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SpaceX Wins Injunction Against Russian Rocket Purchases
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Reuters is reporting that Space Exploration Technologies, aka SpaceX, has won a Federal Claims Court temporary injunction against the purchase by United Launch Alliance of Russian-made rocket boosters, intended for use by the United States Air Force. In her ruling Judge Susan Braden prohibited ULA and the USAF, 'from making any purchases from or payment of money to [Russian firm] NPO Energomash.' United Launch Alliance is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin."
It's a wonder that all the government spending on Lockeed and Boeing they have been unable to produce a viable engine themselves. They do have a huge lobbying force, so I doubt this is over yet.
Guess those Russian trampolines aren't so good after all.
media weapons armies banks,,, hard to imagine he acted alone
Hey, man! Don't Godwin capitalism.
Why are you hater on the FREE MARKET? :-)
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The summary doesn't mention anything about "WHY" they made this ruling or why there was a lawsuit in the first place.
USAF awarded Russia a no-bid contract on 36 rocket boosters. SpaceX filed suit requesting consideration for the contract. The court filed an injunction to prevent sales being made while the trial moves forward.
It was great in theory. The difference between theory and practice being...
Help stamp out iliturcy.
>Hey, man! Don't Godwin capitalism.
That's what Goebbels said to Hitler in 1933.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Um, no. The Air Force gave Russia the contract with zero bidding process. SpaceX literally never had a chance. They're suing for a level playing field where they could bid against Russia in an open process.
The rest of your post is...... well.
SpaceX are fantastic, world-class innovators, but lobbying the government to tilt the playing field their way smacks of rent-seeking.
You're confused. It's called levelling the playing field. What the USAF did was sign a no-bid contract with the Boeing/Lockheed to purchase Russian rocket engines. A huge no-no in the public sphere, if not illegal. The only way to get them to reverse on that was to go to court.
My spoon is too big.
I think you have it the wrong-way around. SpaceX aren't seeking any favors, they can deliver significant savings to the US government. However, the lobbying by Boeing and Lockheed Martin have allowed them to push through a huge long term agreement using old expensive technology to help exclude cheaper more innovative rivals like SpaceX (who weren't even considered). There needs to be much greater oversight of government contracts to ensure that certification processes etc are simplified to the greatest possible extent to reduce barriers to entry and encourage smaller companies like SpaceX to bid for contracts like this to prevent the taxpayer from being exploited by the likes of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Odd also considering Obama's lame ass sanctions on Russia for their Ukraine incursions. Then again, maybe this is the key note item of 'lame ass' sanctions: buying rockets from someone you are berating for violations of a treaty between Russia and other western countries, made to respect Ukraine borders after Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons. I wonder if Russia would be willing to trade off their incursions by selling Ukraine those idle boosters to allow Kiev to re-nuclear weaponize themselves. A little detente could go a long way.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
From "Ad astra per aspera" to "Ad astra per embargo" apparently.
Maxim 29: "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less."
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
They don't want the government to tilt the playing field their way.
They want to be allowed onto the field at all.
The contract in question was no-compete. There was no bid. The USAF just said 'We're gonna buy some rockets from these guys over here. We're not even considering anyone else.' And SpaceX said 'WTF? Hey judge, shouldn't people be able to compete for this contract?'
And the judge apparently thinks that idea has enough merit to block the no-compete sale while it's thoroughly investigated.
I don't think anything involving a government producing things for its military can really be classed as "free market". There are different ways of structuring the production, some of which do have more market involvement than others. E.g. the USAF could produce its own equipment, it could bid some out to contractors, and it could use various processes for doing so. But with exactly one buyer, which is a government, and to make things worse a government's military arm (which introduces all kinds of clearance issues), it doesn't look a lot like a market.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
They aren't asking for an embargo. They are asking for a competition.
"nazi zion WMD on credit free land freeloader religious cabalism"???? Is this from a random word generator?
rent-seeking is what the car dealers are trying to do to Tesla.
You are one very confused fud spreader.
Why? You were allies in WWII. History moves along. Why can't you?
