In piena Guerra Fredda quando delegazioni italiane prendevano parte al Festival dei Giovani e degli Studenti che si teneva al di la' della Cortina di Ferro, a Praga come a Bucharest, a Mosca come a Varsavia, a Berlino Est come a Sofia, nessun politico italiano si sognava di chiedere sanzioni contro i partecipanti. PS> Ho ancora il libro dell'edizione 1973 che raccoglie le immagini del festival di Berlino Est. Cosa dite, mando la foto della delegazione italiana alla Picierno? Magari riconosce qualcuno. 😏 @LauraRuHK

As the world marks #InternationalWomensDay Israel has killed approximately 9000 women in Gaza while over 2100 others are missing and half a million women have been made homeless.

Moldova, which has de facto done away with any pretence of democracy, is planning to arrest the head of the autonomous region of Gagauzia, Yevgenia Gutsul, after her return from Russia, opposition politician Ilan Shor said on Thursday.
"We have insider information that they are preparing to arrest Yevgenia Gutsul right at the airport," Shor said on air of the Rossiya 24 broadcaster.

Gagauzia is an autonomous region in the south of Moldova, which traditionally stands for rapprochement with Russia, while Chisinau pursues European integration. UPDATE. Yevgenia Gutsul has landed in Moldova and so far hasn't been arrested. @LauraRuHK

After Victoria Nuland's resignation, Kurt Campbell, currently responsible for Indo-Pacific policy, has been nominated to the role of second-ranking official in the US State Department. But who is Campbell? ▪️He played a key role in developing Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ into Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy,” Yuri Tavrovsky, chairman of the expert council of the Russian-Chinese Friendship, Peace and Development Committee, told Kommersant.
“In practical terms, he was particularly active in the creation of the anti-Chinese military bloc AUKUS (Australia, the UK and the US) and in strengthening the military component of the QUAD group (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue - Australia, India, the US and Japan,” Tavrovsky said. ▪️“The appointment of Campbell to the second-highest post in the State Department demonstrates the White House’s long-term course of containing China, despite words and gestures that look like a desire for reconciliation.”
Thus, according to Mr Tavrovsky, “the second place in the State Department went not to the greatest hater of Russia, but to the greatest hater of China.” (RT) ▪️ I wrote about Campbell and his team three years ago, the article is still fresh. @LauraRuHK https://laura-ruggeri.medium.com/hybrid-war-on-china-b2c5628244c5

US POLITICIANS WANT TO STOP AMERICANS FROM VISITING XINJIANG AND SEEING THROUGH WESTERN LIES
Americans visiting Xinjiang can't find any evidence of the "Uyghur genocide" that according to US media is taking place in the region. What they encounter instead is the rich Uyghur culture, they enjoy Uyghur cuisine, music and dance shows, visit mosques where Uyghurs are free to worship, see different ethnic groups living in harmony, shopfronts with Chinese and Uyghur writing, they hear people speaking both languages everywhere they go. And when they return to the US they tell friends and family that what they see or read in the media are blatant lies. Obviously this is causing a headache to peddlers of the "genocide" narrative.
So a bipartisan group of US legislators is pushing the State Department to escalate its travel advisory to Xinjiang to the highest risk level and make it impossible for travel agencies to offer tours to the region. This level of risk will de fact stop insurance companies from selling travel insurance to tourists and therefore halt US travel companies' work in the region.

In a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken released on Thursday, the co-chairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) said that “American citizens and permanent residents, companies, and other entities should be warned about the risk of enabling atrocity crimes if they participate in tourism to the XUAR”, referring to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

The commission’s leaders – Representative Chris Smith, Republican of New Jersey, and Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon – also sent letters to three US travel agencies to stop any tours to the region until conditions change. On their US websites, two of the companies, Wild Frontiers Adventure Travel and Geographic Expeditions, offer trips to Xinjiang cities, including Kashgar, as part of broader “silk road” tours.

