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The Pentagon has urged Congress to approve US President Joe Biden’s supplemental funding package for Ukraine “as quickly as possible,” warning that its coffers are running low and it could soon be forced to sacrifice American combat readiness to continue support.

US lawmakers have been stuck in a deadlock in recent weeks over Biden’s proposed $60 billion Ukraine assistance package. Republicans have blocked the bill, demanding tougher immigration control on the US-Mexico border in exchange for letting it pass.

Speaking at a Pentagon press conference on Thursday, Defense Department spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder stressed that the president’s supplemental funding is necessary to provide additional support for Ukraine next year.

Ryder estimated that the Pentagon has about $4.4 billion left in Presidential Drawdown Authority funds – which allows Washington to transfer weapons from US stockpiles without congressional approval – and an additional $1 billion in stock replenishment funds.

“Certainly, we do retain the option to spend the $4.4 billion,” Ryder said, but noted that these are “tough choices, because ultimately, at the end of the day, we start to have to make decisions about our own readiness and our ability to continue to support Ukraine in the way they need to be supported on the battlefield.”

Earlier this week, Biden warned that Washington was approaching the end of its ability to provide military aid to Kiev and reiterated his calls on Congress to approve more assistance as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, during a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky on Tuesday, Biden announced an additional military aid package of $200 million for Kiev, to include air defense interceptors, artillery, and ammunition.

On Thursday, the US House and Senate also passed a sweeping military spending bill worth over $886 billion, which includes $300 million in additional aid for Ukraine.

At the same time, unnamed US officials have told the New York Times that Ukraine will now have to fight on “a tighter budget,” and that Kiev has “unrealistic expectations” about US aid and is asking for military aid packages that “do not exist.”

Moscow, in turn, has repeatedly warned that military aid to Ukraine by the US and its allies will only prolong the fighting and increase the risk of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. Russian officials have also argued that the provision of arms, intelligence-sharing, and training of Ukrainian troops means that Western nations have already become de facto parties to the conflict.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/589125-pentagon-us-ukraine-assistance/

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The US government’s list of known or suspected terrorists has nearly doubled in size in the past six years, with American citizens comprising a growing portion of the names, CBS reported on Thursday, citing former and current intelligence officials, court records, and other government documents.

The Terrorist Screening Dataset included about 2 million people as of the end of 2023 — up from 1,160,000 in 2017, the last time Washington publicly confirmed the numbers. The watchlist has grown by leaps and bounds since its creation in 2003 with just 120,000 people.

While official policy requires “reasonable suspicion” for inclusion on the list, the government is not required to share those suspicions with the public or those targeted, and agencies will “neither confirm nor deny” an individual’s presence on the list.

“Those 2 million people who are on the list are on there for a reason,” Monte Hawkins, the National Security Council official who oversees watchlisting for the Biden administration, told CBS, noting that “the vast majority” of the listed individuals are neither US citizens nor legal permanent residents. 

However, former intelligence official Russell Travers, who helped establish the watchlist in the aftermath of 9/11, acknowledged that it needed auditing but lacked the staff to do it. “I’m sure that there are a lot of people that are in the database that are dead, that we don’t even know it,” he told CBS.

Additionally, just because a person is on the list “doesn’t mean they’re a terrorist. It means there’s something that has led a department or agency to say, ‘This person needs a closer look’,” Travers explained.

The Department of Homeland Security has admitted that 98% of the tens of thousands of Americans who have complained to their government about being wrongfully treated like terrorists were actually the victims of “false positives,” with names similar to actual terror suspects. The Transportation Security Administration admitted in 2006 that 30,000 airline passengers had been wrongly flagged in the past year alone. Federal lawsuits have accused the FBI of adding innocent people to the database to pressure them into becoming informants.

While the list is officially operated by the Terrorist Screening Center within the FBI, officials from six other government departments are involved in maintaining it. The information is shared with hundreds of private sector entities and upwards of 60 foreign governments.

The Terrorist Screening Database was declared unconstitutional in 2019 in a landmark ruling in the Eastern District Court of Virginia, with Judge Anthony Trenga arguing that a lack of “ascertainable standard for inclusion and exclusion” meant that it was too vague to risk depriving Americans of their “travel-related and reputational liberty interests” and constituted a violation of due process. 

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https://www.rt.com/news/589153-terrorist-screening-database-doubles-americans/

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NATO members have agreed to significantly increase the organization’s civil and military budgets for 2024. The extra operational funding has been touted as a sign of solidarity within the US-led military bloc.

The spending boost was approved by the governing North Atlantic Council at a meeting on Wednesday, according to a NATO statement. Its civil budget for next year has been increased by 18.2% from 2023, amounting to $477 million. Its military budget will rise by 12% compared to last year, amounting to $2.2 billion.

The NATO Security Investment Programme (NSIP), the third major spending component, will see a 30% annual increase to $1.4 billion in 2024.

“Common funding demonstrates allied solidarity and collective will. In turbulent times, we need this more than ever,” bloc Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana said of the budgets.

NATO normally coordinates the contributions of member states in its missions, as opposed to fielding a military force of its own. It has guidelines on the level of defense spending and preferred military hardware, but otherwise participants are technically free to allocate their resources as they see fit, unless the cornerstone clause of mutual defense is invoked.

