Europe may soon face a new wave of the migration crisis. Since the beginning of the year, the influx has reached a record for all six years – almost 200 000 illegal border crossings of EU countries.
Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants from Africa and the Middle East calling themselves the “Convoy of Light” are approaching the Turkish city of Edirne. And it looks impressive.
The caravan of migrants formed a few weeks ago.Information is that tonight they are preparing to storm the border with Greece, and then move north through the Balkans. The final destination is the countries of Western Europe, mainly Germany.
They say this is just the beginning: in total, up to ten such “convoys” can be formed this fall…EU can thank the USA for this for creating so much conflicts in those regions…EU should soon say “thank you” to the USA for creating the energy crisis in EU…
More videos attesting to the authenticity of the migratory assault on Europe.
Acrowd of migrants decided to storm the border with Bulgaria from Edirne. The Turkish police are trying to direct the flow precisely at the Greek border.
🇮🇷 Protests in Iran. What is behind the riots in the country? Mass unrest continues in Iran for the ninth day. In many Iranian cities, the rebels are trying to create chaos and anarchy. The most intense clashes with law enforcement agencies are taking place in provinces with a predominantly Azerbaijani and Kurdish population.
🔻What is happening now?
▪️Representatives of the opposition, first of all, members of the Organization of the Mujahideen of the Iranian People (OMIN) banned in Iran, together with the Kurdish groups Kumele and the Democratic Party of Iraqi Kurdistan, are trying to ignite the conflict and unleash a full-scale revolution using the media.
▪️Western media and politicians from Europe and the USA actively help them in this. Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi “the butcher of Tehran” and criticized Joe Biden for inviting Raisi to a meeting of the UN General Assembly. At the same time, Pompeo met with UMIN leader Maryam Rajavi in Albania in May.
▪️Anti-government channels use disinformation and ignorance of the Persian language by the majority of the population of Western countries to publish false information, including about the transition of military personnel and law enforcement officers to the side of the protesters and the loss of control over some cities.
▪️The Iranian government is jamming the Internet to extinguish the unrest. During hours of special protest activity (after the working day), access to the network slows down. The Internet is not completely blocked yet.
▪️ US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the US will provide free Internet access for “democracy supporters in Iran.” We are talking about the Starlink satellite Internet, the launch of which in Iranian territory was announced by the head of the American company SpaceX, Elon Musk.
▪️The Iranian leadership has begun using the regular forces of the Army and the IRGC to fight riots and rebellions. Tear gas, stun guns, batons are used against protesters, and small arms are used in the cities of violent clashes.
▪️According to government media, more than 700 people were detained, of which 60 were women. Opposition media are talking about more than 100 deaths during the eight days of protests.
▪️In addition, the IRGC artillery attacked the positions of the Kumele militants in the border regions of Iran with Iraqi Kurdistan.
🔻 What are the prospects? Despite the fact that the protests do not subside, the situation is under relative control. The disinformation about establishing control over cities and administrative buildings dispersed by the opposition information centers is not true. The authorities have not yet used regular troops to suppress the riots, which means that the situation is still far from a critical level. Law enforcement forces are still coping with the situation. Most of the country’s population still supports the state system.
Demonstrations were held in major Iranian cities in support of Ayatollah Khamenei and President Raisi. However, the propaganda published by various media, including the Soros Foundation and various Ukrainian sources, indicates a serious intention to shake Iran from within and overthrow the current authorities by force.
Turning off the Internet in the future to combat disinformation will deprive opponents of the power of coordinates and communications. However, this is not enough: in the future, this will actually be leveled by the satellite Internet from SpaceX.
The Iranian leadership needs to address the current crisis as soon as possible. The conflict de facto froze at one stage, and the opposition is unable to transfer it into the format of a civil war.
Nevertheless, attempts will continue: due to its geographical position, Iran today is too convenient a place to wreak havoc in the Middle East. If the situation in Iran can be shaken up to a full-fledged civil war, then all neighboring countries will be hooked. Large resolution map Russian version
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke at the 77th UN General Assembly on Saturday, explaining Russia’s stance on key international issues, including Moscow’s relationship with the West and the ongoing conflict with Ukraine. After delivering his speech, Lavrov gave a big press conference on the UNGA sidelines.
Russia’s security proposals “arrogantly” rejected by the West
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is largely a result of the inability of the collective West to negotiate with Russia and address its security concerns, Lavrov told the UNGA. All the repeated attempts to establish the rules of co-existence made by Moscow have been ignored, he said.
“We have repeatedly proposed over the years to agree on the rules for coexistence in Europe based on the principle of equal and indivisible security, approved at the highest level of OSCE documents. We made our last proposal to make this principle legally binding in December 2021, to which we received an arrogant refusal,” Lavrov stated.
Ukraine is expendable for the US
Ukraine has become a mere tool for Washington to maintain its global dominance and target Russia, the top diplomat believes.
“It is evident to any unbiased observer: For the Anglo-Saxons, who have completely subjugated Europe, Ukraine is simply expendable material in the fight against Russia. NATO declared our country a direct threat on the path to total US dominance, and named China as a long-term strategic challenge,” Lavrov told the UNGA.
The minister further elaborated on the matter at the press conference after his speech, stating that Moscow already views the US and its NATO bloc as parties to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Recently, Ukrainian military has admitted that the Pentagon chooses its targets, he explained.
“What is this if not a direct participation in aiming of deadly weapons and participation in the war?” Lavrov asked.
Referendums in breakaway Ukrainian regions are in line with Kiev’s wishes
Russia’s top diplomat also touched upon the ongoing referendums in the Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) People’s Republics, as well as in the Russian-controlled parts of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. While the vote has already triggered a “tantrum” in Ukraine and in the West, with the G7 vowing even more anti-Russian sanctions, the referendums are actually fully in line with Kiev’s wishes, Lavrov suggested.
The people living there are essentially only reacting to what President Zelensky recommended for them to do in one of his interviews in August 2021. Back then, he advised everyone who feels Russian to ‘go to Russia’ for the benefit of their children and grandchildren. That’s what the residents of said regions are doing now, taking their lands, on which their ancestors lived for centuries, with them.
US exceptionalism has reached ‘godlike’ level
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington’s strive for global domination and exceptionalism has reached an unprecedented height, resulting in multiple aggressive wars and claiming lives of “many hundreds of thousands” of people worldwide, Lavrov stated.
“Having proclaimed victory in the Cold War, Washington elevated itself almost to the rank of the messenger of God on earth, with no obligations, but only ‘sacred’ rights to act with impunity, as it pleases and anywhere,” Lavrov said.
Any nation can fall victim to Washington’s ambitions should it somehow anger the “self-styled masters of the world,” Lavrov warned. That fate has befallen the people of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and other countries, he added.
EU is sliding into a dictatorship
The EU, while being “subjugated” by the US, is showing the same symptoms of exceptionalism and arrogance, Lavrov believes. The minister recalled fresh remarks by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who threatened Italy with consequences should right-wing candidates sweep to power, as indicated by polls, in Sunday’s election.
