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New Report: State Department Funded Fact-checkers to Censor ‘Lawful Speech’

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 18, 2024

The U.S. Department of State-funded domestic and international fact-checking entities that censored American independent media outlets and social media users who questioned the Biden administration’s COVID-19 and other policies, according to a congressional report.

The report by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business stated:

“The Federal government has funded, developed, and promoted entities that aim to demonetize news and information outlets because of their lawful speech.”

The government’s actions fueled “a censorship ecosystem” that suppressed “individuals’ First Amendment rights” and “the ability of certain small businesses to compete online.”

The report focused on the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), which promoted and funded “tech start-ups and other small businesses in the disinformation detection space … with domestic censorship capabilities.”

The “fact-checking” firms named in the report include the International Fact-Checking Network — owned by the Poynter Institute — and NewsGuard.

The International Fact-Checking Network, established in 2015, has received funding from another State Department-affiliated group, the National Endowment for Democracy — and from Google, the Open Society Foundations and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to the House report, the federal government “assisted the private sector in detecting alleged MDM [misinformation-disinformation-malinformation] for moderation” and “worked with foreign governments with strict internet speech laws,” including European Union member states and the United Kingdom, to censor speech.

The report determined that the GEC and the National Endowment for Democracy violated international restrictions by “collaborating with fact-checking entities” to assess the content of domestic media outlets.

The “fact-checking” operations targeted independent media outlets, and as a result, “the scales are tipped in favor of outlets which express certain partisan narratives rather than holding the government accountable.”

Whether the State Department’s actions rise to “unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment is currently before the courts,” the report stated.

The State Department and several GEC officials are defendants in Murthy v. Missouri, a lawsuit alleging the Biden administration colluded with social media to censor free speech.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and its chairman on leave, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are plaintiffs in Kennedy v. Biden, a similar lawsuit that last year was consolidated with Murthy v. Missouri.

The Poynter Institute is a defendant in another censorship lawsuit, CHD v. Meta, that CHD filed against Facebook’s parent company.

NewsGuard partnered with CDC, WHO to censor online content

According to the report, NewsGuard used money it received from the GEC and the U.S. Department of Defense to fund efforts to lower the advertising revenue “of businesses purported to spread MDM.”

“A system that rates the credibility of press is fatally flawed as it is subject to the partisan lens of the assessor, making the ratings unreliable,” the report states.

NewsGuard leveraged taxpayer dollars to develop Misinformation Fingerprints, a product that “catalogues what it determines to be the most prominent falsehoods and ‘misinformation narratives’” circulating online, “essentially outsourcing the U.S. government’s perception of fact to NewsGuard,” the report states.

NewsGuard later partnered with dozens of companies, organizations, universities and media outlets, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Office of the Surgeon General and the World Health Organization (WHO).

“During the pandemic, the WHO enlisted NewsGuard for its input, including regular reports, on which COVID-19 narratives it determined to be misinformation were prevalent online,” the report states. “The WHO then contacted social media companies and search engines asking them to remove this content.”

‘Nobody wanted’ fact-checkers until ‘actual truths started getting out’

Tim Hinchliffe, publisher of The Sociable, told The Defender, “These so-called ‘fact-checkers’ are not in the business of actually checking facts. They are in the business of controlling narratives … Nobody wanted or needed these organizations until actual truths started getting out.”

Catherine Austin Fitts, founder and publisher of the Solari Report and former U.S. assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, told The Defender the government increasingly relies on censorship to promote its favored narratives.

“They need to institute more and more censorship,” Fitts said. “It’s hard to refute the gaslighting that flows from this imagination factory.”

Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, told The Defender he wasn’t surprised that the State Department is “working to censor those who disagree with U.S. government policies and their globalist agenda.”

The report recommends that no federal funds “should be used to grow companies whose operations are designed to demonetize and interfere with the domestic press” and that federal agencies “should not be outsourcing their perception of fact to speech-police organizations subject to partisan bias.”

