On the 283rd day of the Russia-Ukraine War, let’s take a look at the key developments.

This is the situation on Saturday, December 3rd:

Battle

• Three people have been killed and seven injured in Russian shelling of the Kherson region in the past 24 hours.
• The regional capital of Kherson, recaptured in mid-November, and other parts of the region have been bombed 42 times in the same period, Governor Yaroslav Yanushevich said.
• Russian-installed officials in Donetsk said three people died after Ukrainian forces shelled the eastern Ukrainian city.

diplomacy

• US President Joe Biden does not intend to talk to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine because the conditions for such talks are not currently in place, the White House said.
• The Group of Seven and Australia agreed on a $60 per barrel price cap for Russian sea crude after European Union members overcame Poland’s opposition and reached an agreement.
• The head of Russia’s lower house of parliament foreign affairs committee, Leonid Slutsky, said the EU was jeopardizing its own energy security with the cap.
• Putin told Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a phone call that Western moves in Ukraine were “destructive” and urged Berlin to reconsider its approach.
• Scholz urged Putin to find a diplomatic solution to the war as soon as possible, “including a withdrawal of Russian troops.”
• Several Ukrainian embassies have received “bloody packages” containing animal eyes, the foreign ministry said, after a series of letter bombs were sent to locations in Spain, including the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid.
• Russia’s foreign ministry said it was “outraged” by a statement by the French foreign ministry backing plans to set up a tribunal into possible crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine.
• Germany is preparing to deliver seven Gepard tanks to Ukraine, in addition to the 30 anti-aircraft tanks already deployed against the Russian army.

Business

• Russia’s economy is expected to contract by 2.5 percent next year, on top of a 3 percent contraction in 2022, with stubbornly high inflation leaving the central bank limited scope for rate cuts.
• Ukraine’s grain exports so far in the 2022/2023 season fell 29.6 percent from the same period last year to 18.1 million tons after a six-month blockade caused by the Russian invasion.
• A group cut a Banksy mural from a battle-hardened wall in Ukraine, but people were spotted and the image of a woman in a gas mask and dressing gown holding a fire extinguisher was under police protection, the Kyiv region governor said.

The latest revelations about the FBI and Big Tech’s ‘collusion’ to censor social accounts

Twitter is confirmed main battlefield of the war for freedom of expression. As absurd as it may seem, alas, we have reached the point where the face of the West may depend on a social media platform’s content moderation policies for decades to come.

The stakes

At stake is nothing less than the affirmation of freedom of expression or, conversely, the betrayal of one of the founding principles of the modern West and its people Chinese drift.

The takeover of social media by Elon Musk has shattered the certainties of those who, since late 2016, have been elected donald trumpbelieved they had gained control of, and asserted themselves through, the main social platforms on which, willy-nilly, a significant portion of public debate now takes place narrative control on the issues that matter most credibility of governments in the eyes of the citizens.

Remember how they responded to objections to account closures and content censorship under the guise of disinformation, fake news? “These are private companies, they can do whatever they want.” Well, now that Musk has taken over Twitter and changed the moderation policy, they don’t think as much.

The Senator Elizabeth WarenWhen specifically asked, he replies that “a person shouldn’t be able to walk into a dark room alone and decide, ‘Oh, this person is heard, this person isn’t.’ That’s not how it’s supposed to work.” That’s exactly what Musk questioned with Twitter’s previous management.

Goal: Stop Musk

Washington and Brussels are moving together Stop Musk’s project Restore freedom of speech on Twitter.

In an amazing comment weeks ago, the White House spokeswoman Karine Jean Pierre he had already expressly said: anyone who opposes the majority idea will be considered an extremist by the administration (Text: “When you are not with what major of Americans are, then you know, that is extreme. That is an extreme way of thinking ” ).

That being said, the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced one Revision Musk’s takeover of the social network after President Biden’s threat immediately after the midterms (“his cooperation with foreign countries must be heeded, there are many ways”).

Yellen mentioned the US Foreign Investment Committee, which reviews “foreign investment” transactions to see if they make a difference a risk to national security“. Adding: “We do not comment on the work in progress. But if there are such risks, it would be appropriate for the Committee to let us know quick view“.

The threat from Brussels

But even worse, in the same hours, Brussels threatened to do so Disable Twitter in EU countries — yes, just like in China — unless the new owner abides by their strict content moderation rules.

The threat, as reported by the Financial Times, came from Thierry Bretonthe EU commissioner responsible for implementing the Digital Service Act, who ordered Musk to do so during a video call on Wednesday follow a list of rulesincluding abandoning an “arbitrary” approach to recovering banned users and “aggressively” fighting so-called disinformation.

Musk has been warned that if Twitter doesn’t abide by these rules, it risks violating the EU’s new digital services law, which sets the global standard for how big tech controls content online. Breton reiterated that according to the law, Twitter could be harmed if violated a European ban or fines of up to 6 percent of global sales.

