Tag: z.RT

The platform’s Global Government Affairs account issued a statement on Monday outlining its recent decisions in light of the Turkish court orders, saying it was forced to take action against four accounts and 409 individual tweets.  “We received what we believed to be a final threat to throttle the service – after several such warnings,” it said, adding that it deleted the accounts and posts “in order to keep Twitter available over the election weekend.”

“Following a complaint, an investigation was opened in December 2022 into deceptive marketing practices and programmed obsolescence,” the office said in a statement on Monday, adding that the complaint was filed by an activist group called ‘Halte a L’Obsolescence Programmee’ (HOP).  The group’s complaint centers around the practice of ‘serialization’, whereby spare parts like microchips or speakers are matched with serial numbers to a specific generation of iPhone. This prevents third-party repairers from using generic parts, and as models are phased out by Apple, so too are the associated spares, forcing customers to shell out for a newer model.

In an article on Sunday, Politico quoted an anonymous official from Macron’s office as saying that “what Ukraine needs is combat equipment, armored vehicles, tanks, artillery.” In addition, Paris will heed Kiev’s calls to supply more air defense systems, the source stated.

When asked whether France was considering sending fighter jets to Ukraine, the official dismissed the issue as “a bit premature,” stressing that the focus should currently be on land operations and air defense.

Demonstrators demanded the closure of the US’ Okinawa bases. The island’s inhabitants are weary of the pollution – both chemical and aural – produced by Washington’s military outposts, as well as the high number of crimes committed by American servicemembers, from petty theft and drunk driving to rape and murder.  Governor Denny Tamaki has urged the Japanese and US governments to reduce the Pentagon’s footprint on the island, which hosts 70% of all US military facilities in Japan despite comprising just 1% of the country’s total land area. 

Western media seems to be actively trying to create an “information tsunami” about the topic, according to Pushilin, who suggested it could mean the leaks may have been deliberate.

“Who knows, this could be the preparation of the global community for a possible reduction in support for Ukraine on the eve of the highly publicized counteroffensive by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Pushilin wrote. He also said, however, that regardless of the content of the leaked documents or the true intentions of the West, Russia’s task is to continue working and not respond to provocations.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday officially declared Evan Gershkovich to be “wrongfully detained” by Russia. The Wall Street Journal reporter was arrested in Yekaterinburg last month and charged with espionage. “Journalism is not a crime. We condemn the Kremlin’s continued repression of independent voices in Russia, and its ongoing war against the truth,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said in a statement. Blinken’s designation means that the State Department will now involve its office that negotiates the release of “wrongfully detained” Americans abroad, and provide “all appropriate support” for Gershkovich.

A video published by the Defense Ministry showed dozens of soldiers being driven home in buses and provided with food and fresh clothes. Some of them are visibly overwhelmed with emotion, while others appear exhausted. According to the Russian ministry, the soldiers included in the latest swap were in “mortal danger” while in Ukrainian captivity. The ministry did not provide…

The Department of Defense has sent over a criminal referral to the DOJ to trigger the probe, according to Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh. Meanwhile, an internal investigation has been launched to “review and assess the validity” of the documents, which “appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material.”  Photographs of scanned briefing slides were first posted on a messaging platform called Discord in January, but went unnoticed until last week. Since then, more documents have appeared on Twitter and Telegram as well, with the latest batch emerging on Friday.  According to Financial Times, their release has “sown chaos and paranoia among Washington’s national security apparatus ahead of a critical moment” in the Ukraine conflict, just as Kiev is about to launch a highly anticipated “counter-offensive.”

Germans appear to be particularly susceptible to what Bild described as Moscow’s “propaganda,” the newspaper said, adding that experts in the West are “alarmed” over this development. The tabloid then blamed this tendency on the “historically friendly relations” between the two nations, as well as the “legacy” of East Germany, which was once a part of the “socialist camp” and “a large number of Russian-speaking people” living in Germany nowadays. The paper then admitted that pro-Russian views have been spreading both among native Germans and the Russian-speaking part of the population.

According to nine former workers who talked to the agency, groups of employees shared private footage of customers in Tesla’s internal one-on-one chats between 2019 and 2022. One of the clips in question captured a man approaching his electric car while he was completely naked, one of the sources said.

In recent days, industrial action by refinery workers has intensified, leading to supply disruptions as members of French unions stopped refineries and depots from delivering fuel, the outlet said. According to the latest data compiled by the news outlet, the Val-de-Marne department in Ile-de-France is the worst affected with nearly half (49.4%) of its petrol stations facing partial or complete fuel supply disruption. The second-worst-affected area was the Paris region, where 38.8% of petrol stations were experiencing shortages of at least one type of fuel as of April 6. Drivers reported problems at 39.7% of pumps in Hauts-de-Seine, while 24.2% of pumps in Indre-et-Loire were also affected, reporting little or no supply.

