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Same here. I use equity funds. JP Morgan Russia, but also Swedish-registered Carnegie Ryssland and Alfred Berg Ryssland, which have better returns (investment strategy), than JPM.
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Nemo and Balthazar:
I don't inherently disagree with what you are saying but the problem becomes, where do we draw the line? There are frankly a TON of artificial boundaries that were created by empires anywhere from decades to centuries ago. If every single group that feels that have ownership over the land they live on (because their ancestors historically controlled it) decided to retake said land and start changing national borders, the entire world could be turned upside down overnight.
This process has been going on for centuries, and it would be foolish to think that is has suddenly stopped now. Only during the last 100 years the borders changed a lot, in Europe alone! In my view the boundary should be set by referendums and the UN charter on self-determination of peoples is a good start there. Also, I don't think that 50% of votes should be a deciding factor in such matters. It should be closer to 75%-80% for a region to proclaim independence or to join another state. In the case of Ukraine, the conflict and the tension are so great that they can spark a civil war. In such cases a civilised divorce is a much better option than trying to keep the state artificially. Other such regions are Basque land, Catalonia, Scotland, Northern Ireland. In Yugolsavia there was not even a greater internal tension before the West decided to break up that country.
Ukraine decided to break off information exchange agreements with Russia, so that Russia should not be able to provide information to that half of the Ukrainian population, whom Kiev defined as separatists and terrorists, and who call themselves for pro-federalisation activists: http://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/26047841/goskomteleradio-ukrainy-predlagaet-otkazatsya-otVice-minister for mass media Volin, told Kiev that they should first form legitimate government structures before raising such questions. |
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That was a false news. http://rt.com/news/155908-ukraine-drills-kiev-military/Ukrainian armed forces aren’t planning to hold any military drills involving armored vehicles in central Kiev on Wednesday night, the country’s Defense Ministry said, refuting an earlier announcement from the mayor’s office in Kiev. I wonder what would be the purpose of that announcement in the first place?  Russian news also report that as a false alarm: http://www.vz.ru/news/2014/4/30/684781.htmlMight it be that Kiev junta accidentally showed its hand? As a Russian saying goes: There's no smoke without fire. |
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That would mean the majority of Malorossia's population.
Malorossia is Belarus, it's a sovereign state already. I suppose that you mean Novorossia. Well, Malorossia is also in Ukraine, but I indeed mean Novorossia: http://dokumentika.org/lt/slav/ukraina-ili-malorossiya Fixed. |
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Am I the only person that doesn't agree with the whole "Well, there are a lot of Russians there so they should just join Russia" line of reasoning? To me that is sort of like saying "well America had a lot of British people living in it so they should have just stayed a part of the British empire." News flash: if the people living in Ukraine wanted to be part of Russia don't you think they could have moved to Russia and applied for citizenship? Yet they did not.
That would mean the majority of Novorossia's population. They can't "just move". They and their ancestors were born and lived on that land. It's their home. It was not their fault that after the Revolution in 1917 Lenin decided to give them to his pet project: Ukraine. If people would like to move to Russia, and they constitute 70-80% of the total population, they might just take their land with them when moving.  Or they might proclaim their own state. UN charter gives them such right. It's like saying that if Indians don't like it in the US, they can just pack up and go to Siberia. Singapore has a large portion of ethnically Chinese people but I don't see them calling China to ask if they can be absorbed. I could think of many more examples...
