Tag: Refugees

America’s Neo-Nazi bedfellows in Ukraine are latest in long line of odious allies Washington has used against Russia

Ms. Cat

By Tony Cox, a US journalist who has written and edited for Bloomberg and several major daily newspapers.

From pogrom-mongers to Hitlerites to radical Islamists, the US has collaborated with repugnant partners for more than a century

America’s Neo-Nazi bedfellows in Ukraine are latest in long line of odious allies Washington has used against Russia (Alternative source)
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The SPD and Greens seek to gag rock musician Roger Waters and silence criticism of NATO’s war in Ukraine

Ms. Cat

Members of the Munich city council, a coalition of the SPD and the Green Party, are seeking to prevent Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters from performing his This Is Not a Drill show at the city-owned Olympiahalle on May 21, 2023. Advance sales for the concert have already begun.

The SPD and Greens seek to gag rock musician Roger Waters and silence criticism of NATO’s war in Ukraine

150 Churches in the New Russian Regions (Former Ukraine) Damaged, Russia Will Repair Them (PHOTOS)

Ms. Cat

Fr. Nikolai Balashov, a senior official in the Moscow Patriarchate and a close advisor to the Patriarch gave an interview to Novosti, Russia’s largest news agency this past Friday describing the efforts of the Russian Orthodox Church to help their flock in the new regions to resume normal church life, attend services, give confession and receive communion.

150 Churches in the New Russian Regions (Former Ukraine) Damaged, Russia Will Repair Them (PHOTOS)

Blinken heads to Latin America after Venezuelans and Colombians Celebrate the ‘Historical’ Reopening of Border

Ms. Cat1 Comment

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will head next week to Colombia and Chile to forge ties with new left-leaning leaders elected in the historic US allies, the State Department announced Friday.

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The secretary will later travel to Peru for a meeting of the Organization of American States and separately meet with President Pedro Castillo and other top officials.

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In Colombia, Blinken will discuss “supporting strong democratic governments and respect for human rights throughout the Western Hemisphere,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

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On his last visit to Colombia in October 2021 and later at a US-led summit in Los Angeles, Blinken has encouraged regional cooperation to address migration, a key political issue in the United States for Biden.

Blinken heads to Latin America to see new left-leaning leaders

Related:

Venezuelans and Colombians Celebrate the ‘Historical’ Reopening of Border

What’s wrong with the USA?

Ms. Cat

China has been, variously described as a rising power, a sleeping dragon and a collapsing economy. Most of the rhetoric is driven from the US. Inside their government, both the Senate and Congress have anti-China hawks, their State Department seems to see a threat at every turning point and their military seems to believe that a defensive People’s liberation Army is a bad thing as it threatens US interests. Books reports and documentaries are created about mass dissatisfaction which extended academic research seems unable to identify.

What’s wrong with the USA? (archived)

Massive Study Involving YouTube Finds ‘Pre-Bunking’ Inoculates People Against Misinfo

Ms. Cat

Massive Study Involving YouTube Finds ‘Pre-Bunking’ Inoculates People Against Misinfo

One question that naturally springs to mind is: who gets to determine what counts as a false or “manipulative” narrative? Is it the government? A corporation like Google? A select panel of academic experts? In short: who gets to be the arbiter of this very important epistemological function? And how do you maintain confidence in that arbiter when so much of the misinformation crisis is driven by public distrust in official narratives?

When you look at recent examples of “pre-bunking,” you can see that it hasn’t always gone so smoothly. One of the most prominent instances of “pre-bunking” occurred during the lead up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the State Department controversially announced that Russia was planning to distribute a professionally produced propaganda video that involved pyrotechnics and “crisis actors.” The video would be used to blame Ukraine for terroristic attacks on civilians and would help to justify the invasion, the U.S. said. Unfortunately, not everybody bought what the State Department was selling: an Associated Press reporter expressed incredulity at the claims and blatantly called out the government for spreading “Alex Jones” style bunkum.

Even more problematically, the video never materialized. Was it because America’s “pre-bunking” efforts stopped the Russians from releasing their video? Or was it because the video never existed in the first place? Under the circumstances, it’s impossible to say—and, therefore, it’s also impossible to gauge whether the U.S. was being a good-faith “pre-bunker” or was actually spreading its own disinformation.