl on the global fight against corruption. He is the author of "The Enablers: How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption, Endangering Our Democracy" and co-founder of Transparency International, a nonprofit focused on exposing financial corruption. Last year, we had Frank back to discuss whether Donald Trump 2.0 would be what we called a semi-legal repeat of the Sam Bankman-Fried FTX debacle. Now, almost two months into the Trump regime, I'd like to revisit this question. Frank, you have an interesting new piece out in The Globalist about Trump-style U.S. financial deregulation and its global ramifications. Is it as bad as we feared?Frank Vogl: Yes, it's good to be with you, Andrew. We are in danger of developments that could lead to a financial crisis in a few years' time, potentially worse than the 2008 financial crisis. That crisis led to massive unemployment and economic hardship, not just in the U.S. but across the world. It was caused by wild speculation, greed, and mismanagement by fewer than two dozen financial institutions, many of which were bailed out. Now, thanks to what Trump and Elon Musk are doing, we're setting the stage for a new era of financial deregulation with all the risks that involves.Andrew Keen: It's chilling. Frank, I wonder about the historical parallels. Some people have made much of Trump's interest in McKinley's presidency, colonialism, and Latin America. But I wonder whether we're really returning to the 1920s and the unconstrained speculative capitalism of the Coolidge, Harding, and Hoover era. Are there historical analogies here? The teapot scandal and unregulated capitalism of the '20s resulted in the great crash.Frank Vogl: Yes, that's true. But we should remember it led to a new era of regulation - the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory bodies focused on ensuring financial institutions didn't have excessive power. What we're facing now is not only the prospect of excessive power by financial institutions but a much more complicated array of financial institutions. Take Elon Musk, who unquestionably wants to enter the financial arena by operating his own quasi-bank.Andrew Keen: He's always been clear about that - he's said X will ultimately be a bank among other things.Frank Vogl: What we're seeing now is not only the possibility of bank deregulation, but also the emergence of a whole new unregulated system of finance from Silicon Valley. Add to that the complete mayhem of gambling, greed, corruption, and money laundering associated with crypto tokens. Put all of that together and you have a dangerous situation that could affect the global economy.Andrew Keen: Some might say you're overreacting. A Silicon Valley entrepreneur friend who was on the show yesterday argued that the Biden administration, particularly figures like Lina Khan, was stifling innovation. They'd say Trump's people are just letting innovators innovate, with Musk as a prime example. How would you respond to that?Frank Vogl: I disagree when it comes to finance. Let me explain. Our government essentially has two components: the administrative state, where government departments monitor and implement programs and projects, and the regulatory state, where agencies protect American citizens in health, consumer safety, and finance. First and foremost, we need a safe and sound financial system. Everyone benefits from that. We have a healthy financial system right now - just look at the stock market. It could be improved, but let's not demolish it. The profits of the biggest banks in 2024 were at record levels. Jamie Dimon, head of JP Morgan Chase, took home a record $39 million in compensation. The head of Goldman Sachs got an $80 million bonus.Andrew Keen: Which in Silicon Valley terms isn't that much money, certainly compared to the Musks and others of this world.Frank Vogl: My point is that banks are the bedrock of our financial system. The people at the top are being compensated better than ever before. So what are they campaigning for? What are they supporting Trump on? They're arguing for the kind of deregulation that Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve Board president, warned would be dangerous.Andrew Keen: My understanding of the 2008 crash was that banks took advantage of vulnerable consumers and lent them money they shouldn't have borrowed, creating the subprime mortgage crisis that crashed the economy. What do bankers want to do in 2025 that, in your view, they shouldn't be allowed to do?Frank Vogl: You're right about what happened, but also many financial institutions borrowed enormous sums. They leveraged their basic resources to speculate on complicated derivative financial instruments. They were essentially gambling. As Chuck Prince, who ran Citigroup, said, "We have to keep dancing as long as the music is playing."Andrew Keen: Capitalism is about dancing, Frank. It's about taking risk, isn't it?Frank Vogl: To some degree, but when you have an institution like JPMorgan Chase with over $4 trillion in assets, you have to think hard about its mission. That mission fundamentally is to serve customers, not just the top executives. Let them get rich at the top, but let them be prudent and maintain integrity. Trump and Musk have no time for that. Let me give you one example: Trump recently announced we're no longer going to investigate international and corporate corruption. He put the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on pause.Andrew Keen: Yes, that was February 10th. Quoting from whitehouse.gov: "Pausing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement to further American economic and national security," whatever that means.Frank Vogl: The act was signed by Jimmy Carter in 1977. The largest single fines ever paid for foreign bribery were by Goldman Sachs - nearly $4 billion globally, with $1.6 billion to the U.S. alone. Now we're ending investigations of exactly the kind of activity that made Goldman Sachs very profitable. We're ending all manner of fraud investigation in finance. Take another example: last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was essentially shuttered. A judge ruled it should continue, but Trump's appointees ensure it has minimal resources to investigate. The CFPB investigates banks that commit fraud against regular customers. Remember what Wells Fargo did? The CFPB caught them, and they paid major fines.Andrew Keen: How does all this add up to a financial crisis? The CFPB situation is troubling, but why should this cause the whole system to collapse?Frank Vogl: Let's look at this in three components: banks, digital finance, and crypto. Starting with banks - they're lobbying hard for reduced capital requirements, meaning less money in reserve for crises. They want fewer regulations on how they use their money so they can speculate on their own account. Why? Because banks' short-term profits determine the bankers' compensation. Their bonuses are tied to those profits.Andrew Keen: So if banks are allowed to gamble aggressively, that's great if they win, but if they lose, we all lose. Is that the argument? Then we have to bail them out again?Frank Vogl: That's part of it. The other concern is that as some banks lose, they may get merged into other banks until you have just a handful of enormous banks that can never fail. If they were to fail, our economy would fail. The moral hazard is that banks know when they take huge risks, they'll be bailed out. Now add to this all these quasi-banking systems from Silicon Valley - PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay. And X recently announced a deal with Visa on payment systems, just the first step to creating X Financial.Andrew Keen: You're sounding a bit reactionary, maybe alarmist. What's wrong with PayPal? It's simply a digital system for people to buy stuff.Frank Vogl: You're right, it's fine the way it is today. But what if these entities are allowed to take deposits and make loans, doing everything banks do, all online? Who's regulating that? Where's the safety?Andrew Keen: But where's the evidence that the Trump administration will allow PayPal or X or Apple Pay to become banks without traditional regulations? From a traditional banking perspective, I'd assume Jamie Dimon and his peers would fight this because it undermines them.Frank Vogl: We're seeing an administration tearing the system apart. Look at each regulatory agency - Trump has put people in charge with long histories of opposing regulation. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation just lost 500 staff through "voluntary resignations." When you reduce regulatory enforcement and investigation, you open the door to abuse. History shows that when there's opportunity for abuse, abuse happens. I hope your optimism about Silicon Valley's ability to manage complicated finance is justified, but I'm skeptical.Andrew Keen: So you're saying Apple or X or PayPal shouldn't be able to be banks, even with traditional banking regulations?Frank Vogl: No, that would be fine. But who's going to regulate it? Do you see Trump proposing to Congress that a brand new regulatory agency be established for this kind of finance? That's not how the Trump team thinks. Just look at crypto.Andrew Keen: Yes, let's look at crypto. Melania Trump launched her own cryptocurrency - it's an enormous speculative bubble, like the tulip speculation. Last week, both Donald and Melania Trump's crypto tokens plummeted. Someone's profiting, someone's losing. How important is this to the broader economy? Is it just another sideshow, another way for the Trump family to get rich while we lose?Frank Vogl: It's contained at the moment. The whole crypto token business is perhaps $3-4 trillion in size - very small in terms of global finance. But I worry about an administration with strong conflicts of interest developing this kind of rapid gambling speculation. Most people invested in crypto are young, between 18 and 35. Many don't have experience with past financial crises.Andrew Keen: And there's a clear difference between using PayPal to buy something online and investing in crypto. One is entirely speculative, one is just a financial transaction.Frank Vogl: Do you really think Elon Musk's X Financial will be satisfied just being a rival to PayPal's payment system? Or does he have bigger ambitions to turn X Financial into something much more like a bank?Andrew Keen: I think he does, but...Frank Vogl: And then comes the question: who is going to regulate this?Andrew Keen: Musk himself? That's a joke. Although at the moment, there's no concrete evidence. X is still struggling for survival as just a social media platform.Frank Vogl: Look, I may sound pessimistic, but I'm only talking about the potential. There's very little public attention on what's happening with financial deregulation, as I wrote in The Globalist. The impact could be substantial. When you have this complete dismantling of the FCPA, other fraud investigations, the removal of inspectors general - the whole dismantling of the government's apparatus for accountability and transparency - then you have to worry about mounting financial risk in our system.Andrew Keen: Let's return to crypto. When does crypto become dangerous? If it becomes a rival to the dollar? At what point do we start worrying that a crypto crisis could become a broader financial crisis?Frank Vogl: I don't worry about that actually. I worry about the conflicts of interest - Trump and his children and cronies all making money from deregulating crypto. I think crypto will remain a sideshow for a long time. But I'm considerably worried about money laundering. With a Justice Department that's stopped investigating financial crimes, and a cryptocurrency system free of regulation - something Trump has promised - organized crime and kleptocrats worldwide will be able to hide their ill-gotten gains and transfer them between countries. That's worrying in itself, even if it doesn't cause a global financial meltdown.Andrew Keen: I wonder if there's another dimension to Trump's upcoming meeting with Putin in Saudi Arabia to discuss Ukraine. There's what one author called "KGB-style capitalism" - the mass laundering of illegal wealth. How much does Trump's eagerness to bring Putin back into the international system have financial ramifications?Frank Vogl: Putin and the oligarchs, Lukashenko in Belarus and his cronies, the former oligarchs of Ukraine who made their money with Russia - all these people have been sanctioned since the war started in February 2022. We're approaching the third anniversary. Putin really wants those sanctions lifted to restore global money laundering and financial crime opportunities. This might be leverage in a deal.Andrew Keen: Can Trump get away with that politically in D.C.? If he pulls the sanctions card to establish what he'd call a Ukrainian peace - really a peace imposed by America on Ukraine - will mainstream Republicans accept that?Frank Vogl: They seem to accept everything today. Trump seems to get away with an awful lot. But I'd like to return to something earlier - there needs to be more public attention on the dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. To use a new word in the vocabulary, it has been "Musked." The CFPB, like USA Today, has been Musked. Musk and Trump have weaponized their authority to dismantle these institutions. We'll see it at the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. When you weaponize authority, you monetize power. This is where the conflict of interest comes in. Unfortunately, Congress isn't alert to these developments.Andrew Keen: In a broader international sense, I've always understood that American law is more aggressive than the UK's. Oliver Pollock, who's been on the show, wrote "Butler to the World" about the corrupt British system that invites dirty money from overseas, particularly Russia. Given that Trump is demanding half of Ukraine's mineral resources, could this Trump revolution undermine America's role in standing up to dirty money, both domestically and overseas?Frank Vogl: It might undermine it, but there's no authority anywhere to replace it. The U.S. Justice Department did a fantastic job investigating cryptocurrencies, crypto finance, and bribery of foreign government officials - not just by U.S. companies but by many companies worldwide with U.S. listings, like Airbus Industries. There's no authority in Europe willing to take on that task. So we leave a vacuum. And who fills the vacuum? Kleptocrats, organized crime, and corrupt businesses. A Nigerian paper recently headlined that Nigerian politicians are now open to American bribes. We're being seen as permitting corruption - a terrible reputation. The Swiss or British won't suddenly become super-active in filling the roles the U.S. Justice Department has played.Andrew Keen: As The Guardian headlined today, "Elon Musk's mass government cuts could make private companies millions." We all know the famous photo from the inauguration with Zuckerberg, Bezos, Google's CEO, and Musk. Some might say, what's wrong with that? These companies are the engine of the American economy. Why shouldn't the Trump administration focus on making big American companies more profitable? Won't that make Americans wealthier too?Frank Vogl: There are two answers. First, I agree - if standard public procurement, accountability, and transparency procedures are in place, then companies winning competitive bidding should win. If these happen to be the companies you mentioned, good for them. But if contracts are given without proper bidding processes and transparency, the public loses. Second, Trump didn't embrace these people primarily for their business power - they control media. Autocrats worldwide, from Orbán to Netanyahu, ensure they have media-controlling business tycoons on their side. Trump is incredibly sensitive to publicity and has attracted these powerful media tycoons. I worry about how this media power will be used to undermine democracy and freedom of speech.Andrew Keen: What's the headline for today? Last time, we discussed whether Trump 2.0 would be a semi-legal repeat of the Sam Bankman-Fried debacle. What's the worst that can happen in this new regime?Frank Vogl: Actions are being taken, sometimes inadvertently, that undermine the safety and soundness of our financial system. If that happens, everyone - not just here at home but internationally - will suffer.Andrew Keen: So we'll get 2008 again, or 1930?Frank Vogl: I hope we get neither. But we must be acutely aware of the risks and call out all deregulatory measures if we believe they risk our system, especially when prompted by corruption and greed rather than public interest.Andrew Keen: Well, Frank Vogl, I hope you're wrong, but I suspect you may be right. This won't be the last time you appear on the show. There will be many twists and turns in the financial history of the Trump regime. Thank you so much, Frank. Keep watching in D.C. - we need eyes and ears like yours to make sense of what's happening.Frank Vogl: Andrew, it was once again a great pleasure. Thank you.Frank Vogl is the co-founder of two leading international non-governmental organizations fighting corruption -- Transparency International and the Partnership for Transparency Fund (Frank is the Chair of the PTF Board). He teaches at Georgetown University, writes regular "blog" articles on corruption for theGlobalist.com and lectures extensively. Frank is also a specialist in international economics and finance with more than 50 years of experience in these fields - first as an international journalist, then as the Director of Information & Public Affairs at the World Bank official and, from 1990 to 2017, as the president and CEO of a consulting firm, Vogl Communications Inc.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Genstart - DR's nyhedspodcast
Verdens Minsk'e overraskelse

