Camille Pissarro Plum Trees in Blossom, Éragny 1894
Macgregor
Who started the war?
28 Feb
Douglas Macgregor: We invested very heavily in Ukraine from 2014 to build Ukraine's army that by the time Russia intervened was about 600,000…It was aimed exclusively at destroying Russia. 1st to attack Donetsk & Lugansk and then to reconquer Crimea pic.twitter.com/6v4dn880rH— the Lemniscat (@theLemniscat) March 1, 2023
Penn Blitzer
⭕️ Sean Penn and Wolf Blitzer.
Propaganda that would make even Goebbels blush with embarrassment. #Pennlensky pic.twitter.com/Y5fWxqV3FG
— Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) March 1, 2023
Bukele
https://twitter.com/i/status/1630958207530065927
Keir Simmons
https://twitter.com/i/status/1631096391488471042
“..we can be certain that the inspectors won’t disclose any serious abuses following the audit, since this would deal a blow to President Joe Biden..”
• Zelensky, Cronies In Major Corruption Scandal In Ukraine – And US? (Lavrenin)
The corruption scandals in Ukraine are being actively publicized by the media and are linked not only to the government’s political opponents, but also to Ukraine’s partners, primarily the United States. For example, Bihus.Info published an investigation into Yermak’s ties with former deputies from the now banned “Opposition Platform – For Life” party. This was Ukraine’s second largest political faction, until it was prohibited by Zelensky, as part of his crackdown on political opponents. Many experts have viewed the saga as an attempt by the American government to solve its own pressing issue of Republican demands that the White House establishes control over US aid to Ukraine. Having gained a majority in the House of Representatives, the Republican Party wants stricter controls over the expenditure of multibillion-dollar tranches allocated to Kiev. In Ukraine, the political consequences may also be significant.
On January 29, several inspectors arrived in Kiev from the US. The commission included Inspectors General Diana Shaw, Robert Storch, and Nicole Angarella from the US Department of State, the Pentagon, and the Agency for International Development (USAID), respectively. According to the US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink, the purpose of their visit was “to advance independent oversight of US assistance to Ukraine”. The offices of all three inspectors have established an interdepartmental working group that includes similar services in other departments and several government auditing services – 17 in total. The group will be responsible for holding meetings with “key American and Ukrainian officials, colleagues in various government agencies and non-governmental organizations implementing programs funded by the United States.” The inspectors are clearly trying to work with the civilian population, bypassing the Ukrainian authorities.
Among the inspectors, Robert Storch is closely familiar with Ukraine’s internal affairs. From 2007 to 2009, he worked in Ukraine as a consultant on anti-corruption issues, and in 2014, he returned to Kiev to help develop anti-corruption legislation. He also advised the authorities on the creation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). Storch has already been active in Ukraine. He met with Vitaliy Shabunin, director of the Anti-Corruption Centre (ACC), who recently criticized the Ukrainian Presidential Office and raised issues of graft in the higher echelons of power, and who was in turn criticized by Reznikov. After the meeting with Storch, however, the anti-corruption activist wrote in his Telegram channel that “all three inspectors-general are deeply aware both of corruption in food purchases and other problems in the Ministry of Defence (which will soon become public)”.
Storch also made time to hold a meeting with Reznikov directly. What’s next? It remains unclear whether the increased interest in policing corruption is an initiative by Ukraine’s pro-Western structures or is part of a new strategy from Washington. Nevertheless, the US inspectors’ main goal was to investigate the misuse of allocated funds. Given that the aid accounts for about half of Ukraine’s budget, the US reasonably expects the funds to be used for achieving set goals and not enriching officials. Consequently, we can be certain that the inspectors won’t disclose any serious abuses following the audit, since this would deal a blow to President Joe Biden and would also reflect negatively on American officials.
PR dep. working overtime.
