Posted on 08/17/2024 11:39:02 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
Vladimir Putin is feeling the stress from Russia's invasion of Ukraine - as he is seen wringing his hands in a meeting with his top officials after Volodymyr Zelenskyy's troops bit back and made a counter-incursion into the country.
The dictator, 71, was in a security council session on the crisis he faces due to Ukraine's dramatic invasion of the border areas of Kursk region.
His very public hand-wringing and fidgeting came as he was told earlier this week about how Russia had lost territory to Kyiv troops and - at the time - more than two dozen settlements, a figure far higher now.
-snip-
As he was told the news, Putin was seen with a solemn expression on his face, fidgeting with a pen and absent-mindedly rubbing his wrists. He occasionally appeared to grimace as he was told the worst information.
Such non-verbal gestures are seen by experts as reflecting anxiety, stress, or indecision.
They may show the dictator is facing an internal conflict and a lack of confidence, or feels fear, or insecurity. He may be seeking to calm himself in an act of self-soothing.
Putin is more often seen strongly gripping a table with one hand, which could also be a reflection of tension and anxiety. As such, the hand-wringing is unusual for the Russian leader.
During the meeting Putin showed some strange facial movements, at several points appearing to bite his lip, appearing exasperated at what he was being told by his officials.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
ARTICLE
Russia classifies information on production of petroleum products
28.08.24 19:43
Rosstat has completely stopped publishing data on the production of petroleum products in Russia.
In particular, the agency no longer provides information on monthly production volumes of diesel fuel, fuel oil, liquefied propane and butane, coke and semi-coke from hard coal. The report also does not contain data on the production of stable gas condensate.
Rosstat stated that “information on the production of petroleum products is not published BASED ON THE DECISION of the Russian government”.
At the end of May, Rosstat stopped publishing statistics on the production of motor petrol in Russia.
ARTICLE
GUR, Special Operations Forces hit oil depot in Rostov region with drones
28.08.2024 12:51
https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/1010202.html
As a result of a joint operation of the Main Intelligence Agency (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, an oil depot in Rostov region (RF) was hit with the help of Ukrainian-made attack UAVs.
As a source in the GUR told Interfax-Ukraine, the affected facility is part of the Russian military-industrial complex and is directly involved in providing enemy troops. The exact results of the operation are still being clarified.
Federal state-owned institution Atlas Combine of the Federal Agency for State Reserves in the Southern Federal District specializes in the supply of petroleum products for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
It is noted in the Russian media that in August 2020, joint exercises of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the Federal Reserve took place at the plant as part of the Caucasus 2020 exercises.
In demonstration exercises on the release of petroleum products for the needs of the army, three methods were practiced - automobile, railway and pipeline.
ARTICLE
NATO-Ukraine Council meeting discusses creation of air defense shield over western regions of Ukraine
28.08.24 22:13
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umierov
https://censor.net/en/n3507183
“Participants in the NATO-Ukraine Council meeting discussed further plans to supply Kyiv with air defense systems and missiles.
The minister reminded that the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, which took place on August 28, was convened in connection with the massive missile strikes that the Russian army carried out against Ukraine two days ago. The aggressor country launched more than 200 missiles and drones. The shelling killed civilians and damaged the country’s critical infrastructure.
At the meeting, Umerov briefed the partners on the current situation and emphasized the need to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense.
“We discussed further plans to supply air defense systems and missiles to them. We need to strengthen our air defense,” the Defense Minister said.
In addition, Umierov said that consultations on the creation of an air defense shield - the so-called security belt over the western regions of the country - will continue in the future.
“We are also continuing consultations, including in bilateral formats, on the creation of an air defense shield - the so-called security belt over the western regions of the country,” the minister said.
In conclusion, the Defense Minister thanked the partners for their unwavering support and promised assistance and emphasized that “more and more allies support the lifting of restrictions on the use of long-range weapons for Ukraine’s self-defense within the framework of international law.”
ARTICLE
Stoltenberg following NATO-Ukraine Council meeting: ‘We must continue to provide Ukraine with equipment, munitions it needs to defend itself’
28.08.2024 18:36
https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/1010315.html
Stoltenberg following NATO-Ukraine Council meeting: We must continue to provide Ukraine with equipment, munitions it needs to defend itself
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, commenting on the results of the NATO-Ukraine Council meeting, said it was necessary to continue providing Ukraine with the weapons and ammunition it needs to defend itself against a Russian invasion.
