World News Thread

[Frelga]

Meanwhile in Russia, a 3-day event is under way in which Russians, in a free and clear election, will elect Vladimir Putin for another 6-year term.

Despite there being no serious opposition, Putin isn't taking any chances. In Kursk, there were reports that government-provided pens had vanishing ink, so any ballots that failed to vote for Putin can be corrected post factum.

Since the outcome is not in doubt, government is trying other ways to create excitement. For example

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[Sunsilver]

SERIOUSLY??

[N.E. Brigand]

There have been multiple stories (here's one from the AP) of people setting fire to Russian polling stations.

[N.E. Brigand]

I fear this is how many Republicans want U.S. elections to be run:



But not until Vladimir Putin's friend Donald Trump is again President, of course.

[Frelga]

BTW, the official slogan of Putin's fake election spectacle is, Russia has no borders.

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[RoseMorninStar]

Not exactly neighborly, is it?

[Frelga]

Tankies: Russia does not and has never had imperial ambitions! (never mind that it officially called itself the Russian Empire for 300 years and occupied 1/6 of dry land)

Russia:

Russian State TV is openly stating that Putin is building a Third Russian Empire... a Third Empire... a Third Realm... a Third Reich. I swear, everyone in the Kremlin looked at the what the Nazis did in the 1930s and said, "Let's just copy them."

[Sunsilver]

And how is it that so many people in North America don't see this??

Oh, wait...Biden... https://www.rferl.org/a/joe-biden-state ... 53477.html

[Túrin Turambar]

This is worth noting.

Interestingly, the first minister of Scotland, the Lord Mayor of London and the Prime Minister of the U.K. are all men of South Asian heritage, meaning that the PM, two of the three first ministers and the head of the largest municipal government are all men of colour.

[N.E. Brigand]

An early sign that the RNC is suffering for having fired so many staff?

[RNC on Twitter: "Biden slowly descends the Capitol steps (as his handlers keep a watchful eye), points toward his motorcade, and shuffles back into his limo. Vigor!"]

In case you can't read the "community note" appended to that RNC tweet: those aren't President Biden's "handlers" descending the Capitol steps with. That's Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Ireland's Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar. (Also that doesn't seem particularly slow to me.)

Irish PM Leo Varadkar is resigning.

[N.E. Brigand]

Reuters: "Gunmen kill 40 in attack at concert hall near Moscow, state news agency says." There were also explosions. It's not known who is responsible, but:

The U.S. embassy in Russia warned earlier this month that "extremists" had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow. It issued its warning several hours after the FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said it had foiled an attack on a synagogue in Moscow by a cell of the militant Sunni Muslim group Islamic State.

[N.E. Brigand]

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack in on a Moscow concert hall.

[N.E. Brigand]

Vladimir Putin "recently dismissed U.S. warnings of potential terrorist attacks in Moscow".

He said the warnings were "outright blackmail" from western nations that was meant to "intimidate and destabilize our society."

[RoseMorninStar]

There's still a staffed U.S. Embassy in Russia?

[N.E. Brigand]

By the way, the location of the attack, Crocus City Hall, will be familiar to anyone who followed the Trump-Russia scandal closely.

- - - - - - - - - -
Edited to add:

There's still a staffed U.S. Embassy in Russia?

Apparently, but the ambassadorship is vacant, and:

On June 22, 2022, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the renaming of the street on which the Russian embassy in the U.S. resides, the U.S. embassy in Moscow block and address was renamed Donetsk People's Republic Square 1 (Ploshchad' Donetskoy Narodnoy Respubliki 1), according to the press service of the Moscow Mayor's Office (in a similar manner to the changing the addresses of the Russian Embassy in Prague and in Washington, D.C.). The former address was "Bolshoy Deviatinsky Pereulok No. 8". Subsequently, the Embassy's official website refused to utilize the new address for contact information and instead listed the official address as "U.S. Embassy Moscow 55,75566° N, 37,58028° E". The west side of the embassy security perimeter was also torn up to remove all barriers between the street and the embassy wall. As of June 2022, vinyl posters supporting the Russo-Ukraine War cover the construction fences.

[Frelga]

I initially thought back to 1999, when Putin blew up Moscow apartment buildings and blamed Chechens to drum up support for the war in Chechnya. But times have changed, he doesn't care if the population supports his war.

Currently, Russia blames Islamic militants from Ingushetia. Although Medvedev went on another drunken rant about wiping Ukraine off the map.

Eta: here's Kamil Galeev's unrolled Twitter thread with an explainer of 1999 and Putin's rise to power.

Meanwhile, Visegrad says,

You didn’t hear much about it, but ISIS-K killed 43 people in a terror attack in Kandahar, Afghanistan just 48 hours ago.

Most of them were Taliban soldiers lining up to withdraw money from a bank.

[N.E. Brigand]

Russia have captured a man they believe to be involved. He's from Tajikistan, but Russian media is variously blaming Ukraine and the United States. Julia Davis of The Daily Beast reports that she has seen video of Russian soldiers cutting off the man's ear and forcing him to eat it.

[Frelga]

Basically this

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[N.E. Brigand]

Here is video apparently showing Bolsonaro's supporters attacking a mounted policeman and his horse, knocking the policeman to the ground where he is beaten.

Brazilian authorities are investigating the nation's former president, Jair Bolsonaro, for "selling embezzled watches at a shopping mall outside Philadelphia." Remember that line in Unfinished Tales about Saruman aspiring to be a dragon but ending up a jackdaw?

"Brazilian police launch investigation into Bolsonaro's 2-night sleepover at Hungarian embassy."

[Frelga]

Russia have captured a man they believe to be involved. He's from Tajikistan, but Russian media is variously blaming Ukraine and the United States. Julia Davis of The Daily Beast reports that she has seen video of Russian soldiers cutting off the man's ear and forcing him to eat it.

The knife supposedly involved in this was auctioned off online and a similar model is being sold as the earcutter. Russian sources also published a video in which the prisoner is being tortured by electrocuting his genitals.

This is even more appalling because there's no guarantee that Russian security services didn't simply grab the first men of non-Slavic appearance they could find.