“This is arrogance, sense of impunity, exceptionalism. Only they have the right to make judgments. What Mrs. von der Leyen said about the Italian elections was astounding,”Lavrov told reporters, adding that he did not recall such threats made by an EU leader before.
“The European Union, in principle, is becoming an authoritarian, rigid, dictatorial entity,”the top diplomat said.
End of unipolar world is coming
Despite all the effort made by the US, its era of dominance is ending and the unipolar world is crumbling, Lavrov said. He added that the future of the world order is being decided now. The question is whether said order will be with “one hegemon, forcing everyone to live according to its notorious ‘rules’ that are beneficial only to itself,” or will be a truly “democratic, just world without blackmail and intimidation of objectionable people, without neo-Nazism and neo-colonialism,” the diplomat said, adding that Moscow firmly stands by the second option.
“However, objective geopolitical processes are seen by Washington and the ruling elites of Western countries, completely submitted to [the US], as a threat to their dominant position,” Lavrov stated.
For background, the Boston school system had for many years grappled with the problem of how to assign students to Boston’s public schools that could both let children attend one of the few good schools in the system while also finding one close to their homes. They also wanted to ensure that students from poor neighborhoods had the same chance of attending good schools as those from more affluent neighborhoods. The school system was divided into zones where many students were bused far from home but still attended the lower-quality schools. A newly-appointed 27-member committee tried yet again to find a solution but after months of examination and debate became hopelessly entangled in what were largely irrelevancies, and again could find no solution. But a 24-year-old Chinese student named Peng Shi who was in a Ph.D. program at MIT and who was looking for a thesis topic, attended the meetings, asked a few questions and gave them the obvious solution of eliminating their school zones and applying a different model for selection. After some study, the committee voted overwhelmingly to adopt Shi’s model, calling it “a breakthrough moment” for Boston’s school system.
According to an NYT article reporting on the event: “That it took a dispassionate outsider with … no political agenda to formulate the model is a measure of the complexities facing urban school districts today”, but that is a baldly dishonest statement. Yes, it took a ‘dispassionate outsider with no political agenda’ to solve the problem, but the problem was not “a measure of the complexities facing American school districts” but one more indication that (a) creativity, independent thinking, problem-solving and all the other good words do not in fact exist in the US educational system, and (b) adult Americans really are dumber than the average human.
After multiple repeated attempts over many months, the solution was not only not obvious but non-existent, to the 27 adult American “educators” who “lead the world in innovation and critical thinking”. But after only 30 minutes the solution was obvious to Shi, a 24-year-old Chinese kid, a rote-learning robot whose educational system taught him only to memorise and not to think, who knew only how to produce high scores but not to apply any knowledge, someone with no creativity and no imagination.[2][3]
We know all the criticisms. China’s children are taught only to memorise and not to think or question. They are rote-learning robots without capacity for original thought. They know only how to produce high scores but not to think. They have no creativity, no imagination, no concept of innovation. The classes are too large; there is no individual attention paid to students. The entire Chinese educational system is corrupt and failing. But this is all nonsense, yet one more foolish myth propagated by the Americans. There has never been any evidence to document such claims which, like so many others, are fabricated solely on an imaginary moral superiority.
America Leads the World. Or Does it?
The quality of American education, as we will see, is far lower than the world has been led to believe, and the quality in China is in many cases much superior to that in the US. Americans might care to ask why it is that Chinese elementary or high school students moving to the US are often promoted by one or two grades. The reason is that they know so much more than their American counterparts they would suffer terminal boredom if forced to remain at their prior grade level.
If we refer to the PISA tests, Shanghai’s math scores were 119 above the OECD average, or the equivalent of nearly three years of schooling, with reading and science exceeding the OECD average by about 1.5 years of schooling. And in some cases, the American students were behind the OECD average by approximately the same number of years as the Chinese were ahead.[4][5]
The myth persists that the US has always led the world in quality of education, but this is nothing more than branding propaganda and part of the indoctrination process of American moral superiority that is wholly unsupported by facts. Consider this quote from an American education expert:
“The US has never been first in the world, nor even near the top, on any international tests. Consistently over the past half century, American students have typically scored near the median at best, but most often being in the bottom quartile. The historical record indicates that American elementary students are only average at best, their performance degrading year by year until high school seniors perform last in almost all international tests. The International Science Studies that began in high schools in the late 1960s and early 1970s found that 14-year-olds were below average and seniors scored last of all countries. In the International Mathematics tests that began in the 1960s, American high school seniors scored last of all nations. In the 1982 International Mathematics Study, high school seniors placed at the bottom on almost every test. In terms of the PISA tests, American students – placing last – are simply following the pattern that has been consistent for the past 50 years or more.”[5a][6][7]
The National Assessment of Education Progress, or NAEP — called the Nation’s Report Card — is an exam given to fourth-grade and eighth-grade students throughout the country by the National Center for Education Statistics, a branch of the U.S. Department of Education. Only 36 percent of fourth-grade students and 34 percent of eighth-grade students in 2015 scored high enough to be considered proficient or above in reading. In math, 40 percent of fourth-grade students and 33 percent of eighth-grade students scored proficient or above. Many experts have stated that Americans are “uneducated to a degree unmatched by many third-world countries”.[8]
Recent tests in the New York area show that less than half of all students are proficient in English and Math, and in some areas the number is as low as 13%. This is true in most of the country, literacy being marginal in most American secondary schools. In an article published in the San Jose Mercury in 2001, it was documented that 75% of California high school seniors could not read well enough to pass their exit exams.
A quote from one news report: “In October of 2013 a new global report issued by the OECD found that Americans ranked well below the worldwide average in just about every measure of skill. In math, reading, and technology-driven problem-solving , the United States performed worse than nearly every other country… The US would have looked even worse if China had been included in this study. In basic literacy – the ability to understand and use basic written text – 80% of Americans reached only a level 2 out of 5. And in math and numerical proficiency, using numbers in daily life, they are worse … and 10% scored below level 1. Technological literacy and ability were worse too. In problem-solving in a technological environment and the use of “cognitive skills required to solve problems”, the Americans were at the bottom.” And that bottom is in math, vocabulary, language usage and technology, with Chinese students far surpassing the Americans even when using a language that is not their own.[9][10]
In early 2014 the Washington Times reported that new studies and the results of the recent SAT tests demonstrate conclusively that the vast majority of America’s 2012 high school graduates aren’t ready for college, and SAT scores have plummeted to their lowest level in more than 40 years. The results of the exams, released by the College Board, revealed that only about 39% of students planning to attend university are in any way prepared for the world of higher education. More than 60% displayed functional illiteracy by failing the reading portion of the test, with only a slightly better result on math and writing, which means most US university students will achieve C or D grades at best, and that a great many will either fail or be falsely graduated without merit or knowledge. And the dropout rates are fierce. In Washington DC, the nation’s capital, almost 70% of college students fail to graduate.[11][12]
The solution was to abandon the SAT tests for college entry.
