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"If somebody prefers to work by means of sanctions, he is welcome to do so. But sanctions are a temporary measure. Firstly, they contradict the international law. Secondly, tell me where this policy of sanctions proved to be effective. The answer is nowhere."

-- Vladimir Putin

News and Opinion

G7 Japan summit to target Russian exports in latest Ukraine war sanctions

The G7 group of major economies will unveil further sanctions and export controls targeting Russia over its war against Ukraine, a US official has said ahead of the opening of the summit in Japan.

G7 leaders are gathering in Hiroshima on Friday and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, now in its second year, will be high on the agenda. The US has spearheaded tough sanctions on Russian companies, banks and individuals; the forthcoming announcements are designed to reaffirm world powers’ resolve to support Ukraine and squeeze Moscow.

A US official, speaking to reporters ahead of the gathering, said the G7’s latest efforts were aimed at disrupting Russia’s ability to get materials it needs for the battlefield, close loopholes used to evade sanctions, further reduce international reliance on Russian energy, and narrow Moscow’s access to the international financial system. ...

US sanctions would “cut off roughly 70 entities from Russia, and other countries, from receiving US exports by adding them to the commerce blacklist. And there will be upwards of 300 new sanctions against individuals, entities, vessels and aircraft.” ...

In the lead up to the summit, Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, announced a UK ban on imports of Russian-origin copper, nickel and aluminium, with other G7 members expected to follow suit.

G7 Punishes Russia W/ MORE Sanctions, Pentagon Finds $3B MORE For Ukraine Due To ACCOUNTING ERROR?!

Report: US Preparing for Ukraine War to Become a Frozen Conflict

The Biden administration is preparing for the war in Ukraine to turn into a frozen conflict for years or possibly even decades, similar to the situation on the Korean peninsula, POLITICO reported on Thursday.

US officials have been discussing the possibility, including potential options for where to draw the lines for a frozen conflict that either side would agree not to cross. The report said the idea of freezing the fighting could be a “politically palatable long-term result.”

The administration is considering the possibility because they don’t expect Ukraine to regain much territory in its long-awaited counteroffensive. According to POLITICO, the US is expecting that the assault “won’t deal a mortal blow to Russia.”

A US official said the administration is preparing to support Ukraine for the long term, whether the conflict is frozen or not. “We are planning for the long term, whether it looks frozen or thawed,” the official told POLITICO.

Russia Storms Last Bakhmut Positions, Bombards Ukraine; US Seeks Frozen Conflict, West Prepares F16s

Ukraine Claims Bakhmut Gains, Admits Russian Progress

Ukraine said Tuesday it had pushed Russian forces from the flanks of Bakhmut but conceded that Moscow’s forces were pushing deeper inside the embattled town.

The announcement came as European leaders meeting in Iceland agreed to create a “register of damages” to record the wartime harm and destruction wrought by Russia in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said. It would be an initial step toward the prosecution of Russian leaders in the future. ...

Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Malyar said Ukraine had wrested back about 20 square kilometers (7.7 square miles) of a Russian pincer movement around Bakhmut, the epicenter of fighting in Russia’s invasion.

“At the same time, the enemy is advancing in some measure inside Bakhmut itself and is completely destroying the town with artillery,” she added on social media.

Zelensky world tour lands in Saudi Arabia, next stop G7 Japan

US Government Created AI Tool to Hunt ‘Russian Disinformation’

Washington is launching the “Ukraine Content Aggregator,” an artificial intelligence program designed to detect so-called Russian disinformation online. Secretary of State Antony Blinken unveiled the project at the Freedom House 2023 Annual Awards Ceremony last week.

“Russia continues to push a steady, relentless stream of disinformation about its war of aggression against Ukraine, to lie about and cover up horrific abuses it’s committed, to try to justify committing others,” Blinken said at the Freedom House event. “In response, the State Department has developed an AI-enabled online Ukraine Content Aggregator to collect verifiable Russian disinformation and then to share that with partners around the world.”

The top diplomat added that the government would be “promoting independent media and digital literacy,“ as well as “working with partners in academia to reliably detect fake text generated by Russian chatbots.”

It is unclear with which partners the State Department plans to share the AI-marked posts, and officials have yet to elaborate on what kind of “fake text“ the program would target.

Syria re-emerges from isolation despite brutal sanctions

Israeli nationalists chant racist slogans on march through Jerusalem

Thousands of Israeli nationalists, some of them chanting racist slogans, have paraded through Jerusalem’s Old City in an annual celebratory day for Israelis that became one of humiliation for Palestinians living under occupation.

