Society's ChildS


Chess

Austrian media flips stance to pro-Russian: Putin is a 'political chess player'

Putin chess West
© www.thecommonsenseshow.com"The Grand Chessboard" and the Master
"By pure pragmatism" relations between Russia and the European Union on an equal footing are extremely important, according to the Austrian newspaper Kurier.

Despite all the "hysteria" surrounding Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to the marriage of Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, Russia must be an egalitarian partner of the European Union, Kurier notes .

The publication highlights that the Russian president is a "political chess player" and thinks rationally. Austria does not consider Putin to be "rejected by the world community," the publication says.

According to the newspaper, purely pragmatic relations between Russia and the EU on an equal footing are extremely important.

Comment: It seems Europe is slowly coming to its senses, one country at a time.


Dollars

Helping Russian police to solve crimes and catch suspects could now pay up to $150,000

Russian policemen convoy
© Maksim Bogodvid / SputnikPolicemen convoy former deputy chief of the criminal investigation office of the "Dalny" Department of Internal Affairs in Kazan, Tatarstan
Russians who help police to solve crimes or catch suspects could receive rewards of up to $150,000, according to a Justice Ministry document. Previously, awards and bounties were offered only as a private initiative.

According to the document, signed by Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev and registered with the Justice Ministry earlier this week, monetary rewards for help in solving crimes and locating wanted persons can now be paid from the Interior Ministry's budget funds to citizens as well as foreigners and people without citizenship.

Jet3

'Russia hacked the birds': Social media users mock Swedish paranoia after birds take down fighter jet

Swedish Saab JAS 39C Gripen fighter jet
© Tim Hepher / ReutersA Swedish Saab JAS 39C Gripen fighter jet
News that a Swedish fighter jet crashed after colliding with a flock of birds has left some on social media joking about Russian involvement - Sweden's go-to scapegoat for all unforeseen phenomena, real or imagined.

A JAS Gripen fighter plane crashed on Tuesday near the town of Ronneby in southern Sweden, with the pilot reportedly ejecting safely from his aircraft.

Sweden is known for pointing the finger at Moscow whenever something goes awry. From mysterious "submarine" sightings off its coasts to migrant rioters burning cars, Stockholm somehow knows that Russia is always to blame. Responding to Tuesday's unfortunate "bird strike," social media users jokingly seized on this peculiar brand of Swedish logic.

"Birds down Swedish fighter jet. Russian ornithologists suspected," one cheeky Facebook user commented. "Must have been russian birds. Those pesky Russians!" wrote another.

Gold Bar

Gold prices hit 19-month low as speculators 'give up hope'

gold
© Siphiwe Sibeko / Reuters
The price for gold - which has traditionally served as a haven asset for investors - has fallen by nine percent so far this year. Holders of gold futures contracts, not the physical metal, are shorting their positions.

Last week, the price for the yellow metal fell to its lowest level since January 2017. On Tuesday, it was trading at $1,194 a troy ounce. Global demand for gold futures in the first half of the year was at its lowest since 2009.

Experts say the US dollar's unexpected strength is one of the reasons why gold became less appealing to investors. They warn that pain in the gold market could intensify.

Jet3

Iran reveals first domestic fighter jet

Hassan Rouhani fighter jet cockpit
© Iranian President's websiteIraninan President Hassan Rouhani in the cockpit of the new "Kowsar" plane
Iran has revealed its first domestic fighter jet, "Kowsar," at a defense show. President Hassan Rouhani has apparently been checking the readiness of the aircraft himself, as he was spotted sitting in the cockpit.

The fourth-generation jet boasts "advanced avionics" and a multi-purpose radar, the Tasnim news agency said, adding that it was "completely indigenously made." The "advanced" aircraft, which is to be produced in two versions - with a single cabin and two cabins - and will be used for aerial support missions as well as for pilots' training, according to Irna.

Oil Well

Canada's Trans Mountain pipeline crisis is a boon for Russia

oil pipes oil refinery
The controversy of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion projects has so far focused more on the implications of the project's delay for Albertan crude oil producers. Yet, the developments around the pipeline also have reverberations for the U.S. refining industry and more specifically that part of it which operates in the Pacific Northwest, a region without the luxury of many and different sources of crude to turn into fuel and other products for the local industries and households.

Canadian crude and crude from Alaska have been the traditional feedstock for Pacific Northwest refineries. Now that production is growing and so are refining rates, local operators are buying oil from Russia, which, in the political context between the U.S. and Canada, and Russia, makes for an interesting ironic twist. Yet these are the realities of life, as Stewart Muir, executive director of Canadian think tank Resource Works, writes in a recent story. If you can't get a commodity you need from one place, you'll have to get it from another.

