If you can’t beat them, ban them: Twitter no longer showing search results from well-known Russian state news agency RIA Novosti
By Jonny Tickle | RT | September 28, 2020
Twitter has shadow-banned well-known Russian news agency RIA Novosti. In practice, the move means users will no longer see the agency’s tweets in the website’s search results, unless they follow the media organization’s account.
The removal of RIA Novosti’s tweets from the search function has been called “media censorship,” as the social network continues to restrict news outlets it considers to be “Russian state-affiliated.” Last month, both RT and Sputnik also faced the same suppression.
“We consider such restrictions on the part of Twitter to be an act of media censorship, which is expressly prohibited by the Russian Constitution,” the press service of Rossiya Segodnya, the parent company of RIA Novosti, said on Monday. “The social network does not react to our requests and does not explain its decisions.”
This latest move against Russian media has been criticized by independent Russian Senator Alexander Bashkin, who called the decision “open censorship,” accusing Twitter of “double standards.”
“This is a real information war,” he insisted.
In August, Twitter announced that it would be labeling accounts of key government officials of the five UN Security Council members, as well as state-linked media and their senior staff. This caused controversy when the company opted to label RT and Sputnik as ‘state-affiliated,’ but left the likes of BBC and US state-run Voice of America and RFE/RL alone.
Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that Russian correspondents abroad are “openly discriminated against,” highlighting issues in France and the Baltic states.
Question ‘The Science’? Go To Gulag!
By Dr Ron Paul | September 28, 2020
In the Soviet Union it was forbidden to dispute the wisdom of the “party line.” That’s because Marxian communism was viewed as the scientifically inevitable progression of mankind. For Marx and Lenin, the “science was settled.” Therefore anyone speaking out against “the science” of the Soviet system must be acting with malice; must actually want destruction; must want people to die.
Anyone voicing opposition to the “settled science” of Marxism-Leninism soon found their voice silenced. Oftentimes permanently.
Ironically, just 30 years after the “science” of Marxism-Leninism imploded for all the world to see, we are witnessing a resurgence here in the US of the idea that to question “the science” is not to seek truth or refine understanding of what appears to be conflicting evidence. No, it is to actually wish harm on one’s fellow Americans.
And while we who question “the science” are not being physically carried off to the gulags for disputing the wisdom of our “betters” in the CDC or the World Health Organization, for example, we are finding that the outcome is the same. We are being silenced and accused of malicious intent. The Soviet Communists called dissidents like us “wreckers.”
Last week on my daily news broadcast, the Ron Paul Liberty Report, we reported on two whistleblowers from inside the CDC and Big Pharma who raised serious and legitimate questions about the prevailing coronavirus narrative. The former Chief Science Officer for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Dr. Mike Yeadon, has stated that from his experience he believes that nearly 90 percent of positive results from the current tests for Covid are false positives. That means that this massive expansion in “cases,” used to justify continued attacks on our civil liberties, is simply phony.
As Dr. Yeadon said in a recent interview about the Orwellian UK coronavirus lockdown, “we are basing a government policy, an economic policy, a civil liberties policy, in terms of limiting people to six people in a meeting… all based on, what may well be, completely fake data on this coronavirus?”
Is Dr. Yeadon correct in claiming that based on his scientific observation there is no “second wave”? We don’t know. But we do know that his claims that the massive increase in “cases” in Europe used to justify new lockdowns are not in any way being matched with a similar increase in deaths. The EU’s own charts prove this. Deaths remain a flat line near zero while “cases” skyrocket to match the massive increase in testing.
Yet when we reported on Dr. Yeadon’s findings on the Liberty Report last week we found that for the first time ever, our program was removed by YouTube.
YouTube, owned by Google, which is firmly embedded into the deep state, was vague in explaining just where we violated their “community standards” by simply reporting on qualified scientists who happen to disagree with the mainstream coronavirus narrative.
But they did offer this shocking explanation in an email sent to us at the Ron Paul Liberty Report: “YouTube does not allow content that explicitly disputes the efficacy of the World Health Organization.”
Incredible!
It’s not the science that is settled. What appears to be “settled is the impulse to silence anyone who asks “why”?
Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute.
PLO: US puts pressure on Sudan to settle Palestine refugees
MEMO | September 28, 2020
The United States is putting pressure on Sudan to accept settling Palestine refugees on its soil, member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, Bassam Al-Salhi, was reported saying by Anadolu yesterday.
“Special sources told me that the ongoing normalisation talks between Washington, Israel and Sudan include Sudan’s possibility to resettle [Palestine] refugees on its soil as part of the deal of the century,” Al-Salhi said, in reference to the US ‘peace deal’ for the region.
He stated that “this is part of the conspiracy against the Palestinian cause,” stressing the issue between Israel and Sudan goes beyond the normalisation of ties.