Genstart - DR's nyhedspodcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2025 24:29


Grænsevagterne ser skeptisk på Matilde Kimer: Er det virkelig klogt at lade en journalist med så mange Ukraine-stempler komme ind i pro-russiske Belarus? Men denne gang går det godt. For første gang i fire år får DR's Rusland- og Ukrainekorrespondent adgang lige i tide til at dække et valg, hvor der ikke ventes store overraskelser . Men meget er forandret. Siden 2020, hvor folket udfordrede Lukashenko, har landets diktator strammet grebet. I dagens Genstart fortæller Matilde Kimer om Lukasjenkos vej til 87,6% af stemmerne og et Belarus, hvor kritikerne er blevet tavse. Vært: Anna Ingrisch. Program publiceret i DR Lyd d. 5. februar 2025.

News dal pianeta Terra
I migranti trasferiti in Albania tornano in Italia, per la terza volta

News dal pianeta Terra

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 3, 2025 8:49


Sono tornati in Italia i 43 migranti che erano stati trasferiti nei centri di detenzione in Albania costruiti l'anno scorso dal nostro governo. La Corte d'Appello di Roma, come gli altri due tribunali, ha ritenuto non sicuri i paesi d'origine dei migranti.E poi la giornalista Lucia Bellinello ci racconta delle recenti elezioni in Bielorussia, dove Lukashenko è stato rieletto per la settima volta dopo aver eliminato tutte le opposizioni.Puoi scriverci a podcast@lifegate.it e trovare tutte le news su www.lifegate.it.

Profile
Alexander Lukashenko

Profile

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 1, 2025 14:45


Despite just winning a seventh consecutive presidential term, a look at Alexander Lukashenko's early life reveals rather humbler origins.Brought up by a single mother in a poor village in eastern Belarus, he first made his mark as the manager of a farm in the late 1980s.After moving into politics at the end of that decade, he quickly established his reputation as a man with authoritarian instincts – and by 1994, he was elected president of Belarus for the first time.Ever since, he has managed a balancing act between Russia, his closest economic and political partner, and overtures to the West. But, the country's faced sanctions following its role in the invasion of Ukraine, while many Western governments have labelled this latest election as a sham.Stephen Smith takes a closer look at the man often referred to as Europe's last dictator.Production TeamProducers: Sally Abrahams, Charlotte McDonald and Nathan Gower Editor: Ben Mundy Sound: James Beard Production Co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele and Jack YoungGuestsSvetlana Tikhanovskaya, leader of the democratic opposition of Belarus Olga Dryndova, Editor of Belarus-Analysen, University of Bremen Katia Glod, Russia-West Policy Fellow at the European Leadership Network and Non-resident Fellow with Centre for European Policy Analysis, Washington DC Pavel Latushka, former Minister of Culture, Belarus government, now Belarus opposition politician Rosemary Thomas, former UK ambassador to Belarus CreditsAnimal Farm by George Orwell, recording produced by Ciaran Bermingham Narrated by Roger Ringrose

Isaiah's Newsstand
South Korea, Vucevic, & Lukashenko

Isaiah's Newsstand

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 29, 2025 50:11


(1/21/2025-1/28/2025) Tune in. patreon.com/isaiahnews #applepodcasts⁠ ⁠#spotifypodcasts⁠ ⁠#youtube #amazon⁠ ⁠#patreon⁠

In 4 Minuti
Martedì, 28 gennaio

In 4 Minuti

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 28, 2025 4:20


La scontata vittoria di Lukashenko in Bielorussia, il confronto tra USA e Colombia e la legge irachena che legalizza il matrimonio infantile

SBS Russian - SBS на русском языке
Lukashenko extends the rule: Protests and international criticism - Лукашенко снова у власти: Мнения, протесты и международная критика

SBS Russian - SBS на русском языке

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 28, 2025 7:46


Alexander Lukashenko secured his seventh consecutive term as the president of Belarus. The Belarusian diaspora abroad organised demonstrations against the election results, while the international community raised concerns about their legitimacy. - 26 января в Беларуси прошли президентские выборы. Александр Лукашенко набрал более 87% голосов и был переизбран на седьмой срок. Диаспора за рубежом организовала акции против итогов выборов, а международное сообщество выразило сомнения в их легитимности.

West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy
West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy Tarrytown Chowder Tuesdays 28 Jan 25

West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 28, 2025 63:15


Today's West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy Podcast for our especially daily special, Tarrytown Chowder Tuesday is now available on the Spreaker Player!Starting off in the Bistro Cafe, Trump could not finish his first week as President “without violating the law.”Then, on the rest of the menu, a former New York State Trooper who lied that a mysterious Black man shot him, has been arrested and charged with official misconduct, tampering with evidence and falsifying documents; Trump pulled a Kremlin-like purge and fired over a dozen career DOJ prosecutors who worked on criminal prosecutions of the mobbed up Russian money launderer; and, the new top prosecutor for DC advocated for the January 6 insurgents and has echoed Trump's false 2020 election claims.After the break, we move to the Chef's Table where the Belarus opposition and Western leaders rejected the orchestrated election result that extends strongman Lukashenko's thirty-year rule; and, Pakistani journalists protested after the Senate passed a bill allowing full control over social media content.All that and more, on West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy with Chef de Cuisine Justice Putnam.Bon Appétit!The Netroots Radio Live Player​Keep Your Resistance Radio Beaming 24/7/365!“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.” -- Ernest Hemingway "A Moveable Feast"Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/west-coast-cookbook-speakeasy--2802999/support.