The third, Abercrombie & Kent, offered tours to Tacheng in northern Xinjiang on its British website as of last week, but has since removed mention of them from the site. There are no mentions of Xinjiang tours on its US website.

In August 2023, Wild Frontiers – which along with the other two companies was named in a report about international travel agencies operating in Xinjiang by Washington's Uygur Human Rights Project – said it was conducting a “full investigation” of its tours. A company representative from Geographic Expeditions said that sending guests to a destination “is never meant as an endorsement of that government’s policies or practices” and rather an endorsement of travel being “a vital force for good around the globe”. Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said on Thursday that “the door to Xinjiang is always open”.
“We welcome people with no bias from all countries to visit Xinjiang,” he added. @LauraRuHK

Notorious Atlanticist warmongers seething with frustration at Olaf Scholz's rare moment of lucidity. You can just picture these rabid crazies, their dilated pupils, profuse sweating and hypersalivation. @LauraRuHK

Ed eccovi servita la nuova-vecchia lista di proscrizione a firma del velinaro preferito di Londra e Washington, l'incomparabile Iacoboni. Questo giornalettista da riporto, tra la moltitudine di italiani che sostengono Putin e/o che si recano abitualmente in Russia, deve regolarmente dare in pasto ai quattro gatti che leggono La Stampa qualche nome di filo-russi. Cosi', tanto per illuderli che si tratta di un fenomeno circoscritto. @LauraRuHK https://www.lastampa.it/esteri/2024/03/08/news/ornella_muti_al_bano_vip_filo_russi-14128609/

Ma dio santo, il consolato italiano non poteva invitare un sinologo serio (e in Italia non mancano) a tenere una lezione su Marco Polo invece di pagare uno scribacchino con passaporto americano che scopiazza dai giornali del suo paese d'adozione? #Rampinomics, esiste pure un hashtag per i casi di plagio dello scapigliato. @LauraRuHK

Five People in Gaza Killed by US Aid Airdrop Package - Adding insult to injury. The victims were waiting for food and other supplies when they were killed.
The victims were in the Al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza at the time, according to officials from Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Two boys were among the five who were killed while 11 others were injured. The incident occurred at around 11:30 AM local time. A witness from the camp said he and his brother had followed the parachuted aid in hopes of getting a “bag of flour”, cites a separate report.
“Then, all of a sudden, the parachute didn’t open and fell down like a rocket on the roof of one of the houses,” said the witness. “Ten minutes later I saw people transferring three martyrs and others injured, who were staying on the roof of the house where the aid packages fell.”
The government media office in Gaza lambasted the “useless” airdrops as “flashy propaganda rather than a humanitarian service”.
“We previously warned it poses a threat to the lives of citizens in the Gaza Strip and this is what happened today when the parcels fell on the citizens’ heads,” it said in a statement. (Source: Sputnik) @LauraRuHK

Biden’s proposal to establish a temporary pier in Gaza to "deliver humanitarian aid." @LauraRuHK

🇨🇳China has announced that citizens from six more European countries – Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg – will be able to travel visa-free to China from March 14 and stay up to 15 days for business, tourism, family visits and transit purposes.

In December last year, China waived visas for citizens from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. @LauraRuHK

“The times of peace are over. The post-war era is over,” Tusk said at a meeting of the European People’s Party (EPP) in Bucharest, Romania on Thursday. “We are living through new times – the pre-war era.” ▪️How convenient for the US-owned European elites to turn their countries into a huge military camp. It will offer them a chance to suspend constitutional rights as they did during the pandemic, tighten their digital control over the population, keep lining their pockets and their friends' pockets. It will be far more profitable than the Covid shenanigans. Sooner or later everything will be subordinated to the necessities of war. Production capacity, industrial relations, etc. Workers will be forced to tighten their belts, and shut up. The militarization of every sphere of society is the elites' ultimate wet dream. @LauraRuHK

Mi sono svegliata in piena notte con una certa agitazione. In sogno mi erano apparsi Carla Gravina e Peter Handke. Eravamo seduti insieme nell'atrio di un albergo di Hong Kong, Carla mi raccontava che in citta' si era iscritta a sociologia e Peter era venuto a trovarla. Poiche' non ho mai incontrato nessuno dei due, e in quegli stati di semi-coscienza a volte mi appaiono persone che si imbarcano in un viaggio senza ritorno, la cosa mi preoccupa.