GEC also faces the loss of its government funding. According to the Washington Examiner, “A provision through the annual State Department appropriations bill, which passed the House this summer and will be negotiated in the Senate, aims to ban future checks to the GEC.”

But for Boyle, this is not enough. He said the State Department has, “at a minimum,” committed “the federal crime of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.”

Censorship ‘a pendulum that swings both ways’

The Gateway Pundit last week reported on additional links between the International Fact-Checking Network, other “fact-checking” firms and Big Tech.

In 2015, Poynter partnered with Google News Lab, which earlier that year, helped establish First Draft News. Active until 2022, First Draft was a consortium of social media verification groups that shared methods for combating “fake news.”

Another First Draft founder, fact-checking firm Bellingcat, also received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy.

First Draft was previously led by Claire Wardle, Ph.D., a Brown University professor who, according to “Twitter Files” released last year, advised the Biden administration on COVID-19 “misinformation” — despite having no science or medical credentials.

In 2016, Poynter and the International Fact-Checking Network partnered with First Draft “to tackle common issues, including ways to streamline the [news] verification process.” Other partners included Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, ABC News, NBC News and BBC News.

In 2017, Google News Lab partnered with the International Fact-Checking Network “to dramatically increase the searchable output of fact-checkers worldwide, expand fact-checking to new markets and support fact-checking beyond politics, such as in sports, health and science.” The following year, Poynter acquired PolitiFact.com.

Google was also one of the original funders of The Trust Project, a consortium of news organizations that developed eight “trust indicators” to help the public “easily assess the integrity of news.”

These “trust indicators” later became “one of the sources being used by NewsGuard Technologies for a new product to improve news literacy,” and formed “a foundation for NewsGuard review development.”

Hinchliffe warned that the beneficiaries of censorship based on today’s “fact-checking” may become its targets in the future.

“One of the problems of censorship that operates under the guise of misinformation and disinformation, apart from stifling free speech and suppressing actual truths, is that it’s a pendulum that swings both ways,” he said. “The people calling for censorship now may be in a greater position of power to do so, but it will one day swing back at them.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

September 19, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

German Citizens’ Forum Proposes Criminalizing “Disinformation”

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 19, 2024

A citizens’ council – established by Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser to help combat what she sees as “fake news,” has come up with a number of recommendations, including criminalizing whatever the authorities decide to consider to be the “spread of disinformation.”

The proposal is in line with Faeser’s own policies, which opponents see as strongly pro-censorship (and that includes trying to ban a magazine critical of the government).

No surprise also that Faeser’s ministry is open to the suggestions – a statement said it would be “analyzed.” Furthermore, the Interior Ministry will “examine the extent to which (the recommendations)” can be incorporated into its work.

All this is already being interpreted in the context of the previous conduct of Germany’s government, which critics say is not only free speech and media freedom-unfriendly – but is also, while declaratively fighting disinformation, giving a leg up to those media outlets that actually spread disinformation (the implication being, the kind of disinformation that suits the government.)

In a world where war is peace, freedom is slavery, etc., Faeser’s council’s full name is, “Forum against Fakes—Together for a Strong Democracy.” But it’s questionable how German democracy could benefit from an even more draconian clampdown on speech than what is currently happening.

91 percent of those participating in Fraser’s council (and that’s reportedly more than 420,000 people) have recommended that the ministry look into the possibility of “examining criminal prosecution and/or sanctioning the spread of disinformation.”

The council can be seen as a form of “policy laundering” – where a politician’s own ideas are put through a body said to represent citizens, to then be accepted as supposedly (all) citizens’ proposal.

In order to start prosecuting and punishing people for disinformation, there was no way of avoiding “defining” what it was. The attempt, however, is poor.

“Targeted false information that is spread in order to manipulate people. The aim is to influence public debates, divide society, and weaken cohesion and democracy.” That’s the “definition,” which is alarmingly broad and open to interpretation and manipulation.

