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Major update in case against accused Russian spies

<p>Accused Russian spies Kira and Igor Korolev have had their assets seized by the AFP as the investigation into their espionage-related offences continues. </p> <p>Kira, an Australian Defence Force army private, and her husband became the first Australians to be charged with espionage since 2018 after allegedly working together to leak state secrets to Russia.</p> <p>The couple were <a href="https://oversixty.com.au/finance/legal/aussie-couple-arrested-and-charged-with-spying-for-russia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arrested</a> in July in their Brisbane home and were charged with one count each of preparing for an espionage offence, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years’ imprisonment.</p> <p>Now, as the investigation into their activities continue, the AFP have sought an order to confiscate the apartment, assets and financed.</p> <p>The AFP-led Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce (CACT) is seeking to confiscate the married couple’s apartment and financial savings under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Commonwealth).</p> <p>Last Friday, the Queensland Supreme Court made restraining orders over property owned by the couple, valued in excess of $550,000.</p> <p>The property subject to the restraining orders includes a Brisbane apartment owned by the couple, multiple bank accounts, and the superannuation funds acquired by Ms Korolev during her employment with the ADF.</p> <p>According to authorities, Kira, 40, undertook non-declared travel to Russia while on leave from the ADF and instructed her 62-year-old husband Igor, who remained in Australia, to log into her work account from their Brisbane home.</p> <p>The couple allegedly unlawfully accessed, copied and disseminated information from the Department of Defence computer systems that concerned the national security of Australia.</p> <p>The couple have not entered pleas to the charge against them and remain in custody on remand, and are next scheduled to appear in court in September. </p> <p><em>Image credits: Facebook</em></p>

Legal

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Russian guard sentenced after doodling eyes on exhibit painting

<p dir="ltr">A Russian security guard has been found guilty of vandalism after doodling eyes on an abstract painting by avant-garde artist Anna Leporskaya last December.</p> <p dir="ltr">According to the <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/08/29/russian-museum-guard-yeltsin-centre-doodles-sentenced">Art Newspaper</a>, he must serve 180 hours of “compulsory labour” and undergo “psychiatric evaluation”.</p> <p dir="ltr">The painting, titled <em>Three Figures</em> (1932–34), was on loan to the Yeltsin Centre from Moscow’s State Tretyakov Gallery and valued at 75 million rubles (US$1.2 million).</p> <p dir="ltr">News of the vandalism broke when visitors alerted gallery staff of two crude eyes drawn on the painting’s faceless figures in a ballpoint pen. </p> <p dir="ltr">A police investigation revealed the culprit was 64-year-old Aleksandr Vasiliev, a security guard employed by a private company who was on his first day on the job. </p> <p dir="ltr">After the damage was deemed “insignificant”, it was restored and has since been returned to the Tretyakov Gallery. </p> <p dir="ltr">Vasiliev’s lawyer, Aleskei Bushmakov, shared a letter on his Facebook page that he sent to Zelfira Tregulova, the general director of the Tretyakov Gallery.</p> <p dir="ltr">He wrote that “taking into account the circumstances of the criminal case, the damage inflicted to the painting <em>Three Figures</em>” and “the high level of public attention in connection with the incident,” the museum considered closing the case “via reconciliation” but ultimately decided that it “does not regard it as possible to take such an appeal to the magistrate.”</p> <p dir="ltr">In an interview with Russian news site E1, Vasiliev said he believed the 20th-century work by Leporskaya was a “children’s drawing” and claimed he was goaded by teenagers to deface it.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I’m a fool, what have I done,” he said.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: State Tretyakov Gallery / The Art Newspaper Russia</em></p>

Art

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"If we stop communicating, Putin wins. Propaganda wins": how a Norwegian organisation is supporting Russian protest art

<p>As an international student at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow in 2012, I remember studying <em>Rekviem</em> (requiem) by Russian poet <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/anna-akhmatova">Anna Ahkmatova</a>, an elegy she penned in secret as a tribute to the countless victims of Stalin’s murderous purges. </p> <p>Akhmatova’s writing revived the atrocities, delivering their darkness into the light.</p> <p>Her words spoke of constant fear permeating lives; of distrust, anxiety and betrayal; of the secret police arriving to drag you or your family away. </p> <p>To avoid detection and retribution, Ahkmatova whispered the poem to her friends who committed it to memory. She burned the incriminating scraps of paper.</p> <p>In the first four-and-a-half months following Putin’s attack against Ukraine, over 13,000 anti-war protesters <a href="https://ovdinfo.org/articles/2022/03/07/cracked-heads-and-tasers-results-march-6th-anti-war-protests">were detained</a> in Russia.</p> <p>Some estimates are that <a href="https://meduza.io/feature/2022/05/07/skolko-lyudey-uehalo-iz-rossii-iz-za-voyny-oni-uzhe-nikogda-ne-vernutsya-mozhno-li-eto-schitat-ocherednoy-volnoy-emigratsii">hundreds of thousands</a> fled Russia in early 2022, among them thousands of artists who no longer felt safe in the climate of increasing censorship.</p> <p>Some of these artists have found themselves in Kirkenes, a small Norwegian town 15 kilometres from the Russian border.</p> <h2>Russia’s protest art</h2> <p>Russian and Soviet artists have a long history of art as protest.</p> <p>The poem <em><a href="https://poets.org/poem/stalin-epigram">Stalin’s Epigram</a></em> (1933) authored by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/osip-mandelstam">Osip Mandelstam</a> depicted Stalin as a gleeful killer. Authorities imprisoned and tortured Mandelstam, then deported the poet to a remote village near the Ural Mountains. </p> <p>After returning from exile, he persisted writing about Stalin until he was sent to a labour camp in Siberia, where he died in 1938 at the age of 47. </p> <p>Under the comparatively liberal rule of Stalin’s successor <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/131346?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Nikita Khrushchev</a> from 1953, the Soviet Union began to enjoy previously unimagined freedoms.</p> <p>Protest art reflected these newfound liberties, becoming increasingly provocative and experimental. </p> <p>Many famous art movements surfaced during this period, including <a href="https://www.moscowart.net/art.html?id=SotsArt">Sots Art</a> — a fusion between Soviet and Pop Art — as Russian artists tested the boundaries, exposing the grim realities and unhappiness of life under Stalin’s regime. </p> <p>In 1962, the legendary composer Shostakovich set his <a href="https://theconversation.com/decoding-the-music-masterpieces-shostakovichs-babi-yar-82819">13th symphony</a> to a series of poems by his contemporary, Yevgeny Yevtushenko. One of these poems was Babi Yar, which criticised the Soviet government for concealing the <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/babi-yar-ukraine-massacre-holocaust-180979687/">massacre of 33,371 Jews</a> in a mass grave outside Kyiv.</p> <p>In contemporary Russia, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/10/world/europe/pussy-riot-russia-escape.html">Pussy Riot</a> came to the attention of the world in 2012 when members stepped behind the altar in Moscow’s golden-domed Christ the Saviour Cathedral wearing neon-coloured balaclavas to deliver a “punk rock prayer”. </p> <p>Their voices echoed off the cavernous, hand-painted ceilings, raging against Putin’s affiliation with the Orthodox church and the homophobic, anti-feminist policies that followed. </p> <p>They were sentenced to two years imprisonment.</p> <p>Today, <a href="https://artreview.com/amidst-a-crackdown-russia-anti-war-artists-and-activists-try-to-reclaim-the-streets/">pictures from Russia</a> reveal anonymous anti-war graffiti on the sides of buildings, “no war” chiselled into a frozen river, and yellow and blue chrysanthemums and tulips left at the feet of Soviet war memorials.</p> <h2>Cross-border collaborations</h2> <p><a href="https://www.pikene.no/">Pikene på Broen</a> (girls on the bridge) is an arts collective based in Kirkenes.</p> <p>They have spent the past 25 years curating art projects to promote cross-cultural collaboration and tackle political problems in the borderland region. </p> <p>Pikene på Broen is host to the the annual art festival <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barents_Sea">Barents</a> Spektakel (spectacle), an international artist residency including Russian, Norwegian and Finnish creatives, the gallery and project space Terminal B in Kirkenes town, and the debate series Transborder Café.</p> <p>The venue has become a hub for open discussions relating to current political and cultural issues, drawing contributions from artists, musicians, writers, politicians and researchers.</p> <p>Evgeny Goman, an independent theatre director from Murmansk, Russia – about 200 kilometres from Kirkenes – has been collaborating with Pikene på Broen for over 10 years.</p> <p>After moving to Norway in early 2022, Pikene på Broen worked with Goman to organise Kvartirnik (from the word kvartira, meaning apartment), an online talk group for Russian and Norwegian artists to exchange ideas. </p> <p>Following Putin’s attack on Ukraine, Kvartirnik shifted to an underground movement for dissident artists. Ironically, the name Kvartirnik derives from the clandestine concerts arranged <a href="https://www.ciee.org/go-abroad/college-study-abroad/blog/ciee-kvartirnik-understanding-through-music">in people’s apartments</a> during the Soviet Era when musicians were banned from performing in public.</p> <p><a href="http://deadrevolution.tilda.ws/?fbclid=IwAR2PcaqY7VdLtS1zYUu4JCbD6F36KZ8JKv_FEIYsNeSTE4aKokhV7YpITas">Party of the Dead</a> is one of several Russian protest art groups who participated in Kvartirnik. </p> <p>Pictures from the snow-decked Piskaryovskoye Cemetery in Saint Petersburg reveal members dressed as skeletons, holding placards reading: “are there not enough corpses?”.</p> <p>I spoke with Goman about the art coming out of Kvartirnik today.</p> <p>“In peaceful times, art is more about entertaining,” he says. </p> <p>"But in war and conflict, art is more important because it’s the language we use to express our pain. And through metaphors and symbolism, it allows us to speak about things that are censored."</p> <h2>Countering propaganda</h2> <p>Kvartirnik collaborators in Murmansk have also produced and distributed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat">Samizdat</a> (self-publishing), an anonymous newsletter containing art suppressed by the state. </p> <p>“We have to be really smart now about how we do things in Russia,” Goman says. “Subtle.”</p> <p>Goman is pessimistic about Russia’s future. But he believes the key to moving forward is keeping communication open. He tells me the West’s decision to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/right-way-cancel-russia/627115/">ban Russian culture</a> has backfired on their plan to pressure Putin into ending the war against Ukraine. </p> <p>Instead, he says, the divide is steadily increasing, leaving dissident artists isolated inside a country operating on fear and propaganda, furthering Putin’s agenda. </p> <p>“Putin wants us to not affect Russian minds. And that’s why we have to keep the dialogue going,” he says of the importance of cross-border collaborations like those he has undertaken in Kirkenes.</p> <p>"If we stop communicating, Putin wins. Propaganda wins."</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-we-stop-communicating-putin-wins-propaganda-wins-how-a-norwegian-organisation-is-supporting-russian-protest-art-186911" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