The marchers, mostly male Orthodox teens and young men, were celebrating Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in 1967. The crowd waved blue and white Israeli flags and chanted slogans such as “Death to Arabs” and “We will burn your village”.

Israeli apartheid at 75: continuous ethnic cleansing

US supreme court reinforces immunity for Google and Twitter in win for tech behemoths

The US supreme court issued two decisions on Thursday that reinforced existing protections for internet platforms against being held liable for content, marking a victory for tech behemoths including Twitter and Google. The cases had been closely watched for their impact on a federal law known as section 230, which protects internet companies from lawsuits over content posted by their users, a law that – if successfully challenged – could have upended the rules of the internet.

The justices delivered a victory to Twitter in the first case, reversing a lower court’s ruling to revive a lawsuit that attempted to hold the platform liable under an anti-terrorism law. American relatives of Nawras Alassaf, a Jordanian man killed in a 2017 attack during New Year’s celebration in an Istanbul nightclub claimed by the Islamic State militant group, alleged Twitter failed to stop the militant organization from using the platform.

In the second case, the justices returned to a lower court lawsuit against Google, the owner of YouTube, brought by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, an American college student who was killed in an Islamic State terrorist attack in Paris in 2015. The lower court had thrown out the lawsuit. The family wanted to sue Google for YouTube videos they said helped attract IS recruits and radicalize them. ...

“We are pleased that the court did not address or weaken section 230, which remains an essential part of the architecture of the modern internet and will continue to enable user access to online platforms,” said David Greene, director at Electronic Frontier Foundation Civil Liberties.

However, some say the supreme court avoided answering important questions when delivering their opinions today. “Questions about the scope of platforms’ immunity under section 230 are consequential and will certainly come up soon in other cases,” said Anna Diakun, staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

Top five US executives hoard $9bn tax-free for retirement as workers face limits

The top five executives at the US’s largest companies have amassed close to $9bn in tax-free retirement saving accounts while many of their employees have struggled to set aside any funds for retirement, according to a new report released on Thursday.

The report, A Tale of Two Retirements, from the Institute for Policy Studies and Jobs With Justice found the top five executives at S&P 500 firms held a combined $8.9bn in special tax-deferred accounts at the end of 2021. Income taxes will be due on this compensation when they withdraw the funds, but in the meantime, they benefit from the tax-free compounding of investment returns.

These so-called “top hat” plans allow unlimited tax-deferred retirement while ordinary workers face strict limits on their 401(k) retirement plan contributions. The survey found that at many of these companies, a sizeable percentage of workers – in some cases as much as half – had no money in their 401(k)s. Under a top-hat plan, an executive who sets aside $1m a year for seven years would wind up with an estimated $1.3m more in after-tax earnings and $1m less in tax liabilities than an executive who does not defer compensation.

At Walmart, CEO Doug McMillon held more than $169m in his deferred compensation account at the end of 2022 – enough to generate a monthly retirement check of more than $1m, according to the report. Meanwhile, among eligible participants in Walmart’s 401(k) plan, nearly half (46%) have zero balances saved for retirement. The median pay at Walmart is $27,136.

The biggest top hat surveyed by the study belongs to Paul Saville, chair of NVR, one of the largest homebuilders in the US. The $488m in Saville’s account at the end of 2022 would generate a retirement check worth more than $3m every month – 1,513 times as much as a typical American retiree could expect to receive in monthly social security and 401(k) benefits.

Ben Crump, Attorney for Malcolm X's Family: "We Refuse to Let Anybody Exterminate Black History"

Eight-year-old girl dies after being detained by border patrol in Texas

An eight-year old girl died after being detained by border patrol agents in Texas, as the death toll among desperate people seeking refuge in the US continues to mount. According to a statement by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the child died following a “medical emergency” while held with her family at a detention facility in Harlingen, a city in the Rio Grande valley.

“Emergency Medical Services were called to the station and transported her to the local hospital where she was pronounced dead,” the statement said.

No details were released about the child’s identity or cause of death or the welfare of her family. The US justice department’s Office of Professional Responsibility will investigate, as is protocol for such deaths in custody.

The eight-year-old’s death came less than a week after a teenager from Honduras died in Florida while detained at a facility for unaccompanied children.

The Biggest Russiagate Liar Is STILL LYING!