Another point that the council’s recommendations make is that punishing people found to be “weakening cohesion” and such is to, basically, subject them to reeducation.

“Deter” and “increase awareness of wrongdoing” is how this is worded. However, observers are not sure such measures can coexist with Germany’s Basic Law and its provisions meant to protect freedom of expression.

September 19, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 2 Comments

G20 Embraces Digital ID Dream While Critics Warn of Surveillance Nightmare

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 19, 2024

The G20 organization, currently chaired by Brazil and recently holding a ministerial meeting there, is wasting no time falling in line with all the key policies advanced by many governments, and globalist elites.

After promising to do its bit in the “war on disinformation” (to the delight of the host, Brazil, whose present government is accused of censorship), G20 member countries “pledged allegiance” to the digital ID and the overall scheme that incorporates it – namely, the digital public infrastructure (DPI).

DPI already counts the UN, the EU, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the Gates Foundation as policy backers and vocal promoters. Now G20 ministers with digital economy portfolios have issued a joint declaration to express their “commitment” to both DPI and “combating disinformation”, and there is also inevitably the talk of “AI.”

On the digital ID/DPI front, the ministers speak of “inclusive” DPI, and the same attribute is attached to AI. The declaration “acknowledges” the importance of things like innovation and competition in a digital economy, among other things, at the same time “reaffirming” the importance of digital transformation based on DPI.

Boilerplate remarks are made about transparency and protection of privacy and personal data – but these are the major concerns cited by opponents of this type of scheme, along with the overall fear that they facilitate new, more dangerous forms of mass surveillance through centralization of personal information and tracking of people’s activities.

Referring to digital ID as “a basic DPI,” the declaration further speaks of the Sustainable Development Goals (a UN agenda) and one of its targets to be achieved by 2030 by using digital ID (as a tool of “inclusion”) to provide “legal identity for all.”

Interestingly enough, free speech repression is not the only controversial policy where Brazil seems keen to lead the way; so is DPI, and the digital ID.

During the G20 meeting, Brazil promoted its DPI-related activities, including digital IDs based on biometrics. This policy is explained with buzzwords such as economic growth, sustainable development, and also, “easier access to financial services and government resources, particularly for underbanked populations.”

September 19, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Could Lebanon Blasts Affect Global Security and Attitude to Western Hi-Tech Producers?

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 19.09.2024

A series of blasts reportedly involving Taiwanese, Japanese, American, and European-made devices in Lebanon on September 17 and 18 have prompted grave security concerns worldwide.

“Weaponizing mobile communications devices will fill many people with horror and fear,” Marc Ostwald, chief economist at ADM Investor Services International, told Sputnik. “It may, at the margin, dampen demand.”

The Lebanese government attributed the attack to Israel, accusing Tel Aviv of an outright act of terrorism.

Given almost “unconditional support” provided to Israel by some Western countries, some of them may have colluded with Tel-Aviv, said Hasan Abdullah, analyst and researcher at Global Security and Strategy Institute.

“The US is going to be the country that’s going to generate the greatest trust deficit with their customers, primarily because of its very close collaboration with Israel,” Abdullah told Sputnik.

The US has long been one of the largest suppliers of communication equipment, including for military needs, to the Global South, the pundit noted, adding that the recent blasts could alienate the developing world from Western producers.

Earlier, researcher Mehmet Rakipoglu and military analyst Alexei Leonkov told Sputnik they did not rule out US involvement in the Lebanon attack.

The Intercept reported on Wednesday that the US military had explored the possibility of planting remote-activated bombs in innocuous devices starting from the 1960s.

Middle East and other developing countries could eventually turn to Russian, Chinese or Turkish tech firms out of fear that the US involvement could compromise their security, Abdullah said.

Ostwald and Abdullah believe that several measures could be taken to stop the covert bombings, starting with investigations into manufacturing processes and ending with the deployment of international watchdogs to oversee production and supply.

