MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Belief that Russia could be brought down by sanctions is unrealistic and the relationship with Moscow should be restored, the French presidential candidate for The Republicans party and former prime minister said in an exclusive interview to Le Monde newspaper.

"It is an enormous country that we cannot treat flippantly… Thinking that we can break down the Russians by imposing economic sanctions is naive. Our relationship with Russia should be rebuilt," Fillon said, as quoted by the newspaper on Sunday.

The presidential candidate reportedly added that this restoration would have to be tied to the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine and Kiev, like Moscow, would have to respect the Minsk agreements.

"Secondly, we need a new economic partnership with Russia. Finally, I propose a European-Russian conference on the conditions of security in Europe," Fillon was quoted as saying.

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201701231049895627-fillon-russia-sanctions-restoration-relations/

Many people don't like trump in all quarters from women to Democrat elite to GOP elite. They all think Trump is crazy — and yet the lunatic won the Presidential elections...  Yes HE IS  the annoying president. But that's life. Time for everyone not to demand what your country or the US can do for you but do something for yourself and your country, including becoming friend with Russia if you don't mind. Sell your tomatoes, your strawberries and your chooks... Easy. Don't harp on Crimea — and Ukraine which was a set up job done by Soros and by the Empire. If you don't see this you should not be in newspapers.

The picture at top is of course a Gus botch job. The cover is from Eulenspiegel adapted to say Der Spiegel

cover...

see also: Hurra, der kleine TRUMP-KALENDER ist da!

Russia's Finance Ministry announced last week that it had cleared the Soviet Union's $60.6 million debt to the former-Yugoslavian nation of Macedonia. This leaves Russia with just one more payment to settle: $125.2 million owed to Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

An unnamed finance ministry source told Russian tabloid Izvestia that the debts would be cleared by the end of the summer.

Russia inherited a debt of more than $66 billion when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Much of the money owned to the Yugoslav government came from business deals which saw communist Yugoslavia provide the Soviet Union with consumer goods.

“In a sense, it is a PR campaign,” economist and politician Andrey Nechaev said. “Despite sanctions, we are paying our debts. It's a nice way to show that Russia is a reliable borrower.”

read more:

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russia-to-settle-its-soviet-debts-be-end...

"I have to say that the world is a mess. I inherited a mess," Trump said on Wednesday during a joint press conference with King Abdullah II of Jordan. "I inherited a mess. We are going to fix it." It was almost as if he hadn't anticipated being forced to deal with problems as complicated as Syria. And perhaps he really hadn't.

Trump had just seen the most recent images of horror coming out of Syria -- in his office and on television. They showed children and adults in the small town of Khan Sheikhoun following an attack by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's air force. The victims lay twitching on the ground, some of them already dead with eyes gazing into the void. 

Piles of corpses could be seen, tiny bodies piled one on top of the other, all life extinguished. They were horrific, haunting images that immediately spread around the world and many Western governments have no doubt that they are the product of a chemical weapons attack on the residents of Khan Sheikhoun by Assad.

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/world-at-a-crossroads-in-syria...

Here, the old tired German newspaper looses sight that the Syrian airforce hitting a rebel gas manufacturing centre is more likely than Assad (or his troops, unbeknown to him) using chemical weapons. But in the same propaganda that served the US to go and invade Iraq under false pretences, the world media buys the same shit over and over again. Even should have Assad "gassed babies" (which is most unlikely) Trump broke the international rule of war, and became a war criminal. The US supported troops of Iraq are committing worse attrocies in Mosul and the Saudi trollop is doing far worse in Yemen... F^%$#@*ing wake up!

In a subsequent interview with Der Spiegel published Thursday, Gabriel was asked why he would want to speak to an “instrument” of “Russian propaganda”.

“That's more of an argument to give more interviews. As you may have gathered, that I am here also [giving you an interview] to clarify my position,” he replied.

“As German politicians, we must get used to the fact that there are not only our established media. On the one hand there are the social networks, on the other also foreign TV channels, which make programs in the German language. We also talk with others, as with Al Jazeera, and why not with Chinese channels?” Gabriel explained.

“In any case I reach people of Russian origin who live with us in Germany and do not read Spiegel Online,”he added, referring to the large population of Russian-speakers who’ve immigrated to Germany from the former Soviet Union.

