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Ukrainian Comics Set Up Satirical Party
A popular Ukrainian comedy group has unveiled plans to set up a comic party, in an apparent bid to make fun of the country's politicians, the UNIAN news agency reported Friday. "We thought that if professional politicians today look like clowns, why can't professional clowns become politicians?" the Maski Show group's artistic director and actor Georgy Deliyev said. The idea to set up the Satirical-Democratic Party (SDPU) came to him after he visited a local hospital, Deliyev said. The group first planned to name the party as The Most Foolish Party of Ukraine, but they later changed their mind, saying "other parties could have been offended."
http://en.ria.ru/world/20130830/183056180/Ukrainian-Comics-Set-Up-Satirical-Party.html
Posted by SB at 4:05 AM No comments:
Labels: _Politics, Ukraine
Russian Communists Seek to Revoke "Anti-Piracy Law"
Ivan Melnikov and Oleg Smolin, State Duma lawmakers for the Russian Communist Party, have submitted a bill seeking to revoke the freshly enacted anti-piracy law, RIA Novosti reported Wednesday. The anti-piracy bill was passed by the Duma, Russia's lower parliamentary house, on June 21 and approved by the Federation Council, the upper house, on June 26. It was then signed into law and took effect on August 1 despite outcries from the Internet industry. The companies that oppose the law claim that it has numerous loopholes that would allow for abuse and unfair competition. The law allows copyright holders to request the court to block contested content before ruling on its legality, without requiring them to try to contact the up-loader before going to court. Issues of injunction and punishment are handled exclusively by the Moscow City Court, which is expected to accept complaints around the clock, including online.
http://www.rapsinews.com/legislation_news/20130828/268691332.html
Labels: _Copyright Law, _Internet, Russia
Bubonic Plague Hits Kyrgyzstan
An outbreak of the deadly bubonic plague has tormented the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan after the death of a 15-year-old boy. Three more people showed symptoms of the 'Black Death', and in total 131 came into contact with the victim. More than 800 people have been screened in the town of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The disease wiped out tens of millions in 14th century Europe. It was reported that 15-year-old Temirbek Isakunov died after eating a barbecued groundhog infected with the lethal virus, yet another account suggests he became infected after being bitten by an oriental flea carried by a marmot that he reportedly prepared for food. Eastern districts of the mountainous country were in 'lockdown' last night as officials sought to prevent the plague spreading. Neighbouring Kazakhstan urged its people not to travel to the country, and introduced 'special monitoring' of those crossing the border.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2403099/Kyrgyzstan-lock-boy-15-dies-bubonic-plague.html
http://ria.ru/world/20130826/958574735.html
Labels: Health and Safety, Kyrgyzstan
Police Seize Putin-in-Drag Portrait
Police confiscated a satirical portrait of Russia's president and premier clad in women's underwear – along with paintings depicting arch-conservative lawmakers and the Moscow Patriarch with prison tattoos – from a provocative museum in St. Petersburg, its owner and the police said Tuesday. The seized oil on canvas portrait by painter Konstantin Altunin depicts President Vladimir Putin in a pink-white nightgown touching the hair of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, clad in nothing but a push-up bra and panties. The portrait was displayed at the Museum of Power's "Rulers" exhibition that opened in Russia's second-largest city less than two weeks ago, the museum's owner Alexander Donskoy said. Police confiscated the canvas along with a portrait of local lawmaker Vitaly Milonov titled "Rainbow Milonov," a painting named "Erotic Dreams of Lawmaker [Yelena] Mizulina" and a portrait of Moscow Patriarch Kirill wearing prison tattoos with skulls and profiles of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin, Donskoy said. "Museum property was forcibly seized without any warrants," Donskoy told RIA Novosti. "The rest [of the exhibition] has been sealed, we have no access to it." St. Petersburg police said four paintings were "withdrawn" from the museum because they might "violate existing legislation," according to a statement posted on the Internet on Tuesday. The police did not say which laws may have been broken, although Russia does have a law against "insulting representatives of authority."
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130827/182994089/Police-Seize-Putin-in-Drag-Portrait.html
http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/1144458-echo/ (pictures)
UPDATE: Russian Museum Closed After Seizure of Satirical Paintings
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130828/183005109/Russian-Museum-Closed-After-Seizure-of-Satirical-Paintings.html
Posted by SB at 11:14 AM No comments:
Labels: _Free Speech, _Police, _Politics, Russia
Potash Dispute Escalates as Russian CEO Arrested in Belarus
The business dispute roiling the global potash market escalated after Belarus accused top executives at Russian producer OAO Uralkali (URKA) of a criminal scheme, threatening to embroil both governments in a conflict that could cause broader economic and political damage. Belarus officials detained Uralkali Chief Executive Officer Vladislav Baumgertner after inviting him to Minsk for talks. He's still chairman of Belarusian Potash Co., the joint venture with state-owned Belaruskali that the Russian company said July 30 it was withdrawing from. Baumgertner was charged with abusing his office at the venture and could face as many as 10 years in prison if found guilty, Pavel Traulko, a spokesman for Belarus's Investigative Committee, said yesterday by phone. Belarus officials have issued warrants for the arrest of four more Uralkali executives, accusing them along with Baumgertner of a scheme to cut Belaruskali out of decision-making at the venture, causing damages and losses of about $100 million. Uralkali, the world's largest potash producer, quit BPC last month over a dispute about foreign sales. The Russian company is better positioned to go it alone outside the venture, which had controlled more than 40 percent of global exports, because it has the lowest costs of any major producer. Potash is used by farmers to help crops resist drought.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-26/uralkali-ceo-detained-in-belarus-on-charge-of-abuse-of-office.html
Labels: _Economy, _Politics, Belarus, Russia
Security Chief Shot Dead in Russia's Republic of Ingushetia
A top security official involved in fighting Islamist militants in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia was shot dead Tuesday, local authorities said. Akhmed Kotiyev, the head of Ingushetia's Security Council, died when an unidentified assailant sprayed his car with bullets at 7.40 a.m. in the village of Nizhniye Achaluki as he was traveling with his driver to the provincial town of Magas, a local Health Ministry spokesman said. Kotiyev's driver was wounded in the attack and taken to a hospital, but later died of sustained injuries, the spokesman said. Ingushetia's leader Yunus-Bek Yevkurov said the attack was related to Kotiyev's "successful" crackdown on Islamist militants in the republic.
http://en.ria.ru/crime/20130827/182986066/Ingushetias-Security-Council-Chief-Killed-in-Armed-Assault.html
Labels: _Crime, _Terror, Russia
Russian Court Orders Opposition Lawmaker to Pay Back $83,000 to Skolkovo
A Moscow District Court ordered a State Duma lawmaker Tuesday to pay 2.728 million rubles ($82,776) to the Skolkovo Foundation, Russia's high-tech development center, over payments allegedly improperly made to him by one of its officials. Skolkovo had claimed 9 million rubles ($273,088) from deputy Ilya Ponomaryov, who Russian investigators claim was illegally paid from Skolkovo funds by the center's senior vice president Alexei Beltyukov between February 2011 and February 2012 for a series of lectures and research projects. An investigation was launched into Beltyukov's actions to analyze the academic value of the lectures Ponomaryov was contracted to provide. Spokesman Vladimir Markin said previously the Investigative Committee planned to launch criminal proceedings against Ponomaryov as part of the Skolkovo Foundation's lawsuit and would be requesting he be stripped of his parliamentary immunity.
http://en.ria.ru/crime/20130827/182987920/Court-Orders-Opposition-Lawmaker-to-Pay-Back-83000-to-Skolkovo-.html
Labels: _Corruption, _Politics, _Skolkovo, Russia
Russia Warns US Again Against Syria Intervention
Moscow has once again urged Washington against possible military intervention in Syria, warning it would be fraught with unpredictable consequences for the Middle East region. Russia is especially concerned about remarks by some US administration officials alleging the Syrian government was behind "the purported use of chemical weapons in eastern Ghouta last week," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his US counterpart John Kerry in a telephone conversation, according to a Foreign Ministry website statement. The Syrian opposition has accused the government of killing hundreds of people in a massive nerve gas attack near Damascus on Wednesday, with death toll estimates varying from 100 to more than 1,000 people. The Syrian government promptly denied the reports as baseless and showed on state TV what it said was evidence of chemical weapons stocks held by rebel forces.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130826/182968385/Russia-Warns-US-Again-Against-Syria-Intervention.html
Labels: _Foreign Relations, _International Law, Russia
10 Russians Detained for Commemorating Czechoslovakian Invasion
Ten protesters were detained Sunday for rallying on Moscow's iconic Red Square to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia — and replicate the 1968 protest rally that got its participants jailed, exiled or forcibly committed to psychiatric institutions. In August 1968, Soviet and Warsaw pact tanks and troops entered Czechoslovakia to quell the Prague Spring – the Czechoslovakian socialist government's attempt to carry out liberal reforms and build "socialism with a human face." Seventy-two people were killed and hundreds injured, and reformist leader Alexander Dubcek was eventually forced to resign.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130825/182959341/10-Russians-Detained-for-Commemorating-Czechoslovakian-Invasion--Police.html
Labels: _Human Rights, _Politics, Russia
Navalny Briefly Detained
The opposition Moscow mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny was briefly detained Sunday over alleged violations during a rally, police said. Navalny was "invited to a police precinct for a conversation in connection with violations" made during the rally he held for his supporters, a Moscow police representative told RIA Novosti. In a video posted by Navalny's team, two dozen police officers are seen going through the crowd to the stage on which the anti-corruption crusader was standing. Navalny is heard telling the crowd to "go home" and following the policemen. About an hour later, Navalny said on Twitter that he had been taken to northeastern Moscow in a police van and released after a police officer told him that "nobody had detained him." Police also told RIA Novosti that 10 people were detained at Navalny's rally for "petty hooliganism," public drunkenness, improper installation of a temporary stage and the unsanctioned use of audio recording equipment.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130825/182962767/Navalny-Briefly-Invited-to-Police-Station-After-Rally.html
http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/1143300-echo/#video (video)
Labels: _Elections, _Police, _Politics, Russia
Putin: Ukraine-EU Deal to Entail Protective Measures
The Moscow-led Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan may have to use protective measures should Ukraine sign an association agreement with the European Union, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. "If our neighbors [Ukraine] resort to a substantial liberalization of their customs regime with the EU, goods that are not bad in terms of quality and price would inevitably gush to the Ukrainian market, but they would be squeezing out Ukrainian-made goods from the Ukrainian market," Putin said Thursday. "Then the Customs Union countries would have to think about protective measures," he said at a meeting on the social and economic development of the southern Russian Rostov Region that borders on Ukraine.
http://en.ria.ru/politics/20130823/182920979/Ukraine-EU-Deal-to-Entail-Protective-Measures---Putin.html
Labels: _Economy, _Foreign Relations, Russia, Ukraine
Russia to End Customs War against Ukraine
Russia's customs authorities have notified Ukraine that extra customs procedures for Ukrainian goods had been scrapped days after being introduced, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Ministry of Revenues and Duties said Tuesday. "We have this information; it is true," the spokesperson said. The Ministry of Revenues and Duties said in a statement that the sides have reached "an agreement in principle" and that "the acuteness of the problem has been relieved." The Russian Federal Customs Service declined to comment on the information. An anonymous source told the Prime news agency that Russian and Ukrainian officials had indeed addressed the matter. On July 14, Russia introduced rigorous checks of Ukrainian goods crossing its border. A number of Ukrainian manufacturers said the move de-facto blocked their exports to Russia. The restrictions have also been condemned by Ukrainian lawmakers from across the political spectrum, with some describing the move as part of a "trade war."
http://en.ria.ru/world/20130820/182875853/Russia-Scraps-Burdensome-Customs-Controls-for-Ukrainian-Goods.html
Labels: _Customs, _Foreign Relations, Russia, Ukraine
Moscow Authorities Close Migrant Detention Camp
A tent camp in eastern Moscow where hundreds of labor migrants had been forcibly placed ahead of their deportation has been closed, a police spokesman said Tuesday. "Some foreign nationals have been deported; the remaining 234 people were transferred to a center for foreign nationals in the settlement of Severny," the spokesman said. In early August, more than 600 people were placed in green tents with bunk beds in the camp after police detained some 1,400 migrants, mostly from Vietnam, over alleged violations of migration rules. Officials said the tent camp had to be set up as an emergency measure because the permanent centers for detained foreigners were full.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130820/182873151/Moscow-Authorities-Close-Migrant-Tent-Camp.html
Labels: _Ethnic Relations, _Immigration, Russia
'Statue War' Rages in Ukraine
A nationalist statue and one of Communist state founder Vladimir Lenin were defaced in separate attacks in Ukraine this week, continuing a long-running local trend of settling ideological grievances through vandalism. The Lenin statue in the central Ukrainian town of Berdichev still points "the way to a brighter future," as the Soviet leader would say, but now it does so without a head on his shoulders, regional television network VIK reported Tuesday. The head vanished in a vandal attack, but a local Communist organization has vowed to put up a new one, the report said. However, the mutilation sustained by the Communist ideologue was still less than what was delivered to a monument to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army – which fought against the Soviets in World War II – in the western Lvov Region, a hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism, Zn.ua said Tuesday. The monument, which features a statue of a woman breaking through chains, was ripped in half, with its head cut off. Unlike with the Lenin, though, the head was left at the scene. Police reported no incarcerations over either act of vandalism, which is far from the first in the East European country, torn between nostalgia for its Soviet past and a dream of integration into the European Union.
http://en.ria.ru/world/20130820/182874058/Statue-War-Rages-in-Ukraine.html
Russia: US Left 5 Extradition Requests Unanswered
Five of Russia's extradition requests sent to the United States in the past few years have been left unanswered, a deputy Russian prosecutor general has said in an interview. "Since 2008, the United States has refused 16 times to extradite people to us citing the absence of a relevant treaty," Deputy Russian Prosecutor General Alexander Zvyagintsev told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta government daily. "We have been insisting on concluding such a treaty but have been getting a refusal based on unconvincing arguments," he said. "Another five of our requests sent to the United States in 2011-2012 have not been answered." The United States has been unsuccessfully pushing Russia for extradition of fugitive intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
http://en.ria.ru/politics/20130821/182880299/US-Left-5-Extradition-Requests-Unanswered---Russia.html
Labels: _Extradition, _Foreign Relations, Russia
Pussy Riot Member Sues Ex-Lawyer for Libel
A member of Russian punk band Pussy Riot has sued her former lawyer for libel and is seeking 2 million rubles ($61,000) in damages, a Russian court said Tuesday. Yekaterina Samutsevich wants her former attorney Violetta Volkova to refute what she claims is a libelous statement that "negatively characterizes her personality, degrades her honor and dignity," according to a statement by the Elektrostal city court in Moscow Region posted on the court's website. Samutsevich and fellow band members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were sentenced to two years in jail last August for their February 2012 "punk prayer" in Moscow's largest cathedral after an internationally condemned trial. The band members, who were represented by Volkova and two other lawyers, rejected the hooliganism charges as "absurd" and "illegal." Samutsevich later fired Volkova and hired a new attorney, who maintained her client did not actually participate in the prayer because security guards at the Christ the Savior cathedral had prevented her from joining the other two from "praying" near the altar. After an appeal hearing last October, Samutsevich had her jail term reduced to a suspended sentence and was released in the courtroom. Volkova has accused Samutsevich of "striking a deal" with prosecutors and betraying other band members by admitting that the "prayer" was a crime that she could not take part in. "First of all, this is a deal with [her] conscience," Volkova wrote in January in her blog on the website of Ekho Moskvy radio. "This is the kind of deal that saved only one of the participants but drowned the others." Samutsevich complained to the Moscow region bar association in April, saying Volkova should be penalized for "substandard service," the Rapsi legal news agency reported. As part of her libel action, Samutsevich wants Volkova to refute her comments and remove them from the Internet, the Elektrostal court statement said. A preliminary court hearing is scheduled for September 18, it said.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130820/182866208/Pussy-Riot-Band-Member-Sues-Ex-Lawyer-for-Libel.html
Labels: _Courts, _Libel, Russia
Russian Officials Now Prohibited From Having Foreign Bank Accounts
Senior Russian officials, including lawmakers, judges and the heads of state corporations, as well as their spouses and underage children, are no longer allowed to keep their money in foreign bank accounts or financial instruments abroad as of Monday. The legislation, initiated by the Kremlin to "nationalize elites" and deter corruption, originally envisioned a ban on owning any assets abroad, but the bill was softened in parliament to allow ownership of foreign real estate. The law came into force in early May, but officials were given three months to get rid of the respective assets or resign. The only penalty for incompliance is relinquishing one's post.
http://en.ria.ru/politics/20130819/182850233/Russian-Officials-Now-Prohibited-From-Having-Foreign-Bank-Accounts.html
Labels: _Corruption, Russia
Russian Billionaire's Ex-Wife Seeks to Invalidate Marriage Agreement
The ex-wife of Arkady Rotenberg, who is widely viewed as one of Russia's most influential businessmen, challenged the validity of their prenuptial agreement in Moscow's Tushinsky District Court, and may be entitled to a substantial portion of the businessman's wealth, his lawyer Philipp Ryabchenko told RAPSI Friday. Rotenberg divorced his wife Natalia last April, and now she challenges the validity of a prenuptial agreement. If her claim were to be granted she may be entitled to half of the wealth Rotenberg has accrued since they got together, according to Ryabchenko. According to his profile on Forbes' list of billionaires, Rotenberg's net worth is valued at approximately $3.3 billion, as of March 2013.
http://www.rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20130816/268576384.html
Labels: _Family Law, Russia
Russia Launches Customs War against Ukraine
Russia's Federal Customs Service has tightened control of freight traffic from Ukraine. Ukrainian businesses complain Russia effectively blocked all Ukrainian imports. Experts say the move is part of Russia's strong-arm tactics to force Ukraine to join the Moscow-led Customs Union, and represents the start of a full-on trade war.
http://en.ria.ru/papers/20130815/182776946/Russian-Press-at-a-Glance-Thursday-August-15-2013.html
Rosneft Loses Case in Amsterdam over Yukos Loan
The District court of Amsterdam has ruled that Rosneft, Russia's largest state oil company, must pay 2,53 billion rubles ($76,6 million) to Glendale Group Ltd., the PRIME business news agency reported on Wednesday. Glendale Group Limited ("Glendale"), formerly one of Yukos affiliates, held promissory notes issued by former YUKOS subsidiary Yuganskneftegaz in 2003. After Rosneft bought control of Yuganskneftegaz in 2004, it had to pay the Promissory Notes. When Glendale requested Rosneft to pay its debt under the Promissory Notes, Rosneft refused. Gelndale sued and won.
Labels: _Courts, _Foreign Relations, _Yukos, Russia
US Court Refuses to Dismiss Sea Launch Case
KB Yuzhnoye and PO Yuzhnoye Mashinostroitelny Zavod (Yuzhnoye) have failed in their efforts to dismiss a claim filed against them in US federal court by Boeing and Boeing Commercial Space Company (BCSC) over the Sea Launch project, according to court documents obtained by RAPSI. Yuzhnoye had moved to stay or dismiss, alleging insufficient service of process, breach of an agreement under the Colorado River doctrine, and forum non conveniens. In February 1996, BCSC agreed to lend $183 million to Sea Launch based on the agreements by Yuzhnoye and Energia to guarantee repayment in the amount of their percentage of ownership if Sea Launch were to default on the loan, according to the order. Sea Launch filed for bankruptcy in 2009. At that point, Boeing paid the guarantees and billed Yuzhnoye and Energia for their shares, which they in turn allegedly refused to reimburse.
Navalny Supporters Fined, 1 Jailed After 5-Hour Police Siege
Tensions in the run-up to the Moscow mayoral election mounted this week as police raided four supporters of leading opposition candidate Alexei Navalny in a five-hour operation, sawing through a steel door and confiscating two tons of allegedly illegal campaign leaflets. One of the four members of the grassroots group, "Navalny's Brothers," was taken into custody for 10 days, and three others got away with 1,000 ruble fines ($30) Wednesday on charges of disobeying a police order. The group recorded the raid and broadcast it live online. The crackdown was launched overnight on a complaint by rival candidate Nikolai Levichev, who said he had received a tip that campaign leaflets were being produced illegally in a rented apartment near downtown Moscow's Chistoprudny Boulevard. Confusion reigned about whether the officers – who had no search warrant – had the right to be in the apartment. Police said during the raid that they thought the apartment was on fire, which in Russia is a valid pretext for trespassing without legal authorization, but an officer later claimed in court that the apartment's owner had allowed them to enter.
http://en.ria.ru/politics/20130814/182771260/Navalny-Supporters-Fined-1-Jailed-After-5-Hour-Police-Siege.html
Labels: _Police, _Politics, Russia
Moscow Irate Over Lithuania's Extradition of Russian Man to US
Moscow is outraged by Lithuania's decision to extradite a Russian national to the United States, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Lithuania fulfilled a US request to extradite alleged arms dealer Dmitry Ustinov. Ustinov, 46, was detained at Vilnius Airport in Lithuania on April 15 after he arrived from the US to purportedly negotiate a deal to sell night-vision equipment used by the US military. "[We are] outraged by the fact that American special services and law enforcement agencies are still trying to legitimize the practice of arresting and detaining Russian nationals in third countries on frivolous grounds," Konstantin Dolgov, the Foreign Ministry's point man for human rights, said in a statement posted on the ministry's website. Moscow will continue providing assistance to Ustinov to make sure his rights are upheld and help get him back to Russia as soon as possible, the statement said. On July 22, a Vilnius court ordered Dolgov to be extradited to the US, where he faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on charges of money laundering and smuggling export-restricted military equipment. Ustinov, whose detention was based on an arrest warrant from the US state of Delaware, pleaded not guilty in court.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130814/182770783/Moscow-Irate-Over-Lithuanias-Extradition-of-Russian-Man-to-US.html
Henkel Pulls Toilet Freshener That Insulted Ukrainians
German consumer goods company Henkel has decided to pull a toilet freshener out of Ukraine after the country's nationals said they were offended because the product resembled the Ukrainian national flag. The Bref Duo Stripes' design included the blue and yellow colors. A TV ad showed the freshener placed under the toilet rim, but the company said the colors carried a totally different meaning. "We are sorry if people feel offended by the design of our new Bref Duo Stripes. The color blue, intended to stand for water and hygiene, and the yellow color for lemon scent are common for this type of products," Henkel said on Facebook this week.
http://en.ria.ru/world/20130815/182776005/Henkel-Pulls-Toilet-Freshener-That-Insulted-Ukrainians.html
Moscow Police Storm Navalny Supporters' Apartment
Police in Moscow took by storm an apartment where several supporters of the Russian opposition's mayoral candidate in Moscow, Alexey Navalny, were holed up. Apparently, the authorities suspected that the apartment was an "illegal campaign headquarter." The police produced no search warrant. They used a sledgehammer and a chainsaw to break the door. The results of the search have not yet been officially announced.
http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2254886 (video)
http://finrosforum.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/navalny-supporters-under-siege/comment-page-1/
http://navalny.livejournal.com/836824.html
Navalny Wants Acting Moscow Mayor Checked for Corruption
Mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny has asked the Investigative Committee to check whether his main rival in the Sept. 8 election, acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, and his elder daughter Anna are involved in corruption, he wrote in his LiveJournal blog Tuesday. Navalny posted copies of documents showing that Anna Sobyanina owns a high-end apartment with an estimated value of $3.5 million in downtown St. Petersburg and Forus Group, which supplies luxury furniture to government agencies. The news comes days after City Hall confirmed that Sobyanin's younger daughter, Olga, owns an apartment with an estimated value of $5.3 million in Moscow. Navalny has accused Sobyanin of illegally privatizing the apartment. "It is an amazing coincidence," Navalny said in his blog. "The talented daughter of government official Sobyanin has skilfully supplied furniture to places where her father Sergei Sobyanin held official positions."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/navalny-wants-sobyanin-his-elder-daughter-checked-for-corruption/484535.html
Labels: _Corruption, _Elections, _Politics, Russia
Court Orders Fugitive Russian Property Tycoon's Arrest in Absentia
A Moscow court issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for fugitive Russian real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky, who is currently living in Israel and has submitted an application for Israeli citizenship. Polonsky, the former head of the Mirax Group construction firm (now renamed Potok), is wanted in connection with the embezzlement of over 5.7 billion rubles ($176.2 million) from private investors in Moscow's Kutuzovskaya Milya residential construction project. Moscow's Tverskoi court also heard Tuesday that Polonsky has been officially put on an international wanted list, the RAPSI legal news service reported.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130813/182737891/Court-Orders-Fugitive-Russian-Property-Tycoons-Arrest-in-Absentia.html
Labels: _Courts, _Crime, Russia
Russian Gunmaker Izhmash Renamed Kalashnikov
Russia's Izhmash arms factory, manufacturer of the legendary Kalashnikov assault rifle, has been renamed the Kalashnikov Concern and will soon integrate several other defense plants into the new holding, the enterprise said Tuesday. "Based on the decision by Rostech state corporation [the controlling shareholder in Izhmash], Izhmash has been renamed the Kalashnikov Concern. A relevant entry was made in the single state registry of corporate entities," the enterprise said in a statement. The renaming of Izhmash into Kalashnikov Concern is another step towards creating a vertically integrated small arms holding company, a move championed by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees Russia's arms industry.
http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20130813/182743286/Russian-Gunmaker-Izhmash-Renamed-Kalashnikov-Concern.html
Russian Surgeon Stole Heroin from Patient's Stomach
A surgeon who operated on a drug mule in an East Siberian town stole heroin from his stomach and was detained while high, regional police said Tuesday. Police found a bag containing 5 grams of heroin in the surgeon's clothes after he had performed surgery on a drug mule in the Bogotol town hospital in Russia's Krasnoyarsk region, regional police said in a statement. A video posted on the police website shows the surgeon – a burly man dressed in a dark blue training suit – being locked in a small detention cell. A woman can be heard asking "what are you being detained for?" and the surgeon says he will not comment without his lawyer. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in jail, the police statement said.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130813/182740811/Russian-Surgeon-Stole-Heroin-From-Drug-Mules-Stomach--Police.html
http://www.rg.ru/2013/08/13/reg-sibfo/hirurg-anons.html (video)
Prosecutors: Navalny Accepts Illegal Foreign Donations
Russian prosecutors said Monday that Moscow mayoral candidate and opposition leader Alexei Navalny has accepted illegal donations from abroad to fund his electoral campaign. The allegations were immediately denied by Navalny, while Yandex.Money, the online electronic payments system used by the Navalny campaign, said that it had not been contacted by prosecutors over the issue. "The information about foreign funding for Navalny's electoral campaign was confirmed during checks," the Prosecutor General's Office said in an online statement published Monday. "More than 300 foreign individuals and organizations, and anonymous donors from 46 countries (including the United States, Finland, Britain, Sweden and Canada) from 347 IP addresses have sent money to the electronic fund of Navalny and members of his campaign headquarters," the statement said. Navalny ridiculed prosecutors in a subsequent blog post, pointing out that a foreign IP address does not mean that a donation was made by a foreign citizen and adding that all donations to his campaign were approved by Moscow's Election Commission or were returned to the donors.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130812/182718858/Navalnys-Moscow-Mayor-Bid-Took-Illegal-Foreign-Cash---Prosecutors.html
Labels: _Elections, _Politics, Russia
Ex-Wife Sues Russian Billionaire over Hawaii Property
Elena Rybolovleva has sued her estranged husband, Russian billionaire Dmitri Rybolovlev, in Hawaii over allegations that he had used a "sham" company to purchase a $20 million Kauai property in contravention of a freeze order issued by the Supreme Court of Switzerland. Last year, Rybolovleva sued Rybolovlev over his $88 million purchase of a penthouse in New York City, maintaining that her husband had purchased the apartment through a shell company, despite the Geneva court's imposition of a provisional freeze on his shares and assets pending the completion of divorce proceedings. According to a Forbes profile, which listed his net worth as of March 2013 at $9.1 billion, Rybolovlev amassed much of his fortune through his stake in Russian fertilizer producer Uralkali, which he sold in 2006 for $6.5 billion.
Labels: _Courts, _Family Law, Russia
US Court Rejects Stolichnaya Trademark Dispute
A US federal appeals court affirmed a lower court's decision Monday dismissing a lawsuit disputing US-trademark rights to the Stolichnaya vodka brand for lack of standing. The appeal was filed by the government-chartered Russian entity Federal Treasury Enterprise Sojuzplodoimport (FTE) and its licensee OAO Moscow Distillery Cristall (Cristall) (appellants) against SPI Spirits Limited and a long list of "other related individuals and corporations" (appellees). The appellants claimed that the appellees had infringed certain Stolichnaya trademark rights in violation of US law. A lower federal district court dismissed the case for lack of standing to sue. On appeal, the court found that under US law, FTE is neither an assign nor a legal representative of the Russian Federation. In the words of the opinion, "Even accepting, based on the May 2011 letter… that the Russian Federation endorses FTE's authority to bring this suit and is willing to be bound by this litigation – propositions that we have questioned – plaintiffs cannot… bypass the standing requirement… which permits only 'registrants' to bring actions for infringement of registered marks."
Labels: _Foreign Relations, _Trademark, Russia
Obama Cancels Meeting with Putin
President Barack Obama is canceling plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow next month. The move is in retribution for Russia's decision to grant temporary asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. But it also reflects growing U.S. frustration with Russia on an array of other issues, including missile defense and human rights. The White House says Obama still attends to plan the Group of 20 economic summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, but has no plans to meet with Putin there one-on-one.
http://world.time.com/2013/08/07/obama-cancels-meetings-with-putin-amid-tensions/
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/president_obama_cancels_plans_putin_H2jPisAVBma2RMojxJz3FP
Labels: _Foreign Relations, _Russia
Obama: Russia Slips Back into Cold War Thinking
President Obama said in an interview that he was frustrated by Russia's decision to grant Edward Snowden asylum but said the two countries must work together. "I was disappointed," he said of Russia's decision. "Even though we don't have an extradition treaty with them, traditionally, we have tried to respect if there's a law breaker or alleged law breaker in their country, we evaluate it, and we try to work with them." Despite this, Obama confirmed he would attend the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg in September. "There are times when they slip back into Cold War thinking and Cold War mentality," Obama said on air Tuesday evening. "What I continually say to them and to President Putin, that's the past."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/08/06/obama-frustrated-by-russias-decision-to-grant-snowden-asylum/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/us-obama-leno-idUSBRE97600720130807
Labels: _Foreign Relations, Russia
37 Business Leaders Back Navalny in Moscow Mayoral Race
A group of 37 CEOs and entrepreneurs from Russian internet companies and start-up businesses have announced their backing for opposition leader Alexei Navalny's bid to become mayor of Moscow in a rare intervention in favor of opposition politics by Russian business. Their support for Navalny at the upcoming election, in which he is aiming to unseat incumbent Sergei Sobyanin, will be logistical, as well as financial, according to a "social contract" signed by the business leaders and published by Navalny on his blog. Russian business has largely avoided backing the opposition since billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky was jailed in 2003 and his oil company, Yukos, was broken up. Khodorkovsky remains in prison.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130807/182625362/37-Business-Leaders-Back-Navalny-in-Moscow-Mayoral-Race.html
Russia, Ukraine Prosecute US Musician for Flag Desecration
A US musician who apparently desecrated the Ukrainian flag has been banned from entering the country for five years, the Ukrainian Security Service reported. The ban followed an incident in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, when US rock group Bloodhound Gang's bassist Jared Hasselhoff allegedly urinated on a Ukrainian flag. The next day, the bass player also apparently desecrated a Russian flag. Ukrainian authorities have opened criminal cases over both incidents and are investigating them. Russian authorities subsequently canceled the band's scheduled appearance at the Kubana rock festival. The band, who arrived in Russia by then, reportedly left the country soon afterward. Russia's Interior Ministry said Monday it had opened a criminal case over the Russian flag desecration.
http://en.ria.ru/world/20130807/182617918/Ukraine-Bans-US-Musician-for-5-Years-for-Flag-Desecration.html
Labels: _Foreign Relations, _Free Speech, Russia, Ukraine
Lady Gaga: Russian Government Is Criminal
The American pop star known the world over as Lady Gaga is all but taunting Russian authorities in response to reports they may prosecute her for violating the terms of her visa by giving a performance in Russia last year. Gaga has been vocal in her support of gay Russians. Now Russian authorities – who recently enacted a law that forbids communicating anything about the homosexual lifestyle to a minor – say she did not have a proper visa to perform in Russia and may be prosecuted. "The Russian government is criminal. Oppression will be met with revolution. Russian LGBTs you are not alone. We will fight for your freedom," Gaga wrote in a tweet.
http://en.ria.ru/world/20130806/182611036/Lady-Gaga-Fires-Back-at-Russia-in-Twitter-Rant.html
Labels: _Human Rights, _Immigration, Russia
Moscow Police Arrest Thousands in Market Raids
Moscow police carried out yet more raids targeting migrants and marketplaces Wednesday, detaining hundreds of people. A special sweep operation involving some 400 police officers took place at the Sadovod market, a sprawling area in southeastern Moscow trading a variety of goods that employs many migrants. Over 1,000 people have been held there as of Wednesday morning, the police reported, but they did not say on what grounds they were detained. The operation is part of the city's recent drive to "decriminalize" Moscow with checks of market places and other sites which house and employ many migrant workers. The city's law enforcement authorities detained thousands of people in a string of raids, launched last week, following an attack on a police officer who was seriously injured at a Moscow market when attacked by an angry mob as he was trying to arrest a rape suspect.
http://en.ria.ru/crime/20130807/182622512/Police-Hold-Hundreds-More-in-New-Market-Raids.html
Labels: _Crime, _Ethnic Relations, _Immigration, _Police, Russia
Russian Supreme Court Cuts Jail Term for Khodorkovsky by 2 Months
Russia's Supreme Court issued a ruling reducing the jail terms of jailed former head of oil giant Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his former business partner to 10 years and 10 months at their Tuesday appeal. The decision means that they will be released two months early. Khodorkovsky's term will now end in August 2014 and his business partner Platon Lebedev's in May the same year. The case against the two businessmen became one of the decade's most high-profile legal cases in Russia and was widely criticized by human rights groups as being politically motivated.
http://en.ria.ru/crime/20130806/182603960/Russian-Court-Cuts-Jail-Term-for-Ex-Oil-Tycoon-Khodorkovsky.html
http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/1130430-echo/
Labels: _Courts, _Politics, _Yukos, Russia
Russia Bans Ukrainian Confectionery
Russia on Tuesday barred confectionery imports from Ukrainian firm Roshen citing health concerns. This move is the latest in a string of trade restrictions on both sides. Russian consumer watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said in a statement on Tuesday it had found a carcinogenic substance in Roshen's chocolate and was barring imports of all products made at four of Roshen's Ukrainian plants. Earlier this month, Russia said it planned to levy additional duties on imports of Ukrainian chocolate, coal and glass in retaliation for a Ukrainian emergency import tax on cars which is likely to hurt Russian producers, among others. Ukraine says it has imposed the emergency car tax in March under the World Trade Organisation's "safeguard" rules, which allow countries to protect a sector if there is a threat of serious damage to producers from a surge in imports. However, a number of WTO members, including the European Union, have accused Ukraine of breaking the global trade club's rules.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/30/russia-ukraine-chocolate-idUSL6N0G04IN20130730
Labels: _Trade, _WTO, Russia, Ukraine
Russia's Anti-Internet Piracy Law Faces Backlash
President Putin signed the anti-piracy bill into law last month. It is championed by some as a new weapon to defend content-makers and decried by others as a blunt tool that could extend censorship of the net. One thing's for sure - Russia's new anti-piracy law is proving controversial. The law allows copyright holders to request the court to block contested content before ruling on its legality without requiring them to try to contact the uploader before going to court. "Access to online content should be free and global because it is people's right to freely receive and distribute information, as well as it is their right to consume art," says Natalia Malysheva, of the Russian Pirate Party. On Sunday, the party held a protest in central Moscow against the law, now in force, which allows sites to be blocked if they do not tackle complaints that they are aiding copyright infringement within three days of being notified. About 300 people, who were waving black pirate flags, attended the peaceful event.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23510065
http://www.rapsinews.com/judicial_information/20130802/268424650.html
Labels: _Copyright Law, _Internet, _Politics, Russia
Russia Gives Snowden Asylum, Obama-Putin Summit in Doubt
Russia rejected U.S. pleas and granted American fugitive Edward Snowden a year's asylum on Thursday, letting the former spy agency contractor slip out of a Moscow airport after more than five weeks in limbo while angering the United States and putting in doubt a planned summit between the two nations' presidents. The United States wanted Russia to send Snowden home to face criminal charges, including espionage, for disclosing in June secret American internet and telephone surveillance programs. The White House signaled that President Barack Obama may boycott a September summit with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Snowden, whose disclosures triggered an international furor over the reach of U.S. spy operations as part of its counterterrorism efforts, thanked Russia for his temporary asylum and declared that "the law is winning."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/02/us-usa-security-snowden-russia-idUSBRE9700N120130802
Russia Creates Immigrant Detention Camp
More than 1,000 suspected illegal immigrants detained in a wave of raids at Moscow markets this week will be placed at a specially organized tent camp until decisions on their deportations are made. Police arrested around 1,400 people, most of whom are allegedly Vietnamese citizens, Interfax reported Friday. Others are believed to be natives of Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. Moscow police senior official Vyacheslav Kozlov told BBC Russia that the identification process of the migrants would take up to two days since most of them didn't speak Russian and either lacked documents or had false ones. "We have no places to keep foreign citizens. There are only 400 places for such people in Moscow police offices; that is why we asked the government to organize the tent camp," Kozlov said. He added that food, water, toilets and medical assistance will be provided for those in the camp's 20 tents. The migrants will also be under constant police surveillance.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/1000-detained-immigrants-held-in-tent-camp/484008.html
http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/829057.html
Putin: Navalny Sentence 'Strange'
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he finds it "strange" that Kremlin and Putin critic Aleksei Navalny was sentenced to five years in prison while a co-defendant in the case who testified against Navalny received a suspended sentence. Putin, speaking at a Kremlin-organized camp for young activists in Seliger, in the Tver region north of Moscow, on August 2, made the comment without mentioning Navalny or the co-defendant, Vyacheslav Opalev, by name as he answered questions from youthful supporters. Navalny was sentenced to five years in prison last month partly due to Opalev's testimony that Navalny had conspired to defraud the government of the northern Kirov region of more than $500,000 in a timber deal. Navalny and rights groups have accused Russian authorities of politically motivated persecution. Despite receiving a five-year prison sentence, Navalny was later released and will compete in the upcoming Moscow mayoral election in September.
http://www.rferl.org/content/putin-navalny-case-sentence/25064894.html
http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/1128196-echo/ (video)
Labels: _Government, _Politics, Russia
Russian Communists Seek to Revoke "Anti-Piracy Law...
Potash Dispute Escalates as Russian CEO Arrested i...
Security Chief Shot Dead in Russia's Republic of I...
Russian Court Orders Opposition Lawmaker to Pay Ba...
10 Russians Detained for Commemorating Czechoslova...
Putin: Ukraine-EU Deal to Entail Protective Measur...
Russian Officials Now Prohibited From Having Forei...
Russian Billionaire's Ex-Wife Seeks to Invalidate ...
Navalny Supporters Fined, 1 Jailed After 5-Hour Po...
Moscow Irate Over Lithuania's Extradition of Russi...
Henkel Pulls Toilet Freshener That Insulted Ukrain...
Navalny Wants Acting Moscow Mayor Checked for Corr...
Court Orders Fugitive Russian Property Tycoon's Ar...
Russian Surgeon Stole Heroin from Patient's Stomac...
Prosecutors: Navalny Accepts Illegal Foreign Donat...
Ex-Wife Sues Russian Billionaire over Hawaii Prope...
37 Business Leaders Back Navalny in Moscow Mayoral...
Russia, Ukraine Prosecute US Musician for Flag De...
Russian Supreme Court Cuts Jail Term for Khodorkov...
Russia Gives Snowden Asylum, Obama-Putin Summit in...