September 19, 2024 Posted by | Economics, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Nasrallah: Blasts declaration of war, enemy to face tough retribution

Press TV – September 19, 2024

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah says pager and walkie-talkie explosions by Israel on Tuesday and Wednesday which killed 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000 in Lebanon are a declaration of war.

“The enemy has crossed all red lines and all laws in this attack. This is a massive terrorist attack, genocide, a massacre,” Nasrallah said Thursday in his first televised address since the attack.

“The Tuesday and Wednesday massacres are a war crime, a declaration of war…you can call it anything,” he said, adding Israel will face “tough retribution and just punishment, where it expects it and where it does not”.

Israel’s willful intent, Nasrallah said, was to kill 4,000 Lebanese people within minutes but many of the pagers were out of service, turned off or stored away.

“When the enemy planned out this attack, they assumed there were at least 4,000 pagers spread out across all of Lebanon. This means that the enemy had the intention of murdering 4,000 people in a single minute.

“The same was repeated on the second day with the aim being to kill thousands of people carrying radio devices,” Nasrallah said.

Some of the attacks, he said, took place in hospitals, pharmacies, marketplaces, commercial shops and even residential homes, private vehicles and public roads where thousands of civilians, including women and children, are present.

Nasrallah said an extensive investigative committee has been formed to study all scenarios, possibilities, and theories, and an almost-definitive conclusion reached.

“I can tell you with utmost certainty that this attack did not break us and will not break us. On the contrary, it will only increase our resolve and determination to continue on in this battle,” he said.

Nasrallah said the aim of the attack is to dissuade the Lebanese resistance from continuing its operations against Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Since October 7 when Hamas carried out the landmark Operation Al-Aqsa Storm inside Israeli occupied territories, Hezbollah has engaged in near-daily cross-border skirmishes with Israeli forces in a show of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

“Why did the enemy do this? When the blessed Al-Aqsa Flood began, the Southern Lebanese support front was opened. This front has inflicted huge losses upon the enemy since October 8, as they have repeatedly admitted themselves,” Nasrallah said.

“The Southern Lebanese front has been a very effective front alongside the other support fronts. The enemy has repeatedly sent us messages to close this front. They resorted to threats of war, and attempted to differentiate between Lebanon and Gaza.”

Nasrallah said after the first attack on Tuesday afternoon, “the enemy sent us a message through official and unofficial channels, threatening that if we do not close our front, they have more in store for us and so the attack on Wednesday came”.

“In the name of the martyrs, the wounded, the ones who lost their eyes and palms, and in the name of every person who has taken on the responsibility of supporting Gaza, we tell Netanyahu and Gallant: the Lebanese front will not stop until the war on Gaza ends,” he said, referring to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant.

Through the attack, Nasrallah said, the enemy wanted the Lebanese people to turn against the resistance.

“This goal failed on Tuesday and Wednesday when we all saw the stances of the people and the wounded who hope to recover to return to the battlefield,” he said.

Nasrallah thanked doctors, officials and everyone who helped in the treatment of victims of the attacks, including the people who donated blood.

“One of the silver linings of the crisis of the past few days is the solidarity and unity experienced across the country,” he said.

September 19, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | 1 Comment

Ukraine courting Middle East terrorists – Syrian official

RT | September 19, 2024

Ukraine is increasingly seeking cooperation with terrorist groups in the Middle East in a bid to find allies in its fight against Russia, a senior Syrian official has told RT.

In an interview on Thursday, Munther Ahmad, director general of foreign media at the Syrian Ministry of Information, commented on claims by the Al-Watan newspaper that Kiev had dispatched 250 service members to Idlib province to train militants from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorist group. In exchange, the group reportedly provided Kiev with a detachment of fighters.

Al-Watan also claimed that the head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR), Kirill Budanov, has maintained contact with Abu Mohammad Julani, the head of the terrorist group.

