Author: 5amResearch

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The South Grouping of the Russian armed forces has eliminated over 285 Ukrainian military and mercenaries, as well as 17 military vehicles and a weapons depot in the Donetsk direction over the past day, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday. “Over the past day, nine sorties were carried out in this area [near Donetsk]. Artillery of the grouping completed 98 striking missions. Over the day, more than 285 Ukrainian military and mercenaries, two tanks, three infantry…

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russia has launched the serial production of the Cheytac sniper rifle cartridge made from domestic components only, thanks to import substitution, the head of Russian arms manufacturer Lobaev Arms, Vladislav Lobaev, told Sputnik. “We have created a fully Russian cartridge for caliber 375 Cheytac rifles, and have already begun its mass production. For the first time, our 375 Cheytac rifles are supplied with Russian cartridges developed by Lobaev Arms and gunpowder from a Kazan enterprise, before we…

WASHINGTON – Google, a unit of Alphabet, has agreed to pay US$8 million (S$10.7 million) to settle claims it used deceptive advertisements to promote the Pixel 4 smartphone, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Friday.

The search and advertising giant, which also makes Android smartphone software and owns YouTube, has been scrutinised for antitrust and consumer protection infractions by both the federal government and state attorneys general. The federal government has filed two antitrust lawsuits.

In this instance, Paxton’s office alleged that Google hired radio announcers to give testimonials about the Pixel 4 even though the company had refused to allow them to use one of the phones.

“If Google is going to advertise in Texas, their statements better be true,” Paxton said in a statement. “In this case, the company made statements that were blatantly false, and our settlement holds Google accountable for lying to Texans for financial gain.”

HELSINKI (Sputnik) – US Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter jets have begun training flights in Estonia, a local broadcaster reported on Wednesday. According to the report, 12 fighter jets were transferred from the United States to a Polish airbase for military drills in early April. Three of the fighters arrived at Estonia’s Amari airbase near Tallinn this week. The drills include the practice of quickly responding to threats in cooperation with other countries. US Ambassador in Estonia George Kent told…

TOKYO – Japan’s SoftBank Group reported an annual net loss of 970 billion yen (S$9.6 billion) for the year ended March 31, with the Vision Fund unit posting a quarterly investment loss due to weakness in tech valuations.

Chief executive Masayoshi Son’s attempt to bestride the tech investing industry has suffered a series of high-profile reversals after outsized bets through SoftBank’s first Vision Fund turned sour and investments made at bubbly valuations via a smaller second fund slumped.

With key architects of that strategy having left, Mr Son has focused on shoring up the balance sheet, cutting his stake in e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding and stepping back from trademark presentations to focus on the listing of chip designer Arm.

United States to provide $1.2 billion in new military aid to Ukraine, including air defenses and ammunition. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says it is “only a matter of time before we can restore a sustainable and just peace for our part of Europe, for Ukraine.” Agence France-Presse journalist Arman Soldin was killed by rocket fire in eastern Ukraine where journalists were with a group of Ukrainian soldiers. The U.S. said Wednesday that for the first time it has sent an…

Beijing vows to ‘fight back resolutely and forcefully’ but denies that its diplomat intimidated a politician. By Paul Eckert for RFA 2023.05.09 — China expelled a Canadian diplomat in Shanghai on Tuesday, a day after Ottawa announced it would expel a Chinese diplomat accused of trying to intimidate a Canadian politician. The tit-for-tat expulsions follow years of strained ties between the major Pacific trade partners, and come amid mounting Canadian public concern about Chinese influence operations in the country in…

LONDON – Britain is set to formally blacklist Russia’s mercenary force Wagner group as a terrorist organisation to increase pressure on Russia, The Times newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Wagner mercenaries have spearheaded Russia’s months-long assault on Bakhmut in the industrial Donbas region.

After two months of building a legal case, proscription or a formal blacklisting of the group was “imminent” and likely to be enacted within weeks, the newspaper reported citing a government source.

Brief #1: How The EU Plans To Crack Down On Sanctions Circumvention What You Need To Know: One of the most frequently asked questions in Brussels right now when it comes to its ever-growing sanctions on Russia is whether they are efficient. The 10 rounds of restrictive measures imposed on the Kremlin since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 evidently hasn’t changed Moscow’s willingness to continue the war. In fact, the Russian economy contracted by just 2 percent…

  LinkedIn is cutting 716 jobs and will begin phasing out its local jobs app in China. In a letter today, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslanky said the decision to shutter the standalone China app, called InCareer, was because of “fierce competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate.” While reducing some roles, LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft and has 20,000 employees, also plans to open about 250 new jobs in some segments of its operations, and new business and accounting management…

WASHINGTON – A Federal Reserve report warned that banks’ concerns about slower growth could lead them to make fewer loans, accelerating an economic downturn, and highlighted commercial real estate as an area of heightened risk that will draw more scrutiny from bank examiners.

The US central bank’s financial stability report released on Monday is the first since four regional lenders collapsed. The episodes prompted weeks of wild trading in bank stocks and forced regulators to take a series of extraordinary steps that included backstopping all depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Three Colombian nationals are facing federal charges in Miami accusing them of drugging two U.S. Army soldiers at a Bogota bar three years ago to steal their debit and credit cards and their phones, U.S. law enforcement officials announced Friday. Jeffersson Arango, Kenneth Uribe and Pedro Silva have been indicted on kidnapping, assault and conspiracy charges for the alleged March 2020 drugging, abduction and robbery that left the soldiers with little memory of what happened. According…

A maintenance contractor’s error, and lack of adequate oversight by the Navy, led to the spill of 1,300 gallons of toxic fire suppressant at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage site near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, on Nov. 29, 2022. Military investigators found that the contractor improperly installed an air vacuum valve on the system that carries Aqueous Film Forming Foam, used to suppress fires caused by flammable liquids, just inside the underground facility’s Adit 6 tunnel in April…

Source: Iran Press TV Saturday, 06 May 2023 4:26 PM The United States is preparing an express weapons delivery for Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), despite Bejing’s repeated warnings to Washington against arming the self-ruled island, which China considers a part of its territory. The administration of US President Joe Biden will use the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) to expedite the arms shipment to Taiwan, Bloomberg reported. In a report on Friday, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg said the…

Content moderators under Sama, Meta’s content review sub-contractor in Africa, earlier today picketed at the company’s headquarters in Kenya demanding April salary, while urging it to observe the court orders that barred it from conducting mass layoffs. The demonstrations came after Sama, in an email, instructed moderators to clear with the company by May 11, a move the employees say is against the existing court orders. The 184 moderators sued Sama for allegedly laying them off unlawfully, after it wound down…

NEW YORK – US authorities are investigating the work Goldman Sachs did for Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in the weeks before it failed, including its advice that the smaller lender sell a large portfolio of securities at a loss, according to a regulatory filing by Goldman on Thursday.

Goldman said it was “cooperating with and providing information to various governmental bodies in connection with their investigations and inquiries” into SVB, which collapsed suddenly March 10, touching off a crisis of confidence that has led to the failure of two more regional lenders, and a panic in the stock market over the fate of others.

The investigations include “the firm’s business with SVB in or around March 2023, when SVB engaged the firm to assist with a proposed capital raise and SVB sold the firm a portfolio of securities,” Goldman’s filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission said.