The Twitter owner has repeatedly stated, according to FT, that he thinks the DSA is “very reasonable, adding that he has read the legislation and thinks it should be applied anywhere in the world”.

On the part of the EU, commented the former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo“Consider banning Twitter while basically allowing TikTok to be within the gates of Europe misunderstands the risk for people it is his duty to protect. The CCP surveillance state, not a private American corporation, poses a clear threat.”

The “misinformation” about Covid

As you know, Musk is determined to do that restore freedom of speech on the social network and has already taken steps to restore thousands of suspended accounts, including that of the former President donald trump, who hasn’t resumed tweeting yet. Twitter’s new philosophy is based on the “de-amplification” of content that violates the rules: “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach”.

Twitter is also no longer applying the policy to counter “misleading information about Covid-19.” flagged or censored Tweets that don’t match the official narrative on Covid and vaccines.

What happened with the adoption of this policy is an example of how the risks of free speech are far preferable to the risks of censorship. Throughout the two-year pandemic and leading up to Musk’s takeover, from doubts about the virus’ natural origins to debate over the effectiveness of anti-Covid vaccines, Theses dismissed as conspiracy theories or “misinformation” and therefore censored, later proved to be more than justified.

And indeed, evidence of this has been emerging lately regular cooperation between Big Tech and US federal agencies, such as the FBI and DHS, e.g Censoring news and opinions classified as harmful to government policy regarding Covid and classified as ‘misinformation’.

Twitter has interfered in the 2020 election

Not just covid. In a tweet published Wednesday, Musk acknowledged that Twitter “meddled in the election.”

Commenting on a Portal article in which the former head of the social media Trust and Safety team claimed Twitter with Musk is “not safe anymore,” user @EvaFoxU wrote, “Twitter has changed significantly over the past 10 Years proven unsafe and has lost the trust of users. The former ‘Trust and Safety’ team is a disgrace so they have no right to judge what is being done now.”

Musk responded to that tweet, “Exactly. The apparent reality is, as long-time users know, Twitter has long failed in trust and security, and intervened in the election“. And added that “Twitter 2.0 will be much more effective, transparent and impartial”.

The Story of Hunter Biden’s Laptop

How would Twitter “intervene in the election”? Musk refers to censorshipin the closing days of the 2020 presidential campaign, from the – true – story of the laptop Hunter Bideneven the media account that said so, the New York Post, not exactly a conspiracy theorist bulletin but one of the major US newspapers.

In fact, a few days ago Musk had reached an agreement with Alex Lorusso, one of the banned journalists, according to which Musk himself “should publish internal discussions from Twitter about the decision to censor the New York Post story through on the laptop Hunter Biden just before the 2020 elections in the interest of transparency”.

“It is necessary to restore public confidence,” was Musk’s reply, who announced a few days later: “Twitter’s documents suppressing freedom of expression they will be published soon on Twitter itself. The public deserves to know what really happened…”

Recall that back then Twitter had locked for every user share the link to the Post survey both publicly and via direct message, e.g the account blocked personal former White House spokesman Kayleigh McEnanyas well as former President Trump’s campaign account, for sharing, but also Newspaper account blocked.

In April, months before acquiring the platform, Musk tweeted that “the suspension of a major news organization’s account for publishing a true story was apparent incredibly inappropriate“.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, had to apologize to Congress for suppressing reports that had been proven accurate and verified. And lately even the Washington Post, the New York Times and CBS News have had to recognize authenticity the history of the laptop.

But what can be gleaned from Twitter’s internal documents about Musk’s promised decision? Something similar to what he said Mark Zuckerberg in the podcast by Joe Roganwhen he admitted that Facebook was prompted to censor the story by FBI orders that it was Russian disinformation – which later turned out to be a total misrepresentation.

The collusion between the FBI and Big Tech

On the charge of arrangement A court case aimed at censoring and suppressing freedom of expression on social media is underway between senior government officials and big tech and has been filed against the federal government by the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana.

According to her complaint, following a third-party subpoena, Meta identified the FBI’s foreign interference task force and specifically the agent Elvis Chanas involved in communications between the FBI and Meta led to oppression from Facebook’s laptop story Hunter Biden.

According to Fox News reports heard on November 14 last year, Agent Chan spoke of “weekly meetings‘ by the FBI with Big Tech companies in Silicon Valley ahead of the 2020 presidential election to discuss and get intelligence on ‘disinformation’ on social media efforts to censor it.

According to him, the FBI send regularly to social media companies lists of Internet URLs and accounts to be removed as “misinformation” from “malicious foreign influence operations.” The FBI then asks the platforms if they actually removed the content. And in many cases these They’re deleting accounts reported by the FBI.

In short, what emerges is a real censorship scheme. As Max Balestra aptly explained, in recent years the federal government has required major social networks like Facebook and Twitter to act as theirs Censorship Proxy. The request to Musk from Washington and Brussels is that Twitter will remain in place.

Truce with Apple

However, clarification between Musk and Tim cook, the CEO of Apple. In recent days, Musk has accused Apple of hostilely slashing its Twitter ad spend threatened with removal the app from their store.

