International
U.K. accuses Russia of scheming to install a pro-Kremlin government in Ukraine
The British government on Saturday accused Russia of organizing a plot to install a pro-Moscow government in Ukraine, as the Kremlin masses troops and materiel near the Ukrainian border in what Western officials fear is an impending military assault on the neighboring nation.
The U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office gave relatively little information about the intelligence unveiled Saturday other than to say that the Russian government was considering trying to make a Russia-leaning former member of Ukraine’s parliament, Yevhen Murayev, the country’s new leader.
“The information being released today shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking,” U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement, calling on Russia to de-escalate and pursue a path of diplomacy.
“As the U.K. and our partners have said repeatedly, any Russian military incursion into Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake with severe costs,” Truss said.
British authorities also said they had information showing how Russia’s intelligence services maintain links with numerous former Ukrainian politicians. Some of those former Ukrainian politicians are in contact with Russian intelligence officers planning the attack on Ukraine, the British government said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry denied the allegations in a Twitter statement, saying the British announcement was evidence that NATO countries, “led by the Anglo-Saxons,” are escalating tensions around Ukraine.
“We call on the British Foreign Office to stop its provocative activities and focus on studying the history of the Tatar-Mongol yoke,” the Russian Foreign Ministry added.
In comments to the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph, Murayev, the owner of a pro-Russian television channel in Ukraine, said he was amused by the allegations.
“I have a hard time digesting stupidity and nonsense: Maybe someone wants to shut down yet another independent TV channel,” he said in a series of text messages, according to the Telegraph.
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“As someone who has been under Russian sanctions for four years, barred from Russia as a national security threat and whose father got his assets frozen in Russia, I find it hard to comment on the Foreign Office’s statement,” he added.
Britain also named four former associates of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych as examples of former politicians in contact with Russian intelligence but did not say whether those four were involved directly in the plot to install Murayev.
Yanukovych fled Ukraine for Russia in 2014 as a pro-Western uprising on Kyiv’s central square, known as the Maidan, ushered in a Europe-friendly government. Russia reacted by annexing Crimea from Ukraine and fueling a separatist war in the country’s east.
The four former associates that the British government named as contacts of Russian intelligence are former Ukrainian prime minister Mykola Azarov, former first deputy prime minister Serhiy Arbuzov, former Yanukovych chief of staff Andriy Klyuyev and former deputy head of the Ukrainian National Security Council Vladimir Sivkovich.
The four men couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. The British government made the accusations in a statement released at 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, after it was already the middle of the night farther east.
Rather than attempting an overt overthrow of the pro-Western government in Kyiv, analysts suspect that if Putin attempted a coup, he would instead seek to encourage the collapse of the current government and covertly promote a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician who would have more local credibility. The British government’s announcement was an attempt to thwart that activity.
“The Russians have a plan and we clearly think it’s worth people knowing about it,” said a Western official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters. “Calling it out takes away the element of surprise and also reduces the chances of Russia succeeding if they actually attempt it.”
“When the Russians attempt this and say ‘this is an independent Ukrainian political movement,’ we can say ‘no, that’s not true, this is the work of your intelligence apparatus which we’ve been warning about,’ ” the official said.
U.S. officials said they have no reason to doubt the British intelligence.
“This kind of plotting is deeply concerning,” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said in a statement. “The Ukrainian people have the sovereign right to determine their own future, and we stand with our democratically-elected partners in Ukraine.”
The British government’s announcement came two days after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned a group of current and former Ukrainian officials, accusing some of them of helping Russia lay the groundwork to install a Moscow-friendly government in Ukraine.
“Russia has directed its intelligence services to recruit current and former Ukrainian government officials to prepare to take over the government of Ukraine and to control Ukraine’s critical infrastructure with an occupying Russian force,” the Treasury Department said.
Among the people Treasury sanctioned on Thursday was Sivkovich, one of the former Ukrainian officials the British government accused of having contacts with Russian intelligence.
In its sanctions announcement, Treasury accused Sivkovich of working with “Russian intelligence actors” to build support for Ukraine to officially cede Crimea to Russia in exchange for a drawdown in Donbas, where Russia has fueled a separatist war against Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian officials were surprised by the idea that a Russian plot would seek to install Murayev, a relatively marginal figure in Ukrainian politics who was sanctioned by Russia in 2018, as the country’s new leader.
On his Facebook page, Murayev posted an image of himself edited into a James Bond “Skyfall” logo, appearing to poke fun at the idea that he was the subject of an international espionage gambit.
Murayev is from Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, a Russian-speaking part of the country north of Donbas. He is a former member of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and other Russia-leaning political factions that emerged after the party’s implosion in 2014.
Murayev ran for Ukraine’s president in 2019 but dropped out of the race.
msn.com
International
$100m coin collection buried for decades to be auctioned
$100m coin collection buried for decades to be auctioned
A coin collection, much of which remained buried underground for over 50 years, is expected to surpass $100 million at auction, according to experts.