In November last year, MEPs in Strasbourg voted on a non-legislative resolution which calls on the EU to“respond to information warfare by Russia,” singling out RT and the Sputnik news agency as particularly dangerous "tools" of "hostile propaganda."

Der Spiegel, along with other media outlets, have accused RT and Sputnik of spreading “misinformation” into Germany, particularly in the run-up to the upcoming elections.

The ruling by the EU has been harshly criticized by members of the International Federation of Journalists, amongst others, for being grossly unfair and going against the principles of free speech and ethical journalism.

In his interview with RT German, Gabriel expressed support for the Russian proposal to send UN peacekeepers to eastern Ukraine “to monitor the truce and, above all, the withdrawal of heavy weapons,” which would pave the way for a political settlement and the lifting of EU sanctions on Russia. However, and although adopting a position that the unification of the Crimean peninsula with Russia was illegal, he nevertheless noted that there are many other positions with which Russia and the EU may find common ground. These include concerns about Islamic terrorism and the escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula

read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/403372-russian-propaganda-germany-spiegel/

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Das BILD's decision to release a controversial image of a suffering Syrian child is a "mean attempt" to manipulate the public opinion, German journalist Karin Leukefeld wrote for Sputnik, commenting on the newspaper's recent publication that deeply shocked her.

The editor-in-chief of the German newspaper Das Bild, Julian Reichelt, published in his newsletter a photo that depicts a Syrian nurse with a seriously ill or possibly even dead child in her arms.

The picture is accompanied by text: "Assad the Dictator continues to wage war against his own people."

In fact, the image that was taken in the village of Hamuria located 17 kilometers from Damascus has little to do with the Syrian leader himself, but is rather associated with the hostilities of the terrorist groups that have the village under control, the lack of medical care and the passivity of the West, the journalist noted.

Since 2012, Hamuria has been occupied by several radical armed groups. The settlement is currently under control of Islamist group Faylaq al-Rahman. The overwhelming majority of the civilian population fled the city and is now living in Damascus or its suburbs, but those who stayed have to live without proper medical care and in constant fear for their lives.

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201710251058537736-bild-assad-german-pr...

As the elected leader of his country and with the help of Russia, Assad is trying to prevent Syria falling in the hands of various rebel groups — most of which, including IS, are sponsored by the US and Saudi Arabia. The BILD magazine should say : "US continue to wage war on the world"...

Britain's definitive accusations against Russia have faced a significant problem from the very beginning: There is no definitive evidence that the Russia state is behind the attempted murder. There is only a long chain of strong indications. That lack of clear evidence opens the door to a propaganda war -- and Russia has a certain amount of experience in this métier. After all, the country has been waging a permanent propaganda war for the last several years.

It was the case in 2014 when the first little green men appeared in the Crimea and when a passenger jet was shot down by pro-Russian separatists over eastern Ukraine. It was true in 2017, when the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad, which enjoys Russia's protection, deployed sarin in an attack on the village of Khan Sheikhoun -- here, too, there was no definitive proof. In each instance, Russia unleashed a storm of wild theories that had the primary goal of sowing confusion. In the above cases, though, clear proof did ultimately emerge that Russia or its allies were behind the incidents. The Skripal case, however, could prove to be more complicated.

A More Strident Chord

And now, Britain's blundering is threatening to erode the solidarity of what had been a more or less united European front. London already encountered difficulty in getting countries like Italy and Greece to support accusations of guilt against Moscow in the statements they released on the attack, and not all European countries have been in favor of expelling Russian diplomats. 

Read more: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/britain-on-defensive-in-skripal-novichok-case-a-1201573.html

"waging a permanent propaganda war for the last several years?" Of course, Russia has. Nothing new. Let's call it "counter-propaganda" as you must realise that Russia has been subjected to a lot of "anti-propaganda" from the West since WW2.

Now let's look clearly at what Russia did: 

Did Putin ordered the downing of MH17? 

Did Putin ordered Assad to poison "his" own people with gas?

Has the USA helped the "revolution" in Ukraine?

Has NATO taken over former East European countries?

Was Germany reunited at the goodwill of Russia?

Was Russia being plundered by the West's aligned "oligarchs"?

Was Russia instigator of the war on Libya?

