Agustin Gómez Pérez, 18, was lit on fire by comrades in an act of civil disobedience against the Congress of Chiapas, which, the anarchist group Frente Ricardo Flores Magon alleged, was responsible for the arrest of a comrade in May. The group is demanding the release of their comrade, one Florentino Gómez Girón, an indigenous leader who was arrested on cattle theft and robbery charges.
Demanding Florentino’s release, Perez lay motionless as his comrades doused him in flammable liquid and lit him on fire.
Perez stood up and ran burning, flailing his arms for approximately 20 seconds before being extinguished. He was taken to hospital and is being treated for third-degree burns. His situation is critical.
Members of the Ixtapa anarchist organization Frente Ricardo Flores Magon had been protesting for nearly a month in front of Congress in the city of Tuxtla Gutiérrez for the release of their comrade.
The group also conducted an act of civil disobedience Dec. 2 when they sewed their lips shut and performed a symbolic crucifixion.
The group has so far procured a promise from the state government that Florentino’s case would be reviewed.
After the burning of Perez, the anarchist organization stated that if Florentino was not released, three more people would be lit on fire, including two indigenous women.
(Warning: this video is extremely graphic and The Speaker does not wish you to watch this if you are sensitive to depictions of human suffering. This video may be very emotional and effecting.)
A Tibetan protester died Friday–just two days after being released from prison on “medical parole.” The Tibetan was six years into a 15-year prison term for participating in the 2008 Machu Protest, at which Chinese police opened fire and killed 12 Tibetans. The man is the second Tibetan to die after being released on “medical parole” this year.
Tenzin Choedak, who had previously served at a European NGO affiliated with the Red Cross and who worked on environmental projects in Lhasa and Shigatse, began to deteriorate in prison in early November. He was taken to three different hospitals by prison authorities before being released to his family.
“Tenchoe was brought to one of the hospitals with his hands and legs heavily shackled. He was almost unrecognizable,” one source told Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). “His physical condition had deteriorated and he had brain injury in addition to vomiting blood.”
He died two days after his release.
Choedak died at Mentsekhang, the traditional Tibetan medical institute in Lhasa city, hours after being brought to the facility by family.
Choedak was arrested in 2008 for participating in the 2008 Machu Protest, at which police opened fire on hundreds of Tibetans, killing 12.
Choedak was sentenced to 15 years and 10,000 yuan for participating in the protest, and, according to sources, was beaten and tortured in prison.
Reportedly, police interrogations focussed on Choedak’s father, one Mr Khedup, a long-time activist in Tibet before he was compelled to flee to India in 1993. Interrogation involved claims that Choedak was acting at his father’s instigation.
Earlier this year, another Tibetan protester, Goshul Lobsang, also died on “medical parole” after being released from years of torture in prison. Lobsang had also been sentenced to 10 years for “spearheading” the 2008 Machu Protest.
Sensitive early care–or the lack thereof–has a significant effect on the relationships of adults, according to new research by scientists at the University of Delaware and the University of Minnesota. The researchers found that early care had long-term implications for relationships with others–including intimate partners–and that the effects were seen across all racial, gender and socioeconomic lines. Sensitive care had clear implications even 30 years later.
Dr Lee Raby
“The total effect of early sensitivity for supportive parenting in adulthood was somewhat surprising to me considering that nearly three decades separated those two measurement time-points,” Dr Lee Raby, postdoctoral researcher at the Infant Caregiver Project at the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at University of Delaware, told The Speaker.
To see how people were affected by childhood experiences over the course of their lives, the team drew from an ongoing 37-year study that focused on maternal insensitivity.
“Our research report was based on data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation, which is a large research study of approximately 200 individuals who were born in the mid-1970’s to first-time mothers living in poverty,” Raby explained. “The participants have been continuously followed from birth to adulthood and currently are around age 37 years.”
The material included data on physiological responses, including skin conductance–an indicator of nervous system activity and therefore of emotional response.
The researchers wanted to find out if differences in the quality of care a child receives affected their nervous responses during adult conflicts.
They found that children who received sensitive mothering were better able to deal with difficult relationship issues as adults–their skin reactivity measured relatively lower. Those children who received less sensitive care exhibited more nervous arousal as adults while attempting to deal with difficult situations, which means that those adults would tend more towards emotional avoidance and withdrawal.
The team controlled for other factors that could reasonably be expected to effect relationship abilities, and found that, at least for the study, the results were not dependent on the types of relationships to which an individual belonged–gender, ethnicity or socioeconomic status also were not responsible for the results.
“Specifically, we observed that early supportive/sensitive caregiving was associated with more competent functioning in (a) peer relationships during childhood and adolescence, (b) romantic relationships during young adulthood, and (c) parent-child relationships at age 32 years,” Raby told us.
“The findings related to peers and romantic partners are not new though,” he noted. “Previous publications from this research project have included those findings, and those associations have been replicated in independent samples.”
The conclusion reached by Raby and his team was that insensitive parenting created adults who avoided conflict with their spouses, and sensitive parenting led to an ability to resolve conflicts with romantic partners, but Raby added that further research into the matter was necessary.
“The association between early caregiving experiences and later parenting quality was largely indirect, meaning that more supportive early caregiving predicted later relationships with peers and romantic partners which in turn predicted adult parenting quality. However, in other studies we have observed that early caregiving experiences do have a unique role in promoting functioning in adult relationships even after accounting for relationship experiences during the intervening years. Because the unique contributions of early caregiving are relatively small, large samples and many measurements are needed to detect these associations. I anticipate that future research will provide evidence that early caregiving experiences shape later parenting outcomes both directly and indirectly.”
Why the type of treatment experienced by a child affects his or her later relationships may be due to the ideas that are formed by the child during early years.
“We think the reason for this is that individuals are developing expectations, attitudes, and behavioral skills within these earlier relationships that they carry into their interactions with their romantic partners. Bringing these two ideas together, the current study indicates that romantic relationship quality may be both a cause and a consequence of parenting quality,” said Raby, noting that more tightly controlled experimental studies are needed to more conclusively make these kind of causal claims.
We asked Raby if he would comment on the record levels of single parenthood in the US and the high incidence of broken families in many parts of the world–many of which face prolonged conflict–and if the research might have some implications on these large issues.
Raby qualified that he wanted to be cautious in how far he extended the findings, but offered some educated guesses on how the findings might relate.
“Our goal was to test theoretical ideas about the developmental origins of parenting behavior and the way it is transmitted across generations. That said, I do believe the findings speak to the larger issues.
“First, we observed—as have others—that the presence and quality of adults’ romantic partnerships predicted the quality of parenting they provided to their children. This is perhaps not surprising since romantic relationships are one of the biggest sources of social support as well as stress during adulthood. Second, we also observed that romantic relationship functioning has its origins, at least in part, in earlier experiences with caregivers and peers.
“In other words, individuals who experienced more supportive care from their parents early in life and were more skilled at interacting with peers during childhood and adolescence were more likely to form high-quality, committed romantic partnerships during adulthood.
“In my opinion, the important take-away message is also the most basic one,” said Raby. “Early parent-child relationships play an important role in understanding later parenting quality in adulthood. Although our study was focused on the interpersonal experiences that account for this intergenerational association, our findings in no way mitigate the importance of early caregiving experiences.
“Importantly, researchers working with other longitudinal studies have reported almost identical results concerning the intergenerational associations in parenting. This is astounding to me and makes me very excited about continuing to work on this topic.”
Russia is sending a large convoy of humanitarian aid to Transnistria, the pro-Russian region of Moldova, with the stated intention of helping the region integrate into the Euro-Asian Union, according to news PMR, a Moldovan news outlet. The Russian organization responsible for directing the deliveries met with the leader of the pro-Russian separatist government in Transnistria Wednesday, reportedly, and stated that there would be around 60 trucks in all.
