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Idlib Province: Syrian troops liberate strategic city of Maarat al-Numan


Sputnik
Tue, 28 Jan 2020 14:07 UTC
Tanks
© Sputnik/Mikhail VoskresenskySyrian Army tanks liberate strategic town of Jarjanax from militants in Idlib province.
The Syrian military began a new military operation in Idlib - the last stronghold of terrorist militants in Syria, late last year. Damascus has declared that freeing the area is essential to put an end to the country's long, foreign-backed civil war.

Syrian troops have regained control over the city of Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province, a Syrian military source has said. "The Army units began to strengthen their positions in Maarat al-Numan. At the same time, the Syrian Army's engineering troops began to de-mine the area."

A Sputnik photojournalist embedded with Syrian troops confirmed the information.

Located at the junction of the Hama-Aleppo highway, and linking Syria's two largest cities Damascus and Aleppo, Maarat al-Numan has been a stronghold of terrorist militants since 2012, with 'moderate' militia forces duking it out with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* extremists after driving back government forces in the early stages of the conflict.
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Bullseye

'Nobody ever gets points for saying anything good about Russia': Stephen Cohen says, as Rep. Schiff spreads ignorance about Putin


RT
Tue, 28 Jan 2020 16:39 UTC
anti trump
© Global Look Press / ZumaPress / Erik McGregor
US Congress heavyweights like Adam Schiff deeply misunderstand Russia but keep on bashing Moscow because it has become "politically advantageous" in Washington, Russia researcher Stephen Cohen said.

"Being highly-critical of Russia is good politics in the United States," Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University, told the Grayzone's Aaron Mate in an interview, uploaded online on Monday.
Nobody ever gets any points for saying anything good about Russia - and only rarely for advocating any kind of partnership with Russia.
Cohen said that "politically it's advantageous to a lot of people to bash Russia," and even some of the "progressive" Democratic Party candidates in the 2020 presidential race employ rhetoric, which is hostile toward Moscow.
It has become an American way of life to blame Russia when things go wrong. Of course, sometimes Russia is to blame, but not all the time. And yet that's become part of our discourse.
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Megaphone

'People want to know the truth': Red Army veteran speaks out on liberation of Auschwitz & distortions of history


RT
Tue, 28 Jan 2020 16:30 UTC
auschwitz prisoners
© Yad Vashem Archives via Reuters
Soviet veteran Ivan Martynushkin remembers the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It was a "massive celebration" with the Red Army's role recognized front and center. Fifteen years on, however, something has shifted.

As time goes on, those anniversary events have become "different in tone" and attitudes toward Soviet veterans "drastically changed." No longer revered in Europe for their role in liberating Poland, Martynushkin says "implicit accusations" began to creep in that the Red Army "were aggressors" who did not truly liberate Poland. In 2015, relations between Moscow and the rest of Europe had become so frosty that Putin was not even formally invited to mark 70 years of Auschwitz liberation.

Speaking with RT for the 75th anniversary of this event, Martynushkin says he has been surprised to discover over the years that many Poles and other Europeans have been led to believe that it was American soldiers who liberated Auschwitz. Even when he went to take part in the shooting of a documentary in Krakow, some Poles he encountered were "adamant" that it had been the Americans who liberated them.
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Newspaper

'Embarrassing mistake' or revising history? German paper says AMERICANS liberated Auschwitz - and it's not the only one

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Tue, 28 Jan 2020 16:25 UTC
auschwitz
The German weekly Der Spiegel "mistakenly" said the US Army liberated the notorious Auschwitz death camp. They have company in erasing the Soviet Union's role in ending the Holocaust from WWII history, too: the White House.

Der Spiegel published a graphic on social media platforms last week saying the "amerikanischen Armee" (US Army) was the one that liberated Auschwitz, the largest Nazi death camp.

That would have been news to anyone in the 322nd Rifle Division of the Red Army's 1st Ukrainian Front, which actually kicked in the gates of the camp on January 27, 1945. That date was later adopted as the international Holocaust Memorial Day.
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X

Germany's literati try to abolish term 'climate hysteria' - which will only create more climate change skeptics

Helen Buyniski
RT
Sat, 25 Jan 2020 08:43 UTC
Environmental organizations protest
© Reuters / Wolfgang RattayEnvironmental organizations protest against the commissioning of the North Rhine Westphalian power plant in Germany, January 24, 2020. The placard reads "The climate crisis is killing!"
Germany's literary establishment has declared a moratorium on the phrase "climate hysteria." No wonder "climate denial" is epidemic - there's no better way to convince people something's not real than making belief mandatory.

An annual ritual by German linguists and journalists to exile a term from the language subjected the term "klimahysterie" ("climate hysteria") to the linguistic equivalent of burning at the stake earlier this month, naming it the "un-word of the year" because it "defames climate protection efforts and the climate protection movement, and discredits important discussions about climate protection."

