“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost,” Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend in 1786.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin in a 2021 wrap-up pressor said hours ago that Russia “is not angry” and that it was important to “calculate the risks of [the brewing] war, even if it is the result of a provocation.” Ukraine is historically “Russian lands with Russian populations that were cut off from Russia” by the fall of the Soviet Union, explained the Russian leader.
“We helped new states to grow and worked with all governments no matter their foreign policy. Suffice it to recall our relations with President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Tymoshenko, who, like the current leadership of Ukraine, spoke of their absolute pro-Western orientation. We worked with them. Yes, we argued over gas, there were conflicts, but in the end we agreed on everything and worked on it, and we were ready to continue working, and no action with regard to Crimea even occurred to us.”
“But what happened in 2014? The coup d’état was bloody, people were killed and burned. Now I’m not saying who’s right and who’s wrong. It is clear that there was legitimate indignation and displeasure of the citizens of Ukraine about what was happening in the country. That’s how President Yanukovych, who was then acting, agreed with everything. Three foreign ministers – Poland, Germany and France – gave guarantees of the peaceful development of the situation and the peace process. I spoke then with the President of the United States on his initiative. He asked me to support this process as well. Everyone agreed. A day later, two days later, there would be a coup d’état. What for? No response. Why? President Yanukovych already agreed with everything, he was ready to leave power even tomorrow. Elections – the victory of the opposition was inevitable, everyone understood this very well. Well, why did they do it?
“After that, Crimea emerged. And how could we refuse Sevastopol and Crimea, the people who live there, to take them under our protection and under our wing? That’s impossible. It’s just that we were put in a situation where we couldn’t do otherwise. Or were we supposed to look at what was happening in the southeast, in the Donbass, which initially, even when the Soviet Union was organized in 1922-1924, did not think of itself as anything other than part of Russia? But Lenin and his comrades pushed him there by force. First, they decided to take it to Russia, and then they said: we need to reschedule it.
“Resolved. They created a country that had never existed before. We’re not going to talk about it now, but that’s what happened. They put historical territories there with a people who were not asked about how and where they wanted to live. Okay, it happened, we agree. But we had to do something in 2014. And so there was a crisis that is developing today,” said Russian President Putin
(Russia’s ‘reabsorption’ of the Crimean peninsula followed a ‘yes’ plebiscite and the unrest and violence during Ukraine’s Maidan uprising and the Ukraine Revolution. Read more below.)
by Micheal John with files from Melissa Hemingway in Europe
Vladimir Putin on the hot seat in annual
press conference of the Russian head of state.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin in a 2021 wrap-up pressor said hours ago that Russia “is not angry” and that it was important to “calculate the risks of [the brewing] war, even if it is the result of a provocation.” Ukraine is historically “Russian lands with Russian populations that were cut off from Russia” by the fall of the Soviet Union, explained the Russian leader. Photo Credit: Russia 24 live capture.
Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
Both sides of the story.
In this article, partly about the press freedom of Russian Television, it should be noted that RT has been described as a major propaganda outlet for the Russian government and its foreign policy. In that context it should also be noted that in the East, and across all of Europe, and strongly in Asia and Africa, Voice of America (VOA), CNN, Fox News, ABC News, and MSNBC have been labelled as propaganda arms of the United States, telling only the US side of any story. For example, American journalists do not cover American war crimes for fear of being hunted down becoming a victim of slow homicide, like Julian Assange. American journalists shy away from stories about the outcome of the millions of civilians killed by America in North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iran, or even the very recent massive drone missile strikes in Somalia or the attempts by America to cultivate a puppet government in the nearly failed state of Ukraine, to set up Ukraine as a USA bulwark on the Russian border.
“People are sick of repugnant, arrogant misogynistic dicks like Antony John Blinken, who insists that America rules the world,” says a doctor in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria, during an interview on another story.
Is war inevitable? That appears to be true.
Russian resolve seems concrete. It also seems justified as more and more nuclear assets are moved by America and its puppet group called NATO to surround Russia.
Beijing’s resolve on the Taiwan issue is ‘cult-like’ but nevertheless unequivocal even though China’s claim to Taiwan ownership has zero supporting evidence, described editorially by FPMag, as unfounded in the historical context, based on unrelenting research.
