1 Feb, 2023 15:50

Mozart Group training Ukrainian troops has ‘ended’ – founder

The scandal-plagued mercenary group is set to get rebranded, Andrew Milburn has announced

The Mozart Group, a private military company that has been providing training for Ukrainian troops, is set to change its name, the group’s co-founder, Andrew Milburn, announced on Wednesday.

“Today was the last day for the Mozart Group. The Mozart Group ended today. The name and entity had become the subject of litigation and a distraction from our core mission: training Ukrainian soldiers and rescuing civilians. But, the mission and the people continue,” Milburn wrote in a social media post.

The retired Marine commanderdid not reveal the name of the rebranded group.

Founded by US citizens Andrew Milburn and Andrew Bain last March, the Mozart Group has been viewed by some as a Western response to the Wagner Group – the Russian private military company taking part in the ongoing hostilities between Moscow and Kiev. The group has been extremely ambiguous on its goals, insisting it has been doing only “humanitarian” work, but, at the same time, admitting it has been training Kiev’s forces to “kill Russians.”

The Mozart Group has also become the subject of multiple controversies lately. Late last year, for instance, Milburn delivered explosive remarks on the Team House podcast, stating that there were “f****d up people running Ukraine” and admitting he was “not a big fan” of the country altogether. The mercenary leader also condemned “a number of things” that Kiev’s forces do with Russian POWs in violation of the Hague Convention on the Laws of Armed Conflict.

The group has also been battered by a conflict between its co-founders, with Bain accusing Milburn of violating US arms trafficking regulations and seeking to expand Mozart’s training operations into Armenia. The pending lawsuit also accused Milburn of embezzling money, staging burglaries of humanitarian supplies in Ukraine, bribing Ukrainian military leaders and even sexually harassing a female co-worker. Milburn, in turn, accused Bain of seeking to extort money from the Mozart Group and alleging his close ties with Russia, which the latter denies.

https://www.rt.com/russia/570810-mozart-group-rebranded-ukraine/

(This has to be comms, Hunter? kek)

1 Feb, 2023 17:04

Endangered animal may be mating itself to death – study

Male northern quolls rest a third as long as females, who live up to four times longer

The endangered male northern quoll, an Australian marsupial, dies after a single mating season because of extreme sleep deprivation in pursuit of sex, according to researchers from the University of the Sunshine Coast and the University of Queensland. Their findings were published in the Royal Society Open Science journal on Wednesday.

While female northern quolls can live up to four years, males of the species are the largest known semelparous mammal – that is, they die after a single mating season. But while smaller semelparous marsupials expire because their bodies are flooded with cortisol and other stress hormones after sex, quolls don’t experience the same chemical assault, leaving previous researchers to speculate on why they died off en masse every year.

To find out, the researchers tracked a group of male and female northern quolls for seven weeks of their breeding season in Australia’s Groote Eylandt – an area comparatively free of the endangered species’ many predators – by outfitting the marsupials with accelerometers concealed in tiny adorable felt backpacks.

They discovered that the males rested on average only 8% of the time, while females spent nearly a quarter (24%) of their time at rest. The males also traveled enormous distances - the equivalent of a human walking 25 miles in a single night, according to the researchers – and let normal grooming behaviors lapse, becoming more susceptible to illness and parasites in their all-consuming amorous quest.

While they could not prove for certain that prioritizing sex over sleep was killing the quolls, the researchers observed the males were suffering well-known symptoms of sleep deprivation by the end of mating season. “They start to lose their fur, they start to not be able to groom themselves efficiently, they lose weight and… they’re constantly fighting with each other as well,” study co-author Christofer Clemente said in a statement accompanying publication.

The combination of sleep deprivation and constant motion would “make recuperation impossible and could explain the causes of death recorded in the males after breeding season (e.g. they become easy prey, unable to avoid collisions, or die from exhaustion),” the study explains. The researchers hope to study whether other marsupials also endure sleep deprivation during mating season and its effect on their mortality.

https://www.rt.com/news/570822-northern-quolls-oversexed-exhaustion-death/

1 Feb, 2023 15:34

Controversial Russian journalist sentenced for ‘military fakes’

Aleksandr Nevzorov was found guilty of disseminating false information about the Russian operation in Ukraine

A Moscow court has handed prominent Russian journalist Aleksandr Nevzorov an eight-year prison term for spreading fake news about troops from his homeland. The media personality was sentenced in absentia after he fled Russia shortly after the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.

Nevzorov was found guilty on Wednesday of disseminating false information about the Russian Armed Forces during the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. The eight-year sentence was 12 months shorter than the punishment that prosecutors had demanded. The 64-year-old has also been banned from administrating any online publications for four years after serving his prison sentence.

The investigation found that Nevzorov had posted articles and videos on social media between March and May last year,assigning responsibility to Russian forces for a strike on a maternity ward in the city of Mariupol and the deaths of civilians in the Kiev suburb of Bucha. Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in the incidents, with officials suggesting that they may actually have been staged by Ukraine.

The court-appointed lawyer who represented Nevzorov argued that he was not guilty because he had obtained the data in question from other open sources.

The sentencing came under Article 207.3, which covers the spreading of falsehoods about the Russian Armed Forces. It was added to the Russian Criminal Code shortly after Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine, and carries a maximum punishment of up to 15 years in prison.

Nevzorov made a name for himself as the host and author of the ‘600 Seconds’ news and analytics program on Leningrad television between 1987 and 1993. The popular show became one of the symbols of Perestroika, the democratization of Soviet society launched by then-President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Nevzorov served as an MP in four iterations of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, between 1993 and 2007. He also directed feature and documentary films, while hosting programs for Russia’s Channel One and other broadcasters.

Previously describing himself as an ally of Vladimir Putin, Nevzorov went into opposition in recent years and started actively posting on YouTube and other social media platforms. He harshly criticized Russia for launching its military operation in Ukraine and has actively voiced support for Kiev in the conflict.

Nevzorov fled Russia in April 2022. He was declared a foreign agent the same month and placed on the international wanted list in May. According to media reports, Interpol refused to search for and extradite the journalist and several others sentenced on similar charges in Russia.Last June, Nevzorov and his wife were granted Ukrainian citizenship.

https://www.rt.com/russia/570812-nevzorov-journalist-sentence-ukraine/

>>18266206

she meant Perverse