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US President Joe Biden’s recent insulting remarks are proof that it would be better for Russia if he stayed in office, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

Speaking at a fundraiser in California on Wednesday, Biden had called Putin a “crazy son of a b*tch.” Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin asked the Russian president to comment on this.

“When you asked me our preference for the next US president, I said we would work with any, but for us, for Russia, Biden was better,” Putin replied. “Judging by what he said, I was absolutely right.”

“That’s the appropriate reaction to what I said,” Putin continued. “It’s not like he could say ‘Good job, Volodya, thank you for the helping hand’. We understand what is going on there, in terms of internal politics.”

Biden’s insulting comments “mean I was right,” Putin said. In terms of who Moscow would like to see in the White House, he added, “I can say it again: Biden.”

In an interview with Zarubin last week, Putin described Biden as “a more experienced and predictable person…a politician of the old sort” and waved off claims of the US president’s much-discussed apparent dementia.

Putin is visiting Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan. Zarubin caught up with him after the Russian president took a Tu-160M strategic bomber for a spin.

Earlier in the day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned Biden’s comments as “shameful” and said he had brought “great disgrace” to the US.

Ahead of the 2016 US presidential election, Putin had complimented Republican candidate Donald Trump, who had campaigned on “getting along” with Russia. After Trump defeated their candidate Hillary Clinton, the Democrats invented a conspiracy theory about “Russian meddling” in the election and accused Trump of “Kremlin ties,” using both to sabotage Trump’s presidency.

The Russian president recently commented on the 2020 US election – which Biden officially won with the most votes ever – by describing it as questionable in terms of legitimacy.

The Biden White House has already denounced Putin’s “endorsement” of their commander-in-chief, with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby insisting that Russia “should just stay out of our elections.”

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https://www.rt.com/russia/592972-putin-biden-insult/

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The International Monetary Fund could agree to unlock $900 million for Ukraine as soon as Thursday, Bloomberg has reported, citing officials with knowledge of the talks.

The disbursement would be part of a four-year $15.6 billion loan that the Washington-based institution approved for Ukraine last year, and would come as a $60 billion US aid package remains stalled in Congress.

Staff at the IMF have assessed whether Ukraine has met the conditions for the payment, and are expected to wrap up their work and make a statement in Washington on Thursday, Bloomberg wrote, citing the officials.

The reported agreement would follow two weeks of discussions on how the Ukrainian government will be able to continue to function if the US funding does not come through, Bloomberg wrote. Tax hikes, spending cuts, and increased domestic bond sales are reportedly among the measures designed to convince the IMF that Ukraine will be able to service the loan if the US fails to provide aid.

Members of the US House of Representatives have so far refused to refused to pass a bill requested by US President Joe Biden, which includes a new aid package for Kiev worth $60 billion, most of which is earmarked for weapons.

In December, Ukraine’s Finance Ministry estimated Kiev’s fiscal needs for 2024 at $37.3 billion, after more than $42 billion in foreign aid was received in 2023.

RIA Novosti news agency reported on Wednesday that an IMF representative had denied that the fund and Kiev were close to an agreement. A dedicated team is still reviewing the funding programme and studying whether Kiev has fulfilled the conditions for receiving the tranche, RIA Novosti wrote.

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https://www.rt.com/news/592933-imf-close-unlocking-funds-ukraine/

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A vessel caught fire after being hit by two missiles southeast of the Yemeni port of Aden on Thursday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) has said. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

It comes as Houthi militants have escalated attacks on vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The militants who control large parts of Yemen have been targeting merchant ships in response to Israel’s military operation in Gaza, which started in October. The United States and the UK have formed an international coalition to protect navigation in the area.

Thursday’s incident took place 70 nautical miles from Aden, and the coalition forces are responding, according to the UKMTO, which is a monitoring service operated by the British Navy. An investigation is underway, it added. There has been no official information so far on the type of the vessel that was struck, damage, or casualties.

According to the Associated Press, ship-tracking data helped identify the vessel as a Palau-flagged cargo ship named Islander that had been coming from Thailand bound for Egypt.

Earlier this week, the Houthis claimed to have targeted an Israeli cargo vessel, a number of US warships, and a British vessel in an incident described as “catastrophic,” causing the crew to abandon ship.

The US Central Command said it had conducted “self-defense strikes”against Houthi missiles and a launcher that was prepared to fire from Yemen toward the Red Sea on Wednesday. According to CENTCOM, the weapons “presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and to the US Navy ships in the region.”

After Israel launched its military operation against Hamas in Gaza in October, Houthi militants started to attack ships they believed to be linked to Israel, claiming they were acting in “solidarity” with Palestine.

However, after the US and the UK conducted a number of strikes on Houthi facilities in Yemen, the group said it would now also attack ships affiliated with either nation.

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https://www.rt.com/news/592934-ship-ablaze-missile-attack-houthis/

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The EU should donate all its heavy weapons to Kiev, Ukrainian national security council chief Aleksey Danilov has said, claiming that the arms will in any case be useless in future conflicts.

Discussing the perceived threats to the EU, Danilov told national media on Wednesday that the bloc is facing the potential rise of ultra-right forces, but suggested that nobody can predict what the security situation will be in two or three decades’ time.

“This issue needs to be tackled now. We have great experience, and we understand that Europe will not need those guns, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and other hardware for its next war,” he declared. “They urgently need to donate them all to us, as Denmark did.”

The Danish government has decided to give all its artillery systems to Ukraine, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced last week.

”We have weapons, we have ammunition, we have air defense, that we don’t have to use ourselves at the moment, that we should deliver to Ukraine,” she added, referring to all EU states.

Danilov argued that in the future, current weapons will effectively be “scrap,” claiming that Kiev would have defeated Russia already if it had been given enough arms.

Ukraine remains determined to prevail in the conflict, the official insisted, suggesting that with more Western arms donations, Kiev would ensure Moscow is not a “threat” to European NATO members.

