Serie A side Juventus's French midfielder Paul Pogba was banned for four years by Italy's anti-doping court on Thursday. The disciplinary action came after the World Cup winner tested positive for testosterone.
Paul Pogba's positive test was announced in September, stemming from an exam that was carried out after Juventus' game at Udinese on August 20. Pogba opted not to make a plea bargain with Italy's anti-doping agency and so the case was tried before the country's anti-doping court. A person with direct knowledge of the case confirmed the verdict to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the sentence was not made public due to Italy's privacy laws. Pogba could appeal the decision to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport. The sentence could end Pogba's career, as the France international turns 31 next month. Four-year bans are standard under the World Anti-Doping Code but can be reduced in cases where an athlete can prove their doping was not intentional, if the positive test was a result of contamination or if they provide substantial assistance to help investigators. Pogba rejoined Juventus from Manchester United in 2022 but struggled with injuries, playing in only six Serie A matches for Juventus last season and two this season. He was ruled out of France's run to the World Cup final that year due to a knee injury. Pogba helped France win the previous World Cup, scoring in the 4-2 win over Croatia in the final. He played in 178 matches for Juventus from 2012-16.
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US State Department fixture and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, aka “Regime Change Karen,” apparently woke up one day recently, took the safety off her nuclear-grade mouth, and inadvertently blew up the West’s Ukraine narrative.
Until now, Americans have been told that all the US taxpayer cash being earmarked for Ukrainian aid is to help actual Ukrainians. Anyone notice that the $75 billion American contribution isn’t getting the job done on the battlefield? Victory in military conflict isn’t supposed to look like defeat. Winning also isn’t defined as, “Well, on a long enough time axis, like infinity, our chance of defeat will eventually approach zero.” And the $178 billion in total from all allies combined doesn’t seem to be doing the trick, either. Short of starting a global war with weapons capable of extending the conflict beyond a regional one, it’s not like they’ve been holding back. The West is breaking the bank. All for some vague, future Ukrainian “victory” that they don’t seem to want to clearly define. We keep hearing that the support will last “as long as it takes.” For what exactly? By not clearly defining it, they can keep moving the goal posts. But now here comes Regime Change Karen, dropping some truth bombs on CNN about Ukrainian aid. She started off with the usual talking point of doing “what we have always done, which is defend democracy and freedom around the world.” Conveniently, in places where they have controlling interests and want to keep them – or knock them out of a global competitor’s roster and into their own. “And by the way, we have to remember that the bulk of this money is going right back into the US to make those weapons,” Nuland said, pleading in favor of the latest Ukraine aid package that’s been getting the side eye from Republicans in Congress. So there you have it, folks. Ukrainians are a convenient pretext to keep the tax cash flowing in the direction of the US military industrial complex. This gives a whole new perspective on “as long as it takes.” It’s just the usual endless war and profits repackaged as benevolence. But we’ve seen this before. It explains why war in Afghanistan was little more than a gateway to Iraq. And why the Global War on Terrorism never seems to end, and only ever mutates. Arguably the best one they’ve come up with so far is the need for military-grade panopticon-style surveillance, so the state can shadow-box permanently with ghosts while bamboozling the general public with murky cyber concepts that it can’t understand or conceptualize. When one conflict or threat dials down, another ramps up, boosted by fearmongering rhetoric couched in white-knighting. There’s never any endgame or exit ramp to any of these conflicts. And there clearly isn’t one for Ukraine, either. Still, there’s a sense that the realities on the ground in Ukraine, which favor Russia, now likely mean that the conflict is closer to its end than to its beginning. Acknowledgements abound in the Western press. And that means there isn’t much time left for Europe to get aboard the tax cash laundering bandwagon and stuff its own military industrial complexes’ coffers like Washington has been doing from the get-go. Which would explain why a bunch of countries now seem to be rushing to give Ukraine years-long bilateral security “guarantees,” requiring more weapons for everyone. France, Germany, Canada, and Italy have all made the pledge. Plus Denmark, which also flat-out said that it would send all its artillery to Ukraine. If security for Europe is the goal, that sounds kind of like the opposite. Particularly when Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba told the EU that “Russia has gotten closer to your home” in the wake of the most recent defeat in Avdeevka. He sounds like one of those guys in TV ads trying to peddle burglar alarms. Seems like Russia only exists in the minds of the West these days to justify sending weapons to Ukraine to get blown up, while also justifying to taxpayers why they should continue funding this whole charade. Meanwhile, the West’s drive towards peace seems to be taking the scenic route. “As we move forward, we continue our support to Ukraine in further developing President Zelensky’s Peace Formula,” G7 leaders said after a recent meeting with Zelensky in Kiev. Nice to see that he’s devoting all his time to this magic peace formula instead of running around extorting his friends for cash by threatening them with Putin. It was already a pretty big hint of what’s really been