RT News - December 28th 2022

Russia officially bans oil exports to any country complying with the G7 price cap - the decree will come into effect in February.

(QS - apologies for this being posted later than normal, I've been trying to collate a load of things to try and make things more understandable, for me at least - there is more to post for the next news show. What I've posted may all seem a bit disjointed too so sorry about that. If you can get onto the RT website you can see the articles for yourselves and rove and research in much more depth than I can on a commentary post. RT.com)

There's only one aim - to destabilise Russia. The head of a private US military group that trains Ukrainian soldiers admits Ukraine is corrupt while also confirming Kiev's troops executed Russian prisoners of war and other atrocities - yes, atrocities. (According to "Pen and Military" this is a brief outline of ANDREW MILBURN. Born in Hong Kong, grew up in United Kingdom where he attended St Paul’s School and University College London. He enlisted in the US Marine Corps as a private. He was commissioned from the ranks and as a Marine infantry and special operations officer, has commanded in combat at every grade. As the commanding officer of the Marine Corps’ special operations regiment, he was selected to lead a multi-national task force given the mission of defeating ISIS in Iraq. He retired in 2019 as the Chief of Staff of Special Operations Command, Central (SOCCENT), the headquarters responsible for the conduct of all US special operations throughout the Middle East. Since then he has written articles on topics such as leadership, ethics and culture change, for a number of publications, to include The Atlantic Magazine. He and his wife Jessica live in Tampa, Florida with their two children and a coterie of rescued dogs.)

The Pentagon continues to delay a response about its role in a deadly airstrike in Nigeria in 2017 that resulted in more than a hundred civilian deaths as local residents demand an investigation.

The latest batch of leaked Twitter files reveal the US administration pressured the platform to prioritize information on COVID vaccines, to fit the narrative of its policies. Nothing seems to be "straight" even under oath. For European Union, they have point blank refused to release data and documents. In particular, Ursula Von Der Leyen is still "missing" some text messages. Bioweapons. Worrying.

Taiwan is to increase it's mandatory military service from four months to one year. That's as US wants to become the largest supplier of military equipment to Taiwan and directly goes against what Pres. Biden told Pres. Xi in Bali this year.

The U.S. is the main beneficiary of the conflict in Ukraine (QS and NATO - and it's using public money to fight this proxy war against Russia, mostly without consent. I recently checked the .gov approval ratings of NATO countries outside of USA and their track record is abysmal. I will post a table later - NB I know Britain's off by heart however - it's now at 14% up from 6% in October! Source YouGov

Important watch : Worlds Apart Oksana is joined by Heinz-Christian Strache, Former Vice-Chancellor of Austria. https://rumble.com/v22k07i-worlds-apart-unsafe-and-not-sorry-heinz-christian-strache.html
=============================================
Below ***** Türkiye announces massive natural gas discovery *****

1) --- US military hires recruits diagnosed with behavioral disorder – WSJ
2) --- Google slammed for ‘grotesque anti-Semitic’ search result
3) --- Russia to divert metals away from West
4) --- Every social media firm censors for US government – Musk
5) --- Musk’s Twitter files: What have we learned from the Hunter Biden laptop story?
=======================================

28 Dec, 2022 05:07

***** Türkiye announces massive natural gas discovery *****

Ankara has increased its initial assessment of an offshore deposit in the Black Sea and found a new gas field

Türkiye’s natural gas reserves in the Black Sea now total 710 billion cubic meters, with a market value of $1 trillion, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced after a new deposit was discovered and a previous find was revised higher.

The increase is mainly due to the Sakarya Gas Field, which is now estimated to hold 652 billion cubic meters of gas (bcm) compared to an initial assessment of 540 bcm, Erdogan said following a cabinet meeting on Monday, adding that Türkiye has drilled 13 wells in the Sakarya field.

He also mentioned a separate find of 58 billion cubic meters of gas in another offshore field nearby.

“With our new discovery at the Caycuma-1, our gas reserves in the Black Sea have risen by 170 billion cubic meters to 710 billion cubic meters,” the Turkish president said.