”We are prepared to achieve the task of destroying the Russian Federation,” he stated.

Moscow perceives the Ukraine conflict as a US-led proxy war against Russia, in which Ukrainian troops are being used as cannon fodder. Russian officials have claimed that the “Kiev regime” is an accomplice in this Western scheme and a threat to the Ukrainian people themselves.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/592943-danilov-eu-heavy-weapons/

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Americans should be ashamed of their leader after their president reportedly called Russia’s Vladimir Putin a “crazy S.O.B.” during a public event, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Joe Biden’s alleged name-calling occurred during a fundraiser on Wednesday.

According to US media, Biden singled out the Russian president while arguing that climate change was a worse threat for humanity than a nuclear conflict.

Officials in Washington have claimed that Putin resorted to “nuclear blackmail” when discussing the Ukraine conflict. Moscow has denied this characterization.

“This is a great disgrace for [the US],” Peskov said on Thursday, when asked about the reported incident. “If the president of that nation uses that kind of language, that is shameful.”

The spokesman suggested that Biden was emulating a “Hollywood cowboy” to appeal to domestic audiences. Such remarks “can hardly hurt any foreign head of state, let alone President Putin,” Peskov added.

Biden has in the past used the same insult that he reportedly directed at Putin on Wednesday. During a press briefing in 2022, he exclaimed “what a stupid son-of-a-bitch,” after a member of the press corps asked him about inflation. In 2018, he resorted to the same language while bragging at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, about pressuring Kiev to fire its prosecutor general. He threatened to withhold a credit line.

“I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch, he got fired,” Biden recalled of events in 2016, when he served as vice president.

Last week, media reported that Biden had called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an “a**hole” on three different occasions in private conversations with other people, including with Democratic Party donors. He was said to have been venting frustration over Israel’s refusal to follow US suggestions on how it should prosecute its military campaign in Gaza.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/592920-biden-putin-crazy-sob/

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Russia is a “war machine” that has defeated powerful invaders in the past, former US President Donald Trump said during a town hall meeting on Tuesday, as he explained his opposition to sending billions of dollars in additional aid to Ukraine.

Trump, who is seeking a new presidential term in this year’s election, highlighted Russian military prowess after the town-hall host, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, cited Kiev’s desperation to get the American money.

“They say without that money, Ukraine will definitely lose the war, which would then empower Vladimir Putin and endanger our allies,” Ingraham said, referring to an argument made by US President Joe Biden.

Trump reiterated his earlier claims that, were he in the White House, the hostilities would not have erupted and that he could end them “in 24 hours” should voters put him back in the Oval Office. He also argued that EU nations, for whom the stakes in the conflict are higher than for the US, should pay more to support Kiev.

“They have to start paying up,” he stated.

“We have an ocean in between us. They don’t have that ocean,” he said. “You know why they have not paid? Cause nobody asked them.”

“I feel very bad… Remember this: you are really up against a war machine in Russia. [It’s] what they do. They’ve defeated Hitler, they’ve defeated Napoleon,” Trump added. Republican opposition in the US House to more aid for Ukraine stands in the way of an appropriation of over $60 billion for Kiev under a bill that was passed by the Senate this month.

The Biden administration claims that by keeping the flow of weapons into Ukraine the US would prevent a direct confrontation with Russia in the future. After defeating Kiev, this argument assumes, Moscow will certainly attack a NATO member, forcing Washington to send its troops to the rescue.

Russia’s leadership has denied having such an intention and sees the Ukraine conflict as one triggered by NATO encroachment.

The only scenario in which Russian troops could be sent into a NATO member state such as Poland is if it were attacked by the US-led military bloc first, President Vladimir Putin told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a recent interview.

“You don’t need to be an analyst to understand that getting involved in a global war goes against common sense. A global war would bring all of humanity to the brink of destruction,” the president explained.

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https://www.rt.com/news/592857-trump-russia-war-machine/

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The US has no plan in place to maintain, service or repair tanks, armored vehicles and air defense systems Washington has given to the Ukrainian military, Pentagon Inspector-General Robert P. Storch has admitted. The failure to plan “puts at risk Ukraine’s ability to fight effectively using the US-provided equipment, as well as the DoD’s readiness to address other national security threats if needed,” he added.

Storch revealed in two redacted reports released to the public on Tuesday that the US has delivered 186 Bradley and 189 Stryker Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV), 31 Abrams main battle tanks, and an unspecified number of Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine.

Washington’s Department of Defense “had not developed or implemented a plan” to maintain any of them, according to the inspectors cited in the reports, who warned that there is nothing to suggest the weaponry could be sustained past October 2024.

All of the weapons systems were taken from the US military’s own stocks “without limits,” under the Presidential Drawdown Authority, according to the reports. If this practice continued, it “may require the [Department of Defense] to choose between the readiness of [Ukrainian] units or the readiness of US Army units,” one official told the inspectors.

The US military-industrial complex has struggled to replace the weapons systems sent to Ukraine, due to shortage of parts and the lack of production lines or trained personnel. Maintenance was described in the reports as an “afterthought” for the Pentagon, whose main focus was to arm Ukraine “as quickly as possible.”

An official with the US European Command told the inspectors that “the current model would not be sustainable or effective over the longer term.”

“The DoD provided Ukraine with armored vehicles and air defense systems without a plan to ensure their long-term usefulness,” Storch said in a statement. “While the DoD is currently working on developing such a plan, the lack of foresight in this matter is concerning.”

The US military sent “limited spare parts, ammunition, and maintenance support” and “did not coordinate or tailor those efforts into a comprehensive sustainment plan,” according to Storch’s reports.

What was sent included “some” consumables and spare parts for field maintenance, as well as “additional items informed by US experience operating the weapon systems in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria,” Storch noted.

While the sustainment is not required under the current congressional authority for sending weapons to Ukraine, “the weapon systems are not likely to remain mission capable” without it, the report said.

