ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By Brian Merchant Ukraine's protests, now under cellphone surveillance. Image: Wikimedia “Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance.” That's a text message that thousands of Ukrainian protesters spontaneously received on their cell phones today, as a new law prohibiting public demonstrations went into effect. It was the regime's police force, sending protesters the perfectly dystopian text message to accompany the newly minted, perfectly dystopian legislation. In fact, it's downright Orwellian (and I hate that adjective, and only use it when absolutely necessary, I swear). But that's what this is: it's technology employed to detect noncompliance, to hone in on dissent. The NY Times reports that the "Ukrainian government used telephone technology to pinpoint the locations of cell phones in use near clashes between riot police officers and protesters early on Tuesday." Near. Using a cell phone near a clash lands you on

By Tony Cartalucci January 22, 2014 - Update: Further details have emerged regarding the authors of the report. It was produced by British law firm Carter-Ruck on behalf of Qatar who funded it ( CNN ). Carter-Ruck had in the past defended Saudis suspected of funding Al Qaeda. ABC's " U.S.: Saudis Still Filling Al Qaeda’s Coffers ," would report that Yasin al Qadi was being represented by Carter-Ruck against US charges filed just after 9/11 claiming he was financing Al Qaeda. It should also be noted that Yasin al Qadi is a close ally of US' partner in the Syrian conflict, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. The suspicious report, conveniently released just a day before the Geneva conference, emerging from a tangled web of state-sponsored terrorism and dubious Western law firms only further taints the West's image as they go into "peace talks" regarding Syria. January 22, 2014 (LD) - As with every Western-backed conference assembled regarding Syria, dramtic fa

A farmer works in her rice field in China's eastern Zhejiang province. (PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images) Summary In a public display of commitment to its roots as a mobilizer of peasant interests, China's Communist Party has once again identified reforming the countryside as its core policy prerogative in 2014. However, for the first time in the past decade, Party leaders have tempered their reform goals with cautionary statements on protecting the nation's food security , reflecting Beijing's deep-seated fear of the unintended consequences of reforming too rapidly. Analysis On Jan. 19, China's State Council released its annual No. 1 Central Document, a brief that typically contains no detailed policy prescriptions but nonetheless is important symbolically. Previous documents have been used to announce and solidify broad shifts in the government's policy orientation. For example, the 2004 No. 1 Central Document, published by the newly-installed administration of H

An expert (R) explains a nuclear reactor to students in Hanoi. Vietnam has delayed the construction of its first nuclear power plant, which was to begin this year. (HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has announced that the construction of the country's first nuclear power plant, the 4,400-megawatt Ninh Thuan 1 -- slated to begin this year -- will be delayed until 2020 due to concerns about safety and efficiency. Dung said national energy company Petrovietnam will need to build a 5,000-megawatt, natural gas-fired power plant complex to provide electricity in place of the nuclear plant. The delay would undermine the energy security that nuclear power is eventually supposed to bring to Vietnam. Hanoi will increase imports of hydropower, coal and liquefied natural gas to make up for the share of future power supply that was ultimately projected to come from nuclear sources. This energy profile will put pressure on Vietnam's ability t

Summary Editor's Note: The following is the third installment of a three-part series on growing debt for Russia's regional governments . Russian President Vladimir Putin has plans to help stabilize the regions' economies. Given the social tensions within Russia and global economic situation, allowing the regions' economic problems to go unchecked could create challenges for the Kremlin on many levels. Analysis The growth and stability Putin fostered in Russia is starting to erode, and the Russian regions' economic and financial stability is at risk. Of course there are stark differences between the country's current position and its situation in 1998; the federal government is relatively strong and has cash reserves to work with, and most of the regional governments are politically loyal to Putin. However, should certain regional economies continue to deteriorate and regional governments become unable to pay their bills, things can change quickly, as seen in 19

Assad says he may stand in this year's presidential election By Patrick Cockburn January 21, 2014 - " The Independent " - A long-awaited peace conference on Syria is likely to go ahead without one of the major participants of the conflict after the United Nations withdrew an invitation to Iran to attend the talks in Geneva. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, rescinded Iran's invitation on the same day it was unexpectedly issued, following the threat of a boycott from the Syrian opposition and pressure from the United States. That the conference would take place at all looked in serious doubt through much of Monday, with Iran's participation being a major sticking point for the opposition. The meeting, arranged with strong US and Russian backing, is the only opportunity available for de-escalating, if not ending, the civil war in Syria. Iran is a main backer of President Bashar al-Assad and has supplied him with arms, money and military advisers during the thre

U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has asked Russian authorities to help protect him after he received death threats disseminated in the U.S. media, his lawyer said Tuesday. This comes two days after several U.S. officials accused Snowden of being a Russian intelligence asset even before he found asylum abroad. The stage is set for the next round of intelligence and propaganda struggles between Russia and the United States . The narrative surrounding Edward Snowden, a former contract employee of the National Security Agency, has evolved over the past eight months following his theft and disclosure of the NSA's surveillance programs . Initially, it sparked a debate over whether he was a traitor -- particularly because he fled the United States to Hong Kong before leaping over to Moscow, where he was granted one year of asylum. But public sentiment has changed as revelations emerged about the surveillance programs that allegedly targeted millions of people around the world. The

Summary Editor's Note: The following is the second installment of a three-part series on growing debt for Russia's regional governments . Traditionally, Russia's regions have reacted against federal authority in times of economic crises, such as the so-called Ruble Crisis of 1998. The crisis serves as an example of how economic instability could add to the Kremlin's problems in managing the country, particularly since Russia is already dealing with divisions along social and ethnic lines. Analysis In 1997, the Asian financial crisis began to ripple throughout the world. Russia was still reeling politically, socially, economically and financially from the fall of the Soviet Union just six years before. Russia's industrial and service sectors had collapsed, and capital was leaving the country rapidly. Additionally, the price of the one thing bringing in money to Russia -- energy -- was dropping rapidly. Click to Enlarge By 1998, interest rates in Russia skyrockete