Art

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Ukrainian refugees living “better than they dreamed” on Scottish cruise ship

<p dir="ltr">More than 100 Ukrainian refugees arriving in Scotland are calling a cruise ship in Edinburgh their new home, with those aboard praising the extensive amenities and nods to their home country.</p> <p dir="ltr">Families began moving onto the MS Victoria at the end of July, which can host up to 1,700 people and includes restaurants, children’s play areas, shops, a laundry, support services and free Wi-Fi among its onboard amenities.</p> <p dir="ltr">Though that might be standard fare for cruise passengers, there have been some extra touches made to help those onboard feel more at home.</p> <p dir="ltr">Nikol Bilous told <em><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-62346573" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BBC Scotland</a></em> the ship came with access to Ukrainian TV channels, which came as a surprise since “you never find that when you go on holiday”.</p> <p dir="ltr">"All the signs are in Ukrainian on the ship and most of the staff are Ukrainian,” the 19-year-old said.</p> <p dir="ltr">"And last night we had Borscht beetroot soup, our national dish, we couldn't believe it.</p> <p dir="ltr">"The conditions on the ship are better than we could have dreamed of and we are very grateful to the Scottish people for this accommodation.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Bilous added that there were also cinemas and theatres on board, but there were issues with the lights which haven’t worked after the Covid lockdowns.</p> <p dir="ltr">“But we don't need entertainment and were very surprised they were trying to do all this for us," she said.</p> <p dir="ltr">"Edinburgh Council has been on board all the time answering any questions we have, so we have felt 100% supported.</p> <p dir="ltr">"The rooms are quite small but they are perfect and we are very happy and grateful."</p> <p dir="ltr">Since the <a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/news/news/russian-invasion-of-ukraine-imminent-what-you-need-to-know" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Russian invasion of Ukraine began</a> earlier this year, more than 10,500 people have travelled from Ukraine to Scotland.</p> <p dir="ltr">The Scottish government says that new arrivals are met with a network of “welcome hubs”, moving into temporary accommodation such as the MS Victoria or a hotel until alternative housing is arranged.</p> <p dir="ltr">The MS Victoria is docked at all times and guarded, with residents able to arrive and leave whenever they like.</p> <p dir="ltr">Other families, including Tanya Munawar, her husband Khashif, and their five-year-old daughter Marcia, told the <em>BBC </em>they were given “a very warm welcome” when they arrived in Scotland and hoped to settle in the local area.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I'm an immigration consultant and since we arrived here on 26 July I have been trying to find us accommodation to rent and a job,” Khashif said.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I've been applying to hotels to be a housekeeping supervisor. We plan to stay here and work. It really helps that we can speak English.</p> <p dir="ltr">"My daughter is small and is feeling good, as long as she is with her parents she won't be affected by this."</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-9e0c4e95-7fff-1195-3bd5-830a54906dd2"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Marko Stampehl (AS Tallink Group)</em></p>

Cruising

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US Olympic gold medallist jailed by Russian court

<p>US Olympic gold medallist Brittney Griner has been charged with drug possession and smuggling, and sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison. </p> <p>The 31-year-old basketball champion listened to the judge's verdict with a blank expression as an interpreter translated the ruling by Judge Anna Sotnikova, with her lawyers later saying she was "very upset." </p> <div class="block-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 16px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <p>Griner also was fined 1 million rubles, or approximately $23,110.</p> <p>Brittney pled guilty to the charges, but admitted she "had no intention of breaking Russian law", as she explained that she accidentally packed the cannabis vape canisters in haste before her flight. </p> <p>US President Joe Biden denounced Brittney's verdict and sentence as "unacceptable", which came amid soaring tensions between the US and Russia over the ongoing war in Ukraine.</p> <p>"I call on Russia to release her immediately so she can be with her wife, loved ones, friends, and teammates," Biden said, adding that he would continue to work to bring home Griner and Paul Whelan, an American imprisoned in Russia on an espionage conviction.</p> <p>Griner, who is recognised as one of the greatest players in WNBA history, has been detained in Russia since February 17 after police said they found vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage upon landing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport.</p> <p>She was returning to Russia, where she has competed since 2014.</p> <p>Defence attorney Maria Blagovolina told reporters later that Griner was "very upset, very stressed"</p> <p>"She can hardly talk. It's a difficult time for her," the lawyer said.</p> <p>Griner's agent Lindsay Kagawa Colas tweeted that the sentence "was severe by Russian legal standards and goes to prove what we have known all along, that Brittney is being used as a political pawn".</p> <p>She added that she supported Biden's efforts "to get a deal done" to get Brittney sent home to the US.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> </div>

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Nurse who lost both legs to Russian landmine gets married in hospital

<p>The first dance is a big moment for any bride and groom, but it was even more special for Oksana and Victor.</p> <p>Oksana lost both her legs on a Russian landmine in March, in their home town of Lysychansk, located in the Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine region of Luhansk.</p> <p>The explosion didn't injure Victor, although they were together at the time, but the bride lost both of her legs as well as four fingers on her left hand.</p> <p>Oksana underwent four surgeries and was later evacuated to Dnipro to recover and prepare for prosthetics, and eventually to Lviv, in the west near the Polish border.</p> <p>As she waited for the next part of the healing process, the couple, who have two children together, took the opportunity to wed in a Lviv hospital last week.</p> <p>“Life should not be postponed until later, decided Oksana and Victor, who in six years together never found time for marriage," Lviv Medical Association said, sharing video of the couple's special moment.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">❤️🇺🇦 Very special lovestory.<br />A nurse from Lysychansk, who has lost both legs on a russian mine, got married in Lviv. On March 27, Victor and Oksana were coming back home, when a russian mine exploded. The man was not injured, but Oksana's both legs were torn off by the explosion. <a href="https://t.co/X1AQNwKwyu">pic.twitter.com/X1AQNwKwyu</a></p> <p>— Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine - Ukrainian Parliament (@ua_parliament) <a href="https://twitter.com/ua_parliament/status/1521194382682202113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p>The footage was also shared by Ukraine's Parliament, which wished the couple well in their new life together. The sweet dance shows the groom carrying his new wife in his arms as she buries her head in her husband's neck.</p> <p>The couple are said to have wed at a local registry office before the hospital reception took place. Oksana is set to travel to Germany for further treatment.</p> <p><em>Image: Twitter </em></p>