History also moves backward. Where have you been for the last several months?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Er, what?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Russia was not given a contract. Check your facts.
Boeing and Lockheed got the contract.
The US (NASA and Air Force) has been buying and using these motors since forever.
The US licensed the technology (Pratt and Whitney), and could build them stateside any time they want. Its just been cheaper to buy them in Russia from the original manufacturers.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Have you not paid any attention to the internal politics in Ukraine in the last year?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
There's more to this than the cloying meme "level playing field". In this case there's legitimate foreign policy issues -- the US buys agreeability from foreign governments via contracts for cold, hard western cash, not just foreign aid.
Depending on the framework Congress laid out, this could be an unconstitutional infringement on the legislative and executive branches,, the latter of which is constitutionally charged with foreign policy.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Clearly he's search engine trolling.
You're confused. It's called levelling the playing field. What the USAF did was sign a no-bid contract with the Boeing/Lockheed to purchase Russian rocket engines. A huge no-no in the public sphere, if not illegal. The only way to get them to reverse on that was to go to court.
It isn't wrong to do sole source contracts as a public entity. I did them when I was working for a state agency several times. The big thing is that you need to demonstrate convincingly (and be willing to back that up in a court room if necessary... like SpaceX is trying to call the bluff here with regards to ULA and the USAF) that the company you are sole sourcing is really the only company which could possibly provide the project being desired.
There are a couple of ways to get that to happen, and one of common methods (IMHO it really is corruption at its finest) is to over specify the technical requirements in such a way that one and only one company could possibly present a bid. For example with a computer, you could require that the computer has certain non-standard connectors, be very specific with an operating system (especially an off-beat OS like QNX), monitors have a 63.224 Hz screen refresh capability (or some other really weird number like this), and other details that exclude anybody else. You can reject any other potential bids simply because they failed to meet the original specification.
That is essentially what ULA has done here with regards to their rocket purchases, and SpaceX is crying foul by pointing out their rockets are just as capable to put up many of the same payloads reliably as well. Once the Falcon Heavy has launched a few times (its first launch may be this year or early next year), SpaceX will literally be able to launch anything ULA has with its inventory of rockets. There are other companies like ATK-Orbital that could conceivably be able to compete as well at least for some of these payloads.
The analogy would be some state college putting out for bid a bunch of Mac computers, and some PC dealer filing protest suggesting their products are just as capable for the applications being done at the college. The Apple dealer would point out that specialized software excludes the PCs, and the finger pointing goes on from there in the protest.
Indeed I think Elon Musk and his lawyers are going to bring up Orbital several times if this goes before a courtroom basically saying "it isn't just us".
The justification is "we warned them not to". As soon as it became our position that "we oppose a Russian invasion of Crimea", Obama had an obligation to back his words up.
The sanctions offered did nothing but weaken our credibility and our position. We would have done better to not get involved to begin with, rather than to offer lame, half-hearted, impotent opposition.
I'm pretty sure history moves forward, but people move backward.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'll be darned - google ethnic makeup of Crimea and you'll see 58% Russian and 24% Ukranian...
Greed is the root of all evil.
If it was just about the designs would could steal any number of them from ourselves (50 years of rocket engine designs to choose from). The issue appears to be the ability to manufacture, which we seem to have lost and would require time & money to restart. All that is except for SpaceX, they appear to build their engine in house. The Merlin engine is a bit less efficient than the RD-180 but its the most efficient hydrocarbon engine developed in the US.
Just as Russia resurrects the Solvet holiday of May Day
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
I think where your explanation and analogies fall apart is that no bids were ever done. The problem isn't with a sole-source contract (every individual launch is a sole-source contract) but with an uncompeted sole-source contract. Nobody else was even given an opportunity to try to meet the requirements, over-specified or otherwise.
You are a complete fucking idiot.
Sounds like a recipe for happiness.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
3) Take over Ukraine
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
Of that ethic majority, only a minority wants to be part of Russia. Even in the recent polls, support for breaking away from Ukraine and joining Russia has never exceeded 30%.
