Content production company for RT’s sister channel ceases operations, citing crackdown on media freedom
RT | February 3, 2023
RT DE Productions – a German-based company that produces content for the RT DE TV channel and website in Moscow – has announced that it’s halting all its operations in the country. The company cited “the repressive state of media freedoms within the EU.”
The latest round of sanctions adopted by Brussels has made any further activities of the company in Germany impossible, RT DE Productions said in a statement on Friday.
The ninth sanctions package introduced in December 2022 amounted to “effectively cutting off oxygen for staff,” the firm said, adding that the EU had “betrayed the reliance on the fundamental rights and freedoms recognized in the Charter of Fundamental Rights” of the bloc itself.
“The EU, in permitting the imposition of sanctions on media freedoms, has shown that the very values claimed to define the core of its existence are without any substance,” the statement read, adding that the freedom of the press “does not exist in Germany today.”
The production company also said it was “happy and proud” to be able to provide German-speaking audiences in multiple countries with “essential stories and opinions, often side-lined or overlooked by the mainstream media outlets.”
The sanctions package announced in December blacklisted RT’s parent company, TV-Novosti, as well as revoking the EU broadcasting licenses of Russian media outlets including NTV, NTV Mir, Rossiya 1, REN TV and Perviy Channel. Following the introduction of these new restrictions, Paris froze the accounts of RT France, citing the need to comply with the new regulations. The move forced RT’s French subsidiary to cease broadcasting.
Even before the conflict in Ukraine, RT had faced multiple obstacles to launching a live TV channel for a German audience back in 2021. German banks abruptly refused to work with the broadcaster, and Luxembourg shot down its licensing bid.
When the channel was eventually launched in December 2021, its YouTube page was immediately banned and European satellite TV operator Eutelsat took it off air shortly after, giving in to pressure from the German media regulator, MAAB. The regulator then demanded a broadcast ban on the RT DE channel, accusing RT DE Productions of broadcasting without a valid German license.
RT DE Productions is not a broadcaster, but a production company, while the RT DE channel was broadcast from Moscow under a valid EU-wide Serbian license. However, a German court sided with the media regulator in March 2022.
Attempts by France & Germany to Negotiate With Russia Should Be Prevented, Bolton Tells Pranksters
By Andrei Dergalin – Sputnik – 02.02.2023
John Bolton shared his thoughts on topics such as the anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the West and the prospects of Ukraine’s NATO membership with Vovan and Lexus.
Former US presidential advisor John Bolton has made some rather frank admissions during a phone conversation with whom he thought was the ex-president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.
Alas, his interlocutor turned out to be the well-known Russian prankster duo known as Vovan and Lexus, who promptly spilled the beans online.
During the chat, Bolton apparently insisted that all attempts by Germany or France to hold negotiations with Russia amid the current crisis in Ukraine should be disrupted, and claimed that the sooner Ukraine and Georgia become members of NATO, the better.
Regarding the sanctions imposed by western powers against Russia, Bolton complained that they weren’t enough and that Moscow continues to bypass these punitive measures.
He also commented on the promise made over three decades ago by former US Secretary of State James Baker to the former leader of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev regarding NATO not expanding to the east, claiming that Baker merely “launched into arguments and looked for ways to avoid confrontation,” as the pranksters put it.
Who really killed RT France
The French establishment media took on the role of political commissars, making sure the outlet was not allowed to operate
By Matthieu Buge | RT | January 26, 2023
After a year of censorship, RT has now had to officially stop its activities in France. But would the French authorities have made this move without the influence of some prominent French journalists who put aside their ethics for the occasion?
From the very beginning, RT France had been a target of the French authorities and the mainstream media. In a notorious 2017 press conference, Emmanuel Macron, standing next to Vladimir Putin, said RT and Sputnik were “organs of influence and false propaganda.” At the time, RT France had already been working as an online media outlet for some years, and was merely criticized by other media for being financed by Moscow. But the accusations became more and more frequent and harsh as Macron took the lead of the country and RT France was about to launch its channel from studios in Boulogne-Billancourt, outside Paris. In 2018, the work of RT journalists during the Yellow Vest protests was the most exhaustive coverage by any media. This has been widely acknowledged, and the audience of the channel received a considerable boost. The Russian outsider annoyed the establishment media more and more when star television host Frédéric Taddeï started collaborating with RT and stated that it was the only channel that gave him carte blanche in an informational landscape where real debate had totally disappeared.
