Tuesday, October 8, 2013

More on The NSU Trial in Germany.

That this particular legal proceeding is the most significant dealing with the far - right in Germany in years, and has been cause for great concern within FRG itself, it is not a huge subject of discussion nor real awareness outside that cultural and territorial surrounding.  The crimes allegedly associated with the NSU ("National Socialist Underground") in their relative insignificance and in their overall morbidity are cause for concern not just in Germany, but in any country or region where there are individuals who are part of a system and who take advantage of this for their own ends or in order to otherwise and inappropriately take part in the sinister and dark, immorally punishing and even criminal world in order to bring attention to their personal politics.  It is perhaps true, and there might even be a history of the NSU and related parties, that politically oriented people within a system like the democratic FRG, though they are not reasonably able to have a majority voice as, i.e., the politics of the nazis are disproven everywhere, resort to various tactics and vile and violent acts as the NSU apparently has.  This is symptom of the cultural psychosis of anyone or any group condoning the crime of assassination and elimination of people as an allowable act under the circumstances the NSU might present to anyone.

In knowing in any detail about the mission of the NSU, it might be difficult to consider loving one's neighbor as oneself, inasmuch as one is not able even a little to trust one's neighbor.  In the free country of the FRG, an excellent place, even the state chancellor is challenged when attempting to reply to questions and comments about the situation in the former Eastern Germany and its effects on people today, more specifically in the area of origin for the NSU that has been on the fringes socially, culturally, economically and in many other ways since the downfall of communism in 1989 - 1990.  The political environment in the area of origin for the NSU is characteristically rife with ideas and attitudes that leave people grasping at straws about their own lives and in all quite angry and frustrated with things in the world, especially concerning influences that are non - German or that are from the outside.  Remember if one judges the NSU outside of this particular proceeding that one can not just lay one's hands, proverbially, metaphorically nor otherwise on such problems as a way of resolving them and their effects.  The circumstances of any showing of anti - Semitism or like idea today, in the world as we now have it with the related extremely mortal conflicts behind us, are quite special and individualized and despite the reality of this subculture of anger and awfully willful violence, there is through the humaneness with which the defendant at trial is treated in the Münich Higher Regional Court and that city's Stadelheim prison a comprehension of the conflict(s) people have experienced since the defeat of communism and official laying - to - rest of many far right influences in Germany itself.  The case of Germany with respect to such issues is in itself extremely specific and special, and requires considerable and reasonable study in order to have any level of understanding of it.  A good number of the answers to dilemmas proposed by the Bäder Meinhof in days gone by and the NSU today are the internal affairs of the country itself; to insist otherwise and to broadly apply these are nonsense and in denial of the watchful and ordinary conscience.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10263998/German-neo-Nazi-trial-gives-insight-into-secret-life-of-Beate-Zschape.html - hyperlink to "Telegraph" (U.K.) article, September 2013.  

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Les relations extérieures à la télé, ... .

Lettre publique destinée à la droite en France - 

Cher Monsieur ou Madame Représentant de l’U.M.P. :

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A l’occasion de regarder le « PBS » aux EE.UU. aujourd’hui pendant l’heure de l’émission « Charlie Rose », programme télévisé d’interview et des évènements courants à présent, j’ai bien vu votre ministre [français] des affaires étrangères, Laurent Fabius, ancien pilote d’avion de chasse, en parlant avec M. Charlie Rose sur le sujet de la politique de la crise au Moyen Orient et surtout au sujet des circonstances pour les rebelles et les challenges sur le gouvernement syrien en faisant face a.  à la politique et les conflits de guerre civile, b.  l’emploi du gaz [] sur le point des missiles envoyées aux faubourgs de Damas, et c.  au dialogue international sur les liens entre l’état des affaires actuellement en Syrie, la politique étrangère de la Russie et les efforts nucléaires d’Iran, Syrie et leurs voisins dans la région.

