RT News - February 8th 2023 Late

Nord Stream 2 sabotage: An American Pulitzer Award-winning journalist, Seymour Hersh, reveals a US-Norwegian operation to attack the Russian Nord Stream gas pipelines. It was reportedly done under the guise of NATO naval drills in the Baltic Sea to cover their tracks. (4 below) Marina Kosareva and Eunan discuss the details. Rachel Marsden also reports and analyses.

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Syria earthquake aftershocks tragedy: The Syrian Arab Red Crescent says sanctions imposed on Damascus prevent vital aid deliveries from getting to the country, after devastating earthquakes leave at least 16-hundred people dead in the Middle Eastern nation. (QS: also see https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-february-6-2023/ for a bit of the callous nature of US despite them robbing Syria of $billions a month in oil).
Citizens are still being found as rescue teams locate and dig them out of the rubble, but it's a race against time with cold and other factors, dangerous structures etc
In Türkiye, the situation is also grim as rescue teams work round the clock to locate and dig out the people from the rubble and then care for them. The death toll is more than 10,000 in Türkiye and Syria, Peter Scott reports Diyarbakir.

Iran is set to join the world's largest regional bloc, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The bloc has 40% of the world's population and covers 60% of Eurasia. Prof Sayed Mohammad Marandi talks about the benefits of joining and explains more about the SCO.

Nord Stream 2 - Martin Jay comments.

China balloon, USA shoot down, relations and a phone call rejected: 'Your request has been denied' - that's the message from China who rejected to take a call from the US defence minister, after Washington shot down what Beijing has called a weather balloon. Victor Gao reports and it seems (rightly) that China is ticked off. The U.S. Defence Department submitted a request for a call between Lloyd Austin and China’s Minister of National Defence Wei Fenghe immediately after the US fighter jets shot down the balloon on Saturday afternoon but China declined the request, according to the Pentagon.

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Below via RT website A) --- Russia warns of direct clash with US
B) --- Moscow assesses prospects for peace with Kiev
C) --- Moscow says it’s ready for ‘normal talks’ with West
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N1) --- 10,000+ killed in Türkiye-Syria earthquakes
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1) --- Exiled opposition leader accuses Western-backed forces of using neo-Nazis in Ukraine
2) --- German defense minister admits Ukraine doubts
3) --- Сhechen leader predicts end of Ukraine conflict
4) --- US behind Nord Stream sabotage – legendary NYT journalist
5) --- Ukraine purges libraries of Russian-language books – official
6) --- India sends massive aid package to Türkiye and Syria
7) --- Moscow reveals time frame for response to Western oil sanctions
8) --- MH17 probe suspended
9) --- Majority of Canadians say their country is ‘broken’ – poll
10) --- Museum explains why it’s removing Chinese cameras
FEATURE) --- Lasers, spaceflight, surgery, nuclear power and the secrets of Mayan civilization: How Russian scientists changed the world
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8 Feb, 2023 14:26

A) --- Russia warns of direct clash with US

Washington is seeking a deterrence advantage over Russia, which could cause an outright war, Moscow has warned

The US has “unleashed a total hybrid war” against Russia and is putting the two nuclear nations on a path to direct confrontation, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said. It claims Washington’s demands for nuclear inspections in Russia are “cynical”, considering its “obvious” assistance in Ukrainian attacks against Russian strategic nuclear forces.

The allegations were part of the Ministry’s public comments on the status of the New START treaty, the last remaining US-Russian agreement on nuclear weapons reduction. According to US media, the Department of State notified the Congress last week that Russia was in “noncompliance” due to a refusal to facilitate inspections on its soil.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that was not true, since the treaty allows suspension of inspection. Washington was the first to start barring Russian monitors from doing their job in the US, it alleged. The ministry said that “created obvious unilateral benefits” for the US and prompted a response in kind by Moscow.

The 2010 treaty was signed in a different environment and is based on the notion that the US and Russia are equal partners who seek to build trust and improve global security through disarmament, as reflected in its text, the ministry explained. But now that Washington has declared the “strategic defeat” of Russia as its goal and ramped up tensions in all aspects of bilateral relations, there can be no “business as usual” with the US, according to the statement.

"Until Washington revises its hostile stance regarding Russia and drops the policy of increasing the threats towards our national security,” Moscow will consider any proposed gestures of goodwill under the nuclear treaty “unjustified, untimely and uncalled for.”

The Russian ministry didn’t elaborate on which “strategic nuclear forces objects” the Ukrainian side attacked with US help, which allegedly involved “military-technical and information-intelligence” aspects.

The Russian Defense Ministry has previously blamed Ukraine for two attacks against Engels air base in Saratov Region. Both happened in December and reportedly involved Soviet-made long-range drones. The first incident coincided with a similar attack against the Dyagilevo airfield in Ryazan Region.

Both Russian airfields host strategic bomber planes, which can carry and deploy nuclear weapons in addition to conventional air-launched missiles.
https://www.rt.com/russia/571172-nuclear-treaty-breach-russia/
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8 Feb, 2023 08:47

B) --- Moscow assesses prospects for peace with Kiev

Russia’s UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia has called on the West to stop using Ukrainians in a “proxy war”

The West is only prolonging the bloodshed in Ukraine by supplying Kiev with weapons and waging a proxy war against Moscow, Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, said on Tuesday. The statement came the same day US President Joe Biden vowed to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”

“The prospects of peace will be closer when the flooding of Ukraine with weapons stops… and when they realistically listen to our concerns,” Nebenzia told reporters at a press conference. He urged Ukraine’s Western backers to stop “using Ukrainians to wage a proxy war against us.”

