🇫🇷 Riots erupt in Paris as protesters clash with police over pension reform

In January, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne unveiled a draft of the pension reforms the government plans to adopt in 2023. Under the initiative, the French authorities intend gradually to raise the retirement age by three months a year from 1 September 2023 so that by 2030, the retirement age will have reached 64.

The reform has provoked a wave of protests across the country. Since Borne's announcement, six nationwide demonstrations against the bill have already taken place.

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🇿🇦🇮🇱 South Africa's parliament passes resolution to downgrade embassy in Israel into liaison office over continued human rights violations against Palestinians

▪️The resolution was supported by a majority of lawmakers, with 208 votes in favor and 94 against.

▪️In a statement, the National Freedom Party (NFP) that introduced the resolution to the parliament referred to it as a historic decision that demonstrates South Africa’s commitment to "justice, human rights, and freedom."

🗣 "We’re hoping that this is going to be the first step in putting pressure on Israel to comply with human rights, recognize the rights of the Palestinian people, their right to exist, and also go back to the negotiating table," the NFP’s leader is quoted as saying

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Ukrainian Opposition Leader: Zelensky Regime Won't Be Able to Destroy Orthodox Faith

“The Zelensky regime has once again demonstrated that it holds nothing sacred, this time in the literal sense. Today, the authorities have begun a gangster-style takeover of the main shrine of Orthodoxy – the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra,” said Viktor Medvedchuk, former Ukrainian opposition leader.

“The people are being robbed of the last thing they’ve got – their faith. Orthodoxy is the basis of the culture and spiritual life of the Ukrainian people. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has called the people to peace, unity and conscientiousness. But peaceful, God-fearing and conscientious people have been declared enemies by the Zelensky government,” Medvedchuk added.

“Ukrainians aren’t zombies. There is Another Ukraine – the genuine, true, Slavic, Orthodox one, which will not allow Satanism and lawlessness to be imposed upon it. And today the traitors of the Ukrainian people, Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian faith hear our voice, and understand that their sinister, black core is becoming more and more obvious each day. Everyone will receive their just deserts. The attempt to destroy the true Orthodox faith only strengthens the people. The Orthodox faith, like the people, cannot be destroyed!” said Medvedchuk

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🇲🇩 Kiev is digging trenches on the border with Moldova, explaining it as an attempt to combat illegal migration and smuggling, a representative of the Moldovan border police told Sputnik.

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Iran Launches Production of New Combined Trainer Aircraft/Close Air Support Jet

Iran lost access to spare parts and maintenance for its fleets of US and French-built aircraft after the 1979 Revolution, and was slapped with a Security Council arms embargo from 2007-2020. While the restrictions were meant to weaken Tehran’s defense capabilities, they instead led to the creation of an advanced domestic defense-industrial complex.

Iranian aviation giant Iran Aviation Industries Organization (IAIO) has rolled out the production version of the Yasin – a light jet-powered trainer aircraft that’s also capable of flying close air support (CAS) missions.

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🇻🇦Pope Francis told an Argentine daily that he was ready to go to Kiev, but only on the condition of making a similar trip to Moscow.

💬 "I am willing to go to Kiev. I want to go to Kiev. But on condition of going to Moscow. I go to both cities or neither," the pontiff said.

▪️When told by the reporter that a visit to Moscow was "impossible," Pope Francis expressed hope that it could be arranged.

▪️In January, the Ukrainian ambassador to the Holy See, Andrii Yurash, expressed hope that Pope Francis would visit Ukraine in the near future.

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How Biden and the Fed Caused Silicon Valley Bank to Tank

Regulators took control of California commercial banking giant Silicon Valley Bank after a bank run this week. The calamity may have been startling, but wasn’t unpredictable, given the Fed’s aggressive policy on interest rates, says author and banking expert David Tawil.

SVB fell victim to the Federal Reserve’s policy of raising interest rates too high, too fast, according to the observer. SVB’s failure was “astounding” in the sense that it was the largest bank collapse since the 2007-2008 crisis, but transpired in a space of 24 hours.

Pondering what the reaction of the Biden's administration and Congress might be, Tawil suggested that given the "dysfunctional" current state of the White House and Congress, the response may come down to lawmakers wagging their fingers at bank executives and the president talking about the need to reign in venture capitalists. "But frankly I don’t expect anything substantive to be done out of Washington,” he said.

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🇪🇸 #StopKillingDonbass: Spaniards took to the streets of the city of Bilbao in the country's north to protest against arms supplies to Ukraine as they do not want the civilian population of Donbass to be killed with European weapons.

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Twitter CEO Elon Musk says he is "open to the idea" of having his social media company buy the bankrupt Silicon Valley Bank.

