Russia has wrapped up widely condemned regional and municipal elections, including in four eastern regions annexed from Ukraine, delivering strong support for President Vladimir Putin.

The week-long polls, which wrapped up on Sunday, took place amid criticism of vote rigging and Ukraine’s push to reclaim its territories.

Dozens of Israeli arms companies are set to take part in London's annual arms fair on Tuesday, an event campaigners have branded "a marketplace in death and destruction".

The Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) takes place at the ExCeL centre in London each year and has repeatedly come in for criticism from anti-arms trade activists. It is scheduled to be held between 12 and 15 September.

Among those attending will be BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Thales as well as more than 40 Israeli arms companies that have been accused of complicities in human rights abuses carried out against Palestinians.

In a statement on Monday, Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) said the companies taking part read as a "who's who of the world's worst arms dealers".

"Israel is an apartheid state, and it is disgusting that the UK is not only selling weapons to Israel but encouraging Israeli arms companies to sell their weapons in London," said Emily Apple, CAAT's media coordinator, adding that companies like Elbit "battle test" their weapons on Palestinians in the occupied territories.

The head of the Israeli spy agency Mossad has accused Iran of plotting attacks on the occupying regime’s interests around the world, threatening to assassinate senior Iranian officials as he claims Tel Aviv is prepared to strike “the heart of Tehran.”

David Barnea claimed at an annual conference of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism Policy (ICT) at Reichman University in the Israeli city of Hrezliya, north of Tel Aviv, on Sunday that Mossad had foiled 27 anti-Israel attacks “orchestrated, masterminded and directed by Iran” over the past year.

"The captured squads and the weapons seized alongside them all had specific targets," Barnea said, adding that the attempts occurred “all over the world, in Europe, Africa, the Far East and South America.”

Barnea claimed, "All of this was under Iran's direction and guidance. We are currently working to track Iranian squads to prevent them from harming Jews and Israelis worldwide."

The Mossad chief said Israel would go after the agents involved in the plots as well as the commanders who sent them to carry out the attacks, warning that Israel’s response would go all the way to Iran’s “highest echelon.”

Suddenly Susanna Gibson, a Democrat candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates, is getting shy and claiming she is the victim of a sex crime after screenshots of her extracurricular activities went public. Gibson and her husband often participated in live videos posted on a pornographic website “and asked viewers to pay them money in return for carrying out specific sex acts” reports the Associated Press (AP).

“It won’t intimidate me and it won’t silence me,” said Gibson, who is running in a high-stakes legislative contest in a district just outside of Richmond, Virginia. “My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up.”

Gibson said that exposing the videos is “an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family.” Gibson’s attorney, Daniel P. Watkins, said that disseminating the videos is a violation of Virginia’s revenge porn law, which makes it a crime to “maliciously” disseminate or sell nude or sexual images of another person with the intent to “coerce, harass, or intimidate.”

“A criminal act has occurred here, and that’s the dissemination of revenge porn by a Republican operative,” Watkins told the AP.

Commemoration events on Monday mark the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States, with President Joe Biden to address first responders and their families at a military base in Alaska, while Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York.

As the United States remembers the victims of the deadly 9/11 terrorist attacks that shook the country 22 years ago, it is worth noting that Washington made a “deliberate choice” to "help create" the very extremists who masterminded them, Peter Kuznick, professor of history at the American University, told Sputnik.

“We knew exactly who these people were and what their organizations were like,” said the co-author of the "Untold history of the United States."

"The US did help train, recruit and arm and educate the Islamic extremists who would then blow back against the United States on 9/11," said Peter Kuznick.

If there is one defining characteristic of the average western feminist it is their propensity for turning their personal problems into everyone's problems.  Meaning, they have a habit of projecting their insecurities and outrage on the rest of the world, weaponizing their own unhappiness and turning it into an activist movement.  If they are miserable, other people are not allowed to feel content; that would be unfair.  

It is for this reason that modern feminism is often accused of being an ideological cult for narcissists.  Everything about it seems to be designed to elevate and appeal to the worst kinds of people.  Not only that, but the belief system is now so pervasive in western countries, especially among the college educated, that 60% of women say they identify and agree with the “common definition” of feminism, even though the common definition does not match the behavior and motives of most feminists.  