Was the US and the Saudis responsible for the military coup in Egypt?

Has Putin taken Crimea away from Ukraine?

Was there not a referendum in Scotland about secession from the UK?

Was there not a referendum in Crimea about secession from Ukraine?

In regard to MH17, no proof, nor any material evidence have pointed to Moscow, nor to the rebels in Ukraine for that matter.

In regard to Assad gassing "his" own people, the only "evidence" comes from unreliable sources and NO scientific INVESTIGATION were made in regard to the veracity of the story and subsequent "red line" gassings of "beautiful babies". Were Russian "storms of wild theories" so wild as to have real weapons experts in the USA describing the gassings as "set-ups" from the rebels? Has the west not sowed a lot of targeted stories with no substance against Moscow?

What is extraordinary is that an attempted murder on a couple of Russians — one exhausted former spy and his daughter, are supposedly killed by the most poisonous of poison on the planet, but are not, that there are a lot of unanswerable questions as answers could expose the deed as a "coup monté" as the French would call a "false flag event", "Betrug" in German — has led to to most dramatic incident of diplomatic expulsion since WW2. Amazing! All this BEFORE the Soccer World Cup which of course the stiff-butt English Royals will boycot in solidarity with the rest of the Western countries who have a vested interest in licking UK and US boots. Solidarity in shit? Time for a bit of Russian truer propaganda.

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by James O’Neill

On 4th of March 2018 former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia were found on a park bench in Salisbury England at 16. 15 hours in an unconscious state. 

They were tended to by a number of passers by who included a doctor, an off duty nurse and some civilians. It was not known at that stage what had caused the Skripal’s illness. No one had any reason to believe that they were the victims of any nerve agent, and accordingly took no precautions against such a possibility. Despite the very well documented dangers of even casual contact with nerve agents, none of those helpful citizens suffered any ill-effects. 

The Skripals were taken to hospital where they have remained ever since. The public were told that they were both in a coma and unable to communicate in any way. Yet on the morning of 7 March 2018 Yulia Skripal accessed the Russian equivalent of her Facebook page (VKontakte). 

There are a number of possible explanations for this. She may have briefly returned to consciousness and her first thought was to access VKontakte before relapsing. Alternatively her VK could have been hacked, but that would not have been easy and there is no known evidence to support this possibility. A third possibility, implicit in the words of her treating physician, was that she “came to her senses.” Precisely what that meant is unclear because it was never elaborated upon. 

The hospital authorities have disclosed that Yulia is now fully awake, eating, drinking and talking, these and other questions may be able to be asked and answered. Precisely what we are told about Yulia’s answers depends upon who is allowed to talk to her. Another of the disturbing aspects of this case is that none of her family, her fiancé, or the Russian consulate authorities has been permitted access. 

This latter fact is directly contrary to the provisions of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The British have pretended that this did not apply to Ms Skripal as she was a Russian national (unlike Sergei who had dual British citizenship) because article 37 of the Convention had not been incorporated into English law.

The judge who heard an application for the taking of blood samples came to this conclusion, apparently without reference to, or being advised by counsel acting for the Skripals on behalf of the British government, that there was in fact a consular treaty between the then Soviet Union and Britain. This treaty was ratified in 1968 and specifically provides for the right of consular access. Article 36 of the treaty provides: 

(1) (a) A consular officer shall be entitled within the consular district to communicate with, interview and advise a national of the sending state and it may render him every assistance including, where necessary, arranging for aid and advice in legal matters. 
(b) No restriction shall be placed by the receiving state upon the access of a national of the sending state to the consulate or upon communication by him with the consulate. 

Notwithstanding this provision, which as the terminology makes clear, is not optional but mandatory, the British continue you to refuse the Russian consular staff their lawful access to the Skripals. 

In that same court case (NoB228376 & 13228382 [2018] EWCOP 6 Judgement 22 March 2018) the judge was also apparently not told by counsel that while the Skripals “appeared to have some relatives in Russia” they had not been advised of the application before the court and neither were the Russian authorities. According to the judgement the Russians would find out about the court case after the event because the judge intended to publish his findings! 

Ms Skripal does not just “appear” to have relatives in Russia. She has her grandmother and also a fiancé with whom she was living. She also has a cousin, Victoria, with whom she has recently had a conversation according to Russian TV that has released a transcript of the discussion.

