Burkina Faso banned the outlets for two weeks after coverage of report accusing the army of mass killings

Burkina Faso has suspended the radio broadcasts of UK-funded BBC Africa and US-funded Voice of America (VOA) over their coverage of a report accusing the country’s army of conducting mass executions.

According to authorities cited by media, broadcasts by the two outlets have been taken off air and each organization’s website has been banned for two weeks.

In a report published on Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW), a US-based group, has accused the country’s military forces of “summarily executing” at least 223 civilians, including at least 56 children, in two villages in February. The HRW has called on authorities to investigate the massacres.

According to the report, the Burkinabe army has repeatedly committed mass atrocities against civilians in the name of fighting terrorism. HRW also suggests that the “massacre” appeared to be part of a “widespread military campaign” against civilians accused of collaborating with armed groups.

Burkina Faso’s communication council claimed that HRW’s report contained “peremptory and tendentious” declarations against the army that are likely to create public disorder. It has also warned other media networks against reporting on the story.

Both the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and VOA (Voice of America) said they intend to continue covering events in the country.

Read more African leaders push for new approach to fighting terrorism

The West African country, a former French colony, is run by a military government led by Captain Ibrahim Traore who seized power in a coup in September 2022, eight months after an earlier military coup had overthrown the democratically elected President Roch Marc Kabore.

Burkina Faso is one of several Sahel nations that have been struggling to contain Al-Qaeda-linked insurgent groups, which have been carrying out regular attacks in several African states. At least 7,800 civilians were killed in the first seven months of 2023 in the Sahel alone, according to figures reported by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).

The African Union (AU) Commission President Moussa Faki Mahamat said at a security summit this week that escalating attacks by armed groups in all African regions necessitate greater local-led peacekeeping efforts. The AU called for a more robust counterterrorism strategy, including the deployment of a standby security force to address surging extremist violence across the continent.

Moscow has had enough of Europe’s hostile attitude, Dmitry Peskov has said

Contacts between Russia and Europe will never be the same even after the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev ends, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Friday. Russia has seen enough of the West’s hostile treatment and does not want to stick to the old model of relations, he said.

”Russia threatens no one in Europe and expects no one in Europe to threaten it,” Peskov said. That does not mean, though, that the West would be able to continue “business as usual” with Moscow, he warned.

European nations will still have Russia as their neighbor after the conflict and will be bound to maintain certain relations with it, the Kremlin spokesman said. “There will be no relations as before. No one will want it,” he stated, adding that Moscow would certainly oppose reverting to old practices.

”We have had a lot of experience with how the Europeans treat us,” the official explained. “We will always take this experience into account.” Any future relations would thus be based on some “new foundations,” according to Peskov.

Read more Russia can’t trust West – Lavrov

The Kremlin spokesman’s words echoed earlier statements by top Russian officials, including by President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In January, the nation’s top diplomat said that the Ukraine conflict had clearly shown that Moscow cannot trust the West.

”If there had been any illusions left over from the 1990s, that the West would open its arms to embrace us and that democracy would unite us all, they have been completely dispelled,” the minister said at that time, adding that the only thing Washington and its allies wanted was to “live at the expense of others.”

Read more ‘Stop lying,’ Russia tells US

Late last year, Vladimir Putin admitted that he’d been “naive” early on in his political career, despite having served in the Soviet KGB. He said he believed that there was no fundamental reason for the West and Moscow to be at odds after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The president then said that he eventually understood that the West was seeking to break Russia into several entities that would have less ability to protect their national interests.

Earlier this month, Moscow also pinned the blame on Washington for the current crisis in relations between Russia and Western nations. The ongoing standoff was an exclusive choice of the West itself, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said at the time. It was not Moscow that “moved its war machine to NATO’s borders” and spearheaded unprecedented economic and personal sanctions, the diplomat said, adding that America simply refuses to understand that Moscow would never give up on its national interests.

The online influencer’s trial date has not yet been set

A Bucharest court has moved to proceed with the trial of Andrew Tate, the Anglo-American social media influencer who has been charged with rape, human trafficking, and running a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.

