RT News - November 29th 2022

Julian Assange: Finally, mainstream Western media outlets call on Washington to stop persecuting Julian Assange, as they backtrack on their years-long smear campaign against the whistleblower. (QS: each one of the people who have kept Julian in confinement and prison for the best years of his life should be made to compensate him PERSONALLY, including Britain's Sir Keir Starmer who even went as far as trying to pervert the course of justice in a foreign country, Sweden. I think $5 million a year would be the least he should seek as compensation)

China stands by its zero-Covid policy despite Western criticism, as Beijing says that certain social media users have been distorting facts to stir up protests.

There are high hopes for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as its close ally Kenya hosts a new round of talks seeking to end a devastating, decades-long conflict.

In Namibia a statue celebrating a German colonist has been taken down with mixed reactions from the citizens.

In USA, Republicans call for better oversight of weapons being sent to Ukraine, especially as few of them appear to reach the destinations intended.

World Cup Qatar: The woke of Norway sport decry Cameroon's Cameroon midfielder Gael Ondoua wearing of football boots with the Russian flag on them. He said he received insults after playing with boots featuring the Russian flag at the World Cup, but added that he would not be at the tournament were it not for Russia. Gael, 27, was born in Cameroon but also has Russian citizenship. He spent much of his youth in Russia, emerging from the football academy at Lokomotiv Moscow before playing for CSKA Moscow and Anzhi Makhachkala.
USA altered the Iran flag and is critcised for having done so. Apparently the U.S. coach has apologised.

Still on Iran, the Russia/Iran forum is underway as trade and friendly relationships continue to develop between the two countries under sanctions for years.
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Below: Julian Assange : British activist in US register as foreign agent : The Pope makes "racist comments"

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via RT website 28 Nov, 2022 17:46 (also posted yesterday)

---- Media urges Biden to drop Assange charges ----

Prosecuting the WikiLeaks founder sets a “dangerous precedent,” according to the New York Times and four other outlets

Five major news outlets, including the New York Times, have called on the Biden administration to drop charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Obtaining and publishing “sensitive information,” they wrote, “is a core part of the daily work of journalists.”

The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El Pais all published details from diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks in 2010. These documents revealed that the US spied on its allies, undercounted civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, and waged a secret war in Yemen.

Assange has been detained in the UK since 2019, and is currently held in a maximum-security prison awaiting extradition to the US, where he is facing charges of espionage related to the publication of these cables, as well as a trove of documents alleging US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s first amendment and the freedom of the press,” the outlets wrote on Monday. “Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information when necessary in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists. If that work is criminalized, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.”

“Twelve years after the publication of ‘Cablegate’, it is time for the US government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets,” the letter concluded.

The Obama administration opted not to charge Assange, arguing that to do so would open all newspapers up to similar charges. However, former president Donald Trump’s CIA director, Mike Pompeo, declared WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service” in 2017, and Assange was indicted by Trump’s Justice Department a year later.

Assange fell out of favor with the Democratic Party in late 2016, after WikiLeaks published emails revealing then-candidate Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified communications during her time as secretary of state, and implicated her in a party-wide plot to sideline popular contender Bernie Sanders. Clinton would go on to accuse Assange of working for Russia, without any evidence.

President Joe Biden has given no indication that he intends to drop the case against Assange. After a British judge ruled against the WikiLeaks founder’s removal to the US last year, Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi said that “we continue to seek his extradition.” UK Home Secretary Priti Patel went on to approve the extradition in June, after American authorities promised Assange would be treated humanely on US soil. Assange is currently appealing the decision.
https://www.rt.com/news/567336-assange-letter-newspapers-nytimes/
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via RT website 28 Nov, 2022 20:34

---- Pope Francis makes racially charged comment against Russians ----

Moscow slammed the pontiff’s description of Chechens and Buryats as a “perversion”

Chechens, Buryats and others who are “of Russia but are not of the Russian tradition” are acting with “cruelty” in Ukraine, the head of the Roman Catholic Church told the Jesuit magazine America in an interview published on Monday. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said such words go beyond mere Russophobia.