In practice, critics say, NATO serves as a vehicle for the geopolitical and economic interests of its biggest defense spender, the US, which gives other members protection in exchange for supporting Washington’s agenda.

The common funding covers the costs of NATO operations, including personnel salaries, joint air defenses and communications, as well as certain training exercises. The costs are split among member states based on the size of their economies, with the US footing roughly half of the bill.

Russia, which considers NATO a hostile organization and a threat to its national security, has warned that the bloc aspires to an increasingly global role, especially as the US ramps up competition with China.

Moscow has cited NATO’s expansion in Europe and the intention to eventually absorb Ukraine as a key cause of the ongoing hostilities with its neighbor. NATO members and leadership claim that the Ukraine crisis necessitates increased spending by its members.

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https://www.rt.com/news/589036-nato-common-spending-increase/

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The US was responsible for orchestrating the 2014 coup in Ukraine that overthrew President Viktor Yanukovich and ultimately led to the current conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. He added that Washington “needed to create a conflict” for its own purposes.

Speaking during a marathon Q&A session on Thursday, Putin said the US “plotted and organized everything” while European leaders “silently watched” and pretended they were not aware of what was happening.

As a result, Ukraine has “largely lost its sovereignty” and has been making “many decisions to their own detriment" since then.

Following the 2014 coup, the then-Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, known as Donbass, refused to accept the new government, which increasingly embraced nationalist ideology, and proclaimed their independence instead. Kiev responded with a violent military campaign that prompted a years-long conflict.

The Russian leader went on to accuse the West of having a short memory, pointing to the 2015 Minsk agreements, which were brokered by Russia, Germany and France and were designed to end the hostilities. The West had “no intention” of implementing the agreements, which Putin said were “signed and immediately forgotten.”

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron later admitted that the agreements were a strategic ploy aimed at buying Ukraine more time to prepare for a conflict with Russia.

In an interview with CNN in 2015, then-US President Barack Obama also openly admitted that the US had "brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine."

In September 2022, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as the parts of Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions under Russian control, voted to join Russia in a referendum which Ukraine and its Western backers denounced as illegitimate.

Moscow has insisted that Kiev must recognize this “new territorial reality” as a prerequisite for any peace talks.

Despite receiving a constant flow of weapons and aid from its Western backers since the current conflict broke out in February 2022, Kiev’s six-month counteroffensive against Russia has failed to yield significant results and Ukraine has lost some 125,000 military personnel and 6,000 pieces of heavy equipment since the beginning of June, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/589061-us-engineered-ukraine-conflict-putin/

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Myanmar has become the world’s largest center of opium production in 2023, having overtaken Afghanistan, a new report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has found.

Released on Tuesday, the UN publication reports that from 2022 to 2023 production of the illicit crop in Myanmar increased by 18% to a total of 47,100 hectares under cultivation.

“The economic, security and governance disruptions that followed the military takeover of February 2021 continue to drive farmers in remote areas towards opium to make a living,” UNODC Regional Representative Jeremy Douglas said. “The intensification of conflict in [the northern state of] Shan and other border areas is expected to accelerate this trend,” he noted.

According to UNODC, opium cultivation areas expanded most in Myanmar’s border regions in northern Shan state, which borders China, Laos and Thailand. Chin and Kachin states followed, as yield expanded by 16% to 22.9 kilograms per hectare, reportedly due to more sophisticated farming practices.

In total Myanmar farmers earned around 75% more this year from opium poppy farming, according to the report, as average prices paid for the crop have reached about $355 per kilogram.

Myanmar’s rise in opium production comes as output in Afghanistan plummeted an estimated 95% to around 330 tons following the Taliban’s ban on poppy cultivation last April. Afghanistan was previously the world’s top opium producer, providing over 80% of global supply, and a major source of heroin both in Europe and Asia.

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https://www.rt.com/business/588934-myanmar-opium-production-rise/

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The Israeli military has begun pumping seawater into Hamas’ underground tunnel network beneath Gaza, the Wall Street Journal has reported. Israeli officials have refused to comment on the alleged operation, which could endanger the lives of more than 100 hostages and contaminate the strip’s water supply.

Israeli forces started experimenting with flooding the tunnels some time after transporting powerful pumps into Gaza last month, the newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing US officials. With the tunnels stretching for hundreds of miles beneath Gaza, fully flooding the warren of passageways and bunkers is expected to take several weeks, the report claimed.

A spokesperson for Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant refused to comment, stating that any military operations involving the tunnels are classified. However, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said last week that flooding the subterranean network was “a good idea, but I won’t comment on its specifics.”

The idea is a contentious one in Israel. Relatives of the roughly 140 hostages still in Hamas’ captivity fear that flooding the tunnels will endanger their loved ones, some of whom are believed to be held in the passages. In meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, freed hostages complained that the flooding would be a death sentence for those left behind, according to audio recordings published by Hebrew news site Ynet last week.   

Questioned about the flooding operation, US President Joe Biden claimed on Tuesday that he has heard “assertions” that “there’s no hostages in any of these tunnels. But I don’t know that for a fact.”

