🚫 Google suspends all ad sales in Russia as censorship demands grow

Google announced Friday that it has stopped selling ads in Russia amid the country's ongoing military op in Ukraine. The move means that no ads will appear on Google Search or YouTube in Russia.

The ad sales decision comes a day after Russia's media regulator, Roskomnadzor, demanded that Google block ads on YouTube that contained what it called "false political information" about Ukraine.

Earlier this week, Google disabled its Google Maps review feature for Russian businesses after reviews for restaurants and cafés in Russia were flooded with information about Ukraine and protests against the invasion.

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‼️Singapore bans its financial institutions from transactions allowing fundraising by Russian central bank and government

Singapore has introduced sanctions on the Russian Central Bank and some other Russian banks as well as imposed restrictions on the exports to the country over the Russian military operation in Ukraine, the Singaporean Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

"Financial institutions in Singapore will be prohibited from the following: ... entering into transactions or arrangements, or providing financial services that facilitate fund raising by: the Russian government; the Central Bank of the Russian Federation; any entity owned or controlled by them or acting on their direction or behalf. The prohibitions apply to buying and selling new securities, providing financial services that facilitate new fund raising by, and making or participate in the making of any new loan to the above entities," the ministry said in a statement.

The sanctions targeted four Russian banks: VTB, Vnesheconombank, Promsvyazbank and Bank Rossiya.

"In order to constrain Russia’s capacity to conduct its war in Ukraine and cyber aggression, all permit applications to Russia involving (a) all items on the List of Military Goods under the SGCO; and (b) all category codes under Category 3 - Electronics, Category 4 - Computers and Category 5 – Telecommunications and “Information Security” on the List of Dual-Use Goods under the SGCO will be rejected," the statement added.

❌ Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez call for an investigation into Amazon's absence policy for workers

A group of Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Department of Labor and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate Amazon's absence policy for workers, which the group argues could be illegally penalizing workers.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, and Richard Blumenthal, as well as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cori Bush sent a letter to the two government bodies Thursday.

In the letter, the lawmakers say they believe Amazon's absence policies could violate the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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⚡️ Ukrainian troops shelled Donetsk in the morning, 10 122-mm calibre shells were fired, DPR says

❗️ Ukrainian forces fire 5 122mm shells at Donetsk, DPR says

📉 A group of almost 50 UK charities has warned that one in three British households will be unable to heat and power their homes if energy bills soar further against the backdrop of the escalation of the Ukraine crisis.

The End Fuel Poverty Coalition stressed that if the average energy bill soars to £3,000 (about $4,000), it would leave around 8.5 million British households unable to pay their energy bills.

Last week, European energy prices jumped almost 70% shortly after the EU's announcement of new tough anti-Russian sanctions over the beginning of Moscow's special military operation in Ukraine to protect the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.

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⚡️ Dutch firm Heineken stops exporting beer to Russia, its factories in the country will continue to work, concern says

❗️ Russia declares ceasefire in Ukraine from 07:00 GMT to open humanitarian corridors for civilians

⚡️ Zelensky wanted to use nuclear plant provocation to make West impose no-fly zone - ex-Ukrainian PM

⚡️ Humanitarian corridors and exit routes for civilians from Mariupol and Volnovakha have been agreed upon with the Ukrainian side, Russian MoD says

SpaceX chief Elon Musk said on Saturday that its Starlink satellite broadband service has been told by some governments, not Ukraine, to block Russian news sources.

"We will not do so unless at 'gunpoint', sorry to be a free speech absolutist", he said in a tweet.

Musk also said that SpaceX was reprioritized to cyber defense & overcoming signal jamming, will cause slight delays in Starship & Starlink V2.

⚡️ Russian MoD: Militants from the "Azov" and "Aidar" nationalist battalions fire at troops of the DPR that entered Mariupol from positions in schools, hospitals, maternity hospitals, and kindergartens

❗️ Russian MoD destroys ammunitions depot in Zhitomir hosting Javelins & NLAWs in high-precision strike

❗️ The ceasefire in Mariupol will be established from 10:00 to 17:00 Moscow time, the evacuation of the civilian population will begin at 12:00, the city authorities say

⚡️ PayPal has suspended services in Russia

❗️ The US Congress agreed to the sale of more than 250 Abrams tanks to Poland, the Polish Defence Minister says

⚡️ American video game developer Activision Blizzard (World of Warcraft, Overwatch, StarCraft, Diablo, Call of Duty) has announced that it is stopping the sale of its games in Russia until the situation with Ukraine is resolved

❗️ eBay has suspended delivery of orders to Russia from March 3

📸 Former Ukrainian PM Azarov talks about the prospects for the emergence of nuclear weapons in Ukraine

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📸 The Russian MoD has shown video footage of the use of Ka-52 helicopters in combat as part of the special op in Ukraine

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