text:
" Federalism "
The President of the United States
The President of the United States The President of the United States 1 Woodrow Wilson For Wilson, constitutional checks and balances and the separation of powers are indicative of the flawed thinking of America's Founders. They are means of limiting government, when the fact is that government alone can provide the people's needs. Wilson looks to the presidency—the singular voice of the people—as the best hope for overcoming the old order. 1908 It is difficult to describe any single part of a great governmental system without describing the whole of it. Governments are living things and operate as organic wholes. Moreover, governments have their natural evolution and are one thing in one age, another in another. The makers of the Constitution ...
Wilson, Woodrow
What is Progress?
What is Progress What is Progress? 1 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) After earning a Ph.D. in both history and political science at Johns Hopkins University, Wilson held various academic positions, culminating in the presidency of Princeton University. Throughout this period, he came to see the Constitution as a cumbersome instrument unfit for the government of a large and vibrant nation. This speech, delivered during his successful campaign for president in 1912 and included in a collection of speeches called The New Freedom, puts forward the idea of an evolving, or "living," constitution. 1913 In that sage and veracious chronicle, "Alice Through the Looking-Glass," it is recounted how, on a noteworthy occasion, the little heroine is seized by the Red Chess Queen ...
Progressive Democracy
Progressive Democracy Progressive Democracy 1 Herbert Croly (1869-1930) In this book, Croly, a leading Progressive theorist and founder of The New Republic magazine, criticizes the Founders' fear of tyranny of the majority and rejects their idea that government exists to protect individual rights. 1915 Chapter XII: The Advent of Direct Government ...If economic, social, political and technical conditions had remained very much as they were at the end of the eighteenth century, the purely democratic political aspirations might never have obtained the chance of expression. Some form of essentially representative government was at that time apparently the only dependable kind of liberal political organization. It was imposed by the physical ...
Croly, Herbert
The Inspiration of the Declaration
The Inspiration of the Declaration The Inspiration of the Declaration 1 Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) President Coolidge delivered this speech on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Rejecting Progressivism root and branch, he defends America's founding principles. July 5, 1926 We meet to celebrate the birthday of America. The coming of a new life always excites our interest. Although we know in the case of the individual that it has been an infinite repetition reaching back beyond our vision, that only makes it the more wonderful. But how our interest and wonder increase when we behold the miracle of the birth of a new nation. It is to pay our tribute of reverence and respect to those who participated in such a mighty event ...
Coolidge, Calvin
What Good's a Constitution?
| New Deal and Great Society
What Good's a Constitution What Good's a Constitution? 1 Winston Churchill (1874-1965) Written soon after Franklin Roosevelt's Democratic Convention Address of 1936, this article by British statesman Winston Churchill points to the wide gulf between Churchill's and Roosevelt's economic views, even if five years later they would forge a close wartime alliance. Beyond their differences on economics, Churchill sees the American Constitution as an enduring source of strength for the American republic, not an obstacle to be overcome. August 22, 1936 No one can think clearly or sensibly about this vast and burning topic without in the first instance making up his mind upon the fundamental issue. Does he value the State above the citizen, or the citizen above the State ...
Churchill, Winston
What is Progress? (1)
President of the United States (1)
Progressive Democracy (1)
Inspiration of the Declaration (1)
New Deal and Great Society (1)
What Good's a Constitution? (1)
Natural Law (3)
Self-Evident Truths (2)
Religious Liberty (2)
Legislative Power (2)
Senate (1)
Executive Power (4)
Presidency (3)
National Defense (1)
Bureaucracy (3)
Coolidge, Calvin (1)
Croly, Herbert (1)
Wilson, Woodrow (2)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Be the Hero… Report Phishing!
You are the first defense against undocumented Phishing attacks.
Phishing is the act of trying to trick you into giving out private or sensitive information by email or phone. Phishing attempts have evolved into targeted attempts on individuals with high profile lives or high ranking career positions know as Spear Phishing. No matter the method used, there are steps we can all take to help stop phishing attempts from being successful. Our OIS department has email filters in place to catch the currently known phishing schemes. But new phishing schemes are initiated daily, and we cannot defend against those initial attacks until we know about them.
Here's where You get to be the Heroes. You are the first line of defense against previously unknown phishing schemes. So any smart OIS team is going to educate it's community, You, on "How to Spot a Phishing Attempt" and "How to Respond to a Phishing Attempt." And while this will be short and to the point, you may also access the complete "Phishing Prevention Q & A" and "Phishing Best Practices" on this site.
*** No legitimate company or organization will ask for your password by email!!!
Phone calls that ask for private information, do not give it! Hang Up!!!
How to respond to phishing attempts.
Never reply to the phishing email.
Never click on any links in the phishing email.
Never open any attachments in a phishing email.
Contact the Campus Support Center at 968-0646, and report the phishing attempt you have received.
Campus Support Technicians will instruct you on what to do next. Never give out information over the phone to someone unknown to you. Hang Up & Report it.
A: An online scheme designed to trick recipients into revealing private or sensitive information, such as account information or logon credentials, or get them to click on an unsafe attachment.
Q: What is Spear Phishing?
A: A very targeted attempt at phishing that includes information specific to the targeted individual such as a charity, bank, or credit card company that the targeted individual is associated with or uses to transact business.
Q: Will any office at Tech ask for a password via email?
A: No. Email will never be used by any Tech office to ask for your password. Remember that no legitimate organization will ever ask you to provide your password or PIN in an email.
Q: Why am I constantly receiving fraudulent or spam emails?
A: Scam artists have many avenues to get your email address.
Q: What is the primary danger of a phishing attempt?
A: Identity theft, loss of finances, and theft or leakage of data.
Q: How can you detect phishing?
A: Any correspondence attempts to gain personal information or system passwords or PINs are phishing attempts. If you receive a request for personal information from an entity you trust and think might be legitimate, do not respond to the correspondence. Instead, contact the entity by another known contact method such as by the phone number on a bill, invoice, or statement.
Q: What should you look out for?
A: Requests to provide account numbers, system IDs, and passwords or PINs are always phishing attempts. Requests to provide personal information like birthdate, social security number, name, and address are usually phishing attempts. May include misspelled or inaccurate information, or usage of poor grammar.
Q: What should you do if you think you have responded to a phishing attempt or clicked on a link in a fraudulent email?
A: Change whatever credentials you gave out immediately and report the incident to the institution associated with the phishing attempt.
You gave out a password or PIN to an ATU system; Change the password or PIN and call Campus Support to report the incident.
Q: Can phishing attempts be prevented?
A: Email-based phishing is a form of spam that may be caught and prevented with email filter settings. While measures are in place to catch known phishing attempts, new attempts are being formulated daily. So the reality is that no filter will catch every attempt. And the best defense remains educating the community served by Tech with the knowledge to detect and stop phishing attempts, and an easy method to alert the Office of Information Systems when a phishing attempt incident has occurred.
Q: Can I protect myself against phishing attempts?
A: Everyone will occasionally receive fraudulent emails. The best protection is to remain vigilant in our education and use of safe computing practices.
Never give your username or password in response to an email.
Never respond to email requesting personal information, no matter who the sender is.
Never click on a link inside of an email in an unsolicited email.
Never open an email attachment from a sender you do not know.
Never load images from an unsolicited email.
*** Remember, NO legitimate organization will ever ask for your password or PIN thru email.