However, US officials have raised concerns that pumping large amounts of seawater underground could contaminate Gaza’s limited freshwater resources. Prior to the conflict with Israel, around 90% of the enclave’s drinking water came from groundwater wells, according to the Palestinian Water Authority. The remainder came from local desalination and wastewater plants – which cannot operate without fuel –  as well as Israeli pipelines, which Israel shut off immediately after Hamas’ October 7 attack.

From Israel’s perspective, filling the tunnels with water is preferable to sending troops beneath the ground to face armed militants and booby traps. While Israeli forces control much of Gaza City in the north of the strip and some of Khan Younis in the south, “the problem is Hamas is going underground,” former Israeli military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told the Wall Street Journal.

Even in the areas that Israel has taken, “the subterranean [theater] continues to be the challenge,” retired Israeli colonel Miri Eisin told the newspaper. 

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https://www.rt.com/news/589000-israel-flood-hamas-tunnels/

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Following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November of 1963, Supo wrote a memorandum on JFK’s reported killer Oswald’s stay in Finland but kept it secret from the public until now.

Yle, Finland’s national public broadcasting company, reported that Supo released several documents detailing Oswald’s visit to Finland.

The newly released file reveals Oswald arrived in Finland on October 10, 1959, at the Hotel Torni in Helsinki.

Oswald checked into room 309 in the hotel and was supposed to stay for five days until he left the hotel the second night to stay at the Klaus Kurki Hotel, where he remained for another three nights.

Supo was unable to determine the reason for Oswald’s visit to Finland but did note Oswald was able to obtain a Soviet visa “surprisingly quickly” after leaving Helsinki.

With the 60-year confidentiality period lifted, Supo’s recently released files offer insights into Oswald’s mysterious stay in Helsinki before he visited the Soviet Union.https://t.co/5qnDf78zTD

One interesting part of the memo reveals that Supo corrected one of its entries in its memo that originally stated Oswald flew from Helsingistä (Helsinki ) to Tukholmaan(Stockholm).

The intelligence agency corrected its memo by crossing out that Oswald went to Stockholm and instead wrote he flew to Moskovaan (Moscow).

The Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Supo) has declassified a 60-year-old file shedding light on Lee Harvey Oswald’s visit to Finland in 1959.

Lee Harvey Oswald went on to assassinate US President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. The following day, 23 November 1963, Supo wrote a memorandum on Oswald’s stay in Finland. Until now, that memo and two others have been kept secret.

The first memo, dated 23 July 1963, contains an incorrect entry. It stated that Oswald had traveled from Helsinki to Stockholm on the basis of information from the Klaus Kurki Hotel. In fact, Oswald was not going west but east.

The Supo inspector was correct in his assessment that Oswald had been in Helsinki ‘apparently waiting for a visa’. Later, a correction was made to the hotel register, according to which he left for Moscow via Vainikkala.

After leaving Helsinki, he arrived in Moscow, expressing an immediate desire for Soviet citizenship.

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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/12/finlands-intelligence-agency-declassifies-long-awaited-file-lee/

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A scarcity of global gunpowder supplies could trigger a substantial increase in ammunition prices, US company Vista Outdoor has warned, according to a Newsweek report. 

The Minnesota-based firm, which owns several firearms businesses, told the magazine last week that it would go ahead with an across-the-board increase of its ammunition and gunpowder prices on January 1. 

“Due to world events our suppliers have notified us of unprecedented demand for and an anticipated global shortage of gunpowder, and thus has increased our prices substantially,” Vista Outdoor’s vice president of sporting product sales, Brett Nelson, was quoted as saying in a letter. “We must therefore raise our pricing to help offset those increases.” 

Vista Outdoor also told customers that unless they cancel a delivery, the firm will reprice “existing and future orders shipped on or after January 1, 2024, to the new prices.” Revised price lists will be provided in the coming weeks, according to Nelson.

The report indicated that among the companies expected to increase prices are Remington, Alliant Powder, CCI, Federal, SEVI-Shot, and Speer.

Ammunition prices spiked during the Covid pandemic amid soaring sales and disrupted supply chains.

Vista Outdoor did not specify which global events had contributed to the price increase, according to Newsweek. The magazine, however, noted that the Ukraine conflict and the hostilities between Israel and Hamas had substantially pushed up ammunition demand.

The report also highlighted that Vista Outdoor had pledged a million-round ammunition donation to Ukraine for March 2024. “Supporting the relief effort is a crucial element of the global response and we are proud to do our part,” the company said. “It underscores how critical the Second Amendment is in America and highlights the importance of the ability of American Manufacturers to supply our allies with ammunition. We have long supported Ukrainian armed forces and we will continue to do so in this global cause to unite for democracy,” it added.

According to Newsweek, NATO allies and partners agreed $2.58 billion worth of contracts in September and orders for “hundreds of thousands of pieces of key ammunition” for Ukraine. The first deliveries are reportedly scheduled to start toward the end of this year.

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https://www.rt.com/business/588872-gunpowder-shortage-ammunition-prices/

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The Finnish Security Intelligence Service (SUPO) has declassified a 60-year-old file detailing Lee Harvey Oswald’s mysterious visit to Helsinki in advance of his defection to the Soviet Union, just over four years before he assassinated US President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Oswald was adjudged by the Warren Commission in September 1964 to have been the sole gunman who fired the fatal shots from the Texas School Book Depository on Elm Street in downtown Dallas that killed Kennedy the previous November.

