harlekin.me

and brain­drain initiatives.

Fore­mo­st, they [“bet­ter” inter­na­tio­nal sanc­tions] would block the ruling eli­te while gran­ting ordi­na­ry Rus­si­ans expe­di­ted visas and even refu­gee sta­tus with the right to live and work in eco­no­mi­c­al­ly deve­lo­ped coun­tries. They would pro­vi­de sup­port for the relo­ca­ti­on of entre­pre­neurs and spe­cia­lists, enab­ling hund­reds of thousands of high­ly skil­led and edu­ca­ted Rus­si­ans to lea­ve and stop paying taxes to this government.

What if Ein­stein and other Ger­ma­ny phy­si­cists had been pre­ven­ted from lea­ving Ger­ma­ny? Which coun­try would have built the ato­mic bomb in 1945?

The same princip­le app­lies to capi­tal. Only about 100,000 fami­lies in Rus­sia have savings of more than $1 mil­li­on. More peop­le than that atten­ded ral­lies in sup­port of oppo­si­ti­on lea­der Ale­xei Naval­ny. The­se wealt­hy indi­vi­du­als are most­ly staunch sup­por­ters of peace and good-neighborly rela­ti­ons bet­ween sta­tes. After all, their hol­dings depend on unrestric­ted air tra­vel and free­dom to coope­ra­te across bor­ders. Now, the owners of the­se Rus­si­an bank accounts are trans­fer­ring their wealth abroad en mas­se and with­drawing cash in for­eign cur­ren­cy, ther­eby demons­tra­ting their fears and their desi­re to with­draw their capi­tal befo­re the Rus­si­an aut­ho­ri­ties gain con­trol over it. Under no cir­cum­s­tan­ces should the West restrict this capi­tal flow: other­wi­se, that $100 bil­li­on in assets would remain at the Kremlin’s disposal. 

Wes­tern coun­tries should faci­li­ta­te this capi­tal flight by tem­pora­ri­ly sus­pen­ding the prac­ti­ce of KYC (know your cli­ent). Of cour­se, ever­yo­ne trans­fer­ring funds would do so knowing that they would have to go through this pro­ce­du­re later and pro­ve that the money was acqui­red legally.

Oh, and they like this:

If the EU and NATO real­ly want to stop the aggres­sor and pro­tect them­sel­ves from con­ti­nued aggres­si­on, they can and should risk impo­sing signi­fi­cant restric­tions on deli­vering pay­ment for Rus­si­an oil and gas. Spe­ci­fi­cal­ly, the West could trans­fer pay­ments to spe­cial accounts from which Rus­sia could only draw to pay for a limi­ted ran­ge of impor­ted goods. It could also limit the purcha­se pri­ce for Rus­si­an oil and gas by intro­du­cing a high excise tax; this would signi­fi­cant­ly redu­ce the flow of petro­dol­lars to Rus­sia, even from coun­tries that have yet to join the sanctions.

src: click

edit: Thats from an opi­ni­on pie­ce, not edi­to­ri­al, but in times like these…

In einem bemer­kens­wer­ten Inter­view mit der Nach­rich­ten­agen­tur AP sag­te Kiews Bür­ger­meis­ter Vita­li Klitsch­ko heu­te, dass die Haupt­stadt von rus­si­schen Trup­pen umzin­gelt sei, und kei­ne Eva­ku­ie­run­gen mehr mög­lich seien.

src: click

“We are at the bor­der of a huma­ni­ta­ri­an cata­stro­phe,” he said. “Right now, we have electri­ci­ty, right now we have water and hea­ting in our houses. But the infra­st­ruc­tu­re is des­troy­ed to deli­ver the food and medication.”