According to Ahmad, “it seems that the reports are accurate” and that “the level of cooperation between Ukraine and these terrorist groups is increasing.” Kiev wants to convince terrorists “to carry out certain operations” against Russian forces both in Syria and beyond, he added.

The Syrian official also remarked that a report by Turkish newspaper Aydinlik, purporting to show a picture of a recent meeting between Ukrainians and terrorists, suggests that Kiev is indeed trying to forge such ties. The results of this endeavor, Ahmad added, “depends on how much money they [Ukraine] are willing to inject into these mercenaries.”

“Currently, this dirty money that Ukraine is offering these terrorist groups will be used for the dirty deeds Ukraine wants to carry out,” the official claimed, stating that the terrorists would cease their activities once the funding dries up.

Ahmad also suggested that Ukraine has plunged into “a state of confusion.” “Sometimes they claim they want to end the conflict. Other times, they say they will continue the war to the very end, especially when it comes to requesting aid from the US and European governments.”

Commenting on reports about Kiev courting Syrian militants, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested that Ukraine itself “had turned into a terrorist organization.”

September 19, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine at the Crossroads

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | September 18, 2024

The West is being increasingly confronted with the cold realization that Ukraine cannot win this war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has set as a threshold for victory, not only the recapture of territory up to his country’s prewar borders, but the reclamation of all of its territory to the 2014 border, including the Donbas and Crimea. There are few among Ukraine’s Western backers who subscribe any longer to that illusion.

But Western governments and the Western media delude their public into believing that the war is a stalemate that Russia also cannot win. This assessment is based on the unsubstantiated claim that the threshold for Russia winning is, as a start, the subjugation of Ukraine in its entirety.

But that has never been Russia’s stated goal. Just as listening to Zelensky’s stated definition of victory leads to the realization that it cannot be attained, so listening to Vladimir Putin’s leads to the conclusion that it can. Russia cannot subjugate all of Ukraine. But it has also never claimed that as its goal. Putin has consistently said that “this conflict is not about territory… [it] is about the principles underlying the new international order.” He has said that Russia never intended to conquer Kiev and that the early advance toward the capital was intended to force Ukraine into the negotiations that the United States declined.

Putin’s stated goals have always been a written assurance that Ukraine will not join NATO and protection of ethnic Russians in the Donbas. His June peace proposal contains those very points. The proposal states that Ukraine must guarantee that it will be a non-nuclear, non-aligned neutral nation that will not join NATO. It states that Ukraine must completely withdraw from Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, that they must agree to limits on the size of their armed forces, and that they must ensure the rights of the Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine.

If that is Russia’s definition of victory, then it is not impossible that Russia could win the war. And the advance on Pokrovsk is bringing some of those key points closer to realization.

Ukraine’s Western partners are at a crossroad. Plans of providing Ukraine with whatever they need for as long as it takes to push Russia out of Ukraine have been replaced by reinvigorating Ukraine’s position on the battlefield to strengthen their position at the inevitable negotiating table, even if that means, as one Western columnist put it, allowing Ukraine to “bomb Putin to the negotiating table.”

That would be one side of the crossroad: escalating war to advance peace. But that road, if it crosses Russia’s red line, is fraught with hazards. The other would be to find an offroad to the war, a road that leads to diplomatic negotiations and peace. Ukraine and some of its NATO partners, perhaps most importantly Britain, are urgently pushing the former. But a growing choir of Ukraine’s partners may be beginning to consider the second road.

In a vague article that names no names, Bloomberg reports that “some of Ukraine’s allies are starting to talk about how the fight against Russia’s invasion might end.” According to the report, “officials are more seriously gaming out how a negotiated end to the conflict and an off-road could take shape.” Facing the realization that Ukraine is unlikely to improve its position on the battlefield, “some allied officials” have begun “exploring ways in which diplomacy could break the deadlock.”