At least one US Patriot system has been destroyed by hypersonic missiles, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Last year’s Ukrainian offensive saw multiple Bradley and Stryker vehicles destroyed in attempts to advance against Russian defenses. There have been no public reports of Abrams tanks being used in active combat operations so far.

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https://www.rt.com/news/592888-pentagon-audit-weapons-ukraine/

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is “too ill” to attend his appeal against the UK's decision to extradite him to the US, his lawyers have said. The US wants him on 17 charges of espionage tied to WikiLeaks’ publication of State Department and Pentagon files in 2010.

Assange, 52, has been held largely in solitary confinement in the Belmarsh maximum security prison in England since 2019, when Ecuador revoked his asylum at American insistence. The Australian-born publisher had requested to appear in court personally, but was unable to do so due to poor health, according to his lawyers. 

“The world is watching,” Assange’s wife Stella said outside the court house. She accused the US of abusing the legal system to “hound, prosecute and intimidate” and argued that the US “plotted to murder”her husband – referring to revelations that the CIA sought to kill Assange in 2017, when he sheltered in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

“What’s at stake is the ability to publish the truth and expose crimes when they’re committed by states,” Stella Assange told the dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Tuesday.

Protesters carried Australian flags and signs that said “Free Julian Assange” and “drop the charges.” The Australian parliament passed a motion, supported by the country's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling for Assange's release from British captivity in the run up to the appeal.

“The outrageous part of the UK’s years-long ‘trial’ to condemn Julian Assange to die in an American dungeon is that the victim of his ‘crime’ (journalism) is a state rather than a person–the definition of a political offense, which the US-UK extradition treaty explicitly forbid,” NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said on X (formerly Twitter). 

Activists outside the court chanted “US, UK, hands off Assange” and “There is only one decision – no extradition,” among other slogans.

This week’s hearing will decide whether Assange will be allowed to appeal the 2022 decision by the UK government to extradite him to the US. His attorneys have argued that the extradition would amount to punishment for political opinions and violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

If the appeal fails, Assange will apply to the European Court of Human Rights and seek a Rule 39 order to stop the extradition while it considers the case, Stella Assange has said.

In 2010, WikiLeaks published the US military’s Iraq and Afghanistan “war diaries,” as well as a trove of State Department cables. One of the videos, later known as “collateral murder,” showed a US helicopter killing 11 people in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists. Suspecting the Swedish “sexual assault” case was a pretext for the US to arrest him – correctly, as it later emerged – Assange sought asylum in Ecuador, which has no extradition treaty with Washington. He spent the next seven years in the country’s embassy in London, blocked from leaving by the British authorities. 

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https://www.rt.com/news/592777-julian-assange-london-hearing/

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Russia is actually tolerant of people with non-traditional sexual orientations, so long as they don’t target children or flaunt their preferences, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

The president made the remarks while addressing visitors to the ‘Strong Ideas for a New Time’ forum, a yearly event organized by Russia’s state-backed Agency of Strategic Initiatives.

“We are quite tolerant towards people with non-traditional sexual orientations. We just don’t flaunt it, and we don’t believe it’s right to flaunt it. Let everyone live – the adults – as they want. Nobody limits them in anything,” Putin stated, explaining that, basically, there are only a handful of rules which limit the LGBTQ community in the country.

As for children, I have already said many times: ‘Don’t touch the children.’ That’s it. This is the first one. And the second one is, we are, first and foremost, a state that is guided by traditional values.

Over the past few years, Russia has gradually tightened its legislation aimed at countering the spread of what it calls “LGBT ideology.” The drive began in 2013, when the dissemination of said propaganda was outlawed among minors.

The ban was reinforced in December 2022, when new legislation introduced major fines for anyone found guilty of promoting “non-traditional sexual relations,” pedophilia, and transgenderism among minors and adults alike.

Late last year, the Supreme Court of Russia outlawed the “international LGBT public movement,” designating it as extremist. The ban stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the Russian Justice Ministry, which asked the top court to do so, arguing that the movement has been involved in “incitements of social and religious discord” as well as exhibiting unspecified “extremist traits.”

The extremist designation has been harshly criticized by multiple rights groups in the West, which have argued that it is “absurd” and vague, and that it has had a “catastrophic” effect on the LGBTQ community in Russia. The inclusion of any group in Russia’s “extremist organizations” list effectively bans all of their activities and outlaws all of their associated symbols.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/592788-gays-welcome-putin-says/

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A big data study of 99 million people across eight countries showed greater than expected incidence of side effects from various Covid-19 vaccines, the Global Vaccine Data Network (GVDN) said on Monday.

The study, originally published in the medical journal Vaccine on February 12, looked at 13 neurological, blood, and heart-related conditions, called “adverse events of special interest.” Researchers looked at 99,068,901 vaccinated individuals from ten sites in eight countries.

“The size of the population in this study increased the possibility of identifying rare potential vaccine safety signals,” said Kristyna Faksova, the lead author of the study from the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, Denmark.

According to the GVDN, the study observed a greater incidence of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the heart sac) than expected among those who took the Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2) and Moderna (mRNA-1273) shots.

Moderna’s vaccine also had a higher rate of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM, inflammation and swelling in the brain and spinal cord), with seven observed events compared to two expected within 42 days of the first shot.

Safety signals for myocarditis were “consistently identified” following the first three doses of either mRNA shot, with the highest ratio after the second dose. Signals for pericarditis also appeared following the first and fourth doses of mRNA-1273 and were also observed after a third dose of the Oxford/Astra Zeneca (ChAdOx1) viral vector vaccine.

Recipients of ChAdOx1 had 190 observed events of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) compared to the expected 76, and 69 observed instances of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST, a type of blood clot in the brain) compared to the expected 21, the study has shown.

The GVDN has made the results available to the public on its interactive data dashboards, along with a warning not to read too much into correlations and that the vaccines are both safe and effective.

“By making the data dashboards publicly available, we are able to support greater transparency, and stronger communications to the health sector and public,” GVDN co-director Dr. Helen Petousis-Harris said.