La parole de M. Fabius était formidable et est à suivre peut – être pour les raisons suivantes :  M. Fabius dans son fondement et formation voit bien les perçus et attitudes, ambitions et la volonté de l’arabe sous Islam – ce qui est une pointe de repère pour la politique socialiste influente dans votre région.  Egalement, il cautionne fortement un jugement sur la politique syrienne en tant qu’encore soumettant aux souhaits Russes, Iraniens, et autres en place au débat aux Nations Unies, même de la Chine, les pays de l’Afrique et autres états non – alignés à l’assemblée de l’O.N.U. M. Fabius fortement et de plusieurs côtés ait mentionné son rôle dans la conduite et la volume du débat, et le rôle en même temps du gouvernement en France en offrant des avis à faciliter une solution à ces problèmes extrêmement complexes une fois examinés les courants de l’histoire quoique récente [en] la Syrie, et du « printemps arabe ».  Son point de vue, bien entendu dans le raisonnement des socialistes dans votre pays, est exprimé dans une parole qui souffre d’un analyse de base sous - détaillé aussi bien d’une hauteur qui ait montré de nouveau les détails de la pensée vivement exprimée de son ancien chef François Mitterrand qui n'ignorait souvent que « l’Internationale » dans ses pratiques et pensées.

Celles - ci pourraient être comprises autant perspicaces par les socialistes en France que dangereuses par les adhérents aux autres coins de la politique en le pays dans le sens que M. Mitterrand fût pendant l’époque très arrogant en son pouvoir exercé au niveau de ces grandes lignes, une fois donné la politique du pétrole, des terroristes dans la région et partout, des idées globales de l’Islam et autres coins idéologiques et dogmatiques sur l’échelle en réaction à la pensée, moralité, même la façon de vivre des français et françaises.  Ici compris est le hasard du parler familier dans les interviews à l’étranger par les hommes politiques socialistes de la France qui sont souvent coupables d’utiliser la presse et les médias à l’étranger en tant que labo pour leurs idées faisant appel à leur point de vue mondiale.  Laurent Fabius est un homme brave et formidable dans son attitude pratique et son usage du langage de la politique, et même encore en le cas qu’il conduit son avion de chasse ; mais les idées délicates et susceptibles, et sensibles de la guerre en Syrie, celles des armes très destructrices y utilisées contre les rebelles et maquis, et les courants idéologiques dans le voisinage ne doivent pas être sujets ni au niveau de l’expérimentation verbale ni aux regards en arrière vers les pouvoirs de gauche du passé n’ayant pas été capable à résoudre ces difficultés ni pour les français ni pour les autres.  Les socialistes en France continuent à chercher des richesses et l’influence partout en commandant une sorte de dictature de la pensée selon l’ancienne - nouvelle politique de Mitterrand qui se soulève à l’occasion d’un appel de la gauche en France.  La populace doit regarder sur ses caractères, et au – dessus de tout de la gauche à ce sujet, dans les débats politiques à Paris et en province, et dans le pays partout.  Je vous prie de pardonner les fautes stylistiques et d’orthographe ici et vous souhaite tout le bien pour le présent et le l’avenir.

Avec mes meilleurs aveux,

THS
Californie, EE.UU.


Monday, September 23, 2013

Remembering the Washington, D.C., Naval Yard Incident of September 16, 2013.

Shang hai - symbol of success of the 'three represents' - belated book review.

The Man Who Changed China:   The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin, by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, Crown Books 2004.

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By the “Three Represents”, now in the lexicon of Chinese political thought and part of what the P.R.C. constitution preaches at this point, Jiang Zemin, leader of China during much of the Clinton and Bush years in the U.S., provided for P.R.C. pride and Chinese patriotism in his wording of a renewed emphasis on Marxist – Leninist thought, the dogma of Mao Zedong, and additionally Deng Xiao ping political / economic theory.  While the rise of Shang hai as a provincial and commercial capitol in the P.R.C. was important for that country and coincided with the rise of Mr. Jiang (a former mayor of the city of Shang hai) who became the president of the P.R.C.  These primary principles of political and ideological theory as espoused by Mr. Jiang in practice dealt with agenda items like modernizing the military on the mainland, modernizing political and administrative services processes and practices in P.R.C., and an effort to fight corruption in upholding age – old values of the “rule of law” and a spirit of “virtue” that have a long history in Asia under a Confucian tradition and other traditions on the mainland that recall the great historical legacy and rear view the administration has had after the events of Tian An men in 1989 when Mr. Jiang was a general secretary.  Also included in any implementation of Mr. Jiang’s primary political theory were efforts to reform state – owned enterprises (SOE’s), and revamp the P.R.C. financial sector and rural economy, and the overall increasingly successful effort in itself of the Chinese asserting themselves in the world. 