The day after Kennedy’s murder – November 23, 1963 – SUPO composed a memorandum into Oswald’s Helsinki trip that paints a unique, if somewhat incomplete, portrait of one of the most infamous characters of the 20th century.

The newly declassified files show that former US Marine Oswald, then 19, checked into Helsinki’s Hotel Torni on October 10, 1959 for a five-night stay, but stayed for just two nights, local outlet Yle News reported Saturday. Oswald’s US passport application showed his stated intention for the trip was related to seeking education either in Switzerland or at the University of Turku in Finland.

However, as Yle notes, Oswald’s application to the Finnish university proved to be false and ignited speculation as to his true motivations. Despite their efforts, Finnish authorities were unable to discover more information about his movements during this brief period.

On October 12, 1959 Oswald applied for a USSR visa at the Soviet Embassy in Helsinki – an application, the Warren Commission would later note, that was approved unusually quickly. Details about his arrival in Helsinki also remain somewhat of a mystery. Uncertainties as to his exact route have led to speculation he arrived in Finland from either England or Sweden.

The SUPO investigation, the declassified files reveal, found it more likely that Oswald arrived via Stockholm either by plane or boat. The Finnish intelligence service also determined that while in Helsinki, Oswald had been “apparently waiting for a visa.”

It also notes that after departing Helsinki, Oswald arrived in Moscow where he almost immediately expressed an interest in obtaining Soviet citizenship. Oswald spent about two and a half years in the Soviet Union, mostly in Minsk, present day Belarus, where he worked as a lathe operator in an electronics factory.

A separate trove of documents into Kennedy’s assassination released by the US government last year cited comment from former KGB officials who said that “at no time” was Oswald a KGB agent, and that he was considered to be “crazy and unpredictable” during his Soviet years. The US government source added that Oswald was suffering from depression and homesickness for much of his time in Belarus.

Oswald, who never formally renounced his US citizenship, returned to the United States in the summer of 1962. He was shot dead while in police custody by businessman Jack Ruby two days after Kennedy’s assassination.

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https://www.rt.com/news/588835-finland-jfk-oswald-files/

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Moscow will not allow Ukraine to continue being a “Nazi state” that poses a threat to both Russia and other nations, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. 

In an exclusive interview with AFP published on Saturday, Zakharova confirmed that the goals of “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine, as declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the onset of the conflict in February 2022, remain unchanged. According to Zakharova, the events surrounding the Ukrainian crisis have underscored Russia’s belief in the necessity of launching its special military operation.

“From the very beginning of the hostilities, the [Ukrainian] neo-Nazis have been cynically using the civilian population as ‘human shields’ and brutally treating Russian prisoners of war. Their main goal in this conflict is to kill as many Russians as possible,” Zakharova explained.

"We will not allow the existence on our borders of an aggressive Nazi state from whose territory there is a danger for Russia and its neighbors."

Asked about the prospects of somehow settling the conflict, Zakharova said that the only way to reach a “lasting peace” was, effectively, meeting all of Russia’s demands. “It is necessary to confirm the neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-free status of Ukraine, carry out its demilitarization and denazification, acknowledge new territorial realities, and ensure the rights of Russian-speaking citizens and national minorities living in this country,” she explained.

The spokeswoman also confirmed that Russia remains ready to resolve the conflict through diplomacy, stating that Moscow has never refused to do so. However, to make such negotiations possible, “the Kiev regime and its Western curators” must take “practical steps and show goodwill.” Thus far, neither of them have shown such “political will,” she added.

“A comprehensive, sustainable and just resolution of the conflict over Ukraine depends, to a large extent, on addressing its very causes. The West must stop pumping up the Ukrainian military with weaponry, while Kiev must cease hostilities and withdraw its troops from Russian territory,” Zakharova explained, referring to the four formerly-Ukrainian regions – Zaporozhye, Kherson, and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics – that were incorporated into Russia after referendums last fall. 

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https://www.rt.com/russia/588812-ukraine-aggressive-nazi-state/

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"Migrants must learn Russian and respect the law." – Putin - Moscow wants immigration but must safeguard the interests of Russia first, the president has said. ~ RT World News

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Immigrants who come to work and live in Russia must comply with its laws and respect its customs and traditions, including learning the language, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday.

Putin addressed the issue at a meeting of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, traditionally held in early December.

“We need to attract such labor resources that meet the interests of the Russian economy,” the president said. “This means that [these] people must be prepared from a linguistic, ethnocultural point of view. They must know our traditions and so on.”

The interest of Russia and its citizens “must be put first,” the president insisted. All immigrants and visitors also “must comply with Russian laws,” Putin clarified. “And, of course, we, as a civilized country, must also ensure their rights.” 

Russia is opening schools in several countries of the former Soviet Union – part of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to assist with Russian language instruction and cultural events, the president informed the council.

Moscow has withdrawn from several international human rights organizations because they have become “virtually controlled” by the West, demonstrating “political bias, hypocrisy, and open selectivity,”Putin said in his opening remarks.

For eight years, these organizations have looked away and have done nothing when confronted with “flagrant violations” by Ukraine against the residents of Donbass, he noted. Not only did they “not notice” the violations happening, but they also encouraged Russophobia and even supported countries “racing to take first place in the shameful competition” of hating Russia the most.

