"PBD Podcast: Trained As A Spy At 10” - Sex Trafficking Survivor Anneke Lucas NAMES Her Billionaire Abusers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPVvEi8kAUo
Sweden asks for China’s cooperation over Baltic Sea cables cut while a Chinese ship was nearby
HARPSUND, Sweden (AP) — Sweden has formally asked China to cooperate in explaining the recent rupture of two data cables on the Baltic Sea bed in an area where a China-flagged vessel had been sighted, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Thursday.
The two cables, one running from Finland to Germany and the other from Lithuania to Sweden, were both damaged in Swedish waters last week, in an area where the Yi Peng 3, a China-flagged bulk carrier, was seen.
The Yi Peng 3 has been moored in international waters between Sweden and Denmark. Kristersson told a news conference in the town of Harpsund that Sweden would like the vessel to move to its own waters to allow for an inspection within the ongoing international investigation.
“As I had said before, Sweden has expressed our desire for the ship to move to Swedish waters and we are in contact with China from Sweden,” Kristersson said. “Today I can also tell you that in addition to that Sweden has also sent a formal request to China to cooperate with Swedish authorities in order to create clarity on what has happened. ”
He was speaking after a security meeting of government leaders of the Baltic sea region.
In the same news conference, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed “full solidarity and full support” and trust in Sweden’s reliability as it acts in the interest of all countries in the Baltic region.
Finnish, Swedish and German authorities have launched investigations into the rupture of the two cables. Germany’s defense minister said that the damage appeared to have been caused by sabotage, though there is no proof at present.
Chinese authorities in Beijing said earlier this month they had no information about the ship but that China was ready to “maintain communication” with relevant parties.
They called for the vessel’s rights to normal navigation to be protected.
Last year Sweden announced a cable running from its coast under the Baltic Sea to Estonia had been “deliberately” ruptured.
https://apnews.com/article/sweden-china-data-cables-ship-baltic-yi-peng-41fe86ce24db533945253248fb8f67ad
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer just admitted that Western leaders have been running an “open borders experiment”
Black Friday.
Russia reportedly loses a record 2,030 troops in one day in Ukraine
Russia's daily losses in Ukraine surpassed 2,000 for the first time, according to figures released by Kyiv on Nov. 29.
According to the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, Moscow's troops lost 2,030 men over the preceding day.
This surpasses the previous record of 1,950 set on Nov. 12. The total figure stands at 738,660.
The figures do not specify killed or wounded, though the overall consensus is that it includes dead, wounded, missing, and captured. They are broadly in line with estimates from Western nations.
Ukraine has largely avoided revealing the full extent of its military casualties. President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowleded only in February that 31,000 Ukrainian fighters have been killed.
But estimates by The Economist published on Nov. 26 said between 60,000 to 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the full-scale war, and 400,000 more are too injured to fight on.
The Economist wrote that Russia and Ukraine lost a greater share of their population than the U.S. during the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.
Almost one in 20 Ukrainian fighting-age men have been killed or injured because of the war, The Economist wrote.
It based its calculations on leaked or published intelligence reports, defense officials, researchers, and open-source intelligence.
In September, the Wall Street Journal provided similar estimates, positing that Ukraine had lost 80,000 soldiers killed and 400,000 wounded. The outlet estimated Russia's losses at up to 200,000 killed and 400,000 injured.
The exact figures for both sides are nearly impossible to establish as Kyiv and Moscow are secretive about their casualties.
The last figure provided by Russian authorities was 5,937 killed soldiers as of September 2022.
The surge in Russian losses comes as Moscow's forces step up pressure across the front lines.
NATO allies believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin is aiming to recapture territory lost to Ukraine in Kursk Oblast before Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
A British defense intelligence assessment, seen by The Telegraph, warns that Russia is likely to intensify kamikaze drone attacks on Ukrainian positions, using new launch sites near the border.
Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Nov. 9 that "tens of thousands of enemy soldiers from the best Russian shock units" are aiming to push Ukrainian forces out of the Russian enclave, raising concerns of a significant escalation in the war.
The Kremlin is also facing economic pressures — the purchasing power of the Russian ruble this week hit the lowest point since March 2022, as the economic toll of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine becomes glaring.
Russia's expanding spending on the war has fueled inflation, prompting Russia's Central Bank to hike its interest rate to the highest level since the early 2000s — 21 percent — to rein in consumer prices.
"Russia is currently facing an impossible economic conundrum because of the rapid increase in military expenditures and the Western sanctions," Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist specializing in post-Soviet countries, told the Kyiv Independent.
However, economists and analysts are divided on how much of an impact Russia's economic problems will have on its war effort.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russias-reported-daily-losses-ukraine-094956218.html
France shows off restored Notre Dame after 'impossible' restoration
President Emmanuel Macron conducted an inspection of the restoration, broadcast live on television, saying workers had done the "impossible" by healing a "national wound" after the fire on April 19, 2019.
While every effort has been made to remain faithful to the original look of the cathedral, an international team of designers and architects have created a luminous space that has an immediate impact on the visitor.
The floor shimmers and the freshly-cleaned walls dazzle, while a subtle combination of natural and artificial light creates a near theatrical impression.
"You have achieved what was thought impossible," Macron told restoration workers and officials who packed Notre Dame, after he toured the cathedral.
"The blaze at Notre Dame was a national wound, and you have been its remedy through will, through work, through commitment," he said, adding the cathedral's re-opening will be a "shock of hope".
Notre Dame will welcome visitors and worshippers again over the December 7-8 weekend, after a sometimes challenging restoration.
World leaders are expected to attend but the guest list has yet to be revealed.
Macron toured the key areas of the cathedral, including the nave, choir and chapel, and spoke to experts.