The commercial and business economy of the P.R.C. as of 1989 was still a “planned” economy, though the agenda items of Mr. Jiang obviously, with their rightist tendencies that had become more admissible at the time, facilitated more market – based activities in the country and in areas of P.R.C. influence politically and economically.  This Mr. Jiang called “advancing through the times”, and I believe my quotes are not out of context here, in validation of the socialist market economy on the mainland, domestic and international, in a kind of “capitalism with Chinese characteristics”.  Mr. Jiang, as a trained social scientist and natural scientist made all personal and professional efforts to revitalize the country primarily through simple re – emphasis and validation, again, of science and education, and this without interfering with the overall workings of the country’s establishment, especially the scientific one there.  This was accomplished somewhat by sending young Chinese scientists to the U.S. to pursue college and university educations (in 2002 over 60,000 students of whom more than 50,000 returned home at the end of their educational terms).  Mr. Jiang, despite being a scientist and engineering type, among the elite in his own state, in his public emphasis upon bringing up the country using his own methods, called for, validated and greatly lauded achievements among the greater populace in carrying out his principles and their practices.  

The time of Mr. Jiang as president of P.R.C. saw pretty much the end of “state means of production” and “dictatorship of the proletariat” as well, though not primarily so, the “each according to his ability and each according to his need” – type civic governance so ridden with vice and corruption as it had been for years on the mainland, and ridden as well with other discouraging tendencies emphasizing the class struggle.  These new principles in practice also meant the end of the overall leviathan power of industrial development and a new primacy recognizing the information age.  In this, Mr. Jiang demonstrated missionary and fanatical zeal, especially concerning the outdated workings of the communist party and how masses of people were treated by the system on the mainland.  These extremely successful efforts, probably the result of many other reforms besides the three basic principles above, and much more administrative and other work than meets the eye here, are reified in what many see today, citizens and tourists alike in P.R.C., as the achievements of the rebuilding, renewal and modernization of the city of Shang hai without interference or any cancelling out of influences of places in P.R.C. like Nan jing, Hong Kong, Guan dong, Bei jing and so forth. 

It is also very important to know that the “Three Represents” comprise not just old and simple ideas as dressed up for modernity.  These principles are communist ideas made to address new concerns of Marxist – Leninist ideology in advancing the productivity, status and dynamism and building up of a material civilization of this managed economy (no longer referred to, for example, as a non – market economy).  The obverse of the Cultural Revolution, intended at the time to discourage intellectuals, these three new edicts call upon innovators, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals now in the vanguard of a “new society” as primary sources for building up the country.  The text goes into considerable detail about how the implementation of these principles worked and much of the language behind them, especially the new de – emphasis of the party role vis – a – vis the masses (primarily industrial workers and farmers), that encompasses the party and the populace on all levels.  Much of this new doctrine was criticized in P.R.C. from the left as ideological ‘pollution’, and as a result was only really established as Mr. Jiang recently left office.  The movement itself is encapsulated in five primary public speeches by Mr. Jiang during the time 1978 – 2001 that illustrated the objectives of controlled political reform while preventing dissension and disagreement, repression and so on, especially again after Tian An men.  Reforms were founded on a basis of enlisting socio – economic stability among the populace and for example, discouraging anti – capitalist (read “anti – U.S.”) attitudes, the greatest good for the greatest number, and a vision of success for all stakeholders – these factors all despite the absence of democracy.  Considering the international public’s view of the success of newly – redeveloped Shang hai and related places, the achievements of the 2008 Olympics, successes in the war against terrorism, and acceptance worldwide of the new dogma; the efforts at reform have been even more successful with the country’s communist party that while it now cannot control everything allows some small non – communist political activities and party organisations, cooperation of non – communists and NGO’s with the party, and the new rise of the C.P.C. as a model guarantor of the state’s integrity, leadership strength and other attributes, Chinese nationalism, and new Marxist thought of which former soviet influences and followings.  The three principles are said to have modernized the party, economics of the country, while retaining the traditional communist goals, structures and social rules that have been in place for more than a generation. 