One might think that painting the climate debate in black and white - evil "climate deniers" versus saintly Greta Thunberg and her Extinction Rebellion carbon cult - would be more discrediting to the climate protection movement than begging for some realism from a narrative that is rapidly taking on religious trappings. Implying the keening end-of-timers gluing themselves to trains at rush hour are just as rooted in clear-eyed science as legitimate climatologists is frankly insulting to the latter, and implying both are too sacred to be described with a term like "hysteria" harms the environmental cause far more than any slick oil industry PR.
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Bullseye

The media hates Joe Rogan because they don't understand him

Zachary Leeman
RT
Tue, 28 Jan 2020 16:21 UTC
joe rogan
© Reuters / USA TODAY Sports / Gary A. Vasquez
Since being thrust into headlines thanks to his endorsement of Bernie Sanders, Joe Rogan has been slammed as transphobic and racist, but the attacks say more about the modern mainstream media than him.

With a podcast that is consistently at the number one or two spot on iTunes, and a YouTube subscriber base of more than seven million, an endorsement from Rogan is no small thing.

The comedian and former 'Fear Factor' host regularly reaches a bigger audience than most cable news shows and blogs with his varying interviews with just about anyone you can think of - from Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler all the way to presidential candidates like Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang.
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Quenelle

Protesters flood streets in Beirut, Lebanon calling to reject new government


Sputnik
Mon, 27 Jan 2020 16:54 UTC
protest in Lebanon
© REUTERS / Mohamed Azakir
The protests are taking place in the run-up to a debate in the parliament on the budget for this year that was proposed by the previous government.

Protests are in full swing in Lebanon's capital Beirut as demonstrators continue to voice their objection to the government recently formed under new Prime Minister Hassan Diab.

Beirut has been engulfed in protests over the poor economic situation and endemic corruption since October 2019. The demonstrations were initially caused by a new tax on calls made using WhatsApp, a measure that the government believed would help tackle the country's high public debt.


Comment: See also:

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Cross

A miracle! Hollywood allows Catholics who are not corrupt or pedophiles to appear on screen again

Michael McCaffrey
RT
Mon, 27 Jan 2020 02:50 UTC
The Two Popes (2019) Dir: Fernando Meirelles
© NetflixThe Two Popes (2019) Dir: Fernando Meirellesn, Netflix
With films like The Two Popes, Hollywood is now making some surprisingly watchable Catholic entertainment with a refreshingly traditionalist bent. But why wasn't it always so, since the idea is just common business sense? Religion films don't work when moviemakers get too political

As a practicing Catholic and a devout cinephile, I am constantly frustrated that Hollywood rarely gets religion right. Films and tv shows that touch upon Catholic and religious themes are often reduced to being either saccharine adoration in the hands of believing "conservatives" or vacuous vilification in the hands of agnostic "liberals".

Considering there are 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, and 84% of all people believe in one religion or another, it would seem a wise choice for Hollywood to explore Catholic and religious themed stories with much more regularity, artistic integrity and sincerity.

Hollywood and the Catholic Church need not be adversaries, as they have a lot more in common than one might think. For instance, they both have gobs of money and their hierarchies are littered with perverts and pedophiles. I'M KIDDING! As I said, I'm a practicing Catholic...and as my Catholic gallows humor shows...I definitely need more practice because I'm not very good at it.

Comment: At the risk of being overly cynical, we suspect that Hollywood moguls have perhaps discovered that offending (or ignoring) a sizable portion of the population is not conducive to fattening the bottom line. Another thing Hollywood adores is virtue-signaling, so it may be useful to be able to give a nod to religion once in awhile.

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Question

Passenger plane with 130 on board slides off runway, stops in the middle of a road in western Iran


RT
Mon, 27 Jan 2020 05:48 UTC
plane runway iran
A packed Iranian passenger plane skidded of the runway and ended up in the middle of a city street, local media report.

Caspian Airlines Flight 6936 took off from Tehran at around 6:44am local time and was trying to land in the city of Bandar-e Mahshahr in southwestern Khuzestan Province when it skidded off the runway on Monday, Tasnim News said.

Videos from the scene, which are circulating on social media, show the Boeing aircraft lying on its belly in the middle of the road. Passengers were calmly evacuated from the plane, while some wreckage from the fuselage could be seen on the ground.

The aircraft looks mostly intact, and it does not appear that there was major destruction on the ground. Managing Director of Khuzestan Airports Mohammad Reza Rezaei told IRNA that the plane did not catch fire during the incident and no one on board was hurt.

Comment: Also in the news: Mysterious crash in Afghanistan could be USAF plane

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Colosseum

Yale will eliminate a beloved introductory art class for being too white, male, and western

Robby Soave
reason
Mon, 27 Jan 2020 09:12 UTC
Yale sculpture hall
© Nick Allen
Enrollment has swelled for Yale University's introductory art history course, which covers "the Renaissance to the present." That's because the school plans to eliminate the popular class after the spring.

According to The Yale Daily News, the art department has decided that the class might make some students uncomfortable due to the "overwhelming" whiteness, maleness, and straightness of the artists who comprise the Western canon (though that last label may be dubious). Indeed, the focus on Western art is "problematic," course instructor Tim Barringer told the student newspaper.

"I want all Yale students (and all residents of New Haven who can enter our museums freely) to have access to and to feel confident analyzing and enjoying the core works of the western tradition," said Barringer. "But I don't mistake a history of European painting for the history of all art in all places."

Comment: This is, more or less, an exercise in soft-censorship. Anyone interested in studying western art history as a minor is now barred from doing so. As the author states, adding a class to the curriculum that focused on non-Western art history would have been a better, and more fair, solution.

See also:

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