Named the Traveller Collection, this extraordinary assemblage is believed to be the most valuable coin collection ever brought to auction.
The coins will be sold gradually over the next three years, with the first auction set for May 20.
Beyond its immense value, the collection’s origins make for a fascinating tale.
Spanning over 100 territories and encompassing coins from ancient times to the modern era, the collection is being auctioned by Numismatica Ars Classica.
What sets it apart is that most of the coins remained hidden underground for half a century before resurfacing.
According to a press release shared with CNN, the anonymous collector behind the collection began acquiring gold coins after the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
Over time, he developed “a taste for coins with great historical interest, beauty and rarity” and eventually amassed approximately 15,000 coins.
During the 1930s, he and his wife traveled extensively across the Americas and Europe, acquiring rare and historically significant coins while meticulously documenting their purchases.
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Despite settling in Europe at a time when Hitler’s Nazi party loomed over the continent, the collector sensed the impending danger. In response, he carefully packed the coins into cigar boxes, which were then placed inside aluminum containers and buried underground, where they remained undisturbed for five decades.
Among the collection is a 50 Toman coin, part of an “exceedingly rare” set minted in Tehran and Isfahan during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
International
AI will replace doctors, teachers, others in 10 years – Bill Gates
AI will replace doctors, teachers, others in 10 years – Bill Gates
Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft, has claimed that improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) over the next decade may render humans superfluous for the majority of work.
In a recent interview with comedian Jimmy Fallon on NBC’s The Tonight Show in February, the billionaire philanthropist discussed how AI may take over many facets of life and business.
Gates remarked that expertise is currently “rare”, emphasising the continuous reliance on human specialists in industries such as medicine and education.
For example, we continue to rely on highly trained individuals, such as “a great doctor” or “a great teacher”, whose knowledge cannot be simply replaced by AI.
However, “with AI, over the next decade, that will become free, commonplace — great medical advice, great tutoring,” Gates said.
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In other words, Gates believes that the world is entering a new era of “free intelligence”, as he described in a recent interview with Harvard University professor and happiness specialist Arthur Brooks.
According to Gates, this transition will result in rapid breakthroughs in AI-powered technology, making them more accessible and affecting almost every part of our lives.
These breakthroughs will vary from more effective treatments and diagnoses to widely available AI instructors and virtual assistants.
“It’s very profound and even a little bit scary — because it’s happening very quickly, and there is no upper bound,” Gates told Brooks.
The discussion of how humans will fit into an AI-powered future continues.
Some analysts suggest that artificial intelligence will improve human productivity rather than completely replacing labour, hence driving economic growth and creating new jobs.
However, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman cautions that technological improvements in the coming years will disrupt the nature of most occupations across nearly all industries, potentially exerting a “hugely destabilising” influence on the workforce.
AI will replace doctors, teachers, others in 10 years – Bill Gates
International
Poland suspends migrants’ right to apply for asylum
Poland suspends migrants’ right to apply for asylum
Poland has temporarily suspended the right of migrants arriving in Poland via its border with Belarus to apply for asylum.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced it would be happening after the controversial bill, which will allow Polish authorities to suspend this right for up to 60 days at a time, was signed into law by President Andrzej Duda.
Tusk had said it would be adopted “without a moment’s delay” while Duda said the changes were needed to strengthen security on the country’s borders.
But the law has been criticized by rights groups including Human Rights Watch, which said the EU should take legal action against Poland if it was implemented.
The group urged the country’s parliament last month to reject the bill, saying it “flies in the face of Poland’s international and EU obligations” and could “effectively completely seal off the Poland-Belarus border, where Polish authorities already engage in unlawful and abusive pushbacks”.
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The government said previously the suspension would only be applied temporarily to people who pose a threat to state security, for example large groups of aggressive migrants trying to storm the border.
Exemptions will be made for unaccompanied minors, pregnant women, the elderly or unwell, anyone exposed to “real risk of serious harm” by being returned and citizens of countries accused of conducting the instrumentalization of migration – like Belarus
Tusk has dismissed criticism from human rights groups.
“Nobody is talking about violating human rights, the right to asylum, we are talking about not granting applications to people who illegally cross the border in groups organised by Lukashenko,” he said in October.
Since 2021, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Finland have seen a huge increase in the number of people crossing into their countries illegally from Belarus and Russia.
Polish authorities have sent thousands of troops and border guards to police its border with Belarus and built a 5.5-metre-high steel fence along 186 km of the frontier where at times several thousand migrants have been left stranded.
Rights groups estimate more than one hundred people have died on the borders between Belarus and Poland, Lithuania and Latvia since 2021.
EU eastern flank countries and the European Commission have accused the Belarusian and Russian authorities of weaponising migration to create a new route into the EU to destabilize the bloc.
Poland suspends migrants’ right to apply for asylum
BBC
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