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Musk mocks Zelensky’s ‘sense of humor’
The Ukrainian leader is joking when he claims that his country is “independent,” the tech tycoon has suggested
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has an “amazing” sense of humor if he thinks that his country cannot be forced to the negotiating table by the US, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, a close confidant of president-elect Donald Trump, has said.
Speaking to Ukrainian radio on Saturday, Zelensky was asked whether he has been pressured by Trump to agree to peace talks with Russia.
“We are an independent Ukraine,” Zelensky responded, adding that he “personally, in negotiations with the United States, and with Trump, [US President Joe] Biden, and other European leaders,” has demonstrated that he cannot be told to “sit and listen.”
Musk shared a clip of the interview on X, writing above: “[his] sense of humor is amazing.” The billionaire’s post also linked to a BBC article detailing Zelensky’s pre-politics career as a comedian.
He sense of humor is amazing 😂https://t.co/4BL4rTXaZShttps://t.co/pacq5vNkza
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 16, 2024
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1857807937244107132
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59667938.amp
While SpaceX has provided the Ukrainian military with Starlink internet terminals, Musk has long argued that Kiev cannot hope to defeat Russian forces on the battlefield, and that the conflict must end in a negotiated settlement. Musk endorsed Donald Trump – who has vowed to bring a swift end to the fighting – earlier this summer, and following Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris last week, has become one of the president-elect’s closest advisers.
Musk reportedly joined Trump on a phone call to Zelensky last week, speaking directly to the Ukrainian leader at one point, according to reports in the US media. Musk has not acknowledged taking part in the call, but wrote on X shortly afterwards that “the senseless killing will end soon. Time is up for the warmonger profiteers.”
The Ukrainian government has relied on foreign aid since 2022 to keep agencies open and employees paid, and the country’s military is almost entirely dependent on foreign funding. The US has allocated $182.99 billion for Ukraine since Russia’s military operation began in 2022, according to Pentagon figures, of which $86.7 billion has been disbursed.
European nations, including the UK, have given around $127 billion to Ukraine over the same period, according to data from Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
European nations, including the UK, have given around $127 billion to Ukraine over the same period, according to data from Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
Given Ukraine’s near total dependence on the West, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last year that any peace talks are unlikely to be held “with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters” in Washington and Brussels.
Earlier this week, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said that the US State Department considers Zelensky to be “overly entitled,” and may organize elections in Ukraine next year as a “legitimate” means of removing him from power. “The fate of this country and its puppet leaders will continue to be decided in high offices in Washington,” the agency added.
https://www.rt.com/news/607753-musk-zelensky-humor/
Pentagon warns Ukraine about corruption
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry is a hotbed of graft, according to a US military report
Corruption will be the “primary impediment” to Ukraine’s post-conflict recovery, the Pentagon’s inspector general has warned in a new report, which identified the country’s defense ministry as “a key player in many corruption scandals.”
In a quarterly report to Congress published this week, Inspector General Robert Storch noted that “corruption continues to complicate Ukraine’s efforts to achieve its EU and NATO aspirations.”
“Judges, politicians, and officials have been charged with corruption and the Ministry of Defense has been a key player in many corruption scandals,” the report stated, citing information from the US State Department and media outlets.
Earlier this year, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced the discovery of a major embezzlement ring at the country’s defense ministry. According to the SBU, five suspects attempted to steal 1.5 billion hryvnia (around $39.6 million) in state funds intended for the purchase of mortar shells.
Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov was dismissed from his post over graft allegations several months earlier. His successor, Rustem Umerov, announced in January that an audit had revealed $262 million in theft-related costs in weapons procurement. However, Umerov is considered “even more corrupt” than his predecessor, a US intelligence official told journalist Seymour Hersh last year.
Back in May, Ukrainian media exposed a scheme in which military and civilian authorities in Kharkov Region paid millions of dollars to fake companies for the supply of non-existent building materials to construct defensive fortifications, leaving the region undefended when Russian troops rolled in.
