The building collapsed after the flames tore through the venue in Iraq

A fire at a wedding party in Nineveh, Iraq left more than 100 people dead and some 150 injured, according to local officials and media reports, which suggested fireworks had set off the blaze by accident.

The conflagration tore through an event venue in the Hamdaniya district of Nineveh province on Tuesday night going into Wednesday, with the region’s Deputy Governor Hasan al-Allaq telling Reuters that 113 people were confirmed dead. State media agencies placed the death toll at at least 100, in addition to another 150 people injured.

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The Turkish leader says the approval of Sweden’s membership depends on the US

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Ankara's ratification of Sweden's bid depends on whether US President Joe Biden’s administration delivers on its pledge to approve the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Türkiye.

“Turkish parliament will have the final say on Sweden's NATO membership,” Erdogan told journalists on a flight back from Azerbaijan on Monday. “If they [Washington] keep their promises, our parliament will keep its own promise as well.”

Washington banished Türkiye from a program to buy F-35 fighter jets in 2019, because of Ankara’s purchase of Russian-made S-400 air defense systems. Instead, Ankara requested a $20 billion purchase that would include new F-16 fighters, built by Lockheed Martin, as well as around 80 modernization kits for its existing warplanes.

In July, US President Joe Biden’s administration promised to push forward with the sale of F-16s, after Ankara agreed to stop obstructing Sweden’s accession to NATO. However, a group of US lawmakers, including scandal-hit former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez, threatened to block the aircraft deal nevertheless.

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“One of our most important problems regarding the F-16s were the activities of US Senator Bob Menendez against our country,” Erdogan claimed on Monday, adding that “Menendez’s exit gives us an advantage but the F-16 issue is not an issue that depends only on Menendez.”

Menendez was charged last week in a federal case for his alleged corrupt relationship and receiving bribes to benefit a foreign country. While he was forced to resign his role as chairman of the committee, the official claimed innocence and refused to quit the US Congress.

Sweden and its Nordic neighbor, Finland, applied to join NATO in May 2022, following the start of the Ukraine conflict. However, while Helsinki became a member of the US-led military bloc in April, Stockholm’s bid remains in limbo due to Hungary and Türkiye’s reluctance. 

Erdogan had exercised his veto power for months, arguing that it was not doing enough to extradite people linked to Kurdish groups that Ankara considers terrorist organizations. In turn, some US senators are threatening to block the F-16 deal unless Ankara approves Sweden's bid.

The US president’s re-election staff are scrambling to cover up for his physical frailties

US President Joe Biden’s staff are urgently working to keep him from falling over during his 2024 re-election bid, Axios reported on Tuesday. 

Since tripping on a sandbag and falling in full view of the audience during an Air Force Academy ceremony in June, an incident widely shared and mocked on social media, Biden, who is 80 years old, has been wearing tennis shoes more often and using the “short stairs” to ascend the steps of Air Force One, in order to avoid another public stumble, the outlet claimed. 

White House spokesman Andrew Bates insisted the don’t-trip program had been “proactively and transparently disclosed” in health summaries released by Biden’s doctor during the first two years of his presidency, and accused Axios of neglecting Biden’s “very real achievements for hardworking Americans” in favor of a sensationalized story about the aging head of state. 

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Biden’s staff have reportedly weighed the possibility of his being mocked for using the short steps on the tarmac against the much more pressing threat of voters (and potentially even the Democratic Party) abandoning him because of his age, and decided a few concessions are preferable to further public embarrassment.

The US president has been working with a physical therapist to improve his balance. His doctor had recommended balancing exercises, described as “general flexibility and proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers,” and observed the president was suffering from arthritis and decreased sensation in his feet as well as spondylosis of the spine, causing difficulties with movement.

A poll conducted last month by the Associated Press and NORC suggested that three-quarters of Americans believe Biden is too old to be president. Only about half of those polled saw former president and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who at 77 is only three years younger than his rival, as too old for the job. 

Seemingly aware of the closeness in their ages, Trump has said that while Biden is “grossly incompetent,” he is not too old to be president, instead focusing on the incumbent’s lack of “mental acuity” and the negative outcomes of his term in office. 

While Biden himself has said his own age “does not register” with him and has insisted voters should judge him by his energy level, a CBS poll released earlier this month suggested that only 34% of registered US voters believe he would actually complete a second term if re-elected. Just over a quarter - 26% - believe Biden has the mental and physical health to continue serving.

US Senator Bob Menendez denies receiving bribes to benefit a foreign country

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez has claimed his innocence and refused to step down amid a growing chorus of calls to resign from his opponents and fellow party members. He claimed that gold and cash uncovered during a search of his home were his personal savings for a rainy day.

“I recognize this will be the biggest fight yet… But as I have stated throughout this whole process, I firmly believe that when all the facts are presented, not only will I be exonerated, but I still will be New Jersey's senior senator,” Menendez said on Monday in his first public remarks since he was charged in a federal case for his alleged corrupt relationship with three businessmen.