Although Taddeï is a very knowledgeable man, he forgot to underline that every outlet is in essence propaganda. The word comes from the Latin verb propagare (to spread) and was first used in the denomination of a Vatican department, the Propaganda Fide, dedicated to the propagation of the Catholic faith. Anything written or spoken for an audience is propaganda. Advertising is propaganda. Hollywood is the biggest propaganda machine in the world. Political rallies are propaganda. Even a good debate with friends at the bar is propaganda, as one tries to persuade others to agree with his views and understanding of the world. Taddeï’s show on RT France “Interdit d’interdire” (Forbidden to forbid) had this very open-minded spirit. Its name, though, was perhaps like a rabbit on a boat, a bearer of misfortune.
Four years later, on 27 February 2022, three days after the beginning of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, the non-elected president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, declared that RT and Sputnik were to be banned in the European Union. The attack on free speech was unprecedented. But in order to appease the worried journalist unions, the logic of this attack was such: RT France had its license revoked, but its reporters could keep working. RT France went on to appeal the ban to the European Court of Justice. On 27 July the court rejected the appeal, arguing that the ban did not infringe on free speech. Give an artist the right to paint, but not to exhibit his work. Give a baker the right to make bread, but not to sell it. They will then turn to the black market – in RT France’s case, the internet. Its team of remaining journalists kept working in difficult conditions and broadcasting on Odysee.
I personally know most of them and must say that their attitude, in such a context, has been remarkable. They are not tied to Russia. Some of them aren’t even interested in Russia – they simply wanted to tell the French public about French issues, an opportunity they weren’t given by other French-language media. They know that the world is complex and understand the origins of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. While their management struggled (and managed) to keep paying their salaries, they kept on working, in a state of utter uncertainty and job insecurity, knowing that it would be almost impossible to find new jobs as journalists in France. They are young French men and women who dedicated all these years to only one thing: giving French-speaking audiences another point of view. That was apparently too much for their colleagues in the mainstream media.
On 18 January 2023, “the General Directorate of the Treasury decided to freeze RT France’s bank accounts, making it impossible to continue our activity,” said the president of the channel, Xenia Fedorova. What’s interesting about this new development is that it wasn’t so much a push by the French authorities, who for a while have shown an indifference to the idea of free speech. The French authorities knew that RT France was still operating and did not care, believing it had lost its visibility anyway. The establishment media, however, were not going to just let it slide.
It was a sudden shootout. On 6 January, the major left-wing newspaper Libération published an article titled: “Forbidden RT France remains reachable and keeps on producing its Russian propaganda.” On the 14th, one of the country’s top newspapers, Le Monde, published an article on the issue: “The counterattack of pro-Russia media.” Both articles went on to show how RT was still operating, its journalists working, and their reports being broadcast and reachable through VPNs. Then came (for anyone who knows French affairs) the ultimate verdict. On the 16th, the influential journalist Patrick Cohen talked about this issue live on TV. He criticized people who gave interviews to RT France, including a French member of the European parliament who thinks the EU needs to engage in diplomacy and dialogue with Moscow. Commenting with sarcasm on these views, he added: “It is not surprising, but we are talking about a channel which is forbidden to operate.” As said previously, RT France was not forbidden to operate; it only lost its license. Moreover, Cohen was commenting on this issue in front of one of his guests, Nicolas Tenzer, one of the most prominent pro-US figures in France, who once declared that NATO never harassed anyone. Two days later, the Treasury made its move. Cohen is the journalist who in 2013 famously called some guests of Frédéric Taddeï’s talk show “sick-brains”. That was the beginning of the end for Taddeï in the mainstream media. Now, Cohen has again pronounced a ruling on who could and who could not talk. RT France had to share Taddeï’s fate.
Governments’ decisions and interests are one thing. The influence of journalists behaving like political commissars is another. Propaganda is one thing. Enforcing propaganda is another.