text:
Oil on Canvas Painting by Henrietta Dubrey
S/N:HD8
JAMES WORRALL View all dealer's items >
$4,750 US Dollar
JAMES WORRALL
'Swept Away', 2016
Oil on canvas. Framed.
Diverse Narratives Henrietta Dubrey at James Worrall September 2019
'Painting is to do with seeing something that presents you with an inner
experience for which you have no words that can be used as an
explanation for your feeling.'
Paul Feiler p127 Studio Voices Michael Bird
Journal, Fall, Jungle, Urban Myth and Swept Away…. paintings that tell a
story, describe a mood, a season, a landscape.
Calm Air, Tricolor and Finale; Atmosphere, interiors, composition and
Riviera, Male Muse and Slumber… different paintings, another day,
another year, evoking character and place, asking questions, never
presuming.
Bold, gestural sweeps of colour juxtaposed with more defined shapes
describe elements of life through subconscious mark-making. Paintings
evolving through time, each one unique unto themselves.
Henrietta Dubrey
Born in 1966 Henrietta Dubrey grew up at the foot of the South Downs. She attended Wimbledon School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools receiving a postgraduate diploma from the latter in 1992. During this time, Dubrey was exhibiting at the Star Gallery in Lewes and was still based in Sussex.
From 1995 she lived and worked in Normandy, France, having married and started a family. A move to West Penwith in Cornwall in 2000 allowed for a full immersion in the artistic heritage, namely the "middle generation" St Ives artists associated with the area, who have always been a vital inspiration to her creative process. Dubrey exhibited with the Belgrave Gallery in St Ives and London, consolidating her connection with the artists such as Terry Frost, Sandra Blow and Roger Hilton.
Formative experiences have included a trip to New York in 2006 which resulted in Dubrey's series of White Paintings and the publication of an associated book.
In 2011 a move to Edgar Modern Gallery in Bath saw a new direction in the painting. Dubrey started to exhibit her figurative paintings alongside her abstract canvases. This was received with great success and lead to an exhibition of paintings in the South Kensington and Marylebone Skandium design stores in London. In turn this led to her paintings being used in the 20th anniversary edition of Absolutely Fabulous broadcast at the New Year and the opening of the Olympics in 2012.
Dubrey exhibits internationally and her work is held in public and private collections.
H: 105cm (41.34in)
Mobile: +44 (0)777 1786206
NW8 8ED
WWW.JAMESWORRALL.COM
Located in the Marylebone Antiques Quarter in Central London, James Worrall was established in 2004. We are a small family owned business with James at the head of the business and our main buyer. Surrounded by a myriad of independent antique dealers and vintage fashion, including the world-famous Alfie's Antique Market, James Worrall manages to retain an unique sense of style and direction in interiors.
Whilst the business has changed over the years, our philosophy has remained the same: we are are passionate to rediscover beautiful things from the past and bring them back to life to create new trends. We work with a team of specialist restorers to ensure that all of our stock is refurbished to the highest standards.
James has a great eye and sources items from a wide range of places to ensure the collection is always fresh and inspiring, travelling all over the world in search of that special item. While key pieces such as mirrors and side tables are always in demand, we also stock Mid Twentieth Century Abstract Art, and although we source from all over the world, particularly British artists. We are used to working with collectors as well as interior designer and can always source the perfect painting for your interior or collection.
We have many years experience working with designers for commercial projects, as well as with private clients. Regardless of who you are, here at James Worrall we pride ourselves in delivering excellent customer service and we're delighted to have many long-standing clients. We work closely with several specialist fine art and antique shipping companies and can deliver your purchases anywhere in the world – just contact us for a quote! We can also offer a bespoke service in store: all of our seating is newly re-upholstered and all of our lampshades are hand made to order. We have a selection of fine fabrics samples that you are welcome to view.
Please visit us in the showroom, we love getting to know our clients over a cup of tea or coffee and we can discuss your interior needs! We are always here Monday to Saturday 10am to 6pm.
SOCIAL MEDIA: Instagram
MORE FROM JAMES WORRALLView all dealers items >
Vintage Three Oil on Canvas Paintings by Roy Cohn
Large Oil on Canvas Painting by Henrietta Dubrey
Oil on Board Village on a Hill Painting
Angie Braven, Mumbai Times 2010