Tate, 37, and his brother Tristan were arrested in December 2022. Both men were indicted last June, along with two Romanian women alleged to have been their accomplices. They have denied all allegations.

The Tates have challenged the indictment in the preliminary chamber stage. On Friday, the Bucharest Tribunal ruled it would allow the case to go forward, but has not set a trial date.

“The ruling issued by the preliminary chamber judge lacks legal basis and reasoning,” said Eugen Vidineac, one of the lawyers for the Tate brothers. “We have filed a strong appeal as we believe the ruling to be unlawful.”

Another attorney, Ioan Gliga, told AP that the arguments challenging the criminal investigation and the indictments “did not receive the necessary attention in the preliminary hearing,” but that the Tates’ defense was confident that the appeals court will rule in their favor.

READ MORE: Andrew Tate and brother arrested in Romania

The brothers were jailed for three months before being moved to house arrest. Since then, the courts have allowed them to move around Romania but denied their petition to travel within the EU.

Last month, Romania agreed to extradite the Tates to the UK over allegations of “sexual aggression” dating back to 2012-2015, but only after the domestic legal proceedings have concluded.

Interceptor missiles will reportedly be sent, as there are no launchers to spare

Madrid will send Kiev missiles for the Patriot air defense system, due to intense pressure from the EU and NATO, the daily El Pais has reported, citing government sources.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has demanded six US-made launchers from NATO, one of them being a Spanish system currently deployed to the Turkish-Syrian border, according to the outlet. Madrid has refused, but will instead transfer “a small number” of missiles to Kiev instead.

Spain operates only three Patriot batteries, purchased in used condition from Germany between 2004 and 2014. One of them has been deployed near the Turkish city of Adana since 2013, while the other two are in Valencia. One of those is actually being used to train Ukrainian soldiers in operating the system, El Pais said.

The newspaper’s sources did not say how many missiles Spain intended to send, only that Madrid keeps a “war reserve” of about fifty and that they are very expensive, costing about a million euros apiece. Spain is also planning to refurbish ten more Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks and send them to Ukraine, in addition to the ten delivered last year.

The Spanish Defense Ministry wants to buy four of the newest Patriot models, the PAC-3. Last October, the US greenlit the potential sale, valued at €2.6 billion ($2.78 billion), but the government in Madrid has not yet approved the contract. Under the best circumstances, the new batteries would not be available until 2028 at the earliest.

Read more Russia comments on ATACMS delivery to Kiev

Supplying other air defense systems to Ukraine is “problematic,” according to the outlet, because Spain has none to spare. Madrid only has four NASAMS batteries, with one permanently stationed in Latvia and another on rotation in Estonia. Ammunition for the 12 Hawk launchers provided to Ukraine has long run out, as it is not being manufactured anymore. The Spanish government has already agreed to prioritize deliveries of domestically produced ammunition to Kiev, over replenishing the “almost empty” army arsenals, said El Pais.

Germany has just announced it would send another Patriot battery – the third so far – to Ukraine, while the Netherlands said it would be willing to fund the purchase of interceptors from third countries. Greece has been under pressure to send some of its Patriot launchers as well, though Athens has not yet given in.

Pressure on the European members of the US-led bloc has lessened somewhat after the US Congress passed the $61 billion bill to fund Ukraine, according to the Spanish daily.

Russia has repeatedly said that new deliveries of weapons to Ukraine won’t change the battlefield dynamic and will only result in more needless Ukrainian deaths.

London’s espionage chief claims foreign states, particularly China, have been targeting UK universities

Academics and researchers at British universities will be vetted by the nation’s security services amid government plans to crackdown on alleged Chinese espionage, according to The Times.

The measures were reportedly announced following a meeting on Thursday between MI5 Director General Ken McCallum and the vice-chancellors of two dozen leading universities, including those from Oxford and Cambridge.

McCallum reportedly warned the vice-chancellors that hostile states are actively targeting universities to steal technology that can “deliver their authoritarian, military and commercial priorities.”

According to the M15 chief, a secret review into the vulnerabilities of the UK’s higher education sector has shown that countries like China were deploying both “overt and covert mechanisms” to “acquire intellectual property and steal advantage.”