This percentage changes, of course, depending on the specific tenets related to feminism, but in most polls at least 30% of women in most western countries embrace the majority of third-wave feminist concepts.  The number of feminists also spiked dramatically between 2013-2018 (though this momentum has stalled in recent years).  The point being, if you are a western man seeking to avoid feminist insanity and find a woman with traditional values your task is becoming incredibly difficult in your home country.

Enter the “Passport Bros”, a movement of men in the west (primarily American men) traveling outside their countries to find wives in foreign places known for more traditional women that defy feminist taboos.  The movement has gained exponential traction and attention in the past year as most countries are finally lifting covid restrictions, allowing more men to travel.  

Ukrainian troops tried to advance with tanks and armored combat vehicles near the village of Opytnoy, but suffered serious losses, Denis Pushilin, acting head of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), said on his Telegram account.

"We can see that the enemy has intensified its efforts near Opytnoye with tanks and armored combat vehicles, suffering serious losses, but the fighting goes on, the enemy is trying to improve its positions in that direction. There is an understanding of further steps for our units, there are no serious fears," he said in a video message.

According to Pushilin, there are no significant changes in the Krasny Liman direction. The Ukrainian Armed Forces launched several small attacks in the direction of the Torskoye and Serebrianka, but Russian units repelled them all. The DPR leader added that there are no serious signs of fighting heating up in the area.

In a recent interview Democratic megadonor Haim Saban attacked Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) over his criticisms of Israel.

The billionaire media proprietor told Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot that most congressional Democrats remain very pro-Israel and that only about a dozen stand opposed to the country. He specifically singled out Sanders for scorn calling him “a self-hating Jew” and “an Israel-hater.” “You can quote me on that,” he added.

In the same interview Saban criticized extremist members of the current Israeli government, calling their behavior “inexplicable.” Saban said he hopes that Israeli leadership finds a way to send the Israel-haters [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich home, and that [National Unity Party leader] Benny Gantz and [Opposition Leader] Yair Lapid will enter the government.”

Saban was also asked about his decision to keep donating to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) despite the lobbying group’s support for numerous Republicans who refused to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. “The only goal of this organization is to prevent people who are against US-Israel relations from advancing and to support those who support relations between Jerusalem and Washington… ” he explained. “Many Democrats called me and said ‘are you stupid? you’re a Democrat who supports [Jan 6 Republicans]?’ I always say the same thing: It’s a specific, defined issue, and that is the US-Israel relationship. In that sense, I’m not interested in anything else.”

If one did not know better, they would believe that the Palestinian government places public ads on social media trying to recruit Palestinians to kill Jews. The sheer sound of that sentence sounds sick, as it should. 

The reality, of course, is something entirely different. 

In fact, it is Israel which has instilled a culture of “Slay-for-Play” to enable its soldiers and private citizens to shoot first and ask questions — if ever needed to — later. As B’Tselem, Israel’s leading human rights organization, previously documented, “[Israel’s] open-fire policy — which allows the unjustified use of lethal force — conveys Israel’s deep disregard for the lives of Palestinians and facilitates Israel’s continued violent control over millions of Palestinians.”

n the annals of modern warfare, few decisions have been as controversial as the use of depleted uranium (DU). This radioactive waste, stemming from the production of enriched uranium for nuclear reactors and weapons, has long been the subject of intense scrutiny and criticism. Today, as the drums of war beat louder in Eastern Europe, a chilling specter from the past reemerges: the US’s intent to ship DU-laden armor-piercing munitions to Ukraine.

A Reuters revelation this week threw the spotlight on the Biden administration’s unnerving decision to dispatch these potent and controversial munitions to Ukraine. This move, while strategically aimed at fortifying Ukraine against Russian tank assaults, casts a long, haunting shadow over US foreign policy and the broader humanitarian consequences of warfare.

To comprehend the magnitude of this decision, one must understand the horrifying legacy of DU in armed conflict. Its extreme density makes it a sought-after component for military projectiles, known for its ability to penetrate thick armor. However, when these munitions strike, they produce a fine dust of radioactive particles that can linger in the environment for millions of years due to DU’s extensive half-life.

