PN>>18705463 Angela Merkel prevented Georgia and Ukraine from joining NATO, says the Ukrainian Defense Minister

I’ve looked up the history, both Ukraine and Georgia have been under orders for 18-20 years to clean up their corruption by the EU (and NATO for a number of years) to be able to join.

NATO knows the agreement with Russia and US, the US created this war on purpose. You’ll notice every few week Stoltenberg says Ukraine will be admitted to NATO with no projected timeline, because they won’t.

There’s no way one sole leader did this, but if she interceded it was because they are adjoined to Russia and were building the pipelines.

BTW the two countries most recent assessment is they still have not made enough progress in stopping corruption. This is Ukraine propaganda. They will blame anyone for the inability to stop corruption because they are all involved.

16 Apr, 2023 20:54

Timofey Bordachev: Here’s why Macron’s call to break away from US control is just meaningless posturing

The French president knows full well that Paris has no intention of standing on its own two feet. The de-Gaulle era has long since passed

Today, the words spoken in public by Western leaders, even the most senior, have no strategic significance but are merely an element of tactical maneuvering. So, it’s impossible to draw any far-reaching conclusions from them.

This is also true of recent urgings from French president Emmanuel Macron, who declared that Western Europe “must fight for strategic autonomy.”

These words have little value. The French leader’s speech should not be seen as a sign of some kind of “sovereign awakening” from the NATO Europeans at a time when, for objective reasons, they are fully signed up to the united community of countries led by the US. The Western coalition has not been this divided for a long time, and all the events around Ukraine confirm this.

It is interesting to note, however, that this emptyverbal posturingisnot just the work of an EU official but of a man accompanied by an officer with a ‘nuclear suitcase.’ France, it should be remembered, has the fourth largest stockpile of atomic weapons in the world. But, unlike Russia, America or China, membership of the club of the world’s most powerful military states does not give theFifth Republicany real foreign-policy advantages.

Not so much in terms of its formal status – here it is just fine, as thesize of the red carpet during Macron’s visitto Beijing confirmed. However, Paris cannot influence the content of international policy. And while in the case of Germany we can speak of a formal ‘dissolution’ of its sovereignty, in France we are talking about its de facto, self-imposed disappearance. This makes the French case even more grotesque.

The amazing thing is that we are not just talking abouta country that once miraculously built its own nuclear weapons. France, for all its problems, is a highly advanced modern economy, producing commercially viable civilian aircraft capable of intercontinental flight – something that even super-successful China cannot yet do. Or today’s Russia, which has the technology, and did in the past but currently isn’t building such planes.

The Fifth Republic’sarmed forcesare also generally regardedas pretty good– at least the best in continental Western Europe. However, this is of little use when it comes to the state of international politics in general. Being part of the community of Western countries devalues all the advantages that would otherwise make France a much more important player than, say, India or Brazil. Not to mention Turkey or Iran, which are inferior to France in every respect but are more independent in their foreign policies.

France could have avoided the situation by following the path taken by Charles de Gaulle after the end of his presidency. But, more than 50 years after his departure, the statehood created by the general has gradually lost most of the trappings of autonomy. The finale of this long process was thereturn of Paristo theNATO military commandstructure in the2000s,which, as we know, is dominated by the US. At the same time, the French decision drew a line under all attempts to think about an independent European defense, which became a thing after the victory of the West in the Cold War. Whatever anyone says, the question of control over military planning is the most important of the signs of a sovereign state.

With the end of the period of ‘Gaullism’ in French defense policy, this question has finally been answered for the whole of NATO Europe. Andit is not a problemfor the West that empty talk by the French president can’t be taken seriously.

Will such statements be made in the future? Undoubtedly, yes. Even the closest intra-family relationships, where the powerful patriarch stands at the head of the clan, allow for arguments over which of the children will occupy the most comfortable seat at the table. But it would be profoundly wrong to take these disputes, for even a moment, as an indication that any member of thefriendly family of global parasites might commit treasonagainst their patron across the ocean.

https://www.rt.com/news/574840-call-to-break-away-from-us-control/

In other words, Macron will always be an ineffective dwarf.

16 Apr, 2023 17:25

ISIS kills dozens of mushroom hunters in Syria – media

Islamic State terrorists attacked a group of locals collecting truffles in the desert, SANA news agency has reported

At least 26 people have been killed in an attack by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists in Syria’s province of Hama, SANA news agency reported on Sunday. A source within the regional police told the news agency that local residents were collecting truffles in the desert in the east of the province when they were assaulted by terrorists.

Syrian media reported thatover 30 civilians had allegedly been shot downin the incident. A local hospital director in the city of Salamiyah told the media that his facility had received the remains of 26 people murdered in the attack.

Last week, Syria’s Al Watan newspaper warned people against going out into the Hama desert in search of truffles, citing high risks stemming from unexploded mines and shells, as well as activities of the ISIS remnants in the area.

A total of 47 people have been killed and 71 injured while collecting truffles between February 5 and March 22, a Syrian Arab Red Crescent official told Al Watan. Many people have also gone missing in the area, the newspaper reported, adding that they may have been kidnapped by ISIS extremists as well.

One of the major ISIS attacks was carried out in mid-February, when 53 civilians were killed by terrorists while collecting truffles, SANA reported.

Desert truffles are not as rare and prized as their rather distant European cousins but they are still quite popular in the Middle East. The mushrooms are usually sold by the kilo and can cost between $22 and $65 per unit. Some desert-truffle types can cost as much as $237 per kilo, depending on the crop’s quality. According to Al Watan, though, the harvest has been abundant this year, leading to lower truffle prices on Syrian markets.

https://www.rt.com/news/574838-isis-kill-mushroom-hunters-syria/

I looked up if truffles grow in the desert of Syria and apparently they do

16 Apr, 2023 17:29

Russian students to be examined on Ukraine operation – officials

Updated textbooks will be available this year, the education minister said

Russian school students will have to answer questions about Moscow’s ongoing military operation in Ukraine in their graduation exams, the country’s education regulator Rosobrnadzor said on Sunday.

Questions regarding the armed conflict will beadded to standardized history tests. In order to graduate, Russian students are required to take a math test, a Russian language test, and two tests of their choice, one of which can be a history test. Test scores largely determine a student’s chances of enrollment in a university.

The tests will be adjusted “as soon as all schools acquire textbooks that cover this topic and after students complete the course,”Rosobrnadzor, which oversees education standards and curriculum, explained in a statement to news agency TASS.

Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov said on Monday that updated learning material would be available by September 1, which is when the new school year begins in Russia. The books are intended for students in the 10th and 11th grade, who are typically 16 and 17 years old, respectively.

“I read the section dedicated to the special military operation. All the causes of the SVO are explained there,” the minister said, referring to the operation by its Russian initialism.

The Education Ministry said in January that new textbooks would be trialed this year before gradually replacing older material from 2024.

Russia began its military intervention in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, citing the need to protect the people of Donbass, and Kiev’s failure to implement the 2014-2015 Minsk peace accords.

https://www.rt.com/russia/574836-russia-ukraine-school-exams/