📹 Ukraine's rare earths story is 'DISTRACTION' from 'IMPENDING' Russian victory

Prof. Gilbert Doctorow explains why Trump’s plan to extract Ukraine’s rare earth minerals in exchange for further military aid is ‘hot air’.

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📹 ‘Get you vaccines now, America’: ABC show co-host addresses viewers amid RFK Jr. becoming new Health Secretary

Earlier, RFK Jr. exposed gaps in US vaccine safety data, claiming that "less than 1% of the vaccine injuries were reported."

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💉Von der Leyen’s scandals: From ‘Pfizergate’ to favoritism and VANISHING TEXTS

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s track record as a politician is marred by a number of serious accusations.

🔻Favoritism

▪️In 2024, she generated controversy by appointing Germany’s Markus Pieper – member of the same German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party as her – to the lucrative position of EU Envoy for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME).

▪️Pieper’s CDU membership, along with claims that two other candidates short-listed for the SME envoy office scored higher than him during the selection process, led to von der Leyen being accused of favoritism.

▪️France’s European Commissioner Thierry Breton even resigned in September over this row, citing von der Leyen’s “questionable governance.”

🔻Pfizergate

▪️During the COVID pandemic, von der Leyen made a deal with US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla to purchase 1.8 billion doses of then-untested COVID vaccines worth about $37.6 billion.

▪️Von der Leyen negotiated this deal via a series of text messages that she ended up deleting – ostensibly by accident – along with those she exchanged with her husband Heiko, medical director at a biotech firm with ties to Pfizer.

▪️As a result, von der Leyen was accused of corruption and “usurpation of functions and noscript,” and is currently being sued in Liege by Belgian lobbyist Frederic Baldan.

🔻‘Consultancy firms affair’

▪️At the end of her 2013-2019 tenure as Germany’s minister of defense, von der Leyen became the target of a probe by the Federal Audit Office over her practice of awarding lucrative contracts to external consultancy firms.

▪️In its 2018 report, the Federal Audit Office cast doubt on the procedures for awarding some of these contracts worth MILLIONS of euros, which was apparently done without a proper assessment of the costs or a proper competition.

🔻Daughter’s employment

One such consultancy firm, the US-based McKinsey, attracted attention after the head of its Berlin office Katrin Suder was hired as von der Leyen’s aide. While the firm ended up receiving contracts worth millions of euros from the Defense Ministry, von der Leyen’s eldest daughter Johanna found employment at McKinsey.

Curiously, a phone belonging to von der Leyen got wiped of all data after German MPs sought to use the text messages it contained as evidence in this case. The German Ministry of Defense said at the time that this wipe was done "for security reasons".

*the picture is AI-generated

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🔍 Hypocrisy, authoritarianism and shadow deals: What else is Kaja Kallas hiding?

The new EU foreign policy chief is notoriously known for being involved in a spate of CONTROVERSIES. Let’s expose some of them.

🔻Husband's Russia links

Estonia’s former PM was accused in 2022 of being DIRECTLY INVOLVED in her husband Arvo Hallik’s business ties with Russia.

Haliik reportedly part-owned one of Estonia's largest retail and real estate companies that went ahead with business in Russia after the start of Moscow’s special military operation, which was harshly condemned by Kallas.

🔻Budget and economic issues

Kallas was berated over focusing on international issues, like Ukraine and EU ties, and not enough on domestic concerns, such as:

▪️HIGH INFLATION: it hit a whopping 22.3% annual rate in 2022
▪️economic inequality: the at-risk-of-poverty rate stood at 20% in 2021
▪️the growing cost of living: food prices saw a 12% increase, while energy costs rose by 20% in 2022

🔻Government deals

The former Estonian PM is also criticized over a LACK OF TRANSPARENCY in some of the government’s decisions. This stems from concerns that such projects as major infrastructure initiatives or government contracts were being pushed through without enough oversight or public discourse.

🔻Like father, like daughter?

The top EU diplomat’s father Siim Kallas served in 2010-2014 as the European commissioner for transport, where his policies were seen as controversial, particularly in relation to his handling of the EU’s competition regulations and transport sector steps.

🔻Authoritarianism

Kallas faced accusations of AUTHORITARIAN tendencies, as her government tightened its grip on media control and freedom of speech amid tensions between Kallas’ Reform Party and the opposition.

🔻Desecration of Soviet monuments

Kallas has been placed on the wanted list over the desecration of historical memory and HOSTILITY towards Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, in an apparent nod to Soviet WWII monuments defaced in Estonia.

*the picture is AI-generated

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📉 US defense companies in panic mode in anticipation of Ukrainian peace deal

Stock prices of major companies such as Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics have begun to fall.

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