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Russia recently deployed additional military forces to Libya in support of General Khalifa Haftars forces based in the east of the country; a move that could prove problematic for Turkey, which supports the government based in the Libyan capital Tripoli.

While Russian Wagner Group mercenaries have supported Haftar for some time now, Moscow is now deploying regular troops.

Russian regulars are being deployed in significant numbers to support the LNA, said David Schenker the U.S. State Departments assistant secretary for near eastern affairs on Nov. 26, referring to Haftars Libyan National Army (LNA).

In early November, The New York Times reported a significant Russian build-up in Libya.

It has introduced advanced Sukhoi jets, coordinated missile strikes, and precision-guided artillery, as well as the snipers - the same playbook that made Moscow a kingmaker in the Syrian civil war, the New York Times reported.

Turkey meanwhile supports Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli and helped the group repel the LNAs siege on Tripoli last summer. Turkey has also supplied the GNA with Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 armed drones and BMC Kirpi armoured vehicles.

But in recent months, the conflict between the LNA and GNA has been locked in stalemate. Russias intervention, however, could bolster the LNA and enable it to pose a more significant threat to Turkeys GNA ally.

The size and overall strength of Russias military presence in Libya is presently unclear.

There are probably several hundred Russian mercenaries belonging to the Wagner group, but they number less than the thousand that some sources say, said Arnaud Delalande, a freelance defence and security expert who has closely followed the Libyan conflict.

The Russians allowed Haftar's camp to progress slightly on the ground, he said. They are experienced, provide intelligence, support, technical skills.

Yousuf Eltagouri, a Libya analyst and contributor to the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said the Russian deployment of mercenaries and regular troops was quite substantial.

While the effect of Russian ground forces has not translated to swift land grabs by LNA forces, it has significantly bolstered the frontlines, Eltagouri said.

New Russian weapons accompanying ground forces will likely benefit frontline LNA troops and may let up the ongoing stalemate, he said. However, it should be noted that the addition of Russian ground troops has been ongoing for several weeks now, with little impact on the frontlines.

Delalande said that, contrary to the report by the New York Times, no advanced Sukhoi jets had been deployed to Libya.

The LNA Air Force only has old-as-hell Su-22s in its fleet, but they were grounded for months due to intense use on the Tripoli front, he said. It seems that one of them has been overhauled recently and is now flying regularly over Tripoli.

Some Russian pilots and mechanics may have helped the LNA in this task by providing spare parts and support.

Delalande said that while the Russian intervention does constitute a serious threat to the GNA, the progress Haftars troops have made on the ground remains slight and slow.

Eltagouri said the deployment of Russian regulars on the ground might be an indication that Moscow is becoming more involved in fixing the outcome of the war in Haftars favour, especially if Russian air power were added.

Anton Mardasov, a non-resident military affairs expert at the Russian International Affairs Council, said that while Russia previously allowed a public inclination toward Haftar, in 2017-2018 it corrected the situation and began to demonstrate a multidirectional position publicly.

During this period, Russia cautiously supported Haftar from Egypt and provided political strategists and military personnel who repaired the equipment, Mardasov said.

However, this year the situation has changed a bit, he said. According to my information, Moscow has increased its military contingent in Libya both in terms of the number of troops and Wagner mercenaries subordinate to them.

But they do not participate in active battles, and those few videos that allegedly prove their participation are of rather dubious quality and origin.

While Russias intervention may be significant, Eltagouri pointed out that it has not and will not go unnoticed.

Washington is playing close attention to the new role Russia has decided to play, he said. If international actors resist such a move, as already seen between high-level meetings with the LNA and U.S. officials, then the increased role of Russia in the war may be counterbalanced.

However, other than diplomatic negotiations, this is highly unlikely.

Both Delalande and Eltagouri anticipate Turkey sending more military hardware to the GNA.

The Turks will continue to provide the GNA with drones and vehicles, Delalande said. But Turkey will not deploy more technology, especially as drone jamming systems are already installed around Misrata Airport, which is held by Haftars forces.

Eltagouri said in the more likely situation where the increased role of Russian support on behalf of the LNA continues without any international intervention, Turkey would step up its support of the GNA in the absence of the role that Western powers would normally play.

He said he did not expect international reaction if Turkey were to increase its support for the GNA.

Kerim Has, a Moscow-based Russian and Turkish affairs analyst, anticipates that Moscows support for Haftar will likely continue and broaden.

The deepening struggle in possessing and sharing newly found energy reserves, security concerns in the region and the devastating Syrian experience all push Russia to play and strongly keep holding on in Libya, Has said.

That will definitely affect Turkish-Russian relations as the Erdoan government is at odds with not only leading actors in the region including Syria, Egypt, Israel and Greece but also with Haftar, Russias most important partner in Libya, he said.