I deleted this paragraph, then decided to re-insert it because the topic irritated me. We’re dealing with the English language, and listening to a senior American educator, a Ph.D. from Harvard, explaining why only 39% of all students who took the SAT college admissions test scored well enough to be deemed ready for college. In her little media sound-byte, she said this fact showed American educators where they needed to “hone in”. The correct expression is “to home in on”, as with a homing device, to focus on or bring us to the correct place, in fact to take us home. To “hone” is to sharpen, as to hone a blade, but for Americans who don’t – or can’t – read, the sound is similar and sloppy carelessness accounts for the rest. Critics pounced on this, but she and other ‘educators’ defended such a foolish error by claiming that language is alive and fluid, and it changes. To make matters worse, another shining light, this one an education expert from Duke University, informed us that our criticisms of poor-quality education (and educators) would likely “snuff out democracy”.
In spite of all the branding propaganda and rhetoric, the decreasing quality of American education is well-known in the West. It is not a secret that for many decades the US has been “dumbing-down” its education at all levels, consistently reducing government funding to result in fewer teachers, larger classrooms, poorer facilities, lower salaries and teacher quality, and steadily decreasing learning. One need only do a quick Internet search to find hundreds of studies and alarmed reports of the greatly-deteriorated quality of American education. As John Kozy noted, “In fact, piles of evidence reveal that Americans are getting dumber. People who have graduated from high school since the pocket calculator was invented can’t calculate in their heads, not even simple addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Many people addicted to the Internet have difficulty reading anything more complicated than a tweet”.
The propaganda machine focuses heavily on the mythical superiority of the American education system, but Americans haven’t the critical thinking skills needed to see through the lies presented to them. One author pointed out that American public schooling grinds away at children until they graduate with little creativity or curiosity, stating further that “Such people will never be informed citizens, and most could care less”. All of this has been heavily researched and documented by John Gatto, who was nominated as Teacher of the Year for New York State and New York City, and who has since left teaching, claiming he was no longer willing to harm children by teaching them in the US public school system.[13]
In 2013, Jeff Schweitzer wrote an article in the UK Guardian titled ‘God created gravity’, in which he deplored the sad state of American education, to quite an extent blaming religion for the lack of intelligent focus, with subjects like science still in the 17th century in US schools. He said that while the rest of the world is becoming educated, Americans spend their time discussing how exceptional and awesome they are, with the result that Americans are number one only in delusion. “Steeped in this wasteland of scientific illiteracy we march ever further toward a theocracy … twisting history to indoctrinate our children with stories about god and gravity”, with educational debates, like all others based on faith rather than logic. He wrote that the only way for Americans to support any position they hold is to simply assert their supremacy as loudly as possible, reduced to childlike tantrums of “I’m right, you’re wrong, I win.”[14]
Because American schools do not demand critical thinking and problem-solving from students starting at a young age, the students are lost in university classrooms when they are years behind and struggling with the basics of reading and understanding. Many US educators complain that fewer than one-quarter of their students have any proficiency at all in basic skills like math and reading comprehension, that they are never taught original ideas or methods of learning that will prepare them for higher education. One educator claimed, “My former teachers simply did not push me to think past a basic level, to apply concepts, to move beyond memorizing facts and figures.” And of course the students feel the pressure acutely. One first-year university student said, “I basically thought I was stupid. I just felt like, What’s wrong with me? Maybe I’m not meant to be here.” Another said, “You can’t make it in college by yourself. You just need all the help you can get.” One student who felt blessed by having a good teacher in her final year in high school said, “I feel like it was too late. It just wasn’t enough to have that kind of teacher for one year.”[15]
And it isn’t only the students who are in this position. The New York Post ran an interesting article titled, “US adults are dumber than the average human“, which stated in part, “It’s long been known that America’s school kids haven’t measured well compared with international peers.[16]
Now, there’s a new twist: Adults don’t either. In math, reading and problem-solving using technology – all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength – American adults scored below the international average on a global test.” The studies also found that it was much more difficult on average to overcome the lack of knowledge, literacy and other barriers in the United States, than in other nations.
The article continued, “It’s not just the kids who require more and more preparation to get access to the economy, it’s more and more the adults don’t have the skills to stay in it. Americans scored toward the bottom in the category of problem solving in a technology rich environment, even in skills such as using a mouse”, creating a kind of “underclass – a large group of people who are basically unemployable“. And again, “A quarter of all Americans never become proficient in math. In Shanghai and Korea, the comparable figure is about 6%. Some 7% of US students reached the top two scientific performance levels, compared with an amazing 27% in Shanghai.”[17][18][19]
Rick Shenkman wrote an interesting and enlightening article titled ‘Just How Stupid Are We?’, in which he wrote “Americans generally do not seem to absorb what it is that they are reading and hearing and watching. Americans cannot even name the leaders of their own government. The error can be traced to our mistaking unprecedented access to information with the actual consumption of it.” He said that in the postwar period, social scientists began to systematically measure what Americans actually knew, and even back then the results of their displayed ignorance were devastating. He further claimed that surveys showed Americans’ level of ignorance remaining constant over time, and that by some measures “Americans are dumber today than their parents of a generation ago. Young people … know less today than young people forty years ago.”[20][20a] [21]
The situation is so bad that in 2003, when the Strategic Task Force on Education investigated Americans’ knowledge of world affairs, they concluded that “Americans’ ignorance … is so great as to constitute a threat to national security.”
But according to the NYT‘s resident jack-of-all-trades Paul Krugman, if you had to “express the greatness of the United States in one word, that word would be ‘education’.” Other more knowledgeable and competent people disagree with Krugman. Donald Kagan, a former president of Yale University gave a final speech in 2013 in which he said that American universities were failing their students, that the curricula were inappropriate and were “unfocused and scattered”, the campuses “a kind of cultural void, with an ignorance of the past”, and that “faculty with atypical views” were rare. Perhaps most importantly, Kagan said, “At the university, there must be intellectual variety. If you don’t have [that], it’s not only that you are deprived of knowing some of the things you might know. It’s that you are deprived of testing the things that you do know or do think you know or believe in, so that your knowledge is superficial.”[22][23]
The man was precisely correct in this last statement, reflecting one of the hazards today of being an American, the programmed and propagandised uniformity of thought that deprives Americans of any way to test the validity of their (mostly) foolish beliefs. Such regimented and incessant propaganda provides a uniform reinforcement of ideology, creating impenetrable boundaries of the mind. The simple-minded adherence to a single ideology narrows one’s views and cripples the ability to think clearly or critically. As one author wrote, “a closely adhered-to ideology becomes a mental locality with limits and borders just as real as those of geography. In fact, if we consider (American) nationalism a pervasive modern ideology, there is a direct connection between the boundaries induced in the mind and those on the ground.”[24]
Karl Weiss wrote an excellent and perceptive article that was published in Germany’s Berliner Umschau in October of 2009; I will quote some of his observations here. He began with the decrepit American educational system, stating “.. the education system in America is unlike that of almost any other industrialized country. Free education is available only at primary and secondary levels; beyond that, community and technical colleges and universities are so expensive that children in lower socioeconomic classes have little chance of attending unless they are “gifted” and get scholarships. The education provided by the public school system is often so inferior that graduates who can’t afford better schooling have little chance of ever getting the knowledge and skills necessary to lead fulfilling lives. Instead, the focus is on producing nationalistic dimwits who know nothing but their own country.”