Relationships

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Couple in strife for flinging dog poo at Russian neighbour

<p>A couple who allegedly threw dog poo at their Russian neighbour and threatened him are now facing ethnic discrimination charges.</p> <p>Over the past few weeks, Pittsburgh Bureau of Police has been investigating several incidents of harassment and intimidation directed at the Russian man.</p> <p>Police said yard signs were defaced with political and anti-national messages, a bag of rice with a similar message was thrown onto his property and he was subject to coarse language and threats.</p> <p>The messages condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin, and dog poo was left in the yard. According to police, an immediate neighbour and his family have reported being harassed almost everyday since Russia invaded Ukraine.</p> <p>One of the victims of this abuse was identified as Vasily Potanin, his father Vladimir Potanin is a multi-billionaire and used to be Russia's deputy prime minister.</p> <p>Mr Potanin says he does not support Russia's attack on Ukraine.</p> <p>“They assume that just because of my nationality, I must be profiting from that. I’m Putin’s spy. I work for him. All this nonsense,” he said.</p> <p>“Honestly I think for them, the best thing that can happen is they can have the consequences legally for their actions and they should face them.”</p> <p>Mr Potanin said he had received hateful messages in the mail, ordering him to leave the neighbourhood in which he has resided for four years.</p> <p><em>Image: Pittsburgh Police</em></p>

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Energy bills are spiking after the Russian invasion. We should have doubled-down on renewables years ago

<p>Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is happening half a planet away from Australia. </p> <p>But the ripple effects are plain to see at every petrol station and, potentially soon, your electricity bill. </p> <p>As a result of the invasion and Western sanctions on Russian exports, energy prices have skyrocketed. </p> <p>If that makes you think nations should have taken steps to secure alternatives to fossil fuels years ago, you’re not alone. As it is, the much higher energy prices are likely to accelerate the exit of coal – and gas – from our energy grids. </p> <p>This should be a wake-up call. It doesn’t matter that Australia is far from the battlefield. Everyone in the world will be affected in some way.</p> <h2>What’s the link between the invasion and Australian energy prices?</h2> <p>You might think Australia’s domestic supply of coal and gas means we’d be immune to price rises. Not so. </p> <p>Due to formal sanctions and informal shunning of Russian exports, oil, coal and gas are now extremely expensive on a global scale. Thermal coal prices have increased five-fold to an unprecedented ~$A500 per tonne. Oil is ~$140 a barrel and up 60% year on year. Natural gas in Europe is around 50% higher than last October, but since the invasion, prices have spiked as high as ~200% higher than 2021 levels. </p> <p>Coal buyers are locking in supply, concerned that Russian sanctions will continue. Russia is the <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/market-insights/latest-news/metals/030722-factbox-russian-metals-industrys-reliance-on-china-set-to-rise-as-sanctions-disrupt-supplies">third largest exporter of coal</a> and its existing customers are now under pressure to find alternative supplies. </p> <p>Russia’s aggression is not just resulting in a major humanitarian and political crisis. It is also causing pain at the bowser for Australian consumers due to the surge in oil pricing and may soon result in higher electricity bills. </p> <p>Australia’s east-coast electricity market is still heavily reliant upon coal. While many coal-fired power stations have existing supply contracts, the much higher global coal price may increase the cost of any extra coal purchases by existing power stations. </p> <p>Not only that, but our gas-fired power stations are facing potential increases in operating costs due to much higher global gas prices. </p> <p>Unfortunately, we may see the result in rising power bills. The price of future contracts for wholesale electricity next year in NSW are now twice what they were a year ago. Assuming this flows through to end-users, prices for residential customers could increase by as much as 10–15%. </p> <h2>So what should Australia do?</h2> <p>While it’s too late to dodge this bullet, we can prepare for future shocks by doubling down on firmed renewables. The faster we move, the less we’ll be hit by the price and reliability risks of coal. </p> <p>Already under pressure from cheaper renewable technologies, coal power station operators now find themselves potentially facing much higher costs in the short-term. There’s no relief for coal in the long term either, with the rapid rise of renewables and other zero-carbon technologies.</p> <p>Not only that, but most of our coal power stations are near the end of their lives, and industry doesn’t want to build new ones. That means coal will become more and more expensive, as the plants become <a href="https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/files/electricity/nem/planning_and_forecasting/inputs-assumptions-methodologies/2020/aep-elical-assessment-of-ageing-coal-fired-generation-reliability.pdf">increasingly unreliable</a>. </p> <p>Wind and solar technologies are now much cheaper per unit of energy generated and can be integrated with energy storage to provide dispatchable “firmed” energy. The faster we transition to renewables firmed by storage, the better.</p> <p>If we do this, our new grid will also be more reliable. Continuing to rely upon coal is like relying upon a 1970s car to travel from Sydney to Melbourne on the hottest day of the year. </p> <p>State governments around the nation are already embracing this approach, with the New South Wales government moving ahead with plans for 12 gigawatts (GW) of new renewables and storage and the Victorian government announcing plans for 9GW of offshore windfarms. </p> <p>Governments must carefully design policies to avoid guaranteeing profits for private sector players while socialising any losses across taxpayers and energy consumers. In NSW, <a href="https://econpapers.repec.org/article/blaajarec/v_3a66_3ay_3a2022_3ai_3a1_3ap_3a136-163.htm">alternatives</a> are being considered.</p> <p>As European and many other nations scramble to reduce their dependency on Russian coal, oil and gas, Australia now has a once in a generation opportunity to become a leading exporter of new clean energy. </p> <p>We have truly enormous clean energy resources in the form of free sunlight and wind. To export it, we can either run underseas cables to neighbouring countries, or convert cheap renewable power into <a href="https://theconversation.com/green-hydrogen-is-coming-and-these-australian-regions-are-well-placed-to-build-our-new-export-industry-174466">green hydrogen</a> and ship this to the world just as we currently do with LNG.</p> <h2>What else can we expect to see?</h2> <p>Surging fossil fuel prices has supercharged the existing disruption to an already rapidly changing domestic energy industry. In the past month, Origin announced it would abandon coal more rapidly, with the closure of its NSW coal-fired power station, Eraring, in 2025. </p> <p>Meanwhile, AGL has been pursuing a “demerger” with a view to splitting off its coal assets and pursuing new energy technologies. This comes as Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and Canadian asset fund Brookfield <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-06/brt-agl-brookfield-bid-rejected/100887042">offered to buy AGL</a> for $8.25 a share, though they were not successful. Their plan was to accelerate the closure of AGL’s coal assets, which would move AGL from the <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org.au/news/new-government-data-reveals-agl-as-australias-biggest-climate-polluter/">highest carbon emitter in Australia</a> to a clean energy company. The age of coal power is ending, and much faster than most of us realise.</p> <p>This crisis should spur us to build a future-proofed fleet of “firmed” and well-distributed renewables with a known cost structure. </p> <p>By doing this, we will protect ourselves from the pain of geopolitically driven fossil fuel prices. And we will have a platform ready if we want to provide clean energy to the world in the form of green hydrogen.</p> <p>We have had decades to make full use of our wealth of renewable energy resources. We haven’t embraced this as fully as we should have. </p> <p>It turns out localised clean energy production is not just necessary to tackle climate change. It will prove a vital resource as we navigate the highly turbulent decade we have found ourselves in.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images </em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/energy-bills-are-spiking-after-the-russian-invasion-we-should-have-doubled-down-on-renewables-years-ago-179336" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

Home Hints & Tips

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“We can’t leave”: Russians accused of holding hospital staff and patients “hostage”