This isn’t the first time the US has turned a blind eye to the horrifying repercussions of DU. In the early days of the Iraq conflict in 2003, the US military unloaded over 2,000 tons of this radioactive waste, subjecting the Iraqi populace to its long-term effects. The aftermath is palpable even today: cancer rates in the country have soared, and birth defects are tragically commonplace. Iraqi hospitals, such as those in Basra, report a 60% rise in birth defects post-2003. These figures, coupled with comparisons to the aftermath of atomic bombings in Japan, paint a heart-wrenching scenario.

While the tragedies of Iraq remain fresh, the scars of Syria are still bleeding. A mere six years ago, as TFTP reported in 2017, the US conceded its use of DU in combat against Islamic State militants. This confession, in itself, was a stark contradiction to previous coalition assurances, explicitly stating that DU would not be employed in the Syrian theater.

Massachusetts towns are facing a "reality check" straining to provide for crowds of migrants seeking shelter in the state, according to the New York Times. 

A report from the Times Sunday detailed how the small town of Woburn, Massachusetts, and other areas in the state have been struggling to meet the demand of the migrant crisis amid the state's "right-to-shelter law."

The article characterized the locals’ plight, stating, "Barely two weeks had passed since the migrant crisis arrived in their city of 40,000 people, 10 miles northwest of Boston, but the volunteers gathered at a church in Woburn on a recent evening sounded battle weary." 

It continued: "The small group of locals… had stepped up to help some 80 migrant families whom the state placed in Woburn hotels last month. Determined to offer a warm welcome, the volunteers had quickly discovered the daunting complexity of meeting basic needs, a reality check also underway elsewhere in the state and nation."

A former CIA software engineer who was convicted of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks in 2017 now faces a trial in New York City for allegedly possessing over 10,000 images and videos child pornography.

Joshua Schulte, 34, was found guilty in federal court in July 2022 on eight espionage charges and one obstruction charge over the so-called Vault 7 leak. He had the charges upheld by an appeals court just two weeks ago.

Now he stands trial over accusations that he possessed and transported thousands of images showing rape and sexual abuse of children.

According to federal prosecutors, Schulte took the disturbing files with him to New York after moving from Washington, DC, to work at a financial services firm.

He organized it based on the victims' identities and characteristics and buried it under several layers of encryption.

Webmaster addition: Not exactly Tom Clancy, is it?

The Economist published another interview with the Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski.

It includes his usual unrealistic platitudes about not ending the war until Russia has completely pulled back. Speaking with an English language media he didn't miss to mention the ever misunderstood story about Chamberlain's move in Munich:

Tapping loudly on the table, Mr Zelensky rejects outright the idea of compromise with Vladimir Putin. War will continue for “as long as Russia remains on Ukrainian territory”, he says. A negotiated deal would not be permanent. The Russian president has a habit of creating “frozen conflicts” on Russia’s borders (in Georgia, for example), not as ends in themselves but because his goal is to “restore the Soviet Union”. Those who choose to talk to the man in the Kremlin are “tricking themselves”, much like the Western leaders who signed an agreement with Adolf Hitler at Munich in 1938 only to watch him invade Czechoslovakia. “The mistake is not diplomacy. The mistake is diplomacy with Putin. He negotiates only with himself.”

In 1938 Chamberlain had no other choice but to give in on Czechoslovakia. Britain was not ready for war and the parts Hitler wanted to annex from Czechoslovakia had undeniably a largely German population:

He contended that Sudeten German grievances were justified and believed that Hitler's intentions were limited.

Zelenski goes on to threaten, in rather unthankful fashion, those countries which have delivered aid to Ukraine but may want to cut their losses:

Curtailing aid to Ukraine will only prolong the war, Mr Zelensky argues. And it would create risks for the West in its own backyard. There is no way of predicting how the millions of Ukrainian refugees in European countries would react to their country being abandoned. Ukrainians have generally “behaved well” and are “very grateful” to those who sheltered them. They will not forget that generosity. But it would not be a “good story” for Europe if it were to “drive these people into a corner”.

With Joe Biden acting as the biggest Marxist in Washington, there isn’t much for self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” AOC can do to grab attention. It seems like she had more of a platform during the Trump administration when she positioned herself as some kind of rebel.