Ori­gi­nal src: click

edit: Vor vier Minuten:

Schweiz will EU bei Russland-Sanktionen folgen
Der Schwei­zer Bun­des­prä­si­dent Igna­zio Cas­sis sagt, es sei sehr wahr­schein­lich, dass sein Land mor­gen der EU fol­gen wer­de, Russ­land zu sank­tio­nie­ren und rus­si­sche Ver­mö­gens­wer­te ein­zu­frie­ren. Die Schweiz ist unter ande­rem ein wich­ti­ges Zen­trum bei der Finan­zie­rung von Rohstoffgeschäften.

src: click

edit2:

Klitsch­ko wider­spricht sich selbst
Vor weni­gen Stun­den noch sag­te Kiews Bür­ger­meis­ter Vita­li Klitsch­ko, die Ukrai­ni­sche Haupt­stadt sei umzin­gelt von rus­si­schen Streit­kräf­ten, des­halb sei­en auch kei­ne Eva­ku­ie­run­gen möglich.

Er dürf­te sich ver­spro­chen haben, denn der Bild sagt er, Kiew sei nicht kom­plett ein­ge­kes­selt: “Die ukrai­ni­sche Armee kämpft hart in den Außen­be­zir­ken und die rus­si­sche Armee hat vie­le Verluste.”

src: click

OT bei bild:

„Kiew ist nicht kom­plett ein­ge­kes­selt! Die ukrai­ni­sche Armee kämpft hart in den Außen­be­zir­ken und die rus­si­sche Armee hat vie­le Ver­lus­te. Was die Flucht von Zivi­lis­ten angeht: Solan­ge es eine Aus­gangs­sper­re gibt, ist die­se nicht mög­lich, weil nie­mand nach drau­ßen kann.“

edit3: US Bot­schaft in der Ukrai­ne am spä­ten Sonntag:

US Embas­sy in Ukrai­ne urges Ame­ri­cans to lea­ve, warns of 30-hour wait at crow­ded bor­der crossings
From CNN’s Moham­med Taw­feeq in Lviv

The US Embas­sy in Ukrai­ne said late Sunday that the secu­ri­ty situa­ti­on throughout the coun­try “con­ti­nues to be unpre­dic­ta­ble, with acti­ve figh­t­ing insi­de many cities and other locations.”

“Con­di­ti­ons may dete­rio­ra­te as mili­ta­ry attacks by Rus­sia con­ti­nue in various parts of the coun­try without any warning,” it added in a state­ment, urging Ame­ri­cans the­re to “depart now using pri­va­te­ly avail­ab­le trans­por­ta­ti­on opti­ons if it is safe to do so.”

src: click

edit4: 28.02. 9:00:

In Kiew und ande­ren Städ­ten soll­ten zudem Ver­tei­lungs­punk­te für Lebens­mit­tel ein­ge­rich­tet wer­den, teil­te das ukrai­ni­sche Minis­te­ri­um für Infra­struk­tur mit. Dem­nach wür­den auch alle Ausgangs- und Zufahrts­stra­ßen von der Ukrai­ne kon­trol­liert. Das ließ sich nicht unab­hän­gig prü­fen. Es wer­de außer­dem an der Ein­rich­tung soge­nann­ter grü­ner Kor­ri­do­re gear­bei­tet, die nach Anga­ben des Minis­te­ri­ums den Waren­ver­kehr sicher­stel­len sollen.

src: click

Man kon­trol­lie­re alle Zufahrts­stra­ßen, habe aber kei­ne grü­nen Kor­ri­do­re für den Warenverkehr.

edit5: Die Rus­sen fin­den grad auch, dass sich die Men­schen auf den Weg machen soll­ten. Am Bes­ten über die Auto­bahn Kiew-Wassilkow.

Rus­si­sches Ver­tei­di­gungs­mi­nis­te­ri­um for­dert Zivi­lis­ten zum Ver­las­sen von Kiew auf
Das rus­si­sche Ver­tei­di­gungs­mi­nis­te­ri­um rich­te­te unter­des­sen einen “Appell” an die Men­schen in Kiew, die rus­si­sche Nach­rich­ten­agen­tur RIA mel­det. Aktu­ell sei die Situa­ti­on so, dass ukrai­ni­sche Zivi­lis­tin­nen und Zivi­lis­ten Kiew unge­hin­dert ver­las­sen könn­ten. Mög­lich sei dies ent­lang der Auto­bahn Kiew-Wassilkow. “Die­se Rich­tung ist offen und sicher”, hieß es aus dem Ministerium.

