Society's ChildS


Colosseum

EU threatens to impose tariffs on Russian grain imports, despite farmers calling for duties on Ukrainian grain

Russia grain harvest record agriculture
© Sputnik / Ilya NaimushinFILE: Russia set a record for its largest-ever wheat harvest in 2022
The EU is preparing to impose tariffs on grain imports from Russia and Belarus to placate farmers and some member states, officials familiar with the plans said on Tuesday.

Traders said Russian and Belarusian shipments to the bloc were low, certainly relative to those from Ukraine, and that the imposition of tariffs was largely symbolic.

Russian research company SovEcon said it would have little impact on grain trade and prices, given only 2% of Russian shipments went to Europe, with the exception of sunflower meal, of which the European Union took a third of Russian exports.


Comment: So sunflower meal prices would spike in the EU.


Comment: Whilst farmers do indeed need to be listened to (although that's highly unlikely), these tariffs may prove to be more harmful than is immediately apparent: Europe is wargaming a food crisis - Bloomberg


Arrow Up

Voter turnout in Russian presidential election reaches all-time high of 77.44% - Central Elections Commission

russian elections
© Sputnik/ Ramil Sitdikov
The general voter turnout in the presidential election in Russia, including the votes given online, has reached an all-time high of 77.44% over the entire history of presidential campaigns in the country since 1991, the Central Elections Commission (CEC) said on Monday.

As of 10:00 a.m. Monday, the CEC recorded 87,113,127 votes cast in the election, CEC Chair Ella Pamfilova said.

The previous highest voter turnout in presidential elections in Russia, 74.66%, was recorded in 1991.

About 2.6 million people exercised their early-voting right, Pamfilova said. Nearly 10 million people also voted at polling stations that are closest to their actual current location, rather than where they live permanently, making up 90% of those who previously applied for this option, she said.

The voting in the presidential election in Russia lasted from March 15 through 17, 2024. The candidates previously registered by the CEC to run for president included Liberal-Democratic Party (LDPR) leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma Deputy Chairman Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, Duma member Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party, and incumbent president and self-nominee Vladimir Putin.

Eye 2

Haitian national arraigned for rape of 14-year-old girl at Massachusetts hotel

rockland immigration center
© Alice Giordano/Epoch Times
A 26-year-old Haitian national has been charged with raping a 14-year-old girl at a Massachusetts hotel being used to house illegal immigrants under the Gov. Maura Healey administration.

Cory Alvarez was arraigned on the charges of child rape on Thursday, March 14, at the Hingham District Court. The alleged assault took place at the Comfort Inn in Rockland, according to a press release issued by police. Rockland is located about 22 miles south of Boston.

Patrol Lt. Thomas MacDonald of the Rockland Police Department told The Epoch Times that since the state secured the 100-room hotel as a shelter for illegal immigrants in October, the police have taken on a heavy volume of calls related to the property.

"We're there a lot, he said.

Red Flag

Illegal migrant from Lebanon caught at border admitted he's a Hezbollah terrorist hoping 'to make a bomb' — and was headed for NY

el paso border crossing
© Getty ImagesImmigrants pass through coils of razor wire while crossing the US-Mexico border on March 13, 2024, in El Paso, Texas
A Lebanese migrant who was caught sneaking over the border admitted he's a member of Hezbollah, he hoped to make a bomb, and his destination was New York, The Post can reveal.

Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was caught by the US Border Patrol on March 9 near El Paso, Texas. While in custody, he was asked what he was doing in the US, to which he replied, "I'm going to try to make a bomb," according to a Border Patrol document exclusively obtained by The Post.

But Ebbadi later claimed in an interview that he had been trying to flee Lebanon and Hezbollah because he "didn't want to kill people" and said "once you're in, you can never get out," according to internal US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) documents.

Ebbadi said in a sworn interview after his arrest that he had trained with Hezbollah for seven years and served as an active member guarding weapons locations for another four years, the documents show.

Bad Guys

'Catastrophic' hunger has gripped Gaza - global watchdog

Children walk past the rubble of a collapsed building in Gaza, March 16, 2024.
© SAID KHATIB / AFPChildren walk past the rubble of a collapsed building in Gaza, March 16, 2024.
A UN-backed report warns that mass death is imminent without an immediate ceasefire and food supplies

Famine conditions now exist in the northern part of Gaza, a UN monitor group warned on Monday. Around 300,000 people remain trapped in the area, following months of Israeli bombardment that has left over 31,000 people dead.

The UN-backed report also warns that more than 70% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million faces "catastrophic hunger." The Integrated Food-Security Phase Classification (IPC) said that mass death is now imminent without an immediate ceasefire and deliveries of food aid to the areas affected by the fighting.

Comment:
Israel appears to keep bombing enough to create conditions that make the starvation and death of most of the remaining a matter or course, all the while claiming the need to defend itself and repeating that enough human aids gets through.