Moscow is fully committed to the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is “ready to cooperate with all interested countries and partners to find solutions to form an effective, fair, equal system for ensuring human rights for all,” Putin concluded.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/588503-putin-speaks-migrants/

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The algorithm behind Instagram’s Reels service has been found to recommend “jarring doses of salacious content” involving children to test accounts set up by the Wall Street Journal, in an investigation published on Monday.

The outlet says the purpose of the investigation was to see what kind of content the platform would suggest to accounts that primarily follow young gymnasts, cheerleaders, and other teen and preteen influencers. 

The WSJ says it decided to conduct the test after noticing that many of the subscribers to these types of accounts were adult men, some of whom had also demonstrated interest in sexual content related to both children and adults.

During its testing, the outlet claims that Instagram’s algorithm served up a large amount of salacious content, including “risqué footage of children as well as overtly sexual adult videos.” In between those videos, the WSJ says the platform also featured ads for some of the biggest US brands.

In one example, the outlet says Instagram offered a stream of videos which included an ad for a dating app, a video of someone stroking a life-size latex doll, and a video of a young girl lifting her shirt to expose her midriff. Another stream featured a commercial, followed by a video of a man lying on a bed with his arm around a ten-year-old girl.

According to the WSJ, the Canadian Center for Child Protection ran similar tests on Instagram and reported similar results.

Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram and Facebook, responded to the WSJ investigation by stating that the outlet’s tests produced a “manufactured experience” that does not represent what the vast majority of its billions of users see. 

Nevertheless, a number of businesses have chosen to cancel advertising for their products on Meta’s platforms, with Match spokeswoman Justine Sacco saying, “We have no desire to pay Meta to market our brand to predators or place our ads anywhere near this content.”

Last month, Instagram was also targeted in a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of 41 US states, which accused the platform and its parent company of contributing to an ongoing mental health crisis among young people by purposely enticing them into compulsive social media use.

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https://www.rt.com/news/588206-instagram-algorithm-sexualizes-children/

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American spies have managed to recover at least nine potentially alien vehicles, two of them “completely intact,” the Daily Mail reported on Tuesday, citing three anonymous sources.

The sources, supposedly briefed on top secret operations, told the UK outlet that the main player in the retrievals has been the Office of Global Access (OGA), a branch of the CIA Science and Technology Directorate established in 2003.

“There’s at least nine vehicles. There were different circumstances for different ones,” one of the sources said. “It has to do with the physical condition they’re in. If it crashes, there’s a lot of damage done. Others, two of them, are completely intact.”

The CIA has a system to detect unidentified flying objects (UFO) “while they’re still cloaked” and helps special US military units salvage the wreckage if “non-human craft” land, crash, or are brought down, the source added.

Another anonymous source described the OGA’s role as “basically a facilitator” for US operatives to access areas where they would normally not be allowed.

“They are very clever at being able to get anywhere in the world they want to,” the second source said.

Most of OGA’s operations involve “stray nuclear weapons, downed satellites or adversaries’ technology,” according to the Mail, but some missions have involved retrieval of UFOs – or as the US government now prefers to call them, “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena”(UAP).

“The task at hand is simply to get it into custody and protect the secrecy of it,” one source said. “The actual physical retrieval is by the military. But it’s not kept under military control, because they have to keep too many records. So they start moving it out fairly quickly into private hands.”

Two of the sources said that the OGA coordinates with Delta Force or SEAL teams working under the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), or the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST), to recover the potentially alien craft. 

“We have nothing for you on this,” JSOC said in a written response to the British outlet. A NEST spokesperson said that the agency’s personnel “encounter materials from unknown origins on a regular basis,” but have “never encountered any material related to UAP.”

One of the sources described the CIA as the “portfolio manager” of the UFO “crash retrieval operation.” Recovered radioactive materials are sent to national laboratories run by the Department of Energy, while “aerospace-defense industry” contractors handle “other non-radioactive material – and intact craft,” the source claimed.

After three military and intelligence whistleblowers testified about the UFO retrieval program to US Congress in July, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sponsored a bill that would require the government to disclose “recovered technologies of unknown origin and biological evidence of non-human intelligence.” This UAP Disclosure Act was adopted as part of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act in September.

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https://www.rt.com/news/588160-ufo-retrieved-cia-whistleblowers/

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By Alicia Powe Nov. 25, 2023

Salon Magazine’s senior politics writer Chauncey Devega commemorated Thanksgiving with a fearmongering article devoted to hating Donald Trump and debasing Americans who intend to vote for the former president in 2024.

“Trump and his allies and acolytes are publicly planning to make him America’s first de facto dictator, which will mean the end of the country’s democracy,” Devega warns in an article titled ‘Democracy’s last Thanksgiving‘ published Thursday.

Trump is trouncing Biden in every rigged poll amid skyrocketing inflation, oil and gasoline prices shooting through the roof, manufacturing plants exploding on a regular basis, the Justice Department’s unprecedented prosecution of political speech as Americans continue to suffer from the fallout from the experimental Covid mandates, the government’s continuous allocation of billions of American tax dollars to Ukraine — to name a few of the Biden regime’s catastrophic blunders that pose an actual existential threat to the republic.