RT France Head Announces Broadcaster’s Closure After Paris Blocks Its Accounts
Sputnik – 21.01.2023
On the air in France, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, and Mediterranean countries since 2017, RT France quickly became one of the largest alternative Francophone news broadcasters in Europe and North America. RT France was banned from broadcasting throughout the EU and Canada in early 2022 for providing a Russian perspective on the Ukraine crisis.
RT France has announced its closure after the blocking of its bank accounts in France.
“After five years of harassment, the authorities in power have achieved their goal, the closure of RT France,” the broadcaster said in a press statement tweeted out by Editor-in-Chief Xenia Fedorova on Saturday.
“Under the cover of the 9th package of sanctions against Russia, which does not target our channel, but its shareholder and parent company, the Directorate General of the Treasury decided to freeze the bank accounts of RT France, making it impossible to continue our activity,” the statement explained.
The broadcaster cited a series of recent articles and columns in French media which it said was designed to smear RT France and take it off the air.
“Clearly working with the authorities, some of our colleagues confused their role as journalists with that of policemen or judges, calling… for censorship of our media, and not hesitating to resort to false information, claiming, for example, that the activity of RT France was prohibited or illegal,” the statement said.
After an EU blanket block against Sputnik and RT in early 2022, RT France continued broadcasting online and via a Russian satellite, and its content accessed via VPN or social media.
In Saturday’s statement, the broadcaster recalled that it has been the target of forces seeking to shut it up since its launch for offering a “breath of fresh air” in an “ever-less representative and increasingly narrow media world, where critical thinking is no longer allowed.” The channel expressed pride in the “seriousness and rigor” of its coverage, and stressed its keenness to “present all opinions, give everyone a voice,” and “dare to question” – to quote its slogan.
The broadcaster emphasized that its coverage of the conflict in Ukraine – which got it banned from television broadcast in 2022, was consistently treated in a “vigilant” and “balanced way,” “whatever our detractors, who very often only rarely glanced at our channel, and obviously with a biased way, say.”
“In this particular geopolitical context, the opportunity presented itself to take advantage of this situation to (finally) gag RT France by banishing it from the European Union and from France,” despite the absence of any legal justification, the broadcaster noted.
RT France also lamented that 123 of its French employees, including 77 journalists with press cards, now risk remaining unpaid for the month of January, and losing their jobs by government decree. “Beyond the terrible economic impact for many families, there is the question of the future of media pluralism in France, its representativeness, and its independence,” as well as “the freedom of thought and expression in our society,” its statement noted.
The broadcaster emphasized that its closure, accompanied by the “deafening silence” of other French media and journalists, is an “extremely dangerous first step, because after our channel other media will be targeted.”
RT France’s bank accounts were frozen this week on the basis of European sanctions adopted last December.
The Russian Foreign Ministry warned Paris that it would retaliate unless French authorities stop “terrorizing” its journalists.
Sputnik and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan blasted the move to freeze the accounts on Friday, sarcastically calling it a true demonstration of “liberte, egalite et fraternite” (liberty, equality and fraternity).
RT France appealed its 2022 ban to the European Court of Justice last spring, but lost, hearing that the broadcaster needed to be silenced “at a time when opinions were forming on the war in Ukraine.”
Macron Unveils Massive Military Expansion Plan Amid Nationwide Strike Over Neoliberal Budget Cuts
Samizdat – 20.01.2023
French President Emmanuel Macron revealed his plans to dramatically increase military and intelligence spending on Friday, saying French forces need to “reform and transform” amid the conflict in Ukraine, where NATO forces are supporting the Ukrainians. The announcement comes as 1 million people march against de facto budget cuts.
Macron’s proposed new defense budget size for the 2024-2030 period, €413 billion, is 40% larger than the previous 2019-2025 period budget of €295 billion.
“The law on military programming (LPM) for 2024-2030 reflects the efforts made by the state to strengthen its army. They are proportionate to current dangers, which are significant. In 2024-2030, the government will allocate €400 billion to the defense ministry,” Macron said in an address to the army at the Mont-de-Marsan airbase in southwestern France.