Turkey seems to highly risk its interests in Libya and the eastern Mediterranean region as it did in Syria before.

A November deal between Turkey and the GNA that said the two countries were maritime neighbours has been disputed by Greece and Cyprus, which say it ignores their territorial waters.

Has said the agreement had also triggered tensions in Turkey-Russia relations.

Even though Russia has huge security, energy and trade interests in cooperation with Turkey, the Libyan issue emerges as a new possible spoiler in Moscow-Ankara relations, he said

It is not just a possibility but turning into a reality that Turkey and Russia again appear on the opposite sides of a civil conflict in Libya unless they can manage the tensions.

And, during an interview with state-run TRT on Monday, Erdoan compared Russia's support for Syria with its support for Libya. ''I hope Russians would not let Haftar become another Syria, Erdoan said.

That said, Has noted that the Libyan case is primarily not a source of irritation in Turkish-Russian relations as there are many other actors included in the eastern Mediterranean equilibrium, namely NATO-members, NATO adversaries, non-NATO partners, non-NATO countries in the region.

Also, Libya has huge energy reserves, which can transform it into a brutal arena for a more devastating battle than Syria.

Ahval English

The views expressed in this column are the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Ahval.

See the original post here:
What Russias military intervention in Libya means for Turkey - Ahval

For almost seven years, Bill Weld carried the flag for Massachusetts Republicans in the governor's office, starting a 16-year reign of GOP chief executives on Beacon Hill that lasted until 2007.

The Canton Republican still holds the state's gubernatorial record for largest margin of victory in his 1994 landslide re-election, losing just five towns. And he was the MassGOP's nominee for U.S. Senate in 1996 when he mounted a serious campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. John Kerry.

Now, Weld will appear on the March 3 presidential Republican primary ballot in his home state, despite the efforts of the political party he once led.

He has Secretary of State William Galvin, a Democrat, to thank, instead.

Galvin has given all four political parties in Massachusetts - including the Democratic, Republican, Green-Rainbow and Libertarian parties until Friday to submit a list of candidates they want to appear on their Super Tuesday primary ballots. The Massachusetts Democratic Party submitted 15 names, including U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warrern and former Gov. Deval Patrick, on Thursday.

The lists are one of three ways a candidate can qualify for the presidential ballot in Massachusetts, and the MassGOP on Thursdaysubmitted only the nameof incumbent President Donald Trump.

"Having a sitting President as the only name on the potential candidate list is not unprecedented, and is in fact, an established procedure," MassGOP Chair Jim Lyons wrote.

Galvin on Thursday said he will add Weld's name to the ballot.

"I said to Mr. Lyons I would probaby add [Weld] if Mr. Lyons chose not to. He did not, so I will," Galvin said.

Weld thanked Galvin for his stance.

"When I was Governor, Republicans and Democrats in the Commonwealth respected one another and actually worked together," he said. "It is gratifying that such respect remains and that Secretary of State Galvin is ready to defend the rights of all Massachusetts voters."

Weld, who briefly left the Republican Party in 2016 to run as the vice presidential nominee on the Libertarian ticket, is mounting a long-shot primary challenge to President Trump, hoping to damage the incumbent in the process.

The former governor has predicted dire consequences for the Republican Party if Trump is not impeached and removed from office, a message that runs counter to Lyons's support for the president.

State law allows the secretary of state to unilaterally put a candidate on the primary ballot if they have determined the candidate to be "generally advocated or recognized in national news media throughout the United States."

The latest WBUR poll of New Hampshire Republicans had the former Massachusetts governor trailing the president with 9% of the vote. Trump led Weld 82% to 18% in an Emerson College poll of Massachusetts Republicans from April.

"I've already had a conversation with Mr. Lyons about this, and I told him that we had done our review and we thought Mr. Weld, as well as a former Congressman from Illinois, were national candidates," Galvin told the News Service on Thursday.

In addition to Weld, the secretary was referring to former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh. There's a fourth potential candidate Roque de la Fuente who Galvin said he does not consider to be a nationally recognized candidate who will likely have to turn in 2,500 signatures if he wants to qualify for the GOP primary. De la Fuentes ran as a Democrat in 2016 when he also took the signature route to the ballot.

Lyons said that during an incumbent presidency neither political party has submitted names other than that of the sitting president seeking re-election.

"We will follow set protocol and do the same, as has been done before in 2012 under Democratic President Barack Obama and in 2004 under Republican President George W. Bush," Lyons wrote.

Both Obama and Bush ran virtually unopposed in their re-election bids by any nationally known figures with the stature of someone like Weld.

But in 1992, MassGOP Chairman Leon Lombardi only put forward the name of President George H.W. Bush for the ballot, despite the incumbent being challenged by conservative commentator Pat Buchanan. Buchanan did end up getting onto the Massachusetts primary ballot that year, and won almost 75,000 votes, or 28%.