The US Congress has approved legislation to provide $7.1 billion worth of economic support for three tiny Pacific Island nations - Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated Republic of Micronesia - in exchange for the exclusive presence of the American military there, according to the Financial Times (FT).
The newspaper reported that the funding was okayed on Friday within the framework of the Compacts of Free Association (COFA) and as part of a $460 billion spending package passed by the Senate to avoid a government shutdown.
▪️Last August Samantha Power opened the USAID/Pacific Islands Mission in Suva, Fiji to manage USAID programs in nine Pacific Island countries: Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau. The USAID/Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu Country Representative Office oversees programs in those countries. USAID currently has staff located in Fiji, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands to "advance a more democratic, prosperous, and resilient Pacific Island region." You know what that actually means. 3 years ago I had anticipated this move when i analysed the composition of Biden's National Security Council. Personnel is policy in Washington. https://medium.com/@laura-ruggeri/hybrid-war-on-china-b2c5628244c5

Not a good weekend for Kiev. It lost three air defence systems. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, as a result of a Russian Iskander-M strike, an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system (SAM) was destroyed near Pokrovsk in the DPR. Later, RIA Novosti obtained footage of the aftermath of the strike, which shows that three air defense systems were destroyed. A source told RIA Novosti that among the air defense systems in the Pokrovsk area, there were two American Patriot air defense systems as well. (Source: RIA Novosti) @LauraRuHK

"ANDRA' TUTTO BENE"...PER LORO - “Negli ultimi tre anni i disturbi mentali sono aumentati del 28%”, dice Emi Bondi, presidente della Società italiana di psichiatria, rilanciando l’allarme dell’Oms, a livello globale, su un imminente sorpasso: la prevalenza delle patologie psichiatriche sta per superare quella delle malattie cardiovascolari. I sintomi depressivi sono quintuplicati, oggi si ritiene che colpiscano una persona su tre. ▪️Chiudi la gente in casa per mesi, distruggi le relazioni sociali, fai terrorismo mediatico per più di due anni con la scusa della "pandemia", poi trovi nuovi spauracchi da agitare a reti unificate, dal cambiamento climatico al nemico geopolitico di turno, imponi politiche economico-sociali che portano all'impoverimento e all'emarginazione di strati sempre più ampi della popolazione, sostieni un modello di società sempre più competitiva e ipertecnologica che richiede uno sforzo disumano di adattamento e fa crescere il livello di stress....missione compiuta! Poi ovviamente non consideri un'emergenza il fatto che bambini e adolescenti cresciuti dallo smartphone manifestino prestissimo tutti i classici sintomi della dipendenza e un pericoloso declino cognitivo e comportamentale. Anzi, più sono confusi e alienati e meglio è. Saranno gli schiavi del futuro, vivranno come bruti, quindi meglio abbruttirli fin da piccoli. @LauraRuHK https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2024/02/18/aumento-disturbi-mentali-ma-vanno-in-fumo-le-intese-per-alzare-i-fondi/7449455/

Preparations began to establish a port to receive "aid ships" west of Gaza after the US announced the establishment of a seaport off the coast of Cyprus.

The goal is primarily political, not humanitarian:
- Controlling Palestinian gas sources.
- A free displacement platform (forcibly and voluntarily) for Palestinians, but later.
- Establishing an international institution in place of UNRWA, to protect the occupation and cooperate with local client militias to distribute aid.
- An American-Zionist military base.
- Completely separating Gaza and isolating it from its surrounding mainland to ensure that weapons and materials are not smuggled.
- Trying to improve the image of the occupation before the world and win Biden some of the Zionist lobby’s votes in the upcoming elections.