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Various news updates and housekeeping issues

Dear friends, A boring but important post today about housekeeping issues along with a news update. First the housekeeping: 1) We are working on the new blog and we will display most of the logos/pictures you have sent me. These are the ones selected so far: Can I ask each one of you who sent me these pictures to please email my webmasters at saker-webmaster@yandex.com and say which picture you

Weird problems with Blogger

Today I posted two more items: a warning about a blogger disruption and a post about “Various news updates and housekeeping issues”.  Now I either see these two and miss the rest of the blog, or the rest, but without these two.  The weird thing is that the blogger disruption should be over by now.I will give blogger a few hours to get its act together and I will try

Transcarpathia, Transnistria and Gagauzia SitRep 27 Oct – 09 Nov

by “Y” Whilst the situations in Transcarpathia, Transnistria and Gagauzia remain essentially stable, the $5 billion bomb detonated at the Ukraine Maidan has set off shock waves that ripple and reflect off pre-existing dormant conflicts and tensions. These have expanded to Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, the Baltic States, Moldova and Romania in the immediate vicinity, let alone the major states at the heart of Europe. Given these effects, I hope the

Ukraine SITREP November 9th, 22:25 UTC/Zulu: A creeping conflict

There is an interesting word in Russian: вялотекущий.  It can be translated as “creeping” or “sluggish”.  It is composed of the word вяло which means “lethargically”, or “torpidly” or “apathetic” and текущий which means to flow, to progress.  This word comes to my mind when looking at the war in the Ukraine, it is progressing towards some kind of worsening, but it does so in a slouching, slowly creeping way.Novorussian

Saker Podcast #2 in preparations – please post your questions now!

Dear friends,In a week or so I plan to record my second podcast.  So now is the time for you to post your questions right here, in the comments section under this post.Please do not email or post these questions elsewhere, only here, okay?If you have emailed me before or if you have posted a question elsewhere, please do repost it again here.If it ain’t here by Friday 1800UTC I

Thanks

Thank you all who participated in providing logos and pictures for the new website! I have selected the best ones and put them here on display for every one to see. I also received this wonderful drawing which I gratefully used for the frontpage of my blog.     Also, thanks to Rift and Fedor for their superb videos! Animation video by “Rift” Video by Fedor

The European Central Bank – ECB – invented yet another tool to hold Europe hostage vis-à-vis Russia

by Peter Koenig The ECB has just launched – effective 4 November 2014 – a new watchdog to control and regulate the European banking system. It is called the Single Supervisory Mechanism – SSM. It is supposed to monitor and reign in European banks that do not ‘behave’ in terms of overstretching their investment and risk lending as compared to their capital base. In fact, the SSM is one pillar

Mini Post: use the Vineyardsaker IRC channel

Friends,I want to remind you that since 2008 I have opened my own Internet Relay Chat channel.  At the time I wrote: For those of you familiar with the concept here is the info: server: irc.maddshark.net channel: The_Vineyard full URL: irc://maddshark.net/The_Vineyard For those of you who are no familiar with IRC, this is a virtual place were people can chat (via keyboard) with each other very informally and, unlike a

One more thing (mini-post)

I have go to work for the rest of the afternoon, but I want to remind you all of the following: when the real Ukie offensive materializes (maybe later tonight, maybe not) the Novorussians will most definitely retreat along certain axes.  This does not mean that they will be “defeated”, only that they are retreating which is a defensive tactical maneuver.  So, please, let’s not have a repeat of the

Mini post about the rumors of a Ukie attack

I consider the blog of “Colonel Cassad” the best informed and most honest blog about the situation in the Ukraine, bar none.  Right now, he is reporting that while there is an increase in the combat operation, this is more a case of “combat reconnaissance” (opening fire to try to evaluate the enemy disposition) then of a real full-scale attack.That is the good news.The bad news is that a energetic

Discovering Iran: a travelogue

by Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich Marcel Proust once said: “The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” During the past two decades, I visited Iran on numerous occasions staying 10-14 days at a time. This time around, I stayed for 2 months and heeding Proust, I carried with me a fresh pair of eyes. I discarded both my Western lenses as well as my Iranian

Igor Strelkov : War Awaits Russia

Note:  Since the issue of Russian monarchy is, judging by the pre and post podcast questions and comments, clearly of interest to many of you I think that I need to explain something important here. The movie which Strelkov and host Krutov are mentioning at the beginning of the interview is about a very interesting Russian author named Ivan Solonevich and who was the chief ideologue of a movement originally

Speech of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Nov 4th, the 2014 Ashura’a commemoration

  I take refuge in Allah from the stoned devil. In the Name of Allah, The Compassionate, The Most Merciful. Peace be on the Seal of prophets, our Master and Prophet, Abi Al Qassem Mohammad and on his chaste and pure Household and on his chosen companions and on all messengers and prophets.  Peace be on you, my master and lord Abi Abdullah, and on all the souls gathering around

Soundcloud “Go Unlimited” plan purchased!!

Dear friends,I just wanted to let you know that a member of our community – palmtoptiger – sent me the full sum to pay for the Soundcloud “Go Unlimited” plan!  Before that, Larchmonter445 also made a donation towards the same goal.  So we got it!  Full Soundcloud for a year :-)Thanks a lot to both of you – this will certainly provide the best and most flexible option for the

The Saker Podcast No 1 – Q&A with readers

(You can download this file directly by following the links at this source.)   Transcript of podcast no. 1 Provided by the kind help of a wonderful lady “A”   Dear friends thank you so much for downloading this first podcast, this is the Saker speaking. Let me tell you immediately that this first podcast will be very much a trial and error thing, I’m trying out lots of things,

Bad times for Putin bashers

(co-posted on Russia Insider) I don’t know if you have noticed this, but the usual crowd of Putin bashers is being uncharacteristically quiet these days, especially the ones I call the “hurray patriots”.  Some of their blogs have simply been closed, others are apparently frozen, and those still minimally active are getting very few visitors (nope, I shall not name them here, both on principle and in order not to

Podcast options – the choice is yours

Dear friends,I wanted to give you a heads-up on my response to your numerous comments and give you a choice of where to go from here.First, thanks a lot for all your comments.  And, no, no, no, no, no – I do not sound like Bibi Netanyahu!  Or do I?  :-)Seriously, your comments were useful and I will follow your suggestions:Technical:1) I will increase the microphone gain2) I will decrease

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