According to the indictment, unsealed in the Manhattan federal court on Friday, the lawmaker and his wife Nadine, received “hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for using Menendez’s power and influence as Senator” to serve the interests of a foreign state actor, namely Egypt from at least 2018 until 2022.

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A search of Menendez’s home yielded some $100,000-worth of gold bars, as well as nearly $500,000 in hidden cash. However, the lawmaker claimed that this “may seem old-fashioned, but these were monies drawn from my personal savings account, based on the income that I had lawfully derived.”

The senator from New Jersey has been serving as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since early 2021, and has been an active proponent of sanctions on Russia prepared by the US even before the start of the Ukraine conflict.

Menendez has served since 2006 and the new indictment is his second corruption scandal while in office. He is up for reelection in 2024, which may complicate his party's efforts to maintain its narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate. 

The chairman of the Democrats’ campaign arm, Senator Gary Peters, joined the growing chorus of calls from current and former officials for Menendez’s resignation, saying on Tuesday that while Menendez “deserves to have a fair legal process, given the serious nature of these charges and how they have undermined the public’s faith, he is no longer able to serve effectively in the US Senate.”

The New York Attorney General had sued the former US president and the Trump Organization in September for inflating his net worth

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Nikol Pashinyan enjoys American support because he is willing to harm his own people to serve US interests, Kevork Almassian told RT

The US has poured money into Armenia for a decade, knowing that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan would do Washington’s bidding by relinquishing Nagorno-Karabakh and aligning himself with the West, geopolitical analyst Kevork Almassian told RT on Tuesday.

US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power touched down in Yerevan on Monday with promises of “support for Armenia’s sovereignty.” The visit came less than a week after the ethnic Armenian leadership in the disputed province of Nagorno-Karabakh agreed to lay down arms and allow the territory to be subsumed into Azerbaijan, an outcome that Pashinyan endorses against the wishes of the Armenian population.

“This delegation from the United States prepared and paved the ground for Pashinyan to come to power,” Almassian told RT, referring to the massive outlay of funds that USAID, the US State Department, and the Pentagon have funneled into Armenia in recent years, particularly to pro-Pashinyan and pro-Western media projects.

The US has backed Pashinyan for three reasons, Almassian explained. “One, because he’s incompetent and completely ignorant on geopolitics. Second, because he’s anti-Russian, and third because Pashinyan himself has argued multiple times before he came to power that he would give up on Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] in exchange for joining the so-called ‘international community’.”

Pashinyan has apparently fulfilled his end of this implicit bargain. Despite Armenia being a former Soviet republic and a member of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, the prime minister has recently held military exercises with American forces, sent aid money to Ukraine, and begun ratifying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which would place the country under obligation to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he were to travel there.

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Meanwhile, the Armenian leader has blamed Russian peacekeepers for failing to come to the defense of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, despite his own recognition of the territory as belonging to Azerbaijan.

These decisions have proven immensely unpopular in Yerevan, and among the ethnic Armenians now fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh en masse. 

“Were it not for the popular backlash in Yerevan and were it not for the tens of thousands of people demonstrating, Pashinyan would not have accepted the refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh, because these people consider him a traitor,” Almassian explained, adding that “this will pave the way for a counter-revolution against him.” 

The US may have foreseen this outcome, Almassian noted, pointing out that recent joint US-Armenian military drills have focused on counter-protest operations and crowd control rather than traditional field exercises. “[The Americans] want to keep Pashinyan in power, despite the diminishing support of the Armenian people,” he told RT.

“[The US wants] to keep the Russians out of the southern Caucasus,” Almassian declared. “They are using Pashinyan, just like they used [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky, as a pawn against Russia. This is a geopolitical game for Washington.”

The Latvian police have threatened to detain individuals with Russian-language decals on their cars

Latvian drivers may be detained and even charged for putting Russian-language bumper stickers on their vehicles, the country’s state police agency revealed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday.  

In response to photo posts by several Latvians complaining about cars with bumper stickers in Russian, the official account of the Latvian Police posted a statement warning that “potentially provocative inscriptions in Russian” were not allowed on vehicles given the “current geopolitical situation.” 

Drivers who dared to sport such decals on their cars can be questioned, detained, and even charged with the administrative offense of “glorifying military aggression or war crimes” if they do not immediately remove the offending sticker and explain both their reason for possessing it and their intention in displaying it, according to the statement.  

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The police also encouraged Latvians to inform on their neighbors by calling a hotline if they spot such stickers.  

Based on the account’s posting history, anything in Russian can potentially be seen as provocative. Banned stickers include “я – русский” (“I am Russian”), “СИЛА В ПРАВДЕ” (“Power is in the Truth”), and anything featuring bears.  