He went on to say that one result is a deeply divided society with the capitalists and bankers on one side and the uneducated and lower class on the other, resulting in what he called “a society of force so shot through with violence that any other value has little or no meaning”, and with everything rooted in the Christianity-based black and white dog-eat-dog competition that creates only winners and losers. Weiss’ allegation of “nationalistic dimwits” is not only accurate for the US educational system, but the process is universal throughout the nation. Educational materials in the US are largely propaganda tools, intended not to educate but to indoctrinate.
In the wonderfully disingenuous but disturbing manner of propagandising in which Americans excel, one educational website made the following claim: “While lawyers, doctors, and teachers typically complete additional schoolwork, computer programmers, nurses, and automotive technicians may be qualified with only one or two years of study”.
Doctors “typically” complete “additional schoolwork”? That sounds like some, but not all, medical students doing a bit of extra homework at the Grade Three level, but doctors in most countries need an undergrad degree plus an additional four years of grueling medical training to become an M.D., and yet this is being equated with an auto mechanic who may be qualified with only one year of study. This re-categorisation may appear trivial to the casual reader, but this anti-intellectual linguistic magic is reprogramming Americans with a much-denigrated appreciation of a university education. Now, an American hairdresser and manicurist is trained to the same level of competence as a gynecologist – except for the bit of “additional schoolwork”. And only in the US can a nurse be “qualified” with only one year of study. Many countries require a 4-year nursing degree.
The amount of mythological propaganda and marketing surrounding American education is stunning. Shailendra Raj Mehta, a visiting professor at Duke University, wrote one of the most nonsensical articles I have seen in years, titled ‘The secret of Harvard’s Success’, in which he wrote “No country dominates any industry as much as the United States dominates higher education”.According to him, in a ranking of world universities, 17 of the world’s 20 best universities are American, with Harvard topping the list by a substantial margin, a feat he attributes to “America’s innovative governance model for higher education“. I have no idea what that would be, but it can’t be good. As I’ve detailed elsewhere, Harvard was established by the Puritans as a religious training camp to produce missionaries for their heresies, not to “educate” anybody. And, as with all rankings everywhere, the Americans choose the game, set all the parameters, lay down the rules, decide the scoring system, then win the game. And the US media promote this nonsensical propaganda literally to the ends of the earth. American universities are not ranked so highly because they are the best; it’s because the Americans determined the ranking rules so they would come out on top.
In fact, in a recent, more intelligent and less-biased, examination of higher education systems, China ranked ninth, six places above the US. Universitas 21, a group of 27 research-intensive universities from around the world, created an international ranking system of educational quality based on national purchasing power. A leading Universitas researcher said that despite a relatively low per capita income, China had made a “phenomenal” investment in its top universities, resulting in Chinese universities now being “serious players” in research and other fields.
Here is an excerpt written by Sarah Brown, taken from Canada’s Globe and Mail, in response to an NYT article about Harvard students always receiving A grades:
“Having attended both Harvard and the University of Toronto, I can state that there are two differences between the schools: Harvard is much more difficult to get into, whereas the University of Toronto is much more difficult to get out of – with a degree and decent grades, that is. At Harvard, undergraduates have to take only four full-time courses per year to earn a degree, and they have a longer school year in which to prepare for their exams. At U of T, five full-time courses must be taken, and the school year is much more condensed. The atmosphere at Harvard is quite “country-clubish” and leisurely, while at U of T it is a downright pressure-cooker. At U of T there is an unwritten policy that 20 per cent of the students in every class will receive a failing grade. At Harvard, most students receive a minimum of A- grades. In fact, to receive anything less than a B, one would have to miss exams and not hand in assignments. As far as getting into Harvard goes, the most significant factor is whether or not you are a so-called “legacy,” meaning that if your father, mother, or sibling went to Harvard before you, you can still get in, as hundreds do, with mediocre high school grades. I’m not surprised that current Harvard students feel that they deserve A’s for their $100,000 investment; if they were forced to compete with students at the U of T, many would receive only C’s at best.” And many would fail.
Dumber Than the Average Human
When I was a university student, there were Americans at my school who had obtained B.A. degrees from UCLA with majors in – and I am not kidding – basket-weaving and ceramics. In America, that’s called an education. Basket-weaving. That’s about the same being granted a Master’s degree if you can learn to knit a sweater. At around the same time, a US polling firm did a nation-wide study and discovered, among other things, that a full 75% of Americans could not find their own country on a map of the world. Similar studies have been repeated many times since then, with essentially the same results among adults and students at all levels including university: about 75% of Americans couldn’t find either their country or Canada. One of the most famous references to this astonishing level of American ignorance occurred on US national television during a Miss Teen USA pageant when one of the finalists, Miss South Carolina, Caitlin Upton, was asked why most Americans couldn’t find their country on a world map. Here is her answer, which was posted on YouTube and received more than 40 million views.
“I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the US should help the US, uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children.”[25]
If that doesn’t tell you what you need to know about the quality of American education, I don’t know what would. It isn’t only the ignorance, but the obvious functional illiteracy of such a person, that is so stunning.[26]
The American media flood the nation and the world with the most astonishing propaganda and fabricated fairy-tales about the quality of the nation’s education. The US used to boast that it had the highest percentage of population with university degrees. I don’t know if that claim was ever true, but it eventually became false so the Americans moved the goalposts. Now, in all the statistics, including those by the US government itself, anyone with almost any kind of accreditation above High School, perhaps including even a hairdressing or lawn maintenance diploma – which they call an “associate degree” is listed as a college graduate.
Similarly, the US claims the highest level of literacy in the world – 99%.Truly enviable. But then, reading the small print at the end of a recent highly-regarded “definitive study” purporting to document American educational supremacy, what do we find? Just as with its economic statistics and every other comparison the US produces, we discover manipulated and falsified data. In these so-called studies produced by the US government and its educational institutions, the Americans simply misrepresented the facts so they could place themselves at the top of the list. In the case of functional literacy, the US position is this:
“For highly developed or high-income countries where literacy statistics were not collected, a rate of 99% was assumed.”
We might legitimately ask why the Americans didn’t bother to collect statistics. The reason is that in all studies, researchers have found the rate of functional illiteracy in the US is almost 25% of the total population, with the illiteracy rate for adults in many American cities like Detroit having been documented at almost 50%, a very long way from the fictional 99% literacy ‘assumed’, and in many other major cities like New York large swathes of the population read below a grade three level and have no math or other skills. The highly-regarded National Adult Literacy Survey found a total of almost 25%, or about 50 million of the 200 million American adults functioning at the lowest literacy level. In basic literacy – the ability to understand and use basic written text – 80% of Americans reached only a level 2 out of 5. It is so bad that 75% of the Fortune 500 companies have to provide some level of remedial training for their workers – a large number of whom are college graduates.[27]
Countless books and academic studies have been produced on the severe literacy problem in America, but the media ignore these facts and continue, like Paul Krugman, to feed the world the foolish utopian claim that the US is a world leader in education when nothing could be farther from the truth.