text:
Luigi Benetton
Copywriter, technical writer, translator (FR>EN, ES>EN, IT>EN), journalist
About Luigi
B2B Marketers
Periodical Editors
TechnoZen Blog
Updating to Windows 7 has perks, drawbacks
originally published in Lawyers Weekly
After years of galling "Hi, I'm a Mac – And I'm a PC" ads, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may want to make an ad out of the following anecdote:
Toronto real estate lawyer David Feld updated all 8 Vista PCs in his office to Windows 7, Microsoft's latest operating system. Seeing how well the computers run using Windows 7, he wiped the operating system from his Apple MacBook Air and installed Windows 7 on it as well.
"I've been using Macs for the last five years," Feld says. "I believe Windows 7 wins."
A self-professed early adopter, Feld has nothing but praise for Windows 7. "It's not crashy," he explains. "It's prettier, more fun to use – I'm trying hard to not say it's more Mac-like – and it isn't as daunting."
This is the kind of news Ballmer and company crave after Vista, the previous version of Windows, earned Microsoft widespread scorn and disappointing sales. (Praise for Windows 7 has not echoed across the Internet the way criticism of Vista did, but after Vista, the relative quiet of Windows 7's arrival must sound like good news to Microsoft.)
People in the legal industry, particularly those running older XP-based machines, may want to take note of certain improvements in Windows 7.
For instance, computer owners can encrypt data on their hard drives using a feature called BitLocker. While BitLocker debuted with Vista, Windows 7 added BitLocker to Go, which forces encryption of any removable media (e.g. USB memory keys).
"You can set policies within offices to ensure – especially on mobile computers – that all data must be encrypted," says Phil Senecal, legal counsel and chief technical consultant for Montréal-based Ledjit Consulting Inc.
Senecal also eliminates the confusion of which Windows version lawyers should buy. "You must have Windows Ultimate to have all the capabilities of BitLocker," he says. (Windows Enterprise offers the same features as Ultimate, plus volume licensing for large firms.)
Elliot Katz, senior product manager, Windows Client for Microsoft Canada, suggests lawyers approach BitLocker with care. "If you lose the key and all your client-critical information is on the computer, you can't get at that data," he says. "You can't get it restored even by data recovery specialists."
"You need an IT infrastructure if you use BitLocker or BitLocker to Go," he recommends.
While BitLocker protects against data loss, its sibling AppLocker shields Windows itself from unauthorized software. This includes both legitimate software that isn't authorized by an administrator as well as malicious software that could harm the computer.
"You specify exactly what applications can run or be installed on a PC," says Katz. "You enforce application standardization."
Mobile and telecommuting lawyers can use Direct Access to safely connect to office networks. "It has all the security features of VPN without using VPN," Senecal says. "It's almost invisible to the user."
Regarding malware, Senecal maintains that most threats come through web browsers. "Hackers aim their efforts at the most popular browser, Internet Explorer," he says, which is why he advises people to switch to "marginal" browsers like Apple Safari or Google Chrome. "There are fewer chances of malicious software harming your computer," he explains.
Beyond improving security, Microsoft simplified the interface in several ways. Feld uses Live Thumbnail Preview to keep his taskbar orderly. "Say you have three Word documents open," Feld says. "Windows 7 only shows one taskbar icon. I move the mouse over the icon and I see the three documents previewed. Then I click the document I want to work with."
Feld enjoys working with documents – moving, ordering, resizing and so forth. "It's a breeze – it feels instant."
Microsoft has also improved the way its flagship operating system handles the hardware under its control. On equivalent hardware, Windows 7 starts up, shuts down and generally runs more quickly, particularly on multicore systems (although other software that is not ready for multicore processors won't speed up on Windows 7).
Feld's voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) system works better on Windows 7. "They eliminated issues that were in Vista," he says.
Tablet support has also been announced, although neither Microsoft nor third-party developers have said much on the topic. ("There's nothing pulling me to Windows tablets," Feld says. "I want the Apple iPad.")
All this upgrading, of course, comes at a price. Senecal estimates the bill for upgrading 20 computers at north of $5,000. "That's a little steep for some small businesses," he comments.
Newer computers (less than three years old and meant to run Windows Vista) can be upgraded in about four hours, Senecal says, depending on the computer's hardware and software configuration.
"You might want to upgrade your servers too," adds Feld, "to make server response faster for staff members."
Given the time needed to upgrade older XP machines – they require complete Windows 7 installations, plus the time to reinstall software, plus the time to recover data from backups – Senecal advises against upgrading them. "Wait until you buy a new computer," he says.
When Vista came along, Microsoft faced a sales-stalling challenge: many businesses stuck with XP since their software didn't work properly on Vista.
To prevent recurrences of this complaint and spur adoption of Windows 7, Microsoft created Windows XP Mode, which runs inside Windows Virtual PC (both free downloads). These let people run software in an "XP window" as though it were another Windows 7 application.
What of XP itself? Katz says Microsoft will support XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) until April 8, 2014, while XP SP2 support expires April 13, 2010.
But continued Microsoft support alone doesn't obviate the need for an upgrade. "Lawyers need to check with software vendors to make sure they will continue to support versions that run on XP," Katz says.
Where businesses once waited for Service Pack 1 before adopting a new version of Windows, Senecal, a beta-tester for Microsoft, says that isn't happening this time. "Many people view Windows 7 as a service pack to Vista, so they're comfortable with it," he says.
For a PDF of this article, click Microsoft Windows 7.
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The Network of Memorial Sites in Catalonia is an initiative of the Memorial Democràtic (Department of Governation) and groups together different sites which have witnessed our recent history. The main objective is the recovery of a memorial heritage – tangible and intangible – representative of the fight and the conflicts for the achievement of rights and democratic freedoms in our country during the period from the proclamation of the 2nd Republic to the democratic transition.
The Network of Memorial Sites is formed by a heterogenic heritage group of sites, from itineraries to interpretation centres, memorial stones, remains and recovered heritage in situ.
Networking the history and memory of these sites has made them real places of memory, reflection and homage and, especially, has transformed them into living tools of historical awareness and social education.
The Memorial Democràtic of the Generalitat de Catalunya is a public institution that aims to recover, commemorate and foster democratic memory during the period between 1931 and 1980. It is the first institution of this kind in Spain.
In its Article 54, the Catalan Statute determines that the Generalitat and other public powers must protect the understanding and maintenance of the historical memory of Catalonia, as a collective heritage that pays witness to the resistance and fight for democratic rights and liberties.
The Memorial Democràtic is the body that responds to this article of the Catalan Statute. It is an institution for all: people, bodies and organisations that seek to recover our historical memory.
For more information, please visit the Memorial Democràtic website.