Asked by a reporter if a peaceful resolution to the conflict could happen in 2023, the diplomat replied: “We all hope for peace.”

Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine nearly a year ago, citing the need to protect the people of Donbass and Kiev’s failure to implement the 2014-2015 Minsk peace accords. Many Western countries and NATO members have since supplied Ukraine with heavy weapons, including anti-armor systems, multiple rocket launchers, howitzers and combat drones. Last month, the US, Britain and Germany pledged for the first time to deliver tanks.

In his annual address to Congress on Tuesday, President Biden described Russia’s military operation in Ukraine as “a test for the ages” and threat to “our security and prosperity.”

“Together, we did what America always does at our best. We led. We united NATO and built a global coalition… We stood with the Ukrainian people,” Biden said.

Russia, meanwhile, maintains that foreign arms will not change the course of the conflict and only lead to further escalation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in December that the US and NATO were “directly involved” by providing weapons and training to Ukrainian troops.

Ukrainian officials insist that peace can only be achieved if Russia agrees to surrender its newly incorporated territories. Moscow has rejected these terms as unacceptable.

The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, together with two other former Ukrainian territories – the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions – became parts of Russia after holding referendums on the matter in September. Crimea did the same shortly after the 2014 coup in Kiev.
https://www.rt.com/russia/571156-russian-envoy-ukraine-peace/
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7 Feb, 2023 21:19

C) --- Moscow says it’s ready for ‘normal talks’ with West

There’s no point, however, in reading “statements that have already been voiced in public,” a senior Russian diplomat believes

Moscow is ready for a substantive discussion with the collective West as a whole or any party, Sergey Belyaev, the director of the Second European Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, has said. The senior diplomat made the remarks in an interview with RTVI published Tuesday.

Russia is prepared to talk to “anyone, with the British and, in general, with the Finns, Swedes, anyone,” Belyaev stressed. “If there is a desire to sit down and have a normal talk about ways to normalize the situation, about ways to minimize risks – and there are risks.”

At the same time, there’s no point in any negotiations if the “conversation with us is needed only in order to sit down at the table and read to us, as it sometimes happens, those statements that have already been voiced in public,” he added.

The diplomat pointed to the inability of Western nations to negotiate in any meaningful way, recalling the aftermath of the blasts that heavily damaged the Nord Stream pipelines last September. Despite Moscow’s repeated calls for a joint probe into the incident, the West has exhibited a very suspicious reluctance to perform a transparent investigation, Belyaev noted.

“To all our proposals [on the potential probe] there was either no answer, or the answer was a categorical ‘no.’ The question arises: if they do not want to conduct an investigation together with us, then why?” he wondered.

Relations between Russia and the West had been fraught for some time but entered a downward spiral last February after Moscow launched its military operation in neighboring Ukraine, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, which were designed to give Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian, German, and French leaders have since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the agreement to buy time for Kiev to build up its military.

The operation was preceded by Moscow having called for a comprehensive, multiparty security guarantees agreement, but this was squarely rejected by Washington.
https://www.rt.com/russia/571136-moscow-west-normal-talk/
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8 Feb, 2023 13:03

N1) --- 10,000+ killed in Türkiye-Syria earthquakes

Rescuers in both countries continue to clear the rubble and look for survivors 48 hours after the disaster

The death toll from the catastrophic earthquakes in southern Türkiye and northwestern Syria has now moved past 10,000, officials said on Wednesday.

Rescuers, meanwhile, continue to clear the rubble and look for survivors. Teams from dozens of countries are helping locals in both states.

In Türkiye, over 8,500 people were killed and nearly 50,000 injured, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters after arriving in Kahramanmaras, a city in the province where the epicenter of the 7.7 magnitude quake was recorded.

According to Erdogan, nearly 6,500 buildings were destroyed. Vice President Fuat Oktay said earlier that more than 450,000 residents who had lost their homes were being housed in student dormitories.

People are still being found alive under the rubble. Anadolu news agency reported that two women were rescued after spending 48 hours trapped in the debris of a destroyed apartment block in Hatay Province.

On Monday morning, a series of powerful earthquakes ravaged the southern part of the country, leveling houses in several cities. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described it as “the biggest disaster” since the 1939 Erzincan earthquake.

A three-month state of emergency was declared in the ten affected provinces on Tuesday. All schools across the country were closed for a week.

In neighboring Syria, more than 1,260 were killed and nearly 2,300 injured, Health Minister Hassan al-Ghabbash said. Separately, over 1,400 dead and around 2,700 injured were reported in the northwestern parts of Syria not controlled by the government, according to the Washington Post.

Al Ghabbash said officials were working “around the clock” to maintain the flow of medical and other supplies to Aleppo, Latakia and Hama, the regions hit hardest by the quake. More than 70 mosques have been equipped to function as shelters, according to the government.
see https://rumble.com/v28qs92-children-pulled-out-of-rubble-hours-after-horrific-quakes-in-trkiye.html?mref=6zof&mrefc=3
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https://www.rt.com/news/571168-turkiye-syria-earthquakes-casualties/
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8 Feb, 2023 10:12

1) --- Exiled opposition leader accuses Western-backed forces of using neo-Nazis in Ukraine

The US and EU have a vested interest in the country, no matter how radical the government becomes, Viktor Medvedchuk said

Radical political forces are a weapon routinely used by Western-backed actors in Ukraine to stifle opponents, exiled opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk believes. The US and its allies are willing to overlook this as long as it serves their interests, he said.

“Neo-Nazism is the cudgel that pro-Western forces turn to when they lose. Then, the mask of democracy and peacemaking comes off instantly, and opponents find themselves back in the harsh reality of political cannibalism,” the Ukrainian politician wrote in an analysis of the ongoing conflict, which was published on Wednesday by RIA Novosti.

