Category: Uncategorized

The acting head of the United Nations’ mission to Afghanistan told the Taliban administration’s acting economy minister to reverse a decision to ban female NGO workers during a meeting, according to a statement on December 26.

CNN’s Will Ripley looks at the heightened risk for Ukrainians who rely on power for their vital medical treatments during rolling blackouts.

New units expected to be formed by the end of 2023 would be ready to meet any challenges, Defense Minister has said

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has ordered to raise the number of troops within the nation’s Special Forces from 1,500 to 5,000, Defense Minister Milos Vucevic said on Monday. The force is expected to be formed by the end of 2023, he added.

Serbia’s Army would get “5,000 highly trained and well-prepared soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers, who will have completed most modern, up-to-date training… and will have state-of-the-art weapons and military equipment,” Vucevic said in an Instagram post.

The new force would be “the strongest fist that would smash to pieces the malicious intents and goals of those who do not like our nation and want to harm our people,” the minister said, adding that the reformed Special Forces would be ready to fulfill any tasks in any part of the country at any time, and to “respond to all challenges our homeland is facing.”

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West issues ultimatum to Serbia – media

The announcement comes amid a tense standoff between Serbia and Kosovo that has already drawn the attention of the EU and NATO. Tensions flared up earlier this month when Serbs, who make up the majority in the northern part of the breakaway region, put up barricades to protest against the arrest of a former police officer accused of attacking a Kosovo law-enforcement patrol.

Serbia has asked the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force for permission to deploy up to 1,000 Serbian troops and police officers in Kosovo. Belgrade has a right to do so under UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which put an end to the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia in 1999. The US said it “categorically” opposes the return of Serbian forces to Kosovo.

Earlier on Monday, the US, the UK, France, Germany and Italy reportedly demanded that Belgrade ensure that Kosovo Serbs remove the barricades within 24 hours.

NATO took control of Kosovo in 1999, after bombing Serbia on behalf of ethnic Albanian separatists. The province’s provisional government declared independence in 2008, which Belgrade has refused to recognize.

The social media platform has been aiding the US Department of Defense in pushing its agenda through fake accounts

Information continues to roll out about how Twitter knowingly became a conduit for US propaganda efforts abroad that only serve to produce more violence and chaos. Sadly, this news has seemingly been greeted with a collective yawn by both the US corporate press and the American public.

A recent article by The Intercept details how Twitter facilitated efforts by US Central Command, or CENTCOM, a division of the US Defense Department, to spread propaganda, particularly in and about the Middle East using fake accounts posing as private individuals in the region. These accounts were given special treatment by Twitter, which accorded them the same privileges as ‘blue-checked’ verified accounts, which, as The Intercept article describes, “would have bestowed a number of advantages, such as invulnerability to algorithmic bots that flag accounts for spam or abuse, as well as other strikes that lead to decreased visibility or suspension.” And, of course, this was being done at a time when Twitter was deleting hundreds of accounts it viewed as associated with the Russian government and designating other such accounts as “Russian-state affiliated media” even when, as in the case of some of my friends, such as Fiorella Isabel, these accounts were of private individuals writing in their own, personal capacity.

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Now is not the time for Elon Musk to step down as Twitter CEO

One example of an account given “priority service” by Twitter was @yemencurrent (now deleted), which, among other things, “had emphasized that U.S. drone strikes were ‘accurate’ and killed terrorists, not civilians, and promoted the U.S. and Saudi-backed assault on Houthi rebels in that country.” Such a whitewashing of the US-Saudi war on Yemen – a war barely covered in the US press and therefore barely known to most Americans – is especially infuriating given that that war has been marked by the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure on a colossal scale and by the US government’s willful failure to even properly account for civilian casualties.

The US’ own Government Accountability Office has, in a restricted-access document reported upon by the New York Times in June, concluded that, since the war began in 2015, “[t]he State Department and the Defense Department have failed to assess civilian casualties caused by a Saudi-led coalition in the catastrophic war in Yemen and the use of American-made weapons in the killings . . . .” The NYT also reported that earlier, “in August 2020, the State Department inspector general issued a report that said the department had failed to take proper measures to reduce civilian deaths.” The result has been an estimated 150,000+ deaths, including nearly 15,000 civilians, and one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in history.