Erdogan noted that the newly discovered Caycuma-1 field would be connected to the Sakarya field and from there to the national grid. The Sakarya deposit appears to be the largest ever discovered in the Black Sea and is due to go online next year, according to the president.

“Our new exploration will pave the way for similar explorations in other geological fields adjacent to the region. We will launch new drilling as soon as possible,” he added.

Before the discovery, Türkiye planned to produce gas at an annual rate of 3.5 bcm, with a target of raising output to 15 bcm annually within four years and covering a third of the country’s demand.

This comes as Ankara seeks to diversify away from energy imports, which meet almost all of its domestic consumption. The country is highly dependent on supplies from Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Nigeria, and Algeria, as well as LNG imports from Qatar and the US.
https://www.rt.com/business/569005-turkey-gas-reserves-estimates-boost/
============================================

27 Dec, 2022 21:25

1) --- US military hires recruits diagnosed with behavioral disorder – WSJ

The Pentagon is lowering its standards amid the largest enlistment shortfall since 1973

The US military has allowed 700 recruits with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to sign up, after it rewrote its rules on which medical conditions bar applicants from joining, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Tuesday.

The 700 trainees were hired following a decision by the military in June to allow those who suffered from 38 medical conditions to enlist, provided they hadn’t demonstrated symptoms or needed treatment for between three and seven years prior to signing up. These conditions – which include congenital heart defects and tuberculosis – were previously automatic disqualifiers.

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told the WSJ that the branch would assess the effectiveness of the program after a year of service by the recruits.

“We want to be cautious,” Wormuth said, referring to hiring those with mental health conditions. “I think we have to constantly be refreshing our approach and looking at conditions in this society.”

The US military is currently hiring from an increasingly unfit population, with only 23% of young Americans meeting the required fitness standards, Wormuth told CNBC in October. Furthermore, only 9% of these 16-21-year-olds are interested in joining in the first place, she added.

This decline in fitness, exacerbated by a Covid-19 vaccine mandate and more-tempting job offers from the private sector, led the Army to experience its worst year for recruitment this year since the abolition of the draft in 1973, according to Wormuth. At the end of the 2022 fiscal year, the Army was 15,000 soldiers short of its 60,000 target, a 25% deficit.

The Navy and Marine Corps are also struggling to meet recruitment targets. The Marine Corps is about 20% down year-on-year, usually securing half of its target by October. The Navy, which usually opens the fiscal year at about 25% of recruitment, reported 10% of the target in October, officials told the Associated Press.

Previous attempts by the Pentagon to lower standards were harshly criticized. High-school dropouts and drug convicts were given waivers to sign up during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, leading to an increase in mental health issues and suicides within the ranks.

Decades earlier, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara drafted as many as 320,000 unfit and low-IQ soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen at the height of the Vietnam War. These substandard service members were unflatteringly dubbed ‘McNamara’s Morons’ by the media at the time.
https://www.rt.com/news/569021-military-recruits-adhd-standards/
================================================

27 Dec, 2022 22:53

2) --- Google slammed for ‘grotesque anti-Semitic’ search result

The platform returned an entry describing ‘Jew’ as a verb meaning “miserly or petty”

Google has been condemned by a US anti-Semitism watchdog for bringing users to a dictionary entry describing ‘Jew’ as a verb meaning “to bargain with someone in a miserly or petty way.”

Users searching for the word on Tuesday were shown the offensive dictionary entry, with the more traditional entry for the word – a noun describing “a member of the people and cultural community whose traditional religion is Judaism and who trace their origins through the Hebrew people of Israel to Abraham” – shown further down.

A note above the definition highlighted the fact that it was considered “offensive.”