Furthermore, journalists who refer to the Russian-coordinated forces "separatists" have been threatened by said forces and ordered to start calling them "supporters of federalization" instead. One can assume that for Russia, the best outcome is not a "land grab" (which would impose a considerable financial burden on the Russian state), but rather keeping the area nominally part of Ukraine and using it to keep the country unstable and out of NATO.
Redrawing borders doesn't not solve underlying problems. I am writing from a country whose borders were redrawn along ethnic lines after World War I, in a process that everyone at the time considered civil and fair, and it was to bring us nothing but problems over the course of the 20th century.
And the judge apparently thinks that idea has enough merit to block the no-compete sale while it's thoroughly investigated.
That's not at all what happened. The judge did not consider or rule on the merits of the contract at all, nor did the judge block or directly interfere with that contract. The judge considered that ULA intends to buy Russian engines from an individual on the sanctions list, which could be illegal. As such, the injunction is limited to forbidding the purchase of the engines until the proper authorities can decide if the purchases would be sanction violations.
The rest of the contract is (so far) free to move forward, using existing Russian engines already in ULA's possession (they claim to have a two-year supply).
Other than the fact that the ruling is specifically and exclusively about the ongoing sanctions against Russia, it has nothing to do with the ongoing sanctions against Russia. Right. That makes sense.
Have you not been limiting your input to RT and ignoring the rest of the world press?
If you watch RT you will realize the V Putin is the savior of the world and doing bold and masculine things to allow Russia to reclaim their place in the firmament
erm... or something like that...
maybe RT is propaganda, but most Russians will never know because they do not believe anything else
What nation had its lines redrawn along ethnic lines? I'm drawing blank on that one. Poland, along with the Polish corridor was drawn with large German populations in the borders. The same thing happened with a lot of the baltic nations, like Czechoslovakia, which was one of casus belli Hitler used for his early aggressions.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
ULA prefers Atlas V because it is more profitable for them. But it uses engines from Russia.
The Russian engines are purchased from a company with ties to one of the people targeted by US sanctions against Russia... so the judge has granted the injunction to prevent purchasing those Russian engines.
ULA has a stockpile of some Russian engines already, and they have the (less profitable for them) Delta IV if they can't launch Atlas V for any reason... and running out of engines would be one of those reasons. But ULA would prefer to continue buying engines. But we've been paying them to have both rockets available, so they'd better be able to show up with what they've promised.
Separate from this injunction, SpaceX is asking for a review of the large block by of ULA cores, as it was done just before (a few days before) one of the final milestones of SpaceX being qualified to launch for the air force. I think it's not unreasonable for them to say that it's unacceptable to do a huge purchase when if you wait for a few days you would have multiple vendors competing for the bid.
Even John McCain thinks that contract smells fishy: link
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
His explanation also falls apart about the over-spec'd trivialities.
A PC OS vs a Mac OS is a major difference in how the computer behaves, what software you can run on it. Such a requirements difference in a RFQ could easily be sustained.
An arbitrary monitor refresh rate cannot be shown to be a functionally meaningful requirement. A contract with such a provision would be laughed out of court if a losing bidder were to challenge it. If a bid request is steered to one vendor without a substantial, valid reason it is illegal.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Since when is Crimea == Ukraine?
I don't think anything involving a government producing things for its military can really be classed as "free market".
"Free market" as it is bandied about today has no defined meaning within economics - it is a general concept, usually employed as a political slogan. As Investopedia says Just like supply-side economics, free market is a term used to describe a political or ideological viewpoint on policy and is not a field within economics..
It is in the government's interest to introduce market forces into its acquisition system to create competition, and efficiency incentives, and avoid cronyism. This is what the bidding process does.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
I believe the operation being attempted right now is:
Ukraine=Crimea=Rusia
This is one of those few times that someone used == where = is the correct option!