And yet, Twitter aided and abetted CENTCOM’s misinformation campaign through fake accounts claiming that civilians were somehow not being harmed by US-manufactured weapons – claims that deceive American taxpayers about the war they are bankrolling, and which are designed to prime the government pumps for more aid to this unholy conflict that President Biden had promised to stop funding.

According to The Intercept article, other fake CENTCOM accounts given priority by Twitter “focused on promoting U.S.-supported militias in Syria and anti-Iran messages in Iraq.” Again, few Americans are aware that many of these militia groups the US has backed in Syria, while claiming to be “moderate rebels,” have themselves carried out terrible atrocities against civilians in that country. Fake Twitter accounts promoting such militia groups only further obfuscate this subject.

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Musk announces new Twitter feature

As for the “anti-Iran messages in Iraq” and elsewhere, The Intercept explains that, as reported earlier by the Stanford Internet Observatory, some of the fake Twitter accounts falsely “accuse Iran of ‘threatening Iraq’s water security and flooding the country with crystal meth,’ while others promoted allegations that Iran was harvesting the organs of Afghan refugees.” Such propaganda has a dual purpose: to gin up tensions and conflict between nations in the Middle East and to manufacture consent in the US for potential armed conflict between the US itself and Iran.

In other words, Twitter has been aiding and abetting the US Defense Department in war propaganda, an act that was established to be a crime in the post-WWII Nuremberg trials. If we had a fair and working system of international law, Twitter and Defense Department officials involved in such offenses would indeed be investigated. However, we do not have such a system. Therefore, it is up to the American people to act, having learned of such misconduct by their government and by the social media companies they so rely upon to hold them accountable. It is also up to Americans to finally realize that, when it comes to matters of war and peace, they are being lied to constantly, and they must withhold their consent for the wars that our government undertakes with the help of traditional and social media alike.

Officials say an ISIL cell had targeted security and military buildings in the city, killing six fighters.

Dozens of deaths are now linked to a fearsome winter storm blanketing much of the US and Canada.

Putin ready to negotiate, West wants to tear apart Russia. German MOD, two military scenarios. U/1
Topic 820

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator

 

Yesterday’s deadly attack in Paris laid open the wound of rampant racism in France.  An attacker shot dead three people at a Kurdish cultural center and wounded another three persons. The attacker was arrested and had a history of immigrant attacks. France has a problem with racism and immigrant hatred, but officially that subject is ignored and not to be discussed.

Kylian Mbappe has said he was racially abused in social media following his team’s loss in the final game of the World Cup 2022 in Qatar. Mbappe is a French footballer who played on the French national team in the World Cup recently. Although he was born and raised all his life in France, he has complained about previous incidences of racist attacks against him.

The French Football Federation (FFF) has condemned the attacks directed at Mbappe on social media, and has vowed to take action against the authors of the attacks. Isabelle Rome, the French minister in charge of gender equality, has confirmed that Mbappe was the victim of racist attacks.

Amelie Oudea-Castera, French sports minister, tweeted concerning the racist comments that they “have no place in soccer or anywhere else.” 

This is not the first time Mbappe has voiced his dismay at being the victim of racial attacks. In June 2022, Mbappe was so upset he contemplated leaving the French team after receiving racial attacks in the wake of his miss on a crucial penalty kick which made the French national team leave the Euro 2020 tournament.

To add insult to injury, Noel La Graet, President of FFF, mischaracterized Mbappe’s complaint.  La Graet blamed Mbappe’s hurt feelings on having missed the kick, but Mbappe wrote on Twitter that it was the racism and not the penalty he was upset about.

La Graet said in June 2022, “We met for five minutes. He was angry, he no longer wanted to play in the France team. You know what it is, he is a winner, he was very frustrated, like all of us, with the elimination.”

Mbappe was frustrated with the lack of support and understanding on the part of FFF in light of the racist comments.

