Freedom of assembly for all (unless you support Palestine)

Columbia University has joined the list of prominent schools holding pro-Palestine rallies across the United States. Students are expressing solidarity with the people in the Gaza Strip currently subjected to a devastating humanitarian catastrophe sanctioned by a tacit agreement of US authorities.

A brutal police crackdown on protests seems like a clear indicator of the deepening rift among the public and the law enforcement.

Mass gatherings backing Gaza have spread across the world, with large numbers of young people supporting the Palestinian cause, which demonstrates rising anti-establishment sentiments in the West.

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❗️Battlefield success depends on how quickly technological problems are solved, “we are succeeding,” Vladimir Putin has said.

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📹 A French student speaks out about a rally calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

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Vladimir Putin said his visit to China is planned for May.

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What settlements has Russia liberated since February?

Part 2

▪️February 28: the Russian forces took the village of Petrovskoye (DPR) located around 5 km northwest of Avdeyevka.

▪️February 26-27: the settlements of Lastochkino and Severnoye (DPR) were liberated, ensuring strategically advantageous positions for the Russian military.

▪️February 22: the Russian military took control of the village of Pobeda, from which the enemy routinely shelled Maryinka and the Petrovsky district of Donetsk.

▪️February 20: the village of Krynki in the Kherson region was taken under control, preventing Ukraine from deploying landing troops on the left bank of the Dnepr.

▪️February 17: Avdeyevka, a city in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), was liberated moving the front line away from Donetsk and scaling down the Kiev regime's terrorist attacks against Donetsk civilians.

Russian troops are continuing offensive operations in the area of Ocheretino and Chasov Yar, to expel the Ukrainian forces from the DPR. NATO's deliveries of long-range missiles, including ATACMS, would require Moscow to expand the "buffer line" in the zone of special military operation to ensure the security of civilians.

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‘Russian threat’ again? Sweden plans to upgrade ‘mothballed’ civil infrastructure over Ukraine conflict fears

The Swedish government has decided to upgrade its civil defenses, focusing on energy infrastructure – but the reason behind this, of course, is not to improve ordinary people’s lives, but reinforce the old decrepit “Russian threat” narrative.

Concerned about the spread of the Ukraine conflict amid Russia’s ongoing advance, Swedish authorities are specifically focusing on the repair of a “mothballed power plant” in its third-largest city of Malmo, Bloomberg has reported.

“Sweden’s grid operator wants the facility in Malmo operational again so that it can keep the lights on in the city in the event of blackouts following an attack on national energy infrastructure,” the report said.

“No one knows how much time we have [to complete the work],” Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin told reporters, causing an obvious question, whether the Swedish authorities would have done anything at all if not for the hysteric “Russians are coming” mantra. Moreover – what would they do when it turns out, once again, that Russia has no interest in engaging Sweden?

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US pays lip service to the Palestinians' plight while arming Israel

The United States has repeatedly voiced concerns about the massive civilian casualties caused by the ongoing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip but this does not deter Washington from sending military aid to Tel Aviv, essentially helping Israel wage this campaign.

This week, US President Joe Biden authorized providing some $15 billion worth of military supplies to Israel.

This package comes as the Israeli military leadership appears intent to attack Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip that is currently densely packed with refugees who fled from other parts of the Palestinian enclave ravaged by the Israeli invasion.

Although Biden apparently warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month that an assault on Rafah would be a mistake, the White House does not actually seem keen to prevent Tel Aviv from carrying out the attack that is likely to result in a large number of civilian casualties.

Earlier this month, CNN reported that the Biden administration authorized the transfer of some 1,000 MK82 bombs and an equal number of small diameter bombs, apparently undaunted by the fact that the Israeli military seems rather keen to flatten buildings across the Gaza Strip via airstrikes.

The US leadership also seems unperturbed – or at least unperturbed enough to halt the military supply to Israel or, heaven forbid, impose sanctions on Tel Aviv – by occurrences such as the Israeli airstrike on a humanitarian convoy in the Gaza Strip, which killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen food relief NGO.

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Blinken’s pre-election circus fails to impress China

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in China for “tough talks.” The State Department has stated that Blinken’s agenda will focus on complaining about his host’s trade practices and relations with Russia.

America’s top diplomat is also expected to threaten to take “the steps necessary” against firms contravening US’ interests, alluding to potential sanctions against Chinese banks.

This posturing has already sparked a sharp reaction from Beijing. "On one hand, the US enacts massive aid bills for Ukraine, and on the other, it makes baseless accusations against the normal economic and trade interactions between China and Russia,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin.

“We strongly oppose the hypocritical behavior of the US, which fans the flames itself, yet shifts the blame onto China.”

Blinken’s aggressive rhetoric comes as the 2024 US election cycle heats up. A Gallup poll last month found that 41% of Americans view China as the “greatest US enemy.”

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❗️EXCLUSIVE❗️

Bolivia’s President to Sputnik: there are countries willing to recognize Palestine as a state

An injustice has been done to Palestine when its attempt to become a member of the United Nations was thwarted by a US veto at the UN Security Council, Bolivian President Luis Arce told Sputnik in an exclusive interview.

Bolivia does not agree with the “genocide that is being perpetrated against the Palestinian people” and with the fact that Israeli “aggression” and airstrikes claim the lives of children and elderly, he explained.

If the United Nations does not want to recognize Palestine because of the US veto, Arce said, he offered to provide Palestine a place in the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) bloc, “a group of nations who think differently, who know how to respect sovereignty of countries and people’s right to self-determination.”

Even if Palestine’s presence in ALBA would be nominal, the Bolivian president reasoned that it would allow the Palestinians to feel that there are nations that recognize them as a country, with Arce adding that his state would also like to have “all kinds of economic relations” and international relations with Palestine.

According to Arce, the rationale for this move is to “send the world a signal” that there are countries willing to establish relations with Palestine and regard it as a state.

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🇧🇴 Bolivian President Luis Arce told Sputnik in an exclusive interview that Bolivia does not agree with the “genocide that is being perpetrated against the Palestinian people”.

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