Consultations are now underway on a new system of government vetting that would see academics who have access to sensitive research face background checks by security services, according to the report.

The government will also be looking at new funding for higher education institutions to increase security around sensitive sites. Universities could also reportedly be required to consult with the security services when entering into funding partnerships and collaborations with foreign institutions.

Read more Chinese students leave UK amid crackdown – MI5

Alicia Kearns, chairwoman of the foreign affairs select committee, said in a post on X that academia has for “too long” pretended it has “no role to play in our national security” and could operate “free from geo-strategic realities.”

“Significant evidence indicates a systematic attempt by the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate British academia and exfiltrate critical research, capabilities and technologies,” she said.

Beijing has repeatedly denied any espionage-related accusations, branding them as “malicious smears.” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said this week during a news briefing: “We would like to reiterate that the claim that China could be stealing UK intelligence is a groundless accusation and malicious smear, and we firmly oppose that accusation. Such malicious manipulation aimed at China should stop.”

MI5 had previously identified more than 50 Chinese college students enrolled at UK universities which it said were linked to the People’s Liberation Army, who have left the country in recent years as a result of a crackdown on what the spy agency described as the theft of defense-related technology and other sensitive research materials.

The French president has given a speech to highlight the EU’s achievements – but there’s little to celebrate

“We must be clear about the fact that our Europe today is mortal,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a speech this week. “She can die, and it depends only on our choices. But these choices are to be made now.”

What Macron portrays as an urgent need to resuscitate the EU comes after he himself has spent nearly seven years in power, having even been president of the Council of the European Union in 2022. He’s been credited for the nomination and confirmation of European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, described by Forbes last year as the world’s most powerful woman. Or, as some might say, an unelected, omnipotent bureaucrat whose supranational authoritarianism supersedes the democratic process of member states. Or, as others might now say after Macron’s address, the Nurse Ratched at the EU’s deathbed.

Macron’s interminable speech should have been one big mea culpa on behalf of the EU’s establishment class. Tell us how you screwed up. At least then we’d know that there was hope for an actual course correction rather than just more of the same.

Instead, Macron argued that the EU hasn’t ever been a vassal of Washington. Saying that you’re not a vassal is exactly like having to tell people you’re not a prostitute. It’s not something that one has to go around saying if the optics aren’t already glaring. Queen Ursula is basically America’s viceroy in Europe at this point, and Macron himself can’t seem to manage to carve out any positions independent of the US that last longer than the time it takes for Uncle Sam to reach over and administer a transatlantic spanking.

Macron’s speech was a fascinating blend of delusion and insecurity. He chose Paris’ Sorbonne University as the venue. The theme? “ Stocktake of European action .” Sure, tell us what’s really going on as though you had a clue – and an actual strategy and vision that wasn’t subjected to the constant whims and trends of the moment or any given election cycle.

Read more ‘Our Europe’ could die – Macron

Macron gave a similar speech at the Sorbonne in September 2017. Why there? Because as Macron said last time, “living collectively was the ideal of Robert de Sorbon” – the theologian who founded the university. It just so happens that circling the drain collectively is what the EU is really all about right now, thanks to the special brand of iron-fisted incompetence of those in charge. There’s a European Parliament election coming up, and the populists are surging in the polls right now.

The first step to recovery is admitting that there’s a problem. Macron, however, apparently feels compelled to do the opposite of that, and talk about all of the EU’s failures as though they’re successes. Like counterterrorism, for instance. France has made such great progress on that front that the country is now back on the highest alert just days before it's slated to host the Paris Olympics, including an open air Opening Ceremony along the Seine. It barely seems to have ever been downgraded from high alert; the initially white terror warning signs have been turning yellow from years of light exposure in the windows of buildings where they’re now permanent fixtures. Macron, however, highlighted the role of a new bureaucratic entity called the ECOFIN Council. Because nothing deters terrorists more than meetings.

In addressing Africa, Macron underscored the importance of another meeting: the “European Union - Africa Summit” held two years ago. The sparse content in the Africa section of Macron’s talk could be explained by minor details like French troops being drop-kicked back across the Mediterranean by African countries after French stability missions resulted in coups (which are kind of the opposite of stability).