Medvedchuk’s Opposition Platform – For Life party was the largest opposition faction in the Ukrainian parliament before a government crack down led by President Vladimir Zelensky banned the bloc for supposedly being pro-Russian.

The party was targeted because it had every chance to topple Zelensky at the ballot box, he said, citing opinion polls, but a “system of oppression” was deployed against it.

Historically, in Ukraine “as soon as a non pro-Western force gains ground, scores higher approval, pro-Western forces do everything to ban it,” he wrote. Radicals in the media “slander opposition politicians, threaten their supporters and urge a mass crackdown.”

Today, any speech in the pro-Western media is hailed as freedom of expression, whereas outlets allowing dissent are “declared propagandists, and its journalists branded traitors” and blacklisted.

The West never sees this as incitement, as a call for violence and lawlessness, as it never sees the ensuing violence and lawlessness.

Meanwhile, thugs who are used to suppress the opposition act with impunity in Ukraine, even maiming and killing their targets, Medvedchuk asserted. Any attempt to defend oneself is treated as “aggression and separatism.”

“Today, Ukraine is in the hands of people, who don’t speak Ukrainian [as their mother tongue] and who are mostly not ethnic Ukrainians,” the politician stated. “They turned the Ukrainian language into a ‘friend-or-foe’ designator to cover up their true intentions.”

READ MORE: Zelensky ‘set fire’ to Ukraine – exiled opposition leader
The Ukrainian case stands out because of the resources that the US and its allies have invested into tearing the country away from Russia and showcasing it as an example of pro-Western development, Medvedchuk believes.

If Kiev fails, the “political bankruptcy” of Washington’s global leadership would be exposed, as will the failure of EU expansion, which the politician compared to the construction of the Tower of Babel in terms of the chaos it produces.
https://www.rt.com/russia/571158-medvedchuk-west-neonazis-opposition/
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8 Feb, 2023 10:01

2) --- German defense minister admits Ukraine doubts

Boris Pistorius said it was “difficult” to determine if Kiev could retake Crimea and Donbass

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has expressed uncertainty over Ukraine’s ability to achieve its goal of retaking Crimea and Donbass. The official claimed that the West’s continued support for Kiev would be key in determining the outcome of the conflict with Russia.

Speaking to Germany’s Bild newspaper on Tuesday during an official visit to the Ukrainian capital, Pistorius was asked if Kiev would manage to restore control over all the territories within its 1991 borders.

The minister described the question as “difficult” and likened it to a “look into the crystal ball.” While stopping short of a prediction, Pistorius commended the bravery of Kiev’s forces, adding that “it is vital that we continue to support Ukraine to the best of our ability.”

“This is an intense war of attrition. There are insanely high losses,” the German official said.

When asked if he stood by his previous maxim that “Ukraine must win the war,” Pistorius replied: “Yes, of course.”

According to the German minister, much like Ukraine’s ability to make territorial gains, the prospect of peace negotiations remains uncertain.

Pistorius, who took office on January 19, confirmed Berlin’s commitment to providing Kiev with 14 Leopard 2A6 main battle tanks by late March, with the training of Ukrainian personnel expected to start in the near future.

Pistorius stressed that he sees the delivery of air defense systems in the coming months as crucial, while calling into question the potential usefulness of submarines, should Kiev request them further down the line.

Responding to Western nations’ plans to supply Ukraine with tanks and other heavy weapons, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu warned on Tuesday that “such moves are essentially dragging NATO countries into the conflict and could lead to an unpredictable escalation.”

However, he expressed confidence that the Russian military would destroy the hardware.

Top Russian officials have consistently argued that Western arms deliveries only serve to prolong the conflict unnecessarily.
https://www.rt.com/news/571155-german-defense-minister-ukraine-crimea-donbass/
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7 Feb, 2023 14:39

3) --- Сhechen leader predicts end of Ukraine conflict

The hostilities will subside by the end of the year, Ramzan Kadyrov has said

The Russian military operation against Ukraine will be wrapped up by the end of the year, according to the head of Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov. He also predicted that the West would be forced to admit its mistakes regarding relations with Moscow.

“European nations will acknowledge that their actions were wrong. The West will kneel. And, as usual, European states will have to cooperate with Russia in all spheres. There can be and will be no other outcome,” Kadyrov said in an interview on Tuesday.

Units of ethnic Chechens have been on the frontline in Ukraine since the start of the campaign. Russian President Vladimir Putin praised them in September for showing “valor and exceptional courage,” noting the tradition of military service alongside other peoples from their nation.

Kadyrov regularly posts videos showcasing Chechen troops in action and reports on their progress on the ground. On occasion, he has publicly questioned some of the decisions taken by the Russian military leadership, including the withdrawal of troops from Kharkov Region in September.

At the time, the Chechen leader urged the Russian Defense Ministry to adopt a bolder offensive strategy. The ministry explained the partial pullout as helping to minimize Russian battlefield losses.

Moscow deployed troops against Ukraine in late February 2022, citing the creeping expansion of NATO and Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk Agreements of 2014-15, which were intended to form a roadmap for peace in Donbass.

Russian officials have argued that the military operation preempted an attempt by Kiev to retake by force the territories that broke away from Ukraine after the 2014 armed coup in the capital.
https://www.rt.com/russia/571116-kadyrov-ukraine-operation-end/
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8 Feb, 2023 13:35

4) --- US behind Nord Stream sabotage – legendary NYT journalist

Washington “took out” the Russian gas pipelines, Seymour Hersh has claimed

The Nord Stream pipelines were destroyed last September by the US in a covert operation, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed. The legendary reporter made the bombshell revelation in an article posted to his newly launched blog on Substack on Wednesday.