Last month, Muir writes, a tanker under a Portuguese flag delivered between 600,000 bpd and 650,000 bpd of Russian crude to a refinery in Washington State, one of the two that produce fuel and oil products for Washington and Oregon. This might become a more frequent occurrence as crude oil production in Alaska steadily declines and Albertan oil sands miners cannot get their growing output to refineries because of pipeline constraints. An alternative-railway deliveries of Bakken crude-was rejected by the Washington governor who, unlike most Trans Mountain protesters, has obviously familiarized himself with the safety statistics of various crude oil delivery methods.

Wedding Rings

Thwarting happiness: Israel's morass of laws governing marriage and divorce

Chief Rabbis Israel, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef (L), Rabbi David Lau (R)
© Yaakov Coehn/Flash90These men have a lot of power over happiness for Jews in Israel. The Chief Rabbis of Israel, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef (L) and Rabbi David Lau (R)
People have been asking me: Yossi, what's the mess with the right to marriage in Israel? I can't make head or tail of it. Well, the issue is complicated. Let's start with the basic facts: there is no way for anyone in Israel to marry in a civil service. Judges and mayors do not have the power to marry you. You need your local rabbi, priest or qadi. Why? There's a long and tiresome explanation at the end. Let's deal with the facts first.

The only courts which are allowed to perform marriages in Israel are the religious courts. A rabbinical court can marry Jews (well, some of them; see below for more.) A church court (of which each Christian sect has its own) can marry Christians, and the sharia courts can marry Muslims. There is also a Druze religious court, which - you guessed it - deals with marriage of the Druze.

The important bit is, there's no possibility of intermarriage. A Jew cannot marry a Christian here. One of the couple will have to convert. If you're unwilling to convert, or if you're unwilling to submit yourself to a religious court, you will have no option but to marry in another country. The most common option is Cyprus, which is very close and where a small cottage industry related to Israelis coming to get married has already developed; Prague, in the Czech Republic, is also a popular option.

Arrow Down

ICE agents arrest father driving wife to hospital to deliver baby, leave mother stranded at gas station

Maria del Carmen Venegas and Joel Arrona arrest ICE
ICE officials released a LATER statement saying Arrona was a murder suspect in Mexico (the warrant was left out of the initial statement). His family maintains his innocence saying he has never been in trouble before and has not been to Mexico for many years. The family’s attorney Emilio Amaya, says that there is no official record of him being a murder suspect.
Last week, a couple was held up by ICE agents on their way to the hospital to deliver a baby, even worse, the father was detained and unable to witness the birth of his baby, and is now facing deportation.

Maria del Carmen Venegas and her husband Joel Arrona were on their way to the hospital this Sunday for a scheduled Cesarean section, but when they stopped to get gas on the way, their car was surrounded by police vehicles and numerous ice agents jumped out and began asking them for identification.

The couple has reportedly been living together for 12 years in Southern California and have four other children.

Venegas was able to show them ID, but unfortunately, her husband was not, so he was carried away by ICE agents, leaving the pregnant mother to drive to the hospital on her own and deliver her baby by herself.
"I [asked] them why they separated good people like that. Why they did not arrest people who are bad and do bad things, let us go, but they told me that they were only doing their job. I never thought ... that they would take him away, that they would hand him over, and that they would leave me at the gas station," Venegas said, according to KVEA.

Russian Flag

Poll: Majority of Russians oppose decriminalization of domestic violence

Russia decriminalization domestic violence
Russian woman protesting decriminalization of domestic violence in front of Russia’s state parliament building holds a sign with a famous quote from Russian literature about a father who kills his son: "'I gave you life, and it is mine to take.' 11,756 boys and girls subjected to domestic violence in 2015.”
Over half of the Russian public believes that domestic violence should be treated as a criminal offence and only a quarter of Russians support the recent decriminalization of first-time offenders.

On Tuesday Russian think tank Public Opinion Endowment released the results of the poll on attitudes to the decriminalization of domestic violence. The poll revealed that 55 percent of Russians think that the law should list domestic violence as a criminal offense.

Some 25 percent of poll participants said that they supported the recent decriminalization of domestic violence (it still remains a civil offense and is punishable by fines or civil arrest). A total of 21 percent of respondents could not answer the question directly.

Post-It Note

'Women don't have penises' stickers scattered across Liverpool beach

Women don’t have penises stickers
© LiverpoolReSisters/ Twitter
Whether a woman has a penis or not is usually not up for debate. Yet it now seems to have polarized the public, as stickers insinuating females do not have male genitalia have been plastered across a beach in Liverpool.

The phallus-shaped stickers have been stuck on some male sculptures - crafted by Angel of the North creator Antony Gormley - on Crosby Beach. They bear the statement: "Women don't have penises."