“France has and will have armies ready for the challenges of the century,” he added.
He explained that part of the spending will go toward doubling the power of French air defense systems, and that the French intelligence budget would increase by 60% by 2030.
He added that Paris would continue to modernize its nuclear forces, spending €5.6 billion on that effort in 2023 alone.
The French leader said the changes were necessary because of the conflict in Ukraine, which is nearly 11 months old. The NATO nations have backed Kiev, which seeks to join the alliance, funneling them vast amounts of money and military equipment to support their fight against Russian forces.
“It is necessary to pay special attention to the speed of response and build up the power of our army, because we do not choose the conflicts in which we might have to participate,” Macron said.
Indeed, Macron’s words came just hours after US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urged American allies to “dig even deeper” and put up more funding for Ukraine.
Paris has thrown much of its weight behind supporting Kiev’s war effort, including sending rockets, AMX-10 infantry fighting vehicles, and other weapons. In October, Macron unveiled a special €200 million fund from which Kiev would be able to buy military equipment from French defense contractors.
Most recently, Paris has publicly weighed sending Leclerc main battle tanks to Ukraine as other NATO allies make similar considerations.
Russia began its special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 in response to a dramatic escalation of violence in the Donbass region, where since 2014, Russian-speaking minorities have resisted attacks by neo-Nazi groups integrated into the Ukrainian military. Its goals include promises Ukraine will never join NATO or allow NATO to position military equipment on Russia’s borders.
Budget Hikes Amid Budget Cuts
Macron’s announcement comes amid a new wave of mass demonstrations in France, where 1 million marched on strike on Friday against a proposed plan to increase the retirement age to 64.
According to French media, eight of the country’s largest unions took part in the strike, which included 40% of primary school teachers and one-third of high school teachers. Transportation networks also shut down as workers walked out on strike.
Macron has said the de facto budget cut is necessary because of a deficit in the pension fund. However, in October, his government used a special mechanism to shut down debate and ram a new budget through parliament, blocking attempts by opposition parties to add new taxes targeting corporations profiting massively off rising inflation and energy costs.
A former banker, Macron has been in office since 2017, and most of his tenure has been wracked by mass protests against his neoliberal budget plans, including the massive “Yellow Vest” demonstrations by working-class French people.
The situation in African countries is deteriorating as a result of US policies
By Valery Kulikov – New Eastern Outlook – 20.01.2023
In the last few years the USA and its Western allies have been making increasingly overt attempts to put pressure on Africa in a bid to stop the continent turning towards Russia and China.
The situation in African countries has started to deteriorate seriously as a result of the West’s thoughtless and self-serving sanctions against Russia, which have caused the continent problems in a number of areas, including that of food security. For example purely as a result of having to buy wheat from Argentina rather than from Russia, Angola has lost more than $15 million since the beginning of Moscow’s special operation to denazify the criminal regime in Ukraine and the West’s imposition of sanctions against Russia.
According to an announcement made by Turkey’s Minister of Agriculture Vahit Kirişci, since the signing of the “grain deal” 16.9 million tons of grain, carried by 633 ships, have been exported from Ukraine through the marine humanitarian corridor established under the deal. However, just 5.4% of the exported grain has found its way to poor nations, including African nations, despite the West’s insistence that the deal would prioritize shipments to these countries.
As for Russia, despite the restrictions imposed on it by the West, it has been able to export more than 15 million tons of grain as well as large volumes of mineral fertilizer, much of it intended for poor countries. Moreover, in discussions between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdoğan last November, it was decided to supply grain to the poorest African nations free of charge.
According to Saudi media it is the events in Ukraine and the anti-Russian policies of the West that are to blame for the sharp rise in food prices in 2022 (wheat, rice, maize, vegetable oil etc.) and the resulting famine that caused widespread suffering, especially in the world’s poorest countries. By tightening their financial policies the developed nations have reduced the flow of funds to poor countries, and the departure of foreign investment has significantly exacerbated the food crisis – a problem which, even in 2023, will be particularly challenging to overcome. In March 2022 global food prices reached their highest ever level. According to statistics published by the media, global spending of food imports amounted to almost $2 trillion in 2022, significantly more than in previous years. Shortages of wheat and fertilizer have caused price increases and raised the cost of importing food for the most vulnerable sections of society (by more than $25 billion). State support for low income families has been unable to raise their standards of living, as most of the subsidies granted have been eaten up by rising food prices. Jasper Okodi, a consultant to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has stated that even if global prices fall the price of foods in local markets in unlikely to fall until the third quarter of 2023.