The explosives were planted at the pipelines back in June 2022 by US Navy divers under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise, Hersh reported, citing a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.

The journalist noted that he had reached out to the White House and CIA for comment, with both firmly rejecting the claim that the US “took out” the pipelines as “utterly false.”

The bombs were detonated three months later on September 26 with a remote signal sent by a sonar buoy. The buoy was dropped near the Nord Stream pipelines by a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane, according to the report.

The operation came to fruition following months of back-and-forth between the White House, CIA, and military, with officials focusing on how to leave no trace of US involvement in the attack. The planning process began back in December 2021, when a special task force was created with the direct participation of US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

“The Navy proposed using a newly commissioned submarine to assault the pipeline directly. The Air Force discussed dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off remotely. The CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to be covert. Everyone involved understood the stakes,” the report read.

The source told Hersh that everybody involved understood the operation was not some “kiddie stuff” but was actually an “an act of war.” Throughout “all of this scheming” certain officials urged the White House to drop the idea entirely. “Some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out,’” according to the source.

Originally, the explosives were to have a 48-hour timer and were set to be planted by the end of BALTOPS22, Hersh reported, citing the same source. The two-day window, however, was ultimately deemed to be too close to the end of the exercise by the White House, which ordered the task force to come up with an on-demand method of detonating them. This ultimately turned out to be the sonar buoy.

The administration of President Joe Biden has been “focused” on jeopardizing the Nord Stream pipelines – initially through sanctions, and, ultimately, by direct sabotage – seeing it as key to swaying Europe to its cause amid the then-looming conflict in Ukraine, Hersh noted.

“As long as Europe remained dependent on the pipelines for cheap natural gas, Washington was afraid that countries like Germany would be reluctant to supply Ukraine with the money and weapons it needed to defeat Russia,” he wrote.

Moscow provided a similar take on the incident shortly after the blasts, branding them a “terrorist attack” and stating that the US was the nation that benefited most from it, by accelerating Europe’s attempts to wean itself off of Russian gas.

Throughout his career, Hersh has reported on numerous explosive stories, including war crimes by the US military and high-profile political scandals. Exposing the My Lai massacre by US troops in Vietnam scored the journalist the Pulitzer Prize in 1970. Other notable stories Hersh reported on include the Watergate scandal, the CIA illegal domestic spying, as well as the American military's torture and abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
https://www.rt.com/news/571173-hersh-us-nord-stream/
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7 Feb, 2023 11:56

5) --- Ukraine purges libraries of Russian-language books – official

More than 10 million volumes have been pulled from the shelves, a senior Rada MP has said

Ukraine has removed millions of copies of Russian-language books from its public libraries, Yevgeniya Kravchuk, a senior member of the country’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, said on Monday.

She stated that the Culture Ministry had provided recommendations on what titles should be taken off the shelves.

This move was provoked by an initiative declared by the Ukrainian government to “overcome the consequences of Russification,” which in practice means purging schools of certain literature, renaming streets, and dismantling monuments to Russian historical figures.

According to Kravchuk, the deputy chair of the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, 19 million books had been removed as of November, including 11 million in Russian.

“Some Ukrainian-language books from the Soviet times are being removed as well,” Kravchuk said. The MP noted that there was not enough literature available in the Ukrainian language.

“The ratio of books in the Russian and Ukrainian languages in our libraries is very disheartening. We are talking about the need to update the stocks more quickly and procure books in the Ukrainian language.”

Ukraine has a sizable Russian-speaking minority, and many Ukrainian speakers are fluent in Russian.

In June, the Ukrainian Education Ministry proposed removing more than 40 books by Russian and Soviet authors from the curriculum. The list included the works of such renowned classical writers as Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Alexander Pushkin, as well as Boris Pasternak and Mikhail Sholokhov, both of whom won the Nobel Prize for literature. Ukrainian Culture Minister Aleksander Tkachenko urged the world in December to “boycott” Russian culture, arguing that Moscow has been using it for propaganda.

Since 2014, Kiev has adopted several laws aimed at restricting the use of the Russian language in the public sphere. Moscow, meanwhile, has described these moves as discriminatory. Last year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov condemned “Kiev’s policy of aggressive de-Russification and forced assimilation.”

Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine nearly a year ago, citing the need to protect the people of Donbass, a predominately Russian-speaking region, and Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk 2014-2015 peace accords.
https://www.rt.com/russia/571099-ukraine-purges-russian-books/
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8 Feb, 2023 17:41

6) --- India sends massive aid package to Türkiye and Syria

Over 100 tonnes of equipment and 200 personnel have been sent to areas affected by the devastating earthquakes
By Joydeep Sen Gupta, Asia editor

India has dispatched 130 tonnes of aid to Türkiye and another six tonnes to Syria to help with the aftermath of the devastating earthquakes that hit the countries on Monday.

On Tuesday, four C-17 aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) airlifted equipment and medicine, as well as 101 National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) personnel and 99 military medics to the disaster-hit areas. The aid packages are part of New Delhi’s human assistance and disaster relief (HADR) mission called ‘Operation Dost’, which means ‘friends’ in Hindi.

According to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the NDRF teams are self-contained rescue units. They carry a range of equipment necessary to search collapsed structures and rescue trapped survivors, such as angle cutters, rotary rescue saws, life detectors, lighting, air-lifting bags, chainsaws, hand and power tools and more. They are also accompanied by sniffer dog squads. The medical team will set up a 30-bed field hospital with operation theaters, X-ray machines and ventilators.