Following the adoption of EU-wide sanctions prohibiting the entry of Russian-registered vehicles into the 27-country bloc earlier this month, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania began turning away all vehicles with Russian license plates from their borders. Moscow has responded to the sanctions with threats to recall diplomats from Brussels and impose similar restrictions on European traffic. 

Last year, Latvia banned the public display of the letters Z and V, claiming that their use by Russian troops in the Ukraine conflict constituted glorification of war crimes and military aggression. Latvians who wantonly display the last letter of the Roman alphabet – which does not exist in the Cyrillic alphabet used in Russia – in public can be fined up to €400, while companies can be charged as much as €3,200. The former Soviet republic also forbade holding public events within 200 meters of any monument commemorating the Soviet Army. 

The law was adopted following Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba’s call for all nations to “criminalize” using the letter, calling its continued use equivalent to support for Russian “barbarism.” Latvia was the first to comply, though Lithuania and Estonia followed suit less than a month later, also banning the black and orange St. George’s ribbon displayed on Soviet victory medals.  

While the country has long had laws on the books forbidding the glorification of Nazism and Communism, hundreds gather annually to honor the country’s Nazi collaborators without police interference.

A fuel depot exploded amid an exodus of ethnic Armenians from the disputed province

At least 125 people were killed in Monday’s explosion at a fuel depot in Nagorno-Karabakh, according to Armenian media reports on Tuesday. The blast took place as tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians fled the region ahead of its takeover by Azerbaijan.

The remains of 125 people were transported to Armenia on Monday, Pan Armenian News reported, citing Health Minister Anahit Avanesian. Initial reports following the blast put the death toll at 29, with almost 300 injured and an unknown number missing.

Located on a highway near the self-declared regional capital of Stepanakert (known as Khankendi in Azerbaijan), the fuel depot exploded on Monday as crowds of people queued to fill their vehicles. Video footage from the scene showed widespread devastation, with a thick plume of oily black smoke towering into the sky over the destroyed facility.

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The blast came almost a week after secessionist leaders in Nagorno-Karabakh surrendered to the Azerbaijani military following a day-long assault characterized by Baku as “counter-terrorism measures.” Under the terms of the surrender, Nagorno-Karabakh will be returned to Azerbaijani control, almost three decades after the enclave won quasi-independence following a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1994.

Fearing ethnic cleansing under Baku’s control, tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians have fled the region following the ceasefire. As of Tuesday evening, 28,120 of Nagorno-Karabakh’s 120,000 Armenians – or almost a quarter of the province’s population – had entered Armenia, according to authorities in Yerevan. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to ensure that the human rights of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian population are protected under his rule.  Aliyev has promised to do so, but has previously referred to Aremenians as “not even worthy of being servants,” and is considered a human rights abuser by Western observers.

Anthony Rota described the Waffen SS member as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero”

Canadian House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota stepped down on Tuesday amid widespread condemnation over his invitation of a Nazi veteran to a ceremony with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

Rota apologized on Monday for inviting 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka to hear Zelensky’s address to Canadian lawmakers on Friday, but refused to resign. Although lawmakers from all parties – including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – cheered and applauded Hunka at the event, calls for Rota’s resignation grew over the weekend as the incident drew worldwide condemnation, particularly from the governments of Russia and Poland.

Rota eventually announced his resignation on Tuesday afternoon, stating that he would leave his position at the end of Wednesday’s session.

"The work of his house is above any of us. Therefore, I must step down as your speaker,” Rota said. "I reiterate my profound regret for my error.”

Politicians from the opposition New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois parties issued the loudest demands for Rota’s resignation, with New Democrats leader Peter Julian describing the invitation as "an unforgivable error which puts the entire House in disrepute.” 

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Trudeau, who leads Rota’s Liberal Party, did not call for the speaker’s resignation, but described the ceremony as “deeply embarrassing for the House and for Canada.”

During the ceremony, Rota hailed Hunka as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero… who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians.” Rota did not mention the fact that Hunka fought in Hitler’s elite Waffen SS, but the nonagenarian was identified by the Associated Press as a member of the First Ukrainian Division, a unit created by the Nazis from Ukrainian volunteers in 1943.

Also known as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, the unit is known to have committed atrocities against Jews and Poles during its campaign on the Eastern Front.

“There should be no confusion that this unit was responsible for the mass murder of innocent civilians with a level of brutality and malice that is unimaginable,” the Toronto-based Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) said in a statement on Sunday.

A national housing price index hit a new all-time high even as interest rates and inflation continue to soar

Home prices in the US hit record highs in July despite a foreboding economic climate and steep interest rates, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Schiller house price index, parent company S&P Dow Jones Indices reported on Tuesday.   

