Abkhazian independence marches on

Today, the independence ambitions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia were further validated when Nauru recognised their sovereignty for Russian humanitarian aid worth $50M, Telegraph writes. This brings the count to a whopping four after Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Nauru is known for its economic difficulties ever since it mined off and sold all its guano, and has been trying to find alternative sources of revenue for decades.

NewsMax versus Wikipedia

Danny Wool writes about an interesting incident back in April 2006:

1. This week, the Foundation received a legal threat, termed by Brad
"the most serious legal threat we have received so far." The basis of
this threat was the statement by a very serious Florida-based group
with a very serious New York attorney that the Wikimedia Foundation
alone is legally liable for the actions of its admins, as they are
working on behalf of the Foundation.
[...]
4. At Brad's request, the two articles in question were stubbed and
protected. Brad wanted this to be done specifically by me, as an
employee of the Foundation, and not as an admin, which would feed into
the argument of those threatening us. The nature of the threat was,
and is, to be kept highly confidential. While the threat may have been
resolved in this instance, it could be used again, and we do NOT as
yet have a satisfactory answer to it.

In the comments for the post, he mentions this post as relevant explanation. From his contribution list of the time, it's rather obvious the articles in question are about NewsMax, a right-wing faux news website, and Christopher Ruddy, its founder. Apparently, the last pre-protection versions are correspondingly NewsMax Media #48758172 and Christopher Ruddy #48365799

If I understand the events properly, it seems that back in 2006, NewsMax folks took offence at something in the articles, threatened to sue Wikimedia Foundation if they're not censored, and Wikipedia obeyed.

The Economist on "eSStonia"

The Economist has a great overview of the ridiculous nature of the recent anti-Estonian propaganda. It even mentions the good ol' Godwin's Law.

Much of the anti-Estonian Nazi smear employed by Russian media, and sometimes even Russian politicians, centers around what Stalinist historians considered Estonia's allegiance to Nazi Germany. A very important point from the article:

What really annoys the Kremlin crowd is that Estonians (like many others in eastern Europe) regarded the arrival of the Red Army in 1944-45 not as a liberation, but as the exchange of one ghastly occupation for another. That flatly contradicts the Kremlin’s revived Stalinist version of history, which puts Soviet wartime heroism and sacrifice at centre-stage, while assiduously obscuring all the historical context. Given how the Soviet Union treated Estonia in 1939-41, it is hardly surprising that those who fought the occupiers when they returned are regarded as heroes. But they were not Nazis, nor are those who admire them now.

A relevant statistic comparing the occupations, out of the Estonian Occupations' Research Commission's report is that of human losses directly attributable to the occupations. In 1940–1941, the Year of Red Plague, 43,900 such irrecoverable losses happened. The following three Years of Brown Plague — the Nazi occupation —, 1941–1944, inflicted only 32,740 such losses. Both numbers include conscripted soldiers that died in battles of the drafting sides, but it is rather interesting that the largest numbers of Estonians drafted into Red Army back then died not in battles but in Gulag's "work camps".

Then again, these are only facts. And when a propagandist lets a fact come in way of a good story, sacrificing the truthiness, he's being a bad propagandist.

Update: the text is also available at Edward Lucas' blog: eSStonia.

Your daily dose of Russian propaganda

Russian media has been smearing the Erna Raid pretty much daily now. The latest in the series is an article by Российская газета, prominently listing among speculative reasons for the 2007-08-13 train accident a "prank by participants of Erna".

Erna was participated by teams of highly trained professional soldiers, from a number of countries -- several of them NATO. It is utterly ridiculous to suggest that some of them might think that bombing a Russian train line constitutes a worthwile prank. Yet, RG finds it appropriate to print such suggestions.

I guess it indicates that the time has come to update that old line about USSR's enemies:

Russia has only five grave enemies: spring, summer, autumn, winter and aggression from Estonia.