• Zelensky Floats ‘Strategic Pullback’ From Bakhmut (ZH)
Zelensky officials are now openly talking about a possible ‘strategic pullback’ from the besieged eastern city of Bakhmut. This comes after Zelensky himself said he’s not ready to order a continued defense of the city at all costs. By all accounts both sides are suffering huge casualties, but Russia has the superior artillery fire, which has been sustained around the clock, also as Kremlin forces have the city almost completely surrounded. According to The Hill: “A Ukrainian presidential adviser on Tuesday said troops may “strategically pull back” from the town of Bakhmut, the focus of intense and brutal fighting for the past few months. Alexander Rodnyansky told CNN the Ukrainian army has not yet pulled out of the city, but Kyiv may soon decide the cost of holding Bakhmut “outweighs the benefits.”
“Our military is obviously going to weigh all of the options,” the Zelensky aide told CNN. “So far they’ve held the city, but if need be, they will strategically pull back because we’re not going to sacrifice all of our people just for nothing.” President Zelensky has also admitted defense of the town has proven “most difficult” for his forces. However, in rare comments, Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said Ukrainian forces continue putting up a fierce resistance on Wednesday. So far they’ve been throwing an immense amount of manpower into Bakhmut, he said. “The Ukrainian army is throwing extra reserves into Artyomovsk and trying to hold the town with all their strength,” Prigozhin said, using the Russian name for Bakhmut, in an audio message published by Wagner’s press service. “Tens of thousands of Ukrainian army fighters are putting up furious resistance. The bloodiness of the battles is growing by the day.”
Russia just took Khromove
“He would like to see the withdrawal of Russian troops in the first place..”
• Germany’s Scholz: Russia Must Take First Steps Towards Peace In Ukraine (TASS)
The German government thinks that Russia should be the first to take a step towards achieving peace in Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at a joint press conference with Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins in Berlin on Wednesday. Scholz argued it was “clear” to him that Russia had attacked Ukraine, and that Russia was the country that “must do something” to make peace possible. He would like to see the withdrawal of Russian troops in the first place. Scholz stated that attention should now be paid to what he described as “the security policy situation on NATO’s eastern flank.” “In the event of an attack, we will together defend every centimeter of the alliance’s territory,” Scholz argued. He assured that the West would continue to “support Ukraine as much as necessary.”
UK=Perfect Puppets.
• UK Ex-Foreign Secretary: US Makes Decisions On Arms Supplies To Ukraine (TASS)
Britain will not be able to independently expand the supply of arms to Ukraine, since the main decisions in this regard are still being made in Washington, former British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a conversation with Russian pranksters Vladimir Kuznetsov (Vovan) and Alexei Stolyarov (Lexus), published on Wednesday. Hague served as Britain’s Foreign Secretary from 2010 to 2014. In a conversation with pranksters who called him on behalf of Ukraine’s former president, Pyotr Poroshenko, he said that he remained in touch with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, advised him on the need to increase arms supplies to Ukraine and was sort of a mentor for the head of the British Cabinet. “Great Britain will not change its policy without the United States, without coordinating it with the United States. In other words, the main decisions are still made in Washington,” Hague said.
He noted that if Britain had free reign to make a decision to supply long-range weapons to Ukraine, there would be no doubt on that score. He added that the process of Ukraine’s accession to NATO, in his opinion, would last for years. Hague speculated that the scheme that existed between the United States and Israel might serve as a solution for such a transition period. This is not an agreement or a defensive alliance, he said, but political certainty that Israel will always have the most advanced systems for defense. Ukraine, too, can have such relations with Britain, the US and many other Western states. “As for NATO, you can only imagine how long all this coordination will take in the alliance,” Hague said.
“If the issue of the very existence of Russia is raised seriously, it won’t be decided on the Ukrainian front. [It’ll be decided] together with the issue of the further existence of the entire human civilization.”
• Ready to Die for Ukraine? Russia Warns of Nuclear Annihilation (Celente)
Last week, in an article published in Izvestia newspaper, the former president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev warned of a nuclear ‘apocalypse’ if NATO and the U.S. continued to ramp up the Ukraine War. Noting that the West and its “satellites” represent only 15 percent of the world’s population, he wrote it is “delusional” if they think that, “after putting the Soviet Union to rest, it’ll be able to also bury modern Russia without significant problems for itself, by throwing the lives of thousands of people involved in the conflict [in Ukraine] into the furnace,” and that those are “extremely dangerous misconceptions.”