The study was part of the GVDN’s Global COVID Vaccine Safety Project and was funded entirely by a $10 million grant from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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https://www.rt.com/news/592695-covid-vaccine-effects-study/

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Washington and Kiev have violated articles of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as Ukrainian forces have used illegal munitions on the battlefield, Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov has claimed.

The head of Russia’s Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces provided several examples of Kiev’s alleged use of banned chemical weapons and non-lethal chemical agents that he said were obtained from the US. 

Kirillov claimed that Ukraine used drones to drop US-made gas grenades on December 28, 2023 containing “CS” compound – a chemical classified as a riot-control tool that irritates the eyes and upper respiratory tract, and can cause skin burns, respiratory paralysis and cardiac arrest when used in high concentrations.

He said the delivery of such munitions by the US to Ukraine was a direct violation of the rules of the OPCW, which states that a country must “never, under any circumstances, transfer chemical weapons directly or indirectly to anyone.”

He also reported that, on June 15, 2023, Moscow’s forces were attacked by a drone carrying a container filled with chloropicrin, which is classified as a Schedule 3 compound under the Chemical Weapons Convention and is strictly prohibited – even for law enforcement purposes. The same chemical was also used by Kiev on August 3 and 11, 2023 near the village of Rabotino, according to Kirillov.

The general also provided several examples of Kiev using toxic substances against Russian military personnel, as well as poisoning high-ranking officials such as the head of Russia’s Kherson Region Vladimir Saldo in August 2022.

Kirillov said Russian intelligence believes that Ukraine’s forces, under the guidance of its Western backers, are developing a new military tactic that would use a “chemical belt.” This would involve blowing up containers with hydrocyanic acid and ammonia to prevent an advance by Russian forces.

He added that plans for such a large-scale use of toxic chemicals were evidenced by the fact that Kiev had asked the EU to supply it with hundreds of thousands of antidotes, gas masks and other personal protective equipment in 2024. That’s in addition to 600,000 ampules of organophosphorus antidotes, and 750,000 bottles of drugs for the detoxification of mustard gas, lewisite and hydrocyanic acid derivatives that were supplied by NATO countries in 2023.

“It is obvious that the volumes requested by Ukraine are excessive for a country that does not have chemical weapons,” Kirillov stated.

There has been no response from the OPCW despite all of this evidence being presented to the organization four months ago, the general said, accusing it of being run by Washington as a tool to target its political opponents.

In November, Russia lost its seat on the OPCW Executive Council after failing to get enough votes from other members of the organization. Kirillov said Moscow was effectively “pushed out” of its seat and was replaced by Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania, who he claimed were pursuing an obvious anti-Russia policy.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/592680-ukraine-us-chemical-weapons/

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Fans of Donald Trump have started a crowdfunding campaign seeking donations to cover the $354 million that a New York judge ordered the former US president to pay for fraudulent business practices.

A GoFundMe page was set up for Trump on Friday, shortly after Judge Arthur Engoron slapped him with massive monetary damages and a three-year ban on operating his businesses in New York. In its first 24 hours, the campaign raised about $100,000, a small fraction of the fraud judgment against Trump, his companies and his adult sons.

“Let’s stand with Trump to ensure that justice prevails and that we continue to fight for a country that respects freedom, honors courage, and rewards the unwavering spirit of its people,” said Elena Cardone, the Florida businesswoman who launched the GoFundMe campaign. Thousands of Trump supporters contributed to the fundraiser, in amounts ranging from $5 to $2,500.

Critics of Trump mocked his supporters for trying to pay the legal bill of a billionaire who was found to have submitted fraudulent financial statements. Some noted that the fundraiser is in breach of GoFundMe rules, which specifically prohibit campaigns for “the legal defense of alleged financial and violent crimes.”

Justice Engoron rebuked Trump and his co-defendants for a “pathological” lack of remorse and said he ordered the appointment of an independent director because he didn’t trust the Trump Organization to comply with his judgment. The judge found that Trump submitted false business reports, overstating the value of his assets to obtain favorable terms on bank loans and insurance policies. Trump disputed the court’s valuations of his properties and argued that there were no victims because all of his loans were paid back in full and on time.

Trump’s lawyers have vowed to appeal Friday’s ruling, as well as an $83 million New York City jury verdict against him last month for defaming a woman who had accused him of sexual assault. Trump, who also faces four separate criminal indictments, has claimed that President Joe Biden’s allies are using legal attacks to block him from winning back the presidency later this year.

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https://www.rt.com/news/592602-trump-crowdfunding-fraud-fine/

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Former US president and current candidate Donald Trump has lashed out at American media on his Truth Social platform, accusing them of spreading fake news about him.

A post on his account on Friday showed four photos of Trump mid-swing while playing golf. In one photo, purportedly published by an unnamed US outlet, Trump has a bulging midsection and looks decidedly overweight. In the other three, said to be taken on Friday morning, the pot belly is missing, and Trump appears significantly slimmer and more fit.

“The Fake News used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create the picture on the top left. These are despicable people, but everyone knows that. The other pictures are me hitting Golf balls today to show the difference. Sadly, in our Country, Fake News is all you get!” Trump wrote in the post. His representatives did not respond to media requests for comment.

It is unclear why Trump decided to take news media to task over the doctored picture at this particular time. 

According to fact-checking site Snopes, the photo appeared on social media – and not in news media – back in May 2017. It was in fact altered, although likely not with AI technology, the site claimed, but rather using Photoshop. It is an image of professional golfer and longtime Trump supporter John Daly, with Trump’s head superimposed over Daly’s body. The picture circulated on X (formerly Twitter) at the time and drew a slew of comments and speculation about the then president’s health.

Trump’s photos, including those of him playing golf at his many golf courses, are often altered and used by social media pranksters. One image posted online in 2022 and showing him with a pronounced double chin and deep facial wrinkles garnered hundreds of likes and shares on Facebook before it was proved to be digitally altered.