Ukraine: The Latest
'Devastating' HIMARS ambush - Ukrainian troops lure in Russians

Ukraine: The Latest

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 27, 2025 64:04


Day 1,069.Today, on the 80th International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we report on an operation in Kursk Oblast last week that apparently saw a large number of Russian troops lured into a trap, and we look at the literally unbelievable election win for Lukashenko in Belarus - returned to power with, we are expected to believe, 87% of the vote.Contributors:Dominic Nicholls (Associate Editor of Defence). @DomNicholls on X.Francis Dearnley (Executive Editor, Audio). @FrancisDearnley on X.With thanks to Shashank Yoshi (Defence editor at The Economist). @shashj on X.Articles Referenced:Israel ‘sends weapons captured in Lebanon to Ukraine' (The Telegraph)https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/01/26/israel-sends-weapons-captured-from-lebanon-to-ukraine/Zelensky says allies should work on ‘format' for peace talks with Russia (The Telegraph):https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/01/25/russia-ukraine-war-zelensky-format-for-peace-talks-putin/Why is Ukraine struggling to mobilise its citizens to fight? (AlJazeera):https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/1/23/why-is-ukraine-struggling-to-mobilise-its-citizens-to-fightRussia focuses on Soviet victims of WW2 as officials not invited to Auschwitz ceremony (BBC):https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyw0vkzkzdoSubscribe to The Telegraph: telegraph.co.uk/ukrainethelatestEmail: ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cinco continentes
Cinco Continentes - Decenas de miles de palestinos vuelven a lo que queda de sus casas en Gaza

Cinco continentes

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 27, 2025 42:03


Cientos de miles de palestinos están regresando al norte de Gaza una vez Israel, en virtud del acuerdo con Hamas, ha abierto el acceso y permite que los gazatíes regresen 15 meses después a su hogar. Muchas de estas personas saben que no queda nada de su casa y que su calle, su barrio, no son más que escombros. Aún así, los palestinos vuelven a su casa con la esperanza de poder quedarse y de que la guerra quede lo antes posible en el olvido.Colombia y Estados Unidos han estado muy cerca de entrar en una guerra comercial después de que el presidente colombiano prohibiese el aterrizaje de dos aviones con decenas de inmigrantes ilegales colombianos deportados... vamos a analizar lo ocurrido en una entrevista. También sabremos qué está ocurriendo en República Democrática del Congo donde tropas ruandesas están apoyando a la guerrilla del M23.Sabremos cómo han reaccionado diferentes estados a las elecciones presidenciales en Bielorrusia en las que ha vuelto a ganar Lukashenko por mayoría absoluta; y estaremos en Auschwitz, el campo de exterminio nazi, 80 años después de la liberación de sus prisioneros.Escuchar audio

News Headlines in Morse Code at 15 WPM

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Six hostages to be freed and Gazans to be allowed north Israel People choose jail and exile, Belarus president Lukashenko tells BBC Cheadle Man arrested after car driven at police officer Vicky Pattisons deepfake sex tape, The Weeknd, Hard Truths, The Fall of Diddy, and The Apprentice This weeks big releases Gaza war Trump wants Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians UK faces high winds and floods as Storm Herminia rolls in Keir Starmer praises Donald Trumps role in Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal Auschwitz survivors return as world remembers Nazi death camp 80 years on I spent 30 years trying to unlock the secret to happiness Strictly Come Dancing Wynne Evans apologises for inappropriate comment at tour

Cuba a diario
Cuba a Diario (27-01-2025): Solucionada la crisis entre Colombia y EEUU

Cuba a diario

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 27, 2025 7:57


¿Tienes unos minutos? Te contamos la actualidad de Cuba y del resto del mundo en 'Cuba a Diario', el podcast noticioso de Diario De Cuba. CINCO NOTICIAS DEL DÍA: —Cinco fallecidos, entre ellos un niño y tres cubanos residentes en EEUU, tras un accidente de tránsito en Holguín https://diariodecuba.com/cuba/1737909160_59595.html —Trump impone sanciones a Colombia luego de que Petro negara la entrada a dos vuelos con migrantes deportados https://diariodecuba.com/internacional/1737926411_59597.html —'Memecoins', más transacciones y hackeos, ¿como se comporta el mercado de criptomonedas en Cuba? https://diariodecuba.com/cuba/1737919531_59596.html —Funcionarios del régimen reconocen el pésimo estado de Ómnibus Nacionales y Ferrocarriles de Cuba https://diariodecuba.com/cuba/1737887576_59590.html —Cinco años más, Lukashenko se perpetúa en el poder en Bielorrusia https://diariodecuba.com/internacional/1737960592_59599.html ESCÚCHANOS de lunes a viernes en: DDC Radio: https://diariodecuba.com/radio Soundcloud: https://is.gd/Da9TSp Apple Podcast: https://is.gd/3V010V Spotify: https://is.gd/J2Ifoy SÍGUENOS: • FB: www.facebook.com/DIARIODECUBA • TW: https://twitter.com/diariodecuba • IG: www.instagram.com/diariodecuba/ • YT: https://www.youtube.com/@DDCTV-DIARIODECUBA • Telegram: https://t.me/titularesDDC Lee hoy la Cuba de mañana: https://diariodecuba.com/

Effetto giorno le notizie in 60 minuti

Oggi si celebra l’80esima Giornata della Memoria. Capi di stato riuniti ad Auschwitz, presente anche Mattarella. Ci colleghiamo con la nostra inviata Betta Fiorito. Trump propone di ripulire Gaza dai palestinesi. Prorogata la tregua in Libano dopo gli attacchi israeliani di ieri. A Gerusalemme c'è Roberto Bongiorni, inviato deIl Sole 24 Ore. Migranti: nave di 49 verso l’Albania, mentre la conferma di Lukashenko in Bielorussia fa temere l’Europa, il rischio di una riapertura dei corridoi illegali. Con noi Matteo Villa, direttore del Data Lab ISPI.

Thời sự quốc tế - VOA
Mỹ, Colombia đạt thỏa thuận về trục xuất sau đe dọa trừng phạt của ông Trump | VOA - Tháng Một 28, 2025

Thời sự quốc tế - VOA

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 27, 2025 14:49


Dân Gaza trở về miền bắc; Lukashenko tuyên bố chiến thắng bầu cử Belarus; Lãnh đạo NATO kêu gọi tăng chi tiêu quốc phòng lên trên 2% GDP; Có ADN chim trong động cơ của máy bay Jeju Air; Trung Quốc nêu vấn đề các tuyên bố của ông Trump về fentanyl

Radio Bullets
27 gennaio 2025 - Notiziario Mondo

Radio Bullets

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 27, 2025 12:25


- ONU e Gaza: preoccupazione per i bambini, la tregua indispensabile per gli aiuti umanitari- Venezuela: scarcerati 381 oppositori politici di Maduro- Bielorussia, elezioni presidenziali: Lukashenko al settimo mandatoIl Notiziario Mondo di Radio Bullets oggi con Raffaella Quadri

AM
'El método Trump' AM 27 enero 7:30am

AM

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 27, 2025 7:22


Twitter e Instagram: @amelpodcast Producido por The Voice Village: https://thevoicevillage.es/ Trump quiere repartir a los palestinos de Gaza entre Egipto y Jordania. Sánchez dice que buscará votos “debajo de las piedras” para sacar adelante “sí o sí” las medidas sociales que decayeron la semana pasada. Meloni vuelve a enviar migrantes al centro de detención de Albania. Lukashenko, reelegido presidente de Bielorrusia en unas elecciones hechas a su medida. El temporal Herminia pone en alerta a casi toda España. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

RNZ: Nine To Noon
Foreign correspondent Seamus Kearney

RNZ: Nine To Noon

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 26, 2025 13:27


Seamus Kearney speaks with Kathryn about Donald Trump's insistence on taking over Greenland, the German election campaign heats up and Lukashenko looking set for seventh term as president of Belarus.