The group’s National Home Price NSA Index crept up 1% year-on-year in July, while its 10-City Composite, which tracks major metropolitan areas, was up 0.9%. The 20-City Composite increased by 0.1%, with 19 of the cities reporting gains and 18 showing those increases accelerating compared to June.  

All three indices were up from negative or zero growth as reported for the previous month. 

Prices increased the most in Chicago, Cleveland and New York City, despite ongoing population exoduses from those urban centers. Chicago saw a whopping 4.4% price increase over last July despite losing 100,000 people in 2022 alone, while Cleveland, which only lost about 3,800 people in 2022, registered a 4% uptick. 

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New York City saw the third-highest price increase at 3.8%, despite hemorrhaging more than 468,200 people – 5.3% of its population – since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.  

Housing costs declined most in Las Vegas (down 7.2%) and Phoenix (down 6.6%), two population centers in an area that has been experiencing increasingly dire water shortages for years due to overdevelopment.  

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s latest report showed an even steeper increase in home prices for July, up 4.4% compared to July 2022. Last week, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that prices were up in all four regions of the country despite a marked decline in sales, which dropped 15.3% in August compared to August 2022.

The NAR’s chief economist and other analysts have attempted to explain the continued price increases in the face of soaring interest rates and daunting recession indicators as the result of low inventory, arguing that families who already have mortgages are loath to sell their houses in the current market because their locked-in rates from when they bought their homes are so much lower than current interest rates.  

Home prices will continue to increase, barring “general economic weakness” or further surges in mortgage rates, S&P DJI Managing Director Craig Lazzara explained in the company’s report, describing such an outlook as “optimistic.”

President Joe Biden has said he does not expect a recession on his watch, insisting the labor market is strong even as economists have acknowledged inflation is growing even faster than previously predicted.

Finland will turn “unfounded” asylum applicants away at its borders, Interior Minister Mari Rantanen has said

Finland will begin turning away bogus asylum applicants at its EU border, Interior Minister Mari Rantanen told reporters on Monday. Although Russia is the only non-EU state bordering Finland, a ministry spokesperson said the rule would also apply to non-EU migrants arriving by plane.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Rantanen said that the Finnish government is drafting rules that will empower border guards to determine whether asylum applications are “unfounded,” Finland’s Iltalehti newspaper reported.

Should an application be ruled invalid, migrants will be removed either immediately or within four weeks, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry told the newspaper. At present, asylum applications can take up to six months to process, often at centers far from the border.

Finland’s only non-EU border is shared with Russia, meaning the decision will primarily affect applicants coming from Russia. According to the Finnish Immigration Service, around 1,100 Russians were awaiting decisions on their asylum applications at the beginning of September.

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Finnish authorities have already attempted to restrict entry from Russia. Finland now requires that all visa applications by Russians be filed in one office in Moscow rather than the much closer city of St. Petersburg. Additionally Finland has forbidden Russian-registered cars from entering the country, and has demanded that Russian-registered vehicles already in Finland be removed within six months.

Although the latest change to asylum rules is apparently aimed at Russia, the ministry spokesperson said that it would also apply to non-EU migrants arriving in Finland by plane. 

Back in June, Rantanen announced that her government would be making “a complete paradigm shift” on immigration. This shift will see Finland cut the number of refugees it takes via UN programs every year from 1,050 to 500, and revoke visas for refugees who return to their home countries for “holidays.”

“We have to react to what we've seen in Sweden. We’re looking to take action to make sure immigration doesn’t cause economic or security threats to Finland,” she said at the time.

Despite efforts to put a good face on it, Paris has been unceremoniously dumped in Africa

In a wide-ranging interview last weekend that aired as much of France was conveniently glued to the Paris Saint Germain vs. Olympique Marseille football match, President Emmanuel Macron was asked about his recent bad breakup. He was only too happy to spill all his feelings about the relationship, like he was talking with Oprah Winfrey rather than TV news anchors.

He said that France was ending its military cooperation with Niger and repatriating France’s ambassador to Niamey and around 1,500 troops. It’s about time, since he was already dumped a month ago and Niger has been threatening to get France’s tent off its lawn.

France’s military presence in some of its former African colonies, including Niger, was to combat terrorism, he said, adding that without France’s presence, “most of these countries would have already fallen prey to territorial caliphates and jihadists.”

Indeed, thank goodness for France, whose anti-terrorist mission was such a resounding success that the UN’s own peace operations advised the Security Council in May 2023 that “insecurity in the tri-border area of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger continues to grow.” ‘Rampant jihadists are spreading chaos and misery in the Sahel’, a headline in The Economist read in April, while the Wilson Center reported that same month that “The Sahel Now Accounts for 43% of Global Terrorism Deaths.” All of that was going on right under France’s nose.

