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56% of Americans want Biden to be tougher on Russia, most don't think he can 'handle a crisis' - poll
As President Joe Biden meets with key allies in Brussels to coordinate a stronger response to Russia's monthlong assault on Ukraine, a new poll shows Americans have yet to rally around his leadership. Comment: It's misleading to claim that Russia has waged a 'monthlong assault on Ukraine', because, as Putin has said, it's a special operation with precision strikes and calculated incursions with the aim to prevent as little infrastructural damage and civilian death as possible whilst at the same time rounding up, routing out, and neutralising the neo-Nazi terrorist elements in the country. Even the legacy-media are beginning to admit this much: First Fact-Based MSM Report About War in Ukraine! Newsweek: 'Putin Minimizing Civilian Casualties' Concern about Russia has swelled and support for a major U.S. role in the conflict strengthened in the last month, but Biden's negative approval rating has not budged, according to the poll Thursday from The Associated Press-NORC Center for...
https://www.sott.net/article/465890-56-of-Americans-want-Biden-to-be-tougher-on-Russia-most-dont-think-he-can-handle-a-crisis-poll

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Olympic ice dance icon Tatiana Navka: 'Task of Americans is to destroy Russia'
Tatiana Navka made the comments after some US journalists gloated at Russia's absence from the World Figure Skating Championships Two-time world ice dancing champion Tatiana Navka has reacted to comments from western journalists over Russia's absence at the ongoing World Figure Skating Championships, saying that Americans are tasked with destroying her homeland. Elite Russian skaters such as Beijing 2022 medalists Kamila Valieva, Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova weren't able to take part in the world showpiece in Montpellier this week due to a ban imposed by the International Skating Union (ISU) as a response to Russia's military operation in Ukraine.
https://www.sott.net/article/465898-Olympic-ice-dance-icon-Tatiana-Navka-Task-of-Americans-is-to-destroy-Russia

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Delhi calls off top meeting with UK delegates after PM pressures India to distance itself from Russia
A high-powered cross-party UK delegation to India led by the Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, and his deputy has been called off at the last minute in a sign of a growing rift over India's refusal to distance itself from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The 10-strong delegation has been in discussion with India since January and was planning to visit Delhi and Rajasthan, but the Indian high commission is understood to have raised objections at the last minute. Boris Johnson spoke with Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, on Tuesday in an attempt to use his influence to persuade India to take a more robust position over the Russian invasion. India has not imposed sanctions or even condemned Russia, its biggest supplier of military hardware. Comment: India has much more than just a military relationship with Russia, although these kinds of insidious slights are to be expected from The Guardian these days.
https://www.sott.net/article/465899-Delhi-calls-off-top-meeting-with-UK-delegates-after-PM-pressures-India-to-distance-itself-from-Russia

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BlackRock's Larry Fink says Ukraine war 'put an end' to globalization
The Wall Street titan told shareholders he remains a proponent of globalization BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says that Russia's invasion of Ukraine marks the end of globalization, as countries, companies and individuals reassess how dependent they want to be on others. The Wall Street titan, whose firm is the largest asset manager in the world handling more than $10 trillion, says he is still a globalization proponent. In his annual letter to shareholders on Thursday, Fink wrote, "I remain a long-term believer in the benefits of globalization and the power of global capital markets," arguing that "access to global capital enables companies to fund growth, countries to increase economic development, and more people to experience financial well-being."
https://www.sott.net/article/465900-BlackRocks-Larry-Fink-says-Ukraine-war-put-an-end-to-globalization

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UK to send 6,000 'defensive' missiles to Ukraine to 'step up' military support
Boris Johnson is set to announce a new military support package for Ukraine on Thursday as he meets with NATO and G7 leaders and urges them to "step up" in response to Russian aggression. Calling on the UK's allies to ensure Ukrainian's have the means to continue to protect themselves against Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces, the prime minister will pledge 6,000 new defensive missiles and £25m in financial backing for Ukraine's military personnel. The measures more than double the defence lethal aid provided to date and comes on top of the £400m the UK has committed in humanitarian and economic aid for the crisis so far, the government said.
https://www.sott.net/article/465901-UK-to-send-6000-defensive-missiles-to-Ukraine-to-step-up-military-support

