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21 May, 2021

 


Ärkamisaja kirjanikud elustasid muinaseestilikud eesnimed
(Novaator - Ajalugu)
“Ärkamisajal elanud Eesti kirjanikud aitasid uuesti argikasutusse tuua mitmeid Muinas-Eestis kasutatud nimesid, kuid lõid ka täiesti uusi eestipäraseid nimesid. Eriliselt suur oli selle juures Andres Saali panus, kirjutab Tallinna Ülikooli kirjandusteaduse üliõpilane Eva Kinkar.”


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COVID cases in the Baltics 

- 226 in Estonia ⬇(279 last week)
- 477 in Latvia   ⬇(666 last week)
- 664 in Lithuania ⬇(1,245 last week)
(BNN)


“Koroonaviiruse andmestik.” - Eesti Terviseamet
















— Friday 21. May —


Estonia recalls its ambassador to France over alleged misuse of secret info
(ERR | BNN | Estonian World)
“According to the Estonian prosecutor’s office, suspicion currently concerns misappropriation of state secrets and classified information in relation to foreign affairs by an official, the and violation of requirements for handling it. Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid has now signed the order recalling Kull, 62, from the post of the Estonian ambassador to France, held by the diplomat since 2019.”
—
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NATO to Get Serious About Russia
By Kurt Volker, CEPA)
“President Joe Biden has made clear his desire to rebuild relationships. Indeed, the Administration’s recent decision not to sanction Western companies involved in Nord Stream 2 over their collusion with Russia in circumventing Ukraine and Central Europe, while increasing West European reliance on Russian gas, can only be read as a gesture toward Germany.”
—
“So, the question for the June 2021 NATO Summit is whether Germany will reciprocate this gesture. Can the United States, Germany, France, allies in Central Europe and the Baltic States, as well as those in southern Europe and Scandinavia, all come together to define a common assessment, vision, and strategy in dealing with Russia?
Russia’s aggression against Europe is the most serious and immediate threat to all NATO countries. The time is long overdue for a common strategy to push back.”
https://cepa.org/a-plan-for-nato-to-get-serious-about-russia/









U.S. Special Forces Are Training for Full-Blown War with Russia
(National Interest)
“U.S. Special Operations Europe (SOCEUR) conducted its largest annual exercise in conjunction with a smaller drill, whereby special operations units from several NATO member and partner countries worked together to hone their skills. SOCEUR planned for the Trojan Footprint 21 and Black Swan 21 exercises to concur simultaneously to help simulate a full-blown conflict with Russia ranging from the Baltic States and Scandinavia south to Ukraine and the Black Sea region. …”





Raiekeeld ähvardab puidutööstuse pea peale keerata
(Postimees)
“Nagu kirjutas kolmapäevane Postimees, on keskkonnaamet seoses hiljutise kohtuotsusega asunud raieid erametsas peatama, kui tuvastab lindude pesitsuse tahtliku häirimise ja pesade hävitamise. See on selge suund üle-eestilise kevadise raiekeelu kehtestamise poole, mis seni oli eraomanikele soovituslik ja kehtis vaid RMK metsades.”



Pretsedent: kohus peatas metsaraie lindude pesitsusajaks
Ülle Harju, Postimees
“Lindude pesitsusajale viidates peatas Tallinna ringkonnakohus vaidlusaluse metsaraie kuni juuli lõpuni, luues pretsedendi, mille tuules paneb keskkonnaamet praegu inimeste teadete peale järjest teisi raieid seisma. “Lindude tahtlik häirimine pesitsemise ja poegade kasvatamise ajal on lubatud üksnes erandjuhtudel, mida ringkonnakohus antud asjas ei tuvastanud,” selgitas Tallinna ringkonnakohus 29. aprillil jõustunud määrust. “Kui linnud raiutaval alal ei pesitse, poleks raie peatamiseks muude argumentideta alust.”






Graph: Trading Economics






— Thursday 20. May —



Tartu researchers are turning soil into batteries
(Science Business)
“As the world is running out of lithium, planet-friendlier batteries are waiting to hit the market. … In Estonia, physical chemistry professor and head of the chemistry institute at Tartu University, Enn Lust, is ahead of the curve. He has been testing carbon’s energy storing capabilities since the 1990s. … In Estonia, around a million tons of young carbon-containing peats are excavated every year for gardening and heating. Under this layer is an older, highly decomposed layer of peat with an even better quality for carbon production, which is usually left unused and thrown back to the water. … Lust and his team want to make use of it and explain it in an article published in RSC Advances. They powder and wash the peat to extract all the minerals. The substance is then dried and placed in a 300 to 400 degree Celsius oven. After adding natural substances like sodium oxide or zinc chloride, the material is placed in an even hotter oven. The result is a very special carbon that conducts electricity, and accumulates sodium ions as electric energy on the negative end of the battery.”



Kaja Kallas on a three-day working visit to Ukraine
Ukrinform)
“On May 18, Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia Kaja Kallas and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Estonia to Ukraine Kaimo Kuusk visited the area of the Joint Forces Operation. During their trip to Luhansk region, they got acquainted with the operation and infrastructure of the Stanytsia Luhanska entry-exit checkpoint, which is to be modernized.”