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
We're talking about a nuclear superpower, what would you have him do?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Memorandum, not treaty. It's more a declaration of intent than binding law. I'm sure Ukraine would have liked a defense treaty in exchange for giving up their nukes, but they didn't get one. And if you read the memorandum, you'll see it's pretty toothless as well: Yes, this is from wikipedia, but I can't be bothered to dig up the original text - I did so several weeks back when I was arguing your position. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
According to the memorandum, Russia, the U.S., and the UK confirmed, in recognition of Ukraine becoming party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and in effect abandoning its nuclear arsenal to Russia, that they would:
Respect Ukrainian independence and sovereignty within its existing borders.
Refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine.
Refrain from using economic pressure on Ukraine in order to influence its politics.
Seek United Nations Security Council action if nuclear weapons are used against Ukraine.
Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Ukraine.
Consult with one another if questions arise regarding these commitments.[8]
So the only repercussions in the memorandum are to seek UNSC action if nukes are used. No nukes were used, but the US did so anyway (and Russia immediately used their veto). All memorandum obligations met for our part. Russia's out of line, and I imagine that will hurt their future international politics a smidgeon.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Our obligations under the memorandum were only to not invade Ukraine, and to request action from the UN if nukes were used. We haven't done the former, and did the latter even though no nukes were used. Why should we get further involved in issues that the international politics of two soverign nations, neither of which is allied with us or presents a serious threat? If Russia becomes seriously expansionistic again then perhaps we'll need to get involved, but for now it's just some readjustments of borders redrawn under duress.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The difference between theory and practice being...
Cookies, a 5th of scotch, an angry monkey
How many cookies? It takes 900 quintillion cookies to win over the kitten managers.
media weapons armies banks,,, hard to imagine he acted alone
It's the mainstream, "Crazed, Lone Dictator" narrative...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Yugoslavia? Serbia/Croatia/B-H/Montegr0
Czechoslovakia? Czech Republic and Slovakia.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Sun Tzu would like that. ;)
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
One, they aren't stopping at Crimea.
Two, you haven't addressed the other part of the question.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I was just commenting that I (and probably many) was ignorant of the fact that Crimea is overwhelmingly ethnic Russian.
I wasn't really trying to answer the questions you've posed, but what the hell, if a nerd cant ran't about news on Slashdot...
Question 1) So far the Russian government has stopped at Crimea, although they do seem to be knocking on other doors...
I'm certainly not defending Russia's actions. It appears that their annexation of Crimea, while popular in Russia and maybe even Crimea is a violation of international law and treaties. The redrawing of sovereign state boundaries today at best invites chaos and potentially blood shed for no good reason. It should however come as no surprise that any fair election in Crimea would always reflect the desire of it ethnic Russian majority.
While I don't think there is much the rest of the world can really do about it, hopefully the very real threat of a major economic response as well as a really cold war will serve as a deterrent to the annexation of anything more than Crimea. Certainly any real threat to NATO countries is off the table because nobody wants to fight world war 3.
Question 2) I'll admit to ignorance about how ethnic Russians were openly abused by the Ukrainian government. Some research indicates little evidence for this, but the Human Rights Watch for years gave the Ukraine very poor marks for protecting the rights of its minorities, and that's an indictment of Ukraine's past government and maybe even its people. All countries including mine (the US) still have much work in this regard and few have any right to criticize.
Personally, I wish nationalism were obsolete. We are all humans living on one planet. We should all want the same thing - that it is in everyone's interest to treat each other with respect in the spirit of the golden rule. Peace prosperity and freedom should be available to everyone. Fear and greed are toxic and extreme concentrations of power and wealth that drive despotic governments should not be tolerated by their people. Our destiny should not be a zero sum game where there have to be winners and losers - we can make rules where all can win. We should all be ashamed of the wealth we squander on national defense and the unfortunate fact that it is necessary today. Democracy is a step in the right direction but only of value if we all use it for the greater good. Our race has a long way to go, but if you look at the progress we've made in the last 150 years in 50 year increments the trend is promising. As a US citizen, I've enjoyed the personal contact I've had with people from all over the world and am dismayed that most of our world's governments treat each other with mistrust and hatred when as individuals we generally get along just fine. It should not matter what part of the planet the best rocket motors are made when deciding where to buy them, although I'd bet a lot that Elon Musk and Space-X would likely be near impossible to beat.
