8 Jul, 2022 21:53

Pentagon plans ‘years’ of military aid to Ukraine

(Give us a fucking break)

The US has revealed $400 million in new weapons shipments to Kiev and intends to keep the aid flowing for “months and years”

“What we see now, as the United States surged HIMARS and the missiles for those systems, is that Ukraine has now been successfully striking Russian locations in Ukraine, deeper behind the front lines and disrupting Russia’s ability to conduct that artillery operation,” the official said.

Russian forces destroyed two US-supplied HIMARS systems and ammunition depots on Wednesday, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry. Some of the foreign weapons supplied to Ukraine have failed to reach their destination and wound up on black markets overseas, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said earlier this week.

The Pentagon official claimed that all of the HIMARS units previously shipped to Ukraine have been accounted for. As for concerns raised by members of Congress over how well the US monitors the weapons it gives to Kiev, the official said, “We are tracking that very carefully, and we are very mindful of our duties and obligations to maintain awareness of the capabilities we’re providing to Ukraine.”

Russian forces have reportedly made strong gains in Donbass, including taking full control of the Lugansk People’s Republic. Kiev needs more heavy weapons, including howitzers and HIMARS, to counter Russia’s “scorched-earth tactics,” said Andrey Yermak, chief of staff for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

President Joe Biden’s administration has announced $400 million in new weapons aid to Ukraine, including four additional HIMARS rocket systems, and is making plans to keep supplying such hardware to Kiev for “months and years ahead.”

A Pentagon official spoke of planning efforts to meet Kiev’s short- and long-term weaponry needs in a briefing to reporters on Friday. The latest round of aid will be provided under Biden’s drawdown authority, meaning it won’t require congressional approval, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The new batch of HIMARS units follows previous deliveries of eight such rocket systems. HIMARS stands for High Mobility Aircraft Rocket System, a precision artillery launcher that can hit targets 80 kilometers away. The new shipments, which represent Washington’s 15th military aid package for Ukraine since last August, will also include 1,000 rounds of advanced 155mm Howitzer shells. The new ammunition has greater precision than standard artillery rounds and will enhance Ukraine’s ability to target Russian assets, the Pentagon said.

Andriy Yermak@AndriyYermak·

🇺🇦 need more heavy weapons to repel RF aggression. With a sufficient number of howitzers, SPG and HIMARS, our soldiers are able to stop and drive the invaders from our land. Got to break RF's scorched earth tactics.

We need air and missile defenses to save thousands of lives.

Despite Russia’s recent successes on the battlefield, the Pentagon said those gains have been hard-fought and costly, portending a protracted conflict. “We don’t see this at all as Russia winning this battle,” the official said. “Certainly, they’re not winning it related to their initial objectives.”

(The pentagon generals are old war hungry and death hungry demons!)

https://www.rt.com/news/558673-pentagon-announces-more-ukraine-aid/

8 Jul, 2022 21:33

Musk cancels Twitter deal

Elon Musk has notified Twitter the $44 billion buyout is off, citing “false and misleading representations”

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has canceled his previously agreed $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, accusing the social media company of “material breach of multiple provisions” of the merger agreement in a letter on Friday evening.

Under the April 25 agreement, Twitter was obligated to provide Musk with the data he requested, in order to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform,” said the letter, sent by his attorneys to Twitter’s Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde.

Musk called that information necessary to finance and plan the buy-out and “engage in transition planning” for the company, but Twitter “failed or refused” to provide it, the lawyers said. The company either ignored his requests, “rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified,” or claimed to comply while giving Musk “incomplete or unusable information,” according to the letter.

The billionaire maker of spaceships and electric cars first disclosed a large purchase of Twitter shares in early April, then proposed to buy the platform outright. The company’s board at first sought to fight off the hostile takeover with “poison pills,” then accepted his offer on April 25.

Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement announcing the purchase, vowing to improve the platform by “defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.”

By mid-May, however, the deal was on hold as Musk announced suspicious about Twitter’s official estimate that only 5% of the 230 million daily users were spam accounts, as stated in federal filings. The letter from his attorneys claims the actual number is “substantially higher” and that this has a bearing on the bottom line, since approximately 90% of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertising.

Musk had offered to buy out Twitter at $54.20 a share. The company’s stock was trading around $37 on Friday, crashing below $34 after the announcement that the deal was off.

Twitter’s fate may end up being resolved in court, as the company is expected to sue Musk and claim that he waived his rights by signing the April 25 merger agreement, compelling him to finalize the buyout at the previously agreed price.

https://www.rt.com/business/558674-musk-cancels-twitter-deal/

8 Jul, 2022 22:06

HomeWorld News

China scraps vax mandate after 2 days

Beijing has reversed course on what would have been the country’s first vaccine mandate following popular outrage

Beijing has ditched a proposed vaccination mandate that would have limited access to its public places to jabbed residents only, the city announced on Thursday, citing public pushback. The Chinese capital had only announced the rule on Wednesday.

