Hey craner, what's going on in Kazakhstan?

[yyaldrin]

How Tony Blair advised former Kazakh ruler after 2011 uprising

British former PM told Nursultan Nazarbayev to stress he ‘understood’ critics and to say reforms would ‘take time’

www.theguardian.com

 

[luka]

How Tony Blair advised former Kazakh ruler after 2011 uprising

British former PM told Nursultan Nazarbayev to stress he ‘understood’ critics and to say reforms would ‘take time’

www.theguardian.com

brilliant! this will make steam come out of craner's ears!

 

[yyaldrin]

Narzabayev incorporated the ideas in the speech. Blair signed off by writing: “With very best wishes. I look forward to seeing you in London! Yours ever, Tony Blair.”

 

[version]

 

[yyaldrin]

£7m-a-year Tony Blair tells tyrant: This is how you gloss over a massacre

A leaked letter shows the former PM wrote to Kazakh despot Nursultan Nazarbayev about how best to talk to the Western media about the killing of 14 civilians

www.mirror.co.uk

 

[Mr. Tea]

How Tony Blair advised former Kazakh ruler after 2011 uprising

British former PM told Nursultan Nazarbayev to stress he ‘understood’ critics and to say reforms would ‘take time’

www.theguardian.com

This looks like an underhanded attempt by The Guardian to link an obviously insane, megalomaniacal former dictator with Mr Nazarbayev.

 

[...]

This looks like an underhanded attempt by The Guardian to link an obviously insane, megalomaniacal former dictator with Mr Nazarbayev.

Grow up.

 

[luka]

Craner wont stand for anyone denigrating the Great Man 😂🤣😂

 

[Murphy]

Passed through Almaty once, surreal blend of ethnicities intermixed. They had a bar called Murphy’s where all the Brits/foreigners drank, contractors, girlfriends, only place sold Guinness yadayada. Pre-2008 bust out, loads of £ being flashed, some fairly appalling style trends and interior decors, top end vehicles and very cheap fuel, desperately trying to avoid drinking

Its beauty is in the blend of brutalist buildings, think lumpen steel doorways, post-Soviet cash injection developments and a surrounding crest of mountains worth any trip. Almaty rather than Astana, associated mythology of apple orchards and Eden, public squares, marriages and all human life going on. Loved its cold, heavy drinking culture

 

[Mr. Tea]

Grow up.

OK, that was a cheap gag.

The thing is, for all that, he is still the best PM in my lifetime.

It's a real quandary.

 

[luka]

my expert opinion is that of course geopolitical rivals use internal dissent as a way to undermine governments. they fund them, they agitate, they advise on tactics so on and so forth. this doesn't mean that that dissent is not organic, although it does mean that its influence might be blown out of proportion.

 

[luka]

as a rule of thumb there's no such thing as a pure uncontaminated protest movement

 

[luka]

as is well established, US support for 'democracy' means destabilising rival regimes and where possible installing pliable leaders in hock to US interests.

 

[luka]

equally obviously regimes use accusations of foreign interference as a way to delegitimise protest movements

 

[sufi]

So which foreign powers are behind xr and that lot

 

[luka]

do you think there are foreign powers behind them? it's possible i suppose

 

[luka]

but it seems unlikely. on the other hand i'd be surprised if there weren't powerful non-state actors contributing to their funding

 

[luka]

if extinction rebellion looked remotely like acheiving any success and becoming a major factor, if it got the numbers of fanatics needed to actually start causing serious disruption then perhaps funding might start coming in from Russia and China. but as it stands it's only theatre.

 

[luka]

according to the internet XR is funded by the usual selection of NGOs, hedge fund managers, foundations, Gettys, Rockefellers, the usual suspects in other words.

 

[sufi]

And they will be very thoroughly infiltrated by the
old bill.
You can imagine different factions of clandestine agents struggling to steer the movement