And what do the supporters of Israel do? Probably they follow the lead:
Best of the Web: WaPo reports Biden KNEW Israel was indiscriminately bombing civilians in Gaza

And what is the situation in Israel?
War on Gaza: Israel's leftists quickly lost their compassion for Palestinians
The concept that the most the subject can aspire to is the master's recognition of his being human, a recognition that can be withheld as easily as it was given if the subject "disappoints", is the hallmark of the colonial situation.

In this situation, the master deems himself so superior to the subject that the latter should be thankful for every moment in which the master's grip on his throat remains loose, while any resistance to the ever-present threat of a chokehold is tantamount to ingratitude.

These are the same "leftists of the past" who, alongside their disappointment in the Palestinians, have also suddenly discovered the joys of embracing tribalism - as Tzufit Grant evidently has done.

Since 7 October, she says, she has wanted to walk all day through the streets and kiss Israelis: "I have become very Israeli, very Jewish."

Lamentably, disastrously, in today's Israel, this would seem to involve parting not only with the "humanitarian portion" of the brain, but with the brain itself.
And they said "never again"! Apparently it is easy to proclaim at a distance, in time and space, but when closer to a sore point in history, does it become more difficult and ambiguous as the mind filters the information attempting to uphold an idea that little has changed from before?

Scott Ritter: Russia, Israel and the law of war regarding civilians
The "Dahiya Doctrine" specifically calls for the deliberate targeting of civilian populations and civilian infrastructure for the specific purpose of causing suffering and severe distress throughout the targeted population. The goal was to simultaneously destroy any enemy in the targeted area, to intimidate the targeted population into turning on the militants (in the case Hezbollah), and to deter other population centers from supporting Hezbollah. The "Dahiya Doctrine" was used extensively against Gaza since 2008, killing thousands of civilians. In its definition and through its execution, the "Dahiya Doctrine" amounts to nothing less than state terrorism, which means that the Israeli military, through its implementation of this policy, has become a state sponsor of terrorism.
Perhaps the people in Gaza experience what will become more common:
The Globalist's SECRET Message!
For the completely clueless, the points that pop up again and again in the oligarchs' oratory are:
  • Humanity is the enemy.
  • We must reduce the population.
  • Billions of commoners must die that we and our progeny may live.
That's it. It's right there in black and white in their major publications, security memoranda, white papers and speeches. Heck, it's even engraved in stone . . . or at least it used to be until some enterprising individuals turned that stone into rubble. The point is: there is no secret message. There's only a completely out-in-the-open one.



Target

Romanian mercenaries' boast of involvement in Ukrainian attempt to infiltrate Russia's border

launcher rocket
© CC0 / U.S. Army Europe Image
Amid dwindling NATO military aid for the Kiev regime and successful efforts by Russian troops to push through heavily fortified Ukrainian defenses in Donbass, Ukrainian forces have undertaken several attempts to break into Russia's Belgorod and Kursk regions in recent months, only to be "decisively repelled."

Mercenaries from the Romanian Battlegroup "Getica" claim they participated in the recent spate of attacks on Russian border regions together with the Russian Volunteer Corps*.

Representatives of the group also published videos of the brazen attacks and shelling of Russian border regions on social media networks.

Comment: The West seems to be so desperate to line up cannon fodder for its war on Russia that it's acclimatizing its populace to the conscription of women: Denmark becomes latest European country to conscript women into military

See also:


Play

Oscar-winning Ukrainian documentary called out for 'misleading' images

Screenshot from a 2015 music video by Artyom Grishanov
© YouTube / Artyom GrishanovScreenshot from a 2015 music video by Artyom Grishanov
At least one of the images featured in the Oscar-winning Ukrainian documentary '20 Days in Mariupol' was in fact filmed years prior to the fighting in the city, it has emerged. In particular, one clip featured the aftermath of attacks by Kiev's forces on Donbass, leading to accusations that filmmakers misled viewers.

Released last year, the documentary purports to depict the battle between Russian and Ukrainian forces for Mariupol, a large coastal city in the Donetsk People's Republic liberated by Moscow's troops in May 2022.

Ukrainian director Mstislav Chernov was on the ground covering the events for the Associated Press, and the film's narrative aligns with that of Kiev and its Western backers, by accusing Russian soldiers of war crimes.

Comment: In the YouTube video, the image is from minute 4:29 of 8:12 Viewing is restricted by YouTube to protect viewers of all ages from what the Western powers have helped along. If the video does not show up, try looking for the title: "Артём Гришанов - Игрушки / Toys for Poroshenko / War in Ukraine (English subtitles)"

On the topic of the children of Ukraine, there is this artice Is the Olena Zelenska Foundation covering for sex trafficking?

