1/21 On 29 March 2012 Latvian investigative journalist Leonids Jakobsons was violently attacked in Riga while he was accompanied by his eight year old son.
2/21 He was shot in the face with a gas pistol and badly beaten. His son was terrified but unharmed. Reporters without Borders condemned the assault the following day, describing it as a murder attempt,
3/21 Latvian politics is still affected by the country's soviet occupation and the corrupting influence of its neighbour Russia. Two years before the attack, a Latvian journalist and politician, Grigorijs Nemcovs had been murdered in an apparent contract killing. No one has ever
1/21 On 29 March 2012 Latvian investigative journalist Leonids Jakobsons was violently attacked in Riga while he was accompanied by his eight year old son. He was shot in the face with a gas pistol and badly beaten. His son was terrified but unharmed. Reporters without Borders
2/21 condemned the assault the following day, describing it as a murder attempt, by Stephen Komarnyckyj for EU Today.
3/21 Latvian politics is still affected by the country's soviet occupation and the corrupting influence of its neighbour Russia. Two years before the attack, a Latvian journalist and politician, Grigorijs Nemcovs had been murdered in an apparent contract killing. No one has ever
You are right, Neo Rauch, the edges of our world
Blur into smoke, the sea will break against the cairn
Shadow’s dent the fisherman’s arm, and over the sleeper
The woman with lobster clawed hands will stand,
With the drumsticks forever cocked over the drum,
The man in the lime green jacket will kneel
Bearing on his back the wings of a dark angel
Children will levitate above yellowed diamonds,
And the earth will split the perfectly level grass
To reveal ochre strata, then darkness, then
Darkness… who is it with the green waistcoat
Working the bellows and whose arms sprout,
Into a sack and flute where is the landscape,
That slips in and out of perspective until
The viewer feels themselves breaking free
1/24 A thread on Citadele with material dating from 2018
2/24 On June 12 and 13 2008, 20 Russian citizens were arrested and bundled into vehicles across Spain as part of an operation against the mafia. The Latvian based Parex bank was closely connected to the enquiry: Mikhail Rebo, the alleged Tambov mafia money launderer, was
1/24 A thread on Citadele with material dating from 2018
1/32 #FBPE a refresher on the links between Firtash, the GOP and #Brexit and what they mean. #FollowBackFriday On 23 March 2011, Dmytro Firtash, wearing the ornate robe of a Cambridge University beneficiary, shook hands with Prince Philip. That moment marked the peak of his #FBPE
2/32 ascent in British society. The village boy who once loved pasturing cows had come a long way. Thanks to his PR team, he enjoyed the image of a businessman and patron of the arts in the UK. #FBPE
3/32 As bagman for mobster Semion Mogilevich, Firtash directly links the Russian mafiya to the British Establishment. He was once described by a Chicago attorney general as “upper-echelon associat[e] of Russian organised crime”. Eight years after his royal handshake, #FBPE
1/26 A thread on the Westminster Russia Forum and its infiltration of the Tories #FollowBack Friday #Brexit is ultimately a Russian project #FBPE
2/26 The Britain of July 2012 now seems as remote as the moon. #FBPE
3/26 I had watched the Olympic Flame carried through Barnsley and sensed a mood of national optimism, bubbly as freshly opened Champagne. But, what was also clear was that Britain had no vision for its future. Winston Churchill popped out of Big Ben during the Olympic Games #FBPE