Раніше президент Володимир Зеленський відзначив «рішучу та безкомпромісну підтримку» Борисом Джонсоном України
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Twitter said Thursday it removes more than 1 million spam and bot accounts every day.
The removals come as Tesla founder Elon Musk, who is in the process of acquiring the company, continues to pressure Twitter to reduce spam accounts.
He has threatened to cancel the $44 billion deal if Twitter cannot prove spam and bot accounts account for less than 5% of Twitter users.
Musk has vowed to “defeat the spam bots or die trying.”
Twitter has maintained that spam and bot accounts make up less than 5% of the user base since at least 2013. Musk has argued that Twitter underestimates the amount of spam accounts.
Twitter says humans conduct manual reviews of thousands of accounts each quarter to determine if they are bots.
Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Ukraine said it expected continued strong support from Britain for Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s invasion, even after a new prime minister is picked to replace Boris Johnson, who resigned Thursday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Johnson for his support of Kyiv’s war effort as the two leaders spoke by phone.
“We all heard this news [of Johnson’s resignation] with sadness. Not only me, but also the entire Ukrainian society, which is very sympathetic to you,” Zelenskyy’s office said in a statement. “We have no doubt that Great Britain’s support will be preserved, but your personal leadership and charisma made it special.”
Russia derided Western countries for their support of Kyiv’s military operations.
“It’s obvious to everyone that liberal regimes are in a deep political, ideological and economic crisis. The situation of Britain’s half-decay causes concern. The loss of control, chaos, nosedive, that’s how it’s described by experts,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said, “As for Mr. Johnson, he dislikes us very much. We dislike him, too.”
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Сьогодні прем’єр Великої Британії Боріс Джонсон оголосив про свою відставку
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Законодавство, ухвалене сьогодні в парламенті, дає уряду дозвіл будувати загородження біля фінських кордонів.
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Зеленський закликав сенаторів підтримати рішення про надання Україні сучасних систем ППО
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«Усі ми із сумом сприйняли цю новину» – Зеленський про відставку Джонсона
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Ukrainian refugees have spread across Europe and the world since Russia invaded their homeland in February, but Polish officials estimate less than half of them have stayed in Poland. But as Greg Flakus reports from the Polish border town of Medyka, many are choosing to stay close to make quick visits across the border – and return home for good when the time comes.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is the latest Conservative leader to feel his party’s wrath following a string of resignations from his scandal-plagued government.
Here are three leaders previously ousted by their fellow Tories:
Margaret Thatcher
Britain’s longest-serving prime minister of the 20th century tearfully stepped down in November 1990 after a Cabinet revolt.
She had vowed to fight on after narrowly winning the first round of a leadership ballot, but then accepted that her position had become untenable.
Although she had won a third term by a landslide in 1987, her introduction of a universal “poll tax” payable by every adult regardless of income was met with violent opposition.
She also faced deep opposition within her Cabinet for staunchly fighting to have closer ties with Europe.
Her once close ally Geoffrey Howe resigned from the cabinet and launched a scathing attack on her Europe policy in parliament.
That precipitated the leadership challenge by former defense and environment minister Michael Heseltine, before John Major emerged as the new prime minister in a vote among Tory MPs.
Iain Duncan Smith
Duncan Smith, one of a cabal of right-wing eurosceptics dubbed “bastards” by Major, won the Conservative leadership in 2001, replacing William Hague after the party suffered another election defeat to Labour.
His surprise ascent was helped by Thatcher and her loyalists in parliament.
But the self-styled “quiet man” of UK politics struggled to hold his own against Labour’s charismatic prime minister, Tony Blair.
By October 2003, the parliamentary party was despairing of Duncan Smith’s inability to make any headway against Blair, despite huge public opposition to Britain’s involvement in the war in Iraq.
He lost a confidence vote, becoming the first Tory leader not to fight a general election since Neville Chamberlain, who was accused of appeasing Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s.
Theresa May
Former interior minister Theresa May came to power in July 2016 after Britain’s shock referendum vote to leave the European Union, which prompted then prime minister David Cameron to resign.
She immediately found herself in charge of negotiating Britain’s exit terms, but her attempts to negotiate a “soft” Brexit were shot down by hardline Brexiteers within the Conservative party.
May called a snap general election in June 2017 in the hope of strengthening her position against the Brexit rebels and Labour.
It proved a disastrous bet, with Labour under its far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn making strong inroads and forcing her to turn to hardline, pro-UK unionists in Northern Ireland for parliamentary backing.
She survived a confidence vote called by Conservative rebels in December 2018.