This was brought about by an emphasis upon youth and renewal, and new colleagial and consensus – building administrative guidelines.  Those carrying out these efforts have presumably been part of the “inner party” of educated, talented, and sophisticated, dedicated elite acting against corruption and with a transitory character according to the modern realities of communism.  With the legacy of Deng Xiao ping theory it has been very difficult to assure or re – establish social stability after the events of 1989, though Mr. Jiang is said to have provided the country with consistent reform efforts featuring his executive, engineering and leadership qualities:  For Mr. Jiang, if you will, a sort of combination or cross between Beethoven and Shakespeare.  Things might nonetheless have been like the old Phoenix Cardinals playing the Houston Oilers in the day, but this series of coup reforms by Mr. Jiang was quite successful and extremely popular at the same time as based on intellectual and patriotic ideas and the power of same in efforts as well to dispel income disparities, master world macro – economics and inflation and fight corruption, over – taxation and unemployment.  The language used in the book mirrors the language about economics in the Western press and speaks authoritatively thereby, and by this calling for the old adage “trust but find fairness in it.”  The text proceeds to illustrate how the new principles and processes worked, and goes on and on about much of it while richly illustrating the story of Mr. Jiang including a good section of chapters on early life and political formation.  And that’s not all.    

2013 Blog Article - Wall Street Journal.

re - edited 09/28/2013.

Monday, September 9, 2013

iPod, iPad, iPad mini, iPhone, iTunes, iApps, iCloud ... .

I do really like the iPod:

The 'iPod Image."

Reviews for the iPod.

The Old "Follow Me."

This gets a little old, not to mention just the overall toll of the wars in the Middle East, but with respect to prospective ones, including a possible introduction to additional conflicts by the proposed air and other coordinated strikes the U.S. president is trying to persuade the U.S. public and legislature about at this point.  In spirit, and in seeing the cataclysmic gassing of al – Assad’s people by their own, internally trusted regime, is an abomination.  Most people are able to agree on that.  Al – Assad will, win, lose or draw, in this current situation, cite extenuating and special circumstances relating to the status of those gassed and killed, or those gassed and injured, with a dismissal that characterizes the completely callous and unoriginally diabolical mentality as shown by the leaders of soviet client and former soviet client countries.  Years ago, under the Hussein regime in Iraq, there was a huge to – do about the gassing and other violent things done to the Kurds in Northern Iraq.  Hussein at the time simply indicated to a disbelieving and humane, and otherwise well – thinking Western public that the Kurds were unwanted and needed to be eliminated due to their rabble rousing and trouble – making on the Iraqis.  This writer predicts al – Assad will use much the same rationale, that the people are unwanted and are hooligans and really nobody who knows his details really cares, and he needs to by this answer to a world judicial court for war crimes; the difficulty will be in enforcing international law and actually bringing al – Assad into court session, presumably in Brussels or in the Hague.

People like me are wholeheartedly in the camps of the current Secretary of State (John Kerry) and the U.S. president Obama when they call for military retaliation against the Syrian regime for the crime of using wide – area weapons, nerve agents and gasses that are carried by the wind and that cover more of an expanse under the circumstances than for instance a bombing would, against his own populace.  This is not just because a report or two got out of Syria this had happened and people have to mention themselves in one camp or another, but simply because, and this despite the risks the regime has taken that have jeopardized its stability and further favorability to the West in westernizing and reforming its institutions; gassing people is wrong.  Innocents by this meet their ends and others at least come very close to passing in very isolated, controlled and gruesome ways from this life, which had for them great value and great potential, especially among the young, and at least the morality of the destruction of gassing agents and nerve agents, etc., and the sinister and overall criminal minds by their deployment against one’s proper citizens, makes the act of using such agents inadmissible and criminal in act, intent, and in the planning and stated or unstated purpose of such attacks against, again, innocents for the most part.  Despite the overall repressiveness of regimes like the one in Syria, and the connection of that regime to former communist principal(s) who are arms dealers and economic and commercial suppliers (sometimes gratis) of goods and other material for domestic consumption by the country’s elites and for war, its people should be allowed to live their lives to the fullest, and this given what is called for morally and normally within Syrian society.  What has the U.S. president asking our legislature and others for support in an attack against these perpetrations is his, again overall and entirely correct, principal or self – governing rule or rules about the sanctity of human life; something extremely valuable taught in every college at Harvard and instilled in the gifted people who attend there.  That academic experience having been only the beginning for many such people leads for many of them to further complexity and complications as to what should be done in circumstances such as are now in Syria with the regime caught in self – destructive mode and turning on its people. 

