THINK TWICE, STAN

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a Russian messenger channel in Russian. The netaniahurus channel description states that it is the official channel of the Israeli Prime Minister.  The authenticity of this information was confirmed to RIA Novosti news agency by a Netanyahu's advisor and the head of the Likud party's campaign in Russian, Dmitry Gendelman. “This is not Benjamin Netanyahu’s first channel in Russian. His Russian-language Facebook page has existed for over six years, and it s the most popular among Israeli politicians.  The opening of the Telegram channel is associated with the growing popularity of this platform among users, and for Benjamin Netanyahu, this is an access to a new audience,” the adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister explained. "The channel plans publishing  information about the work of the Prime Minister", he added.  Earlier, the Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan started an official Telegram channel. Over 213 thous...

Russia became the world leader in attendance of films from France in 2020, according to UniFrance that promotes French movies in other countries. In Russia, 1.46 million tickets for French films were sold last year, followed by Spain with 1.42 million viewers, and the last year's leader Italy with 1.02 million. Considering the coronavirus pandemic, the numbers are much lower than in 2019. So, in Russia, 50% fewer viewers came to watch French movies than a year earlier, while Italy lost 76%, according to the RIA Novosti news agency (data of UniFrance). In France itself, the most-watched film in 2020 was "Portrait of a Girl on Fire" by Celine Syamma, with 1.47 million tickets sold. Text: Vera Basilaya Source: www.vz.ru

The founder of the Telegram Pavel Durov said that during the first week of January, the number of active users exceeded 500 million people per month. Durov's Channel ✔ In the first week of January, Telegram surpassed 500 million monthly active users. After that it kept growing: 25 million new users joined Telegram in the last 72 hours alone. These new users came from across the globe – 38% from Asia, 27% from Europe, 21% from Latin America and 8% from MENA. This is a significant increase compared to last year, when 1.5M new users signed up every day. We've had surges of downloads before, throughout our 7-year history of protecting user privacy. But this time is different. People no longer want to exchange their privacy for free services. They no longer want to be held hostage by tech monopolies that seem to think they can get away with anything as long as their apps have a critical mass of users. With half a billion active users and accelerating growth, Telegram has become the...

Algeria became the first African country to register the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. The official Twitter account of the vaccine developer announced the "first certification of Sputnik V in Africa."  According to the Algerian authorities, they plan to start the vaccination of the country's population right away, RIA Novosti and TASS reported.  The vaccine is already certified in Argentina, Bolivia and Serbia. The vaccine supplies to Algeria will be carried out through Russia's international partners in India, China, South Korea and other countries.  The measure will protect the health of the country's citizens and ensure the recovery of Algeria's economic activity.

  Would You Take Russia's Covid-19 Vaccine? Even without seeing detailed trial data, there are reasons to be confident in the Sputnik V shot.  The same can’t be said yet for China’s CoronaVac vaccine. By  Sam Fazeli January 8, 2021, 6:02 AM EST "....the Sputnik V vaccine may well be as strong a candidate as the ones created in Western labs." Russia’s shot is similar to AstraZeneca’s and appears to work just fine.   Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

The festivities in Russia begin around December 25. They happily continue through January 1 (the New Year's day) to January 7 (the Orthodox Christmas day). By January 14, the celebration smoothly transcends into what the Russians call the "Old New Year". Like the Russian Christmas, it also has to do with the two-week difference between the Julian and the Georgian calendars, so you got to celebrate the New Year's arrival twice. Cheers, and  just click on the picture !

A New York Times reporter juggled fears engendered by the politicized rollout of the Sputnik V vaccine with the urge to gain protection from the deadly virus. By  Andrew E. Kramer Jan. 8, 2021

Yesterday, the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei banned the importation of Covid-19 vaccines from the United Kingdom and the United States. As more and more countries around the world roll out their vaccine strategy plans, Iran has just made a radical decision. Coronavirus vaccines manufactured in the United States and the United Kingdom will not be imported into Iran. The Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made the decision on Friday. He believes that these vaccines could be used to "infect" his country: “It is prohibited to import vaccines made in the United States or the United Kingdom. We absolutely cannot trust them. It is not impossible that they want to infect other nations ”. Ayatollah Khamenei posted this message on his English-language Twitter account. Sorce: Le Figaro

The Armenian government announced a six-month ban on importing Turkish goods in protest against the Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan in the Karabakh region. The Armenian Ministry of Economy said, “The import ban will not lead to an increase in prices in the country because Turkish goods are not dominant on the market, and the imports from Russia, Belarus, Iran and China can replace them.” The ban does not include items required to produce goods in  Armenia . The Second Karabakh War began on September 27 and ended on November 10, 3030 following the Moscow Agreement between Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia.  With the Russian mediation, the two countries agreed to stop the war in Karabakh, and то exchange prisoners and the bodies of the killed in action. Source: RT