Greed is the root of all evil.
I suggest getting Elon's cock out of your mouth long enough to breathe.
ULA is trying to make the case that their rockets are indeed as different from those of SpaceX as a Mac is from a PC, hence why the contract doesn't need to go out to a bid. It is also on these kind of mundane details that ULA is furthermore claiming as reasons and rationale for why SpaceX doesn't meet the technical requirements for launching EELV-class payloads.
I didn't say it was a perfect analogy, and since you understand computer technology you see how such a contract bid would be really silly and obvious misapplication of the contracting process. Sadly, I have seen some real world "sole source-no bid" contracts awards that were done on equally silly reasons. I can't give specifics of those contracts because of a NDA, but they did involve several million dollars and some government agencies as well. I have also seen such contracts thrown out and forced into a bidding situation precisely because the officials involved forgot to take everything into consideration and missed a few points that the law required for those sort of sole source contracts.
Your objection is sort of proving my point too.
Nah, it's a literal translation of "hello" from Russian.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
maybe RT is propaganda, but most Russians will never know because they do not believe anything else
Well, at the moment they won't know because they are not allowed to hear anything else. Russia currently censors all media. They have even blocked the voice of america radio. They even went so far as to illegally take over the most popular Russian social network.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
So? Since when did ethnic make up give a justification for an invasion? Oh, wait, I know this one. Since Germany's Sudetenland, 1938. Yeah, yeah. Russia fought Nazi Germany... just to live to become a Nazi Russia.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Russia lost superpower status a long time ago.
That's cute and all, but today's Russia commands higher power than Soviet Union did. Russia owns the largest oil company in the world. Russia has the power to completely dictate Europe's foreign policy because it supplies enough of Europe's natural gas to be able to grind European economy to a halt. It doesn't have the same consumer or production power as the civilized world. But that is not to say that it has no power. In addition to its ridiculously unproportional influence in Europe, it also commands the world's largest nuclear arsenal and can still manufacture long range bombers and mass-scale traditional arms.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
A Russian invasion of Ukraine is not going to happen so long as everyone continues to do exactly what Putin wants. Nobody is seriously getting in his way apart from very minor annoyances. He's happy with a client state that does what it is told to do, and it's shaping up to be exactly that with no serious opposition from any direction.
So the promise to oppose an invasion isn't so bad since it's unlikely to have to be carried out. As for the ignored sanctions looking like weakness and the stupidity of getting involved I agree entirely, but there are hints that there has been some involvement for some time by US agencies dabbling incompetently in Ukrainian politics so abandoning them would have looked bad as well. Stuff that works in Central America doesn't have a chance versus ex-KGB that like to leave Polonium calling cards so it's the wrong place for rogue agencies to play inept games.
The other thing is that a memorandum/treaty was signed agreeing that Russia would respect Ukraine's borders if Ukraine agreed to get rid of their nuclear arsenal. This happened when the Soviet Union broke up. So Ukraine was one of the first countries to get rid of their nuclear arsenal. Now Russia violated that agreement. Part of the agreement was that the U.S. and Britain and maybe others had agreed to help counter any violation.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Especially when a lot of those boundaries were laid in place as land-grabs by the winners. Israel anyone? Yeah, don't mind us, we're just going to take this chunk of what's been your land for a millenium, including your most sacred religious sites and your entire Mediterranean sea border, and give it to a bunch of our allies who happen to also have a major axe to grind against you. Your team lost the war, so Suck It Up. We like hamstringing your economy and having a strong military base in the middle of your territory.
I'm not getting the Israel analogy here. Historically, the Jews never left the area, and post WWI, European Jews, who were @ the receiving end of pogroms, be it from Catholics, Protestants or Orthodox kingdoms, moved to Palestine where they bought land way above market rates from the local Arabs. In the meantime, due to WWII and the holocaust, support for the Zionist idea of creating a Jewish state where all Jews could live w/o fear of persecution, increased. No Arabs were displaced by Jews - most were encouraged to leave by the surrounding countries - Jordan, Egypt & so on.