<p dir="ltr">Officials of Ukraine’s besieged city Mariupol <a href="https://www.news.com.au/world/russia-ukraine-war-updates-mariupol-hospital-staff-patients-taken-hostage/news-story/290f75e5198aed84789d7d8d27c3bc67" target="_blank" rel="noopener">have claimed</a> that 400 hospital staff and patients have been taken as “hostages” by Russian forces.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We received information that the Russian army captured our biggest hospital,” Sergei Orlov, Mariupol’s deputy mayor, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60757133" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told the BBC</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">Pavlo Kirilenko, the head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, took to Facebook to share an account from a hospital employee who managed to communicate with authorities.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Russian occupiers in Mariupol took doctors and patients hostage,” Mr Kirilenko <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pavlokyrylenko.donoda/posts/506102444405648" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">“One of the hospital employees had time to pass this news.</p> <p dir="ltr">“‘It is impossible to get out of the hospital. There is heavy shooting, we sit in the basement. Vehicles have not been able to drive to the hospital for two days. </p> <p dir="ltr">“‘The Russians forced 400 people from neighbouring houses to come to our hospital. We can’t leave’.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Mr Kirilenko added that the hospital had been “practically destroyed” by the Russian forces, but that staff have continued to work and treat patients in the basement.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I appeal to international human rights organisations to respond to these vicious violations of the norms and customs of war, to these blatant crimes against humanity,” he said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Russia and every citizen involved in crimes in Ukraine must be punished!”</p> <p dir="ltr">Mr Kirilenko said the hospital holding the “hostages” was the same one that was damaged by a strike last week, as Mariupol continued to suffer constant shelling.</p> <p dir="ltr">Russian troops have surrounded the city for nearly two weeks, with gas, running water and electricity cut off to the estimated 350,000 residents trapped there.</p> <p dir="ltr">The local council said about 2,000 cars left the city on Tuesday, with 2,000 others waiting to leave.</p> <p dir="ltr">However, as food and medical supplies dwindle, no aid has been allowed in.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-fa019eb7-7fff-7fda-e018-45f8494a695a"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p>

Legal

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Ukraine museums scramble to save Russian art

<p dir="ltr">As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, museums and art galleries are taking extraordinary measures to secure valuable artworks. </p> <p dir="ltr">Staff at the main museum in Kharkiv have been racing to get priceless artworks to safety, many of them by Russian artists.</p> <p dir="ltr">The ornate building remains standing in Kharkiv, unlike many others that have fallen victim to Russian air strikes, although the windows have all been blown in with the surrounding streets being covered in debris. </p> <p dir="ltr">"There are over 25,000 items in our collection," said Maryna Filatova, head of the foreign art department at the Kharkiv Art Museum, adding that it was one of the biggest and most valuable in the country.</p> <p dir="ltr">"It is simply irony of fate that we should be saving Russian artists, paintings by Russian artists from their own nation. This is simply barbarism," she told Reuters last week.</p> <p dir="ltr">While many Ukrainians have fled their war-torn country, many have stayed to defend their home, which has included many of the irreplaceable culture hubs. </p> <p dir="ltr">In the town of Odessa on the southern coast, a monument to Duc de Richelieu, a governor of the city in the early 19th century, has been protected by sandbags piled around the plinth and statue up to its shoulders.</p> <p dir="ltr">One of the most prized works at the Kharkiv museum is a version of the imposing work by renowned Russian painter Ilya Repin called Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, which has been removed from the wall and safely stored away.</p> <p dir="ltr">"Basically, it should not be moved," said Filatova of the painting. "Any movement should be avoided. We treat it with great care."</p> <p dir="ltr">While the museum curators are working tirelessly to protect the historical works, they say the extent of the damage won’t be known for some time. </p> <p dir="ltr">"The real damage we will only be able to assess in peaceful times, when it is calm.</p> <p dir="ltr">"Workers, women that are still in town, we will work and do our best to save it all. We are taking the paintings down and will hide them," Filatova said, without specifying where. "We are doing our best to preserve them."</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

Art

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Why people are booking stays in Ukraine with NO plans to check in

<p dir="ltr">While the people of Ukraine are navigating air-raid sirens, fleeing their homes and frantically messaging family for updates, they are also being inundated with Airbnb booking requests. </p> <p dir="ltr">However, those people booking properties in Ukraine don’t wish to come for a holiday. </p> <p dir="ltr">Instead, these accommodation requests are part of a creative social media campaign to funnel money to besieged Ukrainians in need of financial support. </p> <p dir="ltr">Users have even requested to book a one-bedroom apartment in Ukraine’s capital that belongs to politician Volodymyr Bondarenko, to which he responds with heart-felt emojis to say thank you. </p> <p dir="ltr">The initiative began when Russian forces started to bomb Ukraine and cut off essential services, with people all around the world wanting to help. </p> <p dir="ltr">The idea has quickly gathered momentum, with international guests “booked” for more than 61,000 nights in Ukraine, according to an Airbnb spokesperson.</p> <p dir="ltr">More than half of those nights were booked by Americans, with people from Australia and the United Kingdom also contributing greatly. </p> <p dir="ltr">"More than 10 bookings came in today. This was surprising, it's very supportive at the moment," Mr Bondarenko, 36, told CNN early Friday.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I told many of my relatives and friends that I plan to use this money to help our people who need it at this time."</p> <p dir="ltr">As well as the payments for their homes, those making the bookings are also leaving messages of support for the residents of Ukraine. </p> <p dir="ltr">New York City resident Anne Margaret Daniel “booked” a stunning apartment in Kyiv, and left a message for the host saying, "I hope that you, and your lovely apartment, are safe and that this horrible war is over ... and Ukraine is safe."</p> <p dir="ltr">"I will come and see you one day, please count on it, and will stay with you when we visit. God bless you and God be with you, your city, your country."</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p> </p>

Travel Tips

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China doubles down on bizarre Russia conspiracy theory

<p>China has doubled down on a bizarre conspiracy that is believed to be part of an elaborate ploy to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine. </p> <p>Earlier this week, a senior Chinese official accused the United States of running a series of biolabs in Russia, claiming the situation was “dangerous” and that the “safety” of the alleged labs were at risk.</p> <p>“Under the current circumstances, for the sake of the health and safety of people in Ukraine, the surrounding region and the whole world, we call on all relevant parties to ensure the safety of these laboratories,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian during a recent press conference.</p> <p>“In particular, the US, as the party with the best knowledge of these laboratories, should release relevant details as soon as possible, including what viruses are stored and what research has been conducted."</p> <p>“What is the real intention of the US? What exactly did it do?”</p> <p>Mr Zhao went on to claim that America's biological military activities in Ukraine were just the "tip of the iceberg", following a series of Russian reports that claim over 30 biolabs were in operation in Ukraine at the request of a US government agency. </p> <p>However, the bizarre conspiracy theory seems to have originated from Russia back in April 2020.</p> <p>At the time, the US embassy in Ukraine was forced to denounce the wild rumours, slamming them as “Russian disinformation regarding the strong US-Ukrainian partnership to reduce biological threats”.</p> <p>“The US Department of Defence’s Biological Threat Reduction Program works with the Ukrainian government to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern in Ukrainian government facilities, while allowing for peaceful research and vaccine development,” the statement reads.</p> <p>“We also work with our Ukrainian partners to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats."</p> <p>“Our joint efforts help to ensure that dangerous pathogens do not fall into the wrong hands.”</p> <p>The misinformation about the alleged biolabs has become so widespread that Britain's Defence Ministry has also weighed in. </p> <p>“Since the end of February there has been a notable intensification of Russian accusations that Ukraine is developing nuclear or biological weapons,” the ministry said in a tweet yesterday.</p> <p>“These narratives are long standing but are currently likely being amplified as part of a retrospective justification for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”</p> <p>While the US confirmed it was working with Ukraine, they went on to say the were fearful of any biological research material getting into the wrong hands. </p> <p>“Ukraine has biological research facilities, which in fact we are now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of,” senior State Department official Victoria Nuland said during a recent hearing, according to AFP.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

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Meet the teen tracking Russian billionaires’ jets