These days, it seems she is having a hard time grabbing media attention. Perhaps that is why she went out on a limb to make this big claim about inflation. Millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet, thanks to Bidenomics. AOC actually claimed inflation was “propaganda,” seemingly denying the hardship of millions of Americans. Including the folks in her district, who had this to say.

From The Post Millennial:

After Democrat New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) promoted a message that inflation was “propaganda” and that “greedy shareholders” are the reason prices are high last week, constituents in her 14th district have said they want her to “talk to real people and see how bad it has gotten.” […]

Certified nursing assistant and city resident Latisha Law, 41, asked, “Is AOC crazy?” She added, “Has she been to a grocery store recently? $1,000 ain’t nothing no more. $100 ain’t nothing no more.”

Another resident, Iris Vasquez, 61, told the outlet, “I think what the government did was take advantage of the pandemic.” She continued, “You can’t put this all on big companies…”

A top climate scientist has blown the whistle about how wildfires around the world are being deliberately orchestrated by the globalist elite to promote their ‘global warming’ narrative.

Patrick T. Brown, a senior lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, claims that the majority of the devastating wildfires are caused by activists working on behalf of the globalist elites.

Brown also revealed that leading academic journals reject scientific papers that contradict the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) green agenda narrative.

He says journals instead promote “distorted” research which hypes up the fake dangers of so-called “global warming.”

Slaynews.com reports: Brown said editors at Nature and Science – two of the most prestigious scientific journals – select “climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives.”

In an article for The Free Press, Brown likened the approach to the way “the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause” of wildfires, including the recent devastating fires in Hawaii.

He pointed out that research proves that 80 percent of wildfires are ignited by humans.

Stephanie Heishman, a Northwest Washington event planner, knows she may sound almost absurdly cautious as she describes how, after a regular Sunday dinner at a friend’s house five blocks away, she travels by car instead of walking home.

She has her reasons. A year ago, she was awakened by gunfire outside her Adams Morgan apartment building and from her seventh-floor window saw a car speeding away. In August, after a night out with friends, her Uber driver couldn’t reach her building because police had blocked off a street where bullets had just killed two men and fatally wounded a third.

“It’s so ridiculous,” Heishman, 44, said of the precautions she takes to feel safer. “On the other hand, I don’t want to randomly get shot.”

Violent crime has long been a part of Washington life, the worst of it during the early 1990s when drug trafficking propelled the annual homicide toll to nearly 500 and D.C. earned an inglorious reputation as America’s “Murder Capital.”

The volume of carnage these days is not nearly as high, and most D.C. residents are unlikely to ever be a victim of violence. Yet a sharp rise in crime over the past year — punctuated by reports of homicides, brazen shootings, and carjackings by armed teenagers — is rattling a city already struggling to recover from a pandemic that upended its rhythms and ravaged its once-thriving downtown.

Webmaster addition: D.C. can't manage their own capitol city. How can they be expected to properly manage a nation?!?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is evolving at breakneck speeds, and this evolution has many people worried. Recently, an exasperated New Yorker piece asked, ‘can we stop runaway AI?’ The answer appears to be no. As AI becomes more advanced, the greater the chance it has of becoming conscious. Yes, like humans.

In fact, some experts have argued that AI is already conscious. Last year, a Google engineer by the name of Blake Lemoine claimed LaMDA AI, a collection of conversational large language models (LLMs) developed by Google, was conscious. Google quickly responded, insisting that the idea of conscious AI was - and one assumes, still is - ridiculous. But it’s not.

According to a recent paper, published by a group of 19 computer scientists, neuroscientists, and philosophers, we should prepare ourselves for conscious AI. The idea of sentient, non-human intelligence is not as far-fetched as many might imagine. Their warning should be taken seriously.

After all, an increasing number of scientists now question the assumption that humans are the only conscious animals in existence. If dolphins and elephants have deliberate, conscious experiences, why not an emerging AI system?

Webmaster addition:

NATO nations have agreed to a new action plan for bolstering the alliance’s industrial base, as governments scramble to restock their weapon arsenals while simultaneously sending military aid to Ukraine.

