The CNN report earlier this week alleging that Iran paid bounties to the Taliban to kill US troops aims to reinforce the narrative that Tehran supports “terrorists”, portray the country as an obstacle to peace in Afghanistan, and lastly prompt multilateral sanctions pressure upon it. If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again! Just…
On the night of 27 and 28 July, Google blocked the YouTube accounts of a number of Russian media outlets (the Tsargrad TV channel, the Double-Headed Eagle Society, the anti-abortion group “Za Zhizn!”, Geopolitika.ru) and individuals’ email accounts. The motivation for all of them was the same – the violation of export laws. Somewhat earlier,…
Indian media is aggressively propagating the fake news narrative that China allegedly laid official claim to both Vladivostok and half of Russia’s CSTO mutual defense ally Tajikistan, but this is factually false reporting based solely on the internet posts of private Chinese citizens and not anything that their formal representatives ever said, yet it’s nevertheless…
The heated debate within Western governments about the best way to fight what they regard as “propaganda” has recently taken a disturbing turn towards intimidation of the outlets accused of peddling such information products and even discussions about their possible censorship, but if they were really sincere in combating this menace while staying true to…
The struggle against Covid-19 has often been compared to fighting a war. Much of this rhetoric is bombast, but the similarities between the struggle against the virus and against human enemies are real enough. War reporting and pandemic reporting likewise have much in common because, in both cases, journalists are dealing with and describing matters…
Trump’s ultimatum that Microsoft and ByteDance have until 15 September to work out a deal on TikTok’s US operations or the popular video-sharing app will be banned under national security pretexts represents a new sanctions model that incorporates a combination of strong-armed robbery and economic fascism given the immense pressure that the US government is…