The parties, by law, have until Jan. 3 to submit their lists, but Galvin said he's following the same timeline he used during the last cycle in order to prepare ballots ahead of the Jan. 18 deadline to make them available to military and overseas voters.

Galvin plans to hold a drawing to determine the order of name placement on the ballots on Dec. 20, and candidates have until Jan. 10 to withdraw and have their names removed.

Tom Mountain, a Trump campaign spokesman in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and a member of the MassGOP state committee, has previously said that Weld should give up on his campaign.

"If he has any dignity he should ride off into the sunset," Mountain told the News Service last month after Weld held an event to call for Trump's impeachment. "No one is taking Bill Weld seriously except Bill Weld."

Gov. Charlie Baker suggested recently that he thought the Republican primary in Massachusetts would be a low-turnout affair with or without Weld on the ballot.

When discussing whether to schedule a special election for a state Senate seat on the same day as the primaries, Baker said, "I think having a general election for a state Senate seat on the same day as a presidential primary when you have numerous candidates running on one side, and for all intents and purposes, one and maybe two depending upon how the secretary of state puts the ballot together, on the other doesn't really give voters an opportunity to tune in on the state Senate race, which is what I would like to see them do in that race."

Baker has described Weld as a political mentor, but so far has declined to endorse his former boss over Trump, who he didn't vote for in 2016 and has frequently disagreed with.

Democratic Party Chairman Gus Bickford asked Galvin to include Warren, Patrick, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Michael Bennet, Sen. Cory Booker, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Michael Bloomberg, Julian Castro, former Congressman John Delaney, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer, Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang.

See original here:
Bill Weld Will Be On Mass. Primary Ballots Despite The State GOP's Effort To Block Him - WBUR

Russian university student Yegor Zhukov,who recently confronted Kremlin repression, was jailed, and then released on a suspended sentence, declared in a recent interview with independent Russian television that he wants to be president of the Russian Federation.

Zhukov is famous for using the infamous Dont Tread On Me flag from the American Revolution during his Youtube videos promoting individual responsibility and libertarianism.

I want to be the president of the country, he said in anappearanceon the independent Dozhd television channel.

Your honor, the darker my future, the wider I smile toward it, he declared to the judge in his recent widely publicized trial, reported The Moscow Times.

Beyond continuing with the blog, he said, he plans to finish his university degree by next summer. Hes also going to host a talk show on the liberal Ekho Moskvy radio station and write for Novaya Gazeta.

These are other ways I see to keep spreading my ideas, he said. Thats my goal right now: for the focus not to be on me, but on the ideas.

His ideas have raised eyebrows. Critics have pointed to his support of Jordan Peterson, a Canadian thinker who has beendescribedas a purveyor of fascist mysticism. They have also noted one video from January of this yeartitledFeminism Is Dangerous, in which Zhukov, seated behind a desk with a red Make America Great Again cap on it, tells his audience: Today the nutcases are lefties and particularly left-wing feminists.

It taught me that I need to carefully express my views, he said recently in response to criticism. At the end of the day, I want the same thing as Russian feminists. For transgender peoples rights to be respected, for same-sex marriage to be legal, for there to be a law against domestic violence. I just dont believe in classifying people according to collective identities, reported The Moscow Times.

Regarding his future, We are still figuring it all out, Zhukov said. The idea for now is to say: stay tuned.

Read the original here:
Released From Prison, Young Libertarian Russian Activist Sporting 'Don't Tread On Me' Flag Wants To Be Russia's President - Tsarizm

The U.K. election has delivered a huge victory to conservativesand to Tory leader Boris Johnsonand astounding losses to the Labour Party. The results mean much more than the Conservative Party continuing to control the U.K.'s governing bodies.

With at least 364 seats won, the Conservative Party has well surpassed the number required for a majority in Parliament. Prime Minster Boris Johnson "will now enjoy a comfortable majority to 'get Brexit done'in other words, to pass the withdrawal agreement that he negotiated with European Union leaders in October," notes The Economist.

"In truth, the election-night story was not so much that of a Tory surge but of a Labour slump," the magazine adds.

The Jeremy Corbynled Labour Party will see its parliamentary vote share drop eight points. It was the party's worst showing since 1935.

Labour's steepest drops came in areas where the Nigel Farageled Brexit Party did well. (But asThe Spectator notes, Farage's party did not "even come close to winning a single parliamentary seat.")

In any event, it looks like Brexit is on.

And with the chances of Scottish secession rising again, some say this could kick off the destruction of the United Kingdom itself.

The election also speaks to the rising power of combining left-leaning economic policy with conservative social views and immigration policies (so, you know, the worst of all words for free minds/markets/migration types).