Clearly not deterred by any inconvenient discrepancies between reality and projected fantasy, Macron’s speech also celebrated addressing the migration challenge, which the EU has basically paid to outsource to countries like Turkey, Tunisia, Mauritania and Egypt. The last I checked, none of these countries were actually in Europe. But the EU has outsourced almost everything else by this point, so they may as well.

Macron talked about the EU leading the ecological and environmental transition. To what, exactly? Poverty, probably. Just ask the farmers straitjacketed by Brussels' climate change diktats, their farmland being spied on by satellites to ensure compliance, how great that is. He brought up the EU’s energy sovereignty and reindustrialization. Not so fast; Germany in particular is still busy going in the opposite direction and de-industrializing. So it might be a while before the EU’s economic engine comes out on the flip side.

Read more Macron wants von der Leyen replaced – Bloomberg

The EU has become more dependent on pricier American liquified natural gas, which sounds like the opposite of sovereignty. France’s own LNG imports from the country the EU implies an explicit need to be sovereign from — Russia — are now up 75% in the first few months of this year, compared to a year ago. France was Russia’s top customer for LNG in Europe last February, according to a Politico report . For all the noise it makes, it’s not like the EU has stopped importing gas from Russia. They just replaced their Russian pipeline gas imports with Russian LNG – a billion dollars worth of Russian arctic liquified natural gas into the EU every month, to be exact. In 2023, the bloc was actually still importing 15% of its pipeline gas from Russia, according to Reuters . While that’s down from 45% before the conflict in Ukraine, it still might come as a shock to people who were actually listening to Brussels brag about how they were sticking it to Putin by depriving him of energy revenues, that they were still importing any pipeline gas at all. The NGO Global Witness reported last year that the EU really just pivoted to importing Russian liquefied natural gas, instead of pipeline gas, with Russian LNG imports into the EU jumping 40% since the onset of the conflict — even more than in each of the previous two years.

Speaking of Ukraine, Macron said that “the sina qua non condition for our security is that Russia does not win the war of aggression it is waging against Ukraine. This is essential.” What’s more essential is that Macron should spell out what Ukraine “winning” actually means. It would seem that Ukraine not continuing to senselessly grind down its demographics should be seen as a win, given the non-zero chance of a battlefield game-changer that risks igniting a Third World War. Macron, however, clearly has other ideas, what with all his cosplaying as Napoleon Bonaparte and fantasizing about smoking Russians by openly talking about sending French troops to Ukraine.

Not that Ukraine is actually in the EU, but Macron now explains that the EU has “started to rethink our geography within the boundaries of our neighborhood.” Imagine the EU’s reaction to Russia uttering those same words.

In the end, however, this is just another speech, calibrated for maximum impact ahead of the upcoming June EU parliamentary elections. Like much of what EU leaders such as Macron are peddling nowadays, firehosing reality and diluting it with ideological rhetoric might tug on a few hearts, but won’t win over any brain that isn’t totally shot full of holes like a block of Comté.

A network of nonprofits has reportedly paid student groups organizing pro-Palestinian tent cities

Several student groups that have organized protest “camps” at major US universities have received money from activist billionaire George Soros, the New York Post said on Friday.

Protests that began earlier this month at Columbia University in New York City have since spread to Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley and a total of 40 universities and colleges in the US and Canada. The Columbia protest was organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Within Our Lifetime.

All three have received funding from Soros’s Open Society Foundations through a network of nonprofits, the Post claimed , citing its own research. Other major donors to the student groups were identified as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and former Wall Street banker Felice Gelman.

None of the groups responded to the Post’s requests for comment.

The outlet also named three “fellows” of the Soros-funded US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), paid several thousand dollars to organize campaigns on campus. Two of them are former interns for congressional Democrats.

Read more WATCH police tase pro-Palestinian protester at US college

Activists have demanded that universities “divest” from companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft, as well as Lockheed Martin, that have contracts with the Israeli government. They also want the US government to stop giving any more money to Israel, citing its “genocide” of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Leader of the pro-Israel group Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, blamed the protests on “campus proxies” of Iran in an interview with MSNBC this week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that “anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities” in the US and were calling for “the annihilation of Israel.” He compared the protesters to German Nazis in the 1930s and said their actions had to be “condemned and condemned unequivocally.”