Last Tuesday, the Florida governor intervened sharply on the matter Ron DeSantiswho warned at a press conference that if Apple banned Twitter from its store it would show it’s being exercised a monopoly power and Congress should deal with it:

We’re hearing that Apple is threatening to remove Twitter from the App Store because Elon Musk is effectively opening it up to free speech, restoring many accounts that have been wrongfully and unlawfully banned for disseminating accurate information about Covid. If Apple responded by removing them from the App Store, I think they would a big mistakehuge, and would really be an exercise in pure monopoly power.

The price applicable from Monday, equivalent to around €57 for 159 litres, would then be up to €9 below the most recent market price for Russian Urals grade crude. In order to enforce the price cap, it should be regulated that, in the future, important services for Russia’s oil exports can only be provided with impunity if the price of the exported oil does not exceed the price cap.

Western shipping companies could use their ships to continue transporting Russian oil to third countries such as India. The regulation should also apply to other important services such as insurance, technical assistance and financing and brokerage services. The tanker fleet is predominantly owned by western shipping companies.

Von der Leyen convinced of success

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in the evening that the price cap coordinated with the group of major western industrialized nations (G-7) and others would “significantly reduce” Russia’s revenues. It will also help stabilize global energy prices, which will benefit emerging markets around the world.

The agreed maximum price is not low enough for Ukraine. It should fall by half to $30 a barrel, said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak: “It can destroy the enemy’s economy more quickly.”

Praise from Washington, Warning from Moscow

The US government welcomed the EU deal. “This is good news,” said National Security Council communications director John Kirby.

On the other hand, warnings and criticisms came from Russia. “The EU is putting its own energy security at risk,” prominent Russian foreign politician and State Duma deputy Leonid Slutsky was quoted as saying by state news agency TASS. And all to “satisfy the ambitions of partners abroad,” he said, referring to the United States.

debate

Ukraine: what’s next in winter?

periodic review

In order to be able to react to market developments, the plans provide for a bimonthly review of the price cap. It must always be at least five percent below an average price determined by the International Energy Agency (IEA). In addition to the EU, countries such as the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Japan and Australia are involved in the project.

The price cap is intended to complement the oil embargo against Russia that the EU decided in June. Among other things, this provides for a ban on the purchase, import or shipment of crude oil and certain petroleum products from Russia to the EU. Restrictions apply from December 5 for crude oil and from February 5, 2023 for other petroleum products. However, there are some exceptions, for example for Hungary.

Conflicting interests in the EU

Member states took the pivotal decision to introduce a price cap on Russian oil in October – after the G-7 had already launched a corresponding initiative.

Recently, however, negotiations on the specific price ceiling have proved more difficult than expected. During the negotiations, Poland, initially with the support of the Baltic countries, asked that a maximum price of less than US$ 30 per barrel be defined and, thus, remain at the estimated production costs of US$ 20 to US$ 40 per barrel. . The government in Warsaw was supported by Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that a price of up to $30 would be possible.

Linked to another sanctions package

However, countries such as Greece and Malta were particularly opposed to such a low price cap. They fear that setting a price cap too low could bankrupt shipping companies based in their countries, because Russia may refuse to sell its crude oil at too low a price. Russia’s refusal to submit to the coercive regime could also trigger turmoil and price increases in international markets.

After the deal in Brussels, Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas announced that part of the deal would also be the swift adoption of a ninth package of further sanctions against Russia. According to EU officials, there should already be new coordination negotiations at the weekend.

• Also read: Refugees: Quebec overwhelmed since Trudeau’s tweet

• Also read: Roxham Road: hotel, food and welfare for migrants

• Also read: Why do refugees use Roxham Road?

Forced to sleep on the floor

After their temporary stay in a hotel, refugee applicants are often completely destitute, sometimes forced to sleep on the floor despite being on welfare.

Finding a roof in the Montreal area is quite a challenge for them due to the real estate crisis.

Photo courtesy of Maryse Poisson

Maryse Fish
Collective welcome

“The only affordable housing they will find is poor quality housing infested with bed bugs, cockroaches or mice,” explains Maryse Poisson of Collectif Bienvenue, a Montreal-based organization that provides furniture and clothing to refugee families.

“Before coming to their rescue, some families sleep in their homes with their newborns on the floor on a sheet,” she adds.

It goes without saying that the increase in traffic on Roxham Road this year has put pressure on organizations like Ms Poisson’s.

underfunding

These must rely on public charity to raise funds and basic needs.

“We don’t see much commitment from the state government towards us. We live with chronic underfunding,” says Ms. Poisson.

The situation of the families is all the more precarious as their relatives have to wait a long time before they receive a work permit with which they could supplement their income.

human distress

Marjorie Villefranche, general director of the Maison d’Haïti, also notes “human emergencies” among refugees.

“Confronted with this, community organizations don’t get additional grants,” she says. It’s clear we’re not going to let people down, so we’re working overtime. »

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