The Take
Another Take: You can run from Belarus, but can you hide?

The Take

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 25, 2025 24:58


Every Saturday, we revisit a story from the archives. This originally aired on August 11, 2021. None of the dates, titles, or other references from that time have been changed. One year after a contested election and many protests, the movement to free Belarus from President Alexander Lukashenko has boiled over into neighboring states. This also means Belarusians around the world might fear the long arm of Lukashenko’s rule. Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya was quick to escape, but others faced a tragic end. What is happening in Belarus and how much power does Lukashenko hold beyond its borders? In this episode: Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, Belarusian Olympic Sprinter Step Vassen, Al Jazeera Correspondent Hanna Liubakova (@HannaLiubakova), Journalist, Non-Resident Fellow at The Atlantic Council (@AtlanticCouncil) Episode credits: This episode was updated by Sarí el-Khalili. The original production team was Amy Walters, Dina Kesbeh, Alexandra Locke, Negin Owleie, Priyanka Tilve, Ney Alvarez, Tom Fenton, and our host, Malika Bilal. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our engagement producers are Adam Abou-Gad and Vienna Maglio. Aya Elmileik is lead of audience engagement. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio. Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads and YouTube

Cinco continentes
Cinco Continentes - Las acusaciones de farsa ensombrecen las elecciones de Bielorrusia

Cinco continentes

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 24, 2025 42:02


Este fin de semana Bielorrusia celebra elecciones que tanto el Parlamento Europeo como la oposición bielorrusa o Reporteros Sin Fronteras consideran una farsa, con el presidente Lukashenko ante una victoria prácticamente garantizada ante la falta de una oposición que se ha visto obligado a huir a otros países para evitar acabar en prisión.Hoy escucharemos además la voz de una presa palestina recientemente liberada de una cárcel israelí como parte del acuerdo de alto el fuego. Estaremos en Colombia, y también en el norte de México para conocer el impacto de las decisiones de Trump en materia de inmigración.Tendremos una entrevista con UNICEF con motivo del Día Internacional de la Educación y conoceremos el trabajo del cineasta iraní Mohammad Rasoulof.Escuchar audio

Fighting For Ukraine
A Sleeping Monster? - January 24th 2025

Fighting For Ukraine

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 24, 2025 3:29 Transcription Available


January 24th 2025 Yuriy delves into the upcoming presidential elections in Belarus and the oppressive regime of Alexander Lukashenko. He explores the impact of his 30-year rule and the international implications of his policies. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy's Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  Subscribe to his substack: https://yuriymatsarsky.substack.com/  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)        It is January 24.  If you think the American elections weren't enough, well in just a couple of days you are in for another one. This Sunday, Belarus will be electing its president. Most likely you have not heard anything about it, even in Ukraine, where the common border with Belarus is almost a thousand miles long few people know about it. Why? Because these are elections with a predetermined outcome.  Everyone already knows who the president will be, even if no one votes for him. Under any circumstances, Alexander Lukashenko will remain the ahead of a state.  This mentally ill man and he truly is ill, having undergone treatment in the 1980s without success has helped Belarus hostage for 30 years and plans to secure another five year term.  He's a true maniac, willing to do anything to clink, to power. What's more, he despises the country he governs. He has no respect for Belarusian history, culture, or language. To give you an idea, there is no complete version of the Belarusian constitution in the national language. It exists only in Russian. The country's official symbols are not the national flag and code of arms, but slightly modified Soviet ones.  All talented artists, writers and musicians have either been exiled from Belarus or are behind bars. Today as it was in the USSR, creativity is only allowed with state's permission and under its control. Lukashenko uses violence to stay in power, killing and torturing war who seek freedom and democracy. He's been doing this for 30 years and plans to continue.  Despite all these many in Ukraine. Just a few years ago, considered Belarus an ideal state and Lukashenko the best leader. Why this happened and what it led to, I won't explain here better yet, I'll give you a link to my substack. I recently published a piece there about Belarus. If you find it interesting, please share it and if you are not interested, you can check my other articles. There is one about Christmas in the Middle East, another about the founder of World's First anarchist republic one about Bethlehem and much more.  Writing this pieces is incredibly important to me, not only to stay connected to my main profession, but also because your donations for them literally keep me going. If you enjoy my stories, you can always support me and also you can follow me on Blue Sky, all links in the description.  By the way, Belarus is not a foreign land to me. My last name likely has a Belarusian roots. I've worked there, narrowly avoided  ending up in one of the Lukashenko's prisons and have plenty of stories to share about Belarus. If you are interested, let me know and I'll dedicate an entire episode to this topic because the Lukashenko regime is really a sleeping monster filled with hatred towards democracy,  obsessed with a Soviet past, and now armed with Russian nuclear bombs. And this monster is right in the center of Europe.  

Il Mondo
Lo strapotere dei fondi d'investimento. Finte elezioni in Bielorussia.

