Bloomberg: Putin Is Struggling to Keep His Wars Separate

The Syrian campaign has provided the clearest example of how it works so far. There are the official Russian forces, which have already celebrated victory and boasted about the combat experience they have gained. Their goal was to save Assad's regime while losing as few Russian military lives as possible (only 44 Russian service members have been reported dead), establish an increased presence for Russia in the Middle East, and make the country an official go-to force in resolving the region's many crises.

And then there's Wagner Private Military Company, an outfit based in southern Russia that hires able-bodied men, often ex-soldiers, as deniable boots on the ground for a salary that often exceeds what regular soldiers are paid but without the state-of-the-art equipment and official state support that regulars enjoy. The pay may come from the Russian government, but also from side projects, like taking over oil installations for Assad. [...]

overlap between Russian regulars and irregulars. The Kremlin has clear geopolitical interests in the area -- the destabilization of Ukraine -- but it can't be discussed openly. President Vladimir Putin was cagey in his only comment on the matter, which came in a 2015 press conference. "We have never said that there are no people there who are involved in resolving certain issues, including in the military sphere, but that doesn't mean regular troops are present there," he said. Russia has never confirmed sending regular units in key moments of the east Ukraine war, though those operations are well-documented. Also present are Wagner and local irregulars, who fight out of nationalist convictions on one level and a share of the region's mining wealth on another.

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The Guardian: Why do women talk so much? You asked Google – here’s the answer

Because of the prohibition on women’s speech, which continued right through the middle ages and up through the mass growth in western female literacy, it took until the 20th century for a more positive, parallel notion to take hold: that women might be biologically better with words. Today scientific study has even found the odd bit of evidence that girls may indeed find it easier to acquire language than boys. But does the idea of women’s super- (and superfluous) loquacity actually hold up to scientific scrutiny? [...]

What’s more, in formal or public situations – business meetings, political debates, TV interviews – men nearly always talk more than women. And that’s also a matter of status, says Cameron – people higher in the pecking order command the floor. That more men hold positions of high office than women explains again why it’s male voices that resonate more loudly and more regularly. [...]

The episode seemed to perfectly exemplify what the linguistic theorist Jennifer Coates has called “the androcentric rule”, whereby the linguistic behaviour of men is seen as normal and the linguistic behaviour of women is seen as deviating from that norm. That most trolls on the internet are, according to a study from Brunel and Goldsmiths University, disenfranchised males with narcissism and face-to-face communication issues makes for an interesting aside. Behind a computer screen, lower-status men still feel more entitled than women to vent at higher-status females.

In some ways it’s no surprise given that Twitter, despite having 55% female users, is a male domain. According to a 2009 study from Harvard Business School, men have, on average, more followers than women, are twice as likely to follow other men, and even women follow more male users. Then there was the survey of Twitter’s most influential political voices with regards to the 2017 election, which caused Yvette Cooper MP to ask why experts such as Laura Kuenssberg, Gaby Hinsliff and the Guardian’s own Anushka Asthana and Heather Stewartand other prominent female journalists had failed to make the cut.

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Al Jazeera: Why do Italian fascists adore Syria's Bashar al-Assad?

Along with Italy's far-right Forza Nuova, Greece's neo-fascist Golden Dawn, the UK's British National Party (BNP) and Poland's ultra-nationalist National Rebirth, among others, CasaPound is part of an international front rallying on behalf of the Syrian president and sending solidarity delegations to the war-ravaged country. [...]

Asked if there was a contradiction between opposing the influx of Syrian refugees, most of whom were displaced by governmental forces, and supporting Assad, Di Stefano insisted: "They mostly flee from rebels and ISIL." [...]

Guido Caldiron, a Rome-based journalist and author of Extreme Right, argues that CasaPound's support for Assad stems from the group's ideological roots: Authoritarianism, Islamophobia and the perception that the Syrian government has resisted Israel. [...]

Explaining that early Baathists "took inspiration from European fascism, particularly how to build a totalitarian state", al-Shami argued that many neo-fascists also see the Assad government as "resisting Israel and Muslims alike".

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The Atlantic: The Unsinkable Benjamin Netanyahu?

Netanyahu is insisting he will remain in office. “Over these years, there have been no less than 15 investigations against me with the goal of bringing me down,” he said in televised remarks. “They all began with explosive headlines, live broadcasts from the studios, and some of them even with noisy police recommendations [to indict], just like today. All those efforts, without exception ended with nothing.” [...]

The details of cases 1000 and 2000—as they are known—have been around for more than year. The first scandal centers on champagne and cigars Netanyahu allegedly received from a political benefactor. The second involves conversations he had with the publisher of Yediot Aharonot, the Israeli newspaper. Israeli reports say Netanyahu agreed to help weaken a rival newspaper—Israel Hayom, owned by Sheldon Adelson—in exchange for favorable coverage from Yediot Aharonot. Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing in both cases.

Netanyahu is not the first Israeli leader to face legal troubles. Over the past two decades, each one of Israel’s prime ministers—Ehud Olmert, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Barak—has been investigated for corruption, though neither Sharon nor Barak was charged. (Olmert was tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison. He served 16 months.) Nor is this the first time Netanyahu has been tarnished by scandal—though the accusations previously did little to affect his popularity. [...]

