Showing posts with label Vladimir Putin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vladimir Putin. Show all posts

Friday, 11 March 2022

Sanctioning Roman Abramovich only hurts Chelsea FC

Roman Abramovich is one of seven Russian oligarchs to be added to the list of those sanctioned by the UK Government, which compared to other governments around the world, still falls way short of what is expected of them.  

However, the sanctions against him have hit a target that really doesn't deserve to be punished as it is, and that is Chelsea Football Club.  

The club can no longer sell tickets or merchandise, and it's banned from any player transfers.  It has been granted a special licence which will allow fixtures to be played, staff to be paid, and existing ticket holders, mostly season ticket holders, will be allowed to attend matches.

These measures aren't targetting or affecting Roman Abramovich, they're punishing Chelsea for being owned by him, despite the fact that he has already handed off day to day operations of the club to the trustees, and he has committed to sell the club, for which he could well be granted a special licence to do so, on the condition that he himself doesn't benefit in any way from it.

The sad part is that because of these sanctions, the club cannot get any new money into the business, and how long can that realistically continue?  Football clubs are not run on goodwill alone.

Without ticket and merchandise sales, the club cannot continue to run long term, and unless something changes very soon, this season could end up being Chelsea Football Club's last one in existence, and all because of the necessity of punishing Vladimir Putin for a war that didn't even need to happen.

Tuesday, 21 July 2020

Viewpoint: The Russia Report released.

So, a day earlier than expected, The Russia Report finally gets released to the world, and whilst there's nothing that is a smoking gun, what is says is potentially more damaging to the British government, moreso to David Cameron's administration of it, than the current one, though their reluctance to actually publish this is very notable as well.

Whilst it doesn't actually say if Russia interfered in the EU Referendum, and let's be honest, we know they did, the Russians are truly the only ones to actually benefit from the UK leaving the EU, so of course they would try and interefere, it fits their style, it fits the whole KGB-esque way that Vladimir Putin has run things during his time as President, the fact that it criticises the UK government for not even trying to investigate if such a thing was happening, is way more damning. 

The report does say that Russia has been engaging in influence campaigns targetting British Politics using things like social media campaigns, wealthy individuals and other means.  Evidence of this dates back to 2014's Scottish Referendum on Independence, yet apparently, there was no attempt to discern if such behaviour was being done during the Brexit campaign.  Spoiler Alert: Yeah, there was, we saw it with our own eyes on social media.

Bias by deliberate action is one thing.  But bias by deliberate inaction is worse.  And allowing interference in internal affairs by deliberately avoiding investigating, is frankly unforgivable.  This government as a whole needs to resign, on mass.  Yes, I know, we don't want another general election, we've had so many in these last few years, but frankly, that would be a small price to pay.

Unsurprisingly, The Kremlin has dismissed all this as "Russophobia", but I would say, there was no "Russophobia" until Putin started showing he was still doing things the old KGB way.  Coincidence?  No way!

Russia interfered in Scottish Independence, they interefered in the EU referendum, they interfered in the US Presidential Election in 2016, they've interefered plenty since, and now the world is finally realising just how low and sneaky and downright dispicible Vladimir Putin has been, the fact that he has been running Cold War style campaigns of disinformation for the purposes of not just growing Russian influence and power in the world, but also to generate outcomes that will favour his country, it is going to get a lot harder for Russia to continue that kind of influence peddling.  They're already being called out for it on social media everytime they try.  And then, there's what will happen in 2024, when his second term in office comes to an end.  Plus, what is happening with the global pandemic in Russia currently.  Politics in Russia is going to be very interesting in the next few years, especially after the constitutional amendments he got voted in earlier this month, giving him the power to effectively veto candidates for the Prime Minstership, before they even stand for office, and stating that Russian law supercedes international law.  That is not going to go down well globally.

This was not closure on this issue.  We might not get any closure on this until Putin is out of political office and maybe not even then.  But the more we know about what Putin is doing, the more it makes him look like a wannabe global dictator.  We must be on the look out for more Russian influence peddling and trying to influence public opinion on social media, because that's the only way we can effectively counter what is going on.



Thursday, 18 May 2017

Viewpoint: The clock is ticking on Donald Trump.

We are getting ever closer, inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, to a moment like this one...


...and believe me, there will be whooping and hollering around the world when he does go down.

The announcement that a special counsel has been appointed to investigate the reported meddling in the US Presidential Election by Russia and whether Trump campaign associates or the campaign itself, collaborated with the meddling, has invariably thrown a spanner into the barely functional works of this White House.

We've heard a report that apparently Donald Trump went into his White House accomodations earlier on today, and apart from food and drink requests has not emerged since.  If he has any sense at all, which is unlikely, he'd head for Moscow on the first flight he could charter, and leave everybody else behind and go into hiding.  Unfortunately, he's too much of an egomaniac and spotlight hog to want to go into hiding for very long. 

The strangeness here, is although in the history of the USA, there have 15 people impeached at the federal level, the two presidents impeached, were both acquitted in the Senate, and both were Democrats.  Andrew Johnson in 1868, and Bill Clinton in 1999.  Richard Nixon was never actually impeached.  Articles of impeachment had been agreed by the House Judiciary Committee, but Nixon resigned before he could be impeached.

