Moscow denies Washington Post claims about secret Russia-Ukraine talks
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova © Sputnik / Sergey Bobylev
RT | August 18, 2024
Russia and Ukraine have not been involved in any “direct or indirect” talks that could have been derailed by Kiev’s cross-border incursion into Kursk Region, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told journalists on Sunday.
She was asked to comment on a Washington Post article which claimed, citing sources, that the Ukrainian attack thwarted secret indirect negotiations between Moscow and Kiev regarding a potential moratorium on striking energy infrastructure. The supposed talks were said to be mediated by Qatar, the outlet wrote on Saturday.
“No one has derailed anything,” Zakharova said, explaining that the two sides have not discussed any “security regimes” for critical infrastructure facilities.
She went on to say that threats to energy facilities such as the nuclear power stations in Zaporozhye and Kursk come from Kiev, not Moscow.
Earlier, a Russian journalist had reported that Kiev was plotting a “false flag” attack involving a dirty nuclear bomb either at the nuclear plant in Zaporozhye or Kursk. Commenting on the matter, the Russian Defense Ministry said it takes such reports seriously and vowed a swift and harsh response to any such attacks. Moscow has called on the UN to condemn the alleged plot, while Kiev has denied the claims.
According to Zakharova, Moscow and Kiev have not engaged in any talks since spring 2022, except for prisoner exchanges facilitated by third-party mediators. Peace talks held over the first months of the conflict collapsed after Kiev withdrew from them due to what Moscow claims was Western interference.
Ukraine had “all the chances” to resolve the conflict through negotiations, the spokeswoman said. Moscow repeatedly stated that it was ready to enter into negotiations at any moment as long as the situation on the ground was taken into account.
Kiev banned any talks with the current Russian leadership at the national level through a presidential decree signed in 2022. The move came after four former Ukrainian regions voted overwhelmingly to join Russia.
This June, Moscow put forward another peace initiative, Zakharova noted. At the time, President Vladimir Putin said Russia was ready to immediately open peace talks with Kiev if it withdrew its troops from the four regions that joined Russia in 2022 and committed to maintaining neutral status.
According to Zakharova, Kiev reacted to this “goodwill gesture” by launching an incursion into Kursk Region, where Ukrainian forces were “deliberately killing medics, rescuers, and volunteers, as well as attacking civilian transport.” In the wake of the attack, Putin said there can be no talks with those “who conduct indiscriminate strikes on civilians.”
I reported a piece for the New York Times on antisemitism. I found a major error, but the Times didn’t care.
An elected official alleged an antisemitic break-in. Police say it didn’t happen.
Pro-Palestinian protest in Teaneck, New Jersey outside Congregation Keter Torah on March 10, 2024. Photo: Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty.
By Arvind Dilawar | Drop Site News | August 8, 2024
As a freelance journalist, I contributed to a New York Times article earlier this year about an anti-Zionist demonstration in Teaneck, New Jersey, a township just outside of New York City. Hundreds of demonstrators had gathered to protest an event organized by Israeli realtors marketing properties in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank—Israeli settlements widely regarded as illegal under international law. Amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Times article described the protest as contributing to escalating fear and tension in otherwise peaceable Teaneck. As a pivotal example of alleged antisemitic activity in the area, my co-author John Leland, a Times staff reporter, quoted township councilmember Hillary Goldberg, who claimed that her home had been “broken into” as part of a string of abuse in response to her vocal support of Israel and her Jewish background.
“I have been threatened; I had a box truck with my picture on it and the words ‘liar liar’ driven around town; my house has been broken into; I have received antisemitic messages,” Goldberg told Leland, adding: “I have never felt so afraid to be Jewish as now.”
It was an explosive allegation—a racially motivated break-in at the home of an elected official—and also a brand new one. Prior to the Times coverage, Goldberg was featured in an article from The Intercept about anti-Zionist organizing at Teaneck High School being suppressed by local politicians, including the councilmember. According to The Intercept, Goldberg appears to have collaborated with U.S. Representative Josh Gottheimer to have the entire Teaneck school district investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for alleged antisemitism in retaliation for students organizing for a ceasefire in Gaza last November.