Shmuel Rosner, a political editor at The Jewish Journal, wrote in The New York Times that it’s not that Israelis don’t care about corruption, it’s that they don’t believe politicians should be harassed because, in his words, “everybody knows that politicians often tend to be, well, not the most honorable people. Still, we need them, and we need to let them do their jobs.”  

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The Atlantic: Syria's War Is Fueling Three More Conflicts

In the last few weeks alone, Turkey has clashed with Syrian Kurds and threatened a U.S.-controlled town in Syria; an Israeli fighter jet that was part of a response to an incursion into Israeli territory by an Iranian drone launched from Syria took Syrian anti-aircraft fire, forcing its two pilots to eject and parachute into Israeli territory; and U.S. forces repelled an attack by Russian fighters, killing an unknown number of them that reports suggest could be in the hundreds.

Taken individually, each one of the clashes has the potential to turn into something more dangerous. Taken together, they suggest the reasons why even after the defeat of ISIS, Syria cannot hope for stability to return soon—and why the next chapter could be even worse. “The issues have been out there: Kurdish-Turkish-American tensions; Iran-Syria-Israel tensions,” Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, told me. “But … we’ve gotten to a level not reached before, and it’s all coming at once.” [...]

The fact that many of those interests are fundamentally opposed seems to guarantee further conflict. Assad will try to consolidate and expand his hold over the country. Turkey will try not to allow a semi-autonomous region on its border. The Kurds will fight to protect the territory they’ve gained. Iran wants to reap the gains of its investments in Syria and Assad. Israel is adamantly opposed to a permanent Iranian and Hezbollah military presence on its border in southern Syria. The U.S. wants to ensure ISIS doesn’t re-emerge and has stated a preference for Assad to step aside. Russia wants to preserve Assad’s position—and its own as a power broker in the Middle East.

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The Guardian: Professor cancels hate speech course after students object to use of racial slur

A small group of students walked out of Rosen’s anthropology class on 6 February after he used the slur three times, according to DailyPrincetonian.com, the university’s student newspaper, which first reported Rosen’s comments. Rosen asked the class: “Which is more provocative: a white man walks up to a black man and punches him in the nose, or a white man walks up to a black man and calls him [the racial slur]?”

Rosen refused a demand from several students to apologise and argued with at least one student. Two students later filed a complaint with school officials. [...]

Speaking on Monday night at a meeting with students that had been scheduled before the controversy erupted, university president Christopher Eisgruber said he respected Rosen’s decision to use the word, citing the importance of having conversations where people feel uncomfortable.  [...]

Carolyn Rouse, chairwoman of Princeton’s anthropology department, who is black, wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Princetonian defending Rosen’s use of the slur. By the end of the semester, she wrote, Rosen hoped his students would be able to argue why hate speech should or should not be protected using an argument other than “because it made me feel bad”.

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America Magazine: Firing of L.G.B.T. Catholic church workers raises hard (and new) questions

The two are just the latest church workers to be fired over issues of sexuality and marriage, clashes that have heightened in recent years as same-sex marriage becomes more mainstream even as the church holds the line on L.G.B.T. issues. According to New Ways Ministry, at least 80 people have been fired from Catholic parishes, schools and other entities in cases related to sexual orientation over the past decade—though they note that this figure is based only on individual cases that go public.

“With each new firing, the injustice of these actions becomes clearer and clearer to Catholic people in the pews,” Francis DeBernardo, the group’s executive director, told America. Mr. DeBernardo adds that the “singling out of L.G.B.T. church employees as the only group whose lives must be in full accordance with the hierarchy’s sexual ethics is blatant discrimination.

“While these actions hurt those that are fired and the communities they serve, they also hurt the church as a whole because our credibility as voices of justice is weakened, and our image as a community of love and compassion is destroyed.” [...]

Ms. Kaveny echoed that sentiment, saying, “If you’re taking the church’s sexual ethic seriously, are you going to interview heterosexual couples to find out if they’re sleeping together before marriage or if they’re using birth control? Questions tend to fall unfairly on one group of people who may not be accepting Catholic sexual teaching in all its fullness.”

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The Guardian: How can liberals defeat populism? Here are four ideas

Rather than pretending to offer benefits for all and legitimizing the populist utopia of a “general will”, parties should present clear visions and programs but also be open and honest about the pros and cons for various groups of the population. Moreover, they should explain why they believe these choices benefit the broader society – while accepting that this, inevitably, depends on their own ideological assumptions. [...]

Just as scholars and students tend to want to solve problems through education, activists and politicians almost always call for more participation and politics. The problem is that many people don’t want to devote more time to politics, and this is particularly true for supporters of (radical right) populist parties. What they really want is to be properly represented. [...]

Making social media more like “legacy media”, as the report calls it, would make populist supporters less visible, but it won’t change their opinions. This policy didn’t work in the late 20th century, when a fairly tightly controlled media landscape was fiercely protected by gatekeepers and self-censorship, so why would it work in the anarchic world of social media?  

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