Il Mondo

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 24, 2025 24:37


L'economia mondiale è sempre più controllata dai grandi fondi d'investimento, che negli ultimi anni hanno speso centinaia di miliardi per rilevare attività o comprare quote di aziende in tutto il pianeta. Con Marco D'Eramo, giornalista e scrittore.Il 26 gennaio in Bielorussia si terranno le elezioni presidenziali, destinate a consegnare al dittatore Aleksandr Lukashenko il suo settimo mandato consecutivo. Con Andrea Pipino, editor di Europa di InternazionaleOggi parliamo anche di:Film • Il mio giardino persiano di Maryam Moghaddam e Behtash Sanaeeha.Ci piacerebbe sapere cosa pensi di questo episodio. Scrivici a podcast@internazionale.it o manda un vocale a +39 3347063050Se ascolti questo podcast e ti piace, abbonati a Internazionale. È un modo concreto per sostenerci e per aiutarci a garantire ogni giorno un'informazione di qualità. Vai su internazionale.it/abbonatiConsulenza editoriale di Chiara NielsenProduzione di Claudio Balboni e Vincenzo De SimoneMusiche di Tommaso Colliva e Raffaele ScognaDirezione creativa di Jonathan Zenti

Firing Line with Margaret Hoover
Defying a Dictator: Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Katya Snytsina, and Natalia Kaliada

Firing Line with Margaret Hoover

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 11, 2025 43:25


Margaret Hoover sits down with three Belarusian dissidents–exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, athlete-turned-activist Katya Snytsina, and theater director Natalia Kaliada–to discuss their fight against Aleksandr Lukashenko's dictatorship. Kaliada is co-founder of the Belarus Free Theatre, which recently debuted the play KS6: Small Forward in New York, starring Snytsina and telling the story of her journey from Belarusian Olympic basketball player to political activist. In 2020, Tsikhanouskaya's husband Sergei Tikhanovsky was arrested shortly after announcing he would run against Lukashenko. He remains in custody today, but Tsikhanouskaya ran in his place, failing to unseat Lukashenko in an election widely seen as a sham. Snytsina recalls how the mass protests that followed that election inspired her to speak out and leave the national women's basketball team. Kaliada discusses the genesis of the play and explains why art can be a uniquely effective weapon against dictators. Tsikhanouskaya reflects on life in Belarus today, offers a warning for Americans about the urgency of defending democracy abroad, and looks ahead to the country's January 2025 presidential election, which she expects will be a “farce.” This interview was recorded in September after a performance of KS6: Small Forward at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York. Support for “Firing Line with Margaret Hoover” is provided by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, Cliff and Laurel Asness, Charles R. Schwab, Damon Button, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, The Phillip I. Kent Foundation and Al and Kathy Hubbard. Corporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc.

RRR FM: Plato's Cave
Melbourne Cinémathèque turns 40, Tom Zubrycki's oeuvre, and Agnieszka Holland's Green Border (2023)

RRR FM: Plato's Cave

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2024 48:11


We're celebrating the Melbourne Cinémathèque's 40th anniversary this week, with two of the pre-eminent film society's co-curators in the studio. Primal Screen favourite Cerise Howard and Associate Professor Adrian Danks (making his PS debut!) join Flick Ford to reflect on Melbourne Cinémathèque's vital contribution to cinema and to talk about their upcoming program on Australian documentary filmmaker Tom Zubrycki. A hugely important filmmaker in his own right, but also a key mentor and producer for many other Australian filmmakers that have followed. They also review Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland's latest film Green Border, a brutalising drama rooted in deep research that is so urgently of the moment, its potency is manifold. It tells the story of refugees from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the European Union court in a geopolitical crisis triggered by the Belarusian dictator Lukashenko.Listen back for more on this discussion of how Zubrycki's and Holland's films remain committed to social justice, human rights and the ethics of filmmaking.

Fred English Channel » FRED English Podcast
“Under The Grey Sky”, interview with the director Mara Tamkovic

Fred English Channel » FRED English Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 30, 2024 6:57


"Under The Grey Sky", by Mara Tamkovic is a compelling political drama set in Belarus in the year 2020, after the rigged elections that kept the totalitarian leader Lukashenko still in power. Based on a true story, the film is ever more actual and necessary, in these uncertain times for [...] The post “Under The Grey Sky”, interview with the director Mara Tamkovic appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Rorshok Georgia Update
GEORGIA: Parliament's First Session & more – 28th Nov 2024

Rorshok Georgia Update

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2024 9:40 Transcription Available


The first session of the new parliament, Otsneba's presidential candidate, Meta's warning to state propaganda channels, Lukashenko's plans in Abkhazia, a famous Director's visit canceled, and much more!Thanks for tuning in!Let us know what you think and what we can improve on by emailing us at info@rorshok.com You can also contact us through Instagram @rorshok_georgia or Twitter @RorshokGeorgiaLike what you hear? Subscribe, share, and tell your buds.Gnomon Wise Article: https://gnomonwise.org/ge/publications/policy-papers/229Movie Festival screening schedule: https://www.tbilisifilmfestival.ge/en/%e1%83%99%e1%83%98%e1%83%9c%e1%83%9d%e1%83%a4%e1%83%94%e1%83%a1%e1%83%a2%e1%83%98%e1%83%95%e1%83%90%e1%83%9a%e1%83%98%e1%83%a1-%e1%83%a1%e1%83%a0%e1%83%a3%e1%83%9a%e1%83%98-%e1%83%9e%e1%83%a0%e1%83%9d/Rorshok Georgia Update: www.rorshok.com/georgiaRorshok's Ramble episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6wYMfTbyQaIpRtLLBhtMsL?si=TIeB94-LTZ2I1EkOSyDQewWe want to get to know you! Please fill in this mini-survey: https://forms.gle/NV3h5jN13cRDp2r66Wanna avoid ads and help us financially? Follow the link: https://bit.ly/rorshok-donate

The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio)
Fighting for Democracy in Belarus

The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio)

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 28, 2024 20:57


In 2020, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya emerged as a powerful voice for change in Belarus when she ran against President Alexander Lukashenko who has led the country since 1994 with what some call "an iron hand." The controversial results led to the largest protests in the country's history and pressure on Tsikhanouskaya to leave Belarus. As her country continues to face political turmoil and international condemnation for siding with Russian in its war on Ukraine, she tells host Steve Paikin that the fight for democracy remains at the forefront of mind.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fighting For Ukraine
The Indicator Of The Changing Nature Of The War - November 4th 2024

Fighting For Ukraine

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 4, 2024 3:19 Transcription Available