More than 25% of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth, but one US columnist wrote that this wasn’t really a bad thing. He claimed, “Firstly, the great majority of humans throughout history have believed this. Secondly, it’s not a problem that impinges on the daily life of anyone. We should pick co-ordinates for convenience, not dogma.”
Talking to Americans
Canada had a popular TV personality named Rick Mercer, who took a camera crew into the US on a crusade to satirise the true educational level of Americans. One of his trademark programs (on Canada’s CBC network) was called ‘Talking to Americans’, in which he would conduct random interviews with average Americans and tell them outrageous stories about Canada which they would inevitably accept as true. In one show, Mercer told Americans that very old or terminally-ill Canadian citizens are put onto ice floes and just pushed out into the Arctic Ocean to die. He pretended to be collecting signatures for a petition to the Canadian government to stop this practice; the signatures he obtained included those of full professors from Harvard and Yale.
In another, he interviewed George W. Bush (who had previously stated “you can’t stump me on world leaders”), conveying to him compliments from Canada’s Prime Minister Jean Poutine, on Bush’s Presidential candidacy, to which Bush responded with the warmest expressions of heartfelt gratitude.[28][29]
The Prime Minister of Canada was Jean Chretien; “poutine” is a French-Canadian dish of French fries with gravy and melted cheese. Bush was so miffed when the program aired, that Canada’s CBC was banned in the US for years.
In one of his shows, Mercer asked Americans how many sides a triangle had: One victim of American education said, “None. There are no sides in a triangle.” Another said “Four.” He asked them if the movie “Star Wars” were based on a true story; many Americans answered in the affirmative. It was so bad that Mercer claimed “About 80 per cent of the people give me the right answer, by which of course, I mean the wrong answer.” Mercer convinced tourists at Mount Rushmore that the mineral rights to the mountain had been sold to a Canadian firm that was going to drill for oil in Lincoln’s forehead. “Professors at Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, NYU and Stanford University were consistently fooled by [Mercer’s] absurdities.”[30]
It isn’t only Canadians who mock American ignorance and lack of education. The US late-night talk shows often do this kind of thing, ridiculing the fabled ignorance of their own citizens, claiming that they need to speak to only ten or at most twenty Americans to find 5 stupid ones who know nothing – 25%. This is so well-known that in Europe, ‘American’ equals ‘ignorant’, the two adjectives considered equivalent and synonymous.
Ron Unz wrote an excellent and informative article in The American Conservative titled The Myth of American Meritocracy, in which he detailed issues with admission to top US universities, quoting other studies as well, all of which suggest that various preferences and biases, including the role of cash in this process, with most universities, including Harvard, having a ‘cash price’ of admission, meaning that a substantial donation will obtain admittance even for a dim-witted student with no particular ability.[31]
He wrote that the notion of a wealthy family buying their son his entrance into the Grandes Ecoles of France or the top Japanese universities would be an absurdity.” He mentioned China as well, confirming that China’s gaokao is strictly based on merit and has never been corrupted by favoritism, and has been kept “remarkably clean for 1300 years”. He confirmed what many of us already know, that this uncorrupted system may be one reason so many wealthy Chinese send their “dim and lazy” offspring to study in the West. In his words, “enrolling them at a third-rate Chinese university would be a tremendous humiliation, while our own corrupt admissions practices get them an easy spot at Harvard or Stanford, sitting side by side with the children of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and George W. Bush.” One of his final comments was that the admissions process at top American universities operates under the principle of “Ideology and Diversity tempered by Corruption”, not what many Chinese have been led to expect from the propaganda machine.
It should be abundantly obvious that there is no way to reconcile these testimonials and experiences, and countless thousands similar, with claims that the US ‘dominates higher education’, at least not in any positive way. And so, with appropriate apologies to Paul Krugman,for those of you who are desperate to “express the greatness of America in one word”, that word would be “bull****”, not education.
[Mr. Romanoff’s writing ]has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. ([Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons]).
[1] Dr. Andreas Schleicher who was in charge of the PISA test on behalf of OECD, said “While that’s important, for me the real significance of these results is that they refute the commonly held hypothesis that China just produces rote learning. Large fractions of these students extrapolate from what they know and apply their knowledge very CREATIVELY in novel situations. In my opinion, it’s the American k-12 education which has failed miserably in teaching the American students the solid basics, has to be reformed.”
He also added this: “I have no respect for a large number of the Chinese students who come to U.S. for UNDERGRADUATE study. Most of these students are from well-off families and academically too weak to get into decent Chinese colleges. The real smart Chinese students are the ones who finish their undergraduate education in China and come to the U.S. for graduate study and beyond.”
[15]Only 25 Per Cent of All Americans Go to College and Only 16 Per Cent of These Actually Try to Learn Anything. The Unz Review; Alexander Cockburn • March 23, 2012;
[23] On November 18, 2015, Christopher Ingraham wrote in the Washington Post that Ben Carson’s presidential campaign inadvertently underscored this point Tuesday night, when it took to social media to share a map of the United States in which five New England states were placed in the wrong location.
[26]In another televised beauty pageant, a high school girl was asked to explain a quote by Confucius. In response, she said: “Confucius was one of the men who invented confusion.”
[27]An article in Forbes magazine stated that “America’s Millennials Are Among the World’s Least Skilled”. Specifically, they are short on literacy, numeracy, ability to follow simple orders, poor at solving problems.
One thing that seems to be missed by some commentators, is that the US military is extremely good at killing people, on or off the battlefield.They suck at nation building, or more likely, use peacekeeping and nation building as a low intensity way to prop up the MIC.Just a note, as some equate the failure in Afghanistan and Iraq to lack of lethality.
It’s giving away your data to US intelligence agencies. And these are not mere words, on November 29, 2021, the US media declassified a document on what kind of data is given away by which messenger.
WA gives away your metadata every 15 minutes, including who you’ve texted, or called. Who is in the same chats with you and when you text there. That’s a lot even without the content of the messages themselves. In fact, the intelligence services can monitor you online, who you text and when, and if you back up your WA to iCloud or Google Drive, they get all your messages too. As the cooperation on warrants is established with them too. Yes, everything is on warrants, but writing a warrant for an enemy of the state? Not a problem.
What about Telegram? Terrorism warrants will only give away your phone number and IP address. Much more modest, not critical.
WA is leaky. There was a great story in the media about how the Israeli commercial company NSO Group sold a special spy virus (Pegasus) to intelligence agencies around the world, working through hacking of WA. It targeted prominent journalists, politicians, and businessmen, including the world’s richest man at the time, Jeff Bezos. The CIA and NSA try to look for such vulnerabilities themselves, and if they find them, they try to keep them secret. If they repeat the successes of their Israeli colleagues, the WA on your phone will turn into a full-fledged spy, and leak all the data they have access to (geolocation, photos, correspondence, files).
WhatsApp may agree to “not shut down the vulnerability for a while due to a requirement of the authorities”, they are affiliated. The hacking story is real, the vulnerability was fixed after the scandal, and the author of these lines read the technical details of how this spyware works.