Israel sent troops into Gaza after a series of deadly raids by Hamas on October 7 last year, killing an estimated 1,200 Israelis. Netanyahu has vowed to completely destroy the Gaza-based Palestinian group. So far, over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military operation and another 80,000 wounded. Much of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed as well.

Moscow would lose in a war with the West, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has claimed

Russia should fear clashing with NATO because such a war would end in “inevitable defeat” for Moscow, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in parliament on Thursday, claiming that the US-led military bloc has several times more troops and resources.

Sikorski’s comments come as a number of European leaders have raised concerns that Russia may attack an EU member state if it is allowed to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield.

“It is not we, the West, who should fear a clash with Putin, but the other way around,” he insisted, adding that “it is worth reminding [people] about this” to show that an attack by Russia on any NATO member would end in Moscow’s defeat.

“Putin’s only hope is our lack of determination,” he stated.

The minister said the US-led military bloc remains a “defensive pact,” but nevertheless boasted that it has three times as many military personnel, three times the aerial resources, and four times as many ships as Russia.

Read more France warns against placing nukes in Poland

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk had previously also warned that Europe is in a “pre-war era,” while President Andrzej Duda has expressed the country’s readiness to host US nuclear weapons under NATO’s nuclear-sharing program. The move would place the bloc’s nuclear arsenal on the border of Belarus – a key Russian ally.

Moscow has responded by stating that its military would take “all necessary countermeasures” to ensure its security if US nuclear weapons were deployed to Poland. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has also slammed Warsaw’s statements as a “provocation” and an attempt to “snuggle up” to Washington with its “deeply hostile policy towards Russia.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that Moscow has no plans to attack any US “satellites” in Eastern Europe, and insists that claims of a potential Russian invasion are merely government propaganda aimed at scaring citizens “to extract additional expenses from people, to make them bear this burden [of funding Ukraine] on their shoulders.”

Paris is reportedly seeking to use the Greek Crotale air defense system during the summer Olympics

The French government has made an official request to borrow an air defense system from Greece for the duration of the Paris Olympics, Greek daily Kathimerini has reported, citing well-informed sources.

France has been calling on its international allies to help enhance security for the summer games, which will run from July 26 to August 11. Around 45,000 French police and gendarmes, 18,000 troops, and up to 22,000 private security guards are expected to work at the event.

A request for the transfer of a Crotale short-range surface-to-air missile system from the Greek Air Force has been submitted, Kathimerini reported on Thursday. Diplomatic talks for the transfer began last November, the newspaper said, with no developments until now.

The Crotale system is French-built and has been used by the Greek Air Force since 2003. It has a firing range of 11-20 kilometers and a maximum engagement altitude of 6km, which Kathimerini said was “ideal” for France’s needs.

According to the outlet’s sources, France has been insisting that while it intends to provide anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine, it needs allied assistance to ensure the defense of critical infrastructure in Paris during the Olympics.

The French request to Greece is “clearly yet another very indirect suggestion to Athens to ‘unlock’ part of its anti-aircraft defense, in the general European effort to strengthen Kiev,” Kathimerini wrote.

EU governments have been under growing pressure to supply more protective systems to Kiev, particularly countries such as Greece and Spain that have such systems in their arsenals.

Read more France wants foreign troops to reinforce Olympics security – media

Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said late on Thursday that the country cannot offer its air defense systems – which include Patriots and the S-300 – to Ukraine. “We were asked and we explained why we cannot do it,” Mitsotakis told Skai TV, adding that these systems are “critical to our deterrent capability.”

“We have already provided tangible assistance to Ukraine and its people,” he added, saying that no action would be taken “that could even remotely endanger our nation’s deterrent capabilities or air defense.”

According to a report by the Financial Times, European leaders during a summit in Brussels last week personally urged Mitsotakis and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to supply air defense systems to Ukraine.

The US is expected to put further pressure on Greece on Friday during a planned teleconference on assistance to Ukraine.