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Rather than Macron’s suggestion that France has helped prevent these nations from becoming caliphates, there’s actually stronger evidence to suggest that’s precisely the direction they were heading under French oversight. If Macron is talking about Boko Haram, then the solution was not to invade and destabilize Libya, because Boko Haram has since benefited from looted Libyan weapons and, in 2016, Washington officials were warning of Boko Haram fighters joining up with ISIS in Libya. That’s two years after France started Operation Barkhane, its effort to combat Islamist insurgents in the Sahel. A lot of good that was doing. The French must have been imposing the same brand of modern-day French discipline that results in kids across France periodically acting out over some issue du jour and smashing up cities.

Either Macron is caught in an illusion or he thinks that the French and African people are – or that they are at least clueless enough to think that things were looking up for these countries right up until Paris was sent packing. If that was the case – if the lives of the locals were truly improving – then where are the masses in the streets protesting in opposition to France’s withdrawal?

Macron was also careful to stress that France was only there at the behest of these countries. But what if they had dared to say ‘non’, particularly in the wake of the chilling effect of the French-led NATO intervention and coup d’état in Libya that led to the death of its leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011? With these Francophone African nations serving as Paris’ stockrooms for everything from critical uranium that powers its nuclear plants to black gold that fuels French industry, is it any wonder that the leaders of these countries, until now, just happen to be excessively accommodating to these French interests – lest they find themselves ‘Gaddafi’d’.

But already, with the changes in management of these countries, the French press and industry representatives have been actively wondering about the fate of French companies in the Sahel. Paris has long maintained enough control to at least keep the resources flowing. But if France ever had any concern for the locals beyond that, it would have shown it by now.

But Macron didn’t stop there with the spin. “We are not responsible for the political life of these countries,” he said. In that case, why is France constantly trying to dictate to African nations who they should or shouldn’t be partners with, most recently pressuring them to ditch Russia and China?

And why did Macron push for African countries, uninterested in playing the West’s anti-Russian sanctions game, to take a side in the Ukraine conflict during a visit to Cameroon over the summer, if he believed in staying out of African political life? And if France is so hands-off with Africa’s internal affairs, why did Burkina Faso just a few days ago accuse Paris of blocking military supplies to the landlocked country when it’s supposed to be fighting the same insurgencies that Paris claims it had been there to help quash?

Or why did Macron attempt to revamp his African strategy in February by rebranding French military bases as ‘academies’, and having a European team collaborate with ‘civil society’ players in Africa? Nothing says non-interference like funding NGOs inside foreign countries.

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“We’re not there to participate in coup d’états or to interfere,” Macron said. That may be true when Paris likes the guy in charge and wants him to stay there to protect French interests. Otherwise, it’s pressure on France’s ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) pals to do a counter-coup, as Macron appeared to suggest during a speech to French ambassadors. “If ECOWAS abandons [Nigerien] President Bazoum, I think that all the presidents of the region are more or less aware of the fate that will be reserved for them,” Macron declared, as president of the country that has literally overthrown African leaders in the past.

Macron didn’t have anything to say about the role of Paris’ Washington allies, who trained the Nigerien coup leaders both in-country and in the US, and whose troops not only remain in Niger but have resumed intelligence and reconnaissance missions, according to the Pentagon earlier this month.

While Macron seethes at Russia for replacing France, how does he reconcile the fact that Moscow hasn’t also ‘replaced’ Washington? Is he going to accuse Moscow and Washington of colluding now, too? Maybe these African countries haven’t yet figured out exactly what they want, and with whom, although Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have already teamed up for their own anti-terrorism missions in a mutual defense pact. That, too, is being ‘blamed’ on Russia. In any case, sticking to the same broken relationship with Paris clearly wasn’t working.

And it looks like Macron, having been dumped, is caught somewhere between the denial and acceptance stages of grief.

A photo has surfaced suggesting a Ukrainian former Waffen-SS member may have personally met Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

The scandal surrounding the Canadian parliament’s celebration of Ukrainian former Nazi soldier Yaroslav Hunka has escalated, after a photo was shared online suggesting he may have personally met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

An image posted on Friday on the Facebook page of 98-year-old Hunka’s granddaughter, Theresa, showed the World War II Waffen-SS veteran sitting in a wheelchair in a room behind a corridor decorated with Canadian and Ukrainian flags.

“Dedo [grandfather] is waiting in the reception hall for Trudeau and [Vladimir] Zelensky,” Theresa wrote in the caption, suggesting that Hunka was expecting the arrival of the Canadian prime minister and the Ukrainian president.

It is unclear if the picture depicted the moment before the Nazi veteran was welcomed at the parliament session attended by Trudeau and Zelensky, or if he was due to meet them personally. Many X (formerly Twitter) users suggested that the latter was true.
Theresa Hunka promptly made her Facebook account private after the photo was widely shared on other social media platforms.

🇨🇦🇺🇦 Well This Is Awkward!