Argunov said that he had discussed with Shevciuk equipment for new medical clinics and kindergartens in Transnistria, which would be built using Russian resources. Russia would also help implement social projects and provide Transnistria with subsidies to help deal with economic problems associated with breaking from Moldova, Argunov said.
Shevciuk was in Moscow in early October where he spoke about the socioeconomic situation in Transnistria following the signing of the Association Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Moldova.
Moldova held parliamentary elections last week, in which pro-European parties took a greater number of seats than pro-Russian parties. Moldova will now form a coalition government that will have strong pro-European inclinations.
Argun said that the equipment being delivered to Transnistria was produced by various manufacturers in Germany, Belarus, and other nations. “We bought the best option based on price and quality, such that will suit our beneficiaries in Transnistria.”
Seven trucks arrived in Moldova in early November. Argunov said Wednesday that there would be about 60 in total, and “dozens” were currently on their way.
Argunov also commented on the complex nature of such cargo deliveries, saying that the organization shipped the most simple products first, such as furniture.
“On the example of furniture,” Argunov said, “we have seen how loads have passed through Ukraine, which was with difficulties, and what was required of the Ukrainian authorities with regards to the passage of the cargo. We assessed how things happened there [with simple products first], and then began to send more expensive medical equipment.”
The first deputy chairman of the Customs Committee of the Pridnestrovian Moldovian Republic (PMR), Svetlana Klimenkova, said that the Transnistrian side is making every effort to ensure continuity of the process and to facilitate “Eurasian integration.”
“Initially, we worked out all the possible options in terms of movement of these types of goods and provided the ability to move in such a way as to eliminate all the problems of complexity and difficulty. The process worked efficiency, “said Klimenkova.
The Chechen Center, which identifies itself as “Independent Chechen Media, Chechnya, Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, ChRI, Ichkeria,” tweeted, “300 freedom fighters stormed the positions of Russian troops in Grozny. For our freedom and yours!”
Early in the morning, head of the Chechen Republic and a former Chechen rebel, Ramzan Kadyrov, announced that the insurgents were “about to be neutralized.”
Kadyrov claimed to be personally supervising the anti-terrorist operation (ATO). Shortly after 8 a.m.–time appointed by Kadyrov for the end of the mission, Chechen militants blocked a school, and Russian forces assaulted the building.
Fighting continued in the streets of Grozny into the day.
Kadyrov denied claims that the Chechen force was gaining control.
“I ask residents in areas where the (security) operation is being carried out to take precautions, and not to go outside without urgent need, nor to approach the windows,” wrote Kadyrov online. “All the talk about the city being under the control of militants is absolutely false.”
A force, reportedly around 300-400 strong, is fighting in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya in Russia’s North Caucasus region. The militants seized the Grozny Press House media facility and laid siege to a school, prompting a military response from Russian authorities. Russian President Vladimir Putin was transported to the Kremlin in the middle of the night by motorcade, and Moscow airspace has been closed to civilian traffic, reportedly.
“There have been casualties among law enforcement personnel there,” reported the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC).
Reportedly, five police officers were killed when the militants stormed the building at around 1:00 a.m. local time. The militants arrived in three cars and attacked the police guard, then entered the building on the corner of Lorsanov and Mayakovsky.
A Russian anti-terrorist operation has been launched, and authorities in the region are fighting the rebel insurgents.
“At the direction of the head of the operations headquarters of the NAC in Grozny, a counter-terrorist operation has been initiated,” read an NAC statement.
Russian tanks, troops and armored troop vehicles have surrounded locations where the fighting is taking place. Gunfire continues. The counter-terrorist operation includes increased public protection measures, checking of all documents in designated areas and communication with police and other competent authorities for identity verification. Vehicles in the affected area will be towed, and cellular phone communication may be blocked.
Airspace over Moscow has been closed to all civilian traffic, reportedly.