The now deputy chair of the Russian Security Council also noted that “If the issue of the very existence of Russia is raised seriously, it won’t be decided on the Ukrainian front. [It’ll be decided] together with the issue of the further existence of the entire human civilization.” He warned the more weapons the U.S., NATO and its allies send to Ukraine while failing to discuss peace, the more it’s “…bound to lead to a total fiasco; the defeat for everyone; a collapse. An apocalypse when the former life would have to be forgotten for centuries, until the smoky debris ceases to emit radiation.” Echoing Medvedev’s nuclear warning, on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow must take into account NATO’s nuclear capabilities as he claimed that the West wants to destroy Russia.
“Where the leading NATO countries have proclaimed their main goal to be the strategic defeat of Russia, in order for our people ‘to suffer’ as they put it, how, in these conditions, could we not take into account their nuclear potential?” he asked. Putin said the West is complicit in “crimes” being committed by Ukraine by supplying the country with weapons and that the end goal is to destroy and divide Russia. Resonating that sentiment on Monday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said America and its allies want to “isolate, and even dismember” Russia and the future world order is being formed.
Mengele, Rockefeller, Schwab.
• Deep State Absolutely Wants to Kill You – Alex Newman (USAW)
Award-winning journalist Alex Newman, author of the popular books “Deep State” and “Crimes of the Educators,” predicted at the beginning is this year that the Deep State demons will have one crisis after another to keep people confused and afraid. The latest crisis is the economic and ecological disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. Newman says expect many more disasters and explains, “All across the country we are seeing very bizarre things happen. Factories and chemical plants going up in flames, food processing facilities blowing up, airplanes crashing in mysterious ways, and I think we are heading into an era of really serious crisis. Last summer, I was putting together the wave of crises that the Deep State was preparing for us, and one of the terms I used was ‘polycrisis.’ Then, right before the World Economic Forum meeting this year, they actually put on their website is 2023 the year of the polycrisis? Of course, it will be the year of the polycrisis.
I think we are prepared and being groomed for cyber-attacks, currency crisis, economic crisis and, of course, Russia/Ukraine and China/Taiwan. I think all of this is going to be used for a series of never-ending crises until we are ready to give up our freedoms, give up our national sovereignty and self-government, and move towards this crazy totalitarian, technocratic system they want.” Newman says it’s not going to be a kind transition for most people. Newman says, “The thing that is so hard for people to understand is that there are very powerful people that are working together, and they absolutely want to kill you. That is not speculation. These people have been openly saying for a century that they believe there are too many people on this planet. . . . The eugenics movement never died. Margaret Sanger, the Rockefellers, Dr. Joseph Mengele was funded by the Rockefeller dynasty. These people are very much still around. Bill Gates is the perfect example. His dad was on the board of Planned Parenthood, the largest butcher of unborn babies in America. . . . Bill Gates says openly and frequently that there are too many people on this planet. He wants to use vaccines and healthcare to reduce the number of people on the planet.”
Newman has a dark warning for America and explains, “Now that they are done with America and we are no longer useful and an obstacle to this global agenda, they need to knock us out. They may not want to resort to nuclear bombs, but if they did, it would not surprise me. . . . America is founded on very important ideals, and these are, once again, making a resurgence. Our self-evident truths that are enshrined in our Constitution, that God created us equally, that God gave us the right to property. God gave us our right to life. Government exists to protect these rights. These are Biblical ideas distilled into a political document. . . . These are ideals that are fundamental to liberty, and as long as the United States exists in its present form . . . . America is a major threat to this agenda. I don’t think we should put it past them that they would use nuclear bombs against us. I also think there is a fifth column in Washington that would be more than happy to collaborate.