Nov 4th 2024 Yuriy outlines the new phase of conflict where Ukraine faces off against both Russian and North Korean forces, examining the geopolitical ramifications and the hesitations of Western allies. You can email Yuriy, ask him questions or simply send him a message of support: fightingtherussianbeast@gmail.com    You can help Yuriy and his family by donating to his GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-yuriys-family   Yuriy's Podbean Patron sign-up to give once or regularly: https://patron.podbean.com/yuriy   Buy Yuriy a coffee here: https://bmc.link/yuriymat  Subscribe to his substack: https://yuriymatsarsky.substack.com/  ----more---- TRANSCRIPT: (Apple Podcasts & Podbean app users can enjoy accurate closed captions)       It is 4th of November.  Our work has entered a new phase. This is obvious. First of all, we are now facing two regular armies: the Russian and the North Korean. Over 10,000 soldiers of that stupid greedy Kim have already taken positions with the Russians near the Ukrainian border, and thousands more are currently preparing in military camps in the Far East. This completely changes the configuration of the war.  Previously, all the Putin allies, the likes of Lukashenko, the half-dead Iranian, Ayatollahs and Kim, numbed by his own life of luxury- limited their support to supplying weapons, or providing territory for invasion. Now, everything has changed. We are facing two regular armies and both from   countries with nuclear weapons.  And where is our nuclear arsenal? We had one. Oh right, we gave it up in the 1990s in exchange for promises to respect our sovereignty and to keep our borders intact. And who made those promises? Russia, who took our weapons and now is destroying our country. And who was the guarantor of those promises? Who assured us that life without the bomb would be better and safer? The United Kingdom and the United States. Google the Budapest memorandum if you don't know this story.  Please don't think that I'm an ungrateful wretch who's forgotten all the weapons and other aid the Western countries have given us. I actually remember and deeply appreciate it, but I also know that we could destroy the Northern Korean expeditionary forces right now, before they have the chance to kill wound or rape anyone. Yet we don't have permission from Washington or our capitals to do so. They've told us directly: as soon as we cross the border, hit them with our weapons. Until then, no, no, no.  We are also not allowed to use Western missiles to destroy the Russian air fields from which planes launch daily to bomb our cities. We're also forbidden to strike at their drone stockpiles. Have you seen these drones? They are huge, the size of the car, packed with explosives powerful enough  to demolish an entire building. Just in the past few days, strikes by wars, drones on Ukrainian apartments have killed two children.  These drones- and this is another indicator of a changing nature of the war- are now being used much more frequently here even deadlier explosives. Thermobaric ones. When they explode, they burn everything around them, including people. I've seen how they work. No horror film could show you this, but we all see it every day.  Remember that you can support me. It's still extremely important. Without this help, things would be much harder for me than they are now. All details are in the description. I'll be back soon with shall we say a special episode because my birthday is coming up soon

News Headlines in Morse Code at 15 WPM

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Geoff Capes British shot put record holder dies aged 75 Swanage care home Woman arrested following three deaths Bolton man faces jail over AI generated child abuse images Cocaine use fuels record high in drug deaths Assisted dying law change could stop my life ending like my parents Gisele Pelicot takes stand in French mass rape trial North Korea troops in Ukraine would escalate conflict, Lukashenko tells BBC At least five dead in attack at Turkish aviation company Liam Payne planned to marry me, says girlfriend Kate Cassidy IDF Soldiers should refuse orders which may be war crimes, Israeli ex security adviser tells BBC

News Headlines in Morse Code at 20 WPM

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv At least five dead in attack at Turkish aviation company Cocaine use fuels record high in drug deaths Liam Payne planned to marry me, says girlfriend Kate Cassidy Bolton man faces jail over AI generated child abuse images IDF Soldiers should refuse orders which may be war crimes, Israeli ex security adviser tells BBC Swanage care home Woman arrested following three deaths Assisted dying law change could stop my life ending like my parents Gisele Pelicot takes stand in French mass rape trial Geoff Capes British shot put record holder dies aged 75 North Korea troops in Ukraine would escalate conflict, Lukashenko tells BBC

News Headlines in Morse Code at 25 WPM

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Geoff Capes British shot put record holder dies aged 75 North Korea troops in Ukraine would escalate conflict, Lukashenko tells BBC Swanage care home Woman arrested following three deaths Bolton man faces jail over AI generated child abuse images Gisele Pelicot takes stand in French mass rape trial IDF Soldiers should refuse orders which may be war crimes, Israeli ex security adviser tells BBC At least five dead in attack at Turkish aviation company Liam Payne planned to marry me, says girlfriend Kate Cassidy Assisted dying law change could stop my life ending like my parents Cocaine use fuels record high in drug deaths

News Headlines in Morse Code at 10 WPM

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Bolton man faces jail over AI generated child abuse images Assisted dying law change could stop my life ending like my parents North Korea troops in Ukraine would escalate conflict, Lukashenko tells BBC Liam Payne planned to marry me, says girlfriend Kate Cassidy Cocaine use fuels record high in drug deaths At least five dead in attack at Turkish aviation company Geoff Capes British shot put record holder dies aged 75 Gisele Pelicot takes stand in French mass rape trial IDF Soldiers should refuse orders which may be war crimes, Israeli ex security adviser tells BBC Swanage care home Woman arrested following three deaths

West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy
West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy Smothered Benedict Wednesdays 16 Oct 24

West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 17, 2024 63:52


Today's West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy Podcast for our especially special Daily Special, Smothered Benedict Wednesdays, is now available on the Spreaker Player!Starting off in the Bistro Cafe, in their debate, linebacker Colin Allred wiped the smirk off waterboy Ted Cruz's smirking chimp face over Ted hiding in a supply closet on January 6.Then, on the rest of the menu, a mortgage company accused of lending discrimination by redlining predominantly Black neighborhoods in Alabama, has agreed to pay over ten million dollars to resolve the charges; California health care workers will get a pay bump under a new minimum wage law; and, the Justice Department will send election monitors to an Ohio county where a sheriff repeatedly intimidated voters in social media posts.After the break, we move to the Chef's Table where a Russian man was released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drawing his thirteen year-old daughter made criticizing the Russian military; and, a court in Belarus sentenced an imprisoned opponent of hardline President Lukashenko to an additional year behind bars for disobeying prison officials.All that and more, on West Coast Cookbook & Speakeasy with Chef de Cuisine Justice Putnam.Bon Appétit!The Netroots Radio Live Player​Keep Your Resistance Radio Beaming 24/7/365!“It may be safely averred that good cookery is the best and truest economy, turning to full account every wholesome article of food, and converting into palatable meals what the ignorant either render uneatable or throw away in disdain.”-Eliza Acton‘"Modern Cookery for Private Families" (1845)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/west-coast-cookbook-speakeasy--2802999/support.

Silicon Curtain
505. Katsiaryna Shmatsina - Lukashenko's Regime is an Experiment in Tyranny that is Beholden to Moscow