Create a PayPal Account:- Most of the People in India now want to earn money Online by using various platforms. To receive money from overseas we need to set up the PayPal account in India too. So that we can easily receive those amounts. Before coming to India. The PayPal was most trusted and Oldest way to Send and Receive payments to overseas business. PayPal US has been in trend to allure most people since it was the trusted medium to send and receive payments for online works.
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For this Indian People need to create the PayPal India Account. So that they can easily send and receive payments using the PayPal account without any hassles. If you are also eager to become a PayPal India Customer. Then you can follow the below steps to create paypal account to receive payments online from the various platforms.
Most of the People in India are also creating paypal account to receive payments directly into their bank accounts. As there are various apps and online works supports only PayPal account. So they need to open paypal account to receive money. Afterward, they can send their received PayPal Money directly to their Bank Accounts. For this, they have to link up their PayPal account to their Bank Account.
Why You Need To Have A PayPal Account?
Having a PayPal Account is the best way to transfer money across to the various countries. Suppose that you are a blogger from India and you have got some project from the overseas then receiving the payments from the overseas account you need to have PayPal India Account. That would be a much and hassle-free way to receive the money for your works.
However, If you hire any graphic designer for your online web portal from global platforms then you can easily pay them using PayPal Account. Whether you are shopping around the world, a PayPal account lets you Check Out safer, faster and easier. "PayPal India Account" gives an opportunity to accept the payments from over 200 Markets.
What is PayPal Account and How Does it Work?
PayPal is an online digital payments platform to provide the opportunity to the millions of businesses to empower their business projects and exchange the funds across the countries. Thus PayPal thrives to join many small businesses in the Global Economy.
PayPal provides the online digital platforms to their over 237 million active users a confidence to transact and in a new powerful way, whether they are online on the web, on a mobile app. The Person that is having a PayPal account can easily send payments. paying or getting paid by the PayPal Account.
To Create PayPal Account you need some documents as a proof. So that you can easily create a paypal account without facing any issue. What documents you need to have for "creating paypal accounts". So we are going to tell you the all possible things which are required to create paypal account. Some requirements are mentioned below that you must need to have for creating a paypal account.
For Setting Up a Paypal account you need the above things to confirm your identity. So that you can create a paypal account. An Email is required as it'll be one of the important tools for a PayPal account if you are going to receive payments from Internationally (Overseas). Before signing up for the PayPal account with the Email Account. Make sure that the details which you have given to the Email should be same. Like your name should match with the name on your Pan Card.
PAN CARD is necessary for opening a PayPal account. As it provides the details of the Payments of the citizen of the particular country like India. So if you are having Pan Card then you are ready to "open/create a paypal account".
Bank Account- If you want to withdraw your PayPal account's money/cash. Then you need to link or verify your bank account in PayPal account. After that, your PayPal cash automatically will be transferred to your linked bank accounts.
Now you can easily connect or link up your Paytm Payments Bank to PayPal account. So for the Indian People, it becomes much easier to create paypal account and then verify their bank accounts on the PayPal using the Paytm Bank.
How To Create a PayPal Account in India?
In India, now you can also create a paypal account. As PayPal wants to spread their services across the countries to allure more customers to expand their local businesses to the International Markets. India is also becoming the leading partners for the Online Businesses.
That's why they are choosing Digital Payments Services. And PayPal India Account is trying to make out the things much easier to the Indian People who wants and supports to the Online Digital Evolution for empowering their economy.
Most of the People in India using various sites to shop from the Globally. International Markets providing the most promising shopping for few people in India. But they accept the Payment mode as PayPal. So, To Pay for their Shopping they also need to have Indian PayPal Account.
First of all Visit here PayPal Sign Up.
Now select "For Business" Option and Click on Next.
Enter your Email ID and then Create a Password and Click on Continue.
It'll ask about "Tell us your Business". Select "Individual" in Business Type.
You can check the below Image to Understand it Clearly.
Now After filling the above details Click on Continue Option.
Now in the Next Step, It'll ask your Name, Middle Name, Last Name according to your PAN Card Details, Date of Birth, Contact Number, Address etc. Fill all such details and Click on Agree and Continue.
After that, you have to Confirm Your Email ID, Link Your Bank Account Number, Complete Online Verification etc.
Confirm all these details in your PayPal account Step-by-Step to verify your PayPal account.
How To Verify Your Bank Account On PayPal?
To Verify your Bank account on PayPal is required to receive your PayPal Money directly into your Bank Account. So that you can easily withdraw your money from your Personal Bank Account. But first, you have to withdraw your amount from PayPal. For this, you have to link up and verify your bank account on paypal. Follow the below steps to "verify your bank account on PayPal".
Go to the Account Setup or Money Option in your PayPal Account Dashboard Area.
There you'll see "Link a Bank Account" option and Click on it.
Now a new page will open where you have to Enter Your Bank Details.
Make sure that the Name on the Bank Account must match to the name on your PAN CARD.
Enter Bank Account Number, IFSC Code etc and Click on Confirm and Done.
Note:- Now PayPal will send two small amounts in your linked "Bank Account". You have to check the deposit amounts (It'll take near about 24 hours to receive this small amounts) in your Bank account and then confirm the same amount by login to your PayPal account. Now Click on the Verify Option and Enter the Amounts to complete your Bank Account Verification.