Unlike the West, Russia has been a trusted partner to African states for many decades. From the mid 20th Century onwards, as African nations achieved independence from the yoke of their former colonial masters, the Soviet Union provided them with a great deal of disinterested support, building up their social and economic infrastructure. As representatives of the African nations themselves insist, Russia has never been involved in schemes to rob Africans of their natural wealth, and has never applied political pressure in an attempt to gain economic benefits. In the current highly challenging conditions posed by the anti-Russian policies of the USA and its western allies, African leaders clearly understand that Russia, despite the aggressive and immoral opposition of the West, is fighting to bring about a just world order. It is also fighting the USA’s overt propaganda campaign, which is based on disinformation and lies about Moscow’s policies. Speaking on this and other issues at a meeting of the UN Security Council on January 10, Anna Evstigneeva, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation, categorically rejected the West’s attempts to discredit Russia’s assistance to African nations by falsely accusing it of appropriating African resources or contributing to the growth of terrorism in the continent.
Many African politicians have emphasized that while France, Britain and the USA are now losing their influence in Africa, in the past, when these countries dominated the continent, it was very difficult for Africans to stand up against Western neo-colonialism. But now the world order is changing and the African nations are able to breathe freely at last.
In an article published at the end of December The Times was forced to admit that 22 African nations refused to censure Russia’s special operation to protect residents in the Donbass at the UN General Assembly, and that in the light of current international feelings Moscow was winning more and more sympathy in the world’s most rapidly developing continent. The Times also recognized that the West has already lost the battle for Africa and that Africans are turning away from their former colonial powers and towards Russia, China, Turkey and the Persian Gulf States.
The struggle between the USA and Russia for influence in Africa took a new turn when South Africa’s president took on the chairmanship of the BRICS group and the country’s ruling party proposed inviting new members from among the world’s major developing nations to join the grouping. As the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said, “The BRICS group should lead the process of reforming the entire international architecture for the benefit of most countries in the world, and this group has an important role to play in leading the creation of new decision-making mechanisms in the UN and other international organizations to establish a more inclusive, just and sustainable world order.” And that will certainly end the global dominion of the West and particularly of the USA, which is why the USA is opposing such reform.
Washington is particularly critical of the plans for Russia, South Africa and China to hold joint naval exercises – known by the code name Mosi – in the Indian Ocean off the Southern African coast from February 17 to 26. The exercises will include artillery practice and anti-aircraft drills. Similar joint naval exercises were held in November 2019 in the South Atlantic ocean, off the Cape of Good Hope, not far from Cape Town.
In view of the above background and specifically Washington’s growing opposition to African countries’ good relations with Russia, Thandi Modise, South Africa’s Minister of Defense and Military Veterans was recently impelled to accuse the USA of putting pressure on those African nations that maintain good relations with Russia. The Wall Street Journal admitted the truth of this accusation in a recent article on the US reaction to the docking of the Russian cargo ship Lady R at a South African port.
The West understands that Russia has an interest in maintaining international relations with strong, self-sufficient and economically independent partner countries – including in Africa – which are able to ignore the West’s threats of repressive measures and work as allies of Moscow in the creation of a new multipolar world order. But it is precisely this process that the West fears, and it is imposing all the illegitimate sanctions that it can devise in order to impose its neocolonial policies in Africa.
US and allies must address Russia’s security concerns and their past deceptions on Donbass, the Kremlin says
RT | January 20, 2023
US-Russia relations are at their lowest point ever amid the crisis in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. As the conflict deteriorates, the only way to reverse it is for Western nations to acknowledge their mistakes and change their policies, he added.
Despite initial hopes that under President Joe Biden the US would engage Russia diplomatically, the last two years “have been very bad for our bilateral relations,” the official told journalists. They are now “probably at their lowest point, historically” he added, and “there is no hope for improvement anytime soon.”
The Ukraine hostilities – the focus of the confrontation between Russia and Western nations – are in “an upward spiral” according to Peskov.
“We can see a growing indirect, and sometimes direct involvement of NATO nations in this conflict,” he stated. The nations that back Kiev are acting under “a delusion that Ukraine has any chance to win on the battlefield,” he explained.
Asked how the vicious circle could be broken, Peskov suggested that the US and its allies had to mentally turn the clock back to the end of 2021, “when Russia was suggesting a discussion of its concerns at the negotiations table” only to be dismissed.
Western repentance for its “cynicism” was also in order, he added.
“Germany, France and Ukraine were playing a swindle game with the Minsk agreements. Now is payback time,” he said, referring to the roadmap for Ukraine reconciliation, which the three nations signed with Russia in 2015.
Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Pyotr Poroshenko, the leaders at the time of Germany, France and Ukraine respectively, have since stated that the deal they negotiated with Russia was meant to give Kiev time to rebuild its military.
Moscow considers these admissions to be evidence that the negotiations were conducted in bad faith and that the Ukrainian government and its backers had always intended for the Minsk agreements to fail and for the Donbass standoff to be resolved by military means. Russia claimed that its military campaign in Ukraine launched last February preempted an offensive planned by Kiev with NATO’s help.
Ukraine, Germany, and France “lied to the people of Donbass, as they had a terrible fate planned for them, which Russia prevented,” Peskov explained.
RT Bank Accounts Frozen in France at Paris’ Behest
Samizdat – 20.01.2023
MOSCOW – Bank accounts of the RT France broadcaster’s desk have been frozen in France, Ksenia Fedorova, the broadcaster’s editor-in-chief, said on Friday, adding that the bank refers to the authorities’ order.
“We have received a letter from our bank regarding the freezing of RT France accounts by order of the French authorities in connection with the ninth round of sanctions adopted in December. Despite the fact that RT France is not on the list and has the right to operate in France, such a decision effectively paralyzes our activities,” Fedorova said in a statement.
Earlier, the head of the European Federation of Journalists, Ricardo Gutierrez, said that banning Russian media in the EU, including RT and Sputnik, “created a dangerous precedent that threatens press freedom”.
In early December, the French Council of State ordered the media regulator Arcom to reconsider its decision to continue broadcasting Russian TV channels Rossiya 1, NTV, and Channel One in Russia and Ukraine by the French satellite operator Eutelsat at the request of Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Relations between Russian media and the West have become increasingly difficult in recent years. In November 2016, the European Parliament adopted a resolution stating the need to counter Russian media, with Sputnik and RT cited as the main threats in the document.
A number of western politicians, including US senators and congressmen, as well as the French president, accused Sputnik and RT of interfering in the US and French elections, but did not provide any evidence. Russian officials said such allegations were unsubstantiated.
Ex-French soldier requests asylum in Russia
FILE PHOTO: Adrien Bocquet © Sputnik / Nina Zotina
RT | January 11, 2023
A former French military serviceman and volunteer, Adrien Bocquet, has allegedly requested asylum in Russia, the RIA news agency reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed “source familiar with the situation.” The Frenchman had previously repeatedly traveled to Ukraine and Donbass and claimed that he had witnessed war crimes committed by the Ukrainian forces.
“A former French serviceman, Adrien Bocquet, has approached the Russian authorities and asked them to grant him political asylum,” the source told RIA, adding that the asylum application was supposedly filed in mid-December. The Russian authorities have so far not commented on the development.
Bocquet first traveled to Ukraine as a volunteer delivering humanitarian aid last spring. At the time, he reportedly visited Lviv and Kiev as well as its suburbs, including Bucha. Kiev accused the Russian forces of committing mass killings of civilians in that town, which the Russian troops withdrew from in late March. Moscow has repeatedly denied all of the accusations.
After returning to France in May, Bocquet gave an interview to French Sud Radio, where he claimed to have witnessed the abuse of Russian POWs at the hands of Ukrainian soldiers. The Frenchman accused the Ukrainian soldiers of torturing and killing civilians and claimed the French media was concealing that. He also said that he himself was detained by the Ukrainian soldiers for ten hours.