Flightradar24 image
Several sources on Twitter are reporting that Putin’s motorcade was seen travelling to the Kremlin in the middle of the night, with helicopters flying around the building.
The attacks come just hours before Putin was scheduled to deliver a speech before the Russian Federation Council. The speech has been much anticipated, as the last such speech made to Russia’s upper house followed shortly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
Some of the videos posted of the fighting claim that the assault is being led by the Mujahideen of the Caucasus Emirate, Amir Khamzat, a close associate of the late Dokku Umarov, the former leader of the Emirate who was killed by Russia in Sept. 2013.
Chechen rebellion against Russia dates back centuries. The First Chechen War began in 1991, and the Second Chechen War continued the conflict after a five year intermission from 1994 to 1999. During the Second Chechen War, Grozny was almost completely destroyed by Russia before Chechnya was put under direct control of Moscow. Since that time, low-level insurgency has continued, first under Shamil Basayev, then under Umarov and now under Khamzat.
A group of coffins returned to a far eastern Russian city from the fighting in Eastern Ukraine. The coffins were marked as “Cargo 200” and best efforts were made by Russian officials to keep the funeral secret.
“The first 17 zinc coffins were returned to the city, which caused some shock among the local people,” stated a former Russian soldier who spoke on condition of anonymity to Crime.in.UA, who called the man in the city of Ussuriysk.
Information about where the deaths of the Russia soldiers took place was not released by Russian officials, who attempted to keep the funeral as secret as possible, according to the source.
However, the former Russian soldier said that the corpses appeared to be professional soldiers (“kontrakniki”) from the 14th Brigade of the GRU Spetsnaz Russian Federation (Special Forces of the Russian General Staff), although the source qualified that it was difficult to say with certainty from which military unit the soldiers had served.
The source said that the Russian corpses had been killed in one of the battles for the Donetsk airport in Eastern Ukraine.
The zinc coffins were returned to Ussuriysk, a city of 165,000 people located on an arm of Russian territory at the very eastern edge of Russia, surrounded by China, North Korea and the Sea of Japan. Around 500 Russian soldiers who had been based in Ussuriysk after 2012 had been flown to the Rostov oblast–“the West,” as locals referred to it–earlier this year.
“It was clear that Russian special forces operate at the [Donetsk] airport,” said the source, “but it really could not be confirmed. Now everything fits together.”
Fighting around Donetsk, particularly at the Donetsk airport continues despite the Sept. 5 peace agreement. Russia sent an eighth convoy of 39 unauthorized, uninspected vehicles to refortify its fighters in Eastern Ukraine with food, fuel, weapons and ammunition Nov. 30.
The bias groups have to view their own actions as driven predominantly by love while viewing the actions of their rivals as driven more by hate has been explained by recent research conducted by a team from Northwestern University. The researchers found that in reality conflicts were driven by the same motivations, but the view from each side of a conflict was skewed–partially by psychological bias, partly by experience. The researchers also found that the bias could be removed by incentivizing a more considerate understanding using a time-honored cooperative tool–money.
Dr Adam Waytz
“People are surprisingly motivated by the same things in conflict–wanting to do right by their own group, and wanting to show loyalty and affiliation toward their own group,” Dr Adam Waytz, Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellog School of Management and lead author of the study, told The Speaker.
“The Palestinian and Israeli conflict provides the clearest example,” Waytz told us. “I think most cases where a country decides on a violent or aggressive strategy to address conflict with another country means that they are assuming the other country is driven by hate.”
3,000 people were involved in the NU study, which included Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East and Republicans and Democrats in the US.
The research team found that each side of a conflict felt that their group was motivated by love more than hate, but each also felt that the other group was motivated by hate more than love.
“We think people misinterpret others’ motives for two related reasons. One, they are motivated to see their own group as loving and their outgroup as barbaric,” Waytz told us, referring to a theory called motive attribution asymmetry. “Two, they simply encounter less instances of their outgroup engaged in acts of love, and therefore are blind to these motives,” said Waytz.