There is no mention of a break-in at Goldberg’s home in The Intercept article—nor coverage of it elsewhere, either in the news or social media. Goldberg’s comments to the Times were the first, and thus far only, mention of the incident anywhere.
The way the reporting and editing process unfolded next was a window into how politically convenient claims make their way into the paper of record without corroboration—and stay in despite contradictory evidence.
When I shared my concerns regarding Goldberg’s apparent political motivations as laid out in the Intercept article, as well as the lack of coverage of this otherwise extremely newsworthy allegation, Leland assured me that the councilmember had filed a police report, meaning her story checked out. But when I requested the report, he told me he hadn’t actually seen it, only been assured by Goldberg that she had filed it. The story went to press without further verification of her claim.
I was eventually able to obtain the police reports myself via an Open Public Records Act request, and they revealed that the police had determined no break-in, nor any other crime, had been committed. According to the first police report, dated February 10, six officers responded to a call at Goldberg’s publicly listed address because, according to the complainant, “Lights basement were on // were not on when left // back door was locked when got home unlocked.” The half-dozen officers checked the property but found no sign of forced entry nor anything else amiss. Two subsequent checks of the area found nothing further, and a follow-up investigation by a sergeant two days later ended the same.
“The sergeant did respond to the residence a couple days after the initial incident was reported and spoke with the complainant,” Seth Kriegel, deputy chief of the Teaneck Police Department, reiterated to me. “And based on speaking with her and his investigation, he determined that there was no burglary that had occurred—or attempted burglary.”
Teaneck police determined that no crime had been committed at Goldberg’s property, according to Kriegel. He also noted that subsequent checks were requested by the complainant, a dozen of which were conducted before the publication of the Times article, and none found anything to report.
Believing a correction to the Times story was in order—or at least an update, to give readers a fuller picture—I shared the police reports with Leland—who told me that he had already gotten them and, despite the explicit contradictions, no correction would be issued. When presented with the police reports, management at the Times also declined to reconcile them with its coverage. Instead, managing director of external communications, Charlie Stadtlander, said in a statement that the article was “thoroughly reported, fact-checked and edited, and we stand behind its publication.” Goldberg did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The Times has come under fire in recent months for refusing to issue corrections to several other articles about Israel and Palestine.
Perhaps most significantly, the Times continues to defend an article accusing Palestinian militants of committing “systematic” sexual violence against Israelis on October 7, despite criticism from professors of journalism, cited by The Washington Post, and others regarding significant issues with the story and its reporting. The Times was forced to issue an “update” (rather than a correction, as would be stipulated by standard journalistic practice) to address contradictory evidence that later emerged.
Anti-Zionist groups such as Writers Against the War on Gaza and publications such as Mondoweiss have also criticized the Times for minimizing Israel’s role in the ongoing famine in the Gaza Strip, casting the Israeli genocide as a feminist endeavor and largely ignoring the killings of more than a hundred fellow journalists in Gaza.
Such apparent contradictions in the Times’ coverage of Israel and Palestine led to significant internal dissent at the publication. A planned podcast episode on the aforementioned story about sexual violence had to be scrapped after producers raised questions about its reliability. At least four other contributors have also resigned or severed relationships with the Times for similar reasons, according to the outlet Them.
Unfortunately the Times is not alone in breaking with standard journalistic ethics when it comes to covering Israel and Palestine. In a decade of being a full-time freelance journalist, I have personally never come up against the kind of opposition I’ve experienced trying to cover the reverberations of the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.
In December, an editor at The Smart Set, an arts and culture magazine that I contributed to for five years without issue, accepted a pitch of mine on decolonization—only to have a higher-up summarily reject the draft, without edits, notes, or payment.
In April, Times Union, the regional affiliate of Hearst Newspapers in Upstate New York, published an article that I had written about local businesses being harassed for supporting a ceasefire in Gaza. It was online for less than 24 hours before the editor-in-chief interrupted his own travel plans to force the newsroom to take it down. There were no factual errors in the article nor procedural errors in its reporting. Rather, it was Times Union that ran afoul of standard practice by refusing to issue a retraction acknowledging, much less justifying, their decision.