“Vucic vowed that he would never sign any “formal or informal recognition of Kosovo” as long as he is Serbia’s president..”
• EU Is Threatening Serbia – Vucic (RT)
Serbia has not agreed to the EU’s “normalization” proposal on its relations with the breakaway province of Kosovo, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday while appearing on national TV. He added that Belgrade was facing threats from Brussels, but still refused to discuss the recognition of Kosovo and its accession to the UN. His words came a day after the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said on Twitter that both Belgrade and Pristina supported the Franco-German proposal for a “path to normalization” of relations between Serbia and Kosovo. Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti then said he had offered to sign the plan, but that Vucic refused to do so, even though he had apparently “agreed to” it. On Tuesday, however, Vucic said that the sides “did not agree,” but simply agreed on continuing the talks. He added that “nothing has been signed in Brussels.”
Serbia is “ready to work on the implementation of many [points of] this plan,” Vucic said, but Belgrade still does not want to discuss “mutual recognition” as well as Kosovo’s accession to the UN. Serbia has not struck any “secret agreements,” the president said, adding that “not a single agreement is hidden” and he has “nothing to hide.” Vucic also called Borrell’s statement “very vague” and said that he was ready to discuss the “concept” of normalization. Vucic vowed that he would never sign any “formal or informal recognition of Kosovo” as long as he is Serbia’s president. He also admitted that Belgrade was facing pressure from Brussels and that the consequences of rejecting the plan would be a halting of Serbia’s integration into the European Union and a withdrawal of EU investments.
“We currently have 80,000 people working in German-owned factories alone. They threatened a number of other measures, including that Serbia would become a pariah isolated from the [rest of the] world,” Vucic said. An EU plan published by the bloc’s External Action Service says that Serbia and Kosovo would “develop normal, good-neighborly relations with each other on the basis of equal rights” and their dialogue would be guided by UN principles, including “those of the sovereign equality of all States.” The EU has insisted on Serbia recognizing Kosovo’s independence as a precondition for joining the bloc, even though five member countries – Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece, and Romania – do not recognize it either.
“..refused to say whether his team had encountered any such corruption in Ukraine..”
• Pentagon Says It Struggles To Track US Weapons In Ukraine (RT)
A classified report last year found that the Pentagon was unable to keep tabs on tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons sent to Ukraine. Details of the report were revealed – apparently inadvertently – by a Republican lawmaker during a hearing on Tuesday. Speaking at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee in Washington on Tuesday, Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch noted that the US has allocated $113 billion in aid to Ukraine since the conflict there began last February, around 60% of which went to the country’s military. Storch – who is tasked with ensuring that this money is accounted for and not lost to waste, fraud, or abuse – refused to say whether his team had encountered any such corruption in Ukraine. However, Republican Rep. Mike Johnson stated that a report from Storch’s office last October found that the Pentagon was unable to carry out monitoring of weapons deliveries to Ukraine in line with its own policies.
Storch responded that the report in question was supposed to remain classified, but admitted that it was “accurate” in acknowledging “challenges” faced by the US in Ukraine. Monitoring of such arms deliveries is governed by the 1996 Arms Export Control Act. Questioned by Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz – a vocal opponent of military aid to Ukraine – Storch would not confirm or deny under oath whether the Pentagon was complying with this act. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby claimed in January that the Biden administration has “not seen any signs” that military or economic aid “has fallen prey to any kind of corruption in Ukraine.” However, the classified document mentioned by Johnson appears to back up a slew of reports suggesting that weapons often disappear once delivered. Reports from last year – backed up by Amnesty International – claimed that as little as 30% of Western weapons sent to Ukraine were actually making it to the front lines.
American and Canadian officials admitted at the time that they had no idea where most of these weapons were ending up, with one US intelligence source telling CNN that they vanish “into a big black hole” once they enter Ukraine. The Kremlin has claimed that up to $1 billion worth of these weapons are funneled from Ukraine to criminals and terror groups in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia every month, while Europol and Interpol both warned that weapons have likely been transferred from Ukraine to criminal organizations in Europe. Pressed by Gaetz on Tuesday, Storch admitted that “there’s a long history of issues with corruption in Ukraine.” Earlier on Tuesday, a former American soldier who fought for Ukraine’s foreign legion before defecting to Russia told RT that he had personally seen commanders selling off Western missile launchers and rifles.
