According to Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Thursday, French protesters are utilizing Western weapons originally delivered to Kiev.

Zakharova explained to reporters that "weapons delivered to Kiev [by the West, NATO, and France] end up in the hands of protesters and are used against police in France."


The violent protests that shook France over the murder of a teenager at the hands of the police at a traffic stop, sweeping across the country and even spilling over to neighboring countries such as Switzerland, are now stoking concerns in Germany amid fears of the protests spreading over to the country.

Sweden's parliament on Tuesday adopted a new energy target, giving the right-wing government the green light to push forward with plans to build new nuclear plants in a country that voted 40 years ago to phase out atomic power.

Changing the target to "100% fossil-free" electricity, from "100% renewable" is key to the government's plan to meet an expected doubling of electricity demand to around 300 TwH by 2040 and reach net zero emissions by 2045.

"This creates the conditions for nuclear power," Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said in parliament. "We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity and we need a stable energy system."

"The evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario"

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Biden administration acted like an "Orwellian Ministry Of Truth" by working in conjunction with big tech platforms to censor opinions it didn't like during the Covid pandemic.

US District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana noted that the administration most likely violated the First Amendment as Republican attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana "produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content."

The bombardment came in response to several rockets fired from the Palestinian enclave.

Israel has carried out airstrikes on several alleged Hamas military sites in Gaza, claiming they are a response to rockets fired from the area early on Wednesday morning.

"Fighter jets recently attacked an underground site for the production of weapons that is used by the chemistry department of the terrorist organization Hamas and a site for the production of raw materials for the organization's rockets," the IDF said in a tweet at around 5:30 am local time.

French President Emmanuel Macron, struggling to contain another bout of violent protests across the country, met with mayors on Tuesday (4 July) and reportedly suggested the idea of regulating or limiting access to social media, depending on the severity of threats, including riots.

Following the police murder of Nahel M. on 27 June, widespread riots have swept across France, resulting in up to €1 billion in damage, with many of the clashes coordinated via social media sites like Snapchat, TikTok or Instagram.

According to BMFTV, Macron said on Tuesday that "when things go out of hand, maybe one may have to regulate or cut access [to social media]."

Rumours had it that the French government was considering cutting access to the internet. Yet the Interior Ministry called it "fake news" in a tweet on Sunday.

AFP said the same on Tuesday, repeating that it was fake news and explaining "it is technically unfeasible and illegal in France".

The uncontrolled accumulation of debt by Western countries is increasing the risk of a new global financial crisis, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Tuesday.

Addressing a virtual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) via videolink from Moscow, the Russian leader cited global threats that could increase "conflict potential" in the near future.

"The risks of a new global economic and financial crisis are rising against the background of the uncontrolled accumulation of debt in developed countries, social stratification and growing poverty around the world, and deteriorating food and environmental security," Putin stated.

"Elliott Abrams, enemy of human rights, apologist for mass murder, should have no place within spitting distance of any Democratic administration in any capacity."

-Slate journalist Alex Sammon

President Joe Biden on Monday quietly nominated Elliott Abrams to serve on a bipartisan diplomacy commission, a move that human rights advocates condemned as outrageous given the longtime Republican official's past as a defender of Latin American death squads and cheerleader for murderous U.S. foreign policy interventions.

"A totally indefensible decision from Biden," MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan wrote on Twitter, pointing to Abrams' guilty plea stemming from the Reagan-era Iran-Contra scandal and his broader record in Latin America.

Most recently, Abrams served as the Trump administration's special envoy to Iran and Venezuela. During a 2019 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) grilled Abrams on his role in the Reagan administration's policy in El Salvador, whose U.S.-backed military carried out the largest massacre in modern Latin American history in 1981 in and around the village of El Mozote.

In June, Biden was confronted with the ultimate "3 a.m. phone call" moment. He could have made a call which would have helped reduce the threat of a nuclear crisis or worse.

During the 2008 Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton ran an ad which sought to diminish her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama, in the eyes of the voters.

Building upon Obama's lack of experience in national security affairs, and what the potential cost would be should Obama falter at a critical moment, Clinton's ad sought to make the question personal, setting a scene that could be any home in suburban America at night.

"It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep, but there's a phone in the White House and it's ringing. Somethings happening in the world." The listener was then challenged to decide who was best to answer the call, concluding that the best choice would be someone already "tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world."

It's 3 a.m., the narrator asks, "Who do you want answering the phone?"


The voters chose Obama over Clinton.

Kiev does not keep "any secrets" from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), President Vladimir Zelensky has admitted. He made the remarks in an exclusive interview with CNN, aired on Monday, expressing "surprise" that his recent meeting with CIA boss William Burns got into the media limelight.

"My communication with the CIA chief should always be behind the scenes. We discuss important things - what Ukraine needs and how Ukraine is prepared to act."

Kiev remains in close cooperation with the American spy agency, Zelensky admitted, adding that the country virtually has no secrets from the CIA. Ukrainian spy agencies maintain contacts with the CIA, he added, without specifying the agencies in question.

"We don't have any secrets from the CIA because we have good relations and our intelligence services talk with each other. The situation is pretty straightforward. We have good relations with the CIA chief, and we are talking. I told him about all the important things related to the battlefield that we need."

Media in America reported on Burns' most recent visit of the to Kiev over the weekend. Apart from meeting Zelensky himself, the agency director was said to have also held talks with unspecified Ukrainian intelligence officials.

Federal Judge Terry A. Doughty issued a temporary injunction on Independence Day blocking members of the Biden administration from having further contact with social media companies during a censorship trial.

The judge, an appointee of President Donald Trump, is presiding over a case brought by Missouri and Louisiana challenging federal efforts to block alleged misinformation about the coronavirus and elections on social media.

Critics allege that the federal government censored free speech, using private companies to carry out actions that it cannot take under the First Amendment. In so doing, critics say, the government stifled scientific debate, and weaponized social media platforms to help Democrats and hurt Republicans in recent elections.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday:

The injunction came in response to a lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who allege that government officials went too far in their efforts to encourage social media companies to address posts that they worried could contribute to vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic or upend elections. The Trump-appointed judge's move could upend years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies.

The injunction was a victory for the state attorneys general, who have accused the Biden administration of enabling a "sprawling federal 'Censorship Enterprise'" to encourage tech giants to remove politically unfavorable viewpoints and speakers, and for conservatives who've accused the government of suppressing their speech. In their filings, the attorneys general alleged the actions amount to "the most egregious violations of the First Amendment in the history of the United States of America."
...
In his order, the judge made some exceptions for communications between the government officials and the companies, including to warn them of national security threats or criminal activity.