src: click

The­re are things in this world…

Oh well - if it helps…

Oh but don’t fret, the ger­man Han­dels­blatt has an inter­view as well! - click

edit: Kas­parow on 02.03.2022 on Twitter:

PS To all offi­cials and media: STOP CALLING PUTIN ‘PRESIDENT’! He’s a dic­ta­tor. Words have power. He does not deser­ve a demo­cra­tic tit­le. Fuck your style gui­de. “Rus­si­an dic­ta­tor Vla­di­mir Putin”.

src: click

Laut Telegram-Account des ukrai­ni­schen Prä­si­di­al­amts hät­ten Wolo­dym­ir Selen­skyj und Alex­an­der Luka­schen­ko ver­ein­bart, dass sich die ukrai­ni­sche Dele­ga­ti­on mit der rus­si­schen Dele­ga­ti­on ohne Vor­be­din­gun­gen an der ukrainisch-belarussischen Gren­ze in der Nähe des Flus­ses Pryp­jat tref­fen soll.

Luka­schen­ko habe dem­nach die Ver­ant­wor­tung dafür über­nom­men, dass alle auf bela­rus­si­schem Ter­ri­to­ri­um sta­tio­nier­ten Flug­zeu­ge, Hub­schrau­ber und Rake­ten wäh­rend der Rei­se, der Gesprä­che und der Rück­kehr der ukrai­ni­schen Dele­ga­ti­on am Boden bleiben.

Zugleich wies ein Bera­ter Selen­sky­js Berich­te über geplan­te Gesprä­che zwi­schen Russ­land und der Ukrai­ne im Nach­bar­land Bela­rus zurück.

src: click

Frie­dens­ge­sprä­che an der Gren­ze “in der Nähe des Flus­ses Pryp­jat”? Naja, wenigs­tens gibt es Gesprä­che. Allegedly.

edit: Oh sehr schlau. Anstatt die Wahr­schein­lich­keit bezüg­lich eines Ver­hand­lungs­er­fol­ges durch die Städ­te oder Stät­ten die gewählt wer­den zu kom­mu­ni­zie­ren, haut mans noch mal im Vor­feld via Tele­gram her­aus. Naja, wenns die Ver­hand­lungs­po­si­ti­on stärkt.

Ukrai­nes Prä­si­dent Wolo­dym­yr Selen­skyj hat sich auf sei­nem Telegram-Account zu den anste­hen­den Gesprä­chen mit Russ­land geäußert.

[…]

Die Gesprä­che sol­len am Grenz­fluss Prip­jat nahe des Grenz­über­gangs Alex­an­d­row­ka (Bela­rus) und Wiltscha (Ukrai­ne) statt­fin­den. Selen­skyj sagt, er mache sich wenig Hoff­nun­gen über die Gesprä­che, aber einen Ver­such sei es wert. Er wol­le auch noch so klei­ne Chan­cen nut­zen, den Krieg zu stop­pen, sag­te er sinngemäß.

[Selen­skyj] tausch­te sich mit dem bela­rus­si­schen Macht­ha­ber Alex­an­der Luka­schen­ko aus und sprach von einem „sehr gehalt­vol­len“ Gespräch. Selen­skyj for­der­te, dass kei­ne Trup­pen über Bela­rus in die Ukrai­ne kom­men, Luka­schen­ko hät­te ihm zuge­si­chert, dass dies nicht pas­sie­ren wer­de. Dabei dürf­te es sich aber ledig­lich um eine Zusa­ge für den Zeit­raum der Gesprä­che an der ukrainisch-belarussischen Gren­ze han­deln. Denn am spä­te­ren Nach­mit­tag, um 17 Uhr Orts­zeit, wur­den Kurz­stre­cken­ra­ke­ten des Typs Iskan­der von bela­rus­si­schem Gebiet abge­feu­ert. Die­se hät­ten den Flug­ha­fen in Schy­to­myr im Nor­den der Ukrai­ne getrof­fen, wie ein Spre­cher des ukrai­ni­schen Innen­mi­nis­ters bestätigte.

src: click

edit: Mehr Erwar­tungs­ma­nage­ment vor dem Treffen:

A seni­or U.S. intel­li­gence offi­cial says Bela­rus is expec­ted to send tro­ops into Ukrai­ne as soon as Mon­day to fight along­side Rus­si­an for­ces that inva­ded Ukrai­ne last week.