An estimated 60 tornadoes wreaked havoc across at least eight US states on Friday and over the weekend, destroying houses, felling trees, and flipping cars. Tennessee appeared to have been hit the hardest, with officials in McNairy County alone reporting nine deaths.  The local sheriff said that all the deceased were in the buildings destroyed by the disaster. In the same state, tornadoes killed one person in Tipton County, with 28 injured.  At least five people died in Arkansas, four in Illinois, and three in Indiana, according to officials. Authorities in Mississippi, Delaware, Ohio and Alabama reported one death per state. 

In Arkansas, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency while activating the National Guard to help with tornado response and asking for federal assistance.  In Belvidere, northern Illinois, a tornado led to the collapse of a roof at the Apollo Theatre, where spectators had gathered to listen to the metal band Morbid Angel, killing one and injuring 40 others.  The disaster also caused severe power outages, which on Saturday amounted to over one million customers, according to poweroutage.us. The bad weather also spilled over to other states, leaving more than 100,000 customers in Pennsylvania and tens of thousands in Ohio and West Virginia without electricity.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “deeply concerned” about the development, adding that “in the strongest possible terms, we condemn the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish journalists and civil society voices.” “We reiterate our strong warnings about the danger posed to US citizens inside the Russian Federation. US citizens residing or traveling in Russia should depart immediately,” the top diplomat said in a statement. A similar message was conveyed by the White House, with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stating that the “targeting of American citizens by the Russian government is unacceptable.”

“We also condemn the Russian government’s continued targeting and repression of journalists and freedom of the press,” she added, urging Americans to “heed the US government’s warning to not travel to Russia” or leave should they happen to already be in the country. The call was somewhat watered down by US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, who explained Washington was not actually calling upon all Americans to literally leave Russia and was not encouraging news outlets to withdraw their correspondents from the country. Gershkovich, a WSJ correspondent who covers news from Russia, Ukraine, and the former USSR, was detained in the city of Ekaterinburg on suspicion of espionage, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced earlier in the day. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the journalist was caught “red-handed” while trying to obtain Russian state secrets.

“Two weeks we fought with Facebook to restore the suspended page of RT Arabic, with 17 million subscribers,” Manna said on her Telegram channel. “We tried to get an explanation of what triggered the shutdown, because we never got any strikes or comments.” After several awkward non-explanations, Facebook’s customer service “simply wished us luck, closed our case, and turned over the URL to another user,” Manna wrote. “Internet democracy in all its glory!” Facebook blocked the page on March 15, without any explanation or advance warning. Attempts to access the page resulted in the message, “this content isn’t available right now.”

Brigadier General Henrik Lyhne said Denmark’s military is facing what he referred to as its worst staffing issue in decades – a factor which he said will complicate efforts to meet Copenhagen’s NATO obligations. He added that low wages and below-par personnel housing have contributed to an exodus from the armed forces. This, in turn, has led to problems in Denmark supplying troops to the US-led military bloc’s eastern flank in Latvia.

“This is an emergency call,” Lynhe said in an interview broadcast on Monday. “The situation is extremely critical, especially because we lack soldiers like never before. I have been in the armed forces for 40 years, and it has never looked so bad.” 

Speaking to journalists via conference call, Peskov was asked to comment on the arrest of the American citizen and whether Russia will cooperate with US security services on the issue. The spokesperson stated that he was not aware of the details of the case and that the matter remains in the hands of the FSB.   However, Peskov claimed that as far as he was aware, Gershkovich had been caught in the act of trying to collect intelligence about a defense facility, in violation of Russian laws on state secrets, as announced by the FSB. The correspondent, who covers news from Russia, Ukraine, and the former USSR, could face between 10 and 20 years in prison if charged with espionage.  Although Gershkovich had obtained the necessary journalistic credentials from the Foreign Ministry to work in Russia, the FSB alleges that he “acted in the interest of the US government” when he was caught during “an attempt to receive” classified intelligence. 

Asked if the incident could provoke a response from US authorities regarding Russian journalists working in America, Peskov said that Moscow hopes no such retaliation will follow because “we are not talking about allegations here. He was caught in the act.”  The WSJ has reacted to the incident by stating that it is “deeply concerned for the safety of Mr Gershkovich.”  Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said that the issue of potentially exchanging the WSJ journalist in a swap deal has not been raised.   Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed that whatever Gershkovich was doing when he was detained by the FSB, it had “nothing to do with journalism.” She argued that the status of correspondent had previously been used as cover by other Western nationals attempting to obtain classified Russian intelligence.