Nestled in the recent Vilnius, Lithuania, summit’s communique as line item 36, the document describes the Defence Production Action Plan as a way to leverage NATO’s role as “a convener, standard-setter, requirement setter and aggregator, and delivery enabler to promote sustainable defense industrial capacity.”

The plan will initially focus on land munitions, the communique states, and serve to help understand the inner workings of the alliance’s vast defense industry, including small- and medium-size enterprises.

Thousands of guests at MGM Resorts in the Las Vegas strip have been locked out of their hotel rooms after the company was hit with a cyber attack, according to reports.

MGM Resorts International has about 48,000 rooms on The Strip. The company's properties include Mandalay Bay, the Bellagio, Luxor and MGM Grand, among others.

The outage, first detected on Sunday night, has affected company emails, reservations, room keys and casino slot machines.

The company said in a statement on Monday: 'MGM Resorts recently identified a cybersecurity issue affecting some of the Company’s systems. Promptly after detecting the issue, we quickly began an investigation with assistance from leading external cybersecurity experts. 

'We also notified law enforcement and took prompt action to protect our systems and data, including shutting down certain systems. Our investigation is ongoing, and we are working diligently to determine the nature and scope of the matter.'

Webmaster addition: This is why the cashless society cannot work!

Hard-line Republicans in the House are itching for fights over opening an impeachment inquiry into President Biden and extracting deep spending cuts even at the risk of a government shutdown.  

Their eagerness to fight isn’t just with Biden and Democrats, but also with Republicans in their conference worried about the political risks of an impeachment fight and a shutdown.  

Those dynamics pose yet another challenge for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), whose job is to unify his conference.  

“I’m tired of all these Republicans hiding behind, ‘Oh, but they’ll say it’s a shutdown. And they’ll say that you’re defunding law enforcement with [the Department of Homeland Security].’ That is all bullshit,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the House Freedom Caucus.  

“The truth is we’re using the power that we were given to force change because you don’t pay people not to do their job.” 

Allies of McCarthy are among those putting the pressure on him. 

Mediterranean storm Daniel caused devastating floods in Libya that swept away entire neighborhoods and wrecked homes in multiple coastal towns in the east of the North African nation. As many as 2,000 people were feared dead, one of the country's leaders said Monday.

The destruction appeared greatest in Derna, a city formerly held by Islamic extremists in the chaos that has gripped Libya for more than a decade, leaving it with crumbling and inadequate infrastructure. Libya remains divided between two rival administrations, one in the east and one in the west, each backed by militias and foreign governments.

The confirmed death toll from the weekend flooding stood at 61 as of late Monday, according to health authorities. But the tally did not include Derna, which had become inaccessible, and many of the thousands missing were believed carried away by waters.

The Air Force will fall short of its fiscal 2023 pilot training goal by about 120 airmen, missing its annual target of around 1,500 new aviators for the eighth consecutive year, the service confirmed Sept. 8.

A slew of maintenance woes, staffing issues and other unexpected setbacks led the Air Force to pin wings on around 1,350 airmen rather than its aspirational goal of 1,470. The shortfall makes it more difficult for the service to fill a pilot shortage of around 2,000 people that has persisted for years.

“We’re going to try to make sure we are still flying because that’s what we do as an Air Force,” Maj. Gen. Clark Quinn, the two-star general in charge of pilot training told reporters on a recent conference call.

The Air Force set a new target of around 1,500 new aviators a year in fiscal 2020 but has so far failed to meet its own bar. It will aim for that same goal in fiscal 2024, Air Force spokesperson Benjamin Faske said.

A Democrat running for Virginia's House of Delegates has refused to drop out of the race despite being outed as an online porn star. 

Susanna Gibson can be seen in videos obtained by DailyMail.com performing sex acts with her husband online and encouraging watchers to pay them with 'tips' for specific requests. 

The nurse practitioner and 40-year-old mother of two is running for a highly competitive seat in suburban Richmond. 

Gibson on Monday rejected calls for her to drop out of the race, and said the exposure of the videos was 'an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family.'

'It won't intimidate me and it won't silence me,' she added in a statement to The Washington Post.

Gibson went on to call out her rivals for attempting to derail her campaign ahead of the November 7 ballot. 

'My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they're willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there's no line they won't cross to silence women when they speak up,' she said.