But after her Brexit deal was rejected in the House of Commons for a fourth time, including by dozens of Conservative rebels, her leadership was mortally weakened.
She announced in May 2019 that she was stepping down, triggering the leadership race that brought Johnson to power two months later.
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У звіті, оприлюдненому 7 липня, агентство ООН також попереджає про небезпеку соціальних заворушень у деяких регіонах через економічні потрясіння
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Заява пролунала через день після того, як Росія призупинила роботу ключового трубопроводу
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У МЗС закликали Туреччину провести розслідування ситуації, а також усіма засобами запобігти подібними випадкам у майбутньому
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Russian influence peddlers appear to have narrowed their focus as they continue attempts to sow disunity and undermine Western efforts to support Ukraine, according to new research from the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
While traces of Russian influence operations can be found targeting many of the countries that have been backing Ukraine with weapons, financial support or other aid, it appears the most intense efforts have centered on a handful of countries viewed by the Kremlin as perhaps the most vulnerable.
“We believe that France, Germany, Poland, and Turkey are the primary targets of this influence narrative based on observed influence activities,” Recorded Future said in the report, released Thursday.
The report’s authors said they made the determination based, in large part, on how various Russian-backed influence networks all seemed to coalesce around certain themes, as if to chip away at existing concerns and divisions in each of the four countries.
“They do have a pretty good pulse on what some of those issues are or what some of those concerns are 100 days into this (war),” Brian Liston, a senior cyberthreat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future, told VOA.
And while it is difficult to determine the extent to which these Russian influence operations are “chipping away” at the pro-Ukraine coalition, Liston said, it is likely the Kremlin is willing to be patient.
“I think they view this as an opportunity to try to drill into some of those disagreements and grievances and try to fracture out that coalition piece by piece and hopefully in the hope that it will crumble,” he said.
The approach is one U.S. officials have seen before.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned that “malign foreign powers,” including Russia, were taking a page out of the Kremlin’s election interference playbook and again seeking to amplify divisions in American society.
The department’s most recent National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin, issued last month, echoed the concerns about Russia, further warning that Moscow could soon bolster its disinformation campaigns with an eye toward the 2022 midterm elections.
Recorded Future said Russia might be laying similar groundwork in France, Germany, Poland and Turkey.
“Attempts to stir internal discontent toward a country’s existing leadership will very likely precede future attempts to engage in malign influence during election cycles and other target-specific political milestones, in hope of projecting a candidate, party, or platform more in alignment with, or at least less abrasive to, Russia’s strategic objectives in Ukraine,” the report said.
In each case, the Russian-backed media outlets, influencers and troll farms have tailored their messages in the hopes of generating a following among key audiences.
“(In) France specifically, about not going too far or maybe President (Emmanuel) Macron wanting to bargain with Russia,” Liston said.
Recorded Future found that in Germany, Russian influence campaigns have been twofold, drilling down on debates over whether the country is not doing enough or perhaps doing too much to support Ukraine, while also seeking to create alarm over Ukrainian refugees coming into the country.
In Turkey, Russian operatives found a host of so-called wedge issues to their liking.
Starting in late May, Recorded Future found multiple examples of pro-Russian media and pro-Russian influence networks harping on Turkey’s concerns about Finland and Sweden moving to join NATO. Multiple articles focused on the Finnish and Swedish arms embargoes against Turkey, as well as on Turkish demands that both countries extradite individuals linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
Additionally, Recorded Future said a Russian troll farm known as Cyber Front Z spread memes on Telegram designed to amplify Turkey’s concerns while portraying Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as dead set against NATO expansion.
At the same time, Russian-backed outlets like Sputnik and the Red Spring Information Agency targeted Turkish tensions with Greece, playing up Ankara’s concerns about Greek activity in contested sections of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas.
Russian influence operations aimed at Poland, in the meantime, have sought to stoke historical tensions.
One of the more prominent themes, the report said, are suggestions “Poland is planning to use Russia’s war with Ukraine to its advantage to reintegrate historically Polish lands back under its control.”
The report found that elements of the alleged conspiracy were disseminated by the Russian state-backed media outlet RT in late April, using quotes from the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service.
To further back up such assertions, Recorded Future said, pro-Russian Telegram accounts in May began circulating a document — likely forged — stating that Polish and Lithuanian troops were planning an invasion for later in the month.
Additional reports on the alleged invasion plans soon followed on other Russian media sites such as RIA Novosti and TV Zvezda, Recorded Future said.