<p dir="ltr">A 19-year-old who shot to fame for tracking billionaire Elon Musk’s private jet has taken on a <a href="https://happymag.tv/elon-musk-jet-tracker-russian-aircraft/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new target</a>: the aircrafts belonging to Russian billionaires.</p> <p dir="ltr">Jack Sweeney first garnered attention after creating a Twitter account that tracked and updated the world about the movement’s of Musk’s jet.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-d9c397e4-7fff-f046-554d-8756a6158040"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">Now, as Russian billionaires attempt to move their yachts and aircrafts out of Russia to prevent them from being confiscated thanks to widespread sanctions, Sweeney started a new account exposing their movements.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Roman Abramovich's Jet LX-RAY Landed in Ankara, Ankara Province, TR. Apx. flt. time 35 Mins. <a href="https://t.co/8mBVcRf47Q">pic.twitter.com/8mBVcRf47Q</a></p> <p>— Russian Oligarch Jets (@RUOligarchJets) <a href="https://twitter.com/RUOligarchJets/status/1498964543564922882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">A new Twitter account, called Russian Oligarch Jets, appeared on February 28 and began posting automatic updates about the take-offs and landings of various Russian jets.</p> <p dir="ltr">On March 3, the account shared a list of the oligarchs it is tracking and their planes.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-3fcdaba4-7fff-1865-e4aa-e8f9626c291b">The list includes several belonging to Roman Abrahamovich - a confidant of President Vladimir Putin - and Alisher Usmanov, who has been blacklisted and has his $800 million yacht <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/luxury/russian-oligarch-alisher-usmanov-yacht-seized-germany" target="_blank" rel="noopener">confiscated</a> by German authorities.</span></p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">The latest list is below. Trying to stay the most accurate, red removed green added. <a href="https://t.co/WjZV2J9Tib">pic.twitter.com/WjZV2J9Tib</a></p> <p>— Russian Oligarch Jets (@RUOligarchJets) <a href="https://twitter.com/RUOligarchJets/status/1499088188463202306?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">When he was still tracking Musk’s jet, Sweeney was offered $5,000 by the tech founder to stop.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-8269dd3d-7fff-40a1-30ec-7f4a0efbe011"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">However, Sweeney said the sum wouldn’t be enough to replace “the enjoyment factor” and instead asked for an internship.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">This account has every right to post jet whereabouts, ADS-B data is public, every aircraft in the world is required to have a transponder, Even AF1 (<a href="https://twitter.com/AirForceTrack?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AirForceTrack</a>) Twitter policy states data found on other sites is allowed to be shared here as well. <a href="https://t.co/Wol8O1DRiq">pic.twitter.com/Wol8O1DRiq</a></p> <p>— Elon Musk's Jet (@ElonJet) <a href="https://twitter.com/ElonJet/status/1483587836053909504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">With Musk seeming to disapprove of the counter-offer, Sweeney was soon offered a job with Stratos Jet Charters.</p> <p dir="ltr">Sweeney runs several other accounts that post automatic updates about various aircraft, including <a href="https://twitter.com/PutinJet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Russian VIP jets</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/weatherplanes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">weather planes</a>, and VIP jets belonging to the <a href="https://twitter.com/USAirForceVIP" target="_blank" rel="noopener">US Air Force</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/CelebJets" target="_blank" rel="noopener">celebrities</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c686f9c1-7fff-61aa-3e2f-ccf2c0792aeb"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: @jxck.sweeney (Instagram)</em></p>

Technology

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Meet the Aussie student who fled the Ukraine Russian invasion

<p>Conrad Siziba moved from Western Australia to Ukraine in September of 2019, where he was eager to begin his studies to pursue a career in medicine.</p> <p>The medical student never could have imagined he would survive the risks of Covid-19, only to be forced out of the country by the tragedy of war.</p> <p>Conrad was among the first arrivals into Perth on Thursday, when the long-awaited quarantine travel ban finally lifted, after the state’s hard border opened.</p> <p>The sweet embrace with his father Conrad Siziba Senior and mother Noma brought a close to a nail-biting journey home.</p> <p>His parents were all smiles as they welcomed their son back from Ukraine.</p> <p>The process home “wasn’t easy”, Mr Siziba said.</p> <p>“The last few days when he was just about to come out, it was challenging,” he said.</p> <p>“He was facing a huge threat,” Mrs Siziba said. “We’re excited he’s home.”</p> <p>The medical student dropped his studies to flee the university town Dnipro in Eastern Ukraine - a key region named as a target by Russia.</p> <p>The safety risk of the invasions meant he had to bypass Kyiv, instead making his way to Lviv.</p> <p>“He was meant to fly on Thursday but that’s when they closed the flights and then he couldn’t fly,” Mr Siziba said.</p> <p>Conrad joined the student exodus on packed trains through a rough Ukrainian winter. This journey of risk included a 30km walk on foot to Poland before he could make it back to home to Baldivis.</p> <p>His parents were on edge as they waited during the “challenging time”, Mr Siziba said.</p> <p>“Thank God for the foreign affairs department, they were really supportive,” he said.</p> <p>Conrad appeared unphased by his journey upon his arrival home, simply focusing on the fact that he was home safe.</p> <p>“We’re happy he’s home,” his father said, Mrs Siziba adding it’s “the best thing ever”.</p> <p><em>Image: 7News</em></p>

Travel Trouble

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Clive Palmer buys Adolf Hitler's Mercedes from Russian billionaire

<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-2f7b6c70-7fff-91bd-9762-c6ded9882390">Mining magnate Clive Palmer has made headlines for the second time in just a week, after two years of negotiations resulted in him <a href="https://www.perthnow.com.au/politics/clive-palmer/clive-palmer-purchases-adolf-hitlers-mercedes-benz-for-gold-coast-museum--c-5859570" target="_blank" rel="noopener">purchasing</a> Adolf Hitler’s bulletproof Mercedes Benz from an unnamed Russian billionaire.</span></p> <p><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/02/nazi-car1.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Clive Palmer has purchased a vehicle belonging to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Image: Getty Images</em></p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-5720dae1-7fff-c4cc-7852-341ea6432452"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">Palmer bought the Mercedes-Benz 770 Grosser Offener Tourenwagen - which features bulletproof glass and armoured panelling - for a museum of vintage cars he hopes to build in Queensland.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Clive Palmer is really that Texan billionaire from The Simpsons <a href="https://t.co/CrylLGLKZ6">https://t.co/CrylLGLKZ6</a> <a href="https://t.co/n8hnWtSrNy">pic.twitter.com/n8hnWtSrNy</a></p> <p>— Evan Smith (@evanishistory) <a href="https://twitter.com/evanishistory/status/1498145874030915586?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 28, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The car was seized by US forces in France at the end of WWII, and has had several owners before Palmer claimed ownership.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ebed1dd9-7fff-e0b6-b3ba-8b99e66536d3"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">It was previously listed for auction in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2018 and was <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/news/19072/hitlers-parade-car-bought-by-anonymous-buyer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> sold to an unknown buyer outside of the United States.</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/02/nazi-car2.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>The car was last sold in 2018 at an auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, to an unknown buyer. Image: Getty Images</em></p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-202c28ed-7fff-f4f2-b246-fcbf0796442e"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">He also purchased a 1929 Rolls-Royce owned by King Edward VIII which is also expected to end up in his car museum.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Australian oligarch buys dictator &amp; mass murderer's car from Russian oligarch amid worldwide sanctions against Russia- telling us exactly who he is &amp; what he really cares about. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/moralwasteland?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#moralwasteland</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/auspol?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#auspol</a> <a href="https://t.co/j13JSpiMpj">https://t.co/j13JSpiMpj</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/newscomauHQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@newscomauHQ</a></p> <p>— Diana (@ElephantFlowers) <a href="https://twitter.com/ElephantFlowers/status/1498082458969178112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 27, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The vehicle - which many online have dubbed “Nazi memorabilia” - was secretly shipped from London to Queensland and is now being kept at a high-security location.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-9e4fe9e0-7fff-0ee4-5f60-92c5b73c89c8"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">Though the final purchase price hasn’t been confirmed, it is believed to have cost Mr Palmer more than $200,000.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">I cannot believe I have posted twice in one day about my 2022 bingo card but here we are. Clive Palmer buying Adolf Hitlers mercedes from a Russian billionaire was *definitely* not on my bingo card and I feel that whoever is writing this season of our lives has jumped the shark.</p> <p>— Dr Kate Miller (@DrKate_Miller) <a href="https://twitter.com/DrKate_Miller/status/1498098388919013377?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 28, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The purchase comes after the unvaccinated United Australia Party member <a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/news/news/clive-palmer-rushed-to-hospital" target="_blank" rel="noopener">made headlines</a> last week when he and his wife were rushed to hospital with Covid-like symptoms.</p> <p dir="ltr">Three ambulances reportedly arrived at their Paradise Point home in Queensland on Thursday morning, taking the 67-year-old and his wife Annastacia to Pindara Private Hospital.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-3714a73a-7fff-229a-9243-bb285ca64bc7"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p>

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West responds to Putin placing nuclear arsenal on high alert

