Corruption is Everywhere > Tainted rocket fuel; Hunter's ex-partner rips off Sioux band for millions; Jacob Zuma; Strongman eliminates opposition; Ex-President to be extradited

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Firm admits selling potentially tainted rocket fuel to NASA

The Texas company pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to forfeit more than $250,000

(FILE PHOTO) © Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Anahuac Transport Inc. has admitted to delivering potentially tainted rocket fuel to NASA and the Department of Defense (DOD) for rocket launches, according to the US Department of Justice. 

The company’s representatives, Gary Monteau and Brant Charpiot, pleaded guilty to fraud on Wednesday and were banned from federal government contracting for two years.

As part of the plea deal, Anahuac Transport agreed to forfeit $251,401. The amount is comparable with the gross profits the company made from its fraudulent dealings. 

Anahuac was contracted by NASA and the DOD to procure and transport fuel for the rocket launches from approximately 2012 through 2020. 

The firm was required to ensure the tanker trailer it used did not previously contain chemicals that may have adverse reactions with the fuel. However, the tankers had in fact previously contained such substances, and the documents were falsified to claim that they had not. 

Elon Musk’s Space Explorations Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) was among the firms receiving the potentially tainted fuel, the DOJ said. The SpaceX contract saw Musk’s firm deliver supplies for the International Space Station and with military payloads. 

A sentencing date has been set for May 12. Anahuac could be hit with a $500,000 fine and serve up to five years of probation.

So, they cannot contract with the government for 2 years, and they may go to jail for 5 years. Does that mean they can contract with the government for 3 years while in prison?

I'm being facetious, of course, but it seems to me the potential for dramatic catastrophe should eliminate people who are willing to risk the deaths of astronauts, from ever being allowed back in such a position.

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Hunter Biden’s partner gets prison sentence

Biden’s Burisma board colleague sentenced to prison for securities fraud

Devon Archer, who sat on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma with Hunter Biden (pictured, August 2020), has been sentenced to prison in a fraud case ©  Getty Images/Handout

Devon Archer, a close friend and former business partner of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, was sentenced on Monday for defrauding a Native American tribe. A federal judge in New York said Archer may go to prison for a year and a day, as well as serve one year of probation and forfeit $14 million in property.

Archer gained notoriety when it emerged he introduced Hunter Biden – his partner at Rosemont Seneca – to the Ukrainian gas company Burisma back in 2014.

Both Archer and Biden sat on Burisma’s board of directors for years, reportedly being paid over $83,000 a month.

Of course, Biden has no expertise in the gas business, however, he does have access to his father.

Monday’s sentence is not related to the Ukrainian gas deals, however, but the June 2018 conviction for conspiracy and securities fraud, over Archer’s role in a bond scheme to defraud an Oglala Sioux tribe to the tune of tens of millions. 

Archer and two other defendants conspired to have the Wakpamni Lake Community Corporation issue a series of tribal bonds and defrauded both the tribe and the buyers of the bonds while pocketing the profits, the court said in 2018. Archer and another defendant had used the bonds to meet capital requirements in broker deals, and used the profits to buy companies “as part of a strategy to build a financial services conglomerate,” according to the Department of Justice.

On Monday, Judge Ronnie Abrams said the crime was too serious to avoid prison time, but cut the sentence down from the 30 months requested by prosecutors, reportedly citing the Covid-19 pandemic as the reason. He also ordered a one-year probation rather than the requested three years. The US government may also seize up to $14 million in assets owned by Archer as restitution to the tribe.

Abrams also gave Archer 60 days to report to prison, but then said he would set a new surrender date pending appeal.

Archer has appealed the sentence all the way to the US Supreme Court, without success. In November 2021, it emerged that Archer had requested – and Judge Abrams had granted – permission to go on over 40 international trips since his indictment and even conviction.

Former president referred for criminal probe

Former South African leader Jacob Zuma and serving minister Gwede Matashe

potentially face graft charges

Former South African President Jacob Zuma at the United Nations General Assembly in 2017.

© Drew Angerer / Getty Images

A South African corruption inquiry investigating allegations of graft during Jacob Zuma’s time in power, has referred the former president and incumbent mineral resources minister Gwede Mantashe for criminal investigation.

The inquiry made the recommendation after a three-year investigation into Zuma’s administration, with the latest report focused on allegations of corruption and fraud regarding a privately-owned company, Bosasa.

“The evidence revealed that corruption was Bosasa’s way of doing business,” the inquiry alleged, accusing the company of having “bribed politicians, government officials, President Jacob Zuma and others extensively.”

Zuma is accused by the inquiry of having passed the company confidential information about criminal investigations into Bosasa, helping to hinder criminal prosecutions in return for bribes. If those allegations prove true, it would mean Zuma violated his obligations under the South African constitution.

Mantashe was also referred for criminal investigation, with the inquiry claiming a criminal probe would lead to a corruption case against him. Bosasa reportedly installed security systems at three properties owned by Mantashe at no cost, which, the inquiry claims, was an attempt to build favor with the then-Secretary General of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). Mantashe admitted the security systems had been installed but claimed nothing was inappropriate about the arrangement.

Bosasa is currently in voluntary liquidation, after banks closed its accounts over the graft allegations.

Zuma denies any wrongdoing and has refused to cooperate with the inquiry, resulting in him being sentenced to 15 months in prison for contempt of court. He was released on medical parole in September but was later ordered back to prison by the High Court. Zuma is currently appealing the order to return to jail.

The inquiry further called for an investigation into ANC officials who, free of charge, arranged an election “war room” for Bosasa. The ANC has not immediately responded to the recommended investigation.

Cambodian court convicts opposition leaders in mass trial

By Thomas Maresca

Exiled Cambodia opposition leader Sam Rainsy was among 21 defendants convicted in a Phnom Penh court

in a verdict rights groups have called politically motivated. File Photo by Mast Irham/EPA-EFE

March 17 (UPI) -- A Cambodian court convicted 21 people, including exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy, on charges including conspiracy to overthrow the government in a decision Thursday that defendants and rights groups blasted as an effort to sideline opponents of strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen.

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court imposed sentences of 10 years to Rainsy and six other senior leaders of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, all of whom were tried in absentia, local news site VOD reported.

Thirteen party activists who were present in court received sentences of five years. One other defendant was given a suspended five-year sentence.

Rainsy, who resides in France, left Cambodia in 2016 to avoid charges that included defamation of Hun Sen, who has held onto power since 1985.

Most of the charges in Thursday's decision revolved around Rainsy's plan to return to Cambodia in 2019, which prosecutors argued was part of a plot to topple the government.

Defendants in court shouted that they were innocent as the verdict was read, while a group of supporters clashed with guards outside the courthouse, VOD reported.

Rights groups were quick to slam the decision as another abuse of power by the Hun Sen government, which has intensified its suppression of political opposition in recent years.

"The mass trial and convictions of political opponents on baseless charges is a witch hunt that discredits both the Cambodian government and the country's courts," Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said.

"Cambodia's politicized courts have facilitated Prime Minister Hun Sen's effort to destroy the last remnants of democratic freedoms and civil and political rights in the country," Robertson said.

Cambodian authorities cracked down on opposition politicians, civil society groups and independent media in the run-up to a scheduled 2018 election. The country's high court ultimately dissolved the Rainsy-founded CNRP, allowing the CPP to run virtually unopposed in an election roundly condemned by international observers.

Western nations including the United States responded with targeted sanctions and visa restrictions, while the European Union ultimately revoked Cambodia's duty-free access to its markets over its worsening rights situation.

Thursday's decision was the second in four mass trials of more than 150 individuals connected to the CNRP.

"The justice system has again been used as a blunt political tool in an attempt to quash opposition to Hun Sen's dictatorship," Rainsy wrote on Twitter after the verdict was announced. "Opposing dictators is a duty, not a crime."

Honduran judge grants U.S. request to extradite former president

By Darryl Coote

An Honduras judge late Wednesday accepted the request to extradite former President Juan Orlando Hernandez

to the United States. Photo by Gustavo Amador/EPA-EFE

March 17 (UPI) -- A judge in Honduras late Wednesday approved the extradition of former President Juan Orlando Hernandez to the United States where prosecutors have accused him of being involved in a narco-trafficking conspiracy.

The Central American nation's Supreme Court of Justice said in a statement that an unnamed judge granted the extradition of the former president "after evaluating the means of evidence presented" by the Court of the Southern District of New York.

Hernandez has three days to file an appeal, the court said.

Until he is extradited, Hernandez will remain detained by the Honduran authorities where he has resided since turning himself over to police on Feb. 15. at the request of the United States.

The former president has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of being involved in narco-trafficking scheme, specifically accepting brides from individuals seeking protection from law enforcement to smuggle drugs into the United States.

The Honduras Supreme Court of Justice said he faces a charge of conspiracy to import a controlled substance into the United States and two firearms-related charges.

The announcement of the extradition follows U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealing last month that Hernandez had quietly been added to a list of dozens of former Central American officials barred from entering the United States over accusations of committing corruption.

At the time, Blinken said there were credible reports that the former president was involved in "significant corruption" and that he used the proceeds from narco-trafficking to fund his political campaigns.

The U.S. prosecutors also convicted Juan Antonio "Tony" Hernandez" in 2019 on trafficking charges in a case that listed his brother, the former president, as a co-conspirator. He was sentenced in March of last year to life in prison.

Hernandez was president of Honduras from 2014 to January when President Xiomara Castro was inaugurated.

Ozzone 6-11 > Where sin and sorrow cease, and the song and the saint commence.

 

The Media is the Message > Zakharova's Hilarious Jab at Western Media; PA schoolboard bans CNN; Internet deception; Whitehouse employs influencers for propaganda

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This was a lot funnier before Russia invaded Ukraine

Russia mocks Western media

Numerous outlets had suggested that Moscow would invade Ukraine on Wednesday morning

Maria Zakharova, official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during a briefing in Moscow

©  Press Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

The spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry has jokingly asked Western “disinformation media” outlets to publish the future schedule of Moscow’s “invasions,” after the previous prediction of a military incursion into Ukraine passed without incident.

Writing on Telegram, Maria Zakharova poked fun at American and British outlets, which had suggested that Russia would launch an invasion at various times on Wednesday morning. Those forecasts proved to be wrong.

“A request for US and UK disinformation media like Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Sun, etc. Please announce the schedule of our ‘invasions’ for the coming year. I would like to plan a vacation,” Zakharova joked.

Since late October, Western media outlets have suggested that the Kremlin is planning an invasion of Ukraine. In the last few weeks, suggestions that a war is imminent have become more frequent. This claim has been repeatedly denied by the Kremlin, and has also been played down by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

On Tuesday, British tabloids The Sun and The Mirror published claims that Russia was planning to invade Ukraine on Wednesday morning. After this deadline passed, The Sun changed its headline to state that war could begin “at any time.”

American outlet Bloomberg, which had previously mistakenly reported that an invasion had already begun, suggested Russia could attack on February 15, citing anonymous officials. This date also passed without incident.

Speaking on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov slammed invasion predictions as “genuine information terrorism” and claimed that all troop movements near the Ukrainian border were part of planned drills.

Pennsylvania school bans CNN from classrooms,

offers patriotic videos instead

 

A school board in Pennsylvania wants its students to learn about the news from a neutral source, not from CNN propaganda. So it voted to stop forcing students to watch a CNN-produced news segment and instead allow them to view patriotic content.

“A Pennsylvania school board voted to end mandatory streaming of a CNN-affiliated program in its middle school amid arguments that such broadcasts are biased,” Fox News reported.

“[T]he television will be shut off in the classrooms unless students, teachers or administrators want them to watch the broadcast or videos pertaining to topics such as Veterans Day or the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor,” TribLive.com reported.

Pennsylvania US Senate Candidate Carla Sands tweeted in support of the decision in her state writing, “Winning!” 

CNN is a trash network that promotes a far-left agenda. But even better, students will spend valuable time learning and reading books or discussing topics with their classmates, not glued to a TV!

The fact that they could not find a channel to replace CNN is a poor comment on the state of Media in the USA, or anywhere in the west.

They say that 'Truth is the First Casualty of War'; the internet has made truth an even greater casualty as any techno-fool can create what appears to be true out of a complete lie and convince millions of people that it's true. This is a necessary step for the emergence of the beast of Rev 13.

Game footage being shared as ‘Ukraine videos’

Clips from ‘Arma III’ and ‘Digital Combat Simulator’ are circulating online as

“videos from Ukraine”

Screenshot © YouTube / Compared Comparison

Several videos which have made their way around social media described as footage of the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine have been debunked as clips taken from games.

A report by Bloomberg has revealed that some of the most-viewed videos on Facebook’s gaming channel were clips that were being spread as on-the-ground footage of military action in Ukraine. The videos were reportedly viewed by more than 110,000 people and shared over 25,000 times before they were taken down. Nevertheless, they made their way to other social media platforms, being spread around with titles such as ‘Ukraine fires missiles to intercept Russian aircraft’s artillery fire’ and ‘Intense dogfight in the skies of Ukraine’.

The first video which went viral on Thursday purportedly showed a military plane performing a bombing run while dodging fire from AA defense systems. However, the video turned out to be footage from the ‘Arma III’ military simulator game.

Another clip made the rounds on social media on Friday, supposedly showing a combat engagement between a Ukrainian MiG-29 and a Russian SU-35, with the latter being destroyed by a missile. The video went viral on social media, including English-speaking Twitter, with a caption praising the “ghost of Kiev” - a supposed pilot of Ukraine’s Air Force that has “managed to single-handedly take down 6 Russian fighter jets,” even spawning several comic strips. However, the footage was soon revealed to be a clip from ‘Digital Combat Simulator’, with the author of the original clip explicitly stating it was made in ‘DCS’.

It’s hard to deny the videos do look realistic at first glance, which makes it understandable why many take such posts at face value and are quick to share them around, however it highlights a long standing problem where unverified videos provided with little to no context or research end up being spread throughout social media and even used by news channels and government agencies, like, for example, when the Russian MoD used an image from ‘Arma III’ in a report on Syria in 2019 or when CNN showed clips from a ‘Fallout’ game in a segment about Russian hacking in 2016.

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The White House Is Using TikTok Influencers

to Peddle Propaganda | Opinion

ANGIE SPEAKS , COHOST OF THE LOW SOCIETY PODCAST

ON 3/16/22 AT 5:50 PM EDT

Newsweek

In its continued attempt to help Ukraine fight against a Russian invasion, White House officials and National Security Council staffers gathered 30 influential TikTok stars on a Zoom call to receive guidance and information about the unfolding war in Ukraine and the rising cost of energy. White House director of digital strategy Rob Flaherty told the influencers that he saw their influence as "a critically important avenue" to the American public and asked them to assist the government in "opposing misinformation."

The meeting yielded immediate results. Marcus J. DiPaola, a TikTok influencer with over 3 million followers, was at the White House briefing and went on to tweet the administration's priorities clearly: "The number one message the White House has is U.S. unity with partners & allies. The number two message is to prevent a more expansive war," DiPaola wrote.

18-year-old TikTok star Ellie Zeiler, who has over 10.5 million followers, told The Washington Post how she saw her role. "I'm here to relay the information in a more digestible manner to my followers," Zeiler said. "I would consider myself a White House correspondent for Gen-Z."

The results of the briefing—a humorously uniform bevy of tweets and videos—reveal how slippery the slope is between "fighting misinformation," "civic duty," and just spreading propaganda.

And yet, this is not the first time the Biden White House has deployed social media influencers to promote its agenda. Officials did something similar at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the White House authorized thousand-dollar cash payments to influencers on TikTok as part of a campaign to encourage higher vaccination rates among young people. The goal was to create an "influencer army."

But even the vaccine influencer campaign wasn't the first of its kind of Biden. It amounted to "repurposing the influencer marketing tactics that Mr. Biden had used on the campaign trail toward promoting vaccinations," Flaherty, the White House director of digital strategy, told The New York Times. Those tactics were laid out in a 2021 piece in TIME Magazine that exposed what it called "the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election" in a report that detailed alliances between tech companies, business giants, DNC operatives and "left wing" activist groups. "The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election—an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted," TIME reported.

A free and fair election is of course a goal worth pursuing. Yet the means outlined here—a shadowy liaison between different private interest groups rooted in social media campaigns and public influence—is something the Democrats are very good at denouncing when such measures are being deployed against Democrats' political goals. Somehow, it's fair game when it's pushing Biden's agenda.

The Biden team's repeated willingness to deploy propaganda works not only to push narratives that are important, like free elections and the use of vaccines to combat COVID-19, but also to squash political dissent—under the guise of civic duty. If the TikTok briefings served the goal of raising awareness and vaccination rates during COVID, they also served the less noble goal of cementing a social consensus about the efficiency of the vaccine for very young people while shaming skeptics. Because that's how propaganda works.

You're seeing something similar with the latest round of TikTok influencers deployed to fight the White House's propaganda battle on inflation and skyrocketing gas prices, which is using attractive young people whose online existence is little more than a full-time marketing gig to evade responsibility for rising costs by blaming economic failures on Putin's actions.

The cultural appeal of TikTok influencers and young people who fulfill themselves by doing creative work online is already controlled and instrumentalized by social media platforms that thrive on clicks and views. It's even more alarming to witness government powers use similar methods to engineer consensus by tapping into this influence to generate propaganda. The Biden administration's clandestine relationship with Big Tech allows these state-sanctioned messages easy access to public consciousness while forcing dissenting perspectives away from the mainstream arena.

Although we all like to think we are, nobody is immune to propaganda. And in times of international conflict and global turmoil when it is deployed more brazenly, vigilance and skepticism are the keys to maintaining a clear view of reality. The seedy and anti-democratic coalition between Big Tech and the liberal establishment and their deployment of influencers to distract from government failures will only intensify as the conflict abroad continues.

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Deep State > Oliver Stone - Ukraine - Military Industrial Complex; Excellent background on Ukraine war

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Deep Staters and those who believe the Russian - Ukraine narrative will probably come down hard on this. But he speaks the truth. America has been controlled by Deep State since JFK was assassinated.

Oliver Stone - Deep State - Ukraine - The Military Industrial Complex

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An excellent historical background of the situations leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Architects of Our Present Disaster

American foreign policy is buckling under its own contradictions.

We no longer have the luxury of decadence.

By Benjamin Braddock

March 14, 2022

Turning and turning in the widening gyre  

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst  

Are full of passionate intensity.

—William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”

The center is not holding, things are falling apart. We have moved on from mass psychosis over vaccines to mass psychosis over the urgent need to go to war with Russia. 

The sanctions are bad enough; the early economic fallout from them is already causing pain for working and middle-class Americans. But we did sanctions last week, the public demands more. Do something, even if that thing is horrifying in its implications. Two years of pent-up dissociated rage is being channeled and redirected at an external target by the same people responsible for the response to COVID-19, among the worst atrocities in American history. 

Americans of Russian descent—the vast majority of whom have no association with Putin or the Russian state, not that their mistreatment would be justified if they did—are bearing the brunt of a particularly vicious campaign of racial hatred and attacks. Quite the contrast to the early days of COVID when liberals were tripping over themselves to get to their nearest Chinese restaurant to prove that racism was the real virus. Joe Biden couldn’t find time in his State of the Union address to mention the 13 Americans killed in Afghanistan but he did find time to celebrate the idea of Ukrainian pensioners throwing themselves under the tracks of Russian tanks. It is hard to imagine a more ignominious end to Pax Americana.

Pax Americana is dead and we have killed it.

It didn’t have to be this way. I am reminded of a quote from Condoleezza Rice about the morning of 9/11. She knew that U.S. forces going to DEFCON-3 would trigger a similar escalation by Russia so she called President Putin and told him our military would be going on high alert. He told her that he knew and that he had ordered his forces to stand down. Then he asked if there was anything he could do to help. Rice recounted that she had a moment of reflection: “The Cold War really is over.” But the choices made in the aftermath of that day by people like her unleashed a destructive zeitgeist in Washington foreign policy that has led us to this point where the specter of nuclear war now hangs in the air as it did during the tensest moments of the Cold War. 

The September 11, 2001 attacks were the beginning of the end for the window of opportunity we had to forge a partnership with Russia. Just one year earlier, President Putin had expressed interest in joining NATO during President Clinton’s visit to Moscow. Clinton’s exact response has not been publicly reported but it was not affirmative. In retrospect, it was exactly the partnership the West needed to counter the rise of China. But Washington had spent the previous decade treating Russia as a colonized vassal, there was little interest in allowing such a backward and humiliated country into the gilded halls of NATO.  

Russia in the 1990s was a wreck. In the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia’s government became a puppet state of America and the West and its economy was a monumental disaster. People stopped getting paid, monthly inflation was in the double-digits, life savings disappeared overnight, banks disappeared overnight. The fertility rate plummeted, along with life expectancy, with over five million excess deaths recorded over the decade—mostly from deaths of despair. During post-Soviet privatization, large state enterprises were sold for pennies on the ruble to the politically well-connected, which is how most of the oligarchs acquired their fortunes. And politically well-connected Americans made fortunes in Russia as well.

Wayne Merry, a U.S. official at the embassy in Moscow in the 1990s said later: “We created a virtual open shop for thievery at a national level and for capital flight in terms of hundreds of billions of dollars, and the raping of natural resources and industries on a scale which I doubt has ever taken place in human history.” It was against this backdrop that Putin rose to power. Funny enough, when Boris Yeltsin picked Putin as his presidential successor, he called Bill Clinton to get approval. Putin came to power with one burning desire: to Make Russia Great Again, and to keep it from ever being humiliated the way it was in its lost decade.

As Putin was rebuilding Russia, America was carrying out national remodeling projects in Iraq and Afghanistan that were abandoned just past the demolition phase. The idea was to spread American “values” and our “way of life” no matter how horrifying the consequences were for the people involved. My friend Sam Finlay described the situation as one in which the aggressive actions of a normal country are like those of a wolf: it kills to eat. The aggression serves the material interests of that country in some way. But American foreign policy is like a big dumb dog, it catches a rabbit for fun, kills it in the process, and then loses interest and comes back inside to eat kibble.

This is a long and fascinating article the remainder of which can be found at American Greatness.

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Ozzone 6-10 > Have you ever lamented (been afflicted before God), expressing your sorrow for the condition of your inner life? There is no thread of self-pity left, only the heart-rending difficulty and amazement which comes from seeing what kind of person you really are.

 

Bits and Bites from Around the World > MLK's Daughter Rips Pr William; Smollett gets 5 months in jail; 22-yr Trip Around the World

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Prince William Slammed by Martin Luther King's Daughter

for 'Horrific' Ukraine Comment

BY JACK ROYSTON, Newsweek

ON 3/10/22 AT 4:15 AM EST

Prince William was accused of "horrific comments" by Martin Luther King's daughter in the aftermath of a Ukrainian community event where he was partially misquoted.

Bernice King linked the Duke of Cambridge's remarks to colonialism after William and Kate Middleton visited the Ukrainian Cultural Centre in London to support the relief effort on March 9.

Footage from the event showed Prince William said: "Everyone is horrified by what they are seeing. The news every day, it's almost unfathomable to actually witness it, to see it. For our generation, it's very alien to see this in Europe. We're all right behind you."

The Press Association originally reported William also suggested Britons were more used to seeing conflict in Africa and Asia—though footage released by ITV of the royal's full comments suggested he, in fact, made no explicit reference to the two continents.

However, some maintained their criticism of the Duke based on the reference to war in Europe feeling "very alien."

King, the chief executive of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, condemned the prince having seen the original, misleading account.

She wrote on Twitter: "Horrific comment. European people ran roughshod over the continent of Africa, pillaging communities, raping women, enslaving human beings, colonizing for profit and power, stealing resources, causing generational devastation. And European nations continue to harm Africa."

After the new footage emerged, King wrote: "I believe that we have a great deal of work to do globally to eradicate what my father called the Triple Evils of Militarism, Racism and Poverty.

"I believe that language matters in that work. And that it is harmful for a global figure to express war as 'alien to Europe.'"

European people ran roughshod over not just the continent of Africa, but on every continent but Antarctica. The list of grievances is unfortunately both accurate and incomplete. America is guilty of the same horrors in Central and South America and the Caribbean. The effects of which are now resulting in the massive migration from Latin America to the USA. In Europe, the migration comes from Africa and Asia, and it comes for the same reason - Colonialists stole all their natural resources and now the people are following the trail of those thefts.

Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, a prominent commentator on race in Britain, told Newsweek the remarks about war in Europe feeling alien were offensive on their own.

She said: "William says it's alien in Europe. This is on the back of two weeks of western media also saying it's alien in Europe, also saying Western countries are civilized. I'm sorry, if it's alien in Europe, where is he referring to it as being normal?"

The outcry heaps new pressure on the royals just days after the one-year anniversary of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Oprah Winfrey interview, during which they accused an unnamed royal of racism.

And it comes little more than a week before William and Kate are due to tour the Caribbean from March 19 to March 26.

Prince William and Kate Middleton visit the Ukrainian Cultural Centre, in London, on March 9, 2022.

During the meeting, the Duke of Cambridge suggested it felt alien to see conflict in Europe.

IAN VOGLER-WPA POOL/GETTY IMAGES

After the original misquote, human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid wrote on Twitter: "Prince William says conflict is 'very alien' to Europe, unlike Asia & Africa.

"How do you have a 1,000 year history of colonialism, a literal 100 year war, launch 2 World Wars, allow multiple genocides, & bomb a dozen nations since 9/11 alone—yet make this type of a statement."

1000 year history of colonialism? I think it's half that.

Also before the footage emerged, royal biographer Omid Scobie, author of Finding Freedom, wrote on Twitter: "Unsurprised to see backlash against Prince William's ignorant remark (reported by@PA).

"Europe has seen some of the bloodiest conflict in the past two centuries—Balkans, Yugoslavia, Germany and Kosovo to name a few. But sure, let's normalise war and death in Africa and Asia."

It is not the first time Prince William has been accused of colonial comments, after he linked the pressure on wildlife in Africa to the human population in a November speech.

The duke said: "The increasing pressure on Africa's wildlife and wild spaces as a result of human population presents a huge challenge for conservationists, as it does the world over."

I'm hard-pressed to see anything wrong with this statement. If you do, please let me know what I am missing.

And a photo of Prince William being carried on a throne went viral in the aftermath of the Oprah interview in 2021.

In the famous interview, Meghan told CBS how an unnamed royal family member had made disparaging comments about how dark their child's skin might be before Archie was born.

She said: "So we have in tandem the conversation of 'He won't be given security, he's not going to be given a title' and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born."

The queen released a statement saying the royals took the comments seriously but acknowledging "some recollections may vary."

William was the first to comment in person, telling journalists days after broadcast: "We are very much not a racist family."

Britain's empire covered a quarter of the world at its height, including India and most of South Asia as well as much of Africa and the Caribbean.

The new backlash comes as William and Kate prepare for a tour of the Caribbean as part of celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee.

Among the countries on their schedule is Jamaica, where there have been recent debates about removing the monarch as head of state, with one party in the 2020 elections pledging to hold a referendum on the subject.

The latest episode of Newsweek's The Royal Report podcast discussed the possibility of a backlash against the Cambridges during their tour.

A recent editorial in Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner read: "First, this newspaper is deeply uncomfortable, which we believe is the disposition of the majority of Jamaicans, of having the monarch of Great Britain, which, at this time is Queen Elizabeth II, as our country's head of state.

"Who holds this position is no meaningless symbolism. It ought to be an important reference point of who we are, and the aspirations we hold as a sovereign nation and people.

"The patriarch of a dysfunctional family in the United Kingdom that defined Jamaica's long colonial experience is not, therefore, an appropriate symbol."

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Jussie Smollett starts 150-day jail term in protected status

This booking photo provided by the Cook County Sheriff's Office shows Jussie Smollett. A judge sentenced Jussie Smollett to 150 days in jail Thursday, March 10, 2022, branding the Black and gay actor a charlatan for staging a hate crime against himself while the nation struggled with wrenching issues of racial injustice. (Cook County Sheriff's Office via AP)

  

Don Babwin And Kathleen Foody, The Associated Press

Published Friday, March 11, 2022 7:45PM EST

CHICAGO (AP) - Jussie Smollett began a 150-day jail sentence for staging a hate crime against himself in protective custody, separated from other detainees and watched by security cameras and an officer, jail authorities said Friday.

Sheriff's deputies immediately took Smollett to the Cook County Jail on Thursday night after Judge James Linn sentenced the Black and gay actor to 30 months of felony probation - starting with a five-month term in jail - for lying to police that he had been the target of a racist and homophobic attack.

Smollett loudly maintained his innocence and suggested he could be killed in jail.

“Your honor, I respect you and I respect the jury, but I did not do this,” Smollett said Thursday. “And I am not suicidal. And if anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself.”

Smollett's sentence may put an end - pending appeals - to more than three years of legal drama following the actor's report to police that two men wearing ski masks beat him, and hurled racial and homophobic slurs at him on a dark Chicago street and ran off.

Smollett's attorneys filed an emergency injunction Friday seeking Smollett's release pending his appeal. An appellate court judge ruled prosecutors have five days to respond to the emergency motion, WMAQ-TV reported.

His attorneys also filed a notice of appeal in Cook County Criminal Court. They had said Thursday night that they plan to appeal both the jury's guilty verdict and the judge's sentence.

One day earlier, a judge sentenced Smollett to 150 days in Cook County Jail following his conviction for lying to police about being the victim of a hoax hate crime in 2019. Smollett was also sentenced to 30 months of felony probation, ordered to pay more than $120,000 in restitution to the city of Chicago and was fined $25,000.

He began his sentence immediately after learning his fate Thursday.

In a statement on Friday, the Cook County Sheriff's Office said Smollett is being held in protective custody - typical for people “who may potentially be at risk of harm due to the nature of their charges, their professions, or their noteworthy status.”

Oh, good. Like Jeffrey Epstein!

Smollett has his own cell, monitored by security cameras and an officer stationed at the door and wearing a body camera, the sheriff's office said. Smollett is able to have “substantial time” in common areas to use the phone, watch TV and interact with staff but other detainees won't be in common areas with him.

Smollett faced up to three years in prison for each of the five felony counts of disorderly conduct - the charge filed for lying to police - of which he was convicted. He was acquitted on a sixth count.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot praised the sentence, saying it sends a message that “false claims and allegations” would not be tolerated.

“The city feels vindicated in today's ruling that he is being held accountable and that we will appropriately receive restitution for his actions,” she said in a statement.

Smollett's sentence includes a payment of $120,106 in restitution to the city and a $25,000 fine.

Smollett was convicted in a December jury trial, where witnesses included two brothers who told jurors Smollett paid them to carry out the attack and gave specific directions on what to do and say.

Smollett, who knew the men from his work on the television show “Empire” that filmed in Chicago, testified that he did not recognize them and did not know they were the men attacking him.

Argentine family comes home after 22-year drive around the world

Issued on: 12/03/2022 - 19:32

France24

Members of the Zapp family of Argentina open up a canvas that acts as a tent atop their 1928 Graham-Paige car near Gualeguaychu, Argentina, on March 10 JUAN MABROMATA AFP

Gualeguaychu (Argentina) (AFP) – An Argentine family is about to finish the trip of a lifetime: they have covered five continents in a 1928 jalopy on an adventure that began in 2000, while bringing into the world and raising four kids who are now adolescents.

The Zapp family -- Herman and Candelaria and those children -- have driven a total of 362,000 kilometers (225,000 miles) and have now stopped off in this town on the border with Uruguay before their scheduled arrival Sunday back where they started on January 25, 2000 at the Obelisk, a monument in downtown Buenos Aires.

"I have very mixed feelings. We are ending a dream, or fulfilling a dream," Herman told AFP. "What will come now? Thousands of changes, thousands of options," said the 53-year-old, who is already thinking of sailing around the world.

Candelaria, who was 29 when the trip began and is now 51, said her biggest and best discovery was the people encountered along the way.

"People are wonderful. Humanity is incredible," said Candelaria.

She said the family visited no fewer than 102 countries, although sometimes they had to take detours because of wars or other kinds of conflict.

'Good in cities'

The couple had been married six years, had good jobs and had just built a house, with plans to have kids, too, when wanderlust hit. Their round-the-world journey began with a backpacking trip in Alaska.

And somebody offered them a car, a 1928 model of an American make called Graham-Paige. The engine was bad and the paint looked terrible. "It would not even start," said Candelaria Zapp.

"The seats are not great, nor is the muffler. It does not have air conditioning, either. It is a car that you have to keep your eye on. It does not look comfortable, but it was marvelous," said Herman.

"It was good in cities, in mud and on sand," he added.

They went through only eight sets of tires in 22 years and only twice needed to do major engine work.

Herman shows off the roadster by opening up a canvas on the top that forms a sort of tent for the kids to sleep under when it was time to camp out.

"It is nicer now than when it first came out," he said of the modified uber-vintage vehicle.

While out on the road, and with the first two kids born -- Pampa, now 19, came into this world in the US and Tehue, 16, during a visit back to Argentina -- they enlarged the car by actually cutting it in half and adding 40 cm (16 inches) of length and another seat.

That made room for the arrival of Paloma, now 14 and born in Canada, and Wallaby, 12, down under in Australia.

The last additions to the family were a dog named Timon and a cat called Hakuna during a stay in Brazil, where the Zapps were stranded for a while in 2020 because of Covid-19.

More on that car, which looks like something out of a gangster movie: the trunk acts like a kitchen storage area, and the heat of the engine is used to cook or heat water. Clothes and tools are stored under the seats. And for all these years, it was home sweet home.

"It is a small house but with a huge backyard, with beaches, mountains and lakes. If you do not like the view, you can change it," Herman quipped.

On the side of the car is a sign that reads "A family traveling around the world."

The Zapps usually stayed as guests at people's houses -- they estimate around 2,000 altogether.

"Humanity is incredible," Candelaria said of people's hospitality. "Many helped just to be part of a dream."

But it was not all easy going. Herman once caught malaria, the family drove across Asia during the bird flu outbreak, and had to deal with Ebola in Africa and dengue fever in Central America.

- 'A lot of friends'-

Here on the streets of Gualeguaychu, people honk their horns when they see the Zapps' old Graham-Paige. Vintage car buffs have their picture taken with it.

And some buy a copy of the book the Zapps have written about their adventure, entitled "Catching a Dream." They have sold about 100,000 copies and say this is their main source of revenue for all this traveling.

For the record, they did the Americas, Africa, Oceania, Asia and Europe.

They touched Mount Everest, ate duck eggs in Asia, danced with native people in Namibia, entered the tomb of King Tut in Egypt and sailed across many a sea.

For the kids, it was an unforgettable experience. They did their studies remotely and with home learning with Candelaria.

The Zapp family is now almost back home after traveling on five continents for 22 years JUAN MABROMATA AFP

Now, in-person classes await them in Argentina.

"What I most want to do is make a lot of friends," said Paloma, the 14-year-old.

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Approaching Sodom - The End of Days > How close is Christ's return?

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Russia-Ukraine war: Some pastors wonder about “end of days”

By DAVID CRARY

March 10, 2022

FILE - Ukrainians cross an improvised path under a destroyed bridge while fleeing Irpin, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted some of America’s most prominent evangelical leaders to raise a provocative question — asking if the world is now in the biblically prophesied “end of days” that might culminate with the apocalypse and the second coming of Christ.

There’s no consensus on the answer, nor on any possible timetable.

Megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, addressing his congregation at First Baptist Dallas, said many Christians are wondering, in the face of carnage in Ukraine, “Why does God permit evil like this to continue? …. Are we near Armageddon and the end of the world?”

“We are living in the last days,” Jeffress said, “We’ve been living in the last days for the last 2000 years. We don’t know, is this the end? Is this the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning?”

The curators of raptureready.com -- which shares commentary about “end of days” prophesies – suggest things could move quickly. Their “Rapture Index,” -- on which any reading above 160 means “Fasten your seatbelts” -- was raised this week to 187, close to its record high of 189 in 2016.

One of the most detailed alerts came from televangelist Pat Robertson, who came out of retirement on Feb. 28 to assert on “The 700 Club” that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “compelled by God” to invade Ukraine as a prelude to an eventual climactic battle in Israel. Robertson said verses of the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel support this scenario.

“You can say, well, Putin’s out of his mind. Yes, maybe so,” Robertson said. “But at the same time, he’s being compelled by God. He went into the Ukraine, but that wasn’t his goal. His goal was to move against Israel, ultimately.”

“It’s all there,” added Robertson, referring to Ezekiel (Chapters 37 & 38). “And God is getting ready to do something amazing and that will be fulfilled.”

Also evoking Ezekiel – and a possible attack on Israel -- was Greg Laurie, senior pastor at a California megachurch whose books and radio programs have a wide following.

“I believe we’re living in the last days. I believe Christ could come back at any moment,” Laurie said in a video posted on YouTube.

I have heard many preachers say this same thing for decades, mostly Pentecostal, but I believe there are many prophecies that need to be fulfilled before He does.

Citing the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, he said biblical prophesies “are being fulfilled in our lifetime.”

“We are seeing more things happen in real time, closer together, as the scriptures said they would be,” Laurie said. “So what should we do? We should look up. We should remember that God is in control.”

Predictions of an imminent “end of days” have surfaced with regularity over the centuries. Pat Robertson, for example, has inaccurately predicted apocalyptic events on previous occasions.

“One of the characteristics of apocalyptic thinking is that the most recent crisis is surely the worst — this is the one that is going to trip the end times calendar,” said Dartmouth College history professor Randall Balmer.

“Now, admittedly, there may be some evidence for that, especially with Putin mumbling about nuclear weapons,” Balmer added via email. “But I also remember the urgency of the Six Day War and George H. W. Bush’s Persian Gulf War and, of course, 9/11.”

The suggestion that God is somehow using the Russia-Ukraine war to fulfill biblical prophesies troubles some Christian scholars, such as the Rev. Rodney Kennedy, a Baptist pastor in Schenectady, New York, and author of numerous books.

“This evangelical insistence of involving the sovereignty of God in the evil of Putin borders on the absurd,” Kennedy wrote recently in Baptist News.

Eze 38:3&4 - Behold, I am against you, O Gog.... I will turn you around, put hooks in your jaws and lead you out with all your army...

“Rapture believers fail to understand that if they assist in bringing about world war, there will be no Superman Jesus appearing to ‘snatch’ all true believers into the safety of the clouds,” Kennedy wrote. “The rapture is an illusion; the rupture caused by Putin is a deadly reality.”

The pre-tribulation rapture is certainly an illusion, wishful thinking. 

Russell Moore, public theologian at the evangelical magazine Christianity Today, said it’s wrong to try to connect world events to end-times prophecy, noting that Jesus himself said his second coming would be unexpected and unconnected with “wars and rumors of wars.”

“It’s not consistent with the Bible and it’s harmful to the witness of the church,” said Moore, noting that the world has outlived many episodes of end-times speculation.

Moore said most Christians he’s talked with are more concerned about Ukraine’s well-being.

“I’m surprised at how little I am finding the idea that these events are direct biblical prophecy,” he said. “I’m just not seeing that in the pews.”

That’s a change from the recent past, he noted, when many evangelicals tried to interpret world events as a road map to the apocalypse – driving sales for hugely successful authors Tim LaHaye (“Left Behind”) and Hal Lindsey (“The Late Great Planet Earth”).

“It’s very rare for me to find someone under the age of 50” preoccupied with such views today, Moore said.

I greatly doubt that this is a good thing! When it is so obvious that the world cannot continue in the direction that it is going for more than a few years, it should be obvious. So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors! 

Jeffress said members of his congregation in Dallas are “very troubled by the atrocities being committed against the Ukrainian people and think we should push back forcefully against Putin’s aggression.”

“However, they are not headed toward their bunkers and preparing for Armageddon — yet,” Jeffress said via email. “Most of our members understand that while the Bible prophesies the end of the world and return of Christ one day, no one has a clue when that day will be.”

But you should have a clue that the season 'is near - at the doors'. I am greatly troubled by how few Christians see that the social degeneration in the western world is something that can be addressed by any other means than apocalyptic. Western society is rapidly approaching Sodom in its disgusting values and God cannot allow it to continue for much longer.

Laurie, in a written reply to questions from The Associated Press, said his congregation at Harvest Christian Fellowship “isn’t fixated on the ‘end times.’”

“My message for Christians during this time and really all people in general is don’t panic, but pray,” Laurie advised. “Live every day like it may be your last.”

The war in Ukraine has heightened anxieties for some members of Mercy Hill Chapel, said Oleh Zhakunets, lead pastor of the small Southern Baptist church that holds services in Ukrainian and English in Parma, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb.

Several members have close relatives in Ukraine – some in more dangerous zones in eastern Ukraine and others who are welcoming refugees in the west, he said.

“It’s a bag of mixed feelings,” said Zhakunets, citing their worries for loved ones and their hope that God is in control.

Congregation members believe in biblical passages detailing signs of Jesus’ return, he said, but they don’t see Russia’s invasion as fulfilling a specific prophecy.

“A lot of that is just guesswork,” Zhakunets said. “We have hope that he’s coming, but in terms of specifics, we’re not going to give that kind of what we see as a false hope.”

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Associated Press reporters Peter Smith, Holly Meyer and Deepa Bharath contributed to this report.