No such serious vulnerabilities were found in Telegram. No spyware was spread through it. Telegram’s code is open and has been scrutinized more thoroughly by experts around the world.
When there’s nothing to lose and the White House’s pressure on the company is exceptionally strong, WA could be turned into full-fledged spyware. To do that, just release an update. Yes, it will be seen all over the world by researchers, but a lot of invaluable data will be collected in the meantime. WA will lose its reputation in individual countries, but the western media will support its “help against dreaded Russia”. It’s entirely possible, it won’t ruin the company, but it’s far from a core product.
Telegram? The White House has no such leverage on them.
Popular conservative political commentator Jordan Peterson has tried to get into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s head and predict how Russia’s conflict with the West in Ukraine will unfold. Peterson said that if he were the Russian president he would leave the EU without energy supplies in the winter.
“I know what I’d do in his shoes,” he said on the Piers Morgan Uncensored show on Thursday. “I’d wait till the first cold snap and shut off the taps.”
Peterson was referring to supplies of Russian natural gas to EU nations. He argued that Moscow indirectly warned that a full shutdown would happen when Russian gas giant Gazprom started curtailing deliveries through the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany, citing maintenance issues.
The political commentator declined to endorse a notion popular in the West that Putin resembles Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin in his thinking, calling the claim “foolish” and not backed by any actual evidence.
Putin “is a lot more like everybody else than anyone thinks,” Peterson argued. He added that “there is a bit of Hitler and Stalin in everyone,” before going into an explanation of how accepting government-imposed lies under pressure was part of human nature.
“The totalitarian state is actually the grip of the lie. And people would certainly go along with that. We’ve seen this emerge with [the] cancel culture. It’s like ‘Lie! Or else!’,” he said.
He mocked the idea that Ukraine and its Western backers could “win” against Russia as “naïve.”
“I just don’t understand that. What do you mean we are going to win? What are we going to win exactly?” he demanded.
The Russian government, Peterson believes, would consider simply devastating Ukraine an acceptable outcome, if no better alternative can be achieved. And the West would not be able to stop it due to Russia’s role as a global supplier of energy, he argued.
“We can’t win against Vladimir Putin in any way because you cannot win against someone you cannot say ‘no’ to. Period. And we can’t say ‘no’ to Putin because we sold our soul for his oil and gas,” he said.
“And we did that to elevate our moral stature in relation to ‘saving the planet.’ And here we are, facing a very dire winter, hoisted on the petard of our very own foolishness and moral presumption,” he added.
Peterson was referring to the concern that humanity was facing an existential threat due to climate change, a threat that he believes to be exaggerated. The unintended consequences of the West’s conflict with Russia are a far more imminent and real threat to humans, he pointed out, as “the World Bank already estimated that we’ve put 350 million people into what they call ‘food insecurity’.”
“But the planet has too many people on it anyway, so, you know… It’s just poor people,”he added.
Peterson is a Canadian psychology professor who rose to international prominence over his commentaries on various contemporary issues, such as transgender acceptance policies in the West, the role of Christianity in cultures originating in Europe, and geopolitical conflicts. His YouTube channel has over 5.5 million subscribers.
The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which proclaimed their independence from Ukraine in 2014, announced their plans to hold referendums to join Russia on September 19. The administrations of the Russian-controlled parts of Kherson and Zaporozhye regions announced similar plans the following day.
Referendums on accession to Russia in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), as well as Russian-controlled parts of the regions of Kherson and Zaporozhye are to run from 23 to 27 September.
On February 21, Russia recognized the DPR and LPR as independent states. Russian president Vladimir Putin announced the start of a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24 in response to calls for help from the two breakaway republics, whose predominantly Russian-speaking population faced intensifying attacks on the part of Kiev. The nationalist regime that came to power on the back of a West-backed coup in 2014 had killed thousands of civilians over the course of eight years, with all attempts to resolve the conflict peacefully, promoted by Russia, foiled by Ukrainian officials.
In the course of the operation, significant areas of the DPR and the entire territory of the LPR were liberated. Russian forces also took control of the Kherson region and the Azov part of the Zaporozhye region, with new administrations formed in both regions. Since then, Russian TV channels and radio stations have begun broadcasting there, and trade and transport links with Crimea are being restored.
The DPR and LPR announced their plans on September 20 to simultaneously hold referendums to join Russia following the respective requests from their Civil Councils. The Russian-controlled parts of the regions of Zaporozhye and Kherson also announced plans for holding similar referendums, hoping that the initiative would result in securing the territories of the region, opening “new opportunities for a return to a full-fledged peaceful life.”
According to Volodymyr Rogov, a member of the civic council of the Zaporozhye region, the area of the liberated territories where the referendums will be held is about 113,000 square kilometers. After the accession referendums held by the LPR, DPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, the population of Russia could potentially increase by five to six million people.
Here is a detailed look at the areas, which are determining their future.
Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR)
The Donetsk People’s Republic (within the borders of the Donetsk region) is situated in the south of the East European Plain. Washed by the Sea of Azov from the south, it borders on Ukraine (Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporozhye and Kharkov regions), Russia and the Lugansk People’s Republic.
The area of the territory (within the borders of the Donetsk region) is 26.5 thousand square kilometers. According to the Main Department of Statistics of the DPR, as of March 1, 2022, the population is estimated to be about 2.198 million people. The DPR is a presidential republic, with Donetsk, Makeevka, Gorlovka its three largest cities.
The city of Donetsk grew from a mining settlement in the early 1860s. It received city status in May 1917, and at the end of that year, Soviet power was established in the city during the revolution.
From January / February – March 1918, Donetsk was part of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). At the second All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets on March 17-19, 1918, it was incorporated within the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. After the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty on March 3, 1918, between the new Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers (German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), that ended Russia’s participation in World War I, Donetsk was occupied by German troops at the end of April 1918. Until the end of 1918 the city remained part of the Ukrainian state of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky. In December 1919, during an offensive launched by the Red Army, Soviet power was restored in Donetsk.
Ruins at the WWII memorial on Saur-Mogila hill in Donetsk. The memorial was destroyed in heavy fighting between Donbass militias and Ukrainian forces in 2014.
From the end of the 19th century, the region experienced an industrial boom, with metallurgical and machine-building plants, railways, and mines built. On July 2, 1932, the Donetsk region was formed as part of the Ukrainian SSR. On June 3, 1938, it was split into the Stalin and Voroshilovgrad (now Lugansk) regions.
During World War II (The Great Patriotic War), on October 20, 1941, Donetsk was occupied by German troops. 92,000 people are estimated to have died in the three concentration camps set up by the fascists in the city and surrounding areas. On September 8, 1943, Donetsk was liberated by Soviet troops during the Donbass offensive operation.
After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the territory that is now the Donetsk People’s Republic found itself a part of Ukraine.
However, in 2014, protests began to erupt in the southeastern regions as people became increasingly dissatisfied with the new leadership of Ukraine, after then-President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in a coup d’etat orchestrated by Washington and Brussels, giving rise to the Ukrainian crisis and sparking a civil war in Donbass.