<p>As tensions and fighting continue to escalate between Russia and Ukraine, the US and NATO have slammed Putin's decision to put Russia's nuclear forces on high alert.</p> <p>Speaking at a meeting with his top officials, Putin directed the Russian defence minister and the chief of the military's General Staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a "special regime of combat duty."</p> <p>The Russian president also discussed the hard-hitting sanctions that have been placed on Russia, and Putin himself.</p> <p>"Western countries aren't only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading NATO members made aggressive statements regarding our country," Putin said in televised comment.</p> <p>White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the dangerous move was part of a wider pattern of unprovoked escalation and "manufactured threats" from the Kremlin.</p> <p>"This is really a pattern that we've seen from President Putin through the course of this conflict, which is manufacturing threats that don't exist in order to justify further aggression — and the global community and the American people should look at it through that prism," Psaki told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on '<em>This Week</em>'.</p> <p>She added, "This is all a pattern from President Putin and we're going to stand up for it, we have the ability to defend ourselves, but we also need to call out what we're seeing here from President Putin."</p> <p>In reaction to the nuclear alert, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told CNN, "This is dangerous rhetoric. This is a behaviour which is irresponsible."</p> <p>Given that Russia, as well as the US, typically have both land and submarine-based nuclear forces on alert for combat at all times, the practicality of Putin's order is not yet clear. </p> <p>As the conflict only continues to grow with Moscow troops drawing closer to Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that a delegation would meet in an undisclosed location on the Belarusian border to discuss peace talks. </p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

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Russian invasion of Ukraine "imminent": What you need to know

<p dir="ltr">The threat of Russia invading Ukraine grows as diplomatic relations between Moscow and the US feel the pressure, with Russia expelling the US’s second most senior diplomat in what the US State Department has described as “an escalatory step”.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We can confirm that Russia expelled US Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) to Russia, Bart Gorman,” a State Department spokesperson said.</p> <p dir="ltr">President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/russia-accused-of-launching-mortars-in-eastern-ukraine/news-story/80cfce6535f96fd5f1a5e45cd01565c1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> reporters the threat of Russia invading Ukraine is “very high” and that he believes it could occur in the next “several days”.</p> <p dir="ltr">Meanwhile, Western leaders have accused Russia of attempting a false-flag operation to discredit the Ukraine government, after it was reported that a kindergarten was shelled in a spate of shelling incidents in Donbas, in eastern Ukraine.</p> <p dir="ltr">The Kremlin accused Ukraine of firing first, while Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, described the shelling of the kindergarten as “a big provocation”.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Tensions between Russia and Ukraine explained</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Ukraine has been in conflict with pro-Moscow rebels in the country’s east since 2014, after the then-Ukraine leader decided not to join the European Union.</p> <p dir="ltr">Russia has been accused of supplying the rebels with funds, weapons and even troops, but has denied this and said any soldiers who joined the movement did so voluntarily.</p> <p dir="ltr">The rebel movement eventually grew so much that Russia was able to annex the peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine and take control of it, prompting the US and other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies to send weapons to Ukraine.</p> <p dir="ltr">Relations between the two nations have worsened since.</p> <p dir="ltr">The most recent tensions <a href="https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/russia-ukraine-explained/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">have come</a> after Ukraine said it wanted to join NATO to access more protection in the form of military force.</p> <p dir="ltr"><strong>Why are the US and other Western countries involved?</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Russia has demanded the West refuse Ukraine’s request - and prevent other former Soviet states from joining - believing its neighbour will try to regain control of Crimea among other concerns.</p> <p dir="ltr">The US and NATO responded separately to Russia’s demands at the end of January, with <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/26/us-nato-deliver-responses-to-russian-demands-over-ukraine" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>Al Jazeera</em></a><em> </em>reporting that the US ruled out agreeing to exclude Ukraine and other eastern states from NATO.</p> <p dir="ltr">However, Russia has replied to the US and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/feb/17/russia-ukraine-news-troops-border-latest-live-putin-biden-kyiv-russian-invasion-threat?filterKeyEvents=false&amp;page=with:block-620e55758f08fc958652839e#block-620e55758f08fc958652839e" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused</a> the Western nation of ignoring its core demands and threatened to take “a military-technical response”.</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">"The American side has not given a constructive response to the basic elements of Russia's draft agreement," the letter says. If that continues, "Russia will be forced to respond, including through measures of a military-technical nature."</p> <p>— max seddon (@maxseddon) <a href="https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1494320352394051590?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr"><strong>What’s happening now?</strong></p> <p dir="ltr">Since January, as many as 130,000 Russian troops have been stationed along parts of the Ukrainian border, despite Russia repeatedly denying it is planning an invasion.</p> <p dir="ltr">On February 12, the US warned “we are in the window where an invasion could begin at any time”.</p> <p dir="ltr">Three days later, Russian president Vladimir Putin confirmed the troops would be pulled back from the border, despite Western intelligence reporting that its forces are continuing to build up.</p> <p dir="ltr">Meanwhile, on February 16 a German convoy reached Lithuania as part of planned reinforcements for the country’s Germany-led NATO battlegroup, which has been authorised to defend Lithuania if a threat emerges.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p>

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Mammoth task: the Russian family on a resurrection quest to tackle the climate crisis

