Zapad 2017

23 July 2017
A strange moment in history.

Trump visited Poland. PiS brought their supporters by bus to listen to his speech. The Polish president did not speak. PiS people booed Lech Wałęsa during Trump's speech. The worst constitutional crisis in the history of Poland since 1989 got reignited days after his visit.

The political crisis in Poland is escalating, tens of thousands of people have been protesting in the streets in defence of democracy for a few days now. There is close to zero coverage of it in Australian media. Nothing in ABC, almost nothing in SBS.

Russian TV - I'm watching NTV - why is the Australian government re-broadcasting a Russian government controlled station? (*1) - showed Russian parliament and government make a big fuss a couple days ago about some obscure update in the Polish law about removal of symbols of communism in Poland, with some members of parliament pushing for breaking of diplomatic ties with Poland. Polish news (POLSAT) did not even notice that change or the Russian reaction. Nothing in Russian news about Polish protests.

Al Jazeera does report the protests. It seems they are better at reporting what is important than the western media. (*2)

The Trump chaos continues in the US - press secretary Sean Spicer resigned.

The Brexit chaos continues in the UK.

Trump met with the new French president. Days later the French armed forces chief quit (*3) to protest the proposed cuts to the military spending, which even currently is below the 2% target for NATO. (*4)

A Chinese spy ship has been spotted near joint American-Australian exercises off Queensland coast. (*5)

Russia brought to the Baltic sea two ships, which never go there, because they are simply too big for the small and shallow Baltic: an old but still working atomic submarine capable of launching ballistic missiles, and a cruiser that has more firepower than the whole of Polish shore defences. (*6)

Three Chinese warships entered the Baltic sea to take part in joint manoeuvres with the Russians. (*7)

The Zapad 2017 military exercises seem to have already started in Russia and Belarus, well before their official September schedule. (*8)

What the heck is going on?
...

*1 "On 14 April 2001, Gazprom took over NTV by force":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTV_(Russia)

*2 "The survival of democracy in Poland is at stake": http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/07/poland-turning-authoritarian-170722113057383.html

*3 French chief of armed forces quits over budget cuts:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/emmanuel-macron-pierre-de-villiers-head-of-french-armed-forces-quits-france-budget-cuts-army-resigns-a7848186.html

*4 France spends 1.78% of GDP on military: http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/08/news/nato-summit-spending-countries/index.html

*5 Chinese ship spying on Australians: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/22/provocative-move-chinese-spy-ship-sighted-off-queensland-coast

*6 Northern  http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/8972/russia-reportedly-sending-worlds-largest-submarine-to-the-baltic-sea

*7 Chinese ships in the Baltic: http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/12656/chinese-naval-group-in-baltic-sea-at-same-time-as-russias-biggest-sub-and-cruiser

*8 Russian, Belorussian, Chinese military activity in Eastern/Northern Europe: https://osteuropastudien.wordpress.com/2017/02/06/analysts-say-russias-zapad-17-has-started/

Crisis in Poland - 20 July 2017

I am appalled by the PiS party in Poland and those who still support them. Shame on you. I'm not alone, millions of people in Poland have been protesting in the streets since PiS came to power in 2015. The protests don't seem to be working though. PiS is taking over the country, breaking or bending the law as they go. I don't know what more can be done. PiS clearly does not care about the people. They think we are protesting because we have been lied to, or that we were improperly benefitting from the previous - democratic system, which they call "post-communist". They say they are bringing democracy. They really believe we are all stupid, mafia, traitors, communists or thieves.

The democratic Poland is being destroyed by PiS. Since they came to power in 2015, a new, much worse, Poland is being born. Poland where the rights of women and minorities are not protected, where publicly funded television (TVP) is spewing disgusting propaganda, where football hooligans and nationalists are treated as patriots, where top government officials mix religion and politics and try to introduce laws to please religious zealots, where insinuations about the Smolensk plane crash are celebrated every month in the middle of Warsaw with thousands of policemen protecting PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński and his "we're getting closer to truth" idiocy.

PiS has done some good too. That's why they still have support of about 37% of people in polls. Giving every family 500 PLN every month for the second and subsequent children, and poor families also for the first child, lowered poverty in Poland. That's a good thing. It is being paid by increasing public debt though, so it may not be sustainable. Increasing the minimum wage was a good thing too. That's it.

There are many more things that they broke. The most important being the trust in the rule of law. Now, they are taking control of the courts system, which in democratic countries are independent from political influence. Afterwards, they will have all state-level power in their hands: legislative, executive, judiciary. Legally, nothing will be able to stop them from de-legalising parties opposed to them, nothing will be able to stop them from falsifying elections - we, the majority of the people, are stupid in their mind, so they will be doing it for our good, of course.

Kaczyński called us - that's those who don't agree with him, on camera: communists, thieves, gestapo collaborators, the worse kind, low life, and just now the killers of his brother. This man is clearly full of hatred. Shame on those who support him and do his bidding: Szydło, Duda, Waszczykowski, Kamiński, Ziobro, Kurski, Piotrowicz, Kempa and many others.

PiS came to power after a wire tapping scandal in 2014, when Marek Falenta - a businessman selling Russian coal in Poland, with debts to a Russian company connected to Putin (*) ordered recording of private conversations of PO and PSL politicians. The recordings were made in restaurants, by waiters. PO and PSL were a governing coalition at that time. The tapes were leaked during an election campaign. There was nothing that was proved criminal in the tapes, but there were a few things that were used by PiS to show the arrogance of the PO/PSL government and to support their campaign slogans "Poland is in ruins", and "good change". Three years later, the arrogance of PiS government shown publicly is a hundred times bigger. What they say privately we don't know, nobody taped their conversations.

PiS got only 37.6% of votes in the 2015 elections to Sejm (lower chamber of the Parliament), and 40% in Senate, but thanks to the preference for the biggest parties, it has 51% of seats in Sejm and 61% in Senate. The voter participation was about 50%.

* Roman Giertych about PiS and Russia connections: The art of misinformation

Melbourne

A short business trip to Melbourne in the middle of winter. It was quite chilly in the morning and at night, and the days were shorter than in Brisbane. Here are some pictures to give you the feel for the city over two winter days.

CBD from the air

Sunrise

Melbourne on a sunny day. Can you see two trams?

An extreme tradie's ute.

Let's fully welcome refugees.

What a weird leaning buildings!

A view from the freeway