Mariupol has witnessed much history:
SOTT articles: in title, 50+ articles; in summary, 210+ articles While the film is drawing eyes from the watchers are they being drawn to Ukraine and Mariupol, are they, even conveniently being drawn from Gaza and Israel? There are differences in the approach:
Scott Ritter: Russia, Israel and the law of war regarding civilians which ends:
During the 2006 Lebanon War, Israel Defense Force Northern Commander Gadi Eisenkot implemented a military strategy that sought to target and destroy entire civilian areas rather than engage in difficult and dangerous ground combat necessary to capture them. The goal of this strategy was more than simply trying to reduce Israeli casualties — the stated purpose of this new approach was to hold the entire civilian population accountable for the actions of Hezbollah fighters. Eisenkot did away with the requirement under international law to distinguish between military and civilian targets. This new doctrine was first used on the West Beirut Dahiya neighborhood, and the doctrine took its name from this location — the "Dahiya" Doctrine.

The "Dahiya Doctrine" specifically calls for the deliberate targeting of civilian populations and civilian infrastructure for the specific purpose of causing suffering and severe distress throughout the targeted population. The goal was to simultaneously destroy any enemy in the targeted area, to intimidate the targeted population into turning on the militants (in the case Hezbollah), and to deter other population centers from supporting Hezbollah. The "Dahiya Doctrine" was used extensively against Gaza since 2008, killing thousands of civilians. In its definition and through its execution, the "Dahiya Doctrine" amounts to nothing less than state terrorism, which means that the Israeli military, through its implementation of this policy, has become a state sponsor of terrorism.

As the facts emerge about the performance of the Russian military during the battle for Mariupol, it becomes crystal clear that the Russian soldiers behaved in an exemplary fashion, putting themselves at risk to ensure that the principles of distinction and military necessity were applied liberally and well within the spirit and letter of international law.

One cannot make a similar claim about the Israeli Defense Force and Gaza, where the "Dahiya Doctrine" is being executed with a vengeance.



Bizarro Earth

Denmark becomes latest European country to conscript women into military

military women denmark Mette Frederiksen
© Ritzau Scanpix/Mikkel Berg Pedersen via ReutersThe country scaled back its military capabilities after the Cold War ended but is reassessing the situation in a changed security climate. Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen meets male conscripts in Jutland last week
Denmark will call up women as well as men as it expands conscription to respond to Europe's changing security climate.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the revised policy was designed to increase the number of young people doing military service.

Conscripts will also be expected to serve more time in the military - 11 months, compared with four months at the moment.

"We are not rearming because we want war, destruction, or suffering. We are rearming right now to avoid war and in a world where the international order is being challenged," Frederiksen told reporters on Wednesday, indirectly referring to Russia's military moves in recent years and months.


Comment: The 'international order' is not only being challenged from the outside, but it's fracturing from the inside too: Orban: EU leadership should 'start trembling, Brussels is not the first empire that has set its eyes on Hungary. It's time to rise up!'


Comment: This seems to reflect not only the desperation felt by the Western establishment, but also the utter disdain they have for the native peoples, and their future: Schools should prep students for 'natural disasters and war', says Germany's education minister


Wolf

Schools should prep students for 'natural disasters and war', says Germany's education minister

Stark-Watzinger
© Maja Hitij/Getty ImagesGerman pupils must be prepared to deal with different types of crises and build "resilience," Stark-Watzinger says
Germany's education minister said students should be taught what to do in the case of wars, natural catastrophes or pandemics. She also said it was important they know how the army contributes to Germany's security.

Students in Germany must be better prepared to face all kinds of potential crises and catastrophes, German Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger said.

A member of the business-focused Free Democrats (FDP), she stressed the importance of civil defense in comments to the Funke Media Group of local and regional newspapers on Saturday.

Comment: Indeed they are valuable skills, but is it a coincidence that, just as Germany involves itself in yet another genocide, and yet another immoral war against Russia, that this is now a priority?

Perhaps German politicians should concern themselves with taking a few history lessons, first?


Laptop

Evidence of foreign nationals accessing dominion voting machines leaked to public

dominion voting
© APA worker passes a Dominion Voting ballot scanner while setting up a polling location.
'The remote access by these foreign nationals occurred while the states were still counting votes, determining a final tally, and prior to certification of the results...'

A defamation lawsuit between Dominion Voting Systems and former Overstock.com CEO and Donald Trump supporter Patrick Byrne has descended into chaos after one of Byrne's attorneys leaked evidence that foreign nationals remotely accessed voting machines used in Michigan in the 2020 elections.

The leaked evidence has been floating around social media for about the last week. The evidence includes emails between Dominion workers about voting machines being accessed remotely from people in Kosovo and elsewhere.

Comment: It seems the typical reaction to whistleblowers leaking information of criminal activity has the same predictable reaction: ignore the criminal evidence and focus all attention on the whistleblower and how what they did was wrong. It seems like such an obvious ploy, but apparently it's an effective way of glossing over the evidence released.