Last summer, he started traveling to the Donbass regions controlled by the Russian forces and local militias while publishing reports on the situation on the ground on his Telegram channel. There, he wrote weapons like Caesar howitzers, which France supplies to Ukraine, end up injuring civilians in Donbass.
In October, Bocquet claimed he was attacked by “militants” linked to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) in Istanbul. The Frenchman also published a photo of himself lying in bed with some visible injuries to his face and one hand. The next day, France’s foreign ministry published a statement in which it said it had “no information” on the incident.
Bocquet himself has not commented on his reported asylum application so far.
Share prices of NATO weapons makers surge
RT | January 11, 2023
The largest military and defense corporations of NATO member states have seen a 21.5% boost in market value in 2022 amid the military operation in Ukraine and the rearmament in Europe, Vedomosti newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing data from Defense News and Tradingview analytics.
Their combined market capitalization increased from $579 billion in December 2021 to $703 billion in December 2022, according to the estimates.
The ranking included 25 companies with a capitalization of over $1 billion which are traded on the stock market and have military products dominating in their revenues, and are also actively involved in arms supplies to Ukraine.
Authors of the report name German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall as the top gainer over the last 12 months, with a 122% surge in share price. French drone and missile producer Thales saw its market value rise 54%. American defense contractor Northrop Grumman was up 44%, while stock in HIMARS rocket launchers maker Lockheed Martin gained 42%.
Other notable mentions in the report include BAE Systems (+40%), Kongsberg Gruppen (+37%), General Dynamics (+24%), and Raytheon Technologies (+19%).
The report pointed out that the value of NATO’s military giants was soaring while the overall Western corporate sector sank by 16% last year, according to the S&P 1200 index, suggesting that arms manufacturers were likely the main beneficiaries of the political crisis in Europe.
Elon Musk agreed to EU’s censorship laws, France’s digital minister says
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | January 8, 2023
French digital transition minister Jean-Noel Barrot visited Twitter owner Elon Musk to discuss compliance with European censorship rules.
Barrot tweeted that he visited Musk after attending CES in Las Vegas on Saturday. The French minister claimed that Musk said Twitter would comply with EU laws.
“At Twitter headquarters, Elon Musk confirmed to me his intention to comply with European rules, and his commitments on content moderation, the fight against disinformation, and the protection of children,” he wrote in a tweet that included a photo of himself and the Twitter CEO.
Since Musk took over Twitter in late October, he has made several changes, including rolling back Covid censorship policies and laying off members of staff.
Shortly after Musk took over, European Commissioner Thierry Breton warned that the platform had to adhere to the bloc’s speech rules.
Last year, the EU passed the Digital Services Act (DSA), a regulation that will require online platforms to take down harmful content immediately and suspend users who repeatedly violate the rules.
The law will take effect in 2024.
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Book Summary
The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food
Lies Are Unbekoming | January 20, 2026
Soybeans generate approximately $80 million annually in mandatory producer assessments alone, funding a marketing apparatus that has transformed an industrial commodity into one of America’s most trusted “health foods.” The campaign succeeded. Soy milk lines supermarket shelves beside dairy. Soy protein fortifies everything from infant formula to energy bars. Vegetarians rely on tofu and tempeh as dietary staples. Doctors recommend soy to menopausal women. School lunch programs serve soy-based meat substitutes to children. An estimated 60 percent of processed foods contain soy derivatives. The premise underlying this proliferation—that Asians have thrived on soy for millennia and that modern science validates its health benefits—has been repeated so often it functions as established fact.
Kaayla T. Daniel’s The Whole Soy Story dismantles this premise through systematic examination of the scientific literature. The book documents that traditional Asian soy consumption averaged roughly one tablespoon daily, consumed as fermented condiments after processing methods that neutralized inherent toxins—a pattern bearing no resemblance to American consumption of industrially processed soy protein isolate, soy flour, and soy oil. Daniel catalogs the antinutrients that survive modern processing (protease inhibitors, phytates, lectins, saponins), the toxic compounds created by industrial methods (nitrosamines, lysinoalanine, hexane residues), and the heavy metals concentrated in soy products (manganese, aluminum, fluoride, cadmium). She traces the mechanisms by which soy isoflavones—plant estrogens present at pharmacologically significant levels—disrupt thyroid function, impair fertility, and interact with hormone-sensitive cancers. The evidence emerges from peer-reviewed journals, FDA documents, and industry sources themselves.