“Kylian Mbappe has accused the French Football Federation’s (FFF) president of denying the barrage of racist abuse that pushed him to consider quitting the French national team.”

The talented Paris Saint-Germain forward was instrumental in France’s World Cup win in Russia, scored in the team’s winning Nations League tournament, and kicked four goals in November to put France on the road to the World Cup in Qatar.

Mbappe is French, but his father came from Cameroon and his mother from Algeria. It is Mbappe’s African ancestry that has been the source of the racist comments directed at him. 

France has a deep-seated problem with racism, but due to the official French political ideology, France denies they have any problem, and denies that racism exists in France.

In the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Jean Beaman wrote in 2021 an article titled “Race: A Never-Ending Taboo in France”. France has a problem with racism based on skin color and African ancestry. However, due to the French political ideology of “liberté, égalité, et fraternité,” French citizens are supposed to be treated as equals as long as they do not identify as a member of an ethnic or religious group. Their identity is supposed to be French only, and nothing else. In this French mentality race and ethnicity are denied.

The French official line is that race is not recognized, and because the issue is not to be discussed it becomes a taboo topic and suppressed. However, to find the reality in France is just a matter of interviewing Blacks and North Africans in France to identify that there is a real problem. 

President Emmanuel Macron has spoken out against French universities who may be discussing American racial theories. The French feel their system of Republicanism is superior to the American system of identifying race and ethnicity. When there have been accusations of racism in France, the French will often blame American ideas that can corrupt the French values. In the US there is a race problem, but some Americans are working toward solutions and not denials. They recognize the problem and are discussing it openly.

Mbappe is considered one of the greatest football players in the world. He is French, plays in France, and played on the recent French national team. Because of his extreme value as a player, and his youth, only time will tell if he might leave France for a place which is less racist and more willing to support players who find themselves a victim of racist attacks.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist

 

Six members of Kurdish-led security forces and two jihadists were killed Monday in a failed Islamic State group assault near a prison for extremists in northern Syria, a war monitor said.

Tehran stressed it is not party to the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Kiev’s allegation Iran is delivering drones to Russia amid the conflict in Ukraine is “irresponsible” and untrue, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has said in response to Ukrainian calls for a clampdown on UAV producers in the country.

This followed accusations by an aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, Mikhail Podoliak, who last week claimed that Tehran was “planning to boost missile, drone supplies for Russia.” In a post on Twitter, Kiev official urged the international community to move from “nonworking sanctions” against Iran to “more destructive tools – liquidation of plants, arrest of suppliers”.

“Making accusations against various parties, including Iran, won’t help Ukraine, its people and the leadership of the country,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said during a briefing on Monday.

Iran rejects the claims being made by the Ukrainian authorities and “by this Ukrainian official in particular,” he said, referring to Podoliak.

“We consider this threatening rhetoric irresponsible… and place all political and legal responsibility for such statements on the Ukrainian government,” Kanaani insisted.

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West regards Iranian military drones highly – top general

Tehran is not a party to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but is ready to assist the sides in resolving the crisis in a peaceful manner, he added.

The Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, has also rejected claims by Ukraine and the US that Moscow’s Geran-2 drones are in fact Iranian-made Shahed-136 UAVs. Those statements are “part of the enemy’s psychological warfare,” he claimed in an article on Sunday. According to Baqeri, the very appearance of such accusations shows that the West acknowledges the effectiveness of Iranian UAVs.

In his speech before the US Congress on Wednesday, Zelensky claimed: “Iranian deadly drones sent to Russia in the hundreds became a threat to our critical infrastructure. That is how one terrorist has found the other.”

Podoliak earlier made even harsher statements regarding Iran, insisting that “it could be possible to launch strikes on drones and ballistic missiles manufacturing facilities” in the country. Tehran should not be allowed to keep supplying UAVs to Moscow “with impunity,” he said in a TV interview in early November.

READ MORE: Top Zelensky aide calls for strikes on Iran

Russia insists that it only relies on locally produced hardware for its military operation in Ukraine, which has been underway since late February. The Iranian Foreign Ministry has only confirmed sending a small batch of drones to Russia before the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.