“One team went to Adana and another to Urfa. They will later converge at Nurdağı, one of the worst-hit areas. A third team of 51 operatives is on its way and the local administration will decide on its deployment,” NDRF Director-General Atul Karwal said at a media briefing in New Delhi on Wednesday evening.

India’s assistance was on its way even before Türkiye officially requested it, thanks to the initiative of Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, said Air Marshal Balabhadra Radha Krishna.

“The rapid response of the Indian administration stemmed from its annual exercise and standard operating procedure for HADR, which helped them mobilize resources within 12 hours from when the disaster occurred. Our interoperability and synergies among key government departments were on display as this is the farthest — up to nine hours of flying time — that we’ve managed to take our HADR initiative to date,” Krishna explained.

India boosted its disaster relief capabilities after the devastating tsunami that hit the coastal part of southern India, the Andaman and Nicobar islands, Sri Lanka and several other countries in the Indian Ocean region in December 2004, killing over 227,000 people. Since then, HADR has emerged as a security provider in emergencies across the region, as well as for Indians elsewhere in the world. One of its most recent efforts was ‘Operation Ganga’, which evacuated thousands of Indians stranded in and around Ukraine in March last year.

The current death toll from Monday’s devastating earthquakes that hit southern Türkiye and northwestern Syria stands at over 11,000 people. Other affected countries include Cyprus, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Georgia and Armenia.

Türkiye’s ambassador to India, Firat Sunel, praised New Delhi’s assistance. “India’s reaction was important and critical because the first two-three days are very important as it’s a matter of life and death. India’s response was swift,” he said in an interview to abplive.com.
https://www.rt.com/india/571191-india-turkiye-earthquake-aid/
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8 Feb, 2023 17:01

7) --- Moscow reveals time frame for response to Western oil sanctions

Russia will decide on countermeasures by the end of this month, according to Deputy PM Aleksandr Novak

Russia will unveil retaliatory measures to the price ceiling introduced by the EU and G7 on its oil products by March, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak stated on Wednesday.

“We are now studying the new decisions made [by the EU and the G7 on the embargo and the price cap on fuel from Russia] in order to understand the feasibility [of a response],” Novak said. “Of course, there will be decisions before March,” added the minister.

The EU’s restrictions on Russian refined petroleum products came into force on February 5, setting a price limit of $100 per barrel for diesel, jet fuel, and gasoline coming from Russia, as well as a $45-per-barrel cap for other oil products that trade below the crude price, such as fuel oil used in industry.

The price caps, together with an EU ban on Russian oil product imports, are part of a broader agreement among the G7 countries. It follows a $60-per-barrel cap on Russian crude that the G7 along with the EU and Australia imposed on December 5.

The measures prohibit Western companies from financing, insuring, trading, brokering or carrying cargoes of Russian crude and oil products unless they were bought at or below the set price caps.

On Tuesday, however, Brussels issued exceptions to the embargo, saying Russian crude blended with petroleum products in a third country will be exempt from a price cap.

The measures will allow EU countries to continue buying Russian petroleum products such as diesel from third countries, since Moscow has prohibited any sales under the price cap scheme.

The Kremlin has called the price ceilings a non-market instrument. The Russian government has banned crude sales to buyers that mention the price caps in their contracts, promising a similar restriction regarding the EU’s latest limits on oil products.
https://www.rt.com/business/571189-moscow-response-western-oil-sanctions/
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8 Feb, 2023 16:47

8) --- MH17 probe suspended

The international investigation team says it cannot determine who operated the missile that shot down the Malaysian Boeing

Investigators behind the criminal probe into the July 2014 downing of Malaysian flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine said on Wednesday they had not been able to find sufficient evidence that could lead to new prosecutions and are therefore suspending the investigation. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) stressed, however, that the case will be resumed if new information comes to light.

“The investigation has now reached its limit. All leads have been exhausted,” said Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer as the JIT issued its latest report on the tragic incident.

According to the JIT, the Malaysian Boeing was shot down by a BUK surface-to-air missile. In their report, the team claims there are “strong indications” that the air defense system was provided to anti-Kiev rebels in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) on the personal orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

They admit, however, that there is not enough information to meet the “high bar of complete and conclusive evidence,” which is why the investigation cannot make any definitive accusations. The team also stated that it has been unable to confirm the identities of the Russian officers believed to have been operating the BUK system allegedly responsible for the tragic incident.

The Malaysian Airlines flight was shot down as it flew over the east of Ukraine in July 2014. All 298 people on board were killed. The incident took place at a time when Ukrainian government forces were engaged in fierce battles against the rebels who opposed the outcome of an armed coup in Kiev.

Back in November, the JIT’s investigation, which was launched in 2019, was used by a Dutch court to hand out life sentences to two Russian and one Ukrainian nationals who held high-ranking positions within the DPR’s forces at the time of the incident. The court accused them of being responsible for downing the civilian airliner. All three denied the allegations and were tried in absentia. Moscow called the ruling a “politically motivated verdict” that was handed out under “unprecedented pressure” and refused to extradite its citizens.

Russia has repeatedly denied responsibility for the downing of MH17 and has insisted that Ukraine possessed the same type of weapons system used to shoot down the airliner. Moscow has also blasted the JIT probe for neglecting to include evidence provided by Russia and failing to take into account Ukraine’s failure to provide raw radar data from the day of the tragedy. Kiev insists this information is not available.
https://www.rt.com/news/571185-jit-suspends-mh17-investigation/
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8 Feb, 2023 16:05

9) --- Majority of Canadians say their country is ‘broken’ – poll

Half of the people are ‘angry’ about what they view as the country’s mismanagement, a new survey shows

Over two-thirds of Canadians – 67% – believe their country is “broken,” according to poll results published Monday by the National Post and Leger. Respondents across the political spectrum see a large divide between the issues they deal with in their daily lives and the issues their government chooses to focus on.