For no apparent reason, Trump’s post featuring the doctored image coincided with Friday’s ruling against him by a New York judge, which barred the presidential candidate from running his businesses in the state and ordered him and his company to pay $354 million in damages for real estate-related bank fraud.

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https://www.rt.com/pop-culture/592590-trump-fake-news-ai/

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Alexey Navalny collapsed and died on Friday, in a prison colony north of the Arctic circle where he was serving a 19-year sentence for extremist activities. He was 47. In the West, he enjoyed the reputation of a Kremlin critic and Russian “opposition leader.” In Ukraine, he was denounced as a Russian nationalist. In Russia itself, his legacy is at best complicated.

Born in 1976, Navalny graduated from law school in 1998 and earned a degree in finance in 2001. He would go on to dabble in law, investments and activism during his career, but kept coming back to politics.

“I have always been obsessed with politics,” he told the outlet Kommersant-Money in 2009. 

The nationalist phase

Between 2000 and 2007, Navalny was a member of the liberal Yabloko party, before co-founding an ethnic nationalist movement called ‘Narod.’ He appeared in two notorious YouTube videos for the movement, one advocating for gun rights to fight “flies and cockroaches” (while showing Muslims), and another comparing immigrants to tooth decay.

In August 2008, Navalny spoke approvingly of the Russian intervention against Georgia on behalf of the beleaguered South Ossetia. He went on to participate in three annual ‘Russian March’ rallies with advocates for ethnic nationalism. Activist Evgenia Albats later said she had urged Navalny to join the marches as a way to leverage ethnic nationalism against the Kremlin. In 2010, Albats would co-sponsor Navalny’s six-month stay in the US through the Yale World Fellows program.

The anti-corruption blogger 

By that point, Navalny had already called on his finance expertise to launch an investment activist group called “Union of Minority Shareholders,” which tried to shake down major companies such as Rosneft, Gazprom, Lukoil, and others. His umbrella NGO network, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), was registered in September 2011. Navalny would continue accusing the government in Moscow, regional governors and corporations of fraud, graft and corruption – often getting sued for defamation in the process.

‘Opposition leader’

By February 2011, Navalny was dabbling in politics as well. He attacked the ruling United Russia party as a collection of “crooks and thieves,” and in December claimed it had stolen the national elections. Western media dubbed him the “Russian opposition leader” after he gave a series of speeches at anti-government protests that followed.

The high point of Navalny’s political career was the July 2013 election for mayor of Moscow, when he won 27.24% of the vote but lost to Sergey Sobyanin. His attempt to run in the 2018 presidential election was blocked due to his criminal record.

The Kirovles and Yves Rocher cases

Navalny’s first criminal conviction was for embezzlement from Kirovles, a state forestry company. In 2013, he was sentenced to five years in prison, but this was later changed to probation. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said in 2016 that his actions had been “indistinguishable from legitimate business activities.”

At the trial, Navalny denounced the charges as politically motivated and railed against the “disgusting feudal system” in which “one hundred families” were allegedly looting Russia.

Navalny and his brother Oleg – a postal employee – faced more charges of embezzlement in 2012, for defrauding the Russian branch of the French cosmetics giant Yves Rocher. The brothers were found guilty in December 2014, but Alexey once again received only probation.

In 2019, the Russian government labeled Navalny’s FBK a “foreign agent,” severely limiting its activities. 

2020 ‘poisoning’ and arrest

In August 2020, Navalny fell ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow and was transported to Germany for treatment. Western doctors alleged he had been targeted with a ‘Novichok’ nerve agent, which Moscow rejected as a “provocation.” Upon returning to Russia, Navalny was arrested for breaching the terms of his probation and sent to a prison colony.

He was hit with additional charges of fraud and contempt of court, receiving an additional nine-year sentence in 2022. In August 2023, Navalny was sentenced to another 19 years behind bars on charges of fomenting, financing and carrying out extremist activities and “rehabilitating” Nazi ideology. The FBK was shuttered on government orders.

In December 2023, Navalny was transferred to a penal colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Region of northern Siberia. The cause of his death on Friday is still under investigation.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/592561-alexey-navalny-blogger-opposition/

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Climate activists just vandalized the display of the US Constitution in the Rotunda of the National Archives in Washington DC. They poured red powder on themselves and the display.

The America-hating lunatics then lectured the people in the rotunda about their global warming nonsense.

It was interesting to see the police walk around them with out much concern. What was that about?

These activists should immediately be shipped to rural Alaska to live out their dream without the horrors of fossil fuels.

The US Archives closed for the day following the incident for cleaning.

So will these radical activists be jailed? They just committed more damage to the US Archives than 95% of the J6 prisoners.

Will the Biden regime toss them in the Gulag for a couple years, or no?

I think we all know the answer to that question.

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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/02/outrageous-radical-climate-activists-spray-paint-us-constitution/

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Russian medical scientists are working on vaccines against cancer and a new generation of medication, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

Speaking about the state of Russian medical science at the Future Technologies Forum in Moscow, Putin pointed out that enormous strides have been made in early detection and treatment of cancer, leading to higher survival rates.

“I will also add that we have come close to creating so-called onco-vaccines, vaccines against cancer, and immunomodulatory drugs of a new generation. And I hope that soon they will be effectively used as methods of individual therapy,” he said. 

According to the president, more than half of all cancer cases in Russia are detected in the early stages, where the prognosis is the most favorable. He also pledged to continue funding medical research and development at the necessary levels.

Putin described the medical advancements he was shown at the forum as “some kind of science fiction.”

“Even just a little while ago, we could only read about such things in the works of fantasy fiction, but today all of this is becoming reality. All these areas are now just gaining momentum, and are expected to produce a real revolution in medicine in the near future,” he said.

One of the inventions is a special chip that can restore a person’s sight if implanted into the brain. The technology is currently undergoing clinical trials.