DPR and LPR Increasingly at Odds, Complicating Moscow’s Approach to Ukraine
By Paul Goble, Jamestown Org.
“Most commentators in Russia, Ukraine and the West tend to treat the Moscow-backed breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic (DPR, LPR), which together control about 3.3 million people in eastern Ukraine, as a single whole. But in reality, Russian analyst Yury Kovalchuk argues, conflicts between the two entities have continued to grow worse. That discord is now supposedly so acute that it is complicating both the Russian Federation’s short-term goal of winning support in Ukraine for Moscow’s position on the DPR and LPR as well as the Kremlin’s long-term goal of reintegrating these regions into Ukraine in order to ensure Moscow has significant leverage over Kyiv.”







— Wednesday 19. May —



Europe’s military drift causes alarm
(The Guardian)
“… the EU is taking two big steps to bolster its defence capacity and engage in military conflicts through training and equipping governments outside the bloc. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic these developments have slipped under the radar, but they represent a significant expansion in security policy with wide-ranging consequences.”—

“An €8bn (£6.9bn) European defence fund (EDF), aimed at developing and acquiring new weapons and technology for militaries within the EU and abroad, was agreed last December. The EU also recently launched the European peace facility (EPF), a mechanism that will boost the bloc’s ability to provide training and equipment – including, for the first time, weapons – to non-European military forces around the world.”



EU citizens made Britain their home – now they face a hostile environment
(The Guardian)
“Moving on is hardly an option for millions of EU nationals who had the welcome mat pulled from under their feet. The total number is unknown. They were not counted on the way in because they arrived as citizens, not aliens. That is what freedom of movement meant. Rights conferred by EU membership must now be traded for conditional status, achieved by navigation of a bureaucratic labyrinth – the Home Office’s “EU settlement scheme”.”



Freedom of press is under attack in both the east and the west
(BNE)
“Hundreds of journalists in Belarus have been arrested, harassed … Things are not much better in Russia, where the state long since has dominated the television business by owning all of the top five stations. … In Hungary the increasingly authoritarian Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban controls a swathe of media that have been buying up other media outlets or making life hard for privately owned outlets. …”







Glimpses of a Soviet Ghost Town on the  Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard
(New York Times)
“Norway has sovereignty over Svalbard, according to the terms of the Svalbard Treaty of 1920. But two of the archipelago’s most intriguing tourist draws — the mining towns of Barentsburg, which is still functional, and Pyramiden, long since empty — are Russian settlements. … The presence of Russian settlements stems from the fact that the Svalbard Treaty granted signatories — including Russia — rights to Svalbard’s natural resources. Eventually, Trust Arktikugol, a Russian state-owned coal company, took ownership of both Pyramiden and Barentsburg.”
—
“The settlement is around 500 miles farther north than Utqiagvik, Alaska, the northernmost community in the United States.”



Belarusian Political Standoff: Entrenchment on All Sides
(Jamestown)
“… Ukrainian Defense Minister Andrii Taran stated that, for now, his country did not face any immediate danger of a Russian invasion through neighboring Belarus. … Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has long guaranteed that Ukraine has nothing to fear from the north; and clearly, in Kyiv’s estimation, those promises appear credible at least for the time being.”
—
“Moscow is keenly interested in creating Russia-friendly political factions in Belarus.”





— Россия —


Vene võimud piiravad maride usukombeid
(ERR)
“Venemaa vähemusrahvus marid muretsevad, et võimud piiravad nende iidseid usupraktikaid. … Maride religioon põhineb loodusjõudude kummardamisel. Marid on soomeugrilased.”





Russia flexes muscles in challenge for control of the Arctic
(BBC)
“Now Franz Josef Land is home to a Russian military base and the source of added tension in relations with the West. … The US again has once again accused Moscow of "militarising" the Arctic and the head of Russia's Northern Fleet has told the BBC that NATO and US military activity in the region was "definitely" provocative and on a scale not seen since World War Two. … The US has deployed long-range bombers to Norway for the first time, in a move seen as a message to Russia …”







Russia warns West against Arctic encroachment ahead of talks
(France24)
“Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday warned Western countries against staking claims in the Arctic, as global warming makes the region more accessible and a site of global competition. Lavrov's comments came ahead of a ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council that comprises Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland on Wednesday and Thursday in Rejkavik.”
—
"It has been absolutely clear for everyone for a long time that this is our territory, this is our land," Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow.”



Nord Stream 2: Biden waives US sanctions on Russian pipeline
(BBC)
“Critics say the pipeline is a major geopolitical prize for the Kremlin. The project, which would take gas from the Russian Arctic under the Baltic Sea to Germany, is already more than 95% complete. The Department of State report notes that Nord Stream 2 AG and its chief executive, Matthias Warnig, a former East German intelligence officer, engaged in sanctionable activity. But it concludes that it is in the US national interest to waive the sanctions.”



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