“Why talk when you can just pull out a gun? That’s America’s style..”
• Deadly Balancing Act For Region With US Hell Bent On China War (Lo)
In one respect, Antony Blinken’s latest claim about Taiwan is right. The US secretary of state said any cross-strait crisis is “a matter of concern to quite literally the entire world”. That’s true because Washington has made it so by deliberately escalating what are already high tensions into a powder keg. When arsonists like Blinken are threatening to torch a house, which is Taiwan, to save it, it’s no wonder the whole neighbourhood is alarmed. It doesn’t help when top US military men just keep on predicting a war with China, any time now, and up to 2027 at the latest. It also doesn’t help when the United States keeps selling more weapons to the island, and is now increasing its military presence with actual boots on Taiwanese ground. If that’s not provocation, I don’t know what is.
There is an easier and sensible way to ease tensions with China, and that’s by trying to reach an understanding with Beijing over the island, as both the US and the mainland have managed to do in the past 40 years, until now. But then the US decides it must openly confront and contain a rising China. And what’s more convenient than playing the Taiwan card, Asia’s peace and security be damned? After all, if the whole region goes up in smoke, that’s someone else’s neighbourhood, not America’s. It’s déjà vu. How many times have we seen this film before? Why talk when you can just pull out a gun? That’s America’s style. It’s apparently even written into its constitution. Washington plans to significantly increase its presence of troops on Taiwan, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, by quadrupling the number to 200 military personnel in the coming months.
Meanwhile, separate reports also say Taiwanese troops will be sent to the US for combat training. Until recently, there were not supposed to be any US troops on Taiwan; and even up to the start of 2021, no more than two dozen were reported. The military exchange will be a real escalation. Such moves are usually between the militaries of two sovereign countries. It’s clear while the Joe Biden White House claims to uphold the one-China principle, its actions say otherwise. For a while, President Tsai Ing-wen tried to put a lid on the rising US presence of troops, but now she doesn’t even bother. Washington keeps arguing for increasingly assertive and overt support, especially with frequent US naval operations across the strait. It’s the only way to help deter “Chinese aggression”. That’s a matter of perspective. For Beijing, it just looks like deliberate provocation.
All these economies are overflowing with Chinese imports.
• US Rallying Allies For New China Sanctions (RT)
The US is coordinating with its close allies to impose new sanctions on China should it decide to support the Russian campaign in Ukraine, according to Reuters. Beijing has rejected claims that it intends to offer military aid to Moscow, and recently unveiled a plan seeking a peaceful settlement to the conflict. Washington is in “consultations” with foreign partners, namely those from the G7 nations, regarding new economic penalties, several unnamed US officials told the outlet on Wednesday. They declined to provide details about the potential sanctions, only confirming that discussions are “laying the groundwork for potential action.” The report follows repeated warnings toward China from the US and other Western nations, which claim Beijing intends to supply weapons to Russian forces for the campaign against Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg echoed the charges during a recent interview with the Associated Press, saying “we have seen some signs that they may be planning for that,” but without offering evidence. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that Washington would “not hesitate” to target Chinese firms with sanctions in the event that Beijing supplies lethal aid to Moscow, saying the move would carry “implications and consequences.” Blinken added that he raised the issue with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi when they met at the Munich Security Conference last month. China has dismissed the charges as “groundless speculation,” arguing that it does not intend to provide weapons to Russian troops while accusing Washington of hypocrisy.
