This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com · Russia resurrects May Day parade to celebrate Ukraine annexation
· Russia prepares for sanctions while ridiculing Obama
· New car bombing in Nigeria, while 200 kidnapped girls are still missing
**Russia resurrects May Day parade to celebrate Ukraine annexation**At May Day rally, banners include the flag of the self-declared 'People's Republic of Donetsk [Ukraine]' (Reuters)
With the annexation of Ukraine's territory pushing the poll ratings of Russia's President Vladimir Putin astronomically high into the 80s, on Thursday, Moscow staged the first May Day parade in decades. According to Moscow's mayor, more than 100,000 people marched in the parade. "This is not by chance, because there is a patriotic uplift and a good mood in the country," he said. There were also large pro-Putin May Day parades in other Russian cities, as in Simferopol, the capital of the annexed Crimea region. The holiday will continue all weekend.
In the two weeks since an agreement on Ukraine was reached in Geneva on April 17 by Russia, Ukraine, and the west, it's become pretty clear that the Russians never had any intention of abiding by their own agreement, and that Putin and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were simply lying. The Russians are using dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Russian special forces for training and other support of anti-Ukrainian activists, as well as military threats, with the purpose of destabilizing Ukraine as much as possible. The endgame is presumably to create enough instability to give Russia an excuse for a military invasion. It's possible that events are spiraling out of control even for Putin because of the highly nationalistic and enthusiastic response of the Russian people and the pro-Russian activists in Ukraine, following the annexation of Crimea.
Reuters and Jamestown
**Russia prepares for sanctions while ridiculing Obama**
A lengthy analysis in Kommersant says that Russian officials are very concerned about the long-term effects of the sanctions that are being imposed on Russia as a result of the annexation of Ukraine's territory. Of particular concern are the sanctions against Russia's giant state-owned energy firm Rosneft and its head Igor Sechin:
Rosneft is actively working with U.S. companies. Back in 2011 it became a strategic partner of ExxonMobil. ... In exchange for the fields on the shelf of the Russian Arctic and Black Sea, Rosneft received assets in Texas, Gulf of Mexico and Canada. Igor Sechin himself traveled on business to the United States at least three times in two years. In April 2012, he was still in the position of Deputy Prime Minister, and led a delegation ... to New York at the presentation of the Russian oil industry. Then he compared the alliance of "Rosneft" and ExxonMobil with a "flight to the Moon," called for getting rid of "skeletons in the closet" and abandoning historical stereotypes in Russian-American relations. ...
[Rosneft] hoped that ExxonMobil would intervene and convince the White House not to impose sanctions against Igor Sechin. "Obviously, this has not happened, which was to some extent unexpected," says [one analyst]. None of them fully understand what may be the real impact of the sanctions."
Russian officials are particularly concerned that the sanctions "may develop slowly as in the Iranian scenario. ... U.S. sanctions against Iran after their period of active development in 1980-1981 the series and slowly tightened until 2004."
The Russians see the sanctions as the result of the weakness of President Barack Obama, the need to "save face," and an attempt to gain advantage at the expense of the European Union:
Inside the country, [the situation] gives President Obama an opportunity to save face and to answer his Republican critics, who accuse him of indecision and constantly losing to President Putin. Moreover, we should not forget that the sanctions against Russia have little negative effect on Washington, in comparison to the EU, according to one expert. "The EU and Russia may suffer from the sanctions, while the United States will benefit from this opportunity to mobilize allies and remind them of American leadership."Kommersant (Trans) and Jamestown**New car bombing in Nigeria, while 200 kidnapped girls are still missing**
If over 200 girls had been kidnapped almost anywhere else in the world, it would be a big story, at least as big as that of Malaysian flight 370. And yet, despite reports that the girls, aged 16-18, are being forced into marriage or sold as slave girls for $12 each by their Boko Haram terrorist captors, the desperate parents of the girls are wondering why nobody in the West is coming to the aid of Nigeria in searching for the girls, or even acknowledging the situation.
This mass abduction occurred only a few days after a major terroristBoko Haram attack. And now, on Thursday, a new major car bombing occurred, killing 19 people. The new bombing was just two blocks away from the last bombing, on the outskirts of the capital city, Abuja.
It turns out that, according to one Nigerian analyst, even Nigerians themselves are actually gleeful at the abduction of the girls. The reason is that opponents of President Goodluck Jonathan see this as an opportunity to highlight his ineffectiveness, with the approach of the election scene. This horrific pattern of placing politics above any shred of humanity is hardly unknown in America. According to one Nigerian columnist:
Indeed, the “weakness” of a President or the security apparatus under his tenure – whether the “weakness” is real or imagined – cannot be a justification for the mass murder committed through the [car bombings]. But the detractors of President Jonathan who blame the “worsening” of the Boko Haram attacks on his “weakness” and the “inadequacy” of his administration’s efforts to combat the insurgency would rather think otherwise. And one of them, in a curios post on social media recently, reacting to the reported threat by the insurgents to kill the abducted girls in their custody if the government’s search for them continues, said all that was happening because “our government has been sleeping.”
I listen to such reactions for any strain of condemnation for the kidnap of the schoolgirls – which the Senate President, David Mark, has rightly described as “sacrilegious” – and I hear none; and I am astonished by how politics might have debased the humanity of some of our citizens, men and women who would rather gloat against the government for its “inability” to prevent the murder or kidnap of their fellow citizens and their children, than respond to the humane imperative to condemn such acts, apparently because they serve their political ends."
If Nigerians themselves are so debased that they don't care about the abduction of 200 girls, then it's hardly a surprise that the rest of the world doesn't care either.
BBC and Business Day (Nigeria) and CNN
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