What is to be done?  By this writing, and because there is no consensus imperative, the Russian regime itself is readying or at this time shipping supplies and war machinery; arms and so forth, to Syria to deter and possibly abate a U.S. military strike before it might even be arranged, the facts here beg the question “What are you doing?”  Such an interlocution should be allowed with the Russians compelled to answer as to what their intentions are in supplying arms, anti – missile and anti – aircraft, anti – personnel and anti – rebel devices and equipment in the scope of an outdated and obsolete purpose of constant efforts to “secure the near abroad” and so forth, and I paraphrase here.  Such thinking, with the mobility of armies and air forces, and other factors is completely, obviously archaic and un – called for at this time, though these arms dealers, reason that in the deployment of their war apparatus they will probably handle forty percent of the issues against Western powers and influences they need to, and there will be so much conventional destruction that Westerners will tire of the conflict and pick up and go home:  An example of pre WWII political thinking that needlessly and eventually caused so much damage.  This is what has the State Secretary and U.S. president so involved in promoting their plans to protect and preserve what’s left of our allies in the places involved and their peoples, if not a good amount of the infrastructure in the country and other valuable attributes it has despite its not being, for example, a place like Israel, a modern functional country.  Lebanon is probably a more functional place than Syria at this point and our U.S. president does not want to be chief executive as well of the Middle East.  Absolutely not, and the talk of it, even anything provoking such impressions and thinking about things this way is nonsense and hogwash. 

Sunday, August 18, 2013

This Bloody Strife - "Let Me Tell You, ... ."

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It is quite beyond this columnist why, apart from very odd political reasons of which a need for reasonable explanation, the unpopular and now widely covered bloody mess in Syria even continues at this point.  It is possible as indicated by the Russians declaring this mess to be their business as well, that the regime in Syria fears passing into history, either as the result of the current guerilla - rebel uprising or another explosive and elite revolt, as an effeminized system of government after the death of the elder Assad in Syria and the accession to power of the current Assad.  This fear is part and parcel of any conflict, armed or with simple verbal exchanges, in which attention is directed at Hezbollah as a participant and dates to the channeled and isolated violent ideas of the Abu Nidals of some years ago and the violent chaos they advocated in spirit and practice.  I do not know specifically the Arabic terms for "ready, aim, ... ," and like many reasonable persons have no interest in them, and the current Assad regime has incurred additional moral and other debts of a sinister character by inviting Hezbollah and its sponsors from the East into this unviewable and violent home fracas.  Even the network news coverage of the conflict is physically sickening, though also see press reports, of which:  Lebanese press, "Wall Street Journal", P.B.S. "News Hour", U.K. Economics Publication, U.S., Virginia newspaper, ... (there is an outstanding C.B.S. television report from August 17 on this topic as well):  All as perpetrated by those espousing in name, and tacitly and directly ignoring the culture and teachings of the prophets of Islam.
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  While assuming the leaders of this madness to be educated and thinking people in their public statements and discussion, what is one to do and with whom here?  That Yitzak Rabin and his own were still alive begs this question and some resolution to this political and societal disintegration in the Northern Middle East.  That the impossible violence and chaos there is completely internal and has summoned external armies to settle accounts in calling for the destruction of the rebels with overwhelming force invites and engenders even judgmental curiosity about the Syrian government's legitimacy as ruling in that country, and any related constitutional integrity as to even remotely legitimate or justifiable actions in escalating the repressive violence.  All this in opposition to the quite enlightened and braver parties of the "Arab Spring" having proposed a modern challenge to the Syrian status quo of old.  "Entendu, que les gents comprennent le ruban noir du massacre." 

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Smolensk, Russia (Yesterday.)