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text:
Tristan Derham
Email: tderham@utas.edu.au
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tderham
ORCHID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7712-849X
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=txUIgJYAAAAJ&hl=en
My professional experience has included roles in research, mining, government and environmental consulting. I have been involved in business development, hazardous waste policy, limnological research, and the planning, management and synthesis of multi-disciplinary environmental impact assessments.
I prefer to work both within and between disciplines. My academic interests lie at the nexus of environmental philosophy, ecology and the relationship between people and the environment.
Key interests
trophic cascades
environmental philosophy
animal rights theory
animal refugees
Ryeland, J., Derham, T.T. & Spencer, R.J. Past and future potential range changes in one of the last large vertebrates of the Australian continent, the emu Dromaius novaehollandiae. Sci Rep11, 851 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-79551-0"
Derham, T.T. (2020), Feeding the birds at your table: A guide for Australia Jones, Darryl, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2019, 208 pp. Price AUD$24.99, NZD$29.99 (Paperback; paperback; ebook and ePDF also available). ISBN 9781742236322 . Ecol Manag Restor, 21: 159-159. https://doi.org/10.1111/emr.12406
Derham, T. and Mathews, F. (2020). Elephants as Refugees. People & Nature.
https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10070
Derham, T.T. (2019). In defence of 'rewilding' – a response to Hayward et al. (2019). Biological Conservation.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.05.035
Derham, T.T., Duncan, R.P., Johnson, C.N. & Jones, M.E. (2018). Hope and caution: rewilding to mitigate the impacts of biological invasions.Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 373(1761). https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0127
PhD research with DEEP
The philosophy of rewilding
Supervisors: Prof. Barry Brook, Prof. Chris Johnson, Prof. Freya Mathews, Prof. Jeff Malpas
In Australia, the conversation about rewilding has only just begun. The first tentative references in the scientific literature have revolved around positive management of dingoes and the introduction of Tasmanian devils to mainland Australia. Conversations in Europe and North America are more wide-ranging and rewilding has been variously taken to mean: a policy of preserving core habitat connected with corridors to sustain populations of large carnivores; the introduction of functional analogue species to create Pleistocene-like ecosystems, the introduction of strongly interacting species to restore ecosystems on a landscape scale and the abandonment of agricultural land. Considered carefully, these ideas represent exciting alternative approaches to environmental management in Australia.
What are the conceptual threads common to these ideas? Advocates for rewilding often rely on implicit assumptions such as the value of wildness, the value of ecosystem function over community composition and the presence of agency and autonomy in nature. Advocacy often includes somewhat ambiguous appeals to past ecological states and passive management through strong intervention. I hope to bring the tools of environmental philosophy to this debate, including established theories of environmental ethics and ontology, to investigate the circumstances under which the ethical justification for rewilding is most reasonable. I'll also look into what rewilding might mean in Australian contexts and where it holds the most promise.
I am ground-truthing the philosophical analysis with an empirical investigation into examples of and opportunities for rewilding. For example, emus were driven extinct in Tasmania very quickly after colonists arrived in 1803. They were likely similar to the mainland emus and a reintroduction might have benefits not only for emus but for plants in Tasmania. Climate change is shifting climate cinches and many plant populations will have to shift to keep up. Emus are fantastic seed dispersers and could help plants along in Tasmania. They might shape the landscape in other ways we haven't even thought of, re-establishing old relationships and teaching us about Tasmanian ecosystems.