Despite a litany of similar reports surfacing for the last three years, the report found “no credible evidence” that US-provided weapons, money, or humanitarian assistance was being illegally diverted. Reports to the contrary, it stated, are Russian “disinformation.”
According to the report, the US has appropriated $182 billion to support Ukraine’s government and military, $86.7 billion of which has been spent.
Some of this amount was lost before it reached Ukraine, a Pentagon audit revealed last month. The audit found that $1.1 billion worth of military aid money was improperly documented and unaccounted for, with much of it spent by US forces in Europe on projects “unrelated to Ukraine,” a Stars and Stripes report explained.
US President Joe Biden’s administration plans to commit another $6 billion in aid to Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, the Pentagon announced last week. “President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and January 20,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Wednesday.
Trump has vowed to bring the conflict to a swift end by forcing Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky into talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has not revealed any further details about his plans, but it is widely believed that he will use the threat of cutting off US military aid as leverage over Zelensky.
https://www.rt.com/russia/607747-ukraine-corruption-pentagon-report/
CIA and FBI sued by family of Malcolm X
Government agents aided the activist’s killers and then covered up their involvement, his daughters have claimed
Three of Malcolm X’s daughters have filed a lawsuit against the CIA, FBI, and New York Police Department, accusing the agencies of complicity in the assassination of the militant black activist.
Filed in a Manhattan court on Friday, the suit alleges that the CIA, FBI, and NYPD were aware of a plot to kill Malcolm X, but did not act to stop it. It claims that the NYPD arrested his security detail days before the assassination, while the CIA and FBI’s undercover agents – who were present on the night of the fatal shooting – stood by while the militant leader was gunned down.
The lawsuit alleges that there was a “corrupt, unlawful, and unconstitutional” relationship between the agencies and “ruthless killers that went unchecked for many years and was actively concealed, condoned, protected, and facilitated by government agents.”
“We believe that they all conspired to assassinate Malcolm X, one of the greatest thought leaders of the 20th century,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, said at a press conference on Friday.
The agencies covered up their involvement in the killing for decades, “blocking the Shabazz family’s access to the truth and their right to pursue justice,” Crump claimed.
Malcolm X rose to prominence as the national spokesman of the Nation of Islam (NOI), a black Muslim sect that considers white people “devils” and advocates racial segregation. He adopted the name el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz during his time with the NOI, although he broke ties with the group in the early 1960s.
Malcolm X was shot dead as he prepared to deliver a speech in a New York ballroom in 1965. His murder was initially pinned on three members of the NOI – Muhammad Abdul Aziz, Khalil Islam, and Thomas Hagan – who were all charged, tried, and convicted for the killing.
After spending over 20 years in prison, in November 2021, Aziz and Islam were exonerated and awarded $36 million for wrongful convictions. That was after the Manhattan district attorney’s offices discovered that prosecutors and the FBI had withheld key evidence that would have acquitted the two men.
READ MORE: What was behind the death of the first African Nobel Peace Prize winner?
Unlike Martin Luther King, who campaigned for racial integration in the US, Malcolm X advocated for the complete separation of whites and blacks. He argued that black Americans deserved reparations and their own independent state in the southern US, and called on his followers to use violence to achieve this goal if necessary, although he later toned down his rhetoric and cooperated with other civil rights organizations.
His segregationist beliefs brought him into a loose alliance with the Ku Klux Klan, which called for segregation from the other side of the US’ racial divide. Malcolm X also famously met with American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell, who said that he was “fully in concert with [the NOI’s] program” of racial separation.
https://www.rt.com/news/607751-malcolm-x-cia-lawsuit/
yep
whenever someone becomes too influential/powerful and is not controlled, they need a label - communist, terrorist, extremist, etc.
kek
thank you
instead of working someone 80+ hours, hire 2 shifts
same hours worked and no overtime paid
workers are more efficient
the company pays less for the 80 hours
win win