Bela­rus has been pro­vi­ding sup­port for Russia’s war effort, but so far has not taken a direct part in the conflict.

The Ame­ri­can offi­cial has direct know­ledge of cur­rent U.S. intel­li­gence assess­ments and says the decisi­on by Bela­rus’ lea­der on whe­ther to bring Bela­rus fur­ther into the war depends on talks bet­ween Rus­sia and Ukrai­ne hap­pe­ning in the com­ing days. The offi­cial spo­ke anony­mous­ly to dis­cuss the sen­si­ti­ve information.

src: click
AP am 28.02. um 06:00

Ukrai­ne for­dert sofor­ti­gen Waf­fen­still­stand und rus­si­schen Abzug
Die ukrai­ni­sche Dele­ga­ti­on ist offen­bar an der ukrainisch-belorussischen Gren­ze ange­kom­men, um dort mit der rus­si­schen Dele­ga­ti­on zu ver­han­deln. Die Gesprä­che sol­len daher in Kür­ze begin­nen. Das teil­te das ukrai­ni­sche Prä­si­di­al­amt Mon­tag­vor­mit­tag mit. Ange­strebt wer­den dabei von der Ukrai­ne ein sofor­ti­ger Waf­fen­still­stand und der Abzug aller rus­si­schen Truppen. 

src: click
Stan­dard am 28.02. um 10:00 (Eben­falls noch vor den Ver­hand­lun­gen, die um 12:00 MEZ begin­nen sollen.)

A video of an accor­di­on folk dance, and some cap­tures of the video­ga­me Arma 3. A video from an air­show. Oh and an embarr­as­sing mista­ke by bild.de. Oh, and an explo­si­on video. Be care­ful what you share!

No serious­ly, be care­ful what you share.

edit:

Wäh­rend in der Ukrai­ne hef­ti­ge Kämp­fe mit unge­wis­sem Aus­gang toben, hat sich das Blatt im vir­tu­el­len Raum bereits gewen­det. Die gefürch­te­ten Cyber­trup­pen Russ­lands spie­len in die­sem Krieg bis jetzt kei­ne Rol­le, in den sozia­len Netz­wer­ken sind die rus­si­schen Troll-Armeen samt ihren rechts­ex­tre­men Alli­ier­ten aus dem Wes­ten rest­los in der Defensive.

src: click (Autor ist Moechel)

edit:

Rus­sia has appar­ent­ly ren­de­red Face­book lar­ge­ly unus­able across lea­ding Rus­si­an telecom­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons pro­vi­ders amid rising fric­tion bet­ween Moscow and the social media platform.

The London-based inter­net moni­tor Net­Blocks reports that Facebook’s net­work of content-distribution ser­vers in Rus­sia was so bad­ly restric­ted Sunday that “con­tent no lon­ger loads, or loads extre­me­ly slow­ly making the plat­forms unusable.”

Rus­si­an telecoms regu­la­tor Rosk­om­nadzor on Fri­day announ­ced plans to “par­ti­al­ly restrict” access to Facebook.

[…]

The Twit­ter and Face­book restric­tions can be cir­cum­ven­ted insi­de Rus­sia using VPN software

src: click

edit: 28.02.:

Meta has blo­cked an influ­ence ope­ra­ti­on with ties to a rus­si­an net­work in the Don­bas regi­on, that was sprea­ding the ide­as, that the west was betray­ing Ukrai­ne, and Ukrai­ne being a fai­led sta­te. The net­work reached appro­xi­mate­ly 4500 followers.