“The US has no right to dictate China-Russia relations, and we will never accept coercion and pressure from the US,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday. She went on to observe that it is Washington, not Beijing, that has been “pouring lethal weapons into the battlefield in Ukraine.” While Western nations have long pressured China to sever ties with Russia, accusations toward Beijing have only grown louder since it unveiled a 12-point roadmap for a diplomatic settlement for the conflict in Ukraine last month. Moscow has signaled willingness to “carefully analyze” the details of the proposal, though US officials quickly rejected the plan, claiming Beijing has adopted “Russia’s false narrative about the war” and is not “serious” about ending hostilities.
Russiagate to Covid to Ukraine. Who could have predicted?
• Russiagate Spells Journalism’s Death (Chris Hedges)
Gerth, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who worked at The New York Times from 1976 until 2005, spent the last two years writing an exhaustive look at the systemic failure of the press during the Trump-Russia story, authoring a four-part series of 24,000 words that has been published by The Columbia Journalism Review. It is an important, if depressing, read. News organizations repeatedly seized on any story, he documents, no matter how unverified, to discredit Trump and routinely ignored reports that cast doubt on the rumors they presented as fact. You can see my interview with Gerth here. The New York Times, for example, in January 2018, ignored a publicly available document showing that the F.B.I.’s lead investigator, after a 10-month inquiry, did not find evidence of collusion between Trump and Moscow.
The lie of omission was combined with reliance on sources that peddled fictions designed to cater to Trump-haters, as well as a failure to interview those being accused of collaborating with Russia. The Washington Post and NPR reported, incorrectly, that Trump had weakened the GOP’s stance on Ukraine in the party platform because he opposed language calling for arming Ukraine with “lethal defensive weapons” — a position identical to that of his predecessor President Barack Obama. These outlets ignored the platform’s support for sanctions against Russia as well its call for “appropriate assistance to the armed forces of Ukraine and greater coordination with NATO defense planning.” News organizations amplified this charge. In a New York Times column that called Trump the “Siberian candidate,” Paul Krugman wrote that the platform was “watered down to blandness” by the Republican president.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, described Trump as a “de facto agent” of Vladimir Putin. Those who tried to call out this shoddy reporting, including Russian-American journalist and Putin critic Masha Gessen were ignored. After Trump’s first meeting as president with Putin, he was attacked as if the meeting itself proved he was a Russian stooge. Then New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote of the “disgusting spectacle of the American president kowtowing in Helsinki to Vladimir Putin.” Rachel Maddow, MSNBC’s most popular host, said that the meeting between Trump and Putin validated her covering the Trump-Russia allegations “more than anyone else in the national press” and strongly implied — and her show’s Twitter account and YouTube page explicitly stated — that Americans were now “coming to grips with a worst-case scenario that the U.S. president is compromised by a hostile foreign power.”
The anti-Trump reporting, Gerth notes, hid behind the wall of anonymous sources, frequently identified as “people (or person) familiar with” — The New York Times used it over a thousand times in stories involving Trump and Russia, between October 2016 and the end of his presidency, Gerth found. Any rumor or smear was picked up in the news cycle with the sources often unidentified and the information unverified. A routine soon took shape in the Trump-Russia saga. “First, a federal agency like the CIA or FBI secretly briefs Congress,” Gerth writes. “Then Democrats or Republicans selectively leak snippets. Finally, the story comes out, using vague attribution.” These cherry-picked pieces of information largely distorted the conclusions of the briefings.
Great! Now go run a homeless kitchen…
• Greek Consumers Pay Up To 45% More This Year For Basic Food Items (K.)
Greek consumers are paying up to 45% more this year for basic food items compared to a year ago, as estimates of temporary price appreciation, which started before the war in Ukraine and intensified later on, turned out to be false hopes, Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) data show. Although there were eventually no food shortages and the market caps imposed on some products in the first weeks after the Russian military invaded Ukraine, such as flour, sunflower oil, sugar and chicken, did not have to last for long, the price increases have not only not been contained since then, but are continuing in 2023. Despite the significant de-escalation in recent months, the prices of electricity and natural gas also remain high, having been up to four times higher in the past year than in 2021, even after the government subsidies for household consumers’ bills.
