A Bit More Detail

• This Open Democracy article examines how, exactly, Montenegro could start a Third World War. (It would need help from the Great Powers, for starters.)


• Politico Europe notes that wildlife seems to thrive on the depopulated front line in eastern Ukraine's Donbas.


• Doug Bock Clark writes at GQ about the sad story of Otto Warmbier, finding much evidence to confirm that he was not tortured but rather that he suffered a sadder fate.


• The New York Times takes a look at the first IKEA in India, still recognizably an IKEA but tailored to fit local conditions.


• Douglas Rushkoff writes at The Guardian about the blind alleys of nihilism and fear that at least some corporate futurists and transhumanists are racing into.

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that the measured rate of the expansion of the universe depends on the method used to track this rate, and that this is a problem.


• On Sunday, Caitlin Kelly celebrated receiving her annual cheque from Canada's Public Lending Program, which gives authors royalties based on how often their book has been borrowed in our public libraries.


• In The Buzz, the Toronto Public Library identified five books in its collection particularly prone to be challenged by would-be censors.


• D-Brief suggests that, if bacteria managed to survive and adapt in the Atacama desert as it became hostile to life, like life might have done the same on Mars.


• Far Outliers notes the crushing defeat, and extensive looting of, the Moghul empire by the Persia of Nader Shah.


• Hornet Stories looks at the medal hauls of out Olympic athletes this year in Pyeongchang.

Imageo notes satellite imagery indicating that fisheries occupy four times the footprint of agriculture. Aquaculture is starting to look like a necessary idea, I think.

• At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox praises Porch Fires, a new biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser, for its insights on Wilder and on the moment of the settlement of the American West.


• JSTOR Daily notes how, in the 19th century after the development of anesthesia, the ability to relieve people of pain was a political controversy. Shouldn't it be felt, wasn't it natural?


• Language Hat links to an article taking a look behind the scenes at the Oxford English Dictionary. How does it work? What are its challenges?


• At Lingua Franca, Roger Shuy distinguishes between different kinds of speech events and explains why they are so important in the context of bribery trials.


• The LRB Blog shares some advice on ethics in statecraft from the 2nd century CE Chinese writer Liu An.


• J. Hoberman at the NYR Daily reviews an exhibit of the work of Bauhaus artist Jozef Albers at the Guggenheim.


• Roads and Kingdoms shares an anecdote of travellers drinking homemade wine in Montenegro.


• Drew Rowsome interviews Native American drag queen and up-and-coming music star Vizin.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains how star S0-2, orbiting so close to the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy, will help prove Einsteinian relativity.


• Vintage Space explains, for the record, how rockets can work in a vacuum. (This did baffle some people this time last century.)


• Window on Eurasia suggests that, on its 100th anniversary, Estonia has succeeded in integrating most of its Russophones.

• Bad Astronomy reports on the astounding scientific illiteracy of Trump advisor Anthony Scaramucci.


• blogTO compiles a list of the best tobagganing hills in Toronto.


• Citizen Science Salon looks at what we can do in the redwood forests.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes a gap in the disk of TW Hydrae.


• Imageo notes that 2016 is the warmest year in the records.


• Joe. My. God. notes that a pride parade protected by police went off in Montenegro.


• Language Hat shares the story of Lazer Lederhendler, a son of Holocaust survivors in Montréal who became one of the leading translators into English of Québec literature.


• Language Log looks at the distant origins of Japanese terms for "dog."


• Marginal Revolution notes the rising popularity of Vladimir Putin on the American right.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer looks at the links between Russia and the "Calexit" movement.


• The Volokh Conspiracy celebrates Saturnalia.


• Window on Eurasia looks at Russia's use of genetics to disentangle the Tatar peoples and argues that the definition of Russians and Ukrainians as fraternal is dangerous to the latter.

On 27 September, thousands of Montenegrin citizens, led by the main opposition group (the Democratic Front), gathered in front of their parliament to demand an end to the 26 year rule of Milo Djukanovic’s regime. The resignation of Djukanovic’s government would be followed, it was hoped, by the formation of a transitional, national unity government, whose mandate would be limited to organising the first free and fair elections in the country’s history.

Since then, the protesters have put up tents on a boulevard which has become known as ‘liberated territory’; across the barricades, a thousand policemen in full armor stand guard outside an empty parliament building, on top of which snipers are dispersed. Last Sunday, the Ministry of Interior attempted to disband the assembled crowd, but the protests’ leaders refused to leave the occupied ground until their demands were met.

Anti-Government rallies have also taken place in three other cities – the organisers’ plan is to spread this wave of popular revolt to every municipality in which Djukanovic’s party holds power, thus making the movement nation-wide.