StopAntisemitism.org, an American watchdog group that regularly accuses publishers, politicians, and websites of promoting anti-Jewish racism, told Google that displaying such a “grotesque antisemitic trope” is “unacceptable.”
https://twitter.com/StopAntisemites/status/1607707895852072960

“I couldn’t believe it so I googled it myself,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Elad Strohmayer tweeted.
https://twitter.com/EladStr/status/1607723569747730433

Google had not yet addressed the controversy by Tuesday evening. However, the tech giant itself was likely not responsible for the definition. Google’s website explains that it “doesn’t create, write, or modify definitions,” which are drawn from “third-party experts who compile dictionaries.”

“Our partners label these terms as vulgar, derogatory, or otherwise offensive to provide proper context about them,” the website continued. “We only display an offensive definition by default when it’s the main meaning of the term.”

The offensive definition was not showing up as of Tuesday evening, replaced by the traditional entry.
https://www.rt.com/news/569023-google-jew-definition-antisemitism/
==========================================

28 Dec, 2022 06:00

3) --- Russia to divert metals away from West

The Trade Ministry names new export destinations, and says talks on supplies are underway

Russia will redirect its metal exports from Western countries to alternative markets due to sanctions imposed by the EU and US, Trade Minister Denis Manturov said on Monday.

Moscow named China, Türkiye, South East Asia, member states of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union and CIS countries as priority areas for diversifying metal supplies. According to Manturov, trade flows will also focus on the Latin American, African and Middle Eastern markets.

Speaking at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Manturov noted that “our enterprises, with the participation of trade missions, are already reorienting exports,” adding that the state will provide measures of support for logistics.

Russia is a major metals producer and exporter. According to Institut Polytechnique de Paris, last year the country held a 13% market share for titanium production, 11.2% for nickel, 10.5% for platinum, 5.4% for aluminum, 4% for copper and 4.4% for cobalt. It is the world’s top producer of palladium, a rare metal used in car manufacturing, accounting for 37% of production in 2021.

Russia is not only a major producer of primary aluminum but it is also embedded in the global supply chains needed to make the metal.

Although Russian metals and the companies that produce them have not been directly targeted by Western sanctions, many buyers have shunned imports from the country.

Meanwhile, China has boosted its primary aluminum purchases with Russian supplies hitting a 2022 record of 56,000 tons in November, according to Reuters.
https://www.rt.com/business/568954-russia-metals-export-diversification-asia/
===============================================

27 Dec, 2022 17:13 (Sorry for double posting)

4) --- Every social media firm censors for US government – Musk

Platforms remove content at the “explicit direction” of US federal agencies, the Twitter CEO has claimed

All social media platforms work with the US government to censor content, Twitter CEO Elon Musk claimed on Tuesday. Documents released by Musk following his purchase of Twitter showed that the platform colluded with the FBI, CIA, Pentagon and other government agencies to suppress information on elections, Ukraine, and Covid-19.

“*Every* social media company is engaged in heavy censorship, with significant involvement of and, at times, explicit direction of the government,” Musk tweeted, adding that “Google frequently makes links disappear, for example.”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1607743022925504514

Musk was referring to internal Twitter communications published by journalist Matt Taibbi with his approval, which suggested that the platform’s senior executives held regular meetings with members of the FBI and CIA, during which the agencies gave them lists of “hundreds of problem accounts” to suspend in the run-up to the 2020 election.

In addition to Twitter, the government was in contact “with virtually every major tech firm,” Taibbi claimed. “These included Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Reddit, even Pinterest.” CIA agents “nearly always” sat in on meetings of these firms with the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, Taibbi claimed, explaining that although this task force was convened to fight alleged election interference by foreign states, it made “mountains of domestic moderation requests.”

A lawsuit (https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/12/fbi-social-media-met-weekly-to-censor-americans-before-2020-election-mo-ag/) filed earlier this year by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana alleges that officials from no fewer than 12 government agencies met weekly with representatives of Twitter, Facebook, and other Big Tech firms in 2020 to decide which narratives and users to censor**, with topics ranging from alleged election interference to Covid-19.

A self-described “free speech absolutist,” Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October. He has since released batches of documents shedding light on the platform’s previously opaque censorship policies. Published by several independent journalists, the document dumps have shown how Twitter suppressed information damaging to Joe Biden’s election campaign, colluded with the FBI to remove content the agency wanted hidden, assisted the US military’s online influence campaigns, and censored “anti-Ukraine narratives” on behalf of multiple US intelligence agencies.