Regardless of the history, fact remains that today, Israel still has a substantial Arab Muslim population - ain't that how 'Palestinian' is defined? (Never mind that the term didn't exist before 1964, and prior to 1948, it was used to describe Palestinian Hebrews, not Arabs). Those who left between 1948 & 1991, for whatever reason, should by now have gotten citizenship in whichever Arab/Muslim country they settled - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, et al. The reason they haven't is that the Arab League has made it a matter of policy to keep them permanently in 'refugee' status, so that they can use them to demographically obliterate Israel, and reconquer it.
People who are concerned about ethnically re-drawing borders should look @ the Arabs - whether in North Sudan (Darfur), Iraq/Syria (Kurds), as well as their treatment of ethnic minorities like Copts in Egypt or Maronites in Lebanon. That would make even Russian treatment of gays look like Paris Hilton servicing her 'clients'.
Was there any polling data from the Crimea/Sevastopol that would suggest that most Crimean Russians were happy to be a part of the Ukraine, and did not want their land to be a new federal subject of Russia? Particularly given that different governments in Kiev had different opinions on whether Russian should continue to be a working language in Ukraine?
Russia lost superpower status a long time ago.
That's cute and all, but today's Russia commands higher power than Soviet Union did. Russia owns the largest oil company in the world. Russia has the power to completely dictate Europe's foreign policy because it supplies enough of Europe's natural gas to be able to grind European economy to a halt. It doesn't have the same consumer or production power as the civilized world. But that is not to say that it has no power. In addition to its ridiculously unproportional influence in Europe, it also commands the world's largest nuclear arsenal and can still manufacture long range bombers and mass-scale traditional arms.
Again: it's a nuclear power. But it's not a superpower. And it's oil influence is questionable because it needs Europe more then Europe needs it, and it's recent actions have been promoting more interest in staying the hell away from Russian gas. It's not like there isn't a whole pile of more pliable middle eastern states who'd like to fill that space in.
It's bombers would be defeated by pretty much any modern AA, and definitely by US systems and tons of countries make small arms. Nobody particularly cares who since anyone can do it.
Uh, that's only implemented for some people, not others. For instance, Kosovo has been forcibly separated from Serbia b'cos Albanians are a majority there who don't want to be a part of Serbia. However, at the same time, in Bosnia, the region of Srpska, which is heavily Serb and whose people want to join Serbia, has been disallowed from doing so.
The West opened a can of worms on Kosovo, and Russia just proved the logic in Crimea, which NATO can't do a thing about. If only the Russians can back up the Serbs in occupying & annexing Srpska, that will puncture Western arguments in the region, and also illustrate even further why NATO is outdated, and has been since 1991.
Unlike Crimea, Donetz & Kharkiv are still majority Ukrainian: Russians are a large minority, but not even a plurality, so Moscow would have a weaker argument for annexing that area, than it did for Crimea.
Maybe we should have looked taking an actual hard line and cancelled Putin's NetFlix and Amazon Prime subscriptions, or something-- you know, show we really mean it.
How about working with NATO to set up trade sanctions? How about ANYTHING more than weak sanctions against a handful of people who truly dont care?
There's an old proverb about wine casks and sewage. Putin seems to be applying it here.
For the hard of thinking, Ukraine (and the Baltic states) are the wine casks.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Have you read the actual memorandum? I did a few weeks back, and it says nothing about anyone countering any violations. The *only* repercussions mentioned are that the signatories will request UN action if nukes are used against the Ukraine.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It's a military super-power -- not just nuclear. Remember though that the Soviet Union was never an economic superpower, either.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Uninformed will of the people. In other words... "the market is stupid".
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
This is a rule you can apply to almost any confrontation: Whoever's obstructing, hassling or banning journalists is the bad guys.
Common sense tells you that if there were pogroms of ethnic Russians going on then their supporters and allies would want it all over the BBC and CNN.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
money state pays = purchase cost + lobbying cost + profit