The Speaker of the Canadian Parliament barely had time to take full responsibility for inviting SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka (saying Trudeau and Zelensky had nothing to do with it), when reporters found a Friday post from the granddaughter of the Nazi -… pic.twitter.com/anERAU81ib

— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) September 25, 2023

Trudeau himself claimed the celebration of Hunka was “extremely upsetting” and “deeply embarrassing to the Parliament of Canada and by extension to all Canadians.” He did not mention any personal meeting with the SS veteran, but instead called for a “push back against Russian propaganda.”

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Hunka had been invited to attend parliament as a “Ukrainian and Canadian hero,” despite widely available photographic evidence of his membership in the SS. Canadian House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota took sole responsibility for the incident, claiming it was his initiative and that he later regretted it.

Trudeau’s office insisted that “no advance notice” had been provided to Zelensky’s delegation or to the Canadian leader about Hunka’s invitation.

The standing ovation the Nazi veteran received has sparked fury among Jewish Groups and numerous nations, including Russia and Poland. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the incident as “outrageous negligence.” 

Warsaw has demanded that Rota resign from his post and that Hunka be charged with war crimes. The UN stated that it opposes “any honoring of people who actively took part in Nazi activities during the Second World War.”

The bloc claims to have objectively evaluated social media platforms using proprietary metrics

X (formerly Twitter) has the worst ratio of disinformation and misinformation to fact-based content of all major social media platforms, the European Union’s values and transparency commissioner Vera Jourova claimed in a speech on Tuesday. 

The platform’s level of factual content was supposedly measured using a set of newly created metrics devised by signatories to the EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation, which X abandoned in May due to differences of opinion on the subject of censorship between the bloc and then-CEO Elon Musk.

“Disinformation actors” also had significantly more followers than their non-disinformation counterparts and had joined the platform more recently, according to Jourova, who admitted the methodology was in a “pilot phase” running in just three EU member states. She shared no further details about how the results were calculated or how disinformation was distinguished from fact-based content.

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Jourova warned “very large platforms” – a category that includes X – that they must prioritize information control ahead of upcoming EU elections, reminding them that the Digital Services Act, the EU’s far-reaching internet content moderation legislation, had made aspects of the Code of Practice legally binding starting last month even for platforms that have not voluntarily opted in.

The DSA requires that these platforms implement “reasonable, proportionate, and effective mitigation measures” to manage risks identified by the European Commission and devise reporting and mitigation plans subject to audit and oversight by the Commission.

Jourova declared, “The Russian state has engaged in the war of ideas to pollute our information space with half-truth and lies to create a false image that democracy is no better than autocracy,” demanding social media behemoths step up their participation in the EU’s crusade against Moscow.

NewsGuard, Microsoft’s Pentagon-sponsored disinformation watchdog, also claimed in a report on Tuesday that Musk’s decision to remove the state-backed media labels on accounts affiliated with governments considered unfriendly to the US led to an explosion in disinformation and other nefarious influence operations by those accounts.

Russian, Chinese, and Iranian English-language news media accounts saw a 70% increase in engagement in the 90 days following the removal of the labels, according to the report, which acknowledged that the state-backed media label had suppressed those accounts’ content from search results and warned users who attempted to share it that they were spreading propaganda. 

Brussels warned following Musk’s purchase of the company that X would have “huge work” ahead of it to comply with the DSA, insisting the platform then known as Twitter was not “living up to their commitments” to remove so-called hate speech. However, according to a report by the technology publication Rest of World, compliance with government content removal requests has increased significantly under Musk, from 50% before he bought the company to 80% in April.

The police are investigating priests for allegedly keeping medics away from a male sex worker who passed out during a sex party

The Catholic Church in Poland is tackling a major scandal involving priests allegedly holding a “gay orgy” on the premises of a historic church and denying medics access to a hired sex worker, who collapsed during the incident.

This story of the sinful party gone wrong in the southern Polish city of Dabrowa Gornicza was first reported by the daily Gazeta Wyborcza last week, based on the accounts of its sources in local law enforcement, and is believed to have happened in August.

The party was organized by the vicar of the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels, a neo-gothic city landmark built at the turn of the 20th century. The organizer of the gathering was identified as a ‘Father Tomasz Z.,’ who invited his fellow clerics and the male prostitute to his official apartment at the church, the newspaper said.

The assembly was described as “purely sexual in nature” and involved erection-enhancing drugs. At some point, “the situation got out of control,” and the gigolo lost consciousness, prompting others to call an ambulance.

When paramedics arrived, their behavior turned from scandalous to potentially criminal, as the priests allegedly refused to let the emergency crew in. The rescuers called the police for help, believing the patient’s life could be at risk.

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Obstruction of medical assistance in such a case can land a person in jail for up to three years, a district prosecutor spokesman told Wyborcza. 

Reacting to the coverage, the Sosnowiec Diocese has launched an investigation into the “orgy at the rectory,” as Polish media branded the scandal. The curia later said its findings “so far differ from the information presented by some media,” without detailing the purported discrepancies.