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On a hiking trail in Northern California some time ago, I did meet while she herself was hiking for some exercise, a German lady with whom I began speaking about what wonderful things were happening in FRG - capitol moving to Berlin after reunification, economic reclamation and stabilization, etc., of the former communist areas and their influences, and the like.  In what she told me, in fact that this had been foreseen for years by the intelligentsia in Germany, and that the world had made that country wait in catching up to any relief of the memories from two world wars in addition to the role of Eastern Germany in the Cold War and more.  There was a topic that came up and inadvertently one of us mentioned the dismal conditions and privations of the Eastern Front in WWII and how many German boys had essentially gone through their training and then been cast into that abyss from which they did not return.  Many of them.  In fact, if my reading on the subject serves me correctly, assignment to the Eastern Front, even if one were a ranking officer was a death knell for many young Germans at the time.  See linked articles below.

In his "Lettre à un ami  allemand," the great critical thinker at the time, Albert Camus, opened the destructive and cataclysmic topic that is touched upon above as a question.  In fact, what was the mindset that drove the German soldier, in fact the man in the street in places like Munich and Bonn, and other places in Central Europe, to give power to the attitude that the only solution to communist and leftist influences in Europe, Jewish question aside, was conquest and subjugation.  This has been a topic examined, in the way the German military is understood to have worked and acted, as a kind of collective psychosis - "understanding" the German leadership a the time and so forth - though this does not, in fact it barely fills the vessel of knowledge and other facts and details to know and comprehend the enormity and importance of the European influence at the time and who had or has the most important role in it.  The question asked by Camus in his essay that is critical to anyone examining the topic of the WWII Eastern Front, and that might have application even today insofar as historical examination of the time is concerned, was in what way did the German leadership at the time not believe and thereby take up arms against the communists / Marxists in Eastern Europe, that there was no single, peaceful solution to letting that geographical area and its peoples continue what reportedly and observably had been and promised to be a mistaken experiment in politics, administration, social policy and ethics, etc., by many people worse in their edicts and totalitarian practices than any hitlerian model. 

There is no doubt that many admirable communist military personnel from the U.S.S.R., themselves good and ethical people, brave and valiant, went West to fight the Germans and themselves and did not return - again the number of mortalities exceeds the ability of one person to count them, though on a different scale, the number of German deaths informs; and their work to respect, recuperate and put their dead to rest; the international community of the greater wounds suffered by FRG in Eastern Europe and that society's continued efforts to address the implications of the related military conflict in public discussion over the years.  In the overall examination of areas like the Eastern Front, in the thought of it all the way through to battle planning and execution on both sides, one "understands" the mystery about why the German leadership at the time placed such great emphasis, even political quackery, on what it believed to be the responsibilities of the time.  Though many observers of what happened in Eastern Europe in the 20th century, and scholars, etc., do look at how and why the way Germany addressed this as an entirety from a moral and psychological standpoint, and from the standpoint again that German leadership was deeply flawed, there are probably a set of more thoughtful reasons that are the answer to the unknowns provoked by moral, ethical and other issues and explanations about it.  Due to the overall interest in things like the Germans recovering their war dead, and how the soviets worked to discourage this, even to deface the idea of it because they at the same time gravely feared and loathed any respect German had nor has in the world; and the former soviets as well, there begins a process to answer the mystery and questions about the times in which Germans gave their lives in places like the Eastern Front.  This not because they did so willingly and with politically - charged ideas, but because and out of a sense of obligation, perhaps even overriding economic, social and  financial obligations as offered and predicted by the immediate future at the time.  The soviets were equally zealous and messianic, if not more so, and there were greatly more of them.

The soviet cemeteries that I have seen in Eastern Europe are quite plain with headstones and
monuments, and other markings of the past conflicts there and the related mortalities.  From the images of the new German cemeteries and the looks of them, the German ones are even more inauspicious and understated.  For at least some individuals, people need to continue to know what happened in places like Smolensk and related and similar places of the time, and not only the political and other ramifications of this, and of the value of respecting and recovering the human element that might one day be relegated or forgotten, and the meaning and responsibilities that go with this equally passing.  In view of what happened at the Eastern Front at the time, part of the sinister and criminal vice of the soviets, was to disallow and to deface and erase even the thought of Germans having any connection to communist soil.  That this has been redressed now shows at least at this time, and as the result of things like the effectiveness of Perestroika, renewed and popularly discussed and understood efforts of everyone to comprehend the places of Europe and Eastern Europe and their influences in the world in order to avoid the loss of life in the future that took place there.  Regrets for any typographical or stylistic errors in this writing.

"History" channel internet article.

Article from "Der Spiegel" online.

Online article from "RIA Novosti."