As reported by the Lebanese news agency Al-Masdar News , last night, armed groups of the so-called Islamic State (IS - a terrorist organization banned in Russia) launched a new offensive in the eastern part of Hama province, striking at the checkpoints of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).  The government forces were taken by surprise. The very first attack pushed the SAA units to retreat from their positions.  The Syrian government forces would have been in trouble had they not received a close air support in time. The assault of the Russian Aerospace Forces delivered a powerful missile and bomb strike on the accumulated manpower of the terrorist group in the Al-Salamiya area. According to the Syrian Arab Army command, the attack by the Russian Aerospace Forces caused heavy losses to the enemy. Thanks to that, the offensive of the "black caliphate" was stopped.  Military sources report that the SAA forces have  launched a counteroffensive operation, and...

BOSTON ( AP ) — Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has sued the federal government for $250,000 over his treatment at the Colorado prison where he is serving a life sentence. Tsarnaev, 27, calls his treatment in the handwritten suit filed Monday “unlawful, unreasonable and discriminatory.” He cites the confiscation of a white baseball cap and bandana that he bought at the prison commissary and a limit of three showers per week, the Boston Herald reported . His treatment at the supermax Federal Correctional Complex Florence is contributing to his “mental and physical decline,” he says in the lawsuit. Three people died and more than 260 people were injured at the scene when two pressure cooker bombs were set off near the marathon’s finish line on April 15, 2013.. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted and sentenced to death, but the death sentence was overturned last July by a federal appeals court that said the judge who oversaw the case did not adequately screen jurors for potential bia...

Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and her husband, Duke Philip of Edinburgh, were vaccinated against the coronavirus, Buckingham Palace said in a statement. At the same time, it is not specified what kind of vaccine the British monarch and her husband received. Yesterday, a record high number of new cases of COVID-19 infection  per day  was detected in the UK: over 68,000. The number of deaths has set a record as well - 1325 people in 24 hours. Text: Olga Nikitina Source: www.vz.ru

Germany is ready to work together with the United States on a "Marshall Plan" to support democracy, the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in an interview to the DPA news agency. "We are ready to work with the US on an overall Marshall Plan for Democracy. (...)  We should not provide platforms for the enemies of liberal democracy ; this is true not only for the United States but also for us in Germany and Europe,” the minister said to the RIA Novosti news agency.  “We can only jointly maintain faith in solidarity, in democracy as the most humane form of government and in the credibility of science and reason. There are no better, closer and more natural partners for this in the 21st century than the USA and Europe,” Maas said. _____________________________________________________ The Marshall Plan is an economic recovery program for Western Europe that the United States implemented after the end of World War II.   Under the Marshall Plan,  West Germany re...

Reuters:  Brazilian company plans to start making Russian vaccine next week BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian pharmaceutical company Uniao Quimica plans to start producing Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine for COVID-19 in Brazil as soon as next week and make up to 8 million doses a month, its international business director Rogerio Rosso said on Friday. The private company, with a vaccine facility in Brasilia, is preparing to request emergency use authorization from health regulator Anvisa for the vaccine developed in Moscow. Uniao Quimica last week requested approval to conduct Phase III clinical trials in Brazil, which is required for licensing of the vaccine in the country. “We await Anvisa authorization to start the clinical studies here,” Rosso told Reuters. Uniao Quimica is working with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which is marketing Sputnik V worldwide, to obtain emergency use authorization that would allow the vaccine to be included in Brazil’s nation vaccination plan s...

Burning to the ground:   Russian NBC Protection Troops  will receive a modernized heavy "Solntsepek" (Translations:  Sunscorch,  Blazing Sun ) flamethrower system. The combat vehicle is  based on a modified T-72A chassis and fitted with a rotating launch system for 24 unguided thermobaric rockets.  All rockets can be launched within 6 to 12 seconds.  The improvement process was aimed at increasing the protection against anti-tank weapons. The use of modern sighting and navigation systems, as well as new unguided rockets will reduce the time for planning and executing combat missions. The modernization has also increased the range and accuracy of fire, and the impact area of a round. Source

  The MC-21: A Russian A320 and 737 Credit:   NJCUMMINS  Found&Explained You may have not heard of the MC-21 but it could very well be the next must-have short-haul aircraft filling our skies – putting Airbus and Boeing on notice. B ut building a new Boeing 737 competitor from scratch isn’t easy, especially in a country filled to the brim with politics – this plane faces a future of flying high, or becoming a footnote in history.  The end of the cold war saw Russian airlines turn away from Soviet planes and embrace western technology, filling their fleets with western made Airbus and Boeing aircraft that were, at the time, seen as more reliable and advanced technological products than the Russian made counterparts.  But one Russian aerospace firm has kept that commercial aviation dream alive with the MC-21 design, taking the very best ideas from the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 to make a true world-class competitor in their words.  The MC-21-300, pr...

