Continuation - Ukraine erupts in riots and general strikes

[Childlike Empress]

btw, today ends the anniversary of the month that really inflamed the war in the Donbass, starting with the Trade Union Massacre in Odessa on May 2 and finally bringing it to Lugansk with the airstrikes on the Regional Administration building on June 2, a week or so after it had started in Donetsk already with the bombing of the airport.

These crimes are not forgotten.

 

[caveman1917]

And then there's this article concerning Bellingcat's expertise. And just in time the usual suspects start an edit war on Eliot Higgins' wikipedia article to remove the "criticism" section.

 

[Childlike Empress]

And then there's this article concerning Bellingcat's expertise.

Wow, miracles DO happen.

But I scanned the front page right now and it's nowhere to be found, four hours after publication. While the at least three articles shouting out the "almost certain" manipulation "experts" found were on top of the page for almost a day, and those headlines will stick, as usual. At least with those who don't visit SPON to know what the other side is up to...

edit: To their credit, they have put a disclaimer on (the bottom of) their earlier articles linking to the interview.

 

[magellan]

In the meantime the shining beacon of democracy and rule of law that is Ukraine put Austria on it's list of officialy sanctioned tax havens!

There are 3 criteria for getting on the list:

(i) countries with the corporate profit tax rate 5 percent lower or more with respect to Ukraine (іі) countries that do not disclose ownership structure of the legal entities, and/or (iii) countries that do not have international agreements with Ukraine on mutual information exchange.

http://www.sk.ua/news/2876

Of course, Austrias corporate taxrate is higher than ukraines (25% vs 18%), Ownership structures are disclosed (Same system as germany) and we do have an information exchange agreement.

Could this have anything to do with not extraditing Firtasch to the US?
Vocal criticism of the sanctions?
Nah.... impossible!

 

[magellan]

Wow, miracles DO happen.

But I scanned the front page right now and it's nowhere to be found, four hours after publication. While the at least three articles shouting out the "almost certain" manipulation "experts" found were on top of the page for almost a day, and those headlines will stick, as usual. At least with those who don't visit SPON to know what the other side is up to...

edit: To their credit, they have put a disclaimer on (the bottom of) their earlier articles linking to the interview.

And now the editor in chief of SPON apologized for publishing a bellingcat "analysis"
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/spiegelblog/bellingcat-bericht-zu-mh17-was-wir-lernen-a-1037135.html

They were just in a hurry, you see and couldn't actually read it before writing two pieces about it.

 

[caveman1917]

They were just in a hurry, you see and couldn't actually read it before writing two pieces about it.

It'll be interesting to see how wikipedia's edit war turns out. The user who started it by removing the criticism section containing several expert critiques has in 2009, after the Russo-Georgian war, been caught with leaked emails describing his (and some other high-placed wikipedia editors) efforts developing software to subvert wikipedia processes for Western-aligned propaganda purposes and more of that fun stuff.

 

[Childlike Empress]

English translation of SPIEGEL interview with image forensics expert

 

[caveman1917]

It'll be interesting to see how wikipedia's edit war turns out.

Apparently the article got locked by a friendly admin in the new non-consensus[*] state after Radeksz (username changed to Volunteer Marek after the email debacle linked to above) removed the criticism section. It seems nobody reads email anymore these days, the tactic is described in detail in them.

* wikipedia operates by a consensus model, the state of an article is determined by consensus. If an edit war occurs, the article is supposed to be put back to its last consensus state and discussion must proceed first (the so-called "Bold, revert, discuss" editorial cycle). The consensus state is considered the state the article had over a long period - in this case about half a year - before the first edit that started the edit war. So with the criticism section rather than without.

 

[Childlike Empress]

LOL, now SPIEGEL exposes "Timmi Allen" as former full-time Stasi-employee. This is just fun to watch. Want some popcorn, jimbob?

edit: Could be their "out" of it, though. Bad Apple infiltrated poor Brown Noses' "expert" team. Maybe Putler himself sent him.

 

[caveman1917]

This is just fun to watch. Want some popcorn, jimbob?

Some more popcorn-ready German entertainment in the meantime (with English subtitles):

Could be their "out" of it, though. Bad Apple infiltrated poor Brown Noses' "expert" team. Maybe Putler himself sent him.