The findings also seem to lend credence to a possible Ukrainian intelligence success.
Last month, Ukraine’s security service published an alleged Russian intelligence analytical note detailing plans to support Russian’s invasion of Ukraine with information warfare.
“We saw a lot of overlap,” Liston, of Recorded Future, told VOA. “Stirring internal discontent, economic concerns, trying to tie Ukraine back to the origins of Nazism, fascism.”
“Based on what we were seeing in those sources already versus what was in the note, we had a pretty good feeling that this was an authentic analytic propaganda manual,” he said.
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Російські війська зараз ведуть наступ на місто з трьох напрямків, повідомив Вадим Лях
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They shared laughs, smiles, memories. There also were tears, fears, unease.
Through the range of emotions, one common thread bonded them together: Brittney Griner.
Wearing “BG” shirts and holding signs, several hundred fans rallied in support of Griner on Wednesday, hoping their sentiments would reach the WNBA player 6,000 miles away in a Russian jail cell.
“It’s really painful and hard to watch, and it’s really taken a toll on a lot of us,” said Kelly Gedney of Surprise, Arizona. “We can feel the fear that she has. It’s scary to me that she’s in a cage when she is traveling to her court cases. She’s been wrongfully detained and we’re going to do everything we can to get her home.”
Griner has spent the past four months in a Russian prison and is currently on trial. She’s accused of possessing vape cartridges containing cannabis oil when she arrived at the Moscow airport while returning to play for her Russian team, facing a prison term of up to 10 years if convicted.
The WNBA and U.S. officials have worked to free Griner without success. Griner was able to send a handwritten letter to President Joe Biden, saying she feared spending the rest of her life in prison while pushing the administration to not forget about other American detainees.
President Biden called Griner’s wife, Cherelle, on Wednesday to tell her he is working to free her as soon as possible.
“One hundred thirty-nine days have passed since my wife has been able to speak to me, to our family and our friends,” Cherelle Griner said during the rally, stopping to compose herself several times. “I’m frustrated my wife is not going to get justice. I know you all are frustrated, too. That’s why you’re here.”
The rally at the Footprint Center, home of the Phoenix Mercury and Suns, was a celebration of Griner’s accomplishments on and off the court as well as a call to action.
The rally featured videos of Griner giving back to the community, dancers and a dramatic poem reading as many of Mercury teammates sat together in chairs on the right side of the court.
Phoenix Suns player Torey Craig spoke, as did Mercury player Brianna Turner.
“To know BG is to know such a kind spirit, a nice person, such a giver — I can go on and on about the type of person she is,” said Turner, who also was able to exchange letters with Griner. “We need to get her back home. She deserves to be home. She needs to be back with her family and friends. We are BG.”
Arizona Congressman Greg Stanton, the former Phoenix mayor, also was on hand after pushing a resolution calling for Griner’s immediate release passed by the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week.
“Today was important, a show of unity, speaking in one voice that we expect our president, our administration to do what it takes to bring our fellow American back home,” Stanton said.
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Різке падіння цін експерти пояснюють підвищенням ймовірності рецесії і падіння попиту на паливо
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У ньому Іран і Корпус вартових ісламської революції вказані двома відповідачами
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The United Nations warned Wednesday that the world is failing in its efforts to eradicate hunger, as 828 million more people had too little to eat in 2021 — 150 million more than before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2019.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition report, released Wednesday, is the collaborative effort of five U.N. agencies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program. Their data show that the major drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition are conflict, climate change and economic shocks, combined with growing inequalities.
“The ongoing war in Ukraine, together with other extended conflicts around the world, is further disrupting supply chains and pushing up the price of food, grain, fertilizer and energy, leading to shortages and high food price inflation,” FAO Director General Qu Dongyu told a briefing of U.N. member states.
Around 2.3 billion people lacked access to adequate food in 2021. Regionally, hunger continued to rise in Africa where 278 million people were affected, in Asia where 425 million experienced it, and in Latin America and the Caribbean where 56.5 million people were affected.
Nearly 3.1 billion people could not afford to eat healthy foods in 2020 — an increase of 112 million people over 2019. The U.N. agencies say that number reflects the rise in food prices due to the economic impact of the pandemic and measures put in place to contain it.
The report urges governments to reallocate their existing resources to the agriculture sector more efficiently, arguing that better results, like more abundant healthy foods, do not necessarily need more investment. Attention must also be paid to policies, including trade and market restrictions, which can inhibit access to quality foods at affordable prices.
“Governments must review their current support to food and agriculture to reduce hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms,” U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told the meeting.