Respondents were asked whether they agreed with Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre’s claim that “It feels like everything is broken in this country right now,” though Poilievre’s name was not mentioned. Just 25% disagreed with the statement, with the remainder undecided.

Half of respondents reported feeling “angry” with the way Canada was being managed, with two out of five of those being “very angry.” Women were slightly more likely to be angry than men, and inhabitants of the midwestern provinces – Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan – were more upset than those on either coast.

More than two-thirds (68%) of respondents named “rising costs and inflation/interest rates” as the primary issue affecting Canadians, with “the state of healthcare” also commanding 59% of the vote. “Affording a place to live” came third, named by 43% of respondents, and “jobs and the economy” rounded out the top four with 40%.

This contrasts with where Canadians believe the federal government is focusing its energies. Just 28% see Ottawa concentrating, like them, on rising costs and inflation, while 27% said “environment/climate change” was the government’s primary focus. Another 25% said the government was chiefly concerned with “Canada’s response to the war in the Ukraine [sic],” while only 14% of poll respondents listed the Ukraine conflict as a significant issue affecting their own lives. Fully 22% of respondents confessed they had no idea what the federal government was prioritizing.

Local government was seen as slightly more in touch, with 37% of poll respondents reporting their provincial leaders were most focused on healthcare, 28% on rising costs and inflation, and 27% on jobs and the economy. However, 17% of respondents said they did not know what their local government was prioritizing.

Conducted late last month, the poll surveyed 1,554 Canadians randomly recruited from an online panel.

Canadians are far from alone in their economic malaise. Recent polls show two-thirds of Americans believe their country is on the wrong track, and the economy is widely considered to be the primary challenge facing the US.
https://www.rt.com/news/571186-canadians-poll-broken-economic-concerns/
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7 Feb, 2023 22:13

9a) Nearly two-thirds of Americans say US headed wrong way – poll

President Joe Biden’s approval rating remains low, though up on last year's ratings

Nearly two out of three Americans – 65% – believe their country is on the wrong track, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Tuesday ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. It’s a marked increase over last year, when just 58% of respondents expressed similar misgivings.

With the president set to address Congress on Tuesday evening, Biden’s public approval rating remains underwater at 41% – not quite the low of 36% it repeatedly hit last spring and summer, but still problematic for a leader looking to convince voters to award him a second term.

Biden’s State of the Union speech touted his legislative efforts in infrastructure and inflation, the latter remaining (along with ‘the economy’ in general) at the top of the list of Americans’ concerns in recent polling. The White House had told reporters Biden would lay out a ‘unity agenda’ emphasizing bipartisan cooperation on cancer research, veterans’ health, mental health in general, and the opioid epidemic.

None of those issues made Reuters’ list of the five problems most concerning to Americans, however. After the economy – which includes unemployment and jobs – the pollsters’ most recent results rank crime/corruption, immigration, environment/climate, and inequality/discrimination as the most important issues concerning Americans. In a rare show of bipartisan unity, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents agreed the economy is the nation’s number-one challenge.

Just 37% of Democrats want Biden to run for a second term as president, according to an Associated Press poll published earlier this week. Respondents cited his age, his perceived mental decline, and what they viewed as his ineffectiveness at governing in their reasons for wanting new leadership, with just 13% saying they had a lot of confidence in the president’s ability to accomplish major policy goals.

Despite his low approval ratings, however, Biden’s party pulled off a surprisingly strong showing in the 2022 midterm elections. While Republicans gained control of the House, Democrats avoided being swamped by a ‘red wave’ and maintained control of the Senate.
https://www.rt.com/news/571143-americans-wrong-track-poll-biden/
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8 Feb, 2023 14:44

10) --- Museum explains why it’s removing Chinese cameras

A local senator has deemed the foreign-made devices a ‘national security’ risk

The Australian War Memorial in Canberra is taking down security cameras made in China as a precaution, the museum chair said on Wednesday. This comes during a rise in suspicion of PRC-made electronics in Australia.

The institution will be removing all security cameras made by Hikvision, a Hangzhou-based state-owned manufacturer of CCTV surveillance devices. “It’s not because we’ve had any notice of anything untoward but it’s an abundance of caution,” the newly-appointed Australian War Memorial chair Kim Beazley told the Canberra Times. The museum will gradually take down the eleven Chinese-made cameras throughout the year, stating that the Hikvision models made up a small fraction of the 200 other cameras and were not filming any “significant historical exhibits.”

Australian opposition senator and Shadow Minister for Cyber Security and Countering Foreign Interference James Paterson welcomed the decision. “A Chinese government-linked surveillance company has no place on the grounds of our most sacred monument to Australians who fought and died for freedom,” Paterson told the Canberra Times. The politician added when speaking to ABC TV that he was working on a “full audit” of the government’s departments and agencies to assess exposure to possible surveillance by Beijing. Paterson is certain that Chinese-made cameras pose “national security risks.”

Hikvision has yet to comment on the decision by the Australian museum, but it denied similar “spying” accusations from the UK in November. In a statement to news agencies, the company guaranteed that it had no visibility into end users’ video data nor did it store or sell it.
Similarly, Australia’s National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) decided to remove all cameras made by Chinese company Dahua from their head office in Geelong, Victoria, according to reports by the Daily Telegraph.

Beijing has also yet to comment on the matter. When faced with these kinds of accusations from the US over Dahua and Hikvision in the past, Beijing denied that the companies were being used for spying.