going on when the EU decided to use the taxpayer-funded European Peace Facility to reimburse EU countries for the unloading of their mothballed, second-hand weapons into Ukraine, where Russia can then dispose of them before anyone could be accused of overcharging for clunkers. Now, with the clunker supply running dry, they just have to make more weapons. Maybe funneling cash into weapons for themselves will be the Hail Mary pass that saves their economies that they’ve tanked “for Ukraine”? Thanks to Nuland’s nuking of any plausible deniability on Ukrainian “aid” not going to Washington, it’s now clear that Ukrainians continue to die so poor weapons makers don’t end up shaking tin cans on street corners. She has also removed any doubt about the ultimate US goal being Russian regime change, calling Putin’s leadership “not the Russia we wanted,” and sounding like someone who chronically sends back a meal to kitchens of a dining establishment. “We wanted a partner that was going to be Westernizing, that was going to be European. But that’s not what Putin has done,” she told CNN. That’s exactly what Putin has done, actually. It’s the West that’s moved away from itself and is becoming increasingly unrecognizable by its own citizens. Pretty sure that it goes beyond just wanting a country to be “European,” too. Because Germany’s European, and an ally, and Nuland wouldn’t shut up about how much she hated its Nord Stream gas supply — until it mysteriously went kaboom. Regime Change Karen saying the quiet part out loud has decimated the Western establishment’s narrative so badly that it’s a miracle no one has yet accused her thermonuclear mouth of being an asset of Russia’s weapons program. Max Verstappen's dad, Jos, was present in the paddock on what turned out to be a chaotic Thursday for Red Bull. Christian Horner's future remains a topic of hot debate despite being cleared of alleged inappropriate behaviour following a lengthy investigation.
Horner was all smiles at the start of the day as he resumed normal service after a complaint made by a female Red Bull employee was dismissed by the drinks company. The 50-year-old had been carrying out his F1 duties amid a backdrop of uncertainty while an independent barrister brought in by Red Bull compiled their findings. On Thursday afternoon, another bombshell hit the paddock as a Google Drive folder, allegedly containing messages and photos from Horner to an unnamed person, was sent to journalists by an anonymous source. The Red Bull team principal responded by saying: "I won't comment on anonymous speculation, but to reiterate, I have always denied the allegations. "I respected the integrity of the independent investigation and fully cooperated with it every step of the way. It was a thorough and fair investigation conducted by an independent specialist barrister and it has concluded, dismissing the complaint made." According to The Times, Horner was seen leaving the Red Bull garage after Thursday's Bahrain practice sessions before stopping for a quick word with F1 legend David Coulthard and heading inside. Christian Horner has been cleared of allegations of ‘inappropriate behaviour’ from a female employee and will be staying on as Red Bull boss.
Horner, the longest serving Team Principal on the F1 grid, was being investigated after a female Red Bull employee accused him of ‘inappropriate and controlling’ behaviour. An official statement from the F1 team released on Wednesday said: ‘The independent investigation into the allegations made against Mr Horner is complete, and Red Bull can confirm that the grievance has been dismissed. The complainant has a right of appeal. ‘Red Bull is confident that the investigation has been fair, rigorous and impartial. ‘The investigation report is confidential and contains the private information of the parties and third parties who assisted in the investigation, and therefore we will not be commenting further out of respect for all concerned. ‘Red Bull will continue striving to meet the highest workplace standards.’ The 50-year-old – husband of former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell – had previously said: ‘I fully deny any accusations.’ A hearing into the allegations took place nearly three weeks ago with Red Bull keen for the matter to be resolved ahead of the season opening Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend. The independent lawyer hired to investigate the matter reportedly handed in their findings a few days ago in the form of a 150 page dossier. Horner has served as Red Bull’s Team Principal since 2005. The price of Bitcoin, the world’s highest-valued cryptocurrency, surged past the $60,000 mark on Wednesday, according to CoinDesk.
The token rose above $60,600 at 14:55 GMT, its highest level since November 2021, marking a gain of over 6% over the past 24 hours. The digital currency has surged for a fifth consecutive day, supported by inflows into US-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). ETFs allow more retail investors to hold Bitcoin indirectly via funds that trade on exchanges. The launch of ETFs in early January has helped drive the value of Bitcoin up nearly 40% so far. According to Reuters, traders are also investing in Bitcoin ahead of the upcoming halving in April, a process designed to slow the release of the cryptocurrency. The value of all the Bitcoin in circulation has exceeded $2 trillion this month for the first time in two years, according to Reuters, which cited the crypto platform CoinGecko. Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $68,982.20 in November 2021 before dropping to around $29,000 last July due to uncertainty caused by the criminal charges against Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and amid concern about economic woes in China. Tucker Carlson said on Tuesday that US spies had monitored him while he was in Russia earlier this month, and leaked to a ‘friendly’ outlet that he had met with Edward Snowden. This is despite the American journalist’s claim that he had tried to keep his meeting with the NSA whistle-blower a secret.
