RT News - November 25th 2022

50 more Russian servicemen have landed in Moscow after release from Ukrainian captivity following the latest prisoner swap. RT reports from the airport and hear their stories firsthand.

Power outages contrinue across Ukraine.

The conflict between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and rebel groups may soon end as East African Nations agree to mediate the rebels' withdrawal from occupied areas - and send military support.

With the group stage at the FIFA world cup in Qatar in full swing RT looks at how the tournament has turned into a festival of controversies, rather than football records.

Africans don't buy the EU pledges to help them with food security.

Kenya may be importing GMO maize "to help them with the food crisis"

BRICS second day in St. Petersberg

The price cap on Russian oil leaves the EU and the rest of the world divided.

USA continues to blame Russia for food and other price hikes.
==================================

via RT website 24 Nov, 2022 22:16

---- Scientists revive 48,500-year-old virus ----

An international team of researchers has brought back to life what they believe to be the most ancient virus ever resuscitated

Melting permafrost may pose a threat to humanity, scientists have warned after reviving an ancient virus which lay frozen for tens of thousands of years.

Viruses such as this are still capable of infecting living organisms, the international team said after they observed nine ancient viruses discovered in the Siberian permafrost infecting amoebas in a lab.

The oldest of the newly discovered viruses is almost 50,000 years old, the team said. “48,500 years is a world record,” Jean-Michel Claverie, a team member and a researcher at Aix-Marseille University in France, told the New Scientist. His team studied a total of seven ancient viruses in its latest study. The group published a preprint of their work earlier in November.

The group, which includes scientists from Russia, France and Germany, previously managed to revive two other ancient viruses that are 30,000 years old. The viruses discovered and revived by the team are considered the most ancient ever revived, although other researchers claim to have revived bacteria that are said to be up to 250 million years old.

All of the viruses revived by the team are of the pandoravirus type – a group of giant viruses only capable of infecting single-cell organisms like amoebas. However, the fact that all nine ancient viruses were still capable of infecting living cells after spending tens of thousands of years in permafrost means that other viruses trapped there that are potentially contagious for plants, animals, or even humans could be released and revived as well, the scientists warn.

“There is a real danger,” Claverie said, adding that “there are bacteria and viruses coming out every day.” However, it is impossible to precisely determine the level of potential danger so far, he added.

Russia has warned about the danger that could arise as a result of the continued thawing of the permafrost caused by climate change. Thawing soil that has been deeply frozen for centuries or even millennia could still contain “some viable spores of ‘zombie’ bacteria and viruses,” Nikolay Korchunov, a senior Russian representative at the Arctic Council, told RT in 2021.

Moscow has said it considers the danger to be serious enough to launch a biosafety project and has called on all other Arctic Council nations to join it. Apart from Russia, the intergovernmental organization includes the US, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Finland, and Sweden.
https://www.rt.com/news/567141-ancient-permafrost-virus-revive-scientists/
======================================

via RT website 25 Nov, 2022 02:03

Meta uncovers US military-linked propaganda campaign

The covert operation pushing pro-US and anti-Russia narratives was previously exposed by researchers

Facebook’s parent company Meta has acknowledged the discovery of several clusters of fake accounts and pages believed to be linked to individuals “associated with the US military,” according to the company’s latest adversarial threat report published this week.

“Although the people behind this operation attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation found links to individuals associated with the US military,” the company said in a blog post on Tuesday.

The influence campaign was discovered earlier this year and in total Meta removed 39 Facebook and 26 Instagram accounts, as well as 16 pages and two groups, all for violating the company's policy against “coordinated inauthentic behaviour.”

The social media giant admitted that the large-scale operation ran beyond those several dozen accounts and across many other internet platforms, including Twitter, YouTube and Telegram – as well as major Russian social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. It seemingly attempted to downplay the discovery by insisting that the “majority of this operation’s posts had little to no engagement from authentic communities” and highlighting similar “deceptive campaigns” by China and Russia.

Meta’s acknowledgement substantiates a bombshell investigation by Washington Post that revealed that the Pentagon was forced to launch a “sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare,” after a variety of social media accounts, which its operatives used to target foreign audiences in elaborate psychological warfare efforts, were exposed.

The takedown of the influence network was initially highlighted by researchers at Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory, which back in August published a report about online networks allegedly pushing “pro-Western,” anti-Russia and other politicized narratives.

While the original study did not pin blame for the fake accounts on any particular actors, two officials later told the Post that US CENTCOM – the combatant command which oversees forces in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia – “is among those whose activities are facing scrutiny” for its influence operations.

At the time, CENTCOM refused to comment on whether any of the suspicious accounts were created by its personnel or contractors, but one official claimed such behaviour would “absolutely be a violation of doctrine and training practices.”
https://www.rt.com/news/567144-facebook-us-military-propaganda/
=========================================

via RT website 24 Sep, 2022 10:05

****************US Psy-Ops exposed: Washington isn't concerned about morals, it's worried about getting caught************************

Pentagon orders urgent review of after its global scheme is compromised

A bombshell Washington Post investigation has revealed that the Pentagon is conducting a “sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare,” after a variety of social media accounts, which its operatives used to target foreign audiences in elaborate psychological warfare efforts, were exposed. (paywall) https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/19/pentagon-psychological-operations-facebook-twitter/

The accounts violated platform rules and were eventually busted by researchers and the social networks they weaponized.

US defence policy advisor Colin Kahl is reported to have demanded that every Pentagon division engaged in “psychological operations online” provides a full account of their activities by October, due to high-level concerns that “attempted manipulation of audiences overseas” by the Department of Defence have significantly overstepped the mark.
==================================

Via RT website 25 Nov, 2022 13:08

---- World shifting from West to East – BRICS forum president to RT ----

The trade bloc offers a new model of growth entailing equal rights and opportunities for members, Purnima Anand says

The role of BRICS on the global stage is increasing every day and many countries are attracted to the economic bloc by the new solutions and stability it offers, believes the president of the BRICS International Forum, Purnima Anand, who spoke exclusively to RT this week.

The BRICS group of emerging economies currently consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The bloc accounts for more than 40% of the world’s population and nearly a quarter of global GDP.

With Western economies in decline, many countries, even members of OPEC and OECD, are now interested in the stability that BRICS has to offer, Anand noted. In particular, she mentioned OECD member Türkiye, which is currently applying for BRICS membership.

Many countries that are friendly to BRICS are joining the bloc, she said, adding “So, this is [the] time when power is shifting from West to East.”

The official, however, stressed that BRICS is not “a competitor of the Western economy.” BRICS nations cooperate and have a common perspective, because “we don’t want to develop another model of the Western economy and democratic process; we want a new model where all the members have equal rights and opportunities to grow together.”

Anand argued that for a long time Western powers had been using the whole planet in their interests, exploiting both the human and natural resources of other countries and continents. In the Western economic growth model, some countries “are very high, while others very low and don’t get an opportunity for their economic development,” she noted.

Today, the countries comprising the Eastern world understand what the West is doing and what is good for them, Anand said.

The BRICS forum president emphasized that the whole world is currently in a very “disturbing” situation, with inflation running high and countries looking for solutions. Meanwhile, China, Russia, and India have started transitioning to using their local currencies in trade, which shows that there are alternative solutions within the BRICS bloc.

Talking about Western sanctions against Russia, she said the restrictions are creating an opportunity for BRICS economies. “This is very high time for BRICS partners and alliances to create good structure … to understand where we are moving, what cooperation is required, and what new dimensions are developing by the participation of new members,” Anand said.