She said transformative change would be the only way to get back on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating global hunger by 2030 — a target that now appears far out of reach.
“Our updated projections indicate that more than 670 million people may still be hungry in 2030, far from the zero hunger target and the level that was in 2015 — the year when the SDGs were agreed,” FAO chief economist Maximo Torero said.
Ukraine impact
Ukraine is one of the top five global grain exporters. The FAO says it supplies more than 45 million tons annually to the global market. Russia is blockading several million tons of Ukrainian grain in the Black Sea port of Odesa, while FAO estimates that 18 million tons of cereals and oilseeds are in storage awaiting export.
The organization says Ukraine is expected to harvest 60 million tons of grain this year, but since there is a backlog, there is a lack of storage in the country.
Torero said FAO simulations show the impact of the war could increase the world’s chronically hungry by 13 million people this year and 17 million next year, in part due to the rise in fertilizer prices and an expected global slowdown in wheat yields.
World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley warns that chronic and growing food insecurity is threatening to push 50 million people in 45 countries closer to famine.
“The global price spikes in food, fuel and fertilizers that we are seeing as a result of the crisis in Ukraine threaten to push countries around the world into famine,” he said. “The result will be global destabilization, starvation and mass migration on an unprecedented scale. We have to act today to avert this looming catastrophe.”
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As evacuees from Mariupol and other occupied Ukrainian cities make their way through Russia to third countries, they are beginning to tell stories of their harrowing journeys and of mixed treatment at the hands of Russian authorities.
Vlad Shorohov, 25, is a former Mariupol resident. A former reporter and restaurant manager, he was able to escape the artillery-ravaged city by evacuating through Russia to Finland, where he is currently working in construction.
Shorohov left Mariupol on March 20 with his mother, grandmother, a niece, and other family members and neighbors after spending three weeks in the icy basement of a high-rise building not far from the Azovstal steelworks. At the time they were without food, water or electricity.
The nine people in Shorohov’s group left their shelter after a night of heavy shelling by Russian forces. He recalled learning about an evacuation organized by the Russians from a passerby. They made their way to the meeting place, where the Russian military instructed them to walk single file to a checkpoint seven kilometers away.
“We stayed there in the open and under fire for nine hours. No one controlled the queue,” he told VOA. “They looked at the passports and said: ‘Here is your bus; it will take you to Novoazovsk,’ ” a town in the occupied territory of the Donetsk oblast just inside the border with Russia.
The group, unlike some others, was allowed to remain together en route to the village of Oleksandrivske, where the members settled in a school building. From there, they proceeded to the village of Siedovo to join relatives but were stopped at a checkpoint and told to return to Oleksandrivske to wait for their so-called “filtration” procedure.
Denis Kochubey, a speaker of the Mariupol City Council, told VOA that the council has received numerous reports of people going through filtration in the occupied territory of Ukraine and at the Russian border. He said some Ukrainians have been singled out for “deep filtration” — a process that involves lengthy questioning and often beatings. The procedure is used primarily against men, especially those that had served in the armed forces.
“If a person even has a tattoo, some Ukrainian symbols, even a yellow-blue T-shirt, some literature in the Ukrainian language, carelessly said the word in Ukrainian, this may be a reason to filter hard,” said Kochubey.
In the case of Shorohov’s group, one man was pulled aside at the checkpoint outside Siedovo, where he was questioned for two hours and robbed of more than half his cash. But rather than return to Oleksandrivske, they then made their way to the Russian frontier where they told the border guards they had already been filtered and were allowed through.
Their time in Russia was less eventful. They arrived in the southern city of Taganrog, spent a night at a friend’s place, and then traveled by train and taxi to the border with Finland. Shorohov was subjected to heavy questioning at the Russian side of the border crossing, which included checking his phone data and lasted for over six hours. Still, he was allowed to leave.
Another Mariupol resident, Kateryna Vovk, who left the city a day before Shorohov with her husband and a 3-year-old child, told a similar story. Their food was running out; they had no clean water and couldn’t find safe passage out of the city. They learned about the Russian evacuation from a neighbor and arrived at the village of Nikolske, which was occupied by Russian forces. There, the family spent a night at a school gym sleeping in chairs. There was little food. The next day, eight buses arrived.
“The drivers were Russian military. About 600 to 800 people tried to leave. Naturally, everyone would not fit in, and a stampede began. The drivers said that they wouldn’t take the men. Almost on my knees, I persuaded the military to take all of us on the bus,” Vovk told VOA.