The Russian authorities have also released copies of multiple requests made to the British government for consular access and other information. Not only were the requests ignored, contrary to the treaty quoted above, but the judge was not even informed that such requests had been made. 

The judgement ordering the taking of blood samples from the Skripals was for the purposes of technical analysis to try and determine what caused their illness, from whence the presumed nerve agent had originated, and possibly identified who might be responsible. Then again it might not, for a host of technical reasons.

The point here however, is that the order was made on 22 March 2018 when the answers to those key questions were not known, unless of course the British themselves or one of their allies were the perpetrators. Both the Police who were inquiring into what was a possible attempted homicide, and the scientific investigation by both Porton Down and the technical team at the OCPW to whom the matter was eventually referred, said that the results would take some time and possibly weeks. 

Yet on 14 March 2018, one week before the judgement, and weeks before the scientific results could possibly be known, British prime minister Therese May was telling the House of Commons that the culprit was a nerve agent “of a type developed by Russia” that had been used, and that it was “an unlawful use of force by the Russian State against the United Kingdom.” 

Whether or not May appreciated it, such a statement amounted to her declaring that Russia had committed an act of war against the United Kingdom, contrary to international law. Her statements, together with those of her foreign minister Boris Johnson, carried hyperbole to extreme lengths. It immediately brings to mind the Mad Queen from Alice in Wonderland who demanded the sentence before the verdict.

That was not the end of the British rhetorical overkill. The Salisbury hospital authorities directly contradicted the British government’s claims of dozens of people having been affected by the alleged nerve agent. The Consultant at Salisbury Hospital, Dr Stephen Davies, wrote a letter to The Times saying 

no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury.

Davies told the newspaper that only three persons were being treated, presumably the Skripals and Detective Sergeant Bailey. Note that the physician was careful not to specify precisely what the three were being treated for, other than that it was not nerve agent poisoning. 

This rare example of sanity in the mainstream media was lost in the ongoing stampede to indict, convict and sentence Russia before all of the evidence had been gathered and analysed. 

The campaign of vilification against Russia was extended further by the British government circulating a six-page document to 80 foreign embassies in Moscow setting out their “case” for blaming Russia. That “case” was simply risible. Its manifold falsehoods and absurdities have been pointed out elsewhere (O’Neill Australia confirms its colonial status with expulsion of Russian diplomats www.journal-neo.org 5 April 2018). 

That did not prevent Australia and more then 20 other allies of the United Kingdom expelling diplomats on no further ground than giving their support to the British government and its absurd claims. Not even all of Britain’s NATO and EU allies and partners were prepared to jump on that particular bandwagon, not to mention the more than 160 nations in the world who dissociated themselves from the allegations. 

The means by which the Skripals became infected has also been a subject of constantly changing scenarios. At various times the nerve agent was said to have been brought into Britain in Yulia’s suitcase; that it was placed their car’s air system; and that it was placed on the doorknob of the front door to Mr Skripal’s home. 

Here again there were logical contradictions. The nerve agent was said to be up to 8 times more toxic than VX (a nerve agent of a type developed by the British and used in the Kuala Lumpur assassination of a relative of North Korea’s President Kim.) Yet that door was touched multiple times by police and others without them becoming infected.

Even more problematic was the four-hour time gap between when the Skripals left their house and suddenly taking ill before being found on the park bench in central Salisbury. The word “suddenly” is apt because CCTV footage of pair 15 minutes before being discovered on the park bench shows them alive, seemingly healthy and walking along a Salisbury Street without difficulty after having a meal at Zizzi’s restaurant.

If the claims of Novichok’s toxicity are true, then the front door handle could not possibly have infected them. If the nerve agent was so weak that it takes four hours to do its job of rendering targets dead or immobilized, then its utility as a weapon is less than useless.

The weight of logic therefore points to them being infected at some point during the 15 minute interval between leaving the restaurant and being found. Unless either eyewitnesses come forward; the CCTV cameras caught the crucial moment; or the now recovered Yulia is able to shed light on what happened, it may never be possible to ascertain the perpetrators. 

On 3 April 2018 a further huge hole was blown in the British government’s case. The director of Porton Down’s defence science and technology laboratory told Britain’s SKY TV News that they had been unable to identify the source of the Novichok agent said to have been used against the Skripals.