The PLO official called on Sudan “to reject being dragged into these American-Israeli plans in order to maintain its interests and future.”
Resettling Palestine refugees had been raised dozens of times by Israel and the US mainly in Egypt and other host countries; however, Al-Salhi said, proposing to resettle them in Sudan is new.
Sudan did not issue an immediate comment on the remarks, but the country’s officials have several times denied reports about the possible normalisation of ties with Israel despite several meetings between Sudanese and Israeli officials.
Peruvian president wins impeachment process, but opposition grows
By Lucas Leiroz | September 28, 2020
The political crisis in Peru is far from over. Despite the fact that President Martín Vizcarra won the first stage of his dispute against the Congress mainly formed by Fujimori’s supporters, the expectation is that his opponents will continue to try to overthrow him through an institutional coup that “respects” the limits of “legality” and “democracy”.
In September 2019, Vizcarra resorted to the Constitution to legitimately dissolve the National Congress, after a series of clashes between the Legislative and the Executive, with parliamentarians denying cooperation with the government in a boycott gesture. In response, Congress intensified its opposition to the government and, even though suspended, illegally “deposed” President Vizcarra, recognizing his former vice president, Mercedez Araóz, as the country’s leader. For one day, Peru had two presidents – similar to the Venezuelan case: one legitimate and one artificially chosen by the opposition. However, Araóz resigned the next day.
Martín Vizcarra was elected in 2018 with a speech based on “fighting corruption”, as it could not be otherwise: Peru was one of the countries most affected by the “Operation Car Wash “, which started in Brazil and spread to several countries in Latin America, dismembering billion-dollar corruption schemes between governments and private companies. In Peru, four former presidents were investigated in the Operation and the leader of the largest congressional party, Keiko Fujimori, was arrested. Keiko is the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, a former president who ruled the country for ten years. She, under her father’s command, leads the opposition against Vizcarra and has a majority of supporters in the Congress. In July last year, Vizcarra asked Congress to vote on a legal reform to change the process of choosing judges for the Constitutional Court. But, instead of carrying out the reform, parliamentarians chose the judges themselves, which is why Vizcarra chose to close the Congress.
Thus began the conflict between the Executive and the Legislative, which has remained since then. Opponents recently launched an impeachment process against Vizcarra alleging his “moral inability” to exercise the position of president. The reason for such “moral incapacity” would be an alleged irregular hiring made by the president for the Ministry of Culture, a topic of extremely low political relevance for the country. But the reforms carried out by Vizcarra partially reversed the scenario in Congress after its restoration, increasing the number of parliamentarians who support the President (his supporters are still a minority, though). Thus the impeachment request was rejected this September.
The head of state denounced that the impeachment request is part of a plot against him, planned by sectors of Congress that wish to take control of the country. Such sectors are said to be reminiscent of opponents who led Vizcarra to close Congress last year and have the support of a large political wing outside the legislative branch. The party with the greatest influence in Congress is still the “Fuerza Popular” of Alberto Fujimori and his daughter, who is now back in politics.
Keiko Fujimori is the main name of the opposition at the moment. Prosecuted for integrating the corruption schemes investigated by Operation Car Wash, Keiko has been arrested twice in recent years and is currently under house arrest, which is not preventing her from acting politically. Days ago, the daughter of the former dictator (who is also in prison), announced in her account on a social network that she is back to politics in a “100% active” way and “under her father’s command”. Apparently, Keiko intends to run for the 2021 elections – if she is no longer under judicial penalty – or at least to support some strong opposition candidate. This will inevitably increase internal tensions and the political crisis until next year’s elections, considering that Keiko Fujimori is president of Fuerza Popular, which is the country’s strongest party.
The scenario is worrying for Vizcarra from all points of view. Despite increasing the number of his supporters in Congress, Fujimori’s party is still the strongest one and could mobilize parliamentarians to overthrow him if the reason for the impeachment request was a stronger accusation than mere “moral incapacity”. And, with the recent history of Latin America, we can see that events like this have occurred with great frequency. In 2016, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was overthrown in an impeachment process without any material evidence of her crimes being presented. Also, last year Bolivian President Evo Morales was the victim of an explicit coup d’état orchestrated by the opposition, which led to the presidency the then vice-president of the Senate, Jenine Áñez, who still leads the country. In fact, the fragility of the legal and democratic structure of the Latin countries is immense, since these countries are going through a moment of special political crisis, possibly influenced by external factors and agents.
Vizcarra’s victory does not have real political relevance, in practice, as the Peruvian president has not been strengthened with it. Most Likely, there will be more pressure and the opposition trying to get him out of office even though the elections are only six months away.
Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Turkish claims that the PKK is operating in Artsakh set dangerous precedent
By Paul Antonopoulos | September 28, 2020
Conflict sparked up again yesterday in Artsakh, or more commonly known as Nagorno-Karabakh, when Azerbaijan launched an offensive against Armenian forces. Although the Republic of Artsakh is not recognized by any state, including Armenia, and it is still internationally recognized as occupied Azerbaijani territory, it achieved a de facto independence in 1994.
As acting Commissar of Nationalities for the Soviet Union in the early 1920’s, future Soviet leader Joseph Stalin granted the Armenian-majority region of Artsakh to the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic. The Azeris, the dominant ethnic group of Azerbaijan, are cultural and linguistic kin with the Turks. It is said that the Turks and Azeris constitute “one nation in two states.” The defining difference is that Azeris are Shia Muslims unlike Turks who are mostly Sunni. The Soviets had hoped that by granting Artsakh to Azerbaijan instead of Armenia, they could court the newly founded Republic of Turkey to closely align with Moscow, or perhaps even become a Soviet Republic, by appeasing their ethnic Azeri kin.
In 1921, it was estimated that Artsakh was 94% Armenian. However, according to the 1989 census, Artsakh’s population was approximately 75% Armenian and 25% Azeri. Former Soviet Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev, father of current President Ilham Aliyev, said in 2002: “I tried to change demographics there […] I tried to increase the number of Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh and the number of Armenians decreased.” The collapse of the Soviet Union unsurprisingly led to the Artsakh War, which only ended after a ceasefire in 1994 when Armenian forces achieved a decisive victory.
Despite Azerbaijan’s defense budget ($2.267 billion) being about five times larger than Armenia’s, they have failed to capture Artsakh on numerous attempts, particularly during the 2016 April War and another major attempt in July of this year. Azerbaijan’s resumption of hostilities yesterday could be passed off as just another skirmish that will subside in a few days. However, the current conditions are far different and much more dangerous than in previous situations.
Although it is well established that the Turkish economy is struggling, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is maintaining a policy of constant crises in the vain attempt to distract the public from the Turkish lira as it continues breaking new record lows to the US dollar and Euro, even as recently as this morning. As the military provocations and rhetoric of war against Greece and Cyprus in the East Mediterranean begins to subside in Ankara, it only took a few days for a new crisis to emerge.
Reports began emerging last week that Turkey was transferring terrorists from northern Syria to Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani leadership in Baku flatly denied the allegations last week and today. However, despite the denials from Baku, it must be remembered that Ankara openly announced its transfer of Syrian fighters to Libya earlier this year and the Azerbaijani’s have undoubtedly used international terrorists from Afghanistan, Chechnya and Turkey during the first Artsakh war in the 1990’s. Photos, videos and voice recordings have emerged that show Syrian terrorists on their way to or already in Azerbaijan. Vardan Toghanya, the Armenian Ambassador to Moscow, said in a statement today that 4,000 militants from Syria already arrived in Azerbaijan, while according to the Armenian intelligence agency, 80 fighters from Syria have already been killed or wounded.
Turkey’s transfer of militants in support of Azerbaijan, which was also done in the 1990’s, is not what makes the current conflict more dangerous compared to previous battles and skirmishes. Starting from last week, Turkey and Azerbaijan have increased their campaign in claiming that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), considered a terrorist organization by both Ankara and Baku, was operating in Artsakh. Neither Ankara and Baku provided any evidence for their claims. This sets a dangerous narrative as it could be used as a way for Turkey to “legitimize” a direct intervention against Armenia and in support of Azerbaijan.
Erdoğan justified his invasion and occupation of large areas of northern Syria and northern Iraq in 2018, 2019 and this year on the pretence that they were fighting against the PKK. Although Armenia denies PKK are operating in Artsakh, this will be ignored by Ankara and Baku.
However, unlike Syria and Iraq, Armenia is a member state of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), alongside Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. A direct Turkish attack on Armenia could activate the CSTO. This would be a dangerous scenario as in turn this could activate NATO in defense of Turkey. It is highly unlikely that the situation in Artsakh will dissolve into a CSTO-NATO faceoff. But the risk still remains, especially if Erdoğan decides to directly intervene under the guise of expelling the PKK from Artsakh.
Just as Erdoğan unleashed a migrant crisis in February and March of this year against Greece, sent Syrian terrorists to Libya in May, conducted a military operation in northern Iraq against the PKK in June, and created a new crisis with Greece by sending warships into its territorial waters in August and for most of September, it appears the new crisis to dominate headlines for the next few weeks will revolve around Artsakh.
Although it is unlikely that Turkey will directly militarily intervene, a dangerous precedent has already been established by pushing the narrative, without publicly available evidence, that the PKK are operating in Artsakh alongside Armenian forces. With the Turkish economy and lira collapsing, Erdoğan in the future may very well use the narrative that the PKK are in Artsakh to foment public furore and distract them from the declining economic situation.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.