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Sanity returning: Arizona passes bills banning transgender athletes in women's sports, gender reassignment surgery for minors
Arizona passed bills Thursday banning transgender athletes from competing in women's sports and minors from undergoing gender transition surgery, adding another member to the growing coalition of Republican states that have passed such measures. It is uncertain whether Governor Doug Ducey will sign the bills. While he is a Republican, that doesn't necessarily mean he will rubber stamp the bills, given that the Republican governors of Utah and Indiana recently vetoed their versions of the sports legislation. Prohibiting transgender athletes from female sports has become a major Republican platform issue. Multiple red states have passed bills restricting K-12 and collegiate athletics to biological sex. Idaho was the first do so in 2020, but its law is currently entrenched in litigation, as is West Virginia's.
https://www.sott.net/article/465902-Sanity-returning-Arizona-passes-bills-banning-transgender-athletes-in-womens-sports-gender-reassignment-surgery-for-minors

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Russia says 1,351 of its soldiers have died in Ukraine, well below Western estimates
Moscow's official death toll for its troops in Ukraine is far lower than other estimates. A NATO official said this week that it was likely 7,000 to 14,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the conflict. Russia says 1,351 of its soldiers have died in the fighting in Ukraine, the first casualty update that Moscow has given in more than three weeks and a figure well below Western intelligence and Ukrainian estimates. Senior military officials said in Moscow on March 25 that 3,850 Russian soldiers had been injured in the fighting, which began on February 24 when Russia launched its unprovoked attack on Ukraine.
https://www.sott.net/article/465903-Russia-says-1351-of-its-soldiers-have-died-in-Ukraine-well-below-Western-estimates

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British intelligence operative's involvement in Ukraine crisis signals false flag attacks ahead
Shadowy UK intel figure Hamish de Bretton-Gordon was at the forefront of chemical weapons deceptions in Syria. Now in Ukraine, he's up to his old tricks again. With Washington and its NATO allies forced to watch from the sidelines as Russia's military advances across Eastern Ukraine and encircles Kiev, US and British officials have resorted to a troubling tactic that could trigger a massive escalation. Following similar claims by his Secretary of State and ambassador the United Nations, US President Joseph Biden has declared that Russia will pay a "severe price" if it uses chemical weapons in Ukraine. The warnings emanating from the Biden administration contain chilling echoes of those issued by the administration of President Barack Obama throughout the US-led dirty war on Syria.
https://www.sott.net/article/465904-British-intelligence-operatives-involvement-in-Ukraine-crisis-signals-false-flag-attacks-ahead

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Biden warns of global food shortages as Russia-Ukraine war upends wheat supplies
President Biden on Thursday warned of global food shortages as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine — predicting that the war would upend global wheat supplies. Russia and Ukraine jointly supply about a fourth of the world's wheat exports. "With regard to food shortages, yes we did talk about food shortages. And then it's going to be real," Biden said at a press conference in Belgium after attending meetings of NATO and G7 leaders. "The price of the sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia. It's post upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well," Biden said.
https://www.sott.net/article/465905-Biden-warns-of-global-food-shortages-as-Russia-Ukraine-war-upends-wheat-supplies

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US volunteers reach the frontline of the war in Ukraine
US volunteers have been seen in video footage from the frontlines in Ukraine, suggesting that the international legion fighting alongside the Ukrainian army is playing an increasingly active role. Two video clips featuring US fighters appeared on Twitter on Thursday: one showing an American in combat gear posing in front of the burnt remains of what he said was a Russian tank. Off camera, a Ukrainian shouts "Welcome to America!" and the American repeats the phrase. In the other, narrated by a different soldier with an American accent, shows a detachment of soldiers taking cover by a wall alongside a road, in a village the narrator claims they have recaptured from the Russians. The first video was posted by James Vasquez, a US army veteran and building contractor from Connecticut, who, according to his Twitter feed, arrived in Poland on 15 March and crossed into Ukraine the next day, bringing with him several surveillance drones. He was sent to the frontlines from Lviv on 18 March....
https://www.sott.net/article/465906-US-volunteers-reach-the-frontline-of-the-war-in-Ukraine

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Mayor Eric Adams exempts NYC athletes from vaccine mandate — but other city workers aren't so lucky
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced an exemption on Thursday for city-based athletes and performers from NYC's vaccine mandate following plenty of pressure, most notably the bad optics of NBA star Kyrie Irving being barred from playing in Brooklyn Nets' home games — yet being allowed to enter the Nets' arena as a spectator and sit courtside. Other city workers are still required to abide by the mandate, however, and leaders of their unions aren't happy, the New York Post reported. What are the details? The paper said the exemption for athletes and performers is effective immediately. "Being healthy is not just about being physically healthy, but being economically healthy," Adams said at Citi Field, according to the Post. The stadium is the home of major league baseball's New York Mets.
https://www.sott.net/article/465907-Mayor-Eric-Adams-exempts-NYC-athletes-from-vaccine-mandate-but-other-city-workers-arent-so-lucky

