As Congress debates major new funding to support the Ukrainian war effort, U.S. taxpayer dollars are already flowing to outlets such as the New Voice of Ukraine, VoxUkraine, Detector Media, the Institute of Mass Information, the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine and many others. Some of this money has come from the $44.1 billion in civilian-needs foreign aid committed to Ukraine. While the funding is officially billed as an ambitious program to develop high-quality independent news programs; counter malign Russian influence; and modernize Ukraine’s archaic media laws, the new sites in many cases have promoted aggressive messages that stray from traditional journalistic practices to promote the Ukrainian government’s official positions and delegitimize its critics.
The recent “protests” against Orban in Budapest were a storm in a teacup. Although less than 0.01 percent of Hungary’s population participated, they made the front pages in the mainstream press. What was behind them? Eurocrats’ fear of Orban’s chairmanship at the EU Council of Ministers, which starts in July, and his call for dialogue with Russia.
This claim that Azerbaijan is establishing itself under the autocractic influence of Russia explains most of the perception managing narrative presented via the media lately.
For the past year, I have been working with and advising the Armenian government on their efforts to strengthen their democracy and promote peace in the South Caucasus. This is something I believe deeply in. That is why I launched the independent Friends of Armenia Network – a high-level group that includes former prime ministers, European commissioners, ministers, and sitting parliamentarians. In a report published on March 27, we proposed a detailed approach that the European Union should take to help make Armenia’s Western, democratic trajectory irreversible.
Now, after passing this legislation [Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act], the West is bitching that China is withholding cotton from them, and that cotton cellulose is hard to find.
“To make powder, you need a specific kind of cotton, which mostly comes from China,” he said.
European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton on Friday told reporters in Paris that the bloc also faced challenges finding the raw materials for gunpowder.
Nitrocellulose, also known as guncotton, is a key ingredient in gunpowder manufacture.
But the likely victory of Prabowo — an ex-general who was kicked out from the army and subjected to a two-decade ban from the U.S. over human rights violations — raises fears of the world’s third-largest democracy sliding backward into authoritarian rule.
Prabowo is expected to largely continue the policies of President Widodo, or “Jokowi,” as Indonesians call him. President Widodo is not up for reelection as he’s serving his final term.
Through his two five-year terms, Indonesia’s economy — Southeast Asia’s largest — has grown at about 5% a year. His infrastructure building, cash and food assistance to the poor and health and education policies have been popular.
Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of nickel, used in making electric vehicle batteries, and Jokowi has barred the export of raw nickel, to help Indonesia move up the value chain from mining to manufacturing.
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Prabowo is Suharto’s son-in-law. He received training in the 1980s from the U.S. military at Fort Benning, Ga. (now Fort Moore) and Fort Bragg, N.C. (now Fort Liberty).
China has become a powerhouse in clean energy, and has overtaken the EU on clean technology research, a paper prepared for the European Commission has shown.
“China has caught up with the EU in R&D expenditure. While Chinese R&D intensity more than doubled since 2000, EU R&D intensity grew much slower. As a result, China caught up with the EU while the US keeps a consistent lead,” according to the brief on the EU-China exposure in trade, investment, and technology.
“China is increasingly becoming a world leader in science and innovation, for several critical technologies outlined in the 2023 Commission Recommendation on critical technology areas for the EU’s economic security,” the authors of the study for the Commission wrote.
China is eating Europe’s lunch, as well! On another note, the EU should worry more about their dependence, on the US, than on China. Then again, they’re a vassal state of the US.
Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won re-election for a fifth term Sunday, officials said, following a boycott led by an opposition party she branded a “terrorist organisation”.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Earlier, supporters of the Serbian opposition, who disagree with results of the recent snap elections, surrounded the National Assembly in the capital city of Belgrade, climbing the steps and trying to break down the doors.
In the Reporters Without Borders (RWB) annual report on journalists killed in the course of their work in 2023, the deaths of two Russian journalists killed in the area of the special military operation were simply erased from the count, as if their deaths did not count. But after all, this is hardly surprising coming from an organisation that in 2022 was already calling for censorship of the Russian media on the pretext of protecting freedom of speech.
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52% of RWB’s funding comes from governments, including the French Development Agency, the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the UK Foreign Office, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the European Commission, the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development and the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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But if we look at the non-governmental players, RWB’s Russophobic bias can be fully explained. Its partners include the Open Society foundations of George Soros, who has never hidden the fact that he wants to see Russia collapse, and who supports colour revolutions around the world in order to install pro-Western governments in key countries such as Ukraine.
The Ford Foundation is also a donor to Reporters Without Borders. This foundation is literally infiltrated by the CIA (one of its former presidents is none other than the architect of what later became the CIA, and he hired American intelligence agents to work for the foundation)!
And to top it all off, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is one of RWB’s supporters. The NED is an American organisation funded by the US Congress, which has taken on some of the tasks previously carried out by the CIA! Don’t waste any more time, we’ve got the trifecta!
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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