Australia has previously expressed suspicion towards Chinese electronics, when Canberra barred international tech giant Huawei and ZTE from creating a 5G communication network in the country in 2018. Beijing’s ambassador, Cheng Jingye, described the measure as politically-motivated discrimination against a Chinese company.

This development comes as Washington, London, and Canberra signed the AUKUS security pact in 2021, with the proclaimed goal of “sustaining peace and stability” in the region by acquiring nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy. Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Tan Kefei slammed the agreement in December, calling it a source of nuclear proliferation as the US was “vigorously” deploying nukes in the region in December. He added that Washington needed to “abandon the Cold War mentality.”
https://www.rt.com/news/571178-australia-museum-chinese-cameras/
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8 Feb, 2023 11:34

FEATURE) --- Lasers, spaceflight, surgery, nuclear power and the secrets of Mayan civilization: How Russian scientists changed the world

The country’s contributions to research and discovery impact all our lives

February 8 marks the day of Russian science, when past achievements are celebrated to inspire new generations for the future. The list of Soviet and Russian specialists who have made crucial contributions to physics, chemistry, medicine and biology amongst others is too long to outline, but their work is used every day around the world.

The Periodic Table
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The Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, a basic tool used by scientists to explore matter and foresee the existence of new elements, was created by Russian scientist Dmitry Mendeleev in 1869. In 2019, the UN celebrated The International Year of the Periodic Table, to mark the 150th anniversary of the discovery it called“a window on the universe.”

Humanity has known about several chemical elements since ancient times. In the 17th century, German alchemist Hennig Brand accidentally discovered a new element – phosphorus – and triggered a wave of scientific experiments. A hundred years later, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier wrote ‘Elementary Treatise of Chemistry’, considered to be the first modern chemistry textbook.

Mendeleev was only 35 years old when he made the greatest discovery of his life.

He had suspected a relationship between the elements since he was a student, and over the years, this idea became an obsession. “...The anticipation of the imminent resolution of a question that tormented me put me in an excited state,” he recalled. “For several weeks I slept fitfully, trying to find that magical principle… And then one fine morning, after spending a sleepless night… I lay down on the sofa in the office and fell asleep. And in a dream, a table appeared to me quite clearly.” Mendeleev arranged the elements by atomic weight and noted periodicity of properties. Then, he grouped the elements with similar properties below each other.

This system allowed Mendeleev to predict the existence of further elements. In the middle of the 19th century, only about 63 elements were known whereas now 118 elements currently populate the periodic table. The latest addition, oganesson, is named after Russian nuclear scientist Yuri Oganesyan, who assisted in the discovery of several superheavy elements, now added to the table.
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Field Surgery
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Doctor Nikolay Pirogov made an immense contribution to medicine worldwide and is often described as the “father of Russian medicine”. He is considered an innovator and was the founder of field surgery – or offering complex treatment to the wounded in the middle of combat.

Pirogov became the first surgeon to use ether as an anesthetic in 1847 while working in a field hospital. He was the main surgeon in the besieged city of Sevastopol through the Crimean War in the 1850s and was also one of the first to use orthopedic casts from plaster, which helped prevent amputation of limbs.

Pirogov further improved Russian field medicine by applying the innovations and practice of his contemporaries. During the Crimean War, Pirogov emulated Florence Nightingale by training a Russian group of female nurses. Additionally, after meeting the famous French surgeon Dominique Jean Larrey in Paris, Pirogov introduced Larrey’s triage system to the Russian army’s medical corps.
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Classical Conditioning
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Even if you’ve never heard about Russian neurologist and physiologist Ivan Pavlov, you’re probably familiar with ‘Pavlov’s dog’.

While researching the digestion process of animals, Pavlov realized that dogs began to salivate when they saw the assistant who fed them. The scientist presented a stimulus – the sound of a metronome – and then fed the dog. After several attempts, the animals started to salivate in response to the stimulus.

The experiment became a base for the classical conditioning theory: An unconditioned stimulus (in Pavlov’s case – food) caused an unconditioned response (dog’s salivation). A neutral stimulus (the metronome’s sound without food) didn’t cause any reaction, but after conditioning (offered with food), the metronome’s sound became a conditioned stimulus and caused a conditioned reaction (salivation) even if food didn’t follow.

Classical conditioning helps understand the basic form of learning and is often used in behavioral therapies. Specialists also use it to investigate and treat addictions.

In 1904, Pavlov became the first Russian to be awarded The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “in recognition of his work on the physiology of digestion, through which knowledge on vital aspects of the subject has been transformed and enlarged.”
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Deciphering the Maya Script
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“You don’t need to jump across the pyramids to understand how to work with texts” – Yuri Knorozov.

Knorozov was a Soviet linguist and ethnographer who managed to decipher the script of the Maya civilization. He published an article in 1952 proclaiming his achievement. At the time, he was just 30 years old, but perhaps more remarkable is that he had never visited Central America.

Knorozov studied Egyptology at Moscow State University, and was fascinated by the Mayan culture. As he recalled, he was heavily influenced by a 1945 article by German researcher Paul Schellhas titled, “Is deciphering of the Maya hieroglyphs an unsolvable problem?”.

While working on the Maya scripts, Knorozov demonstrated that the hieroglyphs represent sounds. Later, he composed a catalog of 540 symbols, and explained the method on how to use them to read and understand the Maya texts.

Knorosov’s work was translated into many languages and sparked discussions in the scientific community for decades. Soviet scientists led by Knorozov went on to work on the decipherment of other historical mysteries such as the rongorongo script of Easter Island and the Indus script.