These experiences, as well as mine at The Times, could individually be written off as little more than professional setbacks, especially when compared to the unimaginable suffering in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, including at least 15,000 children, according to Al Jazeera at the time of this writing. These otherwise minor journalistic malpractices, however, should be understood as coming together to form a web, like the Kevlar-tough strands of spider’s silk, with the fates of those Palestinians caught in the middle.
Italian paper pays damages after labelling Palestine rights advocate a ‘terrorist’
MEMO | August 8, 2024
Italian newspaper Il Corriere Della Sera has been ordered to pay €15,000 in damages to Shawan Jabarin, the general director of Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, for falsely accusing him in 2021 of being a terrorist and murderer.
In a press release published this week, Al-Haq said the paper had published the claims days after Jabarin was invited to join a hearing at the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian Parliament on 20 December 2021 following Israel’s designation of Palestinian NGOs as ‘terrorist organisations’.
Two days after the hearing, Il Corriere della Sera published an article “containing false and defamatory statements” labelling Jabarin a “terrorist”. Additionally, “the newspapers omitted essential contextual information around Israel’s targeted designation of six Palestinian civil society organisations as ‘terror organisations’, thereby infringing on the readers’ right to access free and impartial information.”
After being summoned to court, the paper accepted a settlement agreement, which included compensating Jabarin for “reputational” damage suffered and publishing an article retracting the defamatory claims. However it failed to admit, in its article, that it was among those who had defamed the Palestinian rights advocate.
Debunking the debunkers on the “myths” of antidepressants
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | August 5, 2024
Recently, The Conversation ran an article which claimed to “debunk” a range of myths about antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
Natalina Salmaso, a clinical psychologist at Carleton University in Canada, highlighted five common myths that make people hesitant to take antidepressants.
Salmaso said hesitancy is often “unfounded” and “may not be grounded in science” and that “debunking the myths surrounding antidepressants is critical to permitting educated treatment decisions for those who suffer.”
However, Salmaso’s article was full of omissions and falsehoods, so we decided to debunk the debunker.
Myth 1 – I am stronger if I do this without meds
Salmaso says that a person with depression is like an athlete with a broken leg.
An athlete cannot compete effectively with a broken leg, in the same way a person with depression cannot function effectively, because their brain “is no longer responding to everyday life.”
She adds that a person’s brain needs to “heal” before they can expect it to function like they did pre-depression and implied antidepressants can help.
This is grossly misguided. This feeds into the false narrative that depression is a brain disease that can be cured by antidepressants.
Antidepressants don’t cure people with depression and their symptomatic effects are so small that they lack clinical relevance.
Studies show that patients actually do better with psychotherapy, which has enduring effects. Further, psychotherapy halves the risk of suicide whereas antidepressants double this risk, in people of all ages.
Myth 2 – I will be dependent on antidepressants to be happy
Salmaso says that antidepressants won’t make people ‘happy’ per se, but they “allow people to experience all emotions in an appropriate and balanced way.”
However, this is not what patients report. SSRIs tend to make people feel “numb” and unable to experience emotions. Some describe it as an inability to feel love, attachment or sexual excitement.
Some experience sexual dysfunction, which can continue long after the drug is discontinued.
Salmaso says that antidepressants “are a long-term (typically at a minimum for a year) and (hopefully) curative treatment, much like chemotherapy for certain types of cancer.”
This is also misguided. Most people become depressed because they have stressful or depressing circumstances, which no drug can cure.
People have been misled to believe that antidepressants can “correct” a chemical imbalance in the brain. A systematic review in 2022 thoroughly debunked the hypothesis that depression is caused a serotonin imbalance.
Salmaso even says that “most studies show that if you take antidepressant medications for a year before coming off of them, the majority of people will not relapse.”
This is also incorrect. The majority of studies on relapse are flawed because they involve subjects already on antidepressants and when they suddenly stop them for the trial they experience withdrawals, which interferes with the assessment of relapse.
Also, the longer someone takes an antidepressant, the higher the probability of that person experiencing withdrawal effects.
Myth 3 – Meds will change who I am, I will be different or feel high
Salmaso says that antidepressants won’t change you, but rather “allow you to view things from a more balanced perspective.”
However, Danish psychiatrists have reported that half of the patients on antidepressants agreed that the treatment could alter their personality and that they had less control over their thoughts and feelings.