This was immediately reported by the press service of the alliance headquarters. The NATO-Ukraine Council was convened at the request of Kyiv after the recent massive Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian citizens and infrastructure.
“NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who chaired the meeting, said: “Ukraine continues to intercept Russian missiles on a daily basis, saving countless lives. But Ukraine’s ability to maintain their defenses requires increased supply and more support. In the wake of the latest Russian assault, Allies today reaffirmed they are stepping up their military aid to Ukraine. We must continue to provide Ukraine with the equipment and munitions it needs to defend itself against Russia’s invasion. This is vital for Ukraine’s ability to stay in the fight,” according to the statement.
The alliance also said during the meeting, “Allies strongly condemned Russia’s indiscriminate strikes and reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthen Ukraine’s defenses.”
The meeting on Wednesday was held at the ambassadorial level. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov briefed the allies via video link on the current security situation and priority needs.
Stoltenberg stated: “The NATO-Ukraine Council met to address developments on the battlefield and Ukraine’s priority capability needs. Allies strongly condemn the escalation in Russian air strikes on Ukraine. We must continue to provide Ukraine with the equipment and munitions it needs to defend itself,” the NATO Secretary General said.
Bless your little dark heart.
🖤
Btw, I love how you post to yourself! 😅
Do you talk to yourself, too?
They’re all that thick and twisted.
To post pictures of a man (any man) without a shirt on, is perverted now??? 😅
I need to tell my husband, next time we take a dip in the pool.
Butt boi is desperate.
😅🤣😂 Desperado!
WHERE AND HOW RICE IS GROWN
Www.Weknowrice.com
By Hui Yin November 15, 2022
As a staple food for more than half of the world’s population – with Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South America being the largest consuming regions – and with an annual global rice yield of approximately 535 million tons, rice is by far one of the most important commercial food crops.
In the rice industry, fifty countries produce rice, with China and India supporting 50% of total global rice production and Southeast Asian countries separately supporting an annual production rate of 9-23 million metric tons, of which they export very little, with over 300 million acres of Asian land used for growing rice.
Not only is rice eaten steamed or boiled – with rice cookers making the cooking process much simpler and near-effortless today – but rice grains can also be dried and ground into rice flour and used to make beer and liquors.
By-products from the growing and processing of rice create many valuable new rice products. Rice husks, rice stubble, rice bran, broken rice, and rice straw are used as common ingredients in different food products, livestock feed, and even industrial, household, and building products.
With rice production and the global rice trade being so lucrative and beneficial to so many around the world, you may be wondering about where rice growers are and how rice farming and rice cultivation work throughout the year. Here is how rice farms grow rice globally.
Where is Rice Grown and How is It Grown?
The earliest rice site may have been in China roughly 10,000 years ago. Some archaeological evidence suggests that China had rice fields as early as 2300 BCE and that places in South East Asia had rice farms at this time as well.
Rice most likely came to Western countries through the traders and voyagers of the Columbian Exchange in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Meanwhile, Africa developed and domesticated its own species of rice called African rice (or Oryza glaberrima), though this variety didn’t gain as much popularity globally.
Rice plants produce a variety of short-grain rice, medium-grain rice, to long-grain rice, as well as aromatic rice like jasmine rice, basmati rice, and glutinous rice or sticky rice. There are three different types of rice: japonica, javanica, and indica.
Japonica rice varieties are high yielding and tend to be resistant to disease. Javanica types of rice fall between japonica and indica varieties in terms of yield, use, and hardiness. Although quite hardy, indica yields less than japonica types and are most often grown in the tropics like Southeast Asia.
Varieties of rice are selected and grown specifically for their end use. For U.S. rice, long-grain rice is typically used for boiling, quick-cook products, and soup, whereas shorter-grain rice is used in breakfast cereals, baby food, and liquors.
Because rice consumption and cultivation are so widespread, there are now four distinct types of rice farms or ecosystems. They are commonly referred to as irrigated, rainfed lowland, upland, and flood-prone agroecological zones. Irrigated rice ecosystems are the primary type found in East Asia providing 75% of most rice produced globally.
Rainfed lowland ecosystems only sustain one crop per growing season and flooded fields reach as much as 19.7 inches during part of the growing season. Rainfed low-land rice is grown in areas of South Asia and Southeast Asia and accounts for 25% of global rice production.
Upland zones are found in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and are the primary type in the rice industry of Latin America and West Africa. Upland rice fields are generally dry and directly seeded. Usually, rice seeds and rice crops are either sown simultaneously with another crop, intermittently with another crop, or the crop is shifted every few years to a new location.