Also, were it even true that China has a claim to Taiwan, China’s invasion would be a huge violation of every concept of the right to self determination guaranteed under all human rights treaties and declarations. The same principals apply to the people of Crimea, Donetsk PR, Luhansk PR, and even the people of Quebec, Canada, should they wish to separate.
“Our information is so strong, that we have removed all of our people, and all humanitarian services provided in China,” says Katie Alsop of the RINJ Foundation, “because of the risk of war.”
“American missteps have provoked the East to begin preparation for World War. China plans to move on Taiwan, and Russia may find it essential to its safety to invade a significant portion of Russian-speaking and ethnic Russian Ukraine, based on my recent tour of these regions and my report to my Board of Directors, Ms. Alsop added.
“These hostilities were created by the Donald Trump administration planting nuclear missiles all over the world, mostly surrounding China and Russia, and worsened by the Biden Administration whose Secretary of State claims that the United States is destined to rule the world,” she added.
According to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, “The United States and its NATO allies do not disclose exact figures for its European-deployed stockpiles. In 2021, it is estimated that there are 100 U.S.-owned nuclear weapons stored in five NATO member states across six bases: Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel Air Base in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi Air Bases in Italy, Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands, and Incirlik in Turkey.
“The weapons are not armed or deployed on aircraft; they are instead kept in WS3 underground vaults in national airbases, and the Permissive Action Link (PAL) codes used to arm them remain in American hands.
“To be used, the bombs would be loaded onto dual-capable NATO-designated fighters. Each country is in the process of modernizing its nuclear capable fighters to either the F-35A, the F-18 Super Hornet, or the Eurofighter Typhoon.” See: NATO_NSNW_factsheet U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe
Is it true that shutting down press freedom is the first step before starting a war?
If that is true, war may be imminent as censorship of news content begins in Europe with, according to a source close to the German Chancellor, the US government instructing Olaf Scholz to remove the Russian Television service in Germany from the direct-to-home broadcast satellite service for all of Europe, according also to additional sources in Germany and in Russia. FPM.news was told that Luxembourg apparently did the same although that effort was redundant. Luxembourg officials have not responded to queries hence that is not confirmed.
“Today, Germany’s media regulator MABB forced the European satellite operator Eutelsat 9B to remove our new Moscow-based German-language TV channel RT DE from its platform,” a Wednesday statement from the Russian broadcaster reads.
Also, late in summer 2021, Google (YouTube) banned Russian Television‘s German services (rt.de?) from the YouTube platform, because, it said in an email to Associated Press, which had asked the question first, RT had uploaded a video that Google said violated its policy on people talking about COVID-19, which is of course, censorship of the media, and as highly respected journalist Bob Woodward often said, “democracy dies in darkness”.
It would seem that American censorship with respect to COVID-19 has not stopped the massive spread of the disease in the United States.
Censorship of media news about COVID did not stop America being the most infected country on Earth during the pandemic. Here is the USA COVID-19 Data for 2 Dec 2024
Another side of the story, RT has responded to attacks on its coverage in Europe: “Germany has forced a major European satellite operator to drop RT DE as part of Berlin’s ongoing crackdown on the Russian publicly-funded broadcaster’s new 24-hour, German-language channel,” writes RT journos.
FPMag’s associate editor, Melissa Hemingway, researched for two months, off and on since that time of the canning of RT/German and found as she put it, “a ton of really bizarre videos providing COVID-19 conspiracy theories and promotions of cult-like recruitment efforts on YouTube. But we don’t know anything about what RT uploaded, however, RT content has always seemed very good. I reported most of the bad freelance antivaccination stuff I found but nothing was done about that,’ she said as a verbal summary of her random research.
Kremlin angered by the Campaign against Russian Journalists
“There are signs that the laws of the Russian Federation have been violated, and violated very grossly. This is associated with censorship and with obstruction to the dissemination of information in the media,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters this week.
RT’s American service continues thus far, and is a fairly tame, hard news, somewhat right-wing broadcast with commentary from renown American hosts and entertainers like Governor Jessie Ventura, Dennis Miller, Peter Lavelle, Rick Sanchez and the late Larry King.
“Russian Media giant RT was compelled to register as a foreign agent. That is not Press Freedom, it is a repugnant totalitarian’s move,” insists FPMag associate editor, Melissa Hemingway.