Biden’s incoherence, incompetence and incontinence have ushered in new dismal standards for the commander-in-chief.

Trump is resoundingly fairing better than Biden in polls and “ahead of Biden in key ‘battleground states'” because Americans are stupid, Devega contends.

“Journalists, pundits, the mainstream political class, other experts, and everyday Americans who follow politics and current events closely assume that the average member of the public does so as well. There are decades of research by political scientists and other experts, however, that shows this to not be true. In reality, most Americans are politically disengaged, lack a sophisticated understanding of political matters, are imagistic and emotional, have a difficult time retaining and understanding complex information, do not pay close attention to elections until they decide to vote, and more generally are civically illiterate,” the Salon author writes. “More than half of the American public reads below a sixth-grade level.”

“In all, the average voter also makes political decisions based on “calculations” and concerns that mainstream professional politics watchers — especially liberals and progressives — would find ‘irrational.”

In addition to the support Trump is garnering across the aisle, foul play will tip the election in Trump’s favor, Devega surmises.

“Given the Electoral College, voter nullification and voter suppression, gerrymandering and other structural failings in American “democracy” there is a very real and growing probability that Donald Trump will return to power in 2025,” he notes.

The media and ‘experts’ have failed to persuade the public into believing “Dictator Trump” is fascist, Devega laments.

“The sum effect is that these discussions and warnings about America’s ‘democracy crisis’ and ‘fascism’ are often ignored or filtered out by large portions of the public as being just more ‘partisan bickering’ and ‘politics as usual,'” he writes. “Intervening against that dangerous tendency requires making the stakes and implications of Trump’s return to power and the end of American democracy very clear, very direct, and very real for the average person. The mainstream news media and political class have largely failed in that task.”

“To that point, this may be the last Thanksgiving where the American people will live in a democracy, however flawed and ailing it may be, where their basic Constitutional and other civil rights are relatively secure.”

To educate ignorant Americans about the GOP subverting democracy, Devega features analysis from several experts to illuminate his Trump Doomsday fantasy scenario, primarily from anti-American rinos.

Brynn Tannehill, author of “American Fascism: How the GOP is Subverting Democracy, is worried the transgender community will be forced to “detransition” if Republicans take power.

Echoing the Hollywood elites, Tannehill  vows to flee the country if Trump is elected.

“How will I spend Thanksgiving in the years following a Trump re-election? In Canada, on the second Monday of October. I suppose we’ll be thankful we got out because Republicans at both the state and federal level are making it clear that their goal is a future with every trans person either in the closet or detransitioned,” Tannehill writes. “If Trump goes down, the status quo holds for another 4 years. We’ll see if the GOP continues to be just as dedicated to “eradicating transgenderism” in 2028. Based on the core characteristics of fascism, my guess is yes.”

Rick Wilson, co-founder of The Lincoln Project and author of “Everything Trump Touches Dies” is afraid he will be targeted by the DOJ if Trump is reelected.

“If Trump wins in 2024, it’ll be a dark Thanksgiving indeed,” he bemoans. “Like millions of Americans, I’ll be contemplating how to protect my family from the coming authoritarianism Trump and his people have promised. As someone Trump ordered Bill Barr to investigate back in 2020, I’m likely on their list. It almost seems absurd to type those words, but it’s important to plan for the worst.”

Cheri Jacobus, a former Republican National Committee media spokesperson, assures that she maintains “a glimmer of hope that Justice will prevail” despite “the past 8 years of Trump thuggery, bigotry and treason.”

“I have hope and some faith because of Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky. Because of Fani Willis, Tish James, Jack Smith. Voters in an off-year election this month turned out to defeat Trumpism and MAGA fascism, giving me hope they will do so again next year,” Jacobus Some in our justice system appear to have the competency, backbone, and commitment to holding criminals accountable, despite a long history of Trump and some of his team skating on obvious crimes.”

It seems like just yesterday Democrats and leftwing pundits labeled Thanksgiving a function of white supremacy and genocide and sought to cancel the holiday.

Funny how that works.

Americans who “have a difficult time retaining and understanding complex information” lambasted Salon’s Thanksgiving tribute to Trump on social media.

Your weird “anti-America” agenda is crumbling and it’s glorious to watch everyone squirm … lol

— msnatalie (@realmsnatalie) November 24, 2023

Don’t you people ever get weary of your fear mongering? Do you not get tired of how deceitful you are? SMDH!

— SherriMutts4me (@mutts4me_sherri) November 24, 2023

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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/11/salon-magazine-this-is-democracys-last-thanksgiving-if/

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The "Last Generation" climate change group has been designated as a “criminal organization” by the Munich Regional Court, which announced the ruling on Thursday after considering ten complaints from the climate activists over searches and seizures.

The court dismissed the complaints, ruling that the Last Generation meets the requirements to be considered an organized crime group – arguing that committing crimes does not necessarily need to be the only purpose of a group to be designated as such.

The court said the group’s activities, including disrupting traffic and damaging property, constitute a significant threat to public safety and order.

The Last Generation group emerged in 2021, formed from participants of the ‘last generation hunger strike’, a protest action to demand a “public conversation about the climate emergency” with the candidates at the time for chancellor of Germany. The action involved camping out in Berlin’s government district, as well as disrupting traffic in the city.