By  Seth Richards , Cycle World If you’re selling  sidecar motorcycles   in 2021, you have to be just a bit crazy—in a good way. So you’ve gotta hand it to   Ural  (pronounced oo-'rahl )  for acknowledging its mania in the best possible way: by building a limited-edition Gear Up model with serious suspension and a hand-done camo paint job that looks like something Tom Ford would design for Dolph Lundgren to wear to a Moscow discotheque. What’s crazier than building a type of vehicle that became old-fashioned, like, 100 years ago? Building one that costs almost as much as a new   Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP , that’s what.  Limited to just 20 units and costing $26,999, The Ural Gear Up GEO LE is the latest model in the limited-edition series the Russian company releases each year. ______________________________________________________________ The model "Ural GearUp" is the flagship of the modern line of motorcycles with a sidecar of the Irbit Mot...

The US President-elect Joseph Biden intends to appoint a former US intelligence officer Andrea Kendall-Taylor as the Senior director for Russia and Central Asia at the White House's National Security Council (SNB). Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). She works on national security challenges facing the United States and Europe, focusing on Russia, authoritarianism and threats to democracy, and the state of the Transatlantic alliance. Prior to joining CNAS, Andrea served for eight years as a senior intelligence officer. From 2015 to 2018, she was Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). In this role Andrea led the U.S. intelligence community’s strategic analysis on Russia, represented the IC in interagency policy meetings, provided analysis to the National ...

Russia has donated Kenya 109 million Kenyan shillings ($1 million) to fight the coronavirus, the Kenyan newspaper Nation  reported .  The representative of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Kenya said that the relevant documents had been signed. It is emphasized that the funds will be provided to the Kenyan Ministry of Health through the RF-UNDP (UN Development  Programme) Trust Fund to support the activities of a hospital, built in 1969 in the city of Kisumu by the Soviet Union. The money will be used to enhance health systems and provide socio-economic support to women and youth impacted by the pandemic. The Russian Federation has had historical ties with the city through the support to the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Hospital, popularly known as the “Russian Hospital”, as well as the border counties of Busia and Migori. Mr. Dmitry Maksimychev, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Kenya, said that the contribution would strengthen efforts of the government in a...

Within a 24-hour period, s pecialists of the International Mine Action Center of the Russian Ministry of Defense found and destroyed 1,105 explosive items in the disputed territory of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh, the Ministry reported. "Since November 23, 2020, during the operation, the engineering units of the Russian peacekeeping forces have cleared almost 440 hectares (over 1,000 acres)  of unexploded ordnance, 165 kilometers (102 miles) of roads, 618 residential buildings, including 22 socially significant objects. To date, the total of 21,755 explosive objects have been neutralized," RIA  news agency reported.  In the course of demining, Russian peacekeepers employ modern robotic systems such as the URAN-6.  T he use of remotely controlled robotic systems makes it possible to increase the ​​demining areas. The operator can control the system at a distance of up to 800 meters (874 yards). Source

In Ukraine, beginning January 1, 2020, the price of electric power was increased. That cancelled the previous tariff for the first 100 kW of electricity that the population received at half price.  A new fixed price of 1.68 UAH ($0.059) per 1 kW was set for households. The new tariffs will primarily hit the poor and those who heated their homes with electricity. At the expense of the Ukrainians, they are trying to plug the hole created by the “green” tariff, which is several times higher than the price of atomic energy. The number of "green" power plants in Ukraine is growing every year. This is due to the fact that electricity obtained from renewable energy sources (RES) is very attractive to produce: the government buys it out at prices that exceed the cost of the cheaper electricity produced at nuclear power plants. All "green" power plats are owned by the richest Ukrainians. They are making huge amounts of money from this arrangement. But the government has foun...

President Putin said, “This wonderful holiday illuminates the world with the light of kindness and love, gives joy and hope to millions of people, turns them to enduring spiritual values.  It is important that the Russian Orthodox Church and other Christian confessions pay tireless attention to issues of moral health of society, strengthening the institution of the family, raising the younger generation, and sincerely care about maintaining interethnic and interreligious dialogue. This large, multifaceted work deserves the deepest respect. " Source