Schiff ‘not backing down’ in face of Republican bid to expel him from Congress

Adam Schiff said he was “not backing down”, after a Republican from Florida filed a motion to expel the California representative from Congress. ...

Ana Paulina Luna moved against Schiff after the release of the Durham report, which Republicans claim shows the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Donald Trump and Moscow was a conspiracy between Democrats and the FBI.

Schiff was House intelligence chair and led Trump’s first impeachment, for seeking political dirt in Ukraine. ... Luna said Schiff “lied to the American people. He used his position on House intelligence to push a lie that cost American taxpayers millions of dollars and abused the trust placed in him as chairman. He is a dishonour to the House of Representatives.

“The Durham report makes clear that the Russian collusion was a lie from day one and Schiff knowingly used his position in an attempt to divide our country.”

Pelosi PROPPING UP Feinstein For Political CHESS PLAY?! Fmr Speaker's Daughter Is Sen's CARETAKER

More than half of the world’s lakes have shrunk in past 30 years, study finds

More than half of the world’s large lakes and reservoirs have shrunk since the early 1990s – chiefly because of the climate crisis and human consumption – intensifying concerns about water supply for agriculture, hydropower and human consumption, a study has found.

A team of international researchers reported that some of the world’s most important freshwater sources – from the Caspian Sea between Europe and Asia, to South America’s Lake Titicaca – lost water at a cumulative rate of about 22 gigatonnes a year for nearly three decades, equivalent to the total water use in the US for the entire year of 2015.

Fangfang Yao, a surface hydrologist at the University of Virginia who led the study published on Thursday in the journal Science, said 56% of the decline in natural lakes was driven by global heating and human consumption, with warming “the larger share of that”.

Climate scientists generally think that the world’s arid areas will become drier under climate change, and wet areas will get wetter, but the study found significant water loss even in humid regions. ...

Scientists assessed almost 2,000 large lakes using satellite measurements combined with climate and hydrological models. They found that unsustainable human use, changes in rainfall and run-off, sedimentation, and rising temperatures had driven lake levels down globally, with 53% of lakes showing a decline from 1992 to 2020.

Developing country voices will be excluded at UN plastic talks, say NGOs

Scientists and NGOs have accused the UN’s environment programme (Unep) of locking out those “most needing to be heard” from upcoming negotiations in Paris aimed at halting plastic waste.

Last-minute restrictions to the numbers of NGOs attending what the head of Unep described as the “most important multilateral environmental deal” in a decade will exclude people from communities in developing countries harmed by dumping and burning of plastic waste as well as marginalised waste pickers, who are crucial to recycling, from fully participating, they said.

The groups criticised the agency for publishing a report this week, before negotiations between 193 countries over 29 May to 2 June, which they claimed did not fully reflect the health and environmental effects of plastic pollution. The report said mismanaged plastic waste could be slashed by 80% by 2040.

Scientists’s Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty (Scept), representing 200 scientists who were invited to comment before the report’s publication, said their concerns and criticisms were ignored. Unep said it regretted that “due to a technical issue” an email containing Scept comments was not received in time for publication. However, it said it received feedback from 75 experts from 39 organisations that were incorporated. It denied claims its report did not sufficiently reflect the health and environmental impacts of plastic.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Leaked recordings expose shocking state corruption in ‘US governed’ Moldova

Is The U.S. Preparing To Punish OPEC?

The U.S. Still Owes Money to Family of 10 Afghans It Killed in “Horrible Mistake”

Imran Khan and Lahore police remain in tense standoff

Detained “Cop City” Journalist Sues Atlanta Police, Alleges Intimidation

As Long Covid Increases Expect Government Policy To Rush Death

High Court Case May Slash Swath of US Regulations

EPA Failing to Address Massive Methane Emissions From Landfills

Malcolm X at 98: Angela Davis on His Enduring Legacy & the "Long Struggle for Liberation"

Food fight over Ukrainian grain: Will Eastern Europe's farmers break EU solidarity?

China's Xi unveils grand development plan for Central Asia

AOC demands media de-platform Trump

A Little Night Music

Robert Ward - Black Bottom

Robert Ward - Something For Nothing

Robert Ward - I Will Fear No Evil

Robert Ward - Your Love Is Amazing

Robert Ward - Pour Me One More Drink

Robert Ward - I Found A Love

Robert Ward - Potato Soup

Robert Ward & Ry Cooder - Forgive Me Darling

Robert Ward - Hot Stuff