Far from rebalancing the brain, antidepressants alter the normal functioning of the brain and disrupt biological processes with potentially devastating consequences.
As far as “changing who you are,” there have been ample reports of out-of-body experiences (including akathisia) where people became suicidal or homicidal on antidepressants, even in people with no history of this behaviour.
A systematic review found that taking antidepressants increased aggression three times more than taking a placebo, in children and adolescents.
Myth 4: I will become addicted
Salmaso says that antidepressants “are generally not addictive and have a low potential for misuse.”
This is not correct. Antidepressants can lead to dependency. Many people experience withdrawal symptoms, which are very similar to those that people experience when they try to come off benzodiazepines.
Salmaso claims that some patients get headaches and other withdrawal symptoms when the stop taking antidepressants “suddenly” but says they are “generally short-lived and can be minimised by tapering off treatment slowly.”
However, it is well-documented that about half of patients on antidepressants cannot stop them without experiencing withdrawals symptoms, which for some, can persist for many years. These symptoms are very difficult to “minimise” even with slow tapering.
Myth 5: Meds should only be used as a last resort
Salmaso disagrees that antidepressants should be used as a last resort.
She says that reserving antidepressants only for extreme cases “doesn’t make sense” because depression can reduce “work productivity and has immense societal consequences.”
“The financial repercussions that can be attributed to depression in terms of the number of workdays missed, jobs lost, accidents caused, etc. are enormous,” she added.
However, studies examining the efficacy of antidepressants have not shown any meaningful effects, such as improvements in quality of life, and they make it more difficult for people to function.
In all countries where this relationship has been examined, the increased use of antidepressants has been accompanied by an increase in disability pensions for mental health reasons.
Salmaso argues that, “Depression significantly increases risk of cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disease, respiratory disease and Parkinson’s disease, to name a few. It also seems to worsen the outcomes for cancer.”
Antidepressants do not improve these conditions either. Overall, it is our view that Salmaso’s evidence and arguments are flawed and misguided.
WSJ admits no proof of UNRWA staff collaborating with Hamas
Al Mayadeen | August 5, 2024
The chief editor of The Wall Street Journal Elena Cherney has admitted to not having evidence to back up its January claims that numerous UNRWA employees in Gaza were involved in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Semafor news reported.
The Wall Street Journal stated in January, citing Israeli intelligence, that at least 12 UNRWA employees were personally involved in the events of October 7.
“The fact that the Israeli claims haven’t been backed up by solid evidence doesn’t mean our reporting was inaccurate or misleading, that we have walked it back or that there is a correctable error here,” Cherney said at the time.
Sources told Semafor that since the WSJ article was published, its writers have attempted to validate the information several times but have failed at doing so.
They also divulged that WSJ journalists covering the war on Gaza have frequently expressed worry about the newspaper’s biased coverage of “Israel”.
In March, Reuters reported that following weeks of a nonstop Israeli-targeted campaign against the UN agency, UNRWA said in an unpublished report that some of its staffers were coerced into falsely stating that they had ties with the Palestinian Resistance movement – Hamas and that they took part in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7
The occupation entity alleged in January that 12 of the 12,000 UNRWA members in Gaza participated in the October operation.
According to the news agency, UNRWA’s report dated February said that its workers were subjected “to threats and coercion” by the Israeli authorities “while in detention and pressured to make false statements against the Agency,” including that it has affiliations with Hamas and that “UNRWA staff members took part” in the Resistance operation in October 2023.
The Israeli allegations prompted over 15 countries, including the United States, to suspend almost half a billion dollars in UNRWA funding. The agency warned of the catastrophic repercussions of this decision on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, already in shatters due to “Israel’s” ongoing genocide and starvation policy.
Since then, several countries resumed their funding as none of the Israeli allegations were corroborated.
‘Israel’ passes bill in first reading to label UNRWA ‘terrorist org.’
Last month, the Israeli parliament granted initial approval to a bill that aims to label UNRWA as a “terrorist organization” and suggests severing ties with the humanitarian agency.
The bill received approval during its first reading in the Knesset. It was set to be sent back to the Israeli “Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee” for additional review and discussion before the final decision is made.