Sen. Josh Hawley has a new populist proposal that eschews the laissez-faire Republican economics of old: he wants to install an 18 percent cap on credit card interest rates. 

The Missouri Republican tore into soaring interest rates - which hit an average of 28 percent this week just as credit card debt levels have surpassed $1 trillion in the U.S. 

In comments to RealClearPolitics, Hawley noted the government was 'quick to bail out the banks just this spring,' referring to Silicon Valley Bank of California and Signature Bank of New York, but 'has ignored working people struggling to get ahead.'

He put credit card issuers directly in his crosshairs: 'We know what they're doing.'

A Mossad surveillance team made quite a public spectacle of themselves on 9-11.

The New York Times reported Thursday that a group of five men had set up video cameras aimed at the Twin Towers prior to the attack on Tuesday, and were seen congratulating one another afterwards. (1)

Police received several calls from angry New Jersey residents claiming "middle-eastern" men with a white van were videotaping the disaster with shouts of joy and mockery. (2)

"They were like happy, you know … They didn't look shocked to me" said a witness. (3)

[T]hey were seen by New Jersey residents on Sept. 11 making fun of the World Trade Center ruins and going to extreme lengths to photograph themselves in front of the wreckage. (4)

Witnesses saw them jumping for joy in Liberty State Park after the initial impact (5). Later on, other witnesses saw them celebrating on a roof in Weehawken, and still more witnesses later saw them celebrating with high fives in a Jersey City parking lot. (6)

"It looked like they're hooked in with this. It looked like they knew what was going to happen when they were at Liberty State Park." (7)

More Americans than before oppose transgender athletes competing in sports that align with their gender identity and say transitioning genders is “morally wrong,” according to a report from Gallup released Monday.

The survey — conducted from May 1 to May 24 via telephone interviews with roughly 1,000 adults living in the U.S. — found that 69% of people say that transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth, compared with 62% in 2021. It also shows that a slightly higher share of Americans, 55%, consider “changing one’s gender” to be more “morally wrong” than in 2021, when it was 51%.

Gallup’s findings come amid an unprecedented number of anti-LGBTQ bills, 491, introduced by conservative lawmakers in state legislatures across the country, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, with the majority of the legislation affecting trans Americans.

Thanks to an email tip from a concerned parent, we did a deep dive into the books the Kenosha Unified School District is providing their students. What we found in their libraries and heard from their leaders is truly shocking.

So after sifting through their library, we reached out to the school with our findings:

Our email to the district

“This Book Is Gay” teaches students how to have gay sex and how to use a gay sex hookup app to meet up with others. It also includes a guide to sex kinks and fetishes such as peeing on each other and eating poop. It’s available as an Ebook, students just need to login and can check it out digitally.

Previously, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland labeled Russia's Crimea region as a legitimate target for Ukrainian strikes, with the Russian Foreign Ministry stressing that these remarks confirm Washington's deep involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

US Acting Deputy Secretary of State and Russophobic hawk Victoria Nuland appears to have let slip that the Biden administration supports Ukraine’s strikes targeting Russian territory.

In a video clip circulating on social media, Nuland, who just recently visited Ukraine’s capital, can be heard saying that one "axis" of Washington’s strategy in it proxy war with Moscow in Ukraine is to "put some of Russia's most precious assets at risk."

Webmaster addition:

International Literacy Day, celebrated on September 8 each year, is a global observance dedicated to promoting the significance of literacy as a human right and a powerful driver of sustainable development.

Literacy is a key ingredient of personal development and social progress because it empowers people to access education and information, enabling them to make informed decisions and participate fully in society. It also plays a pivotal role in reducing poverty, improving health outcomes and fostering gender equality. International Literacy Day reminds us that literacy is not just a fundamental human right but a catalyst for positive change, both at the individual and societal level.

As Statista's Felix Richter notes, since the day was first observed in 1967, steady progress has been made in the fight against illiteracy, but the issue remains a hindrance to development around the world, with more than 750 million people aged 15 and older estimated to lack basic reading and writing skills in 2020.

Moreover, progress towards a more literate world has hit a huge roadblock in 2020, when Covid-19-based lockdown policies disrupted education systems around the world.