Carlson went to Russia to interview President Vladimir Putin. During his eight days in Moscow, he also met with Snowden – and US spies found out about it, he told podcaser Lex Fridman in the course of a three-hour conversation. “I was being intensely surveilled by the US government,” Carlson told Fridman, noting that US spies had thwarted his plans to interview Putin in 2021 and that he received confirmation that he was being intensely monitored ahead of his Moscow trip. “Then, I’m over there, and of course I want to see Snowden, whom I admire.”Snowden allegedly accepted Carlson’s invitation to have dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel, but declined the interview as well as a photo request, saying that it would be better to tell no one. “I didn’t tell anybody,” Carlson told Fridman, however the meeting was leaked. “Semafor runs this piece – reporting information they got from the US intel agencies, leaking against me, using my money, in my name, in a supposedly free country – they run this piece saying I met with Snowden, like it was a crime or something.” “If you have a media establishment that acts as employees of the national security state, you don’t have a free country. And that’s where we are,” Carlson added. Carlson revealed that he did not fear getting arrested in Russia at any point, but was warned by his lawyers that the US might arrest him depending on the content of the Putin interview. “I felt not one twinge of concern for the 8 days that I was there,” he told Fridman about being in Moscow. Before he left for Russia, his team of attorneys counseled him to “not do this… A lot will depend on the questions you ask of Putin. If you’re seen as too nice to him you could be arrested when you come back,” Carlson quoted the lead lawyer as saying, to which he said he replied, “You’re describing a fascist country, OK?” In 2013, Snowden revealed that the NSA was systematically engaged in mass illegal spying on American citizens. Fearing for his safety, he fled to Hong Kong with the intent to reach Ecuador, which did not have an extradition treaty with the US, but was stopped during a layover in Moscow after Washington canceled his passport. Russia ended up granting him asylum and reportedly, eventual citizenship. One of the founders of Semafor, the outlet to which Carlson claims US spies leaked his dinner with Snowden, is Ben Smith, a former editor-in-chief of the now defunct BuzzFeed newsroom. In 2017, Smith notoriously published the ‘Steele Dossier,’ a sham document leaked by US spies to discredit incoming President Donald Trump. French President Emmanuel Macron has argued that deployments of troops to Ukraine by NATO members and other allies cannot be ruled out because Western powers must stop at nothing to ensure that Russia does not defeat Kiev’s forces.
“There’s no consensus today to send, in an official manner, troops on the ground,” Macron told reporters after hosting a meeting of European leaders on Monday in Paris. “But in terms of dynamics, we cannot exclude anything. We will do everything necessary to prevent Russia from winning this war.” France hosted Monday’s summit of Ukraine backers to demonstrate steadfast support and European unity amid concerns that US aid to Kiev may stop, especially if Donald Trump wins this year’s presidential election. Macron said that while Ukraine’s European allies want to avoid escalating the conflict into a direct war with Russia, they agree that they must do more to ensure that Moscow doesn’t win. “We have to take stock of the situation and realize our collective security is at stake,” the French leader said. “We have to ratchet up. Russia must not win, not only for Ukraine, but secondly, we are, by doing so, ensuring our collective security for today and for the future.” Macron noted that the allies who say “never, ever” today about direct troop deployments to Ukraine are the same ones that previously ruled out escalations of military aid that were later granted, including long-range missiles and fighter jets. “Two years ago, a lot around this table said that we will offer helmets and sleeping bags, and now they’re saying we need to do more to get missiles and tanks to Ukraine. We have to be humble and realize that we’ve always been six to eight months late, so we’ll do what is needed to achieve our aim.” There is broad consensus among the nations represented at Monday’s meeting that the allies must provide more aid to Ukraine and step up more quickly, Macron claimed. “We are not at war with the Russian people, but we cannot let them win in Ukraine,” he said, adding, “We are determined to do everything necessary for as long as necessary. That is the key takeaway from this evening.” Washington ran out of money for Ukraine last month, after burning through $113 billion in congressionally approved aid packages. US President Joe Biden is seeking an additional $60 billion in Ukraine funding as part of an emergency spending bill that also includes aid for Israel and Taiwan. Conservative Republican lawmakers have balked at approving more aid for Ukraine, saying Biden is merely prolonging the conflict without changing its outcome. Trump has claimed he would end the crisis swiftly by forcing the Ukrainian and Russian leaders to the negotiating table. Red Bull future engine supplier Ford Motor Co. said Friday it is awaiting the results of an investigation into alleged inappropriate behaviour by team principal Christian Horner, but a top executive stressed that Ford holds its company and partners to very high moral standards.