Advances in the field of medicine, prevention and treatment are valuable in and of themselves, but they require the participation of other fields of industry to be fully utilized by the Russian society, Putin said. Therefore, Moscow views these key areas of industry as projects of national importance, and is looking to build the entire industrial process – from the foundations and applications to production and training of highly qualified workers – as an integrated chain.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/592448-putin-cancer-vaccine-advance/

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Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted on Wednesday that X host Tucker Carlson caught him by surprise during their interview last week.

The final interview was two hours long and has been seen by hundreds of millions of people. Before it, Carlson was criticized for speaking to Putin at all – and afterwards, for not asking the Russian president certain things.

“I think your Carlson – I say yours, since he’s a member of your profession – is a dangerous man,” Putin told journalist Pavel Zarubin on the sidelines of the Future Technologies Forum in Moscow.

“I thought he would be aggressive, ask me sharp questions. I was not just ready for that, I wanted that, so I could give equally sharp answers,” Putin explained. “But he chose a different tactic.”

Carlson ended up patiently sitting through Putin’s lengthy digression into history and “did not give me an occasion to do something I had prepared for,” Putin said. “Frankly speaking, I did not get the full satisfaction from this interview.”

Commenting on reactions to the interview from the West, Putin said it was a good thing that the leaders there watched and listened to what he had to say – but bad that they felt the need to twist his words.

Asked if Carlson could face reprisals in the West, the Russian president pointed out that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange “still sits” in a British prison.

While the US has tried to accuse Assange of revealing state secrets, which is more difficult to pin on Carlson, “anything is possible in today’s US,” Putin said. While this kind of persecution would certainly be a bad thing for Carlson himself, it would be good for the world, because it would reveal the true face of the “liberal-democratic dictatorship” embodied by the ruling class in the US, the president concluded.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/592452-putin-tucker-carlson-dangerous/

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The US intelligence community inappropriately used foreign allies to target Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign to set up the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy ahead of the 2016 election, according to a trio of investigative journalists.

Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag – of ‘Twitter Files’ fame – published the first part of an investigation on Tuesday, in which they claim the so-called 'Five Eyes' were operationalized against Trump staffers, citing anonymous sources close to the House Intelligence Committee.

According to their report, President Barack Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, had sent America’s partners – the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – a list of 26 Trump associates to target with data collection, misinformation and manipulation.

The Russiagate conspiracy involved multiple failures across western media networks to critically assess US intelligence claims that Russia had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election. A 2018 Pulitzer prize was awarded to Washington Post and New York Times journalists for their reporting on what was later to exposed as a false story.

“They were making contacts and bumping Trump people going back to March 2016,” said a committee source. “They were sending people around the UK, Australia, Italy — the Mossad in Italy. MI6 was working at an intelligence school they had set up,” the journalists claim.

Officially, the FBI only started looking into the Trump campaign that summer, after an Australian diplomat reportedly overheard an aide mention Russia. If confirmed, these findings would demonstrate that the US intelligence community had worked for months before that to set up just such a pretext.

In a statement to the investigative journalists, the FBI said it had made “missteps” in the 2016 and 2017 investigation of the Trump campaign, but has since implemented reforms to prevent it from happening again.

“The allegations that GCHQ was asked to conduct ‘wiretapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense,” a spokesman for the British surveillance agency said. “They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.” Shellenberger, Taibbi and Gutentag said they had never asked the GCHQ about “wiretapping.”

According to Shellenberger, there is a “10-inch binder” containing previously unknown documents about the intelligence community’s surveillance of the Trump campaign. The 45th US president had ordered these documents declassified, but they went missing instead. In a Fox News appearance on Tuesday evening, Shellenberger suggested the FBI’s August 2022 raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort may have been related to the missing binder.

After the US intelligence community created a pretext for investigating Trump for ‘ties to Russia,’ they spied on his campaign – and then his presidency – using a falsely obtained FISA warrant. The warrant was based on the ‘Steele dossier,’ a file compiled by a British spy in the pay of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, through several intermediaries. The FBI knew the dossier was false as early as January 2017, but continued using the FISA warrant for almost a year thereafter.

The FBI lawyer who altered evidence to obtain the warrant, Kevin Clinesmith, ended up sentenced to probation and his law license has since been restored.

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https://www.rt.com/news/592439-cia-russiagate-illegal-trump/

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The West will not offer a realistic diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict because the US and its allies are still intent on inflicting a strategic defeat on Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.

Briefing Russian MPs on his ministry’s work and the current international situation, Lavrov stated that Moscow is “at the advance guard in the fight for a better future,” adding that the Western-dominated system is giving way to a multipolar world.

The US and its allies, however, remain committed to waging a hybrid war against anyone that prioritizes national interests, as evidenced by the continued Ukraine conflict, Lavrov claimed.

There has been a shift in Western rhetoric due to Moscow’s battlefield successes, according to the minister, with officials now focusing on preventing a Russian victory rather than ensuring its defeat. Nonetheless, their core policy of trying to damage Russia remains the same, Lavrov said, meaning the conflict is unlikely to be resolved diplomatically.

“Considering that those who declared a war on us offer no serious proposals and are unwilling to respect our interests and the reality on the ground, getting an agreement at the negotiating table will certainly be impossible. No such scenario is foreseen,” the diplomat stated.

Lavrov insisted that the West had initiated the conflict through its continued quest for “global domination and exceptionalism.” Russia, meanwhile, is working with its allies to dismantle the current system, which it perceives as colonialist in nature, he told the lawmakers.

US President Joe Biden reiterated his Ukraine policy on Tuesday, urging the House of Representatives to adopt a Senate-approved foreign aid package including roughly $60 billion for Kiev. The money will mostly fund arms production in the US and will help Ukraine oppose the “vicious onslaught” by Russia, Biden claimed.

“The United States pulled together a coalition of nearly 50 nations to support Ukraine. We unified NATO; we expanded it. We can’t walk away now,” the leader declared.