In Mexico, there are monuments to Knorozov in the capital and in the Yucatan peninsula city of Merida where the Mayan civilization existed. The scientist is portrayed together with his cat Asya that Knorozov called his “co-author”.
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Development of Lasers
It’s extremely difficult to imagine the modern world without lasers. They are used everywhere – in medicine, industry, electronic devices and beyond. ‘Laser’ is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. The creation of such devices was predicted by Albert Einstein in 1917, when he described the process of ‘stimulated emission’ – the release of energy from an excited atom by artificial means.

Before scientists developed a laser, they worked on the ‘maser’ concept (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). The research was done simultaneously in the USSR and in the US. In 1952, Soviet physicists Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov described the theoretical principles for maser operation.

Later, they proposed a principle for achieving population inversion by pumping a three-level system. This technique proved to be highly effective and is now widely used in various lasers and spectral ranges.

Simultaneously, American physicist Joseph Weber described how to use stimulated emissions to make a microwave amplifier. Using this method, physicist Charles H. Townes built the first maser.

In 1964, Basov, Prokhorov and Townes shared the Nobel Prize “for fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle.”
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Optical Holography
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Holography is generally best known as a method to create a 3D image, which can be seen without any special glasses or other devices. Holography itself was invented by Hungarian-British physicist Dennis Gabor in 1947. While trying to improve an electron microscope, he discovered a method to record the entire field information – amplitude and phase – and not just the usual intensity.

The breakthrough in the technology followed laser invention and development, which were distinguished from other light sources by their coherence (meaning that the wavelengths of the laser light are in phase in space and time).

In the 1960s, Soviet physicist Yuri Denisyuk created a single-beam technique to produce a high quality image. This method became widely known as “Denisyuk holography”. When a Denisyuk hologram is recorded with at least three lasers, full color holograms can be obtained.

Interestingly, Denisyuk took inspiration from the Lippmann color photography technique (interferential photography), which is a color-only technique that records the entire visible color spectrum. When a Denisyuk hologram is recorded with at least three lasers, full color holograms, depicting a very realistic image of an object, can be obtained.
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Linear Programming
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Soviet economist Leonid Kantorovich was the first to describe the method now known as ‘linear programming,’ used in industry and business planning, having developed the idea in the 1930s. As Kantorovich recalled, he faced a formidable task to find the optimal loading for peeling machines. While searching for an effective solution, Kantorovich took into account many other similar problems, such as the effective use of agricultural land, which all seemed to fit a certain mathematical model. In 1975, the scientist shared a Nobel Prize with Dutch economist Tjalling C. Koopmans “for their contributions to the theory of optimum allocation of resources.”

Linear programming methods have since been improved by many scientists around the world. It is widely used in microeconomics and can be applied to planning, production and transportation to minimize production costs and maximize income.
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Space Exploration
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It’s nearly impossible to imagine the Soviet and Russian space programs without Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, universally recognized as the “father of human spaceflight.” Apart from being a brilliant scientist, Tsiolkovsky was quite an extraordinary man. At the age of 10, he almost completely lost his hearing and was forced to dedicate himself to self-education.

Most of Tsiolkovsky’s ideas outpaced his time. In 1895, he predicted artificial satellite development and use. In 1903, he published a mathematical equation, now known as the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, describing rocket travel in space which is still used by aerospace engineers. Tsiolkovsky also envisioned and explained how future spaceships would overcome Earth's gravity, described their flight path and how they would land. Decades later, his theories became reality, brought to life by new generations of scientists and engineers.

In the 20s, schoolboy Valentin Glushko wrote several letters to Tsiolkovsky, detailing his dreams about space flight, which later became the point of his life. Glushko would go on to design rocket engines that took Soviet satellites and cosmonauts to space, as well as the “Buran” spaceplane.

Sergey Korolev is also a significant figure in the history of space exploration. He led the Soviet space program and worked on the launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite. Korolev’s guidance oversaw many other aerospace achievements including Yuri Gagarin’s ground breaking space flight, Alexey Leonov’s first human spacewalk, the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, and a number of other groundbreaking space missions.
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Nuclear Reactions
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Soviet and Russian atomic scientists have always been frontrunners in researching nuclear energy, and Igor Kurchatov is one of the most prominent. Kurchatov worked on the peaceful application of atomic energy while leading the Soviet nuclear weapons project. His work led to the first grid-connected nuclear power plant launched in the city of Obninsk in 1954, near Moscow.

Modern-day nuclear fusion relies heavily on the research of another globally-known Soviet physicist – Andrey Sakharov. Together with Nobel Prize-awarded scientist Igor Tamm, they developed the tokamak concept – a device that uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma and produce controlled thermonuclear fusion power. Their research forms the base of fusion reactor development today.

Both Kurchatov and Sakharov played key roles in the development of Soviet nuclear weapons. In 1949, a team led by Kurchatov tested the first Soviet nuclear bomb. Six years later, the first hydrogen bomb designed by Sakharov and his team was tested in the same area.
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The Denisovans
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In the late 2000s, Russian archeologists made a surprising discovery: They found a new species of archaic human. They named it “The Denisovan”, after the Denisova cave where it was found. The cave’s location is in the Altai mountains in Siberia.

Archeological work at the site began in the 1970s. In 1990, Anatoly Derevyanko from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Science established a special research center in the area.

In 2008, a group of scientists led by Mikhail Shunkov found a finger bone of a young female. The bone contained well-preserved DNA, which was sequenced by the team of Swedish researcher Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany. Following a series of tests, in 2010 they announced that the genetic material belongs to a previously unknown hominin.

Scientists now believe the Denisovans may have lived in the cave some 200 thousand years ago. The work in the Denisova cave continues, and likely holds even more secrets of human history.
https://www.rt.com/russia/571060-day-of-russian-science/
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