Ford is slated to become Red Bull’s engine supplier in 2026 and is the first of Red Bull’s existing partners to comment on the controversy surrounding Horner. The team leader has remained defiant in his denial of claims of misconduct made to parent company Red Bull, which two weeks ago announced it had launched an independent investigation into the claims. Mark Rushbrook, global head of Ford Performance Motorsport, said Friday at Daytona International Speedway that Ford is awaiting the outcome of the investigation into Horner. “As a family company, and a company that holds itself to very high standards of behaviour and integrity, we do expect the same from our partners,” Rushbrook said. “It appears to us, and what we’ve been told, was that Red Bull is taking the situation very seriously. And of course, they’re worried about their brand, as well. “And that’s why they’ve got an independent investigation and until we see what truth comes out of that, it’s too early for us to comment on it all.” Horner one day earlier insisted it was “business as normal” as he took centre stage at the launch of the team’s car for the upcoming Formula 1 season. “Obviously, there’s a process that’s ongoing at the moment. Some allegations have been made which I fully deny and I comply, obviously, with that process and will continue to do so,” Horner said. “I think it’s been very clear and the position of Red Bull has been that it’s business as normal. Obviously there’s a job to do and I deny fully the accusations that have been made. My role obviously continues.” What Horner has been accused of doing by a Red Bull employee has not been made clear. The investigation was launched by parent company Red Bull Energy out of Austria and initially seemed to involve Horner’s “aggressive management style.” But in the two weeks since, the F1 industry has been rife with gossip, speculation and, as of Friday, news reports indicating Horner’s supposed transgressions involve allegations of sexual misconduct. And, with much of the unsubstantiated claims being made to Dutch media outlets, there’s loud chatter that both three-time reigning world champion Max Verstappen and his father, Jos, are behind the leaks. Max Verstappen, who races under the Dutch flag, at the launch on Thursday said his relationship with Horner remains “very good” ahead of the new season. “We’ve seen each other quite a few times. We’ve achieved a lot of things together so that doesn’t change suddenly,” he said. “My contact with Christian has been the same as on the first day. It’s been like normal.” The 50-year-old Horner has been Red Bull’s team principal since it entered F1 as a full constructor in 2005. He has guided the team to six constructors’ championships and seven drivers’ championships during his time at the top. Verstappen has won the drivers’ title in each of the last three seasons. The team won all but one of the 22 races last year. Horner is married since 2015 to Geri Halliwell, better known as Ginger Spice of the female pop group The Spice Girls. The early delivery of US fighter jets would not have changed the course of Ukraine’s failed summer counteroffensive because there were not enough trained pilots to fly them, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has said.
Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Sullivan disagreed with the narrative that the White House did not provide enough “war-fighting equipment” for Ukraine to succeed on the front line. “The idea that we did not mobilize a massive quantity of resources and capabilities to deliver to Ukrainians simply doesn’t wash,” Sullivan said in response to a question on whether Washington’s incremental approach to deliveries of advanced weaponry was to blame for Ukraine’s lack of progress on the battlefield. “If you look at some total of what the United States provided to Ukraine in this fight it is an incredible quantity of material delivered at speed, at scale outpacing the expectation,” he argued. “There are additional capabilities that Ukrainians have looked for, F-16 being one of them,” he continued, explaining that while the US is prepared to provide the jets, the real challenge Ukraine faces is that “there aren’t many pilots to be able to pilot those aircraft.” Kiev has repeatedly asked for Western fighter jets, saying they are needed to repel Russian air attacks. In August, the US allowed Denmark and the Netherlands to donate F-16s to Ukraine, with the first deliveries expected this year. NATO member states also agreed to form a coalition to help train Ukrainians to fly the Western-made aircraft. Moscow has warned that the move would be a dangerous escalation, given that some F-16 modifications can carry nuclear bombs, and vowed to destroy the jets in Ukraine if they arrive. China Road and Bridge Corporation has not yet repaired the damage done by highway construction to the UNESCO-protected Tara River, Montenegro's environmental agency confirms. Montenegro’s Agency for Environmental Protection reported recently that China Road and Bridge Corporation, CRBC, has not yet corrected the damage done to the Tara River, part of which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which occurred during construction of the Bar-Boljare highway. A BIRN investigation showed that the Chinese company was obliged to correct the damage by July 2022. “Projected remediation measures have not yet been completed … We expect that, in the coming period, CRBC will fully realize all the obligations, otherwise we will do it ]ourselves] at the expense of the Chinese company,” the agency told BIRN. “CRBC has so far corrected the left bank of the river, rehabilitated the local macadam road, and remedied the bed of the Tara River to a length of about 500 meters,” the Agency specified. The Bar-Boljare highway represents the Montenegrin leg of a larger highway running from the Adriatic coast to the Serbian capital, Belgrade. CRBC is building the Montenegrin leg and 85 per cent of the first section is being covered by a $944 million loan from China’s Exim Bank. On July 13, 2023, the first section of the highway was officially opened, seven years after the Chinese-financed project started, driving up Montenegro’s public debt to 90.85 per cent of GDP. In June 2019, the local watchdog NGO MANS warned that the highway’s construction was devastating the Tara River, including its UNESCO-protected area, stressing that the construction of bridges and the exploitation and disposal of gravel and sand had damaged the riverbed. After the Environmental Protection Agency determined the damage, a remediation plan with CRBC was determined on August 2, 2021. But civic organisations criticized the remediation measures approved by the Agency, stating that the rehabilitation of only 500 meters of river bed was not enough because more than six kilometres of the river course has been damaged. Lazar Grdinic, from MANS, said there have been no serious efforts to rehabilitate the devastated part of the Tara riverbed and even partially restore it. “So far, there are no serious scientific studies that would give a definitive answer to the question of the extent of the devastation,” Grdinic told BIRN. The head of the local Sports Fishing Club, Momir Zivkovic, also said highway construction had destroyed both the river and its fish stock. In April 2018, the club received a concession to manage fish stocks on part of the Tara, but, due to the devastation of the river, it had demanded compensation from the Chinese company.