The researchers found evidence that each group regularly saw its own members engaging in acts of “love, care and affiliation,” but rarely saw rival group members acting from similar motives. In large part, this is because groups more often notice each other’s actions during moments of heated conflict.
Rival groups often can’t see eye to eye on possible solutions or find grounds for compromise because they can’t agree on the way they perceive each other. This creates an error or bias.
“If they believed that the other country was driven by in-group love, they would see diplomacy as a more effective tactic,.” said Waytz.
“It’s interesting to see that people can be blind to the source of behavior on the other side, that you can go from saying you are motivated by love of your own group and you can’t seem to apply that to reasoning about the other side,” Liane Young, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychology at Boston College and co-author of the research article commented in a press release.
“What’s interesting to me is there’s so much work on social psychology suggesting we first think about who we are and what motivates us and we tend to apply that other people,” said Young. “What we’re seeing here is just the opposite where I say one thing for me and instead of extrapolating that it would be the same for you, I say it’s just the opposite for you, that you’re motivated by your hatred of my group. That’s pretty striking to me.
“What we also found was that these attributions tend to also track with other sorts of consequences so if you think that the people on the other side are motivated by their hatred of your group, you also are unwilling to negotiate with that group,” continued Young. “You tend to think they’re more unreasonable, suggesting that people’s misattributions of other groups may be the cause of intractable conflict.”
The NU team found that biases towards motive attribution asymmetry could be removed by incentivizing more considerate judgement.
When money was offered, study participants were able to correctly assess an opponent’s motivation. The promise of money for finding the right answer seemed to help study participants find that “right answer.”
“We just simply told people they would get a bonus for getting the answer right so they had to buy into this idea that there was a right answer,” said Young. “It seems like we can at least move around people’s judgments and that people aren’t so hopelessly lost that they can’t get it right when they are motivated to get it right.”
The report, “Motive Attribution Asymmetry For Love vs. Hate Drives Intractable Conflict,” was authored by Adam Waytz of Northwestern University, Jeremy Ginges of the New School of Social Research, and Liane Young of Boston College, was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Russia’s proposed South Stream pipeline–which would connect Russia to southern Europe without crossing Ukraine–was scrapped Monday in the wake of EU objections to the project. Instead, Russia is naming Turkey as its preferred piped gas partner.
Russia has been for several years in the planning stage for an undersea pipeline to that would feed 63 billion cubic meters into Turkey annually. The pipeline would run under the Black Sea at a depth of up to 1.5 miles.
The Blue Stream pipeline which already connects the two nations opened officially in 2005. Even in 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin had stated that there was an opportunity to expand the pipeline to pump gas across Turkey into southern Italy, the south of Europe an Israel. Turkey also viewed Blue Stream as a step towards becoming a player in world energy markets.
Citing EU objections to South Stream, which would have brought gas into the EU via Bulgaria, Russia’s chief executive of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, told reporters in Ankara that South Stream was “closed.” “That’s it,” said the official.
Putin publicly stated that Russia would grant Turkey a six percent discount on imported gas next year. Turkey is seeking a 15 percent discount for Russian gas, however.
“As our cooperation develops and deepens, I think we will be ready for further price reductions,” Miller told reporters in Ankara. “As we develop our joint projects… the level of gas price for Turkey could reach the one Germany has today.”
Putin also accused the EU of denying Bulgaria its sovereign rights by blocking the South Stream project. Putin counselled that the EU objections were “against Europe’s economic interests” and were “causing damage”
Currently, Russia supplies around 30 percent of Europe’s gas needs via pipelines through Ukraine. Many nations–including Hungary, Austria and Bulgaria–have expressed concern that the South Stream pipeline would be risky, citing Russia’s gas disruptions and threatened disruptions via Ukraine pipelines after Russia invaded Ukraine early this year.