The FBI said last week that correspondence between its agents and Twitter staff “show nothing more than examples of our tradition [of] longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements.”

The White House has refused to answer allegations that the FBI directed Twitter to censor information damaging to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.
https://www.rt.com/news/569016-musk-social-media-censorship/
- - - - - - -
** related - Twitter censorship (I suggest you read the whole series of tweets from Matt Taibbi if you can - link below)

25 Dec, 2022 01:10 ** US spies pushed Twitter to censor ‘anti-Ukraine narratives’ – media

New batch of of files exposes collusion with ‘other government agencies’

The Pentagon, CIA and other US intelligence and law-enforcement agencies became increasingly “more aggressive” with takedown requests, the latest trove of Twitter files has revealed. The documents suggest the agencies were effectively pushing the platform to censor foreign-policy stories that ran against the Washington-approved narrative.

“The files show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government – from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA,” journalist Matt Taibbi wrote in the Christmas Eve edition of the Twitter Files, released with the blessing of the social media platform's owner, Elon Musk.

Thousands of censorship requests flowed to Twitter from what were termed OGA" in the documents, or “Other Government Organizations," through the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force.

Twitter executives often struggled to validate government claims, but were under constant pressure to find evidence to blame any foreign actor, Russia in particular.

“Found no links to Russia,” an unnamed analyst said in one of the emails, later suggesting he could “brainstorm” to “find a stronger connection.” Former Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth admitted in another instance that he'd found “no real matches using the info.”

Internal communications show that Twitter had been getting so many requests that its executives had to improvise a system for prioritizing them. The feds had dedicated personnel tasked with tailoring takedown requests to Twitter’s policies for faster processing, which the execs acknowledged as “odd,” but even then the company often struggled to justify censorship.

“Many people wonder if Internet platforms receive direction from intelligence agencies about moderation of foreign policy news stories. It appears Twitter did, in some cases by way of the FITF/FBI,” Taibbi wrote. At least some of these directives originated at the CIA, according to former agent and whistleblower John Kiriakou, who said he “recognized the formatting.”

The feds sometimes sent massive batches of over 1,000 accounts lined up for “digital execution,” with only a brief explanation of the alleged problems. On multiple occasions they accused “Russian agents” of directing accounts that highlighted “predominantly anti-Ukraine narratives” or documented “purported rights abuses committed by Ukrainians.”
(thread) https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1606701506191065088

Another intelligence assessment sent to Twitter claimed that accounts spreading information about “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine were part of a Kremlin-controlled propaganda campaign and must be banned.
(thread) https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1606701497081024512

In what Taibbi called a “damning admission,” an unnamed former CIA-turned-Twitter executive once noted that the “government partners” were getting increasingly “aggressive” with their takedown requests. https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1606701482308669440

“Due to a lack of technical evidence on our end, I've generally left it be, waiting for more evidence,” he said about the InfoBRICS account. He further argued that since “BRICS is an inherently Russia-dominated economic organization” it was “always likely...directed by the Kremlin.”

“Our window on that is closing, given that government partners are becoming more aggressive on attribution and reporting on it…I'm going to go ahead with suspension and marking the domain UNSAFE.”

Spearheaded by Taibbi in cooperation with fellow reporters Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and others, the Twitter Files have shed light on several controversial decisions made by the company, including material surrounding the suspension of ex-President Donald Trump, the practice of shadow banning, as well as a site-wide ban on a New York Post report about the foreign business dealings of Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.