An apology letter penned by Bishop Grzegorz Kaszak was read to congregations in all churches of the diocese during last Sunday's mass. Kaszak vowed that there would be “no consent to moral evil.” 

The disgraced priest’s superiors said on Friday that he was stripped of all church functions, and he is refusing any contact with the press.

Amid the scandal, an arsonist set the church’s doors on fire on Thursday. Firefighters quickly extinguished the flames, and police took a suspect, who was identified as a 38-year-old local city resident, into custody.

The CIA was ready to sabotage the pipelines as early as last January, intelligence sources told the veteran reporter

US President Joe Biden initially planned on destroying the Nord Stream gas pipelines to deter Russia from launching its military operation in Ukraine, American journalist Seymour Hersh reported on Tuesday. However, Hersh alleged that the sabotage operation went ahead later not to deter Russia, but to harm the German economy.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which connected Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, were destroyed in a series of underwater explosions exactly a year ago on Tuesday. Competing theories have emerged as to who was to blame, with mainstream media in the West blaming a Ukrainian commando unit and Seymour Hersh claiming that the CIA carried out the operation under direct orders from Biden.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Hersh alleged that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan convened a series of meetings in late 2021, tasking intelligence officials with coming up with a means of deterring Russian President Vladimir Putin from sending troops into Ukraine.

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“The White House’s policy was to deter Russia from an attack,” an intelligence source told Hersh. “The challenge it gave to the intelligence community was to come up with a way that was powerful enough to do that, and to make a strong statement of American capability.”

By January, as Russian forces were massing on the Ukrainian border, the CIA had “solved the problem,” the source said. With a plan in place to plant remotely-detonated explosives on the pipelines under the Baltic Sea, Biden warned in early February that in the event of military action by Russia, “there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

Following Biden’s statement, which was delivered alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the CIA team tasked with sabotaging the pipelines received new orders, Hersh claimed. Instead of immediately destroying Nord Stream, the team was instructed to plant the explosives for detonation at a later date.

“It was then that we understood that the attack on the pipelines was not a deterrent because as the war went on we never got the command,” a member of the team told Hersh. 

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“We realized that the destruction of the two Russian pipelines was not related to the Ukrainian war,” the source continued. “But was part of a neocon political agenda to keep Scholz and Germany, with winter coming up and the pipelines shut down, from getting cold feet and opening up.” 

According to Hersh’s earlier reporting, CIA divers planted the explosives last summer with the help of the Norwegian navy, using a NATO exercise in the region as cover. By the time the bombs were triggered in September, the flow of Russian gas to Germany via Nord Stream 1 had already been slowed to a trickle by Russia in response to Western sanctions, while Nord Stream 2 was never certified to begin operation by Scholz’s government. However, with the German economy heavily dependent on Russian gas, Biden reportedly feared that Scholz would choose reproachment with Moscow over support for Ukraine.

“The President of the United States would rather see Germany freeze than [see] Germany possibly stop supporting Ukraine,” Hersh declared earlier this year.

From funding friendly media to building biolabs, Washington has sunk tens of millions of dollars into the Caucasian nation

Within days of the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power touched down in Yerevan with promises of “support for Armenia’s sovereignty.” RT explores how USAID is reshaping the country with the aid of its pro-Western prime minister.

The former Trump lawyer and his attorney are being accused of the “total annihilation” of Biden’s digital privacy

Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden, has filed lawsuits against former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his companies, and attorney Robert Costello, for allegedly “hacking” and “obsessing” over his private digital data. 

As stated in the lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday with the US District Court of California, the defendants are accused of being “primarily responsible” for the “total annihilation” of Hunter Biden’s digital privacy and his personal data. 

“For the past many months and even years, Defendants have dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and energy toward looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen from Plaintiff’s devices or storage platforms,” Biden’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit, noting that the supposedly stolen data did not even originate from a “laptop” but from an “external drive.”  

In his lawsuit, Hunter Biden stressed that Giuliani and Costello have refused to cease their “unlawful activities” and return Biden’s data, which includes pictures, videos, emails and other data. It’s further suggested that the two lawyers’ “unlawful hacking activities” are still going on today and will persist “unless stopped,” hence why Biden chose to file the complaint. 

Previously, both Giuliani and Costello have openly stated that they had obtained copies of files from a hard drive that Hunter Biden had allegedly left at a computer repair shop in 2019. These files were then provided to the New York Post in 2020, which published a bombshell report on the alleged influence-peddling by the Biden family in countries such as Ukraine.  

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Other details about Hunter Biden’s private life were also made public, such as his crack cocaine addiction, infatuation with firearms, and a propensity to engage in graphic sexual acts with prostitutes. 

The revelations of that report led a federal grand jury in Delaware earlier this week to officially indict Hunter Biden on several charges, including unlawful possession of a gun and lying about his drug addiction in order to obtain a firearm. 