Commenting on the Knesset’s measure, UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma warned that this is “another attempt in a wider campaign to dismantle the agency,” adding that “such steps are unheard of in the history of the United Nations.”
The Palestinian Resistance group Hamas condemned the approval of the bill, saying that the bill seeks “to end the Palestinian cause, foremost the refugee issue.”
Hamas called on the international community and the United Nations to “take firm stances against Israel” and protect UNRWA from the occupation’s attempts to “eliminate it.”
Similarly, the Palestinian al-Mujahideen Movement condemned the bill, describing it as a “Zionist attempt to eliminate one of the legal witnesses to our people’s tragedy and their displacement in 1948,” asserting that the decision is a “precursor to a new policy of starvation and siege” against the Palestinian people.
Source tells Tasnim NYT report on Haniyeh assassination false
Al Mayadeen | August 3, 2024
An informed source has dismissed a recent report by The New York Times regarding the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Speaking to Tasnim News Agency on Saturday, the source described the NYT article published on August 1 as being “riddled with lies” and a continuation of a psyop of the Israeli occupation that lacks any news value.
The source specifically highlighted the involvement of Ronen Bergman, one of the report’s authors, suggesting that his track record undermines the credibility of the article.
“The Zionist regime has crossed a major red line and committed a barbaric and cowardly assassination, whose full details are being investigated,” the source stated.
They accused the Israeli occupation of mobilizing its security elements within media outlets to disseminate false details, thereby confusing the public and experts to cover up their terrorist acts.
According to the source, vital information has surfaced about Haniyeh’s martyrdom. They refuted the NYT‘s claim that Haniyeh was killed by an explosive device covertly smuggled into his residence. Instead, the source stated that evidence indicates an aerial projectile, possibly carried by a drone, was responsible for the explosion.
The source further denied claims in the NYT report that members of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council met with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei at 7 am on July 31.
The source described such details as part of an old media tactic designed to make readers believe in the authenticity of the report by providing seemingly precise information.
More dead children. More BBC ‘news’ channelling Israeli propaganda as its own
By Jonathan Cook | July 28, 2024
BBC coverage of the attack on a football pitch in the Golan Heights on Saturday has been intentionally misleading.
The BBC’s evening news entirely ignored the fact that those killed by the blast are a dozen Syrians, not Israeli citizens, and that for decades the surviving Syrian population in the Golan, most of them Druze, has been forced to live unwillingly under an Israeli military occupation.
I suppose mention of this context might complicate the story Israel and the BBC wish to tell – and risk reminding viewers that Israel is a belligerent state occupying not just Palestinian territory but Syrian territory too (not to mention nearby Lebanese territory).
It might suggest to audiences that these various permanent Israeli occupations have been contributing not only to large-scale human rights abuses but to regional tensions as well. That Israel’s acts of aggression against its neighbours might be the cause of “conflict”, rather than, as Israel and the BBC would have us believe, some kind of unusual, pre-emptive form of self-defence.
The BBC, of course, chose to uncritically air comments from a military spokesman for Israel, who blamed Hizbullah for the blast in the Golan.
Daniel Hagari tried to milk the incident for maximum propaganda value, arguing: “This attack shows the true face of Hizbullah, a terrorist organisation that targets and murders children playing soccer.”
Except, as the BBC failed to mention in its report, Israel infamously targeted and murdered four young children from the Bakr family playing football on a beach in Gaza in 2014.
Much more recently, video footage showed Israel striking yet more children playing football at a school in Gaza that was serving as a shelter for families whose homes were destroyed by earlier Israeli bombs.
Doubtless other strikes in Gaza over the past 10 months, so many of them targeting school-shelters, have killed Palestinian children playing football – especially as it is one of the very few ways they can take their mind off the horror all around.
So, should we – and the BBC – not conclude that all these attacks on children playing football make the Israeli military even more of a terrorist organisation than Hizbullah?
Note too the way the western media are so ready to accept unquestioningly Israel’s claim that Hizbullah was responsible for the blast – and dismiss Hizbullah’s denials.
Viewers are discouraged from exercising their memories. Any who do may recall that those same media outlets were only too willing to take on faith Israeli disinformation suggesting that Hamas had hit Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital back in October, even when all the evidence showed it was an Israeli air strike.