Like, for example, Northern Ireland and Ireland? Also, it would be informative for you to study the maps, collected here: http://yablor.ru/blogs/dve-ukraini/3638493to grasp the scale of the problem that is Ukraine. |
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What the hell?!!  Ukraine to hold military exercises in central Kievhttp://rt.com/news/155908-ukraine-drills-kiev-military/Somebody, tell me they are joking! “Dear Kiev residents and guests of the capital! A tactical-special exercise will be held in Kiev on the night from April 30 to May 1,” says the short statement published on the city hall website. “Columns of combat vehicles are expected to be moving through the city as part of the exercise. Be advised that deployment of troops and hardware will take place in the center of the city.” A reader comment: Comments below are correct. Nothing can be solved with the current people in Kiev. But if the US had Ukraine's best interest in mind, it would not have designed this coup and violence in the first place. I think the US plan here is to have a failed state right on Russia's border and tell Russia it'll start a war if Russia goes into Ukraine to try and stabilize it. Russia will eventually have to go in and prevent bloodshed and the US/NATO will have it's "Pearl Harbor" excuse for war with Russia. and how NATO is still needed. Also, Kiev junta prosecutor's office open criminal cases against commanders of Alpha special ops group in South-East, who refused to follow orders from Kiev:http://itar-tass.com/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/1159255?utm_medium=rss20Joke of the day: Yatsenjuk calls Putin and says: "We are not going to conduct Victory Parade on the 9th of May". Putin thinks a little and replies: "Very well. We will conduct it ourselves, then". |
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Pensions of the Crimeans are to be increased by 50% to 7900 roubles: http://ria.ru/crimea_today/20140430/1006057227.htmlAverage pension in Russian Federation is 11603 roubles. This is the one of the steps in pension and salary increases in accordance with Prime Minister Medvedev's directive. The plan is: From the 1st of April pensions were increased by 25% from the initial value (average from 5300 to 6660). From the 1st of May pensions will be increased by 50% from the initial value From the 1st of June pensions will be increased by 75% from the initial value And from the 1st of July pensions will be increased by 100% from the initial value Also Ukrainian-style pensions are re-indexed into Russian ones, a process that will be completed by 1st of January 2015. |
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This sums up well the problem that is Ukraine: Thus, the situation is getting out of Kiev's control. When they found out about that the Ukrainian nationalists launched their angry rhetoric. From the moment Ukraine proclaimed its independence Kiev has not come up with anything other than «to build the Ukrainian political nation» without taking into account the ethnic composition of the peoples residing in the country. Along with the Ukrainian citizenship everybody has been assigned the official nationality – Ukrainian. In essence that project has led to a slow destruction of Ukraine's ethnic diversity. It is not surprising that the residents of Zakarpatie felt themselves discriminated against, thinks Rostislav Ischenko, a Ukrainian political analyst. «The current Ukrainian authorities are trying to build a monoethnic state, which in essence is a Nazi state. Any ethnic minority is viewed as a threat to that monoethnicity. They are trying to conduct forced Ukrainization of all ethnic minorities. It cannot happen peacefully». Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_23/Hungarians-Rusyns-in-Zakarpatie-afraid-of-forced-Ukrainization-want-autonomy-3452/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_30/photo-Victory-Parade-night-rehearsal-held-on-Red-Square-in-Moscow-6253/?slide-11 |
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You don't worry about those nuclear warheads that can destroy the world 100 times over? It only takes 1 mistake and we all die.
What I was trying to say was that Russia and the US know how to safely store their nuclear warheads and those weapons will never end up with the extremists. The same can't be said about North Korea and Pakistan. It is safe? If not because of those two people below. We might not here right now. The humanity is hanging on single thread because of this nuclear weapons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipovhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_PetrovIt's actually pretty scary that our continued existence depends on level-headedness of only a handful of people, and those people are not even at the top of command chain. |
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Hmm... I see China making a low rumbling sound, which the West should not ignore: http://lenta.ru/news/2014/04/30/china/Peking does not support one-sided sanctions imposed against Russia, saying they cannot be a solution to the situation in Ukraine, but rather further increasing the tension. |
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A bit old video (from yesterday): http://rt.com/news/155520-slavyansk-taxi-driver-soldiers/ A taxi driver confronted a military checkpoint in Ukraine’s eastern town of Slavyansk, asking the Interior Troops stationed there: “Who are you guarding against here?”
In response he received a confused answer from one of the soldiers: “We've been doing that since December, nobody really knows against whom." |
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IMF stated that Russian economy has entered a recession. They reduced GNP growth prognosis for Russia from 1.3% to 0.3%, and they expect inflation of around 6% for 2014. http://www.interfax.ru/business/374434In my opinion it is just another poke after a flurry of wannabe sanctions designed to scare some of the more faint-hearted investors. I've actually been buying some of the Russian stocks now that they had a sharp drop in price. In my opinion, it's not much different from buying Bitcoin post-bubble On the other hand the Russian minister of Finance also warned that Russian economy can be in as difficult position as during the crisis of 2008-2009 and that growth can be approx 0 (I call it a steady state  ) |
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And I am more concerned about the power plants in Ukraine right now...