Addi­tio­nal­ly Meta is warning, that some accounts might be com­pro­mi­sed, with no fur­ther details on num­bers or impact.

“We do have a sen­se that Ghost­wri­ters did suc­cess­ful­ly com­pro­mi­se some accounts on the Face­book plat­form,” Glei­cher said”

src: click

edit: Mimi­ka­ma arbei­tet in die­sen Tagen laut dem Stan­dard auf Hoch­tou­ren, hier der direct link auf ihre Fak­ten­check Kategorie.

dass die Ukrai­ne sich zum Ver­zicht auf Atom­waf­fen durch­ge­run­gen hat, und die Inva­si­on ihr Geschenk war… (sie­he: click)

In 1993, Inter­na­tio­nal rela­ti­ons theo­rist and Uni­ver­si­ty of Chi­ca­go pro­fes­sor John Mear­s­hei­mer publis­hed an arti­cle inclu­ding his pre­dic­tion that a Ukrai­ne without any nuclear deter­rent was likely to be sub­jec­ted to aggres­si­on by Rus­sia, but this was very much a mino­ri­ty view at the time.[8]

A stu­dy publis­hed in 2016 in the jour­nal World Affairs argued that, in the opi­ni­on of the aut­hors, the denu­clea­riz­a­ti­on of Ukrai­ne was not a “stu­pid mista­ke”, and that it is unclear that Ukrai­ne would be bet­ter off as a nuclear sta­te.[9] The stu­dy argued that the push for Ukrai­ni­an inde­pen­dence was with a view to make it a nonnu­clear sta­te.[9] Accord­ing to the aut­hors, the United Sta­tes would also not have made Ukrai­ne an excep­ti­on when it came to the denu­clea­riz­a­ti­on of other post-Soviet sta­tes such as Bela­rus and Kazakh­stan.[9] The deter­rent value of the nuclear wea­pons in Ukrai­ne was also ques­tion­ab­le, as Ukrai­ne would have had to spend 12 to 18 mon­ths to estab­lish full ope­ra­tio­nal con­trol over the nuclear arse­nal left by the Rus­si­ans.[9] The ICBMs also had a ran­ge of 5,000–10,000 km (initi­al­ly tar­ge­ting the United Sta­tes), which meant that they could only have been re-targeted to hit Russia’s far east.[9] The air-launched crui­se mis­si­les (ALCMs) left by the Rus­si­ans had been dis­ab­led by the Rus­si­ans during the col­lap­se of the Soviet Uni­on, but even if they had been recon­fi­gu­red and made to work by the Ukrai­ni­ans, it is unli­kely that they would have had a deter­rent effect.[9] Had Ukrai­ne deci­ded to estab­lish full ope­ra­tio­nal con­trol of the nuclear wea­pons, it would have faced sanc­tions by the West and perhaps even a with­dra­wal of diplo­ma­tic reco­gni­ti­on by the United Sta­tes and other NATO allies.[9] Ukrai­ne would also likely have faced reta­lia­to­ry action by Rus­sia.[9] Ukrai­ne would also have strug­gled with repla­cing the nuclear wea­pons once their ser­vice life expi­red, as Ukrai­ne did not have a nuclear wea­pons pro­gram.[9] In exchan­ge for giving up its nuclear wea­pons, Ukrai­ne recei­ved finan­cial com­pen­sa­ti­on, as well as the secu­ri­ty assuran­ces of the Buda­pest Memo­ran­dum.[9]

src: click

Das zu wis­sen kann man von Fried­rich Merz natür­lich nicht erwarten.

Das Buda­pes­ter Memo­ran­dum wur­de jetzt gebrochen.

Ursu­la Plass­nik zurück aus der Pension.

Such­spiel gibts hier: click

Ohne digi­ta­len Euro droht EZB Ver­lust der Währungshoheit

Jo, war­um nicht. Ist ja grad pas­send. Bes­tes Argu­ment? Putin. Oder doch Infla­ti­ons­brem­se durch neue Tools für Geldpolitik?