They, too, were taken to Taganrog, the city with the biggest camp for Ukrainians. After filtering – which in their case was limited to questioning – the family was sent to a large school gymnasium so packed with people that Vovk says she had a panic attack.
The family left Taganrog as soon as possible, taking the first train, and arrived after about 24 hours in the Vladimir Oblast, east of Moscow. There, they were taken to a hotel in the city of Kovrov by local volunteers who, she recalled, were friendly, respectful and well-organized.
“Then came people from the investigative committee who took our testimonies. They said that we would be the injured party in a war crime on the part of Ukraine,” she said.
Vovk recalled that volunteers also helped them leave Russia. Just as in Shorohov’s case, her family found it harder to leave Russia than enter, but in the end they were allowed to cross into Estonia.
“At the border, the Russian customs officers behaved terribly. They questioned men in a separate room for four hours, checked their phones, read their correspondence, stripped them down to their underpants, examined their tattoos,” she said.
In March, Ukraine closed its embassy and consulates in Russia. At the same time, more than a million Ukrainian citizens crossed the border with Russia, according to the U.N. refugee agency. The UNHCR lists more than 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees in Russia on its regularly updated portal.
A UNHCR spokesperson explained to VOA that the organization doesn’t distinguish between Ukrainians who came to Russia willingly or otherwise. “We are aware of reports of forced deportations, but we do not have the means to verify such reports,” she said.
Russian media say more than 2.1 million people have arrived in Russia from Ukraine, including temporarily occupied territories. Russian authorities characterize them as refugees and say they have been provided with material assistance valued at about $72 million.
Ukrainian authorities consider those people deported or forcibly removed. Iryna Vereshchuk, the deputy prime minister for reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories, told Ukrainian media that 1.2 million Ukrainians, including 240,000 children, have been forcibly deported to Russia since the beginning of the war.
Since February 24, Russian forces have disrupted half of the humanitarian corridors organized by Ukrainian authorities, she said at a briefing.
Many find it hard to leave Russia because they lack documents and money or are moved to remote parts of the country, said Oleksandra Matviychuk, a Ukrainian human rights lawyer and a head of the Center for Civil Liberties.
“In one case, a family was taken to Vladivostok. The wife was pregnant, and the husband had no documents. They didn’t want their child to be born in Russia and receive Russian documents,” she told VOA.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has an office in Moscow that, they said in an email to VOA, “is supporting the work of the Russian Red Cross, including a program to provide cash assistance to people who had to leave their homes as a result of the conflict.”
But many Ukrainians had to flee their homes on short notice without their documents. For them, replacing the missing documents might be the most challenging task, said Matviychuk and the Russian volunteers who spoke to VOA.
According to a volunteer in St. Petersburg, whom VOA is not naming for security reasons, Russian volunteer organizations provide cash and practical assistance to Ukrainian citizens seeking to leave the country, including paying for an overnight stay and train or bus tickets.
“It is not difficult to leave [Russia] if you have documents,” she said. “But it is impossible to leave with the copies of documents” or with electronic documentation, which is common in Ukraine. It becomes even more challenging for families with newborns, who might have no documents at all, she explained.
In these and similar cases, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs recommends contacting Ukrainian embassies in nearby countries or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of Consular Services hotline for assistance.
“When there is nothing at all, the territory is captured, and there is no access to their documents and various systems, it also imposes difficulties in helping these people,” said Oleg Nikolenko, an MFA spokesman.
He said the Ukrainian government is doing what it can to help. Also, Kyiv is hoping for international assistance.
“The possibility of involving a third country, which could, for example, help with consular services, is being considered,” he said.
Nikolenko said that since the beginning of the full-scale war, several hundred Ukrainian citizens have contacted Ukrainian consulates asking for help.
Not all Ukrainians want to leave Russia, according to Matviychuk, volunteers and Ukrainian authorities. Out of nine people in Shorohov’s group, four stayed behind in Russia. Some Ukrainians join their relatives in Russia, finding employment and reasonable accommodation. Others, said Matviychuk, are not going anywhere because of the emotional trauma they experienced.
“They were in bomb shelters for several weeks under Russian bombarding, without food, water or electricity. They lost their relatives or loved ones. They found themselves in an aggressor country, not knowing what they must do. I’m afraid many people have no internal will to struggle and escape these circumstances,” said Matviychuk.
Some information for this report came from Ukrainian TSN and the Russian Tass agency.
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Раніше московська влада перейменувала ділянку в центрі міста, на якій розташоване посольство США, на площу «Донецької народної республіки»
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