“In the past, dozens of fish could be caught on Tara in one day. Today, the situation with the fish stock is a catastrophic, and you can hardly meet a fisherman here, ” Zivkovic told BIRN. BIRN was not able to contact CRBC. Nicknamed the “tear of Europe”, the Tara is considered one of the most beautiful rivers on the continent, and its deep canyons are popular among river rafters. In its 2019 progress report on the country, the European Commission urged Montenegro to prevent possible environmental damage being done to the Tara in the context of the highway.
If you’re looking for a new guitar, the Chapman ML1 Pro Modern is a great contender for anyone who wants a guitar with great specs without spending ridiculous amounts of money.
Chapman Guitars offer a Standard line made in Indonesia and a Pro line built in South Korea. In this review, we’ll be taking a look at a guitar from their Pro line – the ML1 Modern. I’ll kick off with a bit of background on Chapman, then I’ll cover specs, my thoughts on the guitar, etc. If you somehow missed all of the buzz surrounding Chapman Guitars in recent years, let me bring you up to speed: Chapman Guitars was founded in 2009 by Rob Chapman – one of the first guitarists to make a name for himself on YouTube. What started as a small limited run of guitars has grown into a guitar company that pushes the envelope year after year. Chapman Guitars stand out amongst guitar brands partly due to the collaborative nature of their guitar design process. Instead of just guessing the spec and designs people want on guitars, they allow people to vote for their favourite configurations on a regular basis. Quite a nice idea. Now, let’s take a closer look at the ML1 Pro. As I mentioned earlier, the Pro line of guitars from Chapman are made in South Korea by WMI who happen to make some of the best guitars in the world. This is why other brands such as PRS, Schecter and ESP LTD have used this exact factory for their higher end import models. The quality is exceptional. Before we dive into the spec, it is worth noting that the current ML1 Pro may vary slightly in specification. In the case of this particular iteration, we’ve got a maple through-neck with a satin finish, ebony fingerboard, a volute headstock joint for extra stability and 24 jumbo stainless steel frets with rolled edges. With exceptional upper fret access.
There’s also a dual action truss rod and glow in the dark side-dots. The neck carve is stated to be a C shape. It’s fairly thin but not quite as thin as an Ibanez wizard neck.The body features a beautiful flamed maple carved top in satin with a mahogany body. There are a few comfort cuts on the body and there’s a spoon cut that allows for great upper fret access. A string-through hardtail bridge, locking tuners, 5 way selector switch and a pair of Chapman humbuckers round out the package. Later versions of this model come with Seymour Duncan pickups.
This guitar is quite a looker and the same can be said for a lot of the Chapman lineup. The build quality is excellent and the playability is right up there with guitars that cost 3x the price. While the guitar has a modern feel and will appeal to those who are more into heavy rock & metal, it is still an extremely flexible guitar. And it is great to see a hard case included – something not too many brands offer at this price point. The lack of traditional fret markers may not be to everyone’s liking. This is something to consider if you plan to record instructional videos or teach with this guitar.
What about tones? The ML1 Pro offers plenty of sustain and resonance thanks to the through-neck design. The ebony fretboard provides a good balance of warmth and brightness. It’s a nice ‘middle of the road’ option between the tonal characteristics of rosewood and maple. Positions 2 and 4 of the selector switch offer coil-split sounds so there are plenty of tones to be had. The pickups in this model offer plenty of clarity. They’re fairly hot in terms of output. When cranking the gain, these pickups remain tight and controlled. Rob has mentioned in various videos that part of the approach to their guitar building process is on making sure that all of the parts you can’t easily swap out – neck, fretboard, frets, body, etc – is as good as possible. Some may take this to mean that the parts you can change – pickups, tuners, electronics, etc. – are of lower quality. But in the case of this guitar, that definitely is not the case. I’ve had the guitar in my collection for a few years now and there have been no issues. The electrics have been spot on and the pickups sound great. It is worth noting that the newer version of this guitar comes loaded with Seymour Duncan pickups rather than the Chapman branded ones.