Selfies are increasingly common are hardly ever newsworthy–but selfies creating or breaking records definitely are. A selfie taken last week on a Windows phone in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, claims to be the world’s largest selfie ever taken–a record it may have created itself.
In a bid to capture the world’s largest selfie, Microsoft Bangladesh in association with Coca-Cola organized a campaign that saw at least 1,151 people shot in a single selfie. The organizers required the selfie enthusiasts to sign in for the sake of a head count.
The program was aimed at marketing Microsoft’s newly-introduced Windows device in Bangladesh, Nokia Lumia 730, which the Redmond-based company is touting as “made for selfies.”
In their official Facebook page, the company credited this photo as the largest selfie ever. Official recognition from Guinness has yet to come.
“The Microsoft Lumia team in Bangladesh is actively engaged with Guinness World Records to gain authentication of the selfie record,” Mr. Sandeep Gupta, a general manager of Microsoft emerging Asia told this journalist.
Apparently, there emerged a contender to Microsoft’s claim the same week.
Some 2,000 rabbis were reported to have taken part in a group selfie after attending the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries in Brooklyn, New York. Toronto-based Shalom Life reported that a “camera” mounted on a five-meter-long selfie stick was used to capture the photo.
Unlike the Bangladeshi picture, the number of emissaries captured was not confirmed by the concerned authority. In addition, the Rabbi photo appears to fall short of the definition of selfie found in Oxford’s English Dictionary, that says, “[A selfie is] a photographic self-portrait; esp. one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.”
After Ellen DeGeneres wrangled to take a selfie of a scrum of Hollywood megastars during this year’s Academy Award that set a new record for most retweeted photo in history, analysts suggested that the selfie could be used as a subtle way of brand promotion.
Whether or not the Dhaka photo was inspired by the media buzz created by Ellen’s Oscar selfie, Microsoft appears to have undertaken an experiment a new era of marketing strategy in which the selfie is thought to be a game changer.
Germany’s foreign ministry spoke on the question of Ukraine’s joining NATO Sunday, stating that the idea could not be on the agenda and that Ukraine was not on the way towards NATO, as far as he was concerned. The minister expressed concern over “adding fuel to the fire” over a continuingly dangerous conflict.
“I am all for transparency in the matter, as, I believe, it would not be helpful if we were to not speak about it,” said Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in an interview with ZDF television channel.
Steinmeier said that it would be necessary to inform the public of the questions that it would be better not to ask for fear of “adding fuel to the fire.”
It was necessary to “remain realists,” said the minister. “We are in the centre of a dangerous conflict.”
Steinmeier said that the situation in Ukraine left much to be desired, but further escalation was still possible and he remained concern about the possible repercussions of Ukraine joining NATO.
“For me, Ukraine’s membership in the North Atlantic Alliance cannot be on the agenda. Anyway, I cannot see Ukraine on the way towards NATO,” he said.
The minister characterized the dispute with Russia as “major.”
““I keep saying, it may take just 14 days to provoke a conflict, but it could take 14 years to settle it.”
Unable to vote, hundreds of Moldovans remained at closed polling stations in Moscow, shouting, “Let us vote!” Officials, citing a shortage of ballot papers midway into the vote, stated that no more ballot papers would be issued, and the vote would not be extended.
Parliamentary election voting was cut short in the Russian capital after ballot papers ran out, according to election commission chairman Anatoly Patrashku.
Ballot papers ran out during the opening hours of polling at the Moldovan consulate building in Moscow.
“It has been decided that the work of the polling stations will not be extended since all of the 3,000 ballot papers have been used, said Patrashku.
Across Russia, the Moldovan government opened only five polling stations for the Sunday vote, despite the number of 700,000-one million Moldovans who reside in Russia. These stations were located within Moscow, Ramenskoye (Moscow region), Novosibirsk, St Petersberg and Sochi.
According to Moldovan election regulations, each polling station cannot have more than 3,000 ballot papers.
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