(Israel soon went on to destroy all Gaza’s hospitals, effectively eradicating the enclave’s health sector, on the pretext that medical facilities there served as Hamas bases – another patently preposterous claim the western media treated with wide-eyed credulity.)
The BBC next went to Jerusalem to hear from diplomatic editor Paul Adams. He intoned gravely: “This is precisely what we have been worrying about for the past 10 months – that something of this magnitude would occur on the northern border, that would turn what has been a simmering conflict for all of these months into an all-out war.”
So there you have it. Paul Adams and the BBC concede they haven’t been worrying for the past 10 months about the genocide unfolding under their very noses in Gaza, or its consequences.
A genocide of Palestinians, apparently, is not something of significant “magnitude”.
Only now, when Israel can exploit the deaths of Syrians forced to live under its military rule as a pretext to expand its “war”, are we supposed to sit up and take notice. Or so the BBC tells us.
Update:
Facebook instantly removed a post linking to this article – and for reasons that are entirely opaque to me (apart from the fact that it is critical of the BBC and Israel).
Facebook’s warning, threatening that my account may face “more account restrictions”, suggests that I was misleading followers by taking them to a “landing page that impersonates another website”. That is patent nonsense. The link took them to my Substack page.
As I have been warning for some time, social media platforms have been tightening the noose around the necks of independent journalists like me, making our work all but impossible to find. It is only a matter of time before we are disappeared completely.
Substack has been a lifeline, because it connects readers to my work directly – either through email or via Substack’s app – bypassing, at least for the moment, the grip of the social-media billionaires.
If you wish to keep reading my articles, and haven’t already, please sign up to my Substack page.
War of Attrition & the Dishonest War Propaganda
Ukrainian FM Tells Beijing Kiev is Ready for Peace Talks, As Russian Troops Advance
By Glenn Diesen | July 26, 2024
In a war of attrition, the army of the adversary is destroyed before seizing territory. Storming well-fortified positions creates high levels of casualties, which undermines the main objective of favourable attrition rates vis-a-vis the adversary.
The narrative-driven media have called the conflict “stagnant” as the frontlines have moved very slowly, and pretended that Ukrainian casualties have been very low. This deception has been deliberate to sell the illusion that Ukraine can win as a requirement for maintaining public support in the West for keeping the war going.
Much like in Afghanistan, the obedient media committed themselves to the narrative. The unreported reality was that the Ukrainian army was being destroyed, while Russia built a powerful army. Now that Ukraine’s army is at breaking point, Russia has begun taking territory with much less resistance.
How can we end the war? There is overwhelming evidence that Russia considers NATO’s incursion into Ukraine to be an existential threat. As NATO refuses to negotiate about restoring Ukraine’s neutrality, which was lost in February 2014, territorial conquest is perceived by Moscow to be the only solution.
Yet, the media shames anyone who recognises this reality by denouncing them as carrying water for Putin as they are “legitimising” or “supporting” Russia’s invasion. Those calling for peace negotiations are smeared as traitors, while the war propagandists can claim to “stand with Ukraine” as their Ukrainian proxies fight and die in a war that cannot be won.
Calls for negotiations are dismissed as it is unacceptable to surrender Ukrainian territory, which would embolden Russia to pursue similar conquests. In reality, this only became a conflict about territory after negotiations about restoring Ukraine’s neutrality were rejected. NATO refused to accept a neutral Ukraine between 1991 and 2014 when approximately only 20% of Ukrainians wanted NATO membership, and they knew it was a red line for Russia. NATO undermined the Minsk agreement for 7 years despite announcing it was the only peaceful path to resolve the conflict. Negotiations with Russia were then rejected in 2021 even as the US and NATO acknowledged Russia would invade if NATO did not end its bid to expand. In the Istanbul peace agreement in April 2022, Russia agreed to withdraw all its troops from Donbas if Ukraine restored its neutrality, although the US and UK sabotaged the agreement. Yet, the political-media elites insist that the territorial dispute is the source rather than the consequence of the NATO-Russia conflict.