<p>On the banks of the River Kolyma, deep into the Arctic circle in north-east Siberia, lies a gently rusting Soviet-era tank. It doesn’t look out of place here. After all, just down the river is the hull of a half-sunken ship and the remains of an Aeroflot aeroplane fuselage that met an unfortunate end.</p> <p>The tank isn’t working at the moment – it’s hard to find parts – but until recently, it was driven by a bearded Russian wearing a beret, a cigarette clamped permanently between his jaws, taking a sort of macabre delight in destroying trees and churning up soil.</p> <p>This is Sergey Zimov who, together with his son Nikita, is carrying out an experiment on this scrubby patch of Arctic tundra: they want to restore the prehistoric “mammoth steppe” ecosystem and see if it proves their hypothesis that a grassland grazed by large herbivores has an effect on slowing down – or even reversing – the thawing permafrost.</p> <p>Currently the landscape is mostly larch forest with very low biodiversity. There are no animals, save for the odd moose and millions of mosquitoes. Meanwhile, Arctic temperatures are increasing <a href="https://www.npr.org/2014/12/18/371438087/arctic-is-warming-twice-as-fast-as-world-average">twice as quickly</a> as those in the rest of the planet, and the permafrost that covers 65% of Russia <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0592-8?fbclid=IwAR1GLrQiGpH_25nIjqH_ih4zp24YpbtvhF2nec3bUK8e9Hi8zYaD151Irws">is thawing</a>. Fast. Many of the buildings in the town of Chersky – where the Zimov experiment is based – sport deep cracks (some have collapsed altogether), roads are buckled and the ground is humped and hollowed.</p> <p>The clue to what counts as permafrost is in the name – permanently frozen ground. As with anything frozen, it is liable to thaw if temperatures get too hot. That is precisely what is happening all across the Arctic.</p> <p>Permafrost is difficult to define. It covers almost a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere and sequesters <a href="https://arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2019/ArtMID/7916/ArticleID/844/Permafrost-and-the-Global-Carbon-Cycle">double</a> the carbon found in the atmosphere today. When frozen, the microbes that feed on the organic material found in permafrost are “asleep”. When it thaws, they wake up and the anaerobic respiration produced releases greenhouse gases.</p> <p>Officially, it’s soil that has been frozen for two years or more, with an “active layer” that thaws seasonally. But thanks to global warming, permafrost has been thawing with increasing magnitude, with all sorts of disruptive effects. A process called a “<a href="https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/31461/">thermokarst megaslump</a>” has opened up huge holes across the tundra and the bodies of mammoths are being found with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/world/europe/russia-siberia-yakutia-permafrost-global-warming.html">greater frequency</a>, their flesh decomposing in the Arctic sun. Strange things are awakening. A couple of years ago, a team of Russian scientists reportedly found <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-roundworms-allegedly-resurrected-russian-permafrost-180969782/">30,000-year-old worms</a> in the permafrost which, upon being warmed up gently in a Moscow laboratory, began to wriggle around.</p> <p>Almost ironically, the mammoths exposed by the thawing of permafrost are what sparked Sergey Zimov’s hypothesis: that large herbivores are necessary to maintain the integrity of permafrost. The Zimovs use their tank to mimic the tread and destructiveness of the woolly mammoth in a 144km² fenced off area they call “<a href="https://pleistocenepark.ru/">Pleistocene Park</a>”.</p> <p>Recreating the mammoth’s former ecosystem might seem like an impossible task given the creature has been extinct for 4,000 years, but for the Zimovs this is a minor detail. They are concerned with ecological processes – the web of connection that produces a functioning ecosystem. The tank will do just fine as a mammoth-stand in, destroying trees and stimulating grass growth in its wake.</p> <p>There are animals in the park that play a similar role. Yakutian horses and reindeer have been purchased from local indigenous herders, and other creatures that haven’t lived in the region for a long time (yak, sheep, Kalmykian cow, musk ox, bison) have come from much further afield. There are around 120 animals in total, although deaths and births happen with regularity. Last summer, Nikita Zimov undertook a perilous journey by truck to transport 12 baby bison all the way from Denmark. The roads are dreadful for most of Northern Siberia, and then they disappear completely. Travelling by barge along the Kolyma is the only way in.</p> <p>A few seasons before that, an expedition to Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean to find musk oxen almost ended in disaster after their boat hit a storm. The discovery on return that all the oxen were males was a particularly frustrating one. The animals in the park roam where they please, encouraged to breed and forage so their behaviours <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/285824">have an effect</a> on the permafrost: trampling compacts ground and keeps it frozen, while grassland reflects solar radiation.</p> <p>Even though the tank remains out of commission, the Zimovs are hoping that soon they won’t need it at all. They’re hoping that one day a mammoth will return to the Arctic.</p> <p><strong>Resurrecting the dead</strong></p> <p>Sometime in the early 2000s, rumblings began in the scientific community of a new form of conservation that would potentially fix a growing problem. What if, instead of fighting what seemed to be an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/10/earths-sixth-mass-extinction-event-already-underway-scientists-warn">increasingly losing battle</a> against extinction, you could potentially resurrect an extinct creature through cloning methods?</p> <p>Still reeling from the implications of Dolly the sheep in 1997, in 2003 a team of scientists in Zaragoza, Spain, managed to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/the-10-minutes-when-scientists-brought-a-species-back-from-extinction/274118/">successfully produce</a> a clone of the extinct Pyrenean ibex, having previously collected genetic material from the last remaining individual of the species. Although the cloned calf only lived for ten minutes, the genie was out of the bottle: extinction didn’t have to be forever.</p> <p>Advances in genetic technology saw the arrival of CRISPR, a type of gene editing software that allowed for swift and cheap splicing of genomes. Now it didn’t matter if you didn’t have a viable cell for cloning – you could simply create a complete genome in a laboratory. This is what happened with <a href="https://reviverestore.org/projects/woolly-mammoth/progress/">the mammoth</a>, whose genome was sequenced in 2015, becoming the first extinct creature to be catalogued.</p> <p>While preserved mammoth bodies are common finds in Siberia, their flesh prevented from decomposition by permafrost, living cells begin to degrade at the point of death so a certain amount of cell degradation is inevitable. But by using CRISPR, a scientist is able to plug, say, the genome of an Asian elephant with the genes that make the physical traits of a mammoth (cold adapted blood, thick hair, small ears). Theoretically, if that genome was implanted into an egg and then fertilised, the Asian elephant in question would give birth to a mammoth, albeit one that is genetically a hybrid.</p> <p>De-extincting the mammoth in the future is a possibility, but the follow up question must surely be: what does one do with such a creature? Enter the Pleistocene Park. The vast expanse of tundra and cold temperatures, not to mention the ready-made connotations with a similar de-extinction “project”, Jurassic Park, mean it is the obvious place for any newly “resurrected” (hybridised, to be exact) mammoth to go.</p> <p>All this talk of restoration, rebirth and resurrection raises further questions: one of them being the ethical implications of “playing God”. But the other, larger question regards the role of humanity on the planet. We are now <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01641-5">unofficially</a> living in the Anthropocene – a new epoch that designates humans as top geological agents, leaving our mark in the rock and influencing just about every planetary process. Most of our actions are not positive ones, evidenced by the tide of environmental destruction, global warming and explosive levels of extinction left in our wake.</p> <p>Would resurrecting the mammoth be a way for humans to right past wrongs, or would it be an extension of the power and control we wield over a ravaged planet?</p> <p><strong>‘We are as gods’</strong></p> <p>I visited the Pleistocene Park in the summer of 2018 to attempt to answer this question. The mammoth is a bit of a thorny conversation topic to the Zimovs. Yes, Sergey Zimov strides around the tundra wearing a t-shirt sporting a stylised cartoon of the massive hairy elephant, but his son is quick to shoot me down when I ask about their level of involvement in de-extinction.</p> <p>“You have a lot of people believing in God,” he says. “And they don’t like this mammoth return. So I try and use it to bring attention to the park, but I don’t want any of the criticism!” But the relationship between de-extinction scientists and the park is difficult to ignore. A few weeks after I leave the park, the Zimovs are visited by the geneticist <a href="https://wyss.harvard.edu/team/core-faculty/george-church/">George Church</a>, probably the biggest proponent of mammoth de-extinction, and <a href="http://sb.longnow.org/SB_homepage/Home.html">Stewart Brand</a>, lifelong environmentalist and now supporter of what is termed a “good Anthropocene” (the idea that humans should use their power to benevolently steward the planet). “We are as gods,” Brand <a href="https://www.edge.org/conversation/stewart_brand-we-are-as-gods-and-have-to-get-good-at-it#:%7E:text=Stewart%20Brand%20Talks%20About%20His%20Ecopragmatist%20Manifesto&amp;text=Forty%20years%20ago%2C%20I%20could,to%20get%20good%20at%20it">famously quipped</a>: “And we have to get good at it.”</p> <p>I’m sceptical of this viewpoint. The Anthropocene concept is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthropocene-doesnt-exist-and-species-of-the-future-will-not-recognise-it-111762">flattening one</a>: it categorises all humans as the same, separated from nature, wreaking havoc on a lifeless Earth. It distributes blame equally, rather than directed towards the worst polluters. It ignores the uneven and ongoing effects of climate change on different parts of the globe. Planetary stewardship – no matter how benevolent – reinforces this idea. It suggests things can, and should, be controlled.</p> <p>But I don’t see much evidence of this control during my time at the park. The first day I’m taken there (it’s a 30 minute boat ride away from the science station that houses visitors) Nikita Zimov is informed by his rangers that the herd of musk oxen hasn’t been seen for days so he heads into the undergrowth to find the animals. I’m left alone, surrounded by flooded plains, no animals to be seen save for a blind yak.</p> <p>A few days later, the permafrost tunnel floods. A sort of underground laboratory dug to house permafrost cores, scientific equipment and frozen fish, it was supposedly placed at a high enough level that the annual floodwaters of the Kolyma would never reach the entrance - until they did. We spend a day pumping the water out and dislodging the items that had stuck fast to the frozen ceiling. A little way down the river, the expensive scientific equipment owned by a well-funded contingent of German permafrost scientists is submerged under water.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the Zimovs are furious about the 12 baby bison they have purchased from an Alaskan herder, still stuck in their pen. They’re unable to find a pilot willing to fly them over in the creaky, old DC-4 plane they have found. Everything that seemingly can go wrong, does go wrong. The Pleistocene Park is showing encouraging signs of becoming a grassland ecosystem, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-60938-y?sf232308455=1">initial tests</a> show the permafrost is thawing less within the park’s boundaries.</p> <p>But on the summer solstice (a swelteringly hot June day in the Arctic) we take a drill and some thaw depth probes to do some readings outside of the park, and the prognosis for the permafrost is not good. “We are fighting global warming,” Nikita Zimov says. “But global warming is fighting back.”</p> <p><strong>Tusk hunts</strong></p> <p>When permafrost makes the news, it’s never good. In early June, a fuel tank at the Norilsk power plant in Siberia <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52977740">collapsed</a> because of thawing permafrost and 17,500 tonnes of diesel spilled into the river. A lot of people live and work on top of permafrost in Russia, and at the time of the Soviet Union, thousands of people were lured to the Arctic on the promise of highly paid jobs and cheap houses as part of a plan to “master the North”. Now the Soviet Union is long gone, along with all the perks, and thawing permafrost is making Arctic life very difficult.</p> <p>A sort of black-market industry has emerged, with groups of men heading out onto the tundra for months at a time to look for mammoth bodies that thawing permafrost has exposed. <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/04/tracking-mammoths1/">They’re after the tusks</a> that can be sold for a hefty profit to China, by far the world’s top market for ivory goods. These tusk hunts are often dangerous, with the men using illegal high-powered water cannons to blast holes and tunnels in permafrost, hundreds of miles away from towns or hospitals. Those who find a tusk have struck white gold, but those that don’t (most of them) will lose money.</p> <p>There’s another tension too. To many Siberian indigenous groups, the mammoth is a sacred beast and mustn’t be disturbed – to do so could mean death. Tusk hunters face an often-agonising decision: to betray their belief system or to feed their family.</p> <p>I became aware of an uneasy relationship between tusk hunters and scientists when I visited the Mammoth Museum in Yakutsk, where I spent the winter in 2018. Yakutsk is the world’s coldest and largest city built on permafrost, and it has no roads in or out – in the summer you take the plane, in the winter the frozen rivers become ice roads and a thriving trucking network ferries supplies to and from the Arctic towns.</p> <p>The Mammoth Museum and the Melnikov Permafrost Institute are institutions dedicated to understanding permafrost and tundra flora and fauna. This includes the mammoth. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the funding for these institutions has dried up. The scientists at the permafrost institute can only wait for international researchers with big grants to show up.</p> <p>The museum has struck up an awkward partnership with a biotechnology company in Seoul, South Korea. Sooam Biotech is known for <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/08/dog-cloning-animal-sooam-hwang">cloning pets</a> (most famously, Barbara Streisand’s dog) and has made no secret of its desire to clone a mammoth. The Mammoth Museum is informed of any mammoth finds by tusk hunters and Sooam Biotech is offered first dibs on collecting genetic material from the body. In exchange, Sooam Biotech has financed a state-of-the-art laboratory and equipment for the museum.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the Yakutian government has recently passed <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-12-siberian-region-permafrost-planet.html">a law that protects permafrost</a>, enshrining the rights of Yakuts to live on top of solid ground. This law is mostly symbolic. Permafrost thaw is a result of global warming, yet it is Arctic Siberia that bears the brunt.</p> <p>These smaller, messier permafrost interactions say something important. The Pleistocene Park and the designs of scientists wanting to resurrect the mammoth work very much within a global narrative. The <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/907484977/pleistocene-park-an-ice-age-ecosystem-to-save-the">promotional material</a> for the park involve references to “the world’s best plan” and “saving the world”. Similarly to the way the Anthropocene concept flattens humanity, constructing the Earth on a purely global scale produces a potential future catastrophe that hasn’t happened yet. Think about any Hollywood disaster movie – we must do something to prevent it.</p> <p>Curating apocalypse in this way means the more local catastrophic events become seen as harbingers of a threat to come, rather than catastrophes in their own right. Permafrost makes the news as a “<a href="https://eos.org/articles/the-ticking-time-bomb-of-arctic-permafrost#:%7E:text=An%20Arctic%20ecosystem%20is%20in,than%20a%20decade%20to%20recover.">ticking time bomb</a>”, something that will blow up unless we do something about it. Yet the people who live in the Arctic, particularly indigenous groups and fragile communities like Chersky, are already dealing with an apocalypse and have been for some time.</p> <p>The unpredictability of permafrost – now very much impermanent – challenges those proponents of a good Anthropocene who believe we can control the planet.</p> <p><strong>Putting life on ice</strong></p> <p>Freezing, being frozen, staying frozen – they all suggest a period of stasis, of suspension. Permafrost itself indicates permanence, but that can no longer be said to be true. What to do, when the planet is warming and the Arctic is warming even faster? Build freezers, that’s what.</p> <p>Cryobanks have emerged in the past decade, often attached to museums, as a response to the rapid rise in species extinction. They offer a way to put “life on ice”, stored safely away until something can be done, be that captive breeding or de-extinction. Many of these projects have eschatological overtones – the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/technology/the-lazarus-project-scientists-quest-for-deextinction-20150417-1mng6g.html">Lazarus Project</a>, <a href="https://www.frozenark.org/">The Frozen Ark</a> – and suggest that control can somehow be regained by turning the temperature down.</p> <p>The 42,000-year-old horse lying in Yakutsk’s Mammoth Museum is dead. I can smell it. Its body had been found a few months earlier in a permafrost bank, and had been frozen in the museum’s freezer ever since. The horse has been so well preserved, it looks like it’s merely sleeping. A delegation from the pet cloning company Sooam Biotech is visiting Yakutsk to take samples, and I’ve been invited along to view the autopsy.</p> <p>The head of the delegation, and CEO of the company, is Hwang Woo-Suk – a once disgraced South Korean veterinary scientist who made <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892198/">headlines in 2005</a> when he claimed he had cloned human cells. He hadn’t, and went from the pride of South Korea to a laughing stock overnight while claiming he had been deceived by a former colleague in the process. A few years later he began showing up in Yakutsk looking for mammoths and other prehistoric creatures. His pet cloning company makes him rich, but cloning a mammoth would bring global fame again.</p> <p>The Anthropocene may be the time of the human, but really it is the time of certain humans, or certain actions. Actions have consequences. The warming of the Arctic and the thawing of permafrost is but one of these consequences. The reaction to this, to attempt to regain control of planetary processes, whether this be through resurrecting the mammoth or restoring its habitat, is indicative of a commitment to a good Anthropocene that aims to continue human dominance on the Earth.</p> <p>Having lived on top of permafrost, felt my feet sink into the mushy ground and rolled a ball of it between my fingers like putty, I remain doubtful any of this will work. What impact the Pleistocene Park may have on the permafrost around it is negated thousands of miles away by yet another thermokarst megaslump or another Arctic wildfire. While Nikita Zimov is philosophical about this, saying “it’s better to walk rather than to sit and wait for death”, it’s difficult to imagine the park ever reaching a point where it can mitigate permafrost thaw across the world. The mammoth, should it ever be resurrected, would surely exist as a curio rather than a thriving species, a monument to the hubris of playing God.</p> <p>Those advocating a good Anthropocene mean well, but a much deeper state change is needed. The continuous layer of permafrost in Arctic Siberia is showing signs of <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment/2018/08/exclusive-some-arctic-ground-no-longer-freezing-even-winter">becoming discontinuous</a> through thaw. Discontinuity, I think, must also be our path. We need to halt and refuse the destructive practices that have underpinned the last century and beyond if there’s to be any hope of doing better in the future.</p> <p>Discontinuity isn’t just a state of being, it is also a state of mind. The warming of the Arctic and the thawing of permafrost are huge concerns, yes, but attempts to force control of an increasingly out of control situation might well produce terrible gods rather than benevolent ones. Resurrecting mammoths – playing god – speaks to a doubling down of the mastery implied by the Anthropocene moniker.</p> <p>Discontinuity, conversely, allows for the creativity in thinking of futures that relinquish destructive human dominance. The Pleistocene Park may be one of these futures, or it may not be. The point is, by becoming discontinuous, we become attuned to a radical openness that allows for thinking differently – ethically, collectively, progressively – about our role as humans on a discontinuous Earth.</p> <p><em>Written by Charlotte Wrigley. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/mammoth-task-the-russian-family-on-a-resurrection-quest-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis-138142">The Conversation.</a> </em></p> <p><em> </em></p>