Meanwhile, from our press tent, I have been involved in running an international crowdfunding campaign to support the Montenegrin protests. Without the funds, the logistics or the manpower to mount a credible challenge to Djukanovic, the protests’ organisers have been forced to think outside of the box. Indeed, the prospect of the protests being the first political event of their kind to be sustained by small individual donations (‘citizen-driven and citizen-funded’, as they point out) is as out-of-the-box as it gets.

As partial as I am to this fundraising novelty it appears as though, even at this early stage of development, the protests have brought to the fore a far more pertinent point – one that may contribute to the understanding of the role of elections in authoritarian regimes.

Different as they are, Ukraine has much in common with Bulgaria. Both are divided in their attitude to Russia – it’s just that in Ukraine the division is territorial, in Bulgaria philosophical. Both have been rocked by protests, although those in Ukraine ended with an explosion, those in Bulgaria with implosion. And both belong to a seemingly unhappy family – the Orthodox Slavs.

These countries of Slavia Orthodoxa (Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine) top the surveys for fatigue, unhappiness, and pessimism. All have low rates of fertility and high rates of crime. Some fought recent wars – and lost them. There is no spectacular business success here. Only one, Bulgaria, was not a member of either Yugoslavia or the USSR. And only one, Bulgaria again, is an EU member. Still, Bulgaria is the poorest country in the EU and is not known for its stability.

[. . .]

First, not all Orthodox Slavs are hard-line Russophiles. Serbs and Montenegrins are, but from a distance – a luxury Belarusians do not possess. Bulgarians and Ukrainians are at least divided. There, you have many people who are culturally Russophile but politically pro-Western; it is possible to love Dostoyevsky and democracy simultaneously.

Second, not all members of Slavia Orthodoxa are anti-Western; quite the contrary. Bulgarians are more pro-Western even than some fellow EU members. Even Russians have a strong pro-Western tradition. Russian historian Alexander Yanov traces it to Kyiv and Novgorod.

Third, Eastern Christians are not by nature spoiled losers; they also can prosper and flourish. “Byzantine” is not a synonym for tyranny and obedience; it marks one of the cradles of European civilization, a continuation of Rome. Misery is caused by corrupt cliques, not by the blood in your veins or the faith in your soul. Culture is not only what you inherit, but also what you acquire. In this sense, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Russia could be free, prosperous, and democratic

[Russian influence] It is most visible in Jurmala, the picturesque resort of pine forests and wooden dachas from where Rozhetskin is thought to have disappeared. Every summer Russia's fashionable super-rich gather here for the New Wave pop festival. They meet, socialise and party. A table in the VIP lounge of the town's concert hall costs £25,000. It is joked that their combined wealth exceeds Latvia's budget.

[. . .]

"Jurmala isn't really a music festival. You don't need to go to Latvia to listen to Russian pop stars. You can do that in Russia," Jakobson said. "In reality Jurmala is an important moment. The Russian mafia and Russian government are together in one place. They discuss common problems, global problems and how to move money through the Baltics."

Some including Jakobson believe the Kremlin's agenda in Latvia is to slowly reverse the country's strategic direction from pro-west to pro-Moscow. This is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and, arguably, Georgia have all recently returned to Russia's geo-political fold following unsuccessful revolutions.

Latvia has the biggest proportion of ethnic Russians of the three post-Soviet Baltic states, accounting for about 25% of Latvia's population. Some 37% speak Russian as a first language, the highest figure for any EU country. The charming capital Riga is effectively bilingual, with Russian and Latvian spoken on its art nouveau streets.

There is also growing evidence the country has become a haven for dubious Russian money.

In a report last week the European commission praised Latvia's post-2008 economic recovery. But it said the authorities had not done enough to stop Latvia's banking system being used for "complex economic, financial, money laundering, and tax evasion crimes".

• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait and Centauri Dreams guest poster Lee Billings and Supernova Condensate all react joyfully to the news of the discovery of Alpha Centauri Bb (or is it B b).


• Next, at Beyond the Beyond, Bruce Sterling blogged about two prescient computer-related predictions, one describing tablet computer for children imagined in 1972 and the other revisiting the Xerox Star.


• Daniel Drezner takes a look at a study describing China's increasing tendency to apply sanctions on other countries. So far Chinese sanction use has been fairly limited.


• Eastern Approaches examines the politics of Montenegro and the potential for progress in deadlocked Greek-Macedonian relations.


• Marginal Revolution notes that a computer manufacturer owned by the father of Psy, K-Pop star famed for "Gangnam Style", is undergoing a boom in its prices.


• J. Otto Pohl argues that leftists in the developed world have a vested interest in Africa not developing and remaining abject.


• The Population Reference Bureau's blog Behind the Numbers notes a study suggesting that, contrary some predictions, a decreasing sex ratio in China and India and elsewhere doesn't strengthen the bargaining position of women but rather does the contrary.


