Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Putin believes West built Berlin Wall

To hear Russian President Vladimir Putin talk, the West built the Berlin Wall and has created Russia's isolation.
"We will not go down this [Iron Curtain] path in any case and no one will build a wall around us. That is impossible!" Putin told Tass 

This is the same Putin who won't rule out being president for life, and this weekend convinced Facebook to shut down an organizing page used by his opponents to try to mimic the April Spring.

Not content to shut down the few remaining voices in Russia, his government is suspected of hitting the Moscow Times with so many cyber attacks that it had to shut down. 
 Traces were still there Monday, most of them URLs describing articles that would have been seen as critical of Putin’s rule. But they could not be opened. Overnight more stories were posted but they could not be accessed later in the day. The journalists of the Times had moved to Riga, Latvia, in late October to escape the Kremlin. The articles it posted describing the move could not be called up, but Tweets remained because they did not rely on Times’ servers. 
This weekend Putin convinced Facebook to shut down an organizing page used by his opponents to try to mimic the April Spring. Putin has shut down virtually all anti-regime media. 
The only independent TV station has to operate out an apartment made during the Stalin era. Facebook has had little to say about why it granted the request to close the page. Google posts lists of government requests for the removal of pages. “Facebook has no guts and no principles … (it’s) A shame they keep spreading their lack of values by growth and acquisitions.,” said Pavel Durov, who fled into exile after the government took over his Russian version of Facebook, VKontakte. 
The site had been so popular even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted it was more popular than his company. Now Zuckerberg has the market to himself. 
On Monday, Putin’s hackers were believed responsible for the shutdown of the Times. Although the Times’ pages could not be reached, a member of the staff Tweeted it had been closed by a deluge of cyber attacks. Readers of the Times had wondered how long it would last publishing articles critical of Putin. It reported stories that were positive also, but there was no way to hide the truth. 
 Putin appears intent on turning Russia into another North Korea. In fact, he has invited Kim Jong-Un for a visit next spring. 
There are already calls in the U.S. Congress to launch a cyber war against those who the businesses of American companies, and their allies. President Barack Obama said North Korea would not escape accountability. 
On Monday, the entire nation of North Korea was disconnected from the Internet. Experts said it was the first time such a thing had happened other than as a result of a natural disaster.

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