The result? Ukraine loses territory and a horrific amount of men every single day. The war is also entering a new stage as casualties increase dramatically when frontlines collapse and an army must pull back. Russia is now breaking through all the frontlines and Ukraine is about to be hit by a powerful Russian fist. Yet, the political-media elites who purportedly “support Ukraine” have criminalised diplomacy and negotiations. Hungary, who holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, is even punished by the EU for simply engaging in diplomacy with Ukraine, Russia, and China to end the war.
In every war, the call for peace is denounced as support for the adversary while in-group loyalty and patriotism must be expressed as war enthusiasm. After every war, we also acknowledge that the war narrative was full of falsehood and we believe that we have learned an important lesson for the next war.
Iran rejects claim about Trump assassination, asserts will pursue Soleimani case legally
Press TV – July 17, 2024
Iran has roundly rejected claims of devising plot to assassinate former US president Donald Trump, but vows to pursue legal channels to consign him to justice for his ordering the assassination of the Islamic Republic’s top anti-terror commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani made the remarks on Wednesday after US media alleged that American authorities had obtained “intelligence from a human source in recent weeks on a plot by Iran to try to assassinate Trump.”
It followed an assassination attempt against Trump that took place while he was campaigning in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump survived the attempt, suffering an ear injury.
Kan’ani said Iran strongly rejected allegations of any involvement in the armed attack against Trump or claims of harboring any intention to take such action, Kan’ani said.
The Islamic Republic considers such claims to be a product of malicious political goals and intents, he added.
The country, however, is determined to legally pursue Trump due to his direct role in the assassination of General Soleimani, the spokesman asserted.
Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), and their companions were assassinated in a US drone strike authorized by Trump near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.
The commanders were highly revered across West Asia due to their key role in fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and neighboring Syria.
Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations also reacted to the US media report earlier on Wednesday, considering its claim to be “unfounded and malicious.”
The mission, nevertheless, asserted that “from the Islamic Republic’s standpoint, Trump is a criminal, who should be tried and punished in court for [issuing] General Soleimani’s assassination order.”
“Iran has chosen the legal pathway to hold him accountable,” it stated.
They Think We Are Stupid, Volume 9
By Aaron Kheriaty, MD | Human Flourishing | July 15, 2024
The media bent over backwards to avoid saying that the assassination attempt against former President Trump was an assassination attempt — not just in the moment but the next day when facts were clear.
In the same vein, Elon Musk posted this parody…
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Is Israel Uniquely Evil?
By Irfan Chowdhury | Palestine Chronicle | July 18, 2020
… Israel has been carrying out the longest-running military occupation in modern history and the longest-running siege in modern history. These two facts alone render Israel unique in terms of the scope of its brutality and criminality.
There are other respects in which Israel stands out from other countries in its use of terror and violence; for example, it is one of the most aggressive countries in the world, having waged wars of aggression against Lebanon in 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and 2006, and against Gaza in 2004, 2006, 2008/9, 2012 and 2014, killing huge numbers of civilians in the process (all while issuing threats and carrying out various covert attacks against Iran, which are all in violation of the UN Charter). … continue
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- The Hasmoneans: The Jewish Dynasty That Gave Us Hanukkah Is a Symbol of Murder, Not Heroism and Hope
- Int’l NGOs may be blocked from Gaza starting Jan. 1 – Not a Ceasefire Day 74
- From Churches to ChatGPT: Israeli Contracts Worth Millions Aim to Influence U.S. Public Opinion
- No Tricks Zone
- Meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue Warns “Germany Won’t Make It” If Winter Turns Severe
- Merry Christmas Everybody!
- Two More New Studies Show The Southern Ocean And Antarctica Were Warmer In The 1970s
- Der Spiegel Caught Making Up Reports About Conservative America (Again)
- New Study: 8000 Years Ago Relative Sea Level Was 30 Meters Higher Than Today Across East Antarctica
- The Wind Energy Paradox: “Why More Wind Turbines Don’t Always Mean More Power”
- New Study Reopens Questions About Our Ability To Meaningfully Assess Global Mean Temperature
- Dialing Back The Panic: German Physics Prof Sees No Evidence Of Climate Tipping Points!
- Astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon Challenges The Climate Consensus … It’s The Sun, Not CO2
- Regional Cooling Since The 1980s Has Driven Glacier Advance In The Karakoram Mountains
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