While the ML1 Pro Modern will appeal best to rock and metal players, traditional variations of this line are available. As you might expect, these come with a more traditional styling and configuration. This includes S-style and T-style variations – both with carved tops. For those who want to go even lower, baritone and 7-string variations are available. If you’re on a tighter budget, consider the ML1 Standard line as an alternative. These are built in Indonesia and come in at a more affordable price point. The Standard line loses the locking tuners and have a few other changes but they offer excellent value for money.
Political scientist Ivan Katchanovski – of the University of Ottawa – revealed last year, in a paper, that the February 2014 massacre of Ukrainian protesters by sniper fire, a defining moment of the Western-backed Maidan coup, was not published by an academic journal for “political reasons.” In a lengthy Twitter thread, Katchanovski first laid out the circumstances behind the rejection of his article, and the bombshell evidence included in it. The paper was initially accepted with minor revisions after peer review, and the journal's editor offered a glowing appraisal of his work, writing: “There is no doubt that this paper is exceptional in many ways. It offers evidence against the mainstream narrative of the regime change in Ukraine in 2014… It seems to me that the evidence the study produces in favour of its interpretation on who was behind the massacre of the protesters and the police during the ‘Euromaidan’ mass protests on February 18-20, 2014, in Ukraine, is solid. On this there is also consensus among the two reviewers.” As the editor noted, the massacre was a “politically crucial development,” which led to the “transition of powers in the country” from the freely elected Viktor Yanukovich to the illegitimate and rabidly nationalistic administration of Aleksandr Turchinov, a former security services chief. It was endlessly cited in Western media as a symbol of the brutality of Ukraine’s government and an unprovoked attack on innocent pro-WesternMaidan protesters, who allegedly sought nothing more than democracy and freedom. Rumors that the killings were a false flag intended to inflame tensions among the vast crowds filling Maidan, and provoke violence against the authorities, began circulating immediately. No serious investigation into what happened was ever conducted by the Western media, with all claims that the sniper attacks were an inside job dismissed as Kremlin “disinformation.” However, even NATO’s Atlantic Council adjunct admitted in 2020 that the massacre was unsolved and that this “cast a shadow over Ukraine.” It may not remain unsolved for much longer though, due to an ongoing trial of policemen at the scene on the fateful day. The legal action has been unfolding for well over a year and has received no mainstream news attention at all outside Ukraine. Katchanovski drew heavily on witness testimony and video evidence that has emerged over the course of the trial in his suppressed paper. For example, 51 protesters wounded during the incident testified at the trial that they were shot by snipers from Maidan-controlled buildings, and/or witnessed snipers there. Many spoke of snipers in buildings controlled by Maidan protesters shooting at police. This is consistent with other evidence collected by Katchanovski, such as 14 separate videos of snipers in protester-controlled buildings, 10 of which clearly feature far-right gunmen in the Hotel Ukraina aiming at crowds below. In all, 300 witnesses have told much the same story. Synchronized videos show that the specific time and direction of shots fired by the police not only didn’t coincide with the killings of specific Maidan protesters, but that authorities aimed at walls, trees, lampposts, and even the ground, simply to disperse crowds. Among those targeted by apparently Maidan-aligned snipers were journalists at Germany’s ARD. They weren’t the only Western news station in town at the time – so too were Belgian reporters, who not only filmed Maidan protesters screaming towards Hotel Ukraina for snipers not to shoot them, but also participants being actively lured to the killing zone. This incendiary footage was never broadcast.
CNN likewise filmed far-right elements firing at police from behind Maidan barricades, then hunting for positions to shoot from the 11th floor of the Hotel Ukraina, minutes before the BBC filmed snipers shooting protesters from a room where a far-right MP was staying. The network opted not to report this at the time. We needn’t rely purely on video footage. Over the course of the trial, no fewer than 14 self-confessed members of Maidan sniper groups testified they had explicitly received massacre orders, Katchanovski claims. By contrast, no police officer at the scene has said they were directed to kill unarmed protesters, no minister has come forward to blow the whistle on such a scheme, and no evidence Yanukovich approved of the killings has ever emerged. CNN likewise filmed far-right elements firing at police from behind Maidan barricades, then hunting for positions to shoot from the 11th floor of the Hotel Ukraina, minutes before the BBC filmed snipers shooting protesters from a room where a far-right MP was staying. The network opted not to report this at the time. We needn’t rely purely on video footage. Over the course of the trial, no fewer than 14 self-confessed members of Maidan sniper groups testified they had explicitly received massacre orders, Katchanovski claims. By contrast, no police officer at the scene has said they were directed to kill unarmed protesters, no minister has come forward to blow the whistle on such a scheme, and no evidence Yanukovich approved of the killings has ever emerged. The United States, Britain and other major NATO members have said they would support Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as the new leader of the military bloc, as the current secretary general prepares to end his ten-year term.
