Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter. Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with…
A Warning for Americans From a Member of Pussy Riot – NYTimes.com. Source: A Warning for Americans From a Member of Pussy Riot – NYTimes.com
.entry-header One of the themes that has emerged during the controversy over “fake news” and its role in the election of Donald Trump is the idea that Russian agents of various kinds helped hack the process by fueling this barrage of false news. But is that really true? In a recent story, the Washington Post…
Wrecked machinery in the Chernobyl sarcophagus. (All Photos: Alexander Kupny) It is hard to imagine the circumstances why someone would want to climb into a small hole under the Chernobyl’s infamous—and dangerous—charred No. 4 reactor. But Alexander Kupny did just that, many times. The explosion that occurred on April 26, 1986, blew off the building’s four…
For me you start with a series of highly disturbing and dangerous comments by Trump about Russia and NATO. As I noted a couple weeks ago, our relative peaceful and prosperous world is far from the natural or only possible order of things. Things can get bleak very quickly, especially when you’re stupid. Trump’s comments…
Evidence suggests that a Russian intelligence group was the source of the most recent Wikileaks intel dump, which was aimed to influence the U.S. election. Close your eyes and imagine that a hacking group backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin broke into the email system of a major U.S. political party. The group stole thousands…
On the evening of March 31, Aleksandr Markov heard the doorbell and rushed to open the door of his St. Petersburg apartment. But instead of the guest he had been expecting, Markov was surprised to see several strangers on his doorstep. Then came the blow. “I was hit in the eye,” he tells RFE/RL. “I…
The Russian government is not known for being particularly straightforward with facts. Russia is currently backing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in his brutal, 5-year-long war to regain control of his country from rebels. As part of that effort, Russia’s government and state-owned media want to discredit the people fighting against Assad. Those people include the…
Hide captionBaby spotted eagles open wide for the camera in the Polessye State Radioecological Reserve in Belarus. END CLASS=”IMAGECAPTION” END CLASS=”HSLIDE” END CLASS=”AUX” END CLASS=”HSLIDEWRAP” Valeriy Yurko/Polessye State Radioecological Reserve END CLASS=”PHOTOCREDIT” Hide captionA herd of ponies in the brush. Researchers studying large mammals in the area around Chernobyl found robust population numbers. END CLASS=”IMAGECAPTION”…
Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a qualified endorsement of Donald Trump’s candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday, saying he hoped Trump’s election could improve Moscow’s relations with the United States. “He’s a really brilliant and talented person, without any doubt. It’s not our job to judge his qualities, that’s a job for American…