Digest: Russia and Belarus will reflect threats from the West at the exercises, and the Shnobel Prize will be awarded at Harvard
Putin and Lukashenko agree on Belarus integration plans
Presidents of Russia and Belarus Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko at a meeting on Thursday, according to preliminary information, will agree on plans for economic integration.
This is Lukashenka’s fifth trip to his neighbor in the east (he is now closed to the west) this year, and politicians on both sides have been speaking about the unification of economic rules in the “union state” for more than twenty years, but still some Russian and Belarusian meetings some Russian and Belarusian experts call the meeting special.
Lukashenka’s position has changed dramatically over the past year, and the presidents agree. Nearly three dozen integration programs are perceived by some as a real step towards the Belarusian Russian economy.
On the other hand, as the press secretary of the Russian president says, there are no documents.
Our correspondents Grigor Atanesyan and Ksenia Churmanova tell in detail about the endless Russian-Belarusian negotiations on integration:
200 thousand at the exercises “West-2021”
The opening ceremony of the large-scale joint exercises “West-2021” will be held at two training grounds in Russia and Belarus. The exercises, which will last until September 15, will involve about 200,000 military personnel to one degree or another. According to the legend of the exercises, the “Central Federation” will fight the well-armed “Polar Republic”, in which the NATO countries are guessed.
Presentation of the Shnobel Prize
The Shnobel Prize (Shnobel Prize) ceremony will be held at Harvard University in the United States. This year, the ceremony due to the pandemic shows again via video link.
Moscow journalists again went to single pickets against the law on “foreign agents”. In August they picketed the FSB in Lubyanka, this Wednesday – the Ministry of Justice. The police detained three journalists of the “Important Stories” publication.
In Hong Kong, as reported by world agencies, they are also looking for “foreign agents”. The crackdown on pro-democracy supporters in Hong Kong continues, with the Chinese authorities supporting the four leaders of the Alliance for the Support of Democratic Movements in China, also known as the Alliance of Tiananmen Victims, for refusing to hand over the identity of the alliance’s activists to the police.
A week and a half after Hurricane Ida destroyed the cities and villages of American Louisiana, states continue to clarify the number of victims. On Wednesday, the Louisiana Department of Health announced that there were 26. The delay, however, is not due to, for example, that rescuers are still searching for bodies, but rather due to the legal procedure for causes of death. In the eastern United States, Ida, reaching there from southern Louisiana, killed 68 people.
At least 10 people died in a fire in a temporary hospital for covid patients in the city of Tetovo, North Macedonia. Health Minister Venco Filipce announced in the evening that there are ten dead so far, but the number may rise. The fire, the causes of which are still unclear, was extinguished for several hours.
The Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS) suspended Guinea’s membership on an emergency, where a military coup took place on Sunday. Guinea’s Army Special Forces, led by Lieutenant Colonel Mamadi Dumbuya, took the residence of President Alpha Conde in battle on Sunday and took the 83-year-old president prisoner.
Deutsche Welle: “Can the Taliban Rule Afghanistan?”
German broadcaster Deutsche Welle wondersBut is the Taliban (an organization banned in Russia), which announced the appointment of a new government three weeks after the seizure of power in Afghanistan, capable of running the country?
The newspaper concludes that the new government, which the Taliban promised would be “inclusive”, did not turn out to be such: it consists of almost only Pashtuns. This has already led to protests in the multinational country.
Moreover, there is agreement even within the Taliban. While the Taliban were fighting, they acted as a single force. Some of them lean towards more moderate policies.
And this is not the only problem.
Even if the Taliban manage to keep peace within their ranks and avoid international sanctions, Ahmad Saidi, a former Afghan diplomat quoted by the newspaper, said.
“Most Taliban ministers are uneducated and do not know how to run the government and how the government works.
The New Yorker: “Victims of Putin’s Attack on the Press”
American magazine The New Yorker clarifies to their audience, why the Russian authorities persecute independent media, one after another declaring them to be foreign agents, and those people who supported Alexei Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation (declared an extremist organization in Russia).
“We have reached the most dramatic point in the history of the Russian media,” the publication quotes Roman Badanin, who was the editor-in-chief of the Project, which is recognized as an undesirable organization in Russia.
The New Yorker writes that the Kremlin is putting pressure on independent media because it believes that journalists who do not adhere to an official point of view on what is happening in Russia and criticize the authorities are participants in a Western anti-Russian conspiracy. The same applies to Navalny and his associates.
“According to this strategy, the Kremlin, having decided to destroy Navalny, must inevitably choose journalists next,” the magazine concludes.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: Britain drops out of dozens of German trading partners due to Brexit
This year, for the first time in 70 years, the UK may fall out of the top ten most important trading partners of Germany. In the first half of the year, this has already happened, – by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung…
According to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, in the first half of the year, trade between the two countries fell by 2.3% to 48.3 billion euros, and Germany was in eleventh place in the list of major trading partners – even the small Czech Republic overtook it.
In 2016, the year of the Brexit referendum, the UK was in fifth place on the same list.
Supplies of food and feed to Germany fell 38.5%, textiles nearly 53% and pharmaceuticals nearly 47%.
Imports from the UK are in a state of free fall due to the fact that importers simply cannot comply with all customs rules, – quotes the President of the British Chamber of Commerce in Germany in Michael Schmidt.
At the same time, German exports in the first half of the year grew, albeit by only 2.6%. Michael Schmidt, explains Michael Schmidt, “Practicing Michael Schmidt.”
Experts, however, especially remind that in this statistical summary we are talking about physical goods, and Britain is a large exporter of various services, primarily financial, and therefore is an important economic partner of Germany.
Almost none of the real oppositionists were again not admitted to the elections to the Russian State Duma on September 17-19, and against those opponents of the authorities who are nevertheless registered, there is a surprisingly serious struggle using various dirty tricks that have been worked out for years.
Our correspondent Elizaveta Focht compiled a register of these “electoral technologies”:
One of the symbols of London and Britain, the Elizabeth Tower with the clock and the Big Ben bell, covered with scaffolding for more than four years. But the restoration will soon be over, and Londoners and capitals will hear the famous bell again. The BBC visited the tower and was the first to look at the updated Big Ben.
The digest was prepared Yuri Vendik and Ksenia Batanova