One of Ukraine’s partners is Germany. In a September 7 TV interview, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, “I believe that now is the time to discuss how to arrive at peace from this state of war, indeed at a faster pace.” Scholz’ statement may mark the most significant brake in NATO unity since the early days of the war. There are even unconfirmed reports that Scholz, who recently announced that Germany would provide no financial aid to Ukraine for the war after 2025, is preparing a plan for a diplomatic settlement to the war that could include Ukraine making territorial concessions.

And, though out in front, Germany may not be alone. The Wall Street Journal reports that some European diplomats are telling Ukraine that the battlefield reality necessitates that “Ukraine needs to be more pragmatic in its wartime aims and strategy.” Senior European officials have told the Ukrainian leadership that “a full Ukrainian victory would require the West to provide hundreds of billions of dollars worth of support, something neither Washington nor Europe can realistically do.”

The French newspaper Le Figaro reported on September 16 that the battlefield reality, the “slowly but steadily” advancing Russian forces and the realization in the West that “Donbass and Crimea are beyond the military reach of the Ukrainians,” are causing some of Ukraine’s Western partners in the United States and Europe to “discreetly” discuss a negotiated settlement. A “senior French diplomat” reportedly told the Le Figaro that France, too, is now contemplating a “lasting and negotiated solution to the war.”

All of these reports point to the slow birth of momentum to choose a different path at the crossroad. Even Zelensky has said, “I feel that not all territories should be regained by hand or with weapons. I believe this will take a long time and involve a significant number of people. And I think this is a bad thing. As a result, I believe we might retake our territories diplomatically.”

But Zelensky is still trying to push his NATO partners to take the road of escalation to future peace talks. And he seems to have the backing of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Calling daily for the U.S. to sign off on using Western long-range missiles to fire deep into Russian territory, Zelensky and Starmer are advocating the “bomb Putin to the negotiating table” route.

There appear to be delays on that route while the U.S. awaits the presentation of Zelensky’s promised plan for winning the war and what it needs from the West to do that. His “Ukrainian Victory Plan” promises to identify the steps needed on the battlefield to “give us the strongest possible position to bring about peace—a real, just peace.” Zelensky promises, “For each step, there is a clear list of what is needed and what will strengthen us.” Officials expect Zelensky to request NATO and European Union membership, security arrangements, economic commitments, and a steady flow of advanced weapons. Zelensky has also promised to include a list of targets inside Russian that Ukraine believes would help achieve victory.

Both roads lead to diplomatic talks. The one at “a faster pace,” in the words of Olaf Scholz, the other at risk of escalation that will, in Putin’s words, “change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict” and, potentially, mean that NATO countries… are at war with Russia.”

How seriously Ukraine’s partners take Putin’s warning will help determine which road they take at the crossroad. The lack of a decision being announced after the September 14 meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Starmer suggests that the United States may be taking the warning seriously. National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told a press conference that the Biden administration would never say “that we don’t take Mr. Putin’s threats seriously… He has obviously proven capable of escalation over the last, now, going on three years. So, yeah, we take these comments seriously.”

But, more concerningly, he qualified that seriousness by saying, “it is not something that we haven’t heard before. So, we take note of it. Got it. We have our own calculus for what we decide to provide to Ukraine and what not.” More concerningly still, was Biden’s dismissive response to Putin’s caution. “ I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin,” Biden said.

Which attitude prevails in Washington and which view, Germany’s or Britain’s, prevails in Europe will help determine which road is chosen at the current crossroad: escalation or a faster pace to diplomacy. The first risks crossing red lines that could pull the West into direct conflict with Russia and offers little hope of improving Ukraine’s position at the negotiating table that the second road arrives at more quickly and directly. The first seems too dangerous to consider; the second seems like dangerous folly not to consider.