The group has since grown, remaining active primarily in Germany, Austria, and Italy. The Last Generation activists have blocked major traffic routes and airports, disrupted the work of facilities related to the fossil fuel industry, as well as staging attacks on museums, with the goal of bringing attention to climate change issues.

These activities have placed the group in the media spotlight, attacking paintings by artists such as van Gogh and Monet. The methods of the Last Generation activists are similar to those of the UK-based ‘Just Stop Oil’ group, and have involved smearing foodstuffs on paintings covered with protective glass.

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https://www.rt.com/news/587873-climate-change-criminal-organization/

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Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Wednesday declaring 2024 the ‘Year of the Family’ and appointing a deputy prime minister to head a government commission that will spearhead the program.

The ‘Year of the Family’ initiative aims to “promote state policy in the field of family protection and preservation of traditional family values,”according to the document, which takes effect immediately.

The Russian government has been given until December 27 to set up a committee for implementing the ‘Year of the Family’, appoint its members, develop a plan of activities, and determine the source of funding for them.

The committee will be chaired by Tatiana Golikova, deputy prime minister for Social Policy, Labor, Health and Pensions.

In addition to the central government, the governing officials of the constituent subjects of the Russian Federation – regions, republics and so on – will be instructed to “carry out the necessary activities” to implement the ‘Year of the Family’ in 2024.

The initiative comes amid a debate in the Russian legislature about possible restrictions on abortion, which Putin called an “acute problem” in a speech earlier this month. The number of abortions in Russia has decreased drastically from 2.13 million in 2000 to 506,000 in 2022, in part thanks to government policies encouraging parenthood.

Putin has described family policy as “extremely important for the future” of Russia, reminding lawmakers that the country underwent a birth-rate collapse in the 1990s comparable to that of the Second World War, but has since recovered. 

Russia last held a ‘Year of the Family’ in 2008. At the time, the government’s focus was on regulating adoptions of Russian orphans by foreign nationals. Adoptions by Americans were eventually banned in 2012. One lawmaker recently proposed extending the ban to countries that allow “gender change” as well. Adoptions by same-sex couples have been illegal in Russia since 2013.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/587813-putin-year-family-2024/

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US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has arrived in Kiev on an unannounced visit, the Pentagon said on Monday. He held meetings with the Ukrainian leadership to provide reassurance about Washington’s commitment to providing military assistance to Ukraine, the statement said. However, no specific new aid packages were announced.

“I’m here today to deliver an important message – the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine,” Austin wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) as he shared a photo of himself being welcomed by the Ukrainian officials at a railway station in Kiev.

Later, he also said he had held talks with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and once again promised “the United States’ steadfast support for Ukraine.” He added that Washington and its allies would provide for both the Ukrainian forces’ “urgent battlefield needs and long-term defense requirements.”

Neither Austin nor the Pentagon mentioned any specific new commitments regarding military assistance for Kiev. The US Department of Defense only said that the discussions in Kiev had been focused on ensuring that Kiev’s troops have the “battlefield capabilities they need” for the upcoming winter and beyond.

Two weeks ago, the Pentagon said only around $1 billion dollars is left for military assistance for Ukraine. Washington has spent around 95% of its previous funding for Kiev, Department of Defense deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said at the time. It urged Congress to pass a new spending bill on Ukrainian aid so supplies can continue, adding that it would otherwise have to ration future deliveries. No such legislation has been adopted so far.

Earlier this week, Zelensky’s top aide, Mikhail Podoliak, criticized what he called the slow delivery of Western weapons. Aid deliveries are taking between “90 or 120 days” instead of the “seven to ten days”promised by Washington and its allies, he said.

A senior Russian MP called Austin’s visit a “mission of moral support.”The Pentagon chief’s main goal in Kiev was to prevent Washington’s pet “anti-Russia project” from collapsing and reassure the “puppet regime” in Ukraine of America’s support, Leonid Slutsky, the head of the Russian State Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote in a Telegram post.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu also said earlier this month that “despite the supply of new kinds of NATO weapons, the Kiev regime is losing.” The Ukrainian troops have been waging a major counteroffensive operation since early June, which has failed to bring about any tangible results so far despite ample Western military support. Ukraine’s losses in the assault have amounted to more than 90,000 troops, as well as about 600 tanks and 2,000 armored vehicles, according to the Russian minister.

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https://www.rt.com/news/587672-pentagon-chief-surprise-visit-kiev/

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The Russian Justice Ministry said Friday it has filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court to label the “international LGBT public movement” as extremist and to outlaw its operations in the country.

In a statement posted on its website, the ministry argued that “the LGBT movement” has been engaged in various activities that qualify it as an “extremist group.” Specifically, it has been sowing “social and religious discord,” the ministry stated.

It was not immediately clear exactly which groups the potential ban would affect and whether the ‘extremist’ designation would have any consequences for LGBT ideology itself, becoming the basis to take action against various public organizations.

In Russia, the largest such public organization is the so-called ‘Russian LGBT network,’ a civic platform created in the mid-2000s, which brings together various regional groups advocating the rights of sexual minorities.

The network, which two years ago was labeled a “foreign agent,” is an internationally-recognized entity and is a part of LIGA – the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association – a major Switzerland-based NGO promoting gay rights and active since the 1970s.