On April 13, 2014, Acting President of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov announced a “large-scale anti-terrorist operation” involving the army against the predominantly Russian-speaking south-eastern regions.
On May 11, 2014, a referendum on self-determination was held in the Donetsk region amid fears that new nationalist politicians would infringe on their rights to freely use the Russian language. On May 12, on the basis of the declaration of sovereignty of April 7, DPR proclaimed its independence. Besides Russia, the independence of the DPR was recognized by the Lugansk People’s Republic, the Republic of Abkhazia, the Republic of South Ossetia, North Korea and Syria.
Since February 24, 2022, most of the DPR within its administrative boundaries, including the large port city of Mariupol, has been liberated from forces of the Kiev regime.
Throughout its history as a part of Ukraine, the economy of the Donetsk region was predominantly focused on the metallurgical industry, mechanical engineering, chemical and coal industries, electric power, food and light industries.
The DPR has deposits of coal; rock salt; limestones and dolomites; refractory and ceramic clays; kaolin; mercury; asbestos; gypsum; chalk; building and facing stone.
In 2020, the basis of the DPR economy was metallurgy (36%) and electricity generation (27%). The food industry accounted for 12%, resource extraction – for 9%. According to the DPR Ministry of Industry and Trade, the republic’s economy is export-oriented, with its enterprises exporting pig iron, rod iron, rolled steel, coke, pipes, cable and wire. Among the main enterprises are the Yenakievsky Metallurgical Plant, Makeevka Metallurgical Plant, and Yasinovatsky Coke and Chemical Plant.
Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR)
The Lugansk People’s Republic (within the borders of the Luhansk region) is located in the south of the East European Plain, bordering on Ukraine (Kharkov region), Russia and the DPR. The area of the territory is 26.7 thousand square kilometers. The population of the LPR (as of May 1, 2022, according to the State Statistics Committee of the LPR) is about 1.39 million people. The republic’s largest cities are Lugansk, Krasny Luch, Alchevsk.
The city of Lugansk was founded in 1795-1796 as a settlement at the Lugansk iron works, being built by decree of Empress Catherine II. The enterprise was created to provide the Black Sea Fleet and coastal fortresses with guns and shells.
In 1882, the Lugansk Plant was merged with the village of Kamenny Brod into the city of Lugansk – the center of the Slavyanoserbsky district of the Yekaterinoslav province (1882-1920).
On November 8, 1917, Soviet power was established in Lugansk. During the revolution and the Civil War (1917-1922) in April-November 1918, the city was occupied by German and Austrian troops. On December 24, 1919, units of the Red Army finally liberated the city. Over the years, Lugansk has been an administrative, county and district center of the Donetsk province, subsequently the Donetsk region of the Ukrainian SSR.
Lugansk People’s Republic troops in Kharkov region, April 2022
The Lugansk region was formed on June 3, 1938 as the Voroshilovgrad region after it was separated from the Donetsk region. In 1958 it was renamed into Lugansk.
During World War II, on July 17, 1942, Lugansk was occupied by German troops. It was liberated on February 14, 1943 during the Voroshilovgrad offensive operation. After the collapse of the USSR, the territory of what is now the Lugansk People’s Republic became part of Ukraine.
In 2014 the actions of the new leadership of Ukraine stirred the same sentiments across Lugansk territory as in that of Donetsk region, with protests erupting in the southeastern regions of the country. On May 11, 2014, a referendum on self-determination was held in the Lugansk region, and independence was proclaimed on May 12, 2014.
As a result of the Russian special operation launched on February 24, the entire territory of the republic within its administrative boundaries was liberated.
The industrial potential of the Lugansk People’s Republic hinges on heavy industry branches, such as mechanical engineering, chemical, petrochemical, food, woodworking, textile and building materials industries.
In 2021, 73% of LPR exports were metallurgical products, with Krasnodonugol, Rovenkianthracite, and Alchevsk Metallurgical Plant some of the leading enterprises.
Kherson Region
Kherson region, located in the steppe zone, geographically borders in the north with the Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine, with the Crimean peninsula in the south, the Zaporozhye region in the east, and the Nikolayev region of Ukraine in the west.
The total area is 28.5 thousand square kilometers.
The territory is divided by the lower reaches of the Dnieper River into two parts – right-bank and left-bank. Kherson region has access to the Sea of Azov from the southeast and to the Black Sea from the southwest. The Black Sea ports are Kherson and Skadovsk.
Kherson, New Kakhovka, Kakhovka are some of the area’s largest cities.
Empress Catherine II decided to found the city of Kherson on June 29, 1778, on the site of a fortification built by Russian troops during the Russian-Turkish war (1735-1739). In 1785-1794, the administration of the Black Sea Fleet was located in Kherson (in 1794 it was transferred to Nikolaev along with military shipbuilding).
After the revolution, from November 1917 to January 1918, the city was under the control of the authorities of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Soviet power was established at the end of January 1918. During the Civil War of 1917-1922, on March 9-10, 1919, Kherson was captured by the detachments of Ataman Nikolai Grigoriev. On February 3, 1920, it was taken over by units of the Red Army.
Kherson was a county town of Kherson (1920), Nikolaev (1920-1922) and Odessa (1922-1923) provinces of the Ukrainian SSR. Subsequently, Kherson became the district center of the Nikolaev (1937-1944) region of the Ukrainian SSR. During the Great Patriotic War, Kherson was occupied by German troops on September 19, 1941. It was liberated by Soviet troops on March 13, 1944.
The Kherson region was formed on March 30, 1944 by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On the formation of the Kherson region as part of the Ukrainian SSR.”
In pre-revolutionary times, the territory was a typical agrarian region, with industry represented mainly by processing of agricultural raw materials, small shipbuilding and the production of agricultural implements. During the socialist years, Kherson region developed into both an industrial and agrarian region, boasting highly developed machine building, oil refining, light and food industries. The region was provided with electricity by the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station and the Kherson thermal power plant.
In the course of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine Russian troops took control of the Kherson region.
Zaporozhye Region
Zaporozhye region borders on Kherson, Dnepropetrovsk, and Donetsk regions, spanning a territory of 27.2 thousand square kilometers. It is divided into three natural and agricultural zones: the steppe zone (50.8%), arid steppe (34.8%) and dry steppe (14.4%) zones.
The southern borders of the region are washed by the Sea of Azov, the coastline of which within the boundaries of the region exceeds 300 kilometers.
The large cities of the region are Zaporozhye, Melitopol, Berdyansk, Tokmak, and Energodar.
The history of Zaporozhye dates back to the 18th century. In 1768, Russian Empress Catherine II launched a war against the Ottoman Empire and in 1770 decided to build the so-called Dnieper defensive line. Seven fortresses from the Dnieper rapids to the Sea of Azov were to offer protection against attacks of the Crimean Tatars.
The northernmost and largest Aleksandrovskaya fortress was named in honor of the commander of the 1st Russian army, Alexander Golitsyn.
After the construction in 1873 of a branch of the railway to Yekaterinoslav (now Dnieper), and then to Sevastopol. Thus, Aleksandrovsk became a hub for the transit of grain through Odessa to Europe.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Aleksandrovsk became a center of mechanical engineering.