ARTICLE
The Apollo Mission That Nearly Ended With a Mutiny in Space
There were arguments over food, helmets and spacesuits that required 30 minutes for astronauts to use the bathroom.
By 1968, America’s space program was on the brink. A launchpad fire at Cape Canaveral killed three astronauts as they were conducting tests in their space capsule in January 1967. After 20 months of congressional hearings, political fallout and a spacecraft redesign, three new astronauts prepared for a mission dubbed Apollo 7: Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham.
The crew’s 11-day mission to orbit the Earth was a shakedown cruise for an eventual trip to the moon. It was the first time three men flew in space together, and also the first time NASA broadcast a television feed from space. Apollo 7 was a crucial step toward Apollo 11’s epic journey in July 1969.
But it is also remembered for the testy exchanges between the crew and NASA officials on the ground that almost turned into a mutiny.
Astronauts were unhappy from the start.
The lessons from Apollo 7 continue to resonate a half century on as both NASA and private space companies plan for human missions back to the moon and perhaps Mars. Nearly any technical problem can be solved when crew and ground controllers cooperate, but as Apollo 7 showed, disagreements can turn a mission upside down, experts say.
“The crew was going to do what the crew was going to do,” says Teasel Muir-Harmony, curator of space history at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. “You can listen to the audio. It is quite tension-filled. It wasn’t playful banter.”
There were arguments over whether to launch at all, conflicts over a television broadcast, complaints about the food, and unhappiness with spacesuits that required 30 minutes for astronauts to use the bathroom. Schirra, a 45-year-old former Gemini astronaut and a Navy test pilot, was at the center of the disputes. He had already decided to leave NASA when he was selected for the Apollo 7 mission.
“He had very little at stake,” Muir-Harmony says. “That might have something to do with some of his insubordination.”
Wally Schirra was shaken by the death of a fellow astronaut.
Schirra was badly shaken by the death of his friend and neighbor Gus Grissom
in the Apollo 1 fire. The safety of his crew was his prime concern and outweighed nearly all other tasks that NASA planned for the Apollo 7 flight, according to Andrew Chaikin, a NASA historian and author of A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of The Apollo Astronauts. In the aftermath of the fire, Schirra and everyone else at NASA was on edge.
“It was a terribly traumatic time for NASA,” Chaikin says. “Everyone understood they had to up their game. After the fire, they had to do everything humanly possible to make the spacecraft safer and better. Apollo 7 was the final exam on whether they built a spacecraft that was up to the challenge.”
Schirra was used to flying by himself, as an aviator. During the three-man Apollo flight, Schirra seemed to have strong feelings about what it meant to be a mission commander.
“He wanted to make the point that the crew was in charge,” Chaikin says. “Nobody on the ground is taking the risk that he and his crew was. They weren’t risking their butts. He felt strongly about that and he had an ornery streak anyway.”
The existing tension and anxiety that Schirra felt about the fire was compounded by decisions NASA officials made during launch. After the launchpad fire, NASA engineers designed an emergency system that would allow the crew capsule to separate from the booster rocket. A ground-based landing could endanger the crew because the seats in the Apollo command module didn’t have extra padding that was installed in later missions.
More…
https://www.history.com/news/apollo-7-near-mutiny-ground-control-astronauts
Acually, I’m AMERICA FIRST, and I don’t give a rats arse about your Ukraine.
Are you familiar with America?
I do care that U.S taxpayers money (billions) has been shipped to this corrupt, money laundering crap hole by your rats, rinos and W.H regime heros.
Oh, one more thing!
Like any other desperate zeeper who calls America First patriots a Russian.... show me the posts!!
Show me my post where I said I’m Russian or made a Pro-Russian post!
You’re a damn liar!
You call yourself a Christian?
Now go run and have my post deleted again.
I don’t get the issue here. BOTH countries are equally evil and corrupt. We need to walk away from both of them and let them duke it out between themselves.
I asker her a while back on one of her threads, if she didn't get tired of talking to herself. Pyschopaths never do 🤪
In the U.S., the FBI shows up at your door to conduct a search, and shoots you.
In Ukraine, they round up the men between the ages of 18 and 60 to fight for the country, but won't allow them to vote.
Looks like Zelensky's twin brother.
At least Russians would be able to vote in an election. Nobody in Ukraine can, even the men being sent to die.
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