The billionaire entrepreneur replied to a suggestion on Twitter (banned in Russia) that his technology company should buy the tech lender and "become a digital bank."

The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation announced Friday that it was taking possession of SVB, citing inadequate liquidity and insolvency. It is reportedly the second-largest bank failure in US history.

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China-brokered Iran-Saudi Deal Threatens to Push US Out of the Gulf and Washington Knows It

The Biden administration’s utter lack of involvement in the negotiations which culminated in the Iran-Saudi diplomatic deal secured by China is a warning sign signaling the waning of Washington’s influence and power in the Middle East, virtually all major US media analyses covering the story have admitted.

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German intelligence is aware of 61 "extremists and politically motivated criminals" from Germany who have traveled eastward to Ukraine since the start of the conflict last winter, local media reported.

Of them, at least 29 are believed to be still in Ukraine, a German daily cited sources from the German security community as saying. The BfV intelligence agency did not say whether they were involved directly in the fighting and on which side.

The report also cited federal police as saying that 31 of the identified extremists stood to the right of the political spectrum. A further 24 were classified as supporters of "foreign ideology or extremism," while a handful others were religious fanatics. One person was labeled as a left-leaning extremist, the report said.

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🦁😴 Look at this (still) sleeping beauty!

The Moscow Zoo has shared footage of a lioness welcoming a new day! She gorgeously walks around only to find her royal breakfast served!

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🎈 Japanese start-up conducts 1,000-metre-high manned balloon flight aimed at providing "space experience" to customers in the future

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📈💰 The UK finance ministry scrambled on Saturday to protect British tech start-up sector from the fallout of the US-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)’s implosion.

"We are working with the Bank of England to ensure that Silicon Valley Bank UK's failure is managed smoothly, and that any disruption is minimized," a Treasury spokesperson was quoted as saying by a British TV Channel.

US banking regulators shut the tech lender on Friday after a two-day run on the bank. It reportedly ranked as the 16th largest US bank at the end of 2022, with more than $200 billion in assets and $175 billion in deposits.

Dozens of UK tech companies that had been banking with SVB wrote to finance minister Jeremy Hunt on Saturday to request state intervention, warning they could become technically insolvent overnight if no action was taken.

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Sending NATO Troops to Ukraine Could Have World-Ending Consequences, US Politician Warns

“These ‘Western countries’ better think again about doing anything like that. Then they’d better think again and again. It’s insane. It could lead to the destruction by Russia of any country that sends troops; or it could lead to a nuclear war that could kill everyone on earth,” Kentucky progressive Democrat Geoffrey M Young has urged.

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Wild Thai Macaques Could Throw Monkey Wrench in Human Evolution Narrative, Study Says

Wild monkeys observed in the forests of Thailand were able to create stone artifacts “indistinguishable from what we see at the beginning of the [human] archeological record — what we see as the onset of being human,” said Lydia Luncz of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, a co-author on the study.

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Over 1,000 Californians Forced to Evacuate After Levee Fails

Dramatic footage posted on social media showed early-morning rescues being carried out for residents who’d become trapped in their parked vehicle by rising floodwaters.

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‘Almost Like You Want to Find Nothing’: Experts Slam Norfolk Southern ‘Air Tests’ in East Palestine

The ‘air testing’ recently conducted in East Palestine residents’ homes was deficient in a number of key ways and was actually carried out by a company contracted by the rail company Norfolk Southern, a new report has revealed.

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Biden's Visit to Kiev Cost Ukrainian Taxpayers More Than $1.6Mln, Reports Say

US President Joe Biden on 20 February made an unannounced visit to Kiev to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and discuss US weapon supplies.

And his visit to Kiev has cost Ukrainian taxpayers more than $1.6Mln, according to media reports citing authorities. In contrast, the average monthly salary in Ukraine is approximately $400.

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🇨🇳Deputies of China’s National People's Congress (NPC) have approved the appointment of 65-year-old general Li Shangfu to the post of Minister of National Defence. The vote was held on Sunday during the fifth plenary meeting of the first session of the 14th NPC.

Li Shangfu has been under US sanctions for military cooperation with Russia.

Ding Xuexiang, He Lifeng, Zhang Guoqing and Liu Guozhong were approved for the posts of vice premiers on Sunday. Li Shangfu, Wang Xiaohong, Wu Zhenglong, Shen Yiqin and Qin Gang were endorsed as Chinese state councilors.

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🇨🇭An estimated 2,000-3,000 people took part in a rally in the Swiss capital of Bern, calling on the country’s government to maintain a policy of neutrality in relation to the events in Ukraine, local media report.

The protest was held on Saturday evening in Bern’s main square, where the government buildings are located. The demonstrators were urging the Swiss authorities to terminate sanctions against Russia and have Switzerland return to "100% neutrality."

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