If approved, the bill would raise the amount of military assistance provided to Ukraine by the US since the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022 to some $170 billion.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/592421-lavrov-ukraine-negotiated-peace/

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A high-ranking official in Russia's Security Council has voiced alarm over the risk of a nuclear “catastrophe” arising from the Pentagon chief's health problems and the declining faculties of US President Joe Biden, warning of a possible “management mistake” by America’s leadership.

Speaking to the Izvestiya newspaper for an interview published on Wednesday, Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Mikhail Popov said Washington's political instability could trigger an accidental escalation.

”In the overall difficult and nervous internal political situation in the US that has emerged recently, the price of a management mistake, committed by the national leaders, either deliberately or involuntarily, has increased significantly,” he said. “And there won’t be much distance to a global catastrophe.”

Popov stressed that he was not referring to “a banana republic,” but rather “a state that has nuclear weapons and constantly claims to be the world hegemon.” He added that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s cancer diagnosis and Biden’s old age “have raised questions about the global security system” and the US chain of command, asking “How is the decision to use nuclear weapons generally made in the United States?”

“The secretary of defense is not there, and no one knows where he is or who is replacing him. The press writes that some of his responsibilities were assigned to Deputy Minister Kathleen Hicks. But she was on vacation in Puerto Rico at the time,” he said.

The official went on to observe an episode during the Cold War, when a US Air Force major was dismissed for questioning how he could know whether a nuclear launch order “came from a sane president,” as the commander in chief is responsible for employing America’s nuclear arsenal.

Austin’s prostate cancer diagnosis came as a surprise not only to the US public, but to Biden himself, with the Pentagon chief acknowledging that his team did not inform the White House of the news. He has since been re-hospitalized with a bladder issue, for which he was reportedly treated with undisclosed “non-surgical procedures.”

As the oldest president in US history at 81, Biden’s fitness is among the most pressing issues for American voters as they look ahead to the 2024 election. In a recent NBC News poll, 76% of respondents voiced major or moderate concerns over the president’s “mental and physical health,” while even special counsel Robert Hur – who was tapped to probe alleged mishandling of classified documents by Biden – concluded that the president has “diminished faculties in advancing age.”

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https://www.rt.com/russia/592405-us-nuclear-command-snapped/

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A large blast has erupted at a gas pipeline in Central Iran, the Mehr News Agency reported, citing local officials. Evaluation teams have been dispatched to the area to survey the damage.

The explosion erupted in the early hours of Wednesday morning near the city of Borujen, some 64km (39 miles) south of the provincial capital of Shahr-e Kord, according to Mehr, which cited the local city administration and fire officials.

”The terrible sound and then the fire was caused by the explosion of the main gas transmission line of the country (line 65) between Halvai pass and Beldaji highway, and fortunately, until this moment, no one was injured or injured. There were no casualties,” Ismail Yazdani, the commander of Borujen’s fire department and security services, was quoted as saying.

Footage making the rounds on social media purported to show the aftermath of the blast, with a bright fireball and tower of smoke seen rising into the sky.

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https://www.rt.com/news/592403-iran-gas-pipeline-explosion/

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The Canadian government has declined Russia’s warrant for SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka, citing the lack of an extradition treaty between the two countries, the Russian ambassador in Ottawa has confirmed.

Moscow had sent Ottawa an extradition request in December, based on charges against Hunka levied by the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office. The 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian has publicly admitted volunteering to join the Waffen-SS Galicia Division during the Second World War, after he was honored with a standing ovation in the Canadian Parliament during last year’s visit by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

“It is unlikely that the absence of an extradition treaty can serve as a reason for refusal,” Ambassador Oleg Stepanov said on Tuesday, calling it “an obvious politically motivated excuse.”

Stepanov pointed out that Canada could have charged Hunka with war crimes for his activity in the SS, but seems to have chosen not to. If Hunka lied about being a member of the SS on his citizenship application – as he obviously seems to have – then Ottawa could at very least strip him of citizenship, he added.

“Here is the litmus test for Canada’s covering up of Nazism. Will the criminal be punished or will he continue to live out his comfortable retirement years in a country that is so proud of its legal standards?” Stepanov said.

Either way, Russia intends to “continue to seek justice” in the matter, said the ambassador.

Hunka was a guest of honor at the Canadian Parliament last September, and was introduced as “a Canadian hero” who “fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians” to thunderous applause. The incident was condemned by Russia, Poland, and the UN, while the Canadian opposition accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of lying about his role in the affair. House Speaker Anthony Rota took the blame for the incident and resigned.

In October 2023, Russia charged Hunka with genocide and issued a warrant for his arrest. Russian diplomats have pointed to the incident as proof of Nazi influence in Canada. President Vladimir Putin also brought up the affair in last week’s widely watched interview with American broadcaster Tucker Carlson.

The Galicia Division went from a volunteer Ukrainian SS division to a Waffen-SS grenadier division. They were accused of numerous war crimes against Jews, Poles and Soviet civilians. The division was shattered in the July 1944 Battle of Brody, but Nazi Germany rebuilt and used it to terrorize civilians in Slovakia and Yugoslavia.

In April 1945, the Third Reich handed the division over to the ‘Ukrainian National Committee’. Its surviving members surrendered to the British in Austria. About 8,000 of them were later given sanctuary in the British Commonwealth, and many ended up in Canada.

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https://www.rt.com/news/592400-canada-refuses-extradite-nazi-hunka/

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Former US President Donald Trump will seek to impose a series of aggressive restrictions on immigration – including detention camps for migrants near the country’s southern border – should he be reelected to the White House later this year, according to a report by Axios.

Trump has made immigration reform and the strengthening of border security protocols key campaign pledges ahead of a likely rematch with incumbent President Joe Biden in November. Should he win the presidency, Trump will seek to harness a range of executive powers to deport “millions” of people as part of his immigration crackdown, the outlet said on Sunday.