The files also explained how the US intelligence community worked hand-in-glove with the platform to flag speech for suspension that the US government deemed “misinformation,” and showed how the FBI and Twitter locked horns over the agency’s claims of increased activity by ‘propaganda’ bots, of which Twitter said it found no evidence.
https://www.rt.com/news/568879-twitter-files-cia-collusion/
============================================

3 Dec, 2022 17:22 - (Looks as if it will be just swept under the carpet as we have heard little more about it. This is such a tavesty against justice and the people of the world, including Ukraine. We need to find out who authorised the grooming and growing of the fascist/Nazi elements of Ukraine from at least 2008 in order to infiltrate the government there in preparation for Maidan. I fear if this goes past we will never be able to bring to task the relevant people/bodies)

5) --- Musk’s Twitter files: What have we learned from the Hunter Biden laptop story?

Leaked files outlined a company-wide effort to suppress a damaging report about Joe Biden’s family

Some of Twitter’s highest-ranking staff blocked the spread of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, even as they struggled to explain why, documents released on Friday by new CEO Elon Musk and journalist Matt Taibbi reveal. RT examines what’s in these files, as well how the scanned unfolded.

What happened to Hunter Biden’s laptop?

On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published the first in a series of articles based on information obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop. These articles implicated Joe Biden in numerous pay-to-play schemes involving his son’s foreign business contacts – and coming weeks before the presidential election, threatened to sink Biden’s campaign against then-President Donald Trump.

Twitter immediately manipulated its algorithm to suppress the story, before banning links to it entirely, citing its “hacked materials” policy. Users were even forbidden from sharing the article via direct message, a move that Taibbi noted is usually reserved for “extreme cases” like child pornography. The New York Post had its account suspended for two weeks, and Trump’s account was temporarily locked for sharing a video that referenced the story.

The Biden campaign claimed that the laptop’s contents were fabricated by Russia, while most mainstream media outlets refused to cover the story. The contents of the laptop were subsequently declared authentic by the New York Times, Washington Post, and Daily Mail, long after Biden defeated Trump.

How was the story suppressed?

The decision to bury the story was spearheaded by Twitter’s former head of Legal, Policy and Trust, Vijaya Gadde, Taibbi reported.

Some staff were uncomfortable labeling the story as ‘hacked’, with communications official Trenton Kennedy writing “I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe,” and former Vice President of Global Communications Brandon Borrman wondering: “can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598834882414727168

“Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold,” one former employee told Taibbi. “But no one had the guts to reverse it.”

Former trust and safety chief Yoel Roth explained that “given the SEVERE risks here and lessons of 2016, we’re erring on the side of including a warning and preventing this content from being amplified,” apparently referring to unproven claims of outside meddling in the 2016 election.

Did Twitter’s CEO know?

According to Taibbi, the decision to censor the story was made without the knowledge of then-CEO Jack Dorsey, who would later tell Republican lawmakers that he thought it was “wrong” to block links to the Post’s story.

Taibbi wrote that “there are multiple instances in the files” of Dorsey questioning the suspension of accounts from across the political spectrum.

Was the Biden campaign involved?

Despite “general” warnings from law enforcement about “possible foreign hacks” during the summer of 2020, Taibbi stated that the files show no evidence of any government involvement in the censorship of the laptop story.

It is unclear whether the Biden campaign highlighted the story for suppression, but the campaign did maintain contact with Twitter’s content moderators, who often deleted tweets at its request, internal communications posted by Taibbi show. “By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine,” he explained. “One executive would write to another: ‘More to review from the Biden team.’ The reply would come back: ‘Handled.’”

Why is this coming to light now?

Since purchasing Twitter for $44 billion in October, Musk has fired more than half of the platform’s staff, including Gadde, and set about rolling back some of the platform’s more odious speech restrictions. Musk reinstated the account of Trump, lifted Twitter’s ban on the sharing of ‘misinformation’ about Covid-19, and announced a “general amnesty” for previously suspended accounts.

Musk began the process of buying Twitter in April. In a response to reporter Saagar Enjeti that month, he said that “suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,” referring to the New York Post’s reporting. In November, he wrote that releasing the files explaining the decision would be “necessary to restore public trust” in Twitter.

Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist,” and said that he acquired Twitter because “it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner.”
https://www.rt.com/news/567614-musk-twitter-hunter-biden/
===========================================