Silicon Curtain

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 17, 2024 51:35


Katsiaryna Shmatsina - Dissident and collaborator on the 'Darth Putin' satirical project on X. https://x.com/DarthPutinKGB ---------- In 2020, mass anti-government protests erupted across Belarus. The brutal crackdown that followed shocked the international community: the authorities arrested tens of thousands of citizens, shut down independent media and NGOs, and fomented a migrant crisis on the European Union's border. But where many thought Belarus's dictator, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, would fall, he instead turned to Moscow for support, intensifying repression. Many of his opponents fled the country. Then, in February 2022, Belarus provided a staging area for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, allowing troops and weapons to be based on its territory as large-scale war returned to Eastern Europe once again. ---------- Katsiaryna Shmatsina is a Belarusian political analyst focusing on Belarusian foreign policy, regional security, and the impact of the great power relations on smaller actors. Katsiaryna's portfolio includes a non-residential fellowship at the German Marshall Fund (2020) and Think Visegrad Fellowship (2019). Previously, she worked for the American Bar Association where she managed democratic-governance and rule-of-law projects. She holds a master's degree in international relations from Syracuse University, New York and a law degree from Belarusian State University. She is also a vocal dissident who has been sanctioned by both the Belarussian and Russian governments. ---------- LINKS: https://x.com/kshmatsina https://www.linkedin.com/in/kshmatsina/ https://carnegieendowment.org/people/katsiaryna-shmatsina/ https://eksperty.org/experts/katsiaryna-shmatsina https://www.lawfaremedia.org/contributors/kshmatsina https://prisoners.spring96.org/en/person/kacjaryna-szmacina https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/katsiaryna-shmatsina ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation https://prytulafoundation.org NGO “Herojam Slava” https://heroiamslava.org/ kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyśl https://kharpp.com/ NOR DOG Animal Rescue https://www.nor-dog.org/home/ ---------- PLATFORMS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSilicon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube's algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Inside Europe | Deutsche Welle
Inside Europe August 22 2024

Inside Europe | Deutsche Welle

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 22, 2024 54:59


Ukraine's Kursk incursion turns the tables in the war, US enthusiasm for Kamala Harris' campaign spreads to Europe, and Britain releases thousands of prisoners early. Also: Italy's private beaches may be shut this summer, what did Dutch spy chiefs know about Ukraine and the Nord Stream attack? Lukashenko's critics face snooping while reporting from exile and Paris counts down to the Paralympics.

Privateer Station: War In Ukraine
War in Ukraine, Analytics. Day 909: War Exchange: Kursk for Pokrovsk. Arestovych, Feldman

Privateer Station: War In Ukraine

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 22, 2024 64:03


In today's war diary, Nikolai Feldman and Alexey Arestovich analyzed the probablility of trading Pokrovsk operation for achievements in Kursk district. Character of Ukrainian army and the cost of different scenarios that lead to the destruction of NORDSTREAM gas pipe.➤ 00:00 Map of military operations. The front will not collapse in the Pokrovsk and Toretsk directions, but the situation is close to an operational breakthrough of the enemy. What could happen if Pokrovsk is taken? What are we doing to stop the advance of Russian troops?➤ 05:26 Exchange or the brutal truth of war - a choice between Kursk and Pokrovsk operations.➤ 09:20 Successful cognitive warfare of Ukrainians and a surge in anxiety among Russians during the Kursk operation.➤ 11:50 Russian propagandists fail to provoke cruelty. The Ukrainian Defense Forces do not pursue a systemic policy of terror, unlike the Russian army.➤ 21:04 Resettlement of residents of Kursk region to the territory of Ukraine is a standard process in international practice during occupation. How to resettle these people?➤ 25:20 Lukashenko, who exercises effective control in Belarus, said that there are no more nationalists in Ukraine. Ukrainian nationalists in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation are a European army of a European country.➤ 29:40 Ukraine's real position at the negotiating table after Kursk operation has not changed much, since the operation is not over yet. Occupation of Russian territory problematizes the principle of freezing the war along the front line.➤ 36:17 Criticism of Kursk operation from Maryana Bezuglaya. Questions for the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Syrsky regarding defense operation, proper training of ground forces, rotation of commanders. Aleksey Arestovich's proposal to interview Aleksandr Syrsky.➤ 44:00 The Economist publication: Did Syrsky hide plans for an offensive in the Kursk region from Yermak and Zelensky?➤ 45:40 Was Syrsky on the verge of being fired in July and outplayed everyone? Syrsky's merits.➤ 50:16 Cover-up operation of the Advisor to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine Podolyak: Ukraine discussed Kursk operation with Western partners.➤ 51:55 Evaluation of the article on the explosion of NORDSTREAM gas pipeline in "The Wall Street Journal".➤ 58:05 Germany as Ukraine's partner in war can classify the results of the investigation into the explosion of major gas pipeline?Ukraine War Chronicles and Analytics with Alexey Arestovych and Nikolay Feldman @ALPHAMEDIACHANNELOlexiy Arestovych (Kiev): Advisor to the Office of Ukraine President : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleksiy_ArestovychOfficial channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjWy2g76QZf7QLEwx4cB46gNikolay Feldman - Ukranian journalist, social researcher, blogger.

The Lawfare Podcast
Lawfare Daily: Watching My Trial for Seditious Conspiracy with Katsiaryna Shmatsina and Benjamin Wittes

The Lawfare Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 27, 2024 60:00


For today's episode, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes speaks with Katsiaryna Shmatsina, a Belarusian political analyst and think tanker currently on trial for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government. Shmatsina discusses the charges against her, the trial process, and the broader political situation in Belarus. She delves into the history of the Lukashenko regime, its ties with Russia, and the repression of opposition voices. The conversation also covers the 2020 election and the subsequent crackdown on protests. Shmatsina shares her personal experiences with political repression in Belarus, her decision to flee the country, and her life under constant surveillance and fear of being targeted by the authorities. She explains her journey to seek asylum in the United States and her ongoing work in the think tank community.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/c/trumptrials.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Duran Podcast
Putin & Lukashenko prepare for NATO escalation

The Duran Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 25, 2024 24:57


Putin & Lukashenko prepare for NATO escalation

The John Batchelor Show
#BELARUS: Lukashenko and his best ally Putin. Ekaterina Zolotova, Geopolitical Futures

The John Batchelor Show

Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2024 10:35


#BELARUS: Lukashenko and his best ally Putin. Ekaterina Zolotova, Geopolitical Futures https://geopoliticalfutures.com/new-strategic-documents-preserve-belarus...   1930 Minsk

The Documentary Podcast
Assignment: Secret Sisters. Political prisoners in Belarus

The Documentary Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 2, 2024 28:40


Belarus has huge numbers of political prisoners - around three times as many as in Russia, in a far smaller country. Almost industrial scale arrests began after huge, peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations swept the country in 2020 after Alexander Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory in presidential elections. Mr Lukashenko has been in power for 30 years. Protestors said the result was a fraud, and that they'd been cheated of their vote.Almost four years on, the authorities are still making mass arrests. Many of those detained are women. The most prominent woman prisoner, Maria Kolesnikova, a professional flute player, has been incommunicado for over a year, with no word at all reaching her family or lawyers. Political prisoners are made to wear a yellow patch on their clothes. The women say they kept short of food and made to sew uniforms for the security forces, to clean the prison yard with rags and shovel snow. They speak of undergoing humiliating punishments such as standing in parade grounds under the sun for hours.Yet they also tell us of camaraderie and warmth in their tiny cells as they try to keep one other going. And women on the outside continue to take personal risks to help the prisoners by sending in food, warm clothes and letters.