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text:
package risk;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.HashMap;

/**
 * @author fessermn
 *
 */
public class Risk {
    /**
     * @param args
     *            arguments
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new Risk().calculateDistribution();
    }

    private void calculateDistribution() {
        HashMap<DicePair, AttackerDistributionEntry> distribution = new HashMap<>();
        Collection<Integer> allDiceValues = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6);
        for (Integer diceOne : allDiceValues) {
            for (Integer diceTwo : allDiceValues) {
                for (Integer diceThree : allDiceValues) {
                    DiceTriple diceTriple = new DiceTriple(diceOne, diceTwo, diceThree);
                    DicePair bestTwo = diceTriple.bestTwo();
                    AttackerDistributionEntry distributionEntry = distribution.get(bestTwo);
                    if (distributionEntry == null) {
                        distributionEntry = new AttackerDistributionEntry();
                        distribution.put(bestTwo, distributionEntry);
                    }
                    distributionEntry.addTriple(diceTriple);
                }
            }
        }

        ArrayList<AttackerDistributionEntry> values = new ArrayList<>(distribution.values());

        Collections.sort(values, new Comparator<AttackerDistributionEntry>() {

            @Override
            public int compare(AttackerDistributionEntry o1, AttackerDistributionEntry o2) {
                int result = o1.getOccurences() - o2.getOccurences();
                if (result == 0) {
                    result = o1.getUsedPair().getDiceOne() - o2.getUsedPair().getDiceOne();
                }
                if (result == 0) {
                    result = o1.getUsedPair().getDiceTwo() - o2.getUsedPair().getDiceTwo();
                }
                return result;
            }
        });

        double overallResult = 0;
        System.out.println("dice one, dice two, probability, occurences, defend with two, defend with one, " + //
                "best defend with one?, best defend, overall influence");
        for (AttackerDistributionEntry entry : values) {
            double defendOne = entry.getUsedPair().resultDefendOne();
            double defendTwo = entry.getUsedPair().resultDefendTwo();
            double bestDef = 0;
            boolean doDefendWithOne = false;
            if (defendOne < defendTwo) {
                bestDef = defendOne;
                doDefendWithOne = true;
            } else {
                bestDef = defendTwo;
            }
            double overallInfluence = entry.probability() * bestDef;
            overallResult = overallResult + overallInfluence;
            System.out.println(entry + ", " + defendTwo + ", " + defendOne + ", " + doDefendWithOne + ", " + bestDef
                    + ", " + overallInfluence);
        }
        System.out.println("Overall: " + overallResult);
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Die Novelle Grete Minde von Theodor Fontane handelt von einer jungen Frau, die, nachdem ihr bitteres Unrecht geschehen ist, aus Verbitterung und Vergeltungsdurst in der altmärkischen Stadt Tangermünde Feuer legt und, gemeinsam mit vielen Tangermündern, in den Flammen umkommt. In Anlehnung an die Begebenheiten um die historische Margarethe Minde beginnt die Handlung der Novelle Grete Minde am Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts und endet mit dem Brand der Stadt im Jahre 1617. Fontane, der die Erzählung 1879 schrieb, weicht in seiner Darstellung des Schicksals der Grete Minde allerdings deutlich von den historischen Begebenheiten ab.

Handlung
Zu Beginn der Erzählung ist Grete Minde, die Tochter aus einem gutsituierten Tangermünder Kaufmannshaus, dreizehn Jahre alt. Ihre inzwischen verstorbene Mutter – eine Katholikin aus dem damals von den Spaniern besetzten Flandern – war die zweite Frau von Gretes inzwischen recht betagtem Vater Jakob Minde. Auch Jakobs erste Frau war früh verstorben; gleichwohl war aus dieser Ehe ein Sohn hervorgegangen, Gretes bedeutend älterer Halbbruder Gerdt. Dieser, ein junger Mann von nachlässigem, aber habsüchtigem Naturell, heiratete Trud, eine Frau aus Gardelegen. Trud stammt aus kleinen Verhältnissen, wird von ihrem Mann wenig geachtet und noch weniger geliebt. All das hat ihren Sinn zunehmend verhärtet, weshalb sie auch der wesentlich jüngeren Grete mit Missgunst, Eifersucht und Bosheit gegenübersteht.

Gretes Vater stirbt kurz nach ihrer Konfirmation. Trud maßt sich daraufhin erst recht die Rolle einer Stiefmutter an und sagt der inzwischen jugendlichen Grete allenthalben nach, es stecke "etwas Böses in ihr", was sie – im inzwischen protestantisch gewordenen Tangermünde – aus Gretes halb-katholischer Herkunft herleitet. Truds wie auch Gerdts Niedertracht gegen Grete verstärkt sich um ein weiteres, nachdem die Ehe nach langer Zeit mit einem Kind gesegnet wird und die Ältere ihre jüngere Schwägerin mehr und mehr zur Hausmagd degradiert. Trost und Zuwendung findet Grete allein bei der alten Regine, die seit langer Zeit dem Hause Minde als Haushälterin dient und die der heranwachsenden Grete als deren frühere Kinderfrau verbunden ist. Doch auch der zwei oder drei Jahre ältere Nachbarjunge Valtin Zernitz steht Grete bei. Und so wird aus der kindlichen Freundschaft der beiden schon bald eine zarte jugendliche Liebe. Trud Minde missgönnt Grete und Valtin diese Zweisamkeit zutiefst, zumal ihr "ein solches Glück" versagt geblieben ist. Sie bemüht sich deswegen, den beiden den Umgang zu verbieten. Doch Grete, inzwischen etwas selbstbewusster geworden, missachtet Truds unbegründete Vorwürfe und Untersagungen und trifft sich weiter mit Valtin. Mehr und mehr jedoch wird sie der ständigen Schikanen und Drangsale überdrüssig. Schließlich kommt es deswegen zwischen Grete und ihrer Schwägerin zu einer heftigen Auseinandersetzung, in deren Folge Grete das Nachts gemeinsam mit Valtin aus Tangermünde flieht.

Drei Jahre lang leben die beiden bei einer herumreisenden Puppenspieler- und Schauspieltruppe. In dieser Zeit wird Grete von Valtin schwanger und bringt ein Kind zur Welt. Während die Truppe im unweit von Tangermünde gelegenen Städtchen Arendsee gastiert, erkrankt Valtin auf den Tod. In seiner letzten Stunde nimmt er Grete das Versprechen ab, sie solle mit beider Kind nach Tangermünde zurückkehren und bei Gerdt und Trud um Verzeihung und Aufnahme bitten. Nach Valtins Tod verweigert der Arendseer Pastor dessen Totenruhe auf dem evangelischen Kirchhof. Grete aber erreicht dessen Bestattung auf dem Friedhof des hiesigen evangelischen Frauenstifts.