The White House threw its backing behind Rutte on Thursday, with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby telling reporters that Washington had already conveyed its stance to other member states. ”The United States has made it clear to our allies, our NATO allies, that we believe Mr. Rutte would be an excellent secretary general for NATO,” he said. Berlin has also declared support for Rutte, with the office of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz describing the outgoing PM as an “outstanding candidate” to take over from Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. ”Chancellor Scholz supports the nomination of Mark Rutte as the new Secretary General of NATO,” Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, wrote in a social media post. He praised Rutte’s “immense experience, his great security policy expertise and his strong diplomatic skills.” Britain adopted the same position. “The UK does strongly back Dutch PM Mark Rutter to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as NATO secretary general,” a government spokesperson said in a statement to the British media. A senior French official told Reuters that President Emmanuel Macron was an early backer of Rutte, and had discussed the matter with him last year. While unnamed diplomats told Reuters that 16 other NATO states also favoured Rutte for the role, his appointment would require a unanimous vote from the bloc’s 31 members. The Polish Foreign Ministry noted that Warsaw has not yet expressed support for any candidate, while officials in Hungary and Türkiye have not made their positions known. Berlin has also declared support for Rutte, with the office of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz describing the outgoing PM as an “outstanding candidate” to take over from Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. ”Chancellor Scholz supports the nomination of Mark Rutte as the new Secretary General of NATO,” Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, wrote in a social media post. He praised Rutte’s “immense experience, his great security policy expertise and his strong diplomatic skills.” Britain adopted the same position. “The UK does strongly back Dutch PM Mark Rutter to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as NATO secretary general,” a government spokesperson said in a statement to the British media. A senior French official told Reuters that President Emmanuel Macron was an early backer of Rutte, and had discussed the matter with him last year. While unnamed diplomats told Reuters that 16 other NATO states also favoured Rutte for the role, his appointment would require a unanimous vote from the bloc’s 31 members. The Polish Foreign Ministry noted that Warsaw has not yet expressed support for any candidate, while officials in Hungary and Türkiye have not made their positions known. Scared of being abandoned by the US under Trump, European officials are floating the idea of the bloc’s own nuclear force.
With its farmers rebelling, its economy declining, and its traditional parties decaying, you’d think the European Union has enough to worry about at home. Yet its thoroughly detached elites love to think big. And what’s bigger than nuclear weapons? That’s how they have ended up falling for one of Donald Trump’s typically blunt provocations. The former – and likely future – American president has warned that NATO members not spending enough on defence won’t be able to count on US protection on his watch. Eminently sensible – why do declining but still comparatively wealthy EU states keep behaving like defence beggars? – Trump’s threat has triggered various predictable meltdowns. The White House archly tut-tutted about the “appalling and unhinged” rhetoric of a man who is not, unlike the current president Joe Biden, overseeing a genocide together with Israel. Go figure, as they say in the US. On the other hand, many Republicans have displayed demonstrative insouciance, if not outright agreement. And that is certain to reflect what many ordinary Americans think as well; that is, if they think about Europe at all. And as if the Big Scary Orange Man hadn’t done enough damage yet, next came the Pentagon, which (sort of) revealed that Russia – that famous gas station sending out its shovel-wielding soldiers to capture German washing machines – is building, if not a Death Star, then at least something equally sinister out there in space: Sputnik déjà vu all over again, as America’s greatest philosopher might have said. All of that, of course, against a background of incessant NATO scaremongering, which, it seems, has succeeded in spooking NATO most of all. No wonder then that inside EU-Europe, reactions to Trump’s taunting sally have been marked by serious abandonment anxiety. One of its symptoms has been a call for the bloc – or Europe’s NATO members; the issue is fuzzy – to acquire its own nuclear force. One way or the other, Christian Lindner, Germany’s minister of finance, made time from razing the state budget in an economy that his cabinet colleague, the children’s book author and minister of the economy, Robert Habeck, has just labelled “dramatically bad,” in order to pen an article calling for France (not subordinating its nukes to NATO) and Britain (not even in the EU anymore) – two small nuclear powers – to step in as the new security sugar daddies by expanding their nuclear umbrellas over everyone else. Katarina Barley, eternally fresh-eyed vice president of the European Parliament and the top EU election candidate of the German Social-Democrats – a party leading a deeply unpopular government while approaching extinction in the polls – and Manfred Weber, head of the conservative faction in the European Parliament, have kept things more general: They simply suggest that the EU should get its own doomsday weapons, somehow. Donald Tusk, freshly re-established as Poland’s EU-subservient viceroy, has made similar noises. Well, who cares about details, right? That attitude of “on s’engage et puis on voit” has, after all, proven a smashing success in Ukraine. In reality, this is not a problem caused by Trump: That, in a world of more than one nuclear power, the US nuclear umbrella over any place other than the US itself is – and can only be – fundamentally unreliable is, of course, a perennial, structural problem. Those who prefer realism to wishful thinking have always understood this. Henry Kissinger, for instance, a sinister yet sometimes brutally