Whatever happens now, we are in territory that is reminiscent of Watergate, but also way greater than a bungled break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic Party.  The words "high treason" are being used in intelligence circles right now, and those words are not used lightly, or even at all.  But they are being used now.  This is a situation that may have to call for a completely new response, including possibly an election re-run, or a brand new election.  Nothing at this stage should be ruled out or in,  Everything is still on the table.

The only real question remaining is whether Trump's self-preservation instincts will overtake his grossly inflated ego, and make him head for the hills.  I'm not sure his ego will allow him to see how deep the quicksand is, or even that he is sinking in it.  And if that is the case, his whole administration might just go down with him.

Saturday, 20 December 2014

The Oil Price, Russia and OPEC.

(Transcript from The Viewpoint Podcast)

The price of oil has made a major shift downward in recent weeks, falling to around $60 a barrel for North Sea Brent Crude, and below $60 for West Texas Intermediate. For most of us, it will mean that it will cost us less to fill up our cars, and prices for the goods on our shelves should start falling because transportation will start costing less as well.

But there's much more to it than that, especially for Russia. Oil revenues are a big part of their government's income, and the drop from over $120 a barrel to around $60, means that Russia's budget, which was calculated at a higher price, will not be able to spend as much money as they previously thought. The drop in the Oil price even sent the Russian Rouble shooting up against the dollar, to almost 80 roubles to the dollar, before settling OPEC even decided not to cut production to force prices higher, and whilst most saw that as a shot across the bows of US shale oil producers, Russia's aggression against Ukraine may have also played a part as neither the US nor Russia are part of the international cartel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held his usual end of year press conference this week, and like previous Soviet Premiers and dictators worldwide, blamed the West for what is happening with his economy. And whilst it's true that the West's economic sanctions have hurt Russia to some degree, OPEC's refusal to cut production of oil in order to raise the price on international commodities markets will do far more to damage the Russian economy than the west's sanctions.

And who are these OPEC members who will hurt Russia's economy so badly? Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Not a single western country in the cartel, not even the UK. Maybe Putin should get some of his Russia Today buddies to start going after Iran's Press TV.

Monday, 8 September 2014

The Idiot Brigade Awards: Monday 8th September 2014

Okay, time to give out the most coveted prizes in blogging world (not), today’s medals in the Idiot Brigade Awards.

IdiotBrigadeAwards

The Bronze medal goes to Conservative MP John Redwood, for suggesting that the Scots should be banned from voting in the 2015 General Election if they vote for Independence.  John, you do realise that such an idea is pretty guaranteed to make the Scots vote for Independence, just to spite you?

The Silver medal goes to Patriarch Filaret, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin as being possessed by Satan.  You know, this is not going to help de-escalate the tensions between Russia and Ukraine, but worse than that, you actually compared him to the wrong person.  If anything, Vladimir Putin is looking more and more like George W Bush did during his second term, where all he had was his own certainty, his own beliefs, his own omniscience, and little to no connection with the real world at all. That is about all Putin has left at the moment, is his own certainty, his own omniscience, his own superiority complex, if you will.

But the Fools Gold Award winners today, are Ray Rice, The Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League, The National Football League themselves and the Commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell.  You may recall that Ray Rice was suspended by the NFL Commissioner for two games, after TMZ released a surveillance video tape showing Ray Race dragging his then fiancĂ© Janay Palmer out of an elevator.  Since then, Roger Goodell and the NFL have taken a public relations pummelling over the lenient punishment.  That led to a change in policy, that was not backdated, that all domestic violence offenders would be suspended for 6 games on a first offence, and banned indefinitely on a second offence.

Today, TMZ released the ‘other video’ that the police had had all along, which showed what happened inside the elevator.  I’m not going to link to it directly, or embed it on the page, as I consider it too graphic and too violent.  But suffice to say, his actions in that elevator made the two game suspension look far worse than farcical.  It made it look utterly shameful and a complete disgrace.

Almost instantly, the Baltimore Ravens released Ray Rice, followed in equally quick succession by the Commissioner, Roger Goodell, announcing that Ray Rice was being suspended from the NFL indefinitely, and all based upon this release of the ‘new’ video, a video that both the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens deny having previously seen, but knowing how the NFL has a great working relationship with the Police, I find that whole scenario incredibly unlikely.

I have little doubt in my own mind, that they were just trying to ride it out, wait until the heat died down, and then everything would be a-ok, and they could quietly bury it.  Today, those thoughts were blown out of the water, and the speed of both organisations reactions unfortunately give away exactly what they knew.  They had to have seen the video, knew what it contained, and yet still, they tried to diminish it, by only suspending Ray Rice for 2 games.  Today’s video demonstrated that you cared as much about domestic violence, as much as you had previously cared about concussions, prior to last year’s settlement, which was not a lot.

Baltimore Ravens, if you had taken some responsibility in the first place and suspended Rice before the NFL had taken its original decision, the one that now looks incredibly ridiculous, you would have looked strong, and in command, instead of looking weak, feeble and out of touch, as you do now.

Roger Goodell, you surely don’t expect me to believe that you hadn’t seen the second videotape until now.  I find that very hard to believe.  Again, rather like the Baltimore Ravens themselves, you look weak, feeble, indecisive and out of touch with the people who matter most to you and your organisation, your fans, especially the large contingent of female fans that the NFL attracts. 

Ray Rice, the Baltimore Ravens, the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell.  Not only our Fools Gold Award winner today, but unequivocally, today’s Worst Persons In The World.