Das Anerbieten der ihr sehr wohlwollenden Stiftsdomina und ihrer Stellvertreterin, hier ein Unterkommen zu finden, schlägt Grete aus, weil sie sich an das dem toten Vater ihres Kindes gegebene Versprechen gebunden sieht. Also wandert sie "mit ihrem Kind unter dem Mantel" von Arendsee zu Fuß nach Tangermünde. Der hartherzige Gerdt weigert sich jedoch kategorisch, ihre Bitte um Verzeihung zu akzeptieren und Grete und Kind im Hause aufzunehmen. Auch ihren Vorschlag, ihm als Magd zu dienen, schlägt Gerdt ebenso unbarmherzig ab, wie er es ablehnt, doch wenigstens für Gretes Kind zu sorgen. Nun fordert die verzweifelte Grete ihren väterlichen Erbanteil ein, doch auch das versagt ihr der Halbbruder und verweist sie des Hauses.

Grete wendet sich daraufhin mit ihrem Erbbegehren an den Tangermünder Stadtrat. Der habsüchtige Gerdt beteuert jedoch vor dem Rat wahrheitswidrig und mithin meineidig, die Halbschwester habe keinerlei Erbanspruch, da ihre katholische Mutter nichts zum Vermögen des Hauses Minde beigesteuert habe. Die Ratsherren folgen, teils wider besseres Empfinden, diesem Meineid und weisen Gretes Erbanspruch ab.

Voller Enttäuschung und aus Wut über das Urteil der Tangermünder Ratsherren legt Grete in der Stadt Feuer, das sich buchstäblich in Windeseile ausbreitet. Als schon große Teile Tangermündes in Flammen stehen, steigt die junge Frau samt ihrem eigenen Kind und dem Abkömmling von Gerdt und Trud auf den bereits brennenden Kirchturm. Von oben erblickt sie auch den unehrlichen, herzlosen Halbbruder, den hauptsächlichen Adressaten ihrer Rache. Nicht ohne Genugtuung sieht sie, wie der über das unabwendbare Schicksal seines Kindes verzweifelt. Bald darauf stürzt der lodernde Kirchturm in sich zusammen und begräbt auch Grete und die beiden Kinder unter seiner Glut.

Am Ende der Erzählung erfahren die beiden Vorsteherinnen des Arendseer Frauenstifts, dass "Tangermünde in Asche liegt" und welches Schicksal sich an Grete erfüllt hat. Als Einzige bedauern diese beiden Stiftsdamen die unglückliche Grete Minde. Die Schauspieltruppe indes, in deren Auftritten Grete noch kurz zuvor die Figur eines Engels verkörperte, hat die Rolle am gleichen Abend bereits anderweitig besetzt.

Leitmotive

Auffällig ist Fontanes einfühlsame Beschreibung der ungerecht behandelten Frau. Dieses Thema findet man auch in anderen Werken Fontanes, in Grete Minde ist es aber besonders plakativ dargestellt. Fontane nimmt klar Partei für die junge, reine Liebe, die nicht den damaligen Konventionen folgt, und gegen Dogmatismus, Ungerechtigkeit, Neid und Gleichgültigkeit.

Historischer Hintergrund

Die Novelle beruht auf wahren Begebenheiten, die Fontane 1878 in Tangermünde recherchierte. Eine Grete Minde lebte dort tatsächlich, einen Erbschaftsprozess gab es auch, und 1617 kam es in der Stadt zu einem Großbrand. Dabei brannten auch große Teile der dortigen St.-Stephans-Kirche. Im Museum innerhalb des historischen Rathauses der Stadt werden einige Dokumente dazu ausgestellt.

Im Unterschied zu Fontanes Novelle, in der Grete Minde aus Rache für das ihr verweigerte Erbe zur Brandstifterin wird, gilt die wahre Grete Minde heute als unschuldig und vielmehr als ein Opfer von Intrige und eilfertiger Justiz, die sie nach Verleumdung und Folter zum Tode auf dem Scheiterhaufen verurteilte. Am 22. März 1619 wurde Grete Minde qualvoll hingerichtet. Die heute noch im Stadtarchiv von Tangermünde einsehbaren historischen Gerichtsakten sprechen eine deutliche Sprache: Grete Minde wurden "fünff finger an der Rechten Hand einer nach dem andern mit glühenden Zangen abgezwacket", so das Urteil, "nachmalen ihr Leib mitt vier glühenden Zangen, nemlich in der Brust und Arm gegriffen, Folglich mitt eisernen Ketten uff einem erhabenen Pfahle angeschmiedet, lebendig geschmochet und allso vom leben zum tode verrichtet werden, von Rechts wegen."

Im Jahre 1883, also nur drei Jahre nach Erscheinen von Fontanes Novelle, war es der Jurist und Historiker Ludolf Parisius, der in dem Buch Bilder aus der Altmark im Kapitel Grete Minden und die Feuersbrunst vom 13. September 1617 – Eine Ehrenrettung die historische Grete Minde weitgehend rehabilitierte. Als Erster nach über zwei Jahrhunderten studierte er intensiv die Prozessakten und deckte evidente Widersprüche auf, die auf die Unschuld Grete Mindes schließen lassen. Sie musste sterben, weil sie für die etablierte Familie Minde eine Bedrohung sowohl ihres Rufes als auch ihres Besitzes darstellte. Zudem sah sich der Stadtrat unter zunehmendem Zwang, der aufgebrachten Bevölkerung Tangermündes eine Schuldige zu präsentieren. Parisius' Fazit ist deshalb eindeutig: Das Todesurteil gegen Grete Minde war ein "grausamer Justizmord". Moderne Rechtshistoriker widersprechen dieser These und vertreten die Auffassung, dass der Prozess gegen Grete Minde formal korrekt geführt worden sei. Eine neuere Untersuchung über Grete Minde, insbesondere über die Prozessführung, kommt zu dem Schluss, dass der Tangermünder Rat, der zugleich als Gericht fungierte, ein manipulierendes Gutachten für die Foltererlaubnis verfasste.

Am 22. März 2009, also genau 390 Jahre nach ihrer Hinrichtung, wurde am Ort des Geschehens, vor dem historischen Rathaus der Stadt, in dem der Prozess gegen Grete Minde stattfand, eine lebensgroße Bronzeskulptur des Grafikers und Bildhauers Lutz Gaede enthüllt. Sie zeigt Grete Minde in Ketten und gebeugter Haltung. Diese Darstellung als Gefangene greift im Unterschied zu Fontane ausdrücklich auf die wirkliche, dokumentierte Geschichte der Grete Minde zurück und macht so auf das ebenso tragische wie dramatische Schicksal aufmerksam, welches sich real in Tangermünde abspielte und die historische Grundlage für Theodor Fontanes Novelle bildete.

Rezeption

Grete Minde erfreute sich lange Zeit großer Beliebtheit. Der spätere deutsche Literaturnobelpreisträger Paul Heyse nahm das Buch in seinen Neuen Deutschen Novellenschatz auf. Heute wird Grete Minde zu den schwächeren Werken Fontanes gezählt. Im Kanon des Deutschunterrichts scheint das Buch wegen der jungen Protagonisten und seiner Kürze bei gleichzeitig klangvollem Autornamen aber eine gewisse Bedeutung zu haben. Auf jeden Fall ist das Buch aufgrund seiner klaren Sprache und der stringenten Handlungsführung bis hin zum dramatischen Ende auch heute noch gut lesbar.

Vertonungen
Der Berliner Komponist Eugen Engel nahm den Stoff in den 1930er Jahren als Grundlage zu seiner Oper Grete Minde. Deren Uraufführung (Inszenierung: Olivia Fuchs) fand am 13. Februar 2022 am Magdeburger Theater statt.

Anlässlich der Tausendjahrfeier der Stadt Tangermünde im September 2009 wurde Grete Minde vom Theater der Altmark auch als Oper uraufgeführt; die Musik komponierte Søren Nils Eichberg, und das Libretto von Constanze John basierte auf Fontanes Novelle.
Auch der Komponist Siegfried Matthus vertonte die Novelle in seinem Bühnenwerk Grete Minde, das 2010 als "Musikalisch-Szenisches Spektakel" bei den Fontane-Festspielen in Neuruppin uraufgeführt wurde.

Verfilmung

Das Buch wurde von Heidi Genée 1976 mit Katerina Jacob als Hauptdarstellerin und Siemen Rühaak als Valtin verfilmt. Die Außenaufnahmen wurden im südostniedersächsischen Hornburg gedreht.

Ausgaben
 Theodor Fontane: Grete Minde. Nach einer altmärkischen Chronik. Wilhelm Hertz, Berlin 1880 (Erstausgabe)
 Theodor Fontane: Grete Minde. Nach einer altmärkischen Chronik. Bearb. von Claudia Schmitz. Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-351-03115-7 (Große Brandenburger Ausgabe, Das erzählerische Werk, Band 3)

Sekundärliteratur
 Gaby Pailer: Schwarzäugige Mordbrennerin. Fontanes Grete Minde, eine Tochter von Cervantes' "La gitanilla". In: Renate Möhrmann (Hrsg.): rebellisch – verzweifelt – infam. Das böse Mädchen als ästhetische Figur. Aisthesis Verlag, Bielefeld 2012, ISBN 978-3-89528-875-3, S. 171–186.
 Robert Rauh: Prinzessin oder Hexe. Grete Minde. In: Fontanes Frauen, be.bra verlag, Berlin 2018, S. 124–166, ISBN 978-3-86124-716-6
 Dominik Pensel: Brand-Spuren und Schwindel-Erscheinungen. Traumatische und unbewusste Erfahrungen in der Literatur des deutschsprachigen Realismus. In: Carsten Gansel (Hrsg.): Trauma-Erfahrungen und Störungen des 'Selbst'. Mediale und literarische Konfigurationen lebensweltlicher Krisen. De Gruyter, Berlin und New York 2020, ISBN 9783110681376, S. 65–90.

Weblinks

 Anke-Marie Lohmeier: Figurenlexikon zu Grete Minde im Literaturlexikon online

Einzelnachweise

Literarisches Werk
Literatur (19. Jahrhundert)
Literatur (Deutsch)
Literatur des Realismus
Novelle
Werk von Theodor Fontane
Tangermünde
Biografie

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