frank practitioner of realpolitik, explained as much as early as the 1950s – perhaps most succinctly in a television interview in 1958 – just a little over a decade after the dawn of the nuclear age. If any clients abroad were to be attacked so severely or successfully that only a US nuclear strike would be left to respond, any American president – whatever treaties are in place or promises have been made – would always face an impossible choice: Drop the client or suffer a retaliatory strike on America itself. It is true that various policies have been devised to mitigate this dilemma (“limited” nuclear war, nuclear sharing, or the NATO medium-range missiles of the 1980s), but, in reality, it cannot be resolved. Yet here we are. An EU that seems to suffer from historical amnesia produces chatter about a search for nukes of its own. Not the nukes that are already in US-aligned Europe anyhow, in the national arsenals of France, Britain, and at American bases in five NATO countries, so that, at least, we are already used to them, but different nukes, new nukes. Nukes the acquisition, politics, and rules of which are all still to be figured out. What could go wrong? Everything, really. But let’s be a little more detailed. First of all, the elites of EU-Europe have, expectably, immediately displayed disunity and confusion. In essence, while no one meant the call for nuclear weapons as a challenge to the US, it was still too much for hard-core Atlanticism compradors: Germany’s minister of defence, Boris Pistorius, NATO’s figurehead General-Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, and the head of the German parliament’s defence committee – and “jokingly” “Volkssturm”-nostalgic (no kidding) – uber-hawk Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann all scrambled to contain the inadvertently mildly subversive idea that Europe could possibly try to do anything significant on its own. Perish the thought! A house so divided against itself is not a safe place to own nukes. Secondly, nuclear weapons are, of course, meant for extreme emergencies, means of last resort either to serve deterrence by the threat of we-will-take-you-with-us retaliation when all is lost anyhow (the purpose of Britain’s and France’s arsenals) or, at best, in a situation of imminent, catastrophic defeat. One implication of this fact is that the decision to use them would end up with either one person or a very compact group hunkered down in a bunker. Who would that be in the case of the EU? The head of the commission, for instance? Someone like Ursula von der Leyen, a self-promoting, short-sighted, and reckless power-grabber, free of any electoral legitimacy, who is really serving the US and not Europe? Good luck! And how would the EU overcome the fact that any such ultimate decider would also have national allegiances: An Estonian or a Pole perhaps, from states, that is, that have their own risky agendas and, to be frank, national(ist) complexes? Or someone from Spain or Greece perhaps, from, that is, countries that may well largely escape the direct effects of a large-scale fight in central Europe, and therefore would have no sane incentive to have Madrid or Athens incinerated to make a last point about Latvia or, indeed, Germany? Set up a committee (unanimity rules or majority voting on when to push the very last red button?), and all you will get is a multiplication of clashing and divided loyalties. Thirdly, more generally, can you imagine today’s EU – or anything growing out of it – in possession of weapons of mass destruction? That is, a club of states most of which are now stubbornly complicit (International Court of Justice be damned) in an ongoing genocide in the Middle East (committed by Israel against the Palestinians), many of which have a pathological obsession with crusading against Russia, and none of which can even grasp that the greatest threat to their sovereignty comes from their “allies” in Washington. And that leads us to the final and most fundamental problem: This whole debate about nukes for Europe is based on bizarrely blinkered premises that betray that EU-Europe is by far not politically mature enough to have such weapons (if any state ever is). Because if it were, then its strategists and politicians would honestly acknowledge and discuss one simple fact: A nuclear force would have to deter every possible vitally dangerous opponent, that is, of course, including the US. Yet these are the same leaders that have simply ignored that the greatest act of war, eco-terrorism, and vital-infrastructure demolition against the EU – the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines – was launched by Washington, whether hands-on or via proxies. The EU is a large bloc of countries in an increasingly unstable and lawless world where the ever-wider proliferation of nuclear weapons will be inevitable. Hypothetically, such an entity would be a candidate for owning such weapons. Yet, in reality, the EU lacks three essential qualities to even consider acquiring them: It is far too fractious, it has no serious concept of its own interests as apart from and, indeed, opposed to the US, and it lacks an elite that could remotely be trusted with weapons capable of ending the world. There, it is of course, not alone. But isn’t one US on planet Earth bad enough already? Max Verstappen can look back on an excellent first day of testing. In Bahrain, the Dutchman drove by far the most laps of all drivers and was more than a second faster than the rest of the field.
There were no problems for the three-time world champion. At the Bahrain International Circuit it was Verstappen who set the pace right from the start. The Limburger already finished the morning session as the fastest and after lunch he went even further. Second faster Verstappen drove 142 laps, which amounts to more than 2.5 times the normal race distance. The three-time world champion managed to set a time of 1:31.344, making him 1.1 seconds faster than number two Lando Norris. Carlos Sainz clocked the third fastest time, a tenth behind Norris. Verstappen's test day went smoothly. The mood at the formation was high, which indicated that the entire program had gone entirely according to plan. There were no major problems all day. Verstappen will be in action again on Thursday after the lunch break. The morning belongs to Sergio Pérez, who will also take care of the last day on Friday. |
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