Ukraine’s people are being “martyred,” Pope Francis said in the interview, conducted last week at the Vatican. “Generally, the cruelest are perhaps those who are of Russia but are not of the Russian tradition, such as the Chechens, the Buryati [sic] and so on. Certainly, the one who invades is the Russian state. This is very clear.”

Speaking at a roundtable in the Russian Senate on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the comments made by Pope Francis beyond the pale.

“This is no longer Russophobia, it’s a perversion on a level I can’t even name,” she said.

Later, on Telegram, Zakharova pointed out that until recently the Western media claimed that Slavs were “tormenting the people of the Caucasus,” referring to the conflict between Russia and the Chechen separatists, and now they say it’s the other way around.

“We are one family with Buryats, Chechens and other representatives of our multinational and multi-faith country,” Zakharova added. “And together we will definitely pray for the Holy See, each in their own way – wishing them delivery from temptation.”

The Muslim Chechens live in the Caucasus Mountains, while the Buddhist Buryats are native to southeastern Siberia. Propaganda coming from the government in Kiev has painted the Ukrainians as “true Slavs” who are being menaced by the “Asiatic Russian horde.”

To hear the pontiff accuse of “cruelty” the Chechens and Buryats protecting the Donbass civilians is “strange, to say the least,” the head of Buryatia Alexey Tsidenov said about the interview on Monday.

“History knows many examples of those who considered themselves representatives of civilized nations destroying cities, countries and entire peoples,” added Tsidenov, pointing to the Crusades – declared by the popes of Rome – as one example.

“If such people have taken note of our fighters, that means they are doing their job well. We’re proud of you, boys. God is with those defending justice!” he said.
https://www.rt.com/russia/567343-pope-chechens-buryats-ukraine/
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via RT website 28 Nov, 2022 20:41

---- Biden’s ex-disinfo czar registers as foreign agent ----

Nina Jankowicz has landed a job as an ambassador to US policymakers and media outlets for a UK activist group

The former disinformation czar for President Joe Biden’s administration has apparently landed on her feet after resigning amid controversy earlier this year. She has registered as a foreign agent representing a UK activist group that advocates for censorship of speech it finds objectionable.

Nina Jankowicz filed her registration paperwork with the US Department of Justice earlier this month, identifying herself as a representative for the London-based Centre for Information Resilience (CIR). Her work with CIR will include serving as an ambassador for the group with US policymakers, media outlets and technology companies.

Jankowicz resigned as the director of the newly created US Disinformation Governance Board last May, after the administration “paused” the initiative amid public outcry that it might operate as an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.” She had contributed to such fears by calling for blue-check Twitter users like her to police commentary on the social media platform by editing tweets that they considered false or misleading.

Jankowicz had also been criticized for being a purveyor of false information herself. For instance, she called the New York Post’s October 2020 scoop on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop a “Trump campaign product” and warned that militant supporters of then-president Donald Trump would show up at the polls to intimidate voters. She called for Big Tech platforms to censor allegations that Covid-19 leaked from a Chinese lab and claimed that online mockery of Vice President Kamala Harris was a threat to national security and democracy.

CIR, which is funded partly by the UK government, bills itself as an independent “social enterprise” that counters disinformation, exposes human rights abuses and combats online behavior it deems harmful to women and non-white people. Its advisers include former CIA analyst Cindy Otis and former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who led his country’s accession to NATO.

Much of the group’s commentary is anti-Russia, especially as it relates to the Ukraine conflict. For instance, it accused Russian forces of committing various war crimes and claimed that Moscow illegally deported Ukrainian civilians to Russia. Last year, CIR claimed to have discovered a coordinated network of social media accounts that posted Chinese Communist Party propaganda.

CIR co-founder Ross Burley, a former British Foreign Office operative, has publicly called for social media platforms to ban certain independent journalists and outlets, such as the Grayzone, which he called a “Russian propaganda outfit.”
https://www.rt.com/news/567346-us-disinfo-czar-registers-as-uk-agent/
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