While it is true that RT delivers content to America via the internet, the US government compelled Russian Televison (RT) to register in 2017 as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) of 1938.
The USA now intends to ban RT from broadcasting in any form with new amendments to the FARA, according to women sources working for the US State Department.
“Announcement: December 13, 2021
Today the Department of Justice published an ANPRM in the Federal Register to seek public comment to help inform the Department’s decision-making prior to its issuance of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for revised FARA regulations. This will be the first revision to the regulations since 2007 and the Department of Justice invites public comment on the regulations as a whole as well as more specifically in response to 19 questions set forth in the ANPRM.”
“Speaking of totalitarian moves, and arrogance, Antony Blinken says without blinkin’ that we must all let America lead the world,” reports Melissa Hemingway who contributed to this article.
“A few guiding premises animated our work this year.
“One is that American engagement – American leadership – matters.
“The world doesn’t organize itself.
“When we’re not engaged, when we don’t lead, then one of two things happens: either some other country tries to take our place, but probably not in a way that advances our interests and values, or no one does, and then you get chaos.
“Either way, it doesn’t serve the American people,” said Antony Blinken according to the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Italy
Meanwhile the US propaganda machinery is pounding Eastern Europe, belittling the people of Crimea and their right to self determination.
As of 2021 Russia ranked 150 out of 180 countries in the Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. (Note on editorial policy: FPM.news is an ardent supporter of Reporters Without Borders and therefore will only go so far as conceding that the group does have a Western leaning or bias which may have been influenced by a century of suppression of media freedom in the East. Knowing that is to encourage fact finding investigation as opposed to arbitrarily ‘painting with tarnished old brushes’. Nevertheless, Russia needs to earn a higher status which status at this time seems to be reasonable, as low as that might be for such a developed nation. This low press-freedom status is a matter of consensus with Freedom House. Not the worst for press freedom at the bottom of the scale, but not far from that dark place. FPMag in the 2018-2019 period while investigating the Mueller Indictments learned that the Russian government engages in considerable internet censorship as does the United States (i.e.: Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks cases).
Women correspondents to FPM.news from Russia say that the Russian government is “gradually preparing the country’s collective mind for war”. Svetlana, a member and volunteer of The RINJ Foundation from north Moscow says that community opinion setters are hearing forthright briefings disclosing the concerns of Russian intelligence and the military, as Russia becomes surrounded with US troops and weapons including a massive expansion of US troops in Germany which began in 2015.
“This followed the Separation Party of Crimea’s success in winning a referendum on leaving Ukraine. Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukraine President was ousted by force in the Ukraine Revolution and the country was in a state of mayhem. Many families had to send their men in the Army to the border to make sure the mess did not spill into Russia,” she recalled.
“Mr. Yanukovych was allowed to come into our country even before anyone knew what the hell was going on. I disagreed with that but if he was in danger from the Americans then he should be given safety. He [Yanukovych] was the governor of Donetsk PR at one time and could help those Russians from here because he would be a trusted person they could talk to if they need help. Right now Ukrainians are dropping American bombs [probably meaning artillery shells and artillery rockets] on the Donetsk civilians,” she said.
“Then we knew that Russia would defend the Crimea from invasion because everyone said in the Ukraine that Crimean Russians will all be killed if they tried to leave. I have cousins there. I can’t go along with that. They are all ethnic Russians in Crimea and belong with Russia IF, and I say only IF that is their choice. Clearly that was their choice by a vote, by what people say, and because today they are much happier except for the American lies meant to diminish their existence as real people. It makes me sick too. They are people, human beings and do not deserve the belittlement of America.”
Concomitantly, Russian President Putin Confirmed on Thursday what Svetlana said on Wednesday
Before the Maidan in 2014, Moscow was happy to work closely with all Ukrainian governments and had no plan to take any action in Crimea. However, this changed when a democratically elected leader was overthrown, the Russian president said on Thursday of this week, reports RT.
“Speaking to journalists at his annual end-of-year press conference at the Manezh Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow, Putin said he would have continued working closely with Ukrainian partners if there hadn’t been a “bloody coup d’etat,” in which people were “killed and burned,” reports RT.
America has fueled armed conflict in the Donbass region and others. So too has Russia in an effort it says to protect the Russian people there. The American propaganda is the unquestioned content of American media and the public believes the lies. Half of what was Ukraine before the Ukraine Revolution of 2014, is ethnic Russian or Russian speaking.
