Research focus is Syria, jihadism, and the PKK | Gets a bit random after that | Likes are just bookmarks. Choose your own adventure with the retweets.
5 added to My Authors
May 16 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Leaked documents show that in one county of a quarter-million people, Konasheher, in southern Xinjiang, nearly 5% of the Uyghur Muslim population has been imprisoned by #CCP for "terrorism" and "extremism" charges. The rate is 30 times the norm in #China. abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireS…#pt: Pure notably Stalinism: China sets "arrest quotas for local police [in the Muslim areas], in some cases resulting in the men from entire villages being rounded up and whole families uprooted ... [C]amp detainees were forced to confess their 'crimes' in group sham trials"
Thread: 14 May 2022: Day 80 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
It might not be completely finished yet—#Russia still has positions in the area—but as of 13 May #Ukraine has clearly defeated the Russians around #Kharkiv, and the complete eviction of Russian troops retreating toward the border is only a matter of time.
One of the defensive responses to #Germany's policy on #Ukraine has been: "Look at how many refugees we have taken". God bless those who shelter refugees. The problem with this as a policy metric, though, is that it doesn't register success, but very nearly the opposite.
Should say: in conversation with someone from #Britain, this is usually a not-so-subtle counter-attack on our policy in this area, and there is a point. But it doesn't alter the fact: taking refugees from #Ukraine is not a measure of how this is going.
Thread: 13 May 2022: Day 79 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
The BBC doing in #Russia the kind of journalism its "impartiality" doctrine often keeps it from doing at home
Protais Mpiranya, the most-wanted war criminal in Africa, leader of #Rwanda's presidential guard during the genocide, has been found, buried in Zimbabwe under a false name. He has been there since 2006 courtesy of a tuberculosis-induced heart attack. ft.com/content/1cbe90…
Protais Mpiranya fled into Cameroon and then the Congo, where he fought against Kagame's Rwanda after it invaded in 1996 to uproot the genocidaire encampments like Goma, and fought under Mugabe's sponsorship during the African World War (1998-2003).
May 12 • 30 tweets • 20 min read
Thread: 12 May 2022: Day 78 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine#Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz knows from experience of living in a country ravaged by #Russia that #Ukraine will have to deal with scattered unexploded munitions for a long time, and his message on stopping the evasion of the sanctions is good, too.
Thread: 10 May 2022: Day 76 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
Grim that #Russia's messaging has such a hold over the émigrés, who do not have to make the horrible calculations those inside the country do about personal safety when deciding how far they will or won't deviate from the state narrative.
Thread: 4 May 2022: Day 70 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine#Belarus is to stage a "combat-readiness check" with its whole army, though assures one and all they mean no harm, despite the state being virtually annexed by #Russia several months ago and being the launchpad for the attack on #Ukraine's capital
Thread: 3 May 2022: Day 69 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
Pentagon says #China is avoiding direct military assistance to #Russia's attempt to erase #Ukraine ... for now
Thread: 2 May 2022: Day 68 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine#Poland has become the first guarantor state to announce publicly it will not be party to a peace agreement with #Russia that involves the surrender of parts of #Ukraine's territory
Thread: 29 April 2022: Day 65 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
"V" and "Z" monuments gone up in Maloyaroslavets, in European #Russia
Apr 29 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
A church-commissioned German investigation said Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's claims to have no personal knowledge of the child rape cases when he was running the archdiocese of Munich (1977-82) were not credible. He could be accused of wrongdoing in four. washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/…
In one of the cases, Bendict, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as he then was, "accepted a priest into his archdiocese even after the cleric had been convicted of sexual abuse in a criminal court."
Thread: 28 April 2022: Day 64 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine#Britain is getting the messaging right on this: an acknowledgement of the reality that there is a task in front of us, but a refusal to even hint at recognising #Russia's annexation of Crimea or any other part of #Ukraine
Thread: 27 April 2022: Day 63 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
Another case where the levers of influence over #Turkey that supposedly explain why #Russia has such influence over Ankara highlight the questions of why the #US cannot use these same levers and why the Turks do not worry about them
Thread: 18 April 2022: Day 54 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
"'I screamed at the [#Russian] guards: "He is dying, he is dying." I tried with my bound feet to push a bottle of water towards him,' says Dima, visibly distressed. 'All they did was laugh and say: "If he dies, he dies. All Ukrainians must die".'" independent.co.uk/news/world/eur…
Apr 17 • 33 tweets • 22 min read
Thread: 17 April 2022: Day 53 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine#Russia: Sergei Erzhenkov, a journalist, attended a 4 March anti-war rally in Kasimov, where inter alia he filmed activists spray-painting "Putin — go away" on a Lenin statue. The FSB arrested him the next day and he says tortured him. themoscowtimes.com/2022/04/14/rus…
Apr 16 • 18 tweets • 11 min read
Thread: 16 April 2022: Day 52 of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine
A horrible part of Moscow's war-making, as predictable as it is gruesome. Afghanistan is still clearing up the mines after forty years.
5 added to My Authors