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China grounds Boeing 737s after deadly crash
The same type of aircraft was involved in this week's accident that killed 132 people China Eastern Airlines and its subsidiaries have temporarily grounded 223 Boeing 737-800 aircraft, the company's spokesperson Liu Xiaodong said in a press conference on Thursday, according to CNN. On Monday, China Eastern Airlines flight 5735 crashed in a remote, mountainous region in the south of the country as it flew from Kunming to Guangzhou. The flight had 132 people on board - 123 passengers and nine crew. No survivors had been found after three days of search efforts, Chinese investigators said on Wednesday. The grounded aircraft are undergoing safety inspection and maintenance to ensure that they are safe to fly, Liu said. The airline launched a sweeping safety overhaul after the accident, the spokesman added.
https://www.sott.net/article/465908-China-grounds-Boeing-737s-after-deadly-crash

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Safe streets require the political will to punish crime
As this crime wave rages, Republicans must ignore the false promise of a soft-on-crime utopia. "Let's not abandon our streets," Joe Biden lectured in his State of the Union last week. But his weak overtures to law and order in the speech rang hollow, as his administration — and just about every other career politician in Washington — sinks deeper into the quagmire of so-called "criminal justice reform." This soft-on-crime movement is led by activists who don't care about public safety at all. After years of crime reduction, American cities have become even more dangerous than they were in the 1980s. Murders are up, along with carjackings, robberies, shoplifting, public violence, and vandalism. Some progressives have tried to manipulate statistics and "contextualize" the recent crime surge, but Americans aren't buying it. We know a policy failure when it's staring us in the face.
https://www.sott.net/article/465909-Safe-streets-require-the-political-will-to-punish-crime

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We've discovered why some whales stop feeding in response to the sound of sonar
In September 2002, a number of beaked whales were stranded and killed in the Canary Islands during a NATO naval exercise. It was the first time we started to get a real understanding of the negative effects of sonar sounds on cetaceans, which includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. But why did the noise of sonar seem to affect beaked whales in particular, rather than other species of cetacean? In our new research, we've discovered that the response of each species to predators could explain why some whales and dolphins are more sensitive to this human-made noise. It was back in the early 2000s that we (along with other researchers around the world) began to study the impact of sonar on free-ranging whales. These new "behavioral responses studies" exposed different cetacean species to gradually increasing levels of sonar - with careful monitoring to keep the animals from harm. We were then able to identify the level of sonar noise at which behavioral changes began to occur. From...
https://www.sott.net/article/465910-We-ve-discovered-why-some-whales-stop-feeding-in-response-to-the-sound-of-sonar

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Reject Ketanji Brown Jackson for SCOTUS
The issue with Ketanji Brown Jackson, the 51-year-old federal appellate judge who is our senile president's Supreme Court nominee, is not necessarily her on-paper qualifications. By most traditional metrics, she is "qualified": She has served as both a district court and appellate court judge, served as vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, formerly clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer (the man she has been nominated to replace) and is a double-Harvard alum. In terms of "objective" criteria, this is an impressive resume. Instead, the issue with Judge Jackson is that she is a left-wing ideologue who, if successfully confirmed by the Senate, will devote the next few decades endeavoring to move the Supreme Court far to the left. All relevant indications are that she will approach her job not like her (slightly) more pragmatic former boss, but like a leftist activist — in the mode of her possible future colleague, the midwit partisan flack Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
https://www.sott.net/article/465911-Reject-Ketanji-Brown-Jackson-for-SCOTUS

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BEST OF THE WEB: NATO Wants a Ground-War in Ukraine
"While the US succeeded in goading the Russian government to take the first shot, it is clear that the war in Ukraine is the first stage of a much broader conflict. Having provoked the Russian government into a desperate and disastrous invasion of Ukraine, the United States is using the war to reassert its global hegemony, building a war coalition for what the United States has termed "great power conflict" targeting not only Russia, but China as well." Andre Damon, World Socialist Web Site "What is important to our managerial and foreign policy elites, is, above all, the major effort and push for a globalist "Great Reset" using the Ukrainian conflict to finally accomplish their objective of bringing the entire world in accord with their plans for a New World Order. And to do that, Russia, which now stands athwart their designs, must be diminished and brought into line." Boyd D. Cathey, The Unz Review Why is NATO sending more lethal weaponry to Ukraine? Didn't Putin say that poring...
https://www.sott.net/article/465912-NATO-Wants-a-Ground-War-in-Ukraine