“As the Ukraine become corrupted beyond any ability to function, Russian regions of the country decided to separate from Ukraine even before 2014. Some have become independent states, and Crimea, which is almost completely ethnic Russian, voted to join the Russian Federation in an historic example of democracy at work. But America has been promoting a different narrative, saying that Crimea had no right to separate. Probably America cannot allow that thinking to prevail because of its mistreatment of Puerto Rico and the likely possibility the former island nation might choose to go its own way,” speculates Katie Alsop who has just returned from an extensive tour of the four countries bordered to the Donbass region. Photo Credit: Dr. John J. Mearsheimer University of Chicago. Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
COVID-19 is manipulated into Press Freedom Curtailment says the Council of Europe
“The global health problems caused by COVID-19 require effective measures to protect people’s health and lives. This includes combating disinformation that may cause panic and social unrest. Regrettably some governments are using this imperative as a pretext to introduce disproportionate restrictions to press freedom; this is a counterproductive approach that must stop. Particularly in times of crisis, we need to protect our precious liberties and rights,” said Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović.
“In the past weeks, parliaments, governments and local authorities have adopted legislation, decrees or decisions that clearly risk hampering the work of journalists and media actors and restricting the public’s right to receive information.
“Journalists covering the pandemic in Hungary and the Russian Federation are facing a variety of sanctions, including the risk, under new laws, of prison terms of up to five years for spreading “false information”, while in Azerbaijan, recent amendments impose an obligation on owners of internet news outlets to prevent the dissemination of “harmful information” online.
“In Romania, a decree allows the authorities to remove content and block websites where this content provides “false information” regarding the evolution of COVID-19 and prevention measures, without the possibility to appeal against the decision. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, decrees and legislative proposals aimed at punishing the circulation of information that can cause panic run the risk of limiting the work of journalists and freedom of expression on social media platforms.
“Finally, in Armenia, a number of newspapers and websites had to delete some information, following the adoption of strict rules prohibiting the publication of information of a medical and epidemiological nature about the virus outbreak which is not fully consistent with official sources.”
Citing a COE statement: “Press freedom must not be undermined by measures to counter disinformation about COVID-19”
“If Russia is a totalitarian, maybe the entire world is Russia”
“COVID-19 has been used as grounds to block journalists’ access to information sources and reporting in the field,” claims Reporters Without Borders.
It can be seen that censorship has not benefitted the United States in its fight against COVID-19 if the data is consulted.
Moishe Karem, a noted journalist, writer, lecturer and politician in Israel who has worked on every election campaign for Benjamin Netanyahu since 1995, says that, “If Russia is a totalitarian, the entire world is Russian because of the COVID [SARS-CoV-2 caused pandemic] giving governments an extreme will to overcontrol populations,” he said.
“It’s like the great lie that an Omicron-specific vaccine is not needed to fight the new strain,” said the scholar.
“Because American corporations and America itself needs to unload themselves of mega-millions of inventoried doses or contracted production doses of the original crude-coronavirus [ancestral virus] vaccine, there will not be an Omicron-specific vaccine until the inventory of the old stuff is gone,” he added.
“Censored while playing out abundant hyperbole threads from Dr. Anthony Fauci and from the various US health and drug departments, America is spinning a whopper. This is another way of reducing the ability of journalists to independently verify stories, forcing the choir to sing from the same talking points, jargon that we have seen written on paper,” continued Mr. Karem.
“Censorship of the media, censorship of the internet, feeding lies and propaganda to the press, are all diminishment of democracy by removing any ability to find the counter view or confirm initial data,” he said.
“Government edicts like vaccine mandates from national authorities, totally violate human rights. Democratic government should tell people what health assets are recommended but not force drugs into people’s arms or vilify people who do not want them. This defies democracy,” Dr. Karem said.
“Yes,” he said, “an employer may rule about the safety of its work force by insisting under extreme circumstances that employees take certain precautions against infectious disease, but not governments telling people ‘you have to ingest this or that’,” added Mr. Karem.
As COVID-19 rules deprive human rights around the world and enhance the authoritarian tyrant rule in numerous nations in Europe like Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, once accepting removal of human rights begets another and another and so on, summarized Mr. Karem, who is, like his friend Benjamin Netanyahu, a strong believer in democratic process.