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I did read some talk before about any "combat-aged" men trying to enter Ukraine being turned back at the border, and any "combat-aged" men, who would seem to try to leave Ukraine (mainly fleeing to Crimea) being retained inside Ukraine. I haven't seen any official statements to that end. By the way, Pitin might plan to visit Sevastopol on the 9th of May (the President's press secretary said that there yet no such plans in the President's calender). http://www.forbes.ru/news/256201-putin-mozhet-posetit-sevastopol-9-maya
VAT in Crimea is reduced by 5 times, and will be between 2% for everyday goods (food, medicine, children's clothes) and 4% for the rest (from 20%): http://ria.ru/economy/20140430/1006020930.html |
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And some news as a separate post: US are seeking to back away from the sanctions in their round-about way. They list conditions on dropping sanctions against individuals in Russia: http://itar-tass.com/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/1157668?utm_medium=rss20They again talk about "de-escalation of situation in Ukraine" Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs already replied that Russia does not accept the language of ultimatums But it seems sanctions are having a positive effect. The offshore Bermuda branch of Sberbank decided to close down and pull its capitals back into Russia.  http://lenta.ru/news/2014/04/30/sber/Microsoft and other IT companies joined the anti-Russian campaign: http://www.gazeta.ru/business/news/2014/04/30/n_6119681.shtmlPutin: Washington behind Ukraine events all along, though flying lowhttp://rt.com/news/155732-putin-usa-behind-ukraine-crisis/“I think what is happening now shows us who really was mastering the process from the beginning. But in the beginning, the United States preferred to remain in the shadow,” Putin said, as quoted by RIA Novosti. And on the topic of sanctions: "We would very much wish not to resort to any measures in response," he told reporters. "But if something like that continues, we will of course have to think about who is working in the key sectors of the Russian economy, including the energy sector, and how.” "Regarding the second package, it's not clear at all what this is linked to, because there is no cause and effect link with what is happening now in Ukraine and Russia," Putin said.
And a fun little sidenote. We all remember how Kerry depicted RT as "propaganda bullhorn": http://rt.com/news/154760-kerry-attacks-rt-propaganda/And now US passes new legislation with regard to Voice of America to actually make that channel to comply to the US foreign policy: http://rt.com/usa/155760-voice-america-reform-support/ "This legislation makes clear that the Voice of America mission is to support U.S. public diplomacy efforts," a summary of the new bill outlines. "The VOA charter states that VOA will provide a ‘clear and effective presentation of the policies of the United States...Over time, VOA has abandoned this mission."
...
In 1976, President Gerald Ford signed into law VOA’s mission as an "accurate, objective, and comprehensive" news outlet as opposed to an explicit propagandistic venture.
Since then, “employees at the TV and radio broadcaster have insisted on viewing themselves as objective journalists as opposed to instruments” of the US government’s policies abroad, wrote Foreign Policy. And since, on occasion, VOA has highlighted stories that did not reflect well on the United States, US officials have wondered why hundreds of millions of dollars is spent on a project that does not have a more pro-American outlook.
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Rassah, your argument is weak, and was already covered before, but I will indulge you. Yes, Great Britain could actually claim US back, as US proclaimed its independence with the breach of the then international law. Interestingly, Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk now proclaim their independence in much the same fashion as US did back then, but this time these regions are legally backed by the UN charter on self-determination of peoples. The situation that you should be comparing to, is Northern Ireland wanting to break away from UK and reunite with Ireland (based on language and religion), in much the same way Crimea broke away from the artificial fiefdom of Ukraine and rejoined Russia, where it was since 1700s. The only difference that appals EU, is that in Crimea there was no bloodshed. |
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Yatsenjuk suggests that Ukraine should turn Crimea into "weighted shackles around Russia's feet" by doing an economic and trade blockade. Don't deliver water or electricity under the pretext of technical failures, maintenance, or other. Prohibit trade of 50-70 goods items from Odessa, Herson and Nikolaev regions. Well, nothing new here. Kiev did exactly that in 1993 after the first referendum proclaiming independence of Crimea. Back then drunkard Yeltsin didn't back Crimea, so it was coerced back into Ukraine and heavily penalised for its insubordination by way of economic blood-letting. This time it will be different. |
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) Russia plans them for the May Victory Holidays.