"Sublime," said a visibly pleased Macron, who was accompanied by the archbishop of Paris, Laurent Ulrich, plus France's culture minister, the mayor of Paris and other officials.
"It is much more welcoming," he added, praising Notre Dame's pale-coloured stones and saying everyone involved in the reconstruction should "be proud".
After the devastating fire Macron set the ambitious goal to rebuild Notre Dame within five years and make it "even more beautiful" than before, a target that the French authorities say has been met.
The "building site of the century" was a "challenge that many considered insane", Macron has said.
Some 250 companies and hundreds of experts were brought in for restoration work costing hundreds of millions of euros.
All 2,000 people who contributed to the effort had been invited to Friday's event.
The restoration cost a total of nearly 700 million euros (more than $750 million at today's rate).
It was financed from the 846 million euros in donations that poured in from 150 countries in a surge of solidarity.
The 19th-century gothic spire, which collapsed dramatically in the blaze, has been resurrected with an exact copy of the original.
The stained windows have regained their colour, the walls shining after fire stains were cleaned and a restored organ is ready to thunder out again.
Unseen to visitors is a new mechanism to protect against future fires, a discreet system of pipes ready to release water in case of a new disaster.
Notre Dame, which welcomed 12 million visitors in 2017, expects to receive an even higher figure of 14 to 15 million after the reopening, according to the church authorities.
French ministers have also floated the idea of charging tourists an entrance fee to the site but the Paris diocese has said free admission was an important principle to maintain.
Macron had hoped to speak inside Notre Dame to mark the reopening on December 7 but after negotiations with the diocese, he is now set to speak in the forecourt only.
France is by its constitution a secular country with a strict division between church and state.
Sunday December 8 will see the first mass and consecration of the new altar.
Macron said in December 2023 he had invited Pope Francis to the reopening of the cathedral but the head of the Catholic church announced in September, to the surprise of some observers, that he would not be coming.
Instead, the pontiff is making a landmark visit the following weekend to the French island of Corsica.
The French Catholic church has in recent years been rocked by a succession of sexual abuse allegations against clerics, including most recently the monk known as Abbe Pierre who became a household name for providing aid to the destitute.
Over five years on, the investigation into what caused the fire is ongoing, with initial findings pointing to an accidental cause such as a short circuit, a welder's torch or a cigarette.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241129-macron-offers-first-glimpse-of-post-fire-notre-dame
Putin’s secret daughter ‘part-time DJ living in Paris under pseudonym’
Vladimir Putin’s youngest daughter is an occasional DJ who has lived in Paris under a pseudonym, according to reports.
While the Russian president officially has two daughters with his ex-wife, who has remarried as Lyudmila Ocheretnaya after she and Putin were divorced in 2014, he is also alleged to have had a daughter with a woman named Svetlana Krivonogikh.
In a report in 2020, independent Russian outlet Proekt said Ms Krovonogikh, a former economics student and cleaner from St Petersburg, had been close to Putin at the turn of the millennium and, in 2003, had a daughter who “bears an uncanny resemblance” to him.
While it was dubbed “gutter press” by the Kremlin, the report alleged that Ms Krovonigh had received substantial gifts from Putin’s friends and owned assets worth around $100m, with the UK government last year sanctioning her for owning shares in the pro-Ukraine war National Media Group.
The late opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation also alleged in 2021 that Ms Krivonogikh – who was named in the Pandora Papers leak that same year – had received property and shares from Mr Putin’s friends after their daughter was born.
Her daughter Elizaveta has now been reported in Ukrainian media to haved lived in Paris under the name Elizaveta Olegovna Rudnova, and to have studied at the ICART international school of art management.
The middle name Olegovna, as opposed to Vladimirovna, means “daughter of Oleg”. A close friend of Mr Putin prior to his death in 2015, Oleg Rudnov, was previously reported to have carried out personal tasks for the Russian president, including purchasing property for Ms Krivonogikh, now aged 49.
Russian outlet Agentstvo also reported this week that it had analysed a leaked airline database and confirmed that a person named Elizaveta Olegovna Rudnova had previously purchased flight tickets and had the same date of birth and phone number as Elizaveta Krivonogikh.
️It cited a leaked border database as showing that the 21-year-old last flew abroad to Paris in May 2021, before flying from the Russian resort city of Sochi to St Petersburg two months later.
Following the initial report about her identity in 2020, Ms ️Krovonogikh told a Proekt journalist in a conversation on social media app Clubhouse that she was “very grateful” for the publicity.
She said: “I’d hit a rut in life. Things had stagnated. I’m very grateful that I got this opportunity – that I lit up like this and people saw my account [on Instagram]. I’ve never tried to be popular, but … I’m feeling great, so don’t you worry about me.
“I don’t follow politics at all. I’m busy with the things I like,” she said, adding: “I live my own life and I’m busy with fashion. It’s not the centre of my life, but I like it. I’m not going to stop doing everything I was doing because of your investigation. I’m still living the same life and talking to the same friends.”
A report in the Moscow Times in 2021 said there had been consternation among frequenters of a progressive bar in the Russian capital which had hosted a DJ set by a woman believed to be Mr Putin’s daughter, using the same pseudonym mentioned in this week’s reports.
Ms Krivonogikh is not the only reported child of Russia’s elite to have lived in European capitals, as their parents engage in what they increasingly paint as an existential battle against the West following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The son of Mr Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has previously lived in Paris, while his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s stepdaughter lived in London.
Mr Putin is also rumoured to have had children in an affair with Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, which he has always angrily denied. In 2008, a Moscow newspaper was closed down within hours of writing about the alleged affair.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/putin-daughter-paris-dj-luiza-rozova-b2655871.html
Love these. Great way pray for lazy and young people.
Bastards.
Jihadi body-armor.