Kajetan Maciuszko - blog

US intelligence agencies have concluded in a recently declassified report that it was indeed the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who approved of the 2018 murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden’s administration didn’t target the future Saudi king with any sanctions, instead issuing new “Khashoggi policy”, which is supposed to impose visa sanctions on individuals who engage in “counter-dissident” activities while acting on behalf of foreign governments. My main concern on this topic is the Khashoggi policy, or rather if it will be used only against people that personally engage in these counter-dissident activities, like harassment or surveillance, or will the people that ordered them to do so will also be sanctioned, since the policy itself is not very clear on who it’s supposed to sanction, Also, visa sanctions seem like a pretty small penalty, considering how easy it is to sneak into US, especially through the Mexican-American border. Not sanctionin...

Court in Moscow has rejected Alexei Navalny’s appeal, and now it’s almost certain that he will be sent to a prison camp for two and a half years. The judge upheld a decision to imprison Navalny. This ruling was widely expected, and parole handed down in 2014 was reversed. From his cell, Navalny delivered an appeal to a wider base of Russians who are unhappy with life under Putin’s regime. My opinion on the whole process is the same as majority of public opinion’s opinion – it was just a set up for some people to accept his imprisonment. This whole process, even if it was not completely rigged, is completely illegal, since the rule of double jeopardy, which states that you cannot be found guilty twice of the same crime, has been violated, because Navalny has already been found non-guilty of crimes he is accused of. In my opinion, after his official imprisonment, the demonstrations won’t stop, but will become bigger and more frequent, at least at the beginning. Links: https://www.t...

Over the past week protests in Myanmar have grown significantly, with tens of thousands of people gathering in biggest cities every day, protesting the military coup, detention of the country’s rightful leader Aung San Suu Kyi and unlawful arrests following the demonstrations. In my opinion, peaceful protesting is the only right choice in this situation that is available to the populace of the country. Since their demonstrations are targeting the military specifically, then any attempt at trying to violently overthrow the junta would end with failure, because a huge part of the army would still support the regime. I also think that current government is not looking into the future. Their rule will not last forever. People have tastes democracy, and almost no one still supports the junta. When their rule ends, and most likely it will end rather quickly, then all of them will be held accountable, and since the death penalty still exists in Myanmar, then these generals would in my opini...

International Criminal Court has recently announced that  it has jurisdiction in Palestine, and will be continuing with an investigation over alleged war crimes performed by Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Palestine territories occupied by Israel. Palestine has used its status as UN observer state to join ICC and call for an investigation into Israeli actions. Israel has argued that due to Palestine not being recognized as a sovereign nation, it shouldn’t be able to petition the court. ICC has rejected Israel’s arguments, stating that Palestine had “the right to be treated as any other state party” to its statue. The Palestinian Authority, which is internationally recognized representative of Palestinian people says that it wants to pursue the case, which if ended with persecution of Israeli officials would be a significant diplomatic victory. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned the decision, stating that the country would “protect our citizens and s...

This term I want to improve my usage of various idioms and phrases in English, and to do that, I will learn at least 7 idioms from dictionary every week.