Since the Post story broke, Biden has publicly admitted to having an addiction to crack cocaine and has claimed that he has little to no recollection of 2018 and 2019.

The Polish Ambassador to Canada called on Ottawa to try the 98-year-old Waffen SS officer for war crimes committed by his division

The Ukrainian Nazi veteran invited and honored in the Canadian Parliament last week should face prosecution for the actions of the Waffen SS, Polish Ambassador to Canada Witold Dzielski told ‘CTV National News’ on Monday. He insisted that the Canadian government issue an apology to the Polish people.

“This is a person who participated in an organization that was targeting Poles, was committing mass murders of Poles, not only the military personnel but also civilians,” Dzielski told the program, adding that Hunka “should not have appeared in any public place” to begin with and should instead “face prosecution for what his unit was doing” during the Second World War.

The diplomat stressed earlier in his remarks that it was “deeply hurtful” to see Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian who fought for the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, which was responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocent people, be applauded in Canada’s House of Commons last Friday.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has deemed the incident “profoundly embarrassing.” At the same time, House Speaker Anthony Rota, who invited Hunka to attend the session of parliament amid a visit by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, has stated that he “regretted” hailing the Nazi SS veteran as a “hero” and offered his “deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world.”

Dzielski, however, has insisted that the statements from Trudeau and Rota were insufficient. He pointed out that it was “wrong” that Poland was not mentioned in the apologies delivered by Canadian officials, given that the Nazi division, to which the 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka belonged, had committed mass killings of Polish citizens.

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The ambassador stated that while the apology and explanation of how such a person came to be invited to the Canadian Parliament were important and something the Polish side appreciated, it was nevertheless unclear why the Canadian leaders only mentioned the Jewish community and entirely omitted Polish citizens.

“Remember that during the Second World War, six million Poles were murdered. Six million Poles died. Half of that group, three million, were Polish Jews,” he told the outlet, adding that it was important for the Canadian leadership to acknowledge the impact of last week’s incident on the Polish communities in Poland and Canada.

Meanwhile, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Arkadiusz Mularczyk has insisted that Rota had shown “a lack of insight, lack of knowledge of history and lack of diligence” and should suffer “some personal consequences” for his blunder and resign from his position as speaker of the House.

Polish investigators have reportedly ruled out Ukrainian claims that Russia was the culprit in the November 2022 incident

Despite a lack of cooperation from Kiev, Polish investigators have confirmed that a missile, resulting in the deaths of two farmers in the border village of Przewodow in Poland, was fired by Ukrainian forces. This revelation was reported by the newspaper Rzeczpospolita on Tuesday.

The Polish publication referenced a comprehensive report prepared by investigators who meticulously examined all available forensic evidence in the case. A spokesperson for the National Prosecutor’s Office acknowledged the receipt of this classified document.

“We have sent an application for legal assistance to Ukraine, and we are waiting for a response,” the official told the publication.

The tragedy in Przewodow happened last November amid a Russian missile barrage hitting targets in Western Ukraine. The victims, aged 59 and 60, were killed after a projectile hit a grain farm.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky immediately branded the incident a “Russian missile strike on collective security.” Hours later, Warsaw reported that the weapon was most likely Ukrainian, but the leadership in Kiev doubled down on claims that Russia fired it.

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According to Rzeczpospolita, Polish investigators have successfully identified the missile responsible as a 5V55 model known to be used in the Soviet-designed S-300 air defense system. Polish authorities have also pinpointed the precise location from which this missile originated in Ukraine. The article points out that, given the interceptor’s range, it is evident that it could not have been launched from any Russian positions at that particular moment, including those in Belarus.

Sources cited by the newspaper, who are familiar with the investigation, explained that Kiev was employing a strategy of firing two anti-air missiles at each incoming target to enhance the likelihood of interception. However, the experts suggested that, in this particular case, the projectile in question failed to self-destruct as intended, contrary to standard protocol.

Senior Ukrainian officials had reportedly expressed their willingness to collaborate in investigating the incident. Aleksey Danilov, the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, asserted that Kiev possessed “evidence of a Russian trace” and offered to share it with Warsaw.

According to Rzeczpospolita, however, Polish prosecutors declined a joint investigation and did not permit Ukrainian officials to visit the site of the strike, citing legal constraints. Instead, they sought assistance through established bilateral channels, the newspaper reported.

READ MORE: ‘Never insult us again,’ Warsaw warns Zelensky

Concluding their report, the publication recalled the tragic incident in Konstantinovka, a city under Kiev’s control in Donbass, where a missile struck a market, resulting in the deaths of at least 15 civilians.

President Zelensky accused Russia of being responsible for the strike. Last week, The New York Times published findings suggesting that a Ukrainian Buk missile was likely responsible for the deaths.