Instead of requiring vaccination, Beijing residents can now enter all public venues with a negative Covid test result taken less than 72 hours ago and a temperature check, a city official told state media, adding that the government would continue to promote vaccination on a voluntary informed-consent basis.

Set to take effect on July 11, the policy would have barred the unvaxxed from theaters, museums, cinemas, gyms, training and tutoring locations, while medical staff, community service employees, home furnishing operators, express delivery providers and conference attendees would have to not only get the shot but receive a booster to continue in their jobs.

While Li Ang of the Beijing Municipal Health Commission insisted there would be exceptions for those who don’t qualify for vaccination, many other countries whose governments initially promised similar exceptions failed to deliver. Nor would the mandate have gotten rid of the city’s testing rules, which require residents to be tested at least once every three days to enter public spaces.

Residents openly questioned the vaccine’s effectiveness against the omicron variant on social media and denounced the proposed mandate as an illegal limitation on their freedom. A study conducted in Denmark showed both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines displayed a negative effectiveness against the omicron variant just three months after being vaccinated, though the scientists did not test any of the Chinese Covid-19 vaccine formulas.

“The reversal shows the power of public opinions,” former Global Times editor Hu Xijin noted on his official Weibo account after the rollback was announced, explaining that while “Chinese society is dominated by government,” they “backed up in the face of a public pushback. That means they accept the public’s view of the vaccine mandate as illegal.”

While 90% of China’s population are reportedly fully vaccinated, the mandate was partially intended to push older residents to get their shots - Beijing’s elderly vaccination rate is above 80%, but the continued reluctance of the remaining holdouts has irritated those who blame the unjabbed seniors for lockdowns and other inconvenient policies associated with the country’s Covid Zero strategy.

https://www.rt.com/news/558672-beijing-scraps-vaccine-mandate-pushback/

8 Jul, 2022 16:37

HomeWorld News

West is struggling to compete with Asia and Africa – BRICS forum president to RT

People in these regions are beginning to value their own natural and development resources, Purnima Anand claims

The West is finding it more difficult to compete with Asian and African countries as people in these regions are beginning to understand the value of their own natural resources, the president of the BRICS international forum, Purnima Anand, said in an interview with RT on Thursday.

Anand argued that for a long time Western nations had been trying to establish the supremacy of the US dollar by exploiting the human and natural resources of other countries and continents. However, she noted, as the level of education increases, the people of Asia, Africa and other regions are beginning to understand the value of their own natural resources and their own development potential, and are now beginning to compete with Europe.

“The competition in Europe which they had among European countries is now flowing towards other continents and other countries,”stated Anand, claiming that the EU is beginning to lose competitiveness.

In her view, the countries of BRICS – an alliance that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are progressing and it is “high time” they can demonstrate their development policies.

The international forum president also highlighted how the BRICS group played a “very important role” during the Covid-19 pandemic, adding that, now, amid the conflict in Ukraine, BRICS nations are “trying to make the balance.”

On the topic of Ukraine, Anand noted how the situation has led to dire consequences for people around the world and how sanctions imposed by the West against Russia have backfired.

“American sanctions on Russia spoil all traditional rules of trading all over the world,”she stated, highlighting that Russia was not just trading with Europe, but with numerous countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

“When the sanctions started then the whole world suffered […] because all transportation and logistic systems just came to a stop,” she said.

Anand insisted that American sanctions on Russia need to be urgently reviewed and that the conflict in Ukraine will never be resolved unless the US and NATO take it “seriously.”

She also mentioned how the EU has a hard time adapting to the changing political landscape due to its reliance on the US for its policies. The EU has always had “internal democratic problems” and inflation has long been an issue for the union, Anand observed, adding that the conflict in Ukraine significantly exacerbated these issues.

As a solution to these problems, the EU is adopting policies that are backed by the US, which, Anand claims, cannot work because different countries require different approaches.

“Every country cannot be the same, all people’s problems cannot be the same,” she insisted, adding that Europe has always thought that what it decides and does is “for the whole world.” “But it is not true,” Anand said, adding that the West should truly understand what problems people around the globe actually face and what can be done to help them.

She stated that the policies the EU has adopted thus far have culminated in “results that are not in the favor of the people,” noting that people in the bloc are suffering as prices on everything from gas to general costs of living are increasing.

https://www.rt.com/news/558634-brics-forum-president-purnima-anand/