© Andrew Holbrooke/Corbis via GettyImages
Society's Child
© Getty Images / Alexander Koerner
Attempts by American-based social media behemoths to silence or censor voices critical of the establishment-approved narrative is nothing new, but this trend seems to have intensified lately.
Just in the past several days, following the criminal US assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, Instagram and Facebook have been removing posts supportive of Soleimani, even profile photos honouring the general, allegedly to comply with US sanctions, a truly absurd explanation for the narrative control.
On January 7, it was reported that Twitter had suspended numerous Venezuelan accounts, including those of the central bank, the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, public media, political leaders, the Finance & Oil ministries.
Comment: Social media platforms (like mainstream media) are corporate vassals of the US security state and are merely performing ascribed duties:
- Case studies in how the Deep State controls social media and digitally assassinates critics
- Facebook censors explainer clip recalling when western media liked Soleimani - and demonetizes popular account for sharing it
- YouTube caught suppressing US war crimes while protecting ISIS
- Facebook abusing monopoly of power for profit and working with US Deep State to censor news
- Hypocrisy: Facebook 'thought police' censor pro-Iran posts 'to comply with US sanctions', while Trump warns Tehran against censorship
© RT
Czesław Lewandowski in our days
Czesław Lewandowski in our days
This is perhaps no more apparent than in the case of the experiences of Poland, and Eastern Europe at-large, after the defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II, and the decisive role played by the Soviet Red Army.
Friday marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Warsaw from the grip of fascism. A momentous date in history, it is still fraught with controversy - and regularly used as a political football so many decades later.
Comment: What a shame that historical memory is so short that what was once a solemn commemoration of an international tragedy, has now become an occasion for petty political posturing. There is shame for the leaders of every country involved, except Russia.
- Embassy row: US & Germany jump into spat over WWII outbreak between Russia and Poland
- Poland seeks to rewrite WWII history, excludes Russia from participating in war memorial
- Polish minister: EU leaders attempting to 'erase' Poland's WWII drama from Europe's historical memory
- Declassified documents show that Soviet military gave vast assistance to Poland during WWII
Oleksiy Honcharuk
In a Facebook post on January 17, Honcharuk wrote that "in recent days, you have all witnessed ongoing events around files leaked to social networks that had been mounted from fragments of records from the government's meetings."
Zelenskiy's office acknowledged receiving Honcharuk's resignation letter, but said it will comment later on how it will react to the situation.
"In order to prevent any doubts about our respect and trust to the president, I have submitted my resignation to the president with the right to bring the issue to the parliament," Honcharuk wrote.
Comment: His departure may not be a great loss to Kiev: Nothing to see here: New Ukrainian PM visits neo-Nazi band's gig
© Sputnik / Alexey Sukhorukov
The ruble continued gaining against major currencies on Friday, after accelerating growth on the news of the appointment of Mikhail Mishustin as Russia's new prime minister earlier in the week.
It was up 0.2 percent against the US dollar at 61.39 rubles, while gaining slightly on the euro at 68.29 rubles.The stock market posted solid gains at the beginning of the trading session. The dollar-denominated RTS index added more than one percent, reaching 1,635.58 points, while the ruble-based MOEX Russia Index rose to 3,189.24 points.
© REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko
FILE PHOTO: Students file in through the entrance to start their classes in a school in the southern coastal town of Mariupol, September 1, 2014.
FILE PHOTO: Students file in through the entrance to start their classes in a school in the southern coastal town of Mariupol, September 1, 2014.
Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed the bill 'On Secondary Education' on Thursday. The legislation, which envisions an overhaul of Ukraine's public school system, received an almost unanimous nod from deputies, with 327 lawmakers voting in favor and only three against. Some 54 MPs abstained and 16 were not present during the vote.
© AFP / Getty Images North America / Sara D. Davis
As products like Alexa and Siri face mounting criticism that the technology behind them disproportionately misunderstands women and ethnic minorities, voice software companies are developing gender neutral voice systems to ensure that the voice tech industry becomes more inclusive - both when it listens and talks.
This might sound positive, but it is absurd in the extreme. What precisely is the problem these companies are trying to solve?
There are 195 countries in the world, if the Vatican and Palestine are included, and a newly released index of civil unrest has claimed that 47 of those states witnessed a rise in civil unrest in 2019.
The data model, published Thursday by socio-economic and political analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft, has also predicted that in 2020, the number will balloon to 75 countries.
Comment: Verisk Maplecroft is a British "data analytics organisation" that "quantifies risk" for financial investors, corporations and govts.
The U.K. consultancy identified Hong Kong and Chile as the two flashpoints suffering the largest increases in unrest since the beginning of 2019. Neither country is expected to find peace for at least two years, according to the research.
Comment: We haven't seen the full report, but based on the firm's summary and media reports about it, they seem to have omitted the unrest in Western countries.
Depending on how far they go to dethrone Trump, civil war conditions could brew in the US. There has been a 15-month-long insurgency in France. A secessionist movement in Catalonia, Spain, has flared up twice in 3 years. Then there's the acute risk of unrest resulting from Brexit (including, but not limited to, the Scottish secessionist movement and the Irish reunification movement).
And what about the unrest in Europe as a whole if another wave of war refugees results from the US economically-strangling/bombing Iran?
The Scotland County Schools driver had stopped to pick up students along her morning route Tuesday in Laurinburg when 46-year-old Kenneth Latrel Revels boarded unexpectedly, the Laurinburg Police Department said in a statement.
Revels is accused of punching her repeatedly and stomping her head after knocking her to the floor. As many as 20 children were on board, watching while she struggled to keep her foot on the brake to prevent the bus from "moving uncontrollably."
© John Moore/Getty Images
From 2006 through 2014, more than 100 billion doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone were distributed nationwide, according to federal drug data.
From 2006 through 2014, more than 100 billion doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone were distributed nationwide, according to federal drug data.
The data, which traces the path of every pain pill shipped in the United States, shows the extent to which opioids flooded the country as deaths from the epidemic continued to climb over nine years.
The Washington Post and the company that owns the Charleston Gazette-Mail in West Virginia first obtained the data, collected by the Drug Enforcement Administration, from 2006 through 2012 after waging a year-long legal fight. In July, The Post reported that the data revealed that the nation's drug companies had manufactured and distributed more than 76 billion pain pills.
Comment: Further reading: