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cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/543798

In a video (21 sec), Russian state propagandist Sergei Mardan explains that the main purpose of war is looting of enemy's territories so that "we live better than them".

Then he adds "I think this is the goal of the war as laid by Putin". Note the word "war" is beeped out because in Russian political correctness code it should be called "special military operation".

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/545608

The Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), an organisation led by human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, and Centre for the Enforcement of Human Rights International (CEHRI), a non-profit organisation that advocates for liability for international crimes, filed a case in Austria calling for investigations into sexual violence and murder in Ukraine by Russian soldiers on Monday.

The organisations are representing two women who were raped by Russian soldiers at the beginning of the Russo-Ukraine War in 2022 and have put forward evidence against the two soldiers and seven other men who are commanders. According to the organisations, one of the women’s husbands had been shot and killed when he tried to intervene. The CFJ said, “The crimes were committed as part of widespread and systematic pattern of human rights violations against the civilian population on the territories occupied by Russian forces, extensively documented by the UN bodies and other organizations”.

The evidence consists of investigations within Ukraine, such as visiting the villages where the crimes occurred, interviewing witnesses and Ukrainian law enforcement, and observing evidence left behind by the soldiers when the Kyiv region was liberated, which allowed the identification of the Russian soldiers. The organisations’ investigation was aided by open-source intelligence that analysed Russian military communication networks and their movement into Ukraine, satellite imagery and reported incidences of human rights violations to establish patterns of abuse.

Paywalled, but link is a gift article from me

Popular renderings dress her in thick, reddish-brown fur, with her face, hands, feet and breasts peeking out of denser thickets.This hairy picture of Lucy, it turns out, might be wrong.Technological advancements in genetic analysis suggest that Lucy may have been naked, or at least much more thinly veiled.

A ridiculous number of candidates contended to be governor of Tokyo and its surrounding prefecture. Many were not even trying to win.

More than a dozen men threatened, assaulted, tortured, or kidnapped 11 victims.

In Brussels, NATO officials have devised a plan to lock in long-term military support for Ukraine so that a possible Trump administration can’t get in the way.

In Ankara, Turkish officials have reviewed the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy road map for clues into Donald Trump’s designs on Syria.

In Atlanta, Austin and Lincoln, Nebraska, top ministers from Germany and Canada have met with Republican governors to shore up relations on the American right.

And in Washington, Trump’s return is the dominant topic at monthly breakfast meetings of ambassadors from European countries. At one of those meetings, the top envoy from one country asked his colleagues whether they were engaged in a fool’s errand.

“Can we really prepare for Trump?” this person asked, according to another top diplomat. “Or do we rather have to wait and see what the new reality would look like?”

Hours after a battle in eastern Ukraine in August, a wounded and unarmed Russian soldier crawled through a nearly destroyed trench, seeking help from his captors, a unit of international volunteers led by an American.

Caspar Grosse, a German medic in that unit, said he saw the soldier plead for medical attention in a mix of broken English and Russian. It was dusk. A team member looked for bandages.

That is when, Mr. Grosse said, a fellow soldier hobbled over and fired his weapon into the Russian soldier’s torso. He slumped, still breathing. Another soldier fired — “just shot him in the head,” Mr. Grosse recalled in an interview.

Mr. Grosse said he was so upset by the episode that he confronted his commander. He said he spoke to The New York Times after what he regarded as unwarranted killings continued. It is highly unusual for a soldier to speak publicly about battlefield conduct, particularly involving men whom he still considers friends.

The shooting of the unarmed, wounded Russian soldier is one of several killings that have unsettled the Chosen Company, one of the best-known units of international troops fighting on behalf of Ukraine.

Mr. Grosse’s witness recollection is the only available evidence of the trench killing. But his accounts of other episodes are bolstered by his contemporaneous notes, video footage and text messages exchanged by members of the unit and reviewed by The Times.

President Joe Biden could make a decision within days whether to remain a candidate for reelection, said Hawaii’s governor who participated in a recent meeting with Biden and other Democratic governors and whose family has known the president for years.

And if Biden decides not to run, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green told The Associated Press on Saturday that he believes the president will designate Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him on the ticket.

Green, who was a physician on Hawaii’s Big Island before he was elected governor, said everyone has parents or grandparents who have moments that aren’t that great or pauses in their ability to express themselves clearly. But, he added, they aren’t discarded because of their experience, wisdom and their role in the family.

Green was quick to point out that Trump is only three years younger than Biden and both will have bad days going forward. But he argued that temperament is more important than age.

“For God’s sake, these two guys have to hold the nuclear codes,” Green said. “I don’t want someone who tweets in the middle of the night and rages at other countries. That is not good. That’s not the problem we have with President Biden.”

The Trump campaign attempted to distance itself from the conservative Project 2025 playbook on Friday. Despite significant overlap between Project 2025 personnel and staffers from former president Donald Trump’s administration and campaign, Trump issued a statement saying he had “no idea who is behind” the project. 

Project 2025 is spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation in partnership with dozens of rightwing advocacy organizations. It has two main components: First, a 900-page manifesto with a wish list for the first 180 days of the “next conservative administration,” including to further restrict abortion access and “dismantle the administrative state.” The second component is an application-only recruitment effort to ensure the administration is quickly staffed with loyalists.  

On Friday, Trump disavowed Project 2025 in a post to Truth Social, his social media platform, saying he found unspecified parts of the project “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” 

“I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” Trump wrote. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s vague disavowal of Project 2025 came a few days after Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, made inflammatory statements about a coming “second American Revolution” that would be “bloodless” “if the left allows it to be.”

“As we’ve been saying for more than two years now, Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign,” the Project 2025 account said in a statement on X. “But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement.”

Despite Trump’s claims to have “nothing to do with” Project 2025, his administration and campaign personnel contributed to the project, including Karoline Leavitt, his campaign’s national press secretary, as the Biden campaign quickly pointed out on X. 

Former Trump administration officials wrote and edited massive chunks of the manifesto. One of its two primary editors, Paul Dans, who directs the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project, served as the White House liaison for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management during the Trump administration, among other positions. 

Rick Dearborn, who was briefly Trump’s deputy chief of staff, wrote the White House chapter. Russ Vought, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote the chapter on OMB and similar executive offices. 

Gene Hamilton, who served in the Trump Justice Department and is now the vice president and general counsel of America First Legal, wrote the DOJ chapter. Similarly, the chapter on the Department of Homeland Security was written by Ken Cuccinelli, who held multiple positions in Trump’s DHS. The list of Project 2025 playbook contributors includes former Trump administration officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, among other departments and agencies. 

Peter Navarro — who advised Trump’s 2016 campaign, served as director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, and recently reported to prison for refusing to cooperate with a Congressional inquiry into January 6 insurrection — drafted a chapter on trade policy.

People close to Trump also contributed to the Project 2025’s effort to recruit conservatives for administration positions, including appearances in promos and training videos. 

Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, is featured in a promotional video for the Project 2025 academy, along with Stephen Miller and other former Trump administration officials. According to the Project 2025 recruitment website, “The Presidential Administration Academy is a one-of-a-kind educational and skill-building program designed to prepare and equip future political appointees now to be ready on Day One of the next conservative Administration.”

According to the academy syllabus, Leavitt also co-teaches a video module in the academy, titled, “The Art of Professionalism.” 

“I appeared in a video for Heritage the year before I started working on the Trump campaign,” Leavitt told The Intercept when asked how the Trump campaign could claim ignorance of Project 2025. Referring to Trump’s campaign platform, she said: “Agenda 47 is the only official policy agenda of the President Trump and our campaign.”

Other former Trump administration officials listed on the Project 2025 academy syllabus include Dearborn, Roger Severino, Hugh Fike, and Bethany Kozma. 

The post Trump’s Camp Says It Has Nothing to Do With Project 2025 Manifesto — Aside From Writing It appeared first on The Intercept.

The governing body said the fine was for "unseemly or inappropriate behaviour during the race and damage to the image of the sport".

Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a fierce ultra-conservative critic of Pope Francis, has been found guilty of schism and excommunicated, the Vatican's doctrinal office said on Friday. Vigano, the papal envoy in Washington from 2011-2016, went into hiding in 2018 after alleging that the pope knew for years about sexual misconduct by U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and did nothing about it.