Thursday 25th May 2023
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Ukraine ... and World Society 2023
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Contents
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1 Positive Value 13
Primal world beliefs
The reports
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2 World society
United Nations
News links from around the world
JPR Book Notes
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3 The war in Ukraine
Sixty-five weeks in, Thursday 25th May 2023
The military situation
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News items
Some of the items appearing below are from The Times … or, in the case of Sunday, from The Observer. “4, 1” indicates 4th May, 2023, page 1. Although not named, the work of the journalists is appreciated – indeed it is what I depend on. I buy the paper version but sometimes cite the online version (The Observer has open access but The Times does not.)
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1 Positive Value 13
I have been neglecting Positive Value for several weeks now. It is time to make amends. The web page is:
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Primal world beliefs
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2022.2070532
Primal world beliefs–primals–are a category of beliefs about the overall character of the world (e.g., the world is a safe place). Theory suggests that such beliefs drive personality development–or at least reflect personality differences, such as character strengths. We examined the relationships of primals with character strengths among 1122 German-speaking adults. The primary primal good explained the most variance in most character strengths, especially hope, spirituality, zest, gratitude, curiosity, and leadership. Including specific secondary (e.g., safe, enticing, alive) and tertiary primals (e.g., beautiful, needs me, funny) often yielded better predictions, but, with few exceptions, increments were typically smaller than that of the primary primal. We recommend including these primals in positive psychology interventions and describe three couplings of primals and character strengths that may prove especially fruitful for future research and practice.
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The reports
Let me remind you of the previous reports:
Positive Value 1: Kindness, trust, empathy … Ukraine 48, economics
Positive Value 2: The Good Life … Ukraine 49 … tanks: 1941, 2023
Positive Value 3: Positive Psychology … Ukraine 50, looking into the future
Positive Value 4: Outdoors and joy … Ukraine 51 … Scotland 29, England 23!
Positive Value 5: … social connections … Ukraine 52 … military balance
Positive Value 6: “Feeling good” … Ukraine 53 … This week last year … “lust”?
Positive Value 7: action-value … Ukraine 54, After a year of bloodshed has world opinion changed?
Positive Value 8: Principled negotiation … Ukraine 55: War options and social choice theory
Positive Value 9: Being the same … Ukraine 56: catastrophe
Positive Value 10: Mothers’ Day … Ukraine 57: Two bad wars
Positive Value 11: Happiness Report … Ukraine 59: surface divides and underlying gradients
Positive Value 12: Peace journalism … Ukraine 61 … the meritocracy-aristocracy continuum
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2 World society
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United Nations
UN News: https://news.un.org/en/
African free trade area
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/05/1137017
18 new Global Geoparks
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/05/1137012
UN Security Council: https://press.un.org/en/content/security-council
Israel-Palestine: https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15293.doc.htm
Protecting civilians: https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15292.doc.htm
UN General Assembly:
https://press.un.org/en/content/general-assembly/meetings-coverage
Pacific non-self-governing territories:
https://press.un.org/en/2023/gacol3366.doc.htm
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News links from around the world
France: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/; https://www.lemonde.fr/ (in French)
France and India: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2023/05/25/betting-on-india-is-a-short-sighted-strategy-for-france_6027951_23.html
USA: https://www.washingtonpost.com/
China: https://www.globaltimes.cn/
Russia: https://tass.com/
UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
France: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/; https://www.lemonde.fr/ (in French)
India: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
Japan: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/
Nigeria: https://guardian.ng/
Brazil: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/; https://www.folha.uol.com.br/ (in Portuguese)
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JPR Book Notes
https://www.prio.org/journals/jpr/booknotes
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3 The war in Ukraine
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The military situation
Sixty-five weeks in, Thursday 25th May 2023
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Russia, Tass … government:
Russia, China to jointly fight against West’s bid to keep global dominance -PM
https://tass.com/politics/1622445
Mikhail Mishustin visits China [several items including]
New Development Bank: http://government.ru/en/news/48552/
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Ukraine, Kyiv Post … Kyiv Independent … president:
Kyiv repels yet another Russian drone attack: https://www.kyivpost.com/post/17473
Russian troops lost: https://kyivindependent.com/general-staff-russia-has-lost-205-260-troops-in-ukraine-since-feb-24-2022/
https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/all
The first Ukrainian F-16 … Russia will lose
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BBC: War in Ukraine:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-60525350.
Russian paramilitary incursions: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65703548
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ISW: Interactive Time Lapse Map of Russia’s War on Ukraine
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/733fe90805894bfc8562d90b106aa895
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https://www.understandingwar.org/ :
May 24. Discussions regarding reported Russian losses in Bakhmut have saturated the pro-war information space and are drowning out any remaining positive informational effect resulting from the city’s capture. Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed during an interview with Russian political strategist Konstantin Dolgov on May 23 that Wagner lost 10,000 convict recruits and 10,000 full-time professional Wagner fighters killed in action over the course of the Battle for Bakhmut. Prigozhin specifically noted that Wagner had recruited 50,000 prisoners, 20 percent of whom (10,000) died in fighting for Bakhmut. Russian milbloggers immediately seized on the reported losses, thereby shifting the overall Russian conversation away from discussions of the significance of the capture of Bakhmut and towards amplifying speculation surrounding the reported losses. The nationalist pro-war faction, exemplified by the views of former Russian officer Igor Girkin, commented on the massive scale of the reported losses and speculated that real losses may be much higher. Russian politician Viktor Alksnis simply remarked that the Soviet Army lost far fewer soldiers (15,051) in nine years in Afghanistan. Girkin stated that he believes that Wagner’s actual losses could be more than 1.5 times higher than Prigozhin’s claims and pointed out that of the 50,000 recruits Wagner received from prisons, 10,000 died in action and 26,000 reportedly received pardons and returned to Russia, leaving 14,000 prison recruits unaccounted for. Girkin suggested that a large portion of these 14,000 unaccounted-for prison recruits may have also been killed in action and claimed that Wagner has likely suffered more than 40,000 killed in action. Girkin suggested that Prigozhin “keep [his] mouth shut” and stop talking about “wild losses for a very insignificant result.” Another Russian milblogger, by contrast, praised Prigozhin for being open about the scale of losses and stated that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) would have hidden such figures.
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Johnson’s Russia List:
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Russia Matters:
https://www.russiamatters.org/ ;
https://www.russiamatters.org/blog/russia-ukraine-war-report-card-may-23-2023
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RUSI
Kazakhstan: https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/kazakhstan-forging-its-own-path
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THE END