We have received news that yesterday, Friday 12th April, Christina Cherankova has been released.
As many of you will already know, after have spent more than two years in captivity, Cristina, an anti-fascist from Mozyr, in Belarus was detained on March 22, 2022 for anti-military and anti-police posts on Instagram.
Back in March 22, 2022, a dozen anti-fascists, members of various countercultural musical groups, were searched and detained in Mozyr. Five people ended up serving 24 hours, however criminal cases were filed against Cristina and her friend Anna Pyshnik.
Although her posts did not contain calls for violence, they contained a “negative assessment of police officers”, which dated back as far as November 16, 2022. For that reason but also as a warning to other activists, Christina was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
We extend our solidarity and welcome her home into the arms of her family and comrades.
The Seine has “alarming” bacteria levels, tests have revealed!
The swimming leg of the Olympic triathlon in Paris could be delayed or canceled if water quality does not improve in the Seine River, which flows through the French capital, according to the organizers of the event.
The river is set to host several Olympic events this summer but has “alarming” bacteria levels, according to a warning issued by international NGO Surfrider Foundation Europe on Monday. The group claimed that out of 14 samples taken at the Alexandre III Bridge over a six-month period, all but one showed poor water quality.
Athletes swim in the Seine river in front of the Eiffel Tower during the Women World Triathlon on August 17, 2023 in Paris, France.
Tony Estanguet, a three-time Olympic canoeing champion and the president of the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, admitted on Tuesday that E. coli is “one of the bigger challenges” facing the organizers, noting that the triathlon could be delayed or the swimming leg canceled if water quality worsens.
“In sport, there’s a risk – there’s always a risk,” The Telegraph quoted Estanguet as saying. He stressed that there is “only one location” and no question of finding a back-up venue.
The main danger comes from heavy rainstorms, when water pours into the Parisian sewage system, causing an overflow risk. Excess rain is then discharged into the river and may lead to pollution. Last summer a sewage leak led to the cancelation of a pre-Olympic swimming event.
Measurements taken between September 2023 and March 2024 showed that levels of two bacteria – E. coli and enterococci – were often two and sometimes three times higher than the maximum European permitted amounts, according to the Surfrider Foundation.
Pollution levels remained high even after Paris invested over €1 billion ($1.1 billion) in a bid to provide safe swimming in the Seine for the first time in a century.
The €1.4 billion plan for the river involved a renovation of infrastructure, including new underground pipes and pumps. Water quality specialists said concentration levels for two bacteria, Enterococcus and E.coli, both used as the primary indicators of fecal material in fresh waters, were low enough to safely swim in the river.
Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to swim in the Seine in an apparent attempt to prove it is clean, ahead of the Olympic Games set to be hosted in the country’s capital in July and August.
Iranians protest after the killing of General Mohammad Reza Zahedi in a presumed Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. Morteza Nikoubazl / NurPhoto
However, a number of countries in the region where the US has bases or treaty rights have reportedly told Washington it can’t use them to strike Iran. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman and Kuwait have denied the use of their territory and airspace so far, according to the Middle East Eye. There has been no word from Bahrain as of yet.
Washington is “devoted” to West Jerusalem, President Joe Biden has stated
🇮🇷🇮🇱 BREAKING: IRAN SEIZES ISRAELI-OWNED SHIP
The ship detained in the Strait of Hormuz, flying the Portuguese flag, is managed by Zodiac Maritime, a company owned by Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer.
American ships and troops in the Middle East prepared for a likely Iranian attack on Israel on Friday, as President Joe Biden urged Tehran to change its mind.
Iranian leaders have vowed to “punish” Israel for the April 1 airstrike on the consulate in Damascus, Syria that killed seven officers of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, including two of its generals.
“Don’t,” Biden said on Friday, when asked what his message was to Iran.
“We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help to defend Israel, and Iran will not succeed,” he added.
Israel has always tested technologies of death, surveillance, disinformation and repression on Palestinians, exporting them to dictatorships & authoritarian regimes worldwide with pride. #MilitaryEmbargopic.twitter.com/bYr5u24yLV
The Pentagon is moving additional troops and equipment to sites in the Middle East, to “bolster regional deterrence efforts and increase force protection,” an anonymous official said in a background briefing.
The Department of Defense did not specify the number or type of assets deployed, but according to the Wall Street Journal, that two destroyers – at least one armed with the Aegis missile defense system – have been “repositioned” in the area.
Meanwhile, the head of the US Central Command, General Michael Kurilla, has extended his stay in Israel, Axios reported citing Israeli officials. Kurilla arrived on Thursday to “coordinate” a defense from a possible Iranian strike.
Tehran has announced that it had an “imperative to punish” Israel because the UN had done nothing to condemn West Jerusalem’s “reprehensible act of aggression on our diplomatic premises in Damascus” or bring the perpetrators to justice.
Israel has said it would respond to any attack with strikes of its own, with UK tabloids speculating they might target Iranian nuclear facilities. Anonymous US intelligence officials have spread rumors of potential American participation in such attacks.
However, a number of countries in the region where the US has bases or treaty rights have reportedly told Washington it can’t use them to strike Iran. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman and Kuwait have denied the use of their territory and airspace so far, according to the Middle East Eye. There has been no word from Bahrain as of yet.
Ukrainian troops hoping to be demobilized after three years are reportedly dismayed after a provision granting them leave was left out of a newly adopted mobilization bill, multiple Western outlets claimed on Friday.
The Ukrainian parliament has voted against demobilizing the country’s longest-serving conscripts, forcing them to stay on the front indefinitely. The vote came as lawmakers passed a broad mobilization bill imposing new restrictions on draft-resisters, and potentially drafting the handicapped.
The amendment passed by 227 votes to 21, with 97 lawmakers abstaining, according to the Kiev Post. Of course all opposition parties are now banned.
It was first seen in a final version of the bill published on Wednesday, and its inclusion angered service members who had been expecting some reprieve from combat.
“This is a disaster… How could it be possible to promise demobilization to soldiers…only to abandon them at the end?” Ukrainian State Border Guard Service officer Maxim Nesmaynov wrote on Facebook. “You can’t take away hope from soldiers that they will return home. Someone is trying to destroy the country from inside!”
Ukraine has been in a state of martial law since the conflict with Russia broke out in February 2022. Under martial law, Ukrainian conscripts are required to serve until the end of hostilities, with few exceptions.
General Aleksandr Syrsky, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, insisted to lawmakers that this requirement remain in place, the Kiev Post reported.
“It’s a disaster,” AFP quoted a 46-year-old artilleryman on the Donetsk front, identified only as Alexander.“When a person knows when he is going to be demobilized he will have a different attitude. If he is like a slave then it will not lead to anything good,” he added.
More than 20 percent of women ages 18 to 49 in those states also said they or someone they know struggled to access abortion after Roe’s overturn, a first-of-its-kind KFF survey shows.
Why is ‘Genocide Joe’ promising full support to Israel after Israel attacked Iran’s consulate in Syria? Does Iran not have the right to defend itself against an act of war by an aggressive foreign power? Iran has blamed Israel for an airstrike on its consulate in Damascus on April 1. It seems that country doesn’t have the […]
Jonathan Pie’s latest video is a harsh attack on new Tory legislation that means now you could be sent to prison for being smelly. He’s referring to the proposed law to criminalise homelessness, sending rough sleepers to prison because they don’t have access to the fresh water they would need in order to have a […]
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