September 19, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Zelensky cancels meeting fearing PR disaster – media

RT | September 19, 2024

The Ukrainian government has canceled a meeting intended to involve Vladimir Zelensky and Latin American leaders out of fear it would become a PR disaster, Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported on Tuesday. Very few of the invitees confirmed that they would attend the event, the paper wrote.

Kiev initially planned to hold the talks on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly scheduled to convene on September 24. According to Folha, the idea behind the meeting was to demonstrate symbolic support for Ukraine in its conflict with Moscow.

Ukrainian officials reportedly said it would be “an appropriate platform” for Zelensky to present what they called “relevant and reliable information” about the conflict. Kiev also wanted to rally support for the so-called Zelensky ‘peace formula’ – a set of demands put forward by Ukraine as pre-conditions for peace talks. Moscow has rejected the demands, calling them unacceptable.

Kiev had to scrap the meeting after it received only a “few confirmations of attendance,” Folha reported, adding that the government decided it was “necessary to avoid a situation that could possibly be interpreted as a lack of support.”

The paper did not provide the number of confirmations or name the leaders who said they would attend, except for Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo.

Ukraine has received steady support from the West since the conflict with Russia broke out in February 2022, but has failed to gain much backing in other parts of the world. Many Asian, African, and South American countries, including China, India, and Brazil, have remained neutral and called for a diplomatic resolution.

Mexico’s president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, recently told journalists she would pursue a policy of non-intervention on the world stage and has no plans to make a state visit to Ukraine. “Searching for the peaceful resolution of conflicts is the cornerstone of our foreign policy. This is our policy, and it won’t change,” she said on Wednesday.

Kiev has dismissed any proposals that are not in line with the ‘Zelensky formula’, claiming they play into Moscow’s hands. Last week, Zelensky rejected a six-point roadmap proposed by China and Brazil. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva responded by saying he would not allow his country to be dragged into the conflict.

September 19, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

Hungary falsely accused of manufacturing pager bombs, but now the trail leads to Bulgaria

By Liz Heflin | Remix News | September 19, 2024

Just yesterday, CEO Hsu Ching-kuang of Gold Apollo, the distributor of the exploding pagers, held a press conference stating that the AR-924 beepers ordered by Hezbollah were manufactured under license by a company called BAC.

“The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,” he said. According to a company statement, it had authorized “BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in specific regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC.” The CEO also noted that there had been a problem with receiving payment from BAC and that these had come via the Middle East.

BAC Consulting Kft. in Budapest is led by Italian-born Cristiana Rosaria Bársony-Arcidiacono, who also works for the European Commission based on her LinkedIn profile.

“The company has had only one employee since its foundation in 2022, so it is completely impractical that it could have participated in the production of any weapons,” wrote Magyar Nemzet earlier.

Now, however, Telex reports that BAC Consulting Kft. acted as a simple intermediary in the transaction. The company itself has not actually performed any activities, has no office, and is only registered with a registered office provider.

The head of BAC Consulting was in contact with a Bulgarian company, Norta Global Ltd, based in Sofia. Norta Global Ltd. was actually behind the deal, although on paper it was BAC Consulting that signed the contract with Gold Apollo.

Telex says the pagers from Taiwan were not brought in by BAC Consulting, but by the Bulgarian company. Norta Global sold and shipped the devices to Hezbollah. Owned by a Norwegian, Norta Global was only registered in 2022 and on paper deals with project management.

Yesterday on X, Zoltán Kovács, the government’s international spokesman, wrote: “Authorities have confirmed that the company in question is a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary. It has one manager registered at its declared address, and the referenced devices have never been in Hungary.”

He further added that “Hungarian national security services are cooperating with all relevant international partner agencies and organizations.”

According to another Telex source, “The Hungarian company involved in the case actually did nothing, the devices were never in Hungary.”

Meanwhile, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell has condemned the bombings and called for an investigation “due to the inevitable and heavy collateral damages among civilians, and the broader consequences for the entire population.”

September 19, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | 1 Comment