Britain's third largest party, the Liberal Democrats, also "had a dreadful night," points outThe Economist. And yet

the Tories' mighty new coalition is sure to come under strain. With its mix of blue collars and red trousers, the new party is ideologically incoherent. The northern votes are merely on loan. To keep them Mr Johnson will have to give people what they wantwhich means infrastructure, spending on health and welfare, and a tight immigration policy. By contrast, the Tories' old supporters in the south believe that leaving the EU will unshackle Britain and usher in an era of freewheeling globalism. Mr Johnson will doubtless try to paper over the differences. However, whereas Mr Trump's new coalition in America has been helped along by a roaring economy, post-Brexit Britain is likely to stall.

Some say the results highlight how it's easier for right-leaning politicians and parties to embrace left-leaning policies than vice versa, though this idea has its skeptics:

"The British election results, like any election result, is the result of unique circumstances and multiple factors," suggests Jonathan Chait at Intelligencer. "It is also, however, a test of a widely articulated political theory that has important implications for American politics. That theory holds that Corbyn's populist left-wing platform is both necessary and sufficient in order to defeat the rising nationalist right. Corbyn's crushing defeat is a decisive refutation."

"Vaping policy" consumes White House.

A good piece from Jane Coaston on the new porn wars, with cameos by Katherine Mangu-Ward and myself:

For several decades now, movement conservatism has adhered to Andrew Breitbart's maxim that "politics is downstream of culture," arguing that rather than engage the forces of government to create change, conservatives should focus on changing popular culture instead. But some social conservatives are now arguing the very opposite.

Arguments in favor of the use of laws to change or improve human behavior hasn't been a characteristic of the post-2010 conservative movement that still bears the influence of the Tea Party and libertarian-leaning Republicans. In fact, Mangu-Ward told me that such arguments were, in her view, generally made by left-leaning politicians and thinkers. Referencing former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's efforts to ban large sodas, she said such rationales stem from "the idea that we should prohibit people from making bad choices," or in short, "make the bad thing illegal."

Catholic theocrat and New York Post op-ed editor Sohrab Ahmari told Coaston that pornography is "degrading" and "Andrea Dworkin was right."

Go here to read the rest:
U.K. Election: Brexit Wins, Jeremy Corbyn Crashes - Reason

The 2020 Presidential Primary season is upon us and all signs point to high public enthusiasm https://news.gallup.com/poll/268136/high-enthusiasm-voting-heading-2020.aspx for this election cycle, compared to years past. The more enthusiastic people are about an election, the more likely they are to vote. If youre someone whos excited about participating in this upcoming Presidential Primary, theres some key things to remember to make the voting process as pain free as possible.

First: Register or check your voter registration status https://voterstatus.sos.ca.gov/ to make sure everything is up-to-date;

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Second: Presidential Primaries have some unique rules that only come up every 4 years;

Third: No Party Preference voters will be able to crossover and vote in somebut not allparty primaries without having to re-register.

I know what youre thinkingwhat the heck is a crossover and why does this sound so complicated? Good questions! Here are some answers that may help.

Whats up with the Presidential Primary rules? Political parties can choose to limit participation in their partys primary to only registered voters of that party. In other words, if youre a registered Democrat, you wouldnt be allowed to participate in the Republican primary. The same is true for any party that holds a Presidential Primary.

I registered as No Party Preference. Where does that leave me? You have options! You can re-register with a party preference or you may request a crossover ballot. If you do nothing, well send you a nonpartisan ballot. Youll see contests for everything except the Presidential Primary.

What do you mean by crossover ballot? Some parties allow No Party Preference voters to participate or crossover in their primaries. In March 2020, the American Independent Party, Democratic Party, and Libertarian Party will allow No Party Preference voters to crossover. If youre a No Party Preference voter and want to vote for candidates in one of those parties, then you will not have to re-register.

Why cant I get a crossover ballot for any party of my choosing? Political parties have the right to allow or disallow No Party Preference voters to participate in their primaries. If you want to vote for the candidates in the Green Party, Peace & Freedom Party, or Republican Party, then you must re-register and indicate your party preference.

How do I request a crossover ballot? If our records show that you are registered without a political party preference, we will send you a postcard about crossover voting. The postcard has instructions on how to request a crossover ballot. There will be other opportunities to make a request, but why not do it sooner than later?

Are there resources for me to learn more about the Presidential Primary and crossover voting? Yes! The California Secretary of State created a website, How to Vote for U.S. President, https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-info/how-vote-president/ that will provide you with additional information. You can also contact us at the Nevada County Elections office at 530-265-1298. We look forward to serving you.

Natalie Adona is the Assistant Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters for Nevada County.

Read more:
Natalie Adona: 'Tis the seasonfor crossover voting? - YubaNet