What about Kaszeta and the others? I don't think they'll get to do the "single bad apple" without some serious squirming.

 

[Childlike Empress]

What about Kaszeta and the others? I don't think they'll get to do the "single bad apple" without some serious squirming.

Being exposed in SPIEGEL is a whole different category from what has happened before. Does jimbob know about Kaszeta? He should, but I doubt he does, as that requires independent digging after trust has already been broken.

Not saying that it'll work but that there's a need to try.

I somehow have the feeling that Mr. Bidder was "encouraged" to do that interview, btw.

 

[caveman1917]

Being exposed in SPIEGEL is a whole different category from what has happened before.

I don't think so. There were, IIRC, two expositions on the snipers on Maidan in mainstream German press, but people still think it was Yanukovich. The information didn't get further out, probably not in the least because our friend always immediately removed mention of these on the relevant wikipedia articles.

Does jimbob know about Kaszeta?

jimbob doesn't even seem to know that the Russians publicly announced beforehand the cross-border artillery strikes that he repeatedly, for unknown reason, posts the same satellite evidence of.

He should, but I doubt he does, as that requires independent digging after trust has already been broken.

True.

I somehow have the feeling that Mr. Bidder was "encouraged" to do that interview, btw.

What exactly do you mean by "encouraged", by whom and why? More evidence than a feeling?

 

[Childlike Empress]

What exactly do you mean by "encouraged", by whom and why? More evidence than a feeling?

No, not more than a feeling.

At least one of the three articles promoting Brown Noses' latest findings has been written by Bidder himself. He's quite a piece of work and always on the anti-Russia front. I follow him on twitter and am kinda busy keeping my mouth shut enough to not make him block me.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, in the sense one great German satiricist once said "Die größten Kritiker der Elche waren früher selber welche", as in the early 90s I have been as much a fan of SPIEGEL as jimbob is of The Guardian today (both fulfilling the exactly same function in their respective countries) and would wish that after some former Springer people (like Blome) left the paper, it is on its way to lose the well-deserved title of "ehemaliges Nachrichtenmagazin". And told Bidder to knock it off.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Could this have anything to do with not extraditing Firtasch to the US?
Vocal criticism of the sanctions?
Nah.... impossible!

Hmmm. Austrian court rejects Ukraine’s claims to Russia’s property in Vienna

The Kremlin Property Management Department has received an Austrian court’s ruling rejecting Ukraine’s claims to Russian property in Vienna, Department spokesman Viktor Khrekov said on Friday.

“Late in May this year, the Austrian judicial system sent Russia a package of documents confirming the legitimacy of the system’s actions and recognized the Russian Federation as the indisputable owner of the property,” the spokesman said, adding Moscow “received the documents.” [...]

 

[magellan]

Hmmm. Austrian court rejects Ukraine’s claims to Russia’s property in Vienna

This might very well be yet another reason why we got sanctioned by ukraine. (Though i think this happened after our inclusion on the list) I was not aware of this. thanks for pointing it out.

Little sidenote: I was very pleased when the cables got leaked and the critizisms of american ambassadors in austria read like the highest of praise to me: "openly hostile to deploying Austrian troops on dangerous missions abroad."? What more could you ask of a defense minister.
"seemed to focus largely on promoting Austrian economic penetration"? Yup. Thats what a foreign minister is supposed to do.
It pleases me that ambassador to austria isn't considered a gift for campaign contributions

 

[caveman1917]

As it turns out the actual image forensic experts found the image to have been manipulated. No, not the Russian one, the one that Bellingcat produced showing the purported smoke-plume.

 

[Andy_Ross]

and if I don't read German?

 

[caveman1917]

and if I don't read German?

What I linked to is in English. If you don't read German, you use google translate. Depending on your browser there are probably addons that do this automatically (firefox for instance has one so that you just right-click on the page and choose "translate"). It's what I do, I don't read German either.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Message from "Texas" in Gorlovka:

After he visited the ruins of their house, "Texas" visits the remains of the family:

 

[uke2se]

As it turns out the actual image forensic experts found the image to have been manipulated. No, not the Russian one, the one that Bellingcat produced showing the purported smoke-plume.

That' not an actual image forensic expert. That's a computer scientist.