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Russian man sues Apple for “turning him gay”

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A Russian man has filed a lawsuit against tech giant Apple for moral harm claiming that an iPhone app has made him gay, according to a copy of the complaint seen by </span><a href="https://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/mobile-phones/russian-man-sues-apple-for-turning-him-gay/news-story/4761700ec65dde1f603acdb8781c2cda"><span style="font-weight: 400;">AFP</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The man has filed a suit in a Moscow court, asking for one million rubles (AUD$ 22,800) after an incident this summer delivered him a cryptocurrency called “GayCoin” instead of the Bitcoin he had ordered.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">His lawyer Sapizhat Gusnieva insisted the case was “serious,” telling AFP that her client was “scared, he suffered”.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The GayCoin cryptocurrency arrived with a note saying, “Don’t judge until you try,” according to the complaint.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I thought, in truth, how can I judge something without trying? I decided to try same-sex relationships,” the complainant wrote.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Now I have a boyfriend and I do not know how to explain this to my parents … my life has been changed for the worse and will never become normal again,” he added.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Apple pushed me towards homosexuality through manipulation. The changes have caused me moral and mental harm.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">His lawyer says that Apple “has a responsibility for their programs”, despite the exchange taking place on a third-party app.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Homophobia is rampant in Russia, where reports of rights violations and attacks on LGBT people are common.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Moscow has also introduced a law in 2013 against “gay propaganda”, which bans the “promotions of non-traditional lifestyles to minors”, but effectively outlaws LGBT activism.</span></p>

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