During the Civil War (1917-1922) in April-November 1918 Aleksandrovsk was occupied by German-Austrian troops. The city changed hands successively, and in 1919-1920 was captured several times by detachments of Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary Nestor Makhno.
In January 1920, Aleksandrovsk was taken over by units of the Red Army and by 1921 was renamed Zaporozhye. In 1921-1922 it became the center of the Zaporozhye province of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1939 the city became the center of the newly formed Zaporozhye region.
After the construction in 1927-1932 of the DneproGES, the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station, the largest hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper river, Zaporozhye became one of the largest centers of ferrous, non-ferrous metallurgy and energy in the USSR.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the enterprises of the city switched to military production. In 1941-1943 the city was occupied by the German army. During the occupation, over 44 thousand residents died and all industrial buildings were destroyed. The city was liberated from fascists by Soviet troops in 1943. Since 1991, after the dissolution of the USSR, Zaporozhye has been a region of Ukraine.
Zaporozhye region is one of the largest producers of agricultural products and food industry products. At least 12% of wheat and 16% of Ukrainian barley have been cultivated in this region, rich in chernozem, or black soil, containing a high percentage of humus.
Ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, mechanical engineering, energy, chemical and petrochemical, food and light industries, agriculture, and pharmaceutical production are developed in the region. More than 160 large industrial enterprises operate here, including the steel and iron producer “Zaporozhstal.” The region also produces about 25% of Ukraine’s electricity.
The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is located in the city of Energodar. Zaporozhye NPP was built in the 1980s. Since the commissioning of the sixth power unit in 1996, the nuclear power plant has become the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and the third in the world.
The NPP has been under shelling by Kiev’s troops for almost two months, despite calls from Moscow to stop to avert a nuclear disaster. Kiev shelled the facility in a bid to stage a provocation and pin the blame for it on Russia.
A recent IAEA report on the situation at the Zaporozhye NPP called on shelling of the facility to end amid international concerns over a possible nuclear accident.
During the military operation in Ukraine, launched by Moscow on February 24, the nuclear plant and surrounding area fell under the control by the Russian forces. The Russian military also claimed control of the Azov part of the Zaporozhye region, which accounts for over 70% of the territory of this region.
During his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Joe Biden accused Russia of violating the organization’s charter by launching a special military operation in Ukraine and called the upcoming referendums to join Russia in the Donbass republics, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions a “sham.”
The US president “completely suppressed” Washington’s role in fanning the flames of the Ukraine conflict, ignoring the fact that his administration helped stage a coup in Ukraine in 2014, argued Christopher C. Black, international criminal lawyer with 20 years of experience in war crimes and international relations, and a commentator on international affairs, in an interview with Sputnik. According to Black, the US is “the prime criminal and violator of international law,” and doesn’t “care about anybody’s sovereignty.”
Sputnik: Joe Biden dedicated the first part of his UNGA speech to Ukraine. Do you think the US’ role in fueling this conflict was reflected in his address?
Christopher C. Black: No, it was completely suppressed. He blamed everything on Russia and totally ignored the fact that Russia had to act to stop an invasion by the Ukrainian forces in February-March, that the Americans and NATO overthrew the elected government in Ukraine in 2014 and have been promoting war there ever since. That was all suppressed.
Sputnik: Biden said that Russia “shamelessly violated” the UN Charter. Does the US itself practice what it preaches in that regard?
Christopher C. Black: No. This is another set of astonishing lies by the president of the United States, which is not uncommon for them in these speeches. The United States is the prime criminal and violator of international law. They invaded, they attacked Yugoslavia for three months in 1999. They threatened to wipe out Belgrade and kill 500,000 people unless President [Slobodan] Milosevic surrendered.
They invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, right after that, killed hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed those countries. They’ve attacked Libya and destroyed that, murdered [Muammar] Gadhafi. They hang Saddam Hussein. They’d respect nobody’s sovereignty. They kept referring to sovereignty, but they don’t care about anybody’s sovereignty.
Sputnik: He mentioned both the G7 and G20 in his speech. Do you think that when it comes to international security, there is as much support within the G20 as he’s getting within the G7 for his opinions?
Christopher C. Black: No, it’s quite clear that the larger world community supports Russia and China, and Iran, all of whom he attacked, and the DPRK and Venezuela. It is strange that he said that the world should have a chance to develop and yet any country that develops, they attack. So no. And then he talked about adhering to the UN charter and all international law and then immediately referred to the sanctions against Russia not causing a great problem, but those sanctions themselves are a violation of the UN Charter and are completely illegal. And nobody laughed. I was surprised that nobody stood up and just laughed outright in his face when he said that. It’s just amazing.
Sputnik: Do you think that the grain problem that he mentioned is really as big as it is? Is Russia really responsible for the big problem here or are we dealing with kind of a PR stunt on Biden’s part?
Christopher C. Black: That’s basically a public relations stunt because it’s quite clear that Russia has done everything along with Turkey to try and assist exporters of grain to get the grain out of Ukraine. There have been all sorts of tricks blocking that or redirecting the shipments from third world countries, so-called South countries, to Europe and so on. Even in Canada, farmers are complaining to the government that they can’t get fertilizer because most of it comes from Russia, which surprised me.
But it’s true. And the government says, well, “too bad for you.” But it’s not Russia blocking them is, it’s Canada blocking the entry and the shipping of those things.
Sputnik: Besides Biden, there were numerous leaders at today’s UN General Assembly. There was the Iranian president, there were African leaders, and they mentioned problems that he was also talking about, but in a different light, namely international security, food security, health, and environment. Do you think their speeches will get as much attention in the mainstream media as Biden’s speech?
Christopher C. Black: No, especially the Iranians will be totally ignored here. The only thing they mentioned today on CNN, I noticed, was Iran’s statement that they want to get justice for the murder by the United States of General Soleimani in Iraq a couple of years ago. And that’s a murder that Biden didn’t apologize for.
The statements by other world leaders will be suppressed and Biden’s will be promoted as another example of American so-called democracy, which doesn’t really exist in the United States any longer.
Touching upon the issue of the military costs of the armed conflict in Ukraine, Sergei Shoigu estimated that Kiev has lost half of its army, which originally had about 200,000 troops at the initial stage of Moscow’s special operation.
▪️ Over 2,000 foreign mercenaries were eliminated in Ukraine in the past months by Russians, the minister said, adding that 1,000 remain at the combat zone.
▪️ Russian losses, Shoigu noted, amount to 5,937, noting that the servicemen were “courageously fulfilling their duties.”
Highlights from Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu during today’s address on Donbass: ▪️ Ukraine using West-supplied weapons against civilian population more and more often; ▪️ Over 150 western military experts are operating in Kiev; ▪️ Over 2,000 mercenaries killed in Ukraine, more than 1,000 remain. ▪️ Ukraine lost half of its military; casualty count amounts to more than 100,000 people: 61,207 dead and 49,368 wounded; ▪️ The loss of the Russian Armed Forces totals 5,937 dead; ▪️ Partial mobilization is primarily needed to control the contact line of 1,000 km and the liberated territories.