Over the past few years, Russia has gradually tightened its legislation aimed at curbing the spread of the “LGBT ideology.” In 2013, it outlawed “LGBTQ propaganda” deemed to be aimed at minors. The ban was reinforced last December, when legislation introducing hefty fines for anyone found guilty of promoting “non-traditional sexual relations,” pedophilia, and transgenderism, among minors and adults alike, was adopted.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/587496-justice-ministry-lgbt-ban/

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Ukraine is bankrupt and the country is unable to fill its budget deficit on its own, as it relies almost entirely on Western aid, former Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov stated on Friday.

The former politician argued that the economic crisis in Ukraine began a long time ago and the country’s bankruptcy had already been recorded. According to him, Ukraine’s insolvency is manifested in the fact that the country is unable to fill its budget.

“75% of the budget is borrowed or grant funds! And they got to such a point that salaries in October depended on whether the European Union would transfer on time the promised aid of €1.5 billion,” Azarov wrote on Facebook.

Meanwhile, public debt is soaring and the budget deficit is widening despite Western aid, according to Azarov.

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s central bank revised this year’s budget deficit forecast to 20.4% of the gross domestic product instead of the 19.8% previously expected, in what would be the worst performance since 1992.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal last week announced that Kiev was expecting a financial injection worth $30 billion from the EU, the US, and the International Monetary Fund, which would help the country plug its budget gap.

Azarov has previously warned that the country’s economy is “falling apart” as it shows signs of life only with foreign financial assistance, requiring more and more of it.

According to the Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko, next year Ukraine’s budget will lack $29 billion without Western financing.

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https://www.rt.com/business/587486-ukraine-economy-bankrupt/

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El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, at the inauguration of the February 3 Hydroelectric Power Plant in San Luis de la Reina, October 19, 2023. © Getty Images / SOPA Images / Contributor

The price of bitcoin has more than doubled in the twelve months since El Salvador announced its ambitious plan to add the world’s most popular cryptocurrency to its national treasury.

On November 17, 2022, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele committed to buying one bitcoin on a daily basis.

If the Central American country has stuck to its plan, by now it would have managed to amass a total of 365 bitcoins, which today are worth about $13 million, according to Bitcoin historian Pete Rizzo, as cited by several cryptocurrency-focused media outlets.

However, the cost basis for these acquisitions is reportedly notably lower at $9.5 million, or a $3 million gain.

Investing in bitcoin was not the only crypto-friendly initiative pushed by Bukele. El Salvador accepted bitcoin as legal tender back in September 2021. Later that year, the head of state announced plans to build a ‘Bitcoin City’ funded initially by bitcoin-backed bonds.

Bitcoin purchasing efforts, along with an energetic push towards the cryptocurrency, have boosted tourism, but have also drawn the scrutiny of international regulators, with skepticism growing over the lack of transparency regarding the actual purchases.

The price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency increased 29.2% in the last 30 days and recorded an impressive growth of 121.6% in the past year. On November 16, 2022, bitcoin was trading around a $16,000 price level. It is currently trading above $36,000.

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https://www.rt.com/business/587459-el-salvador-bitcoin-profit-surge/

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The US Department of Defense has allegedly ramped up weapons deliveries to Israel without making any public announcements of the move, Bloomberg has reported. The media outlet claimed that deliveries of artillery shells, which supposedly feature prominently on Israel’s wish list, continue despite protests by dozens of relief organizations.  

The US has for decades been Israel’s closest ally and a major weapons supplier. Following Hamas’ surprise attack on the country on October 7, Washington quickly came to Israel’s rescue, providing it with Iron Dome air defense missiles and smart bombs.  

Citing an internal Defense Department list dated late October, Bloomberg on Wednesday reported that the Pentagon had been dipping into its stocks at home and in Europe to furnish Israel with 36,000 rounds of 30mm cannon ammunition and approximately 2,000 Hellfire Laser Guided missiles for the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. The list also included 57,000 155mm High Explosive artillery shells, as well as mortars, rifles, and night vision devices, among other items. Israel reportedly also requested 200 armor-piercing Switchblade 600 strike drones, which the US military does not have in its inventory. 

When asked for comment, the Defense Department said in a statement that it was “leveraging several avenues — from internal stocks to US industry channels – to ensure Israel has the means to defend itself.” Officials added that “this security assistance continues to arrive on a near-daily basis.” 

The reported deliveries have apparently continued despite the Biden administration publicly calling on Israel to exercise restraint and to avoid civilian casualties during its ongoing operation against Hamas in Gaza.

On Monday, thirty relief groups sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, urging him to halt  the deliveries of 155mm shells in particular. They argued that, since Gaza is “one of the world’s most densely populated places, 155mm artillery shells are inherently indiscriminate.”

On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives approved a bill proposed by Speaker Mike Johnson over the weekend to avoid a looming government shutdown this Friday.  

Aid for Ukraine and Israel is conspicuously absent from the stopgap legislation, which aims to secure funding for US government agencies through mid-January and early February. 

The Biden administration originally asked Congress last month to approve a massive $106 billion assistance package for Ukraine and Israel. However, Republicans opposed the plan, leading to a political deadlock. 

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https://www.rt.com/news/587347-us-increase-supply-israel/

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