Ein Gut­ach­ten legt der EZB die Ein­füh­rung einer digi­ta­len Aus­ga­be des Euro nahe. Sonst könn­ten pri­va­te Vor­stö­ße für Digi­tal­geld an ihrer Wäh­rungs­sou­ve­rä­ni­tät rütteln

Na wenns das Gut­ach­ten sagt.

(Btw, das war die PR Posi­ti­on seit Tag eins, die glaub ich sicher, wenns mir ein von der EZB in Auf­trag gege­be­nes Gut­ach­ten sagt.)

Bonus: Kar­tell­bil­dung im Fami­li­en­mi­nis­te­ri­um.

Zuck exp­lains that Social Media is not causing pola­ri­sa­ti­on and the fas­ter dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of nega­tively con­no­ta­ted con­tent, igno­ring the respon­si­bi­li­ty part of the gate­kee­per model (“that would be a fasci­na­ting dis­cus­sion though, to go over with you what we are doing here, so lets not do that”), but he has a sci­en­tist, that doesnt belie­ve thats the case.

Mean­while:

Stan­dard: Putin is Hit­ler, other­wi­se her care­er is over. So is that now socie­ty in gene­ral - or… Let’s talk about deplat­forming next. Gre­at or just won­der­ful? Self cen­so­ring, becau­se of sin­gu­lar (vir­tu­al) identities?

But no, Zuck has found a fix, bio­metric secu­ri­ty on head­sets, eye­tracking for adver­ti­sing pur­po­ses, spa­cial audio, becau­se Play­sta­ti­on did it, vir­tu­al mee­ting rooms, becau­se of the pan­de­mic, and a future whe­re peop­le arent sup­po­sed to tra­vel any­mo­re -- but hes not about making money short term, no - hes thin­king hard about com­plex issu­es. NFT vir­tu­al clot­hing would be worth more, when it can move across dif­fe­rent plat­forms (sure, in agree­ment, thats why NFTs are pushed, and will com­ple­te­ly remo­ve unau­the­ri­zed dis­tri­bu­ti­on, if con­nec­ted to bio­metric ID), and if AI could morph it to fit all ava­tars ima­gin­ab­le, the desi­gner job would be so much easier! (And lower cost.) Sor­ry, are we tal­king about socie­ty here, or about the future of the quick fashion industry?

Is the­re any buz­z­wor­dy trend he didnt pick up to exp­lain how socie­ty will look like in the future?

Oh, lets clo­ne Tik­tok, the value add of our ser­vice is just grand­mas pics of their grand­child­ren and ecom­mer­ce pre­sen­ces (I’m sure Tik­tok is the best plat­form ima­gin­ab­le for socie­tal… Sor­ry, cant think of what word comes next.) - and look at the value add, of mili­ta­ry stra­te­gists pos­ting their ana­ly­sis on Lin­kedIn - becau­se thats the only form of mass com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on they are signed up for, so Jour­na­lists are now craw­ling that, and then may­be print our own cur­ren­cy. While tracking your emo­tio­nal expres­si­ons and eye­mo­ve­ment. And then play the ent­i­re - “I think peop­le are making logic jumps”, when they are say­ing social media enab­led fake­news, trumpism, the popu­la­riz­a­ti­on of aut­ho­ria­nism (Hold the Line - Maria Ressa’s Nobel Pri­ce Speech)… - or that you had a team of 7 peop­le to do human rights vio­la­ti­ons miti­ga­ti­on across your ent­i­re platform.

What could go wrong, real­ly - when you now have the metric “smi­les not enough” and sell that against ad-revenue. Oh, oh … and peop­le buy­ing NFT trinkets.

Oh, and I love the com­ment, that you focus on doing the mee­ting expe­ri­ence right, and “bet­ter than Zoom”, you know, with pres­su­re sen­si­ti­ve gloves, to feel the table. To get it to the main­stream fas­ter. Becau­se thats just what Gates ack­now­led­ged. That this is the future growth sec­tor. And you are ful­ly thin­king about social implications.