The stakes extend beyond individual dietary choices. Infants fed soy formula receive isoflavone doses equivalent to several birth control pills daily, with blood concentrations 13,000 to 22,000 times higher than their natural estrogen levels. Soy protein isolate—the ingredient in formula, protein bars, and thousands of products—has never received GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status; its only pre-1960s use was as an industrial paper sealant. Two senior FDA scientists formally protested their own agency’s approval of soy health claims, citing evidence of thyroid damage and reproductive harm. The Honolulu Heart Program found that men consuming tofu twice weekly showed accelerated brain aging and increased dementia. These findings have not penetrated public awareness because the institutions responsible for consumer protection have been compromised by the industry they regulate. The Whole Soy Story presents the evidence that has been systematically excluded from mainstream health messaging, enabling readers to evaluate for themselves what the soy industry prefers they never learn. … continue
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Aletho News- Building Disney Land on the Moon More Likely than Kushner’s Gaza Plan
- U.S. Funds Continue to Flow to Ecuadorian Groups Despite Trump-Era Suspension
- A pro-EU regime is moving to suppress this proud nation. Will they be able to withstand it?
- US-Russia Arms Control May Face ‘Very Dark Period’ – Scott Ritter
- Israel moves to restrict Palestinian re-entry to Gaza, ‘encourage outflow’: Report
- Trump aims to create new UN and own it, Brazil’s Lula warns
- UN rapporteur says Israeli demolition of UNRWA compound reflects broader attack on UN system
- From Proxy to Disposable: The US Betrayal of the Syrian Kurds
- Six injured in stabbing spree at Kurdish rally in Antwerp, victims stabbed ‘indiscriminately’
- US pledges to ‘starve’ Iraq of oil revenue if pro-Iran parties join new government
- If Americans Knew
- Another Gaza baby freezes to death on Netanyahu’s watch – Not a ceasefire Day 106
- Oppose Israel’s Abuses While You Still Can
- UNRWA Heads Tell Ha’aretz: ‘We Don’t Radicalize Palestinians – Their Lived Existence Does’
- Plans Call for “New Rafah” Built in Israel’s Image — Without Palestinians
- Posing as priest, reporter is spat at many times, highlighting anti-Christian sentiment in Israel
- Leaked Documents: “Planned Community” in Rafah Would Force Palestinians Into Israeli Panopticon
- ‘Permits of Humiliation’: How Israel Strangles Christian Education in Jerusalem
- “The world sees death, destruction and injustice – and they see dollar signs” – Not a ceasefire Day 105
- War criminal Netanyahu kills 11 in Gaza, joins Board of Peace – Not a ceasefire Day 104
- Another baby dies of cold in Gaza, as Rafah crossing remains locked down – Not a ceasefire Day 103
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Natural Gas Crisis Escalates … One Storage Site Near Empty …Government Silent
- Polar Colding…Antarctica Saw Its Coldest October In 44 Years!
- New Study: Sea Levels Rose 20 Times The Modern Rate During The Roman Warm Period
- As German Gas Storage Dips Dangerously Low…Shortage Hardly Avoidable
- New Study: Brazil’s Relative Sea Level Was 2+ Meters Higher And SSTs 3-4°C Warmer 6000 Years Ago
- Philosopher Schopenhauer: Climate Science Certainty Stems From Stupidity, Ignorance
- New Study: Species Extinction Rates Declining Since 1980 – ‘Climate Change Is Not An Important Threat’
- Denmark Places Climate Protection Above Animal Welfare, Poisoning And Culling Cows
- New Study: Greenland Was 3-7°C Warmer And Far Less Glaciated Than Today 6000-8000 Years Ago
- German Media Report That Current Frigid Weather Can Be Explained By Arctic Warming!
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