Citing an anonymous source with knowledge of the plans, Axios reported that a second Trump administration would likely see the mobilization of US immigration officials, the FBI and various other executive arms of the government to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Additionally, fast-track deportations would be expanded to individuals found to have illegally crossed the border and who are unable to prove they have been living in the United States for at least two years, the report said.

Furthermore, Trump would make use of legislation which is more that two centuries old that would allow for the rounding up and immediate deportation of immigrants with criminal histories, the publication claims. Large sites would also be constructed to hold migrants awaiting deportation in areas close to its southern border with Mexico.

It was also previously noted by Axios that Trump would likely reimpose the so-called ‘Muslim ban’ that restricts the entry to the US of people from some Muslim-majority countries. US President Joe Biden had previously rescinded the legislation when he succeeded Trump in 2021.

In December, Trump said at a campaign stop in the state of New Hampshire that immigrants “are poisoning the lifeblood of our country” – rhetoric that was seized upon the Biden campaign, who claimed that he had “parroted Adolf Hitler” who had used similar language in Mein Kampf.

Axios also stated that Trump’s immigration agenda would likely receive pushback from Democratic lawmakers, as well as from Latino advocacy groups and ‘Sanctuary Cities’ – the title given to areas that obstruct federal immigration enforcement.

Financial analysts have also predicted that removing undocumented migrants from the workforce would harm the US economy, as well as stifle policies designed to ease inflation, Axios said.

Trump adopted a similarly aggressive approach to immigration during his four-year term in the White House between 2017 and 2021, although he managed to deport fewer people during his presidency than his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Last month, a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found that immigration is the key issue of concern for US voters, ahead of inflation and the economy.

The number of people arrested for crossing into the US from Mexico illegally reached an all-time high of 249,785 in December, US officials said last month. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the number of non-detained illegal immigrants soared to 6.3 million last year – compared to just 3.7 million in 2021.

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https://www.rt.com/news/592390-us-trump-deport-millions/

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American senators from both parties coming out in support of aid for Ukraine and Israel is a powerful signal to Russia and China, as well as Washington’s allies, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday.

The 100-member chamber approved the $95 billion “national security”funding bill with 70 votes in favor and 29 opposed. Eight Republican senators spent most of the night filibustering against the proposal.

“Today we make [Russian President] Vladimir Putin regret the day he questioned America’s resolve, and we make clear to others, like China’s President Xi [Jinping], not to test our determination,” Schumer said in a speech after the vote. “And we send a clear, bipartisan message of resolve to our allies in NATO.”

Schumer also praised the passage of the bill as greatly impacting “the security of Western democracy.” 

The Senate bill would give Ukraine $61 billion in aid, as well as $14 billion to Israel for its war against Hamas, and almost $5 billion for arming Taiwan. The White House originally bundled it with a “border reform” proposal but proceeded with foreign aid only after Democrats and Republicans could not agree on immigration.

Republicans opposing the Ukraine funding bill have pointed out that it would bring the total amount of US aid to Kiev to almost $200 billion. Democrats have countered that it was good for the US weapons industry and that not continuing to send money to Kiev would damage Washington’s reputation and “resolve” in the world. Their arguments ended up swaying 22 of the Republicans.

Though it has passed in the Senate, the bill now needs the backing of the House of Representatives, where Republicans have a razor-thin majority. 

“The bill before us today... will never pass in the House, will never become law,” Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, said in a floor speech on Tuesday morning. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson has previously described the proposal as “dead on arrival.” With so many Republicans willing to cross the aisle to back the Democrats when it comes to funding Ukraine, it is entirely possible the bill might pass and make its way to President Joe Biden’s desk.

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https://www.rt.com/news/592386-democrat-schumer-hailed-ukrainian-aid-passage/

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The Pischa mountain restaurant hotel in Davos, Switzerland, has announced it will no longer rent out skiing and other snow-sports equipment to Jewish guests, due to an alleged long history of unruly behavior, property damage and theft. The establishment faced accusations of anti-Semitism, causing a major scandal and a police investigation.

The offensive notice appeared over the weekend at the door of the room used to store skiing equipment at the resort. The message in Hebrew explicitly denied Jewish guests access to the service.

“Due to various unfortunate incidents, including the theft of a sled, we no longer rent sports equipment to our Jewish brothers. This applies to all equipment such as sledges, airboards, ski jacks and snowshoes. Thank you for your understanding,” the notice read.

On Monday, local police confirmed to daily 20 Minuten that they had launched an official probe into the affair and are now investigating the hotel over alleged “discrimination and incitement to hatred.”

The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) has strongly condemned the resort, branding the policy a new “level of audacity”and pledging to file a complaint of its own over the affair. “An entire group of guests is being collectively denigrated on the basis of their appearance and origin,” SIG Secretary General Jonathan Kreutner claimed in a statement.

The restaurant, however, stood by its decision, explaining it was the result of unruly behavior long exhibited by Orthodox Jews at the resort. “We no longer want the daily hassle and are therefore exercising our right to decide who can lease our property and who cannot,” the resort told 20 Minuten in a statement, insisting that the move had “nothing to do with faith, skin color or personal preferences”of the guests. “One of these guests” is bound to cause a “serious accident at some point,” it added, explaining that such guests routinely scatter the equipment over the mountain slope instead of returning it, grab it from the storage room without permission, and so on.

Regional tourism operator Sportbahnen Pischa AG rushed to distance itself from the incident, explaining that the hotel is an externally leased location at the mountain and the organization had nothing to do with managing it. A similar stance was taken by its parent company, Davos Klosters, with its CEO, Reto Branschi, admitting the notice was definitely “unfortunately worded.”

“The notice can hurt the feelings of the Jewish guest group as a whole and that shouldn’t be the case,” he told 20 Minuten. At the same time, he admitted that Orthodox Jews have displayed unruly behavior for years already and have gotten into various instances of trouble at local resorts, and these “difficulties” with a “small group” were a fact. “The problem has two sides and it has been simmering for years,” the CEO noted.

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https://www.rt.com/news/592338-swiss-resort-jews-ban/

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