Increased spending on food and other household essentials, as well as inflated energy bills, despite subsidies, resulted in more than half of households reporting that their monthly income was sufficient up to the 18th of each month. Out of a total of 62 food items, only in one case was there a price reduction in January 2023 compared to a year earlier and that was negligible (-0.02% for fresh fish). All other products saw prices increase from 0.29% (fresh fruit) to 44.96% (sugar). In fact, the increase is over 20% in 14 types of food, which includes the most basic ones, such as milk (24.29% for fresh milk with even greater increases in other types), bread (25.55%), flour (26.89%), eggs (26.27%), cheeses (26.61), yogurt (21.65%), olive oil (22.37%), beef (20.15 %), lamb and goat (21.35%).
For a “basket” with 25 basic products – food and household items – on March 1, 2022 Greeks paid 76.26 euros, while the exact same products (same brand and code) now cost €91 – i.e. 19.33% more money. In some cases the increases even reach 60%, such as in branded toilet paper or detergents and shower gels, where price hikes of over 50% are recorded.
“I probably wish I had stayed in England.”
• Ghislaine Maxwell Reportedly In Solitary After Saying Epstein Was Murdered (GP)
Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell was reportedly punished by authorities at the Federal Correctional Institute Tallahassee over a recorded jailhouse interview that aired in January. The onetime British socialite, who was accused of procuring underage girls for convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, “was handcuffed and slung into solitary confinement for 48 hours after prison authorities accused her of profiting from a media interview,” the Daily Mail reported Monday. “She protested her innocence but was marched off to the Special Housing Unit (SHU) — a ‘prison within a prison’ comprising tiny, grim cells where inmates are locked up for 23 hours at a time and fed through slits in the door.”
The news outlet quoted unnamed “insiders” as saying that the inmate they know as “Max” “was just minding her own business when they came in, turned her around and handcuffed her.” “She got really upset, she was crying, she was yelling that she hadn’t received any money, but nobody saw her again for three days.” The Mail’s source said, “The SHU is not a nice place.” “It’s like a little box and you’re only allowed out to shower once a day. There’s no contact from anyone, no privileges, they slide your meals through a slot.” According to the report, Maxwell’s interview, which was aired Jan. 23 on TalkTV, would have violated the terms of her 20-year federal prison sentence if she received payment for the appearance.
Also in question was how the interview was obtained. As federal prisoner number 02879-509, she is permitted video calls with only those family members and friends on a list approved by the federal prison, according to the report. She apparently conducted the interviews during phone calls with her friend, filmmaker Daphne Barak. Maxwell made headlines for several remarks made during those interviews. One much-publicized comment was that she believed Epstein, contrary to the official narrative, did not commit suicide in his jail cell in 2019. “I believe that he was murdered,” Maxwell said.
When she heard the news of his death, “I was shocked,” she said. “And I wondered how it had happened. Because as far as I was concerned, he was going to … I was sure he was going to appeal. And I was sure that he was covered under the non-prosecution agreement.” She also expressed regret for her association with Epstein during the interview. “I honestly wish I’d never met him, you know, looking back now,” she told the interviewer. “I probably wish I had stayed in England.”
Fingers don’t have muscles, apart from the arrector pili, which are completely unrelated to motion. The 34 muscles that actually move human fingers are all located in the palm and forearm
AI sign language
The story of Priyanjali Gupta, the engineering student who built an AI model that translates American Sign language (ASL) into English instantly.
[read more: https://t.co/SI0DSAjfYK]pic.twitter.com/VaRhF2v2a6
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 1, 2023
Chand Baori is the deepest and probably the oldest stairwell in the world
Silent flight
The flight of an owl is almost absolutely silent,
due to the structure of its wings, which includes the leading edges of its primary feathers having a ‘ fringe’ these funnel air smoothly over the wing and dampen the sound
Watch this comparison
pic.twitter.com/OgphNbOIff— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) March 1, 2023
The tufted ground squirrel is noted for having the largest known tail to body size ratio of any mammal, with the volume of its tail including the air included in the fluff being 130% of the volume of its body
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