• Torontoist notes a celebration of the one-year anniversary of Occupy Toronto.


• At the Volokh Conspiracy, historian Eric Hobsbawm's support for Stalinism is addressed in the context of the neglect of Communist crimes against humanity generally.


• The Zeds' Michael Steeleworthy fears that the new paywall of The Globe and Mail might augur--if we're not careful--an era of restricted public access to information generally.

Experts and analysts agree that the region, now comprising the newly independent nations or territories of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro, went through a "painful transition" into market economy.

It began more or less at the time when the 1991-95 wars of disintegration tore the country apart and ended a brand of relaxed socialism that had existed since the end of WW II.

Except for Slovenia, once the most developed part of former Yugoslavia and which became a member of the European Union (EU) in 2004, the economic performances of the rest are dismal when compared to 1989, a benchmark for the region.

Experts say that the processes of privatisation and transition to market economy here differed profoundly from what happened in the former East European nations after the Berlin wall fell in 1989 and that today's poverty is not a sudden event caused by recent global downturn.

"We did not see former cunning communist managers or murky international businesses being engaged in privatisation," economy analyst Misa Brkic told IPS in an interview.

"We had devastating wars, used by local elites to grab power and introduce people close to them into economy, where, as the time went by in the 90s and in this decade, they did not and could not play by market rules."

The wars left more than 120,000 people dead and economic damage worth tens of billions of dollars in devastated factories, companies, state or privately owned real estate, and in production and export losses of the former common market that collapsed.

[. . .]

Croatia and its 4.3 million people reached 69 percent of its 1989 GDP in 2003, while Serbia and its 7.3 million reached the same point only in 2009.

As for Bosnia-Herzegovina with an estimated population of 3.5 million, and its specific post-war construction of two entities, Republic of Srpska, the Serb entity, and Muslim-Croat Federation, things stand definitely worse.

The financial distress of Oleg Deripaska's aluminum business in Montenegro is threatening to turn the hottest economic growth story in the Balkans into the next Iceland.

The Russian oligarch, through his En+ Group Ltd. subsidiary, has told the Montenegrin government it cannot afford to keep the aluminum refinery, Kombinat Aluminijuma Podgorica, known as KAP, operating at a loss and is likely to close the entire operation unless it receives financial support in a hurry.

"We cannot pay our bills," KAP director Andrej Kuznjecov said in a phone interview from Moscow yesterday. "We're talking three to four weeks before we make the decision whether to shut it down."

KAP and its related companies, including a bauxite mine also controlled by Mr. Deripaska, form the most important industry in Montenegro, the small Adriatic country north of Albania that declared independence from Serbia in 2006. The KAP companies have 3,750 employees and account for 40 per cent of gross domestic product.

Aluminum made up slightly more than half of Montenegro's exports in 2007.

Aluminum production and exports keep the seaport, the railway and about 100 local suppliers in business.

KAP's woes provide a graphic illustration of how the credit crisis and recession are creating a domino effect around the world, hurting even robust economies farthest from the world's financial centres. Since 2006, Montenegro has been growing at 8 per cent a year as investors from Russia, Western Europe and Canada pumped up the country with construction, tourism and aluminum projects.

Growth has since fallen off a cliff.

Construction is slowing considerably. One of the country's main banks, Prva Banka, which is partly owned by the family of Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, had to be bailed out. The International Monetary Fund last month estimated growth of just 2 per cent in 2009. All growth bets are off if KAP implodes.

[T]he project has had a rough start. Thousands of Montenegrins took to the streets in protest when word got out that the old Arsenal navy yard would be recast as a playground for the idle rich. Some locals think Munk & Co. is building something akin to a gated community for floating Russian billionaires – Russian tourists and investors are already so thick on the ground that the country is known as “Moscow by the Med.” Marine biologists fear the yacht harbour will damage the already stressed ecology of the Bay of Kotor, the Med's only fjord and one of the loveliest anchorages on the planet.

Montenegro presses against Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Albania on the southern fringes of the Dalmatian Coast. The seaside is heaven. Green mountains plunge into the Adriatic, the water is cerulean blue and unsullied. Ancient towns, some fortified, dot the shores. Hotels, restaurants and shops are springing up everywhere, but the densities (and the prices) are nowhere near the horrific levels of France's Côte d'Azur.

If Mr. Munk gets his way – there is no reason to think he won't, given the money already invested and the approvals obtained – the Te Manu won't stick out from the crowd at Porto Montenegro, some 15 kilometres north of Budva. The Bay of Kotor marina will have berths for 650 yachts, 150 of them superyachts. Boats as long as 150 metres could be accommodated in a pinch.