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Oil prices surging to $200 a barrel could send the economy into recession: Goldman Sachs
Should oil prices explode to $200 a barrel as some experts have warned, Goldman Sachs thinks the U.S. economy would probably enter a recession (or already be in one). In a new note on Thursday, Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius said: "We estimate that it would take a sustained oil price increase to $200 per barrel to produce an income shock similar in magnitude to those that precipitated the 1974 and 1979 recessions — and this would significantly increase the 2022 recession odds." Oil prices have come off their highs of around $140 a barrel seen at the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, but remain uncomfortably high. Brent crude oil hovered at $122 a barrel Thursday amid concerns on a new spate of sanctions on Russia by the West. Prices for Brent crude oil have more than doubled compared to this time last year. RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Tran on Yahoo Finance Live said: "It is not unfathomable for prices to rocket to $200 a barrel by summer, spur a recession and end...
https://www.sott.net/article/465913-Oil-prices-surging-to-200-a-barrel-could-send-the-economy-into-recession-Goldman-Sachs

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George Bush and Tony Blair lack the moral authority to lecture Russia on Ukraine
Current and former Western leaders who have achieved eternal notoriety for launching the Iraq War, as well as other military disasters, are clearly the wrong people to lecture Russia over its actions in Ukraine. As George W. Bush and Tony Blair are emerging from political retirement to pontificate on Russia's "authoritarian bullying" against Ukraine, the question arises: Does such a surreal spectacle underscore the public's notorious short-term memory, or does it prove the media's vast power to shape public opinion in favor of its latest agenda? All things considered, it's most likely a wicked combination of the two noxious ingredients. Whatever the case, it defies reality that these former US and British leaders, whose past military exploits have been described in some quarters as actual war crimes, are now weighing in on the legitimacy of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, or any other conflict for that matter. To put it another way, Bush and Blair acting like long-haired anti-war...
https://www.sott.net/article/465914-George-Bush-and-Tony-Blair-lack-the-moral-authority-to-lecture-Russia-on-Ukraine

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Donald Trump sues Hillary Clinton over 2016 Russian collusion allegations
Donald Trump on Thursday sued his rival in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Hillary Clinton, and several other Democrats, alleging that they tried to rig that election by tying his campaign to Russia. The lawsuit covers a long list of grievances the Republican former president repeatedly aired during his four years in the White House after beating Clinton, and comes as he continues to falsely claim that his 2020 election defeat by Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud. "Acting in concert, the Defendants maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty," the former president alleged in a 108-page lawsuit filed in a federal court in Florida. The suit alleges "racketeering" and a "conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood," among other claims. A Clinton representative did not respond to a request for comment.
https://www.sott.net/article/465915-Donald-Trump-sues-Hillary-Clinton-over-2016-Russian-collusion-allegations

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The Bidens funded the activities of secret US biolabs
A growing number of independent media and civil society organizations are joining the investigation of hundreds of secret US biological laboratories around the world, including around Russia and China, rightfully suspected of developing and testing internationally banned biological weapons, to prevent Washington from launching a new, this time biological war in the world. The New Eastern Outlook has been involved in this investigation for a number of years, and its sources have repeatedly uncovered US criminal activity in Ukraine, Georgia and the Central Asian countries. It is noteworthy that the more justified and documented such criminal activity by the United States becomes, the louder the "objections" from Washington resound. And on March 22, in a meeting with business representatives, even US President Joe Biden tried to assure that the United States allegedly has no biological or chemical weapons in Europe. "It's just not true, I guarantee it," Biden said. At the same time,...
https://www.sott.net/article/465916-The-Bidens-funded-the-activities-of-secret-US-biolabs

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Hunter Biden's Investment Fund connected to financing of Pentagon-Funded Biolabs in Ukraine: MoD
In recent weeks, the Russian Defence Ministry has peeled back layers of information about 30 Pentagon-funded biolabs feared to be engaged in dangerous and illegal research into deadly pathogens in Ukraine. US officials and media initially denied that the labs existed, but a senior Biden administration official later confirmed their presence. An investment firm connected to US President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden has been implicated in the financing of the Pentagon's military biological programme in Ukraine, the head of Russia's Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defence Troops has announced, citing fresh documents. RCBD Troops chief Igor Kirillov said in a briefing Thursday: "Incoming materials have allowed us to trace the scheme of interaction between US government bodies and Ukraine's biolabs. The involvement in the financing of these activities by structures close to the current US leadership, in particular the Rosemont Seneca investment fund managed by Hunter Biden, draws...
https://www.sott.net/article/465917-Hunter-Bidens-Investment-Fund-connected-to-financing-of-Pentagon-Funded-Biolabs-in-Ukraine-MoD