The sophistication of the agent used was such, Mr Aitkenhead said, that it could “probably” be deployed only by a nation state. While Russia might be presumed to have such capability, the same is equally true of the United Kingdom, the United States, France, China and a significant number of other states with advanced technical capabilities (Hayward et al http://www.timhayward.wordpress.com 1 April 2018).

The Porton Down statement directly contradicts the assertions of Theresa May, Boris Johnson and their Australian counterparts Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop. The latter pair, in the joint media release of 27 March 2018 said, “this attack is part of a pattern of reckless and deliberate conduct by the Russian state.” It would be unwise to hold one’s breath waiting for an apology from those politicians and a withdrawal of the reckless, unfounded and inflammatory statements. 

Instead, the mainstream media has either ignored the Porton Down statement and its implications, or they have been complicit in obscuring the original unequivocal claims of Russian culpability espoused by May, Turnbull and others (www.moonofalabama.org 4 April 2018). This dishonesty has been evident throughout this whole saga.

The issue yet to be properly addressed by the investigation is who had the means, motive and opportunity to carry out what increasingly looks like a false flag attack, and a not very competent one at that. 

A series of events occurred shortly before the attack on the Skripals that possibly provide some insight into the perpetrator’s motives. First, the so-called Russiagate witch-hunt, attempting to blame Russia for “interfering” (rich in irony) in the 2016 United States presidential election had spectacularly collapsed.

That particular campaign against Russia had relied heavily upon a dossier produced by a “former” British spy named Christopher Steele. In the weeks preceding the Skripal attack it was revealed by Britain’s conservative newspaper the Daily Telegraph among others, that Sergei Skripal had links with Steele and another major player, Pablo Miller, in the Steele dossier saga when they worked together during the time of Skripal’s betrayal of his country. Miller also lived in Salisbury and was known to have had contact with Skripal.

Secondly the Anglo American attempt at regime change in Syria through its terrorist proxies and others had failed miserably thanks largely to Russian and Iranian intervention. 

Those terrorist groups have being responsible for a number of false flag chemical weapons attacks blamed upon the Assad Government. With the liberation of Eastern Ghouta, the Syrian and Russian forces found a significant cache of chemical weapons materials. The Russians announced that those materials were clearly destined to be used in another false flag attack that would provide the justification for United States and its “coalition” allies, including Australia, to mount air and missile attacks upon Syrian and Russian forces.

The chemical cache discovery, which received minimal coverage in the western media, was accompanied by a blunt warning from the Russian military command, that any such air and missile attack would be met with retaliation, including against the source of the attack. This was a clear warning to US ships and missile sites. The discovery of the chemical weapons and materials and the blunt warning were sufficient to deter any attack. Clearly however, the Anglo American forces were angered by their plans being thwarted.

Thirdly, on 1 March 2018 President Putin addressed a joint sitting of the Russian Parliament. Part of that speech announced a range of new weapons that were years ahead of any western systems. Russia not only had the capacity to defend itself with its sophisticated S400 anti-missile systems, it could retaliate against any western military attack with devastating force, against which the west had no defence.

Fourthly, despite a prolonged campaign of vilification against Mr Putin, he was overwhelmingly re-elected by the Russian people for a further six-year term. That result was entirely consistent with his level of popularity as revealed in opinion polls conducted by Western polling agencies.

Those results did not stop the western media from a alleging that the vote was rigged, or that Putin did not allow real opposition, and some other desperate claims. The American analyst Gilbert Doctorow has written a number of articles demolishing the western media’s claims, although one is unlikely to see them given wider coverage. (www.consortiumnews.com 15 March 2018) Western “analysts” for the most part prefer the comfort of your own prejudices. 

In the light of these four factors, it is a reasonable hypothesis that the Skripal attack was a sign of the increasing desperation of some western governments, chief among them the United States and United Kingdom. The propaganda barrage and the pointless posturing over diplomatic expulsions gave those governments and others foolish enough to be taken in by their patently nonsensical allegations some brief self-satisfaction.

The latest revelations from Porton Down however, are exposing that anti-Russia campaign for the shoddy and deceptive conduct that it is. In time, the Skripal incident will be placed alongside the Gulf of Tonkin, Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, the attacks upon Yugoslavia in 1996, Afghanistan in 2001, Libya in 2011, and Syria in 2015 as examples of provocations justifying the destruction of societies that threaten Western hegemony.

The Russia-China strategic alliance; the progressive de-dollarization of the world’s economy; and the success of defeats of Anglo American plans in Ukraine, North Korea and elsewhere indicate that the geopolitical balance of the world is changing rapidly. The challenge will be to discourage the increasingly desperate crazies who inhabit Western centres of power from embarking upon a war to try and reverse the inevitable destruction of their rapidly failing plans for “full spectrum dominance.”

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2018/04/07/the-rapidly-evolving-skripal-story-e...

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Viktoria Skripal, niece of former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal, has recently been denied a visa to the UK, which has prompted her write a letter to Prime Minister Theresa May to reconsider her application.

According to Viktoria, her cousin, Yulia, who is quickly recovering after the alleged poisoning attack, desperately wants to return to Russia to see her family. She explained that 33-year-old Yulia had a boyfriend, a pet and a job in Moscow.

“She has a dog here, she has a life here, she has work here, and a loved one here,” she told The Sunday Telegraph.

Viktoria Skripal also added that she wanted to go to Scotland Yard to "give explanations if they are interested in something." She denied that the Kremlin was behind her planned trip to Britain.

"If the British say I work for the special services, let them prove it. Show me one piece of evidence," Viktoria told the media outlet.

Earlier this week, Viktoria had a phone conversation with a woman she said was Yulia, having presented the audio recording of the call, which has yet to be verified. During the conversation, Viktoria told her alleged cousin that she would come visit her if she was given a visa, although the woman answered that it was unlikely.

READ MORE: Skripal's Niece Victoria Asks Theresa May to Reconsider UK Visa Issue — Reports

On April 6, Viktoria Skripal was denied a visa on the grounds that her “application did not comply with the Immigration Rules,” however the woman has not been deterred and is determined to address Theresa May directly to ask her to reconsider the visa issue.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201804081063331571-skripal-viktoria-yulia...

Time to own up to the cockup, fucup, SNAFU, messup, Dear Theresa. It will be less painless for everyone, including yourself.

Yulia and Sergei Skripal have reportedly been conscious for several days, while British intelligence is hoping for their assistance in the investigation of the poisoning case as soon as possible.

Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia may move to the US under new identities, the Sunday Times has suggested.

According to the media outlet, Britain's MI-6 has been discussing a possible resettlement with the FBI in order to "provide security" and protect the Skripals from "new assassination attempts."

"They will be offered new identities," a source in the British government told the newspaper, adding that the intelligence services were choosing between a number of countries, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201804081063331640-skripal-us-move-intelli...

I actually mention this as the next move, about A WEEK AGO. CHECKT IT OUT on this site...

During the G7 dinner at Charlevoix, Donald Trump explained to his partners that he considered that the peninsular of Crimea really belonged to Russia. What is significant is the US President’s reasoning: all the inhabitants of Crimea speak Russian and not Ukrainian.

Up till now, the West was united in accusing Russia of using force to annex Crimea.

The G7’s final communiqué does not seem to include the annexation of Crimea in the dispute with Russia but only the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.

Translation 
Anoosha Boralessa

Read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article201523.html

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It has only been two days since we went public with the news that Claas Relotius, a reporter at DER SPIEGEL, was inventing and embellishing parts of the stories he wrote for the magazine. We have had a number of crisis meetings, conducted a few press interviews, carefully followed social media channels and spoken about possible strategies. The days have been long, and more long days are sure to come.

Claas Relotius worked for DER SPIEGEL for four years and wrote many fantastic features. Unfortunately, most of them included passages that were made up. He wrote about people that he never met or simply invented them out of thin air. He described scenes that never happened.

We can't yet precisely assess the full dimensions of what has taken place, but we nevertheless decided to make it public. We didn't want to leave that task up to others. We have begun the investigation process and will establish a committee whose task will be that of leaving no stone unturned. Because we want to know exactly what happened and why, so that it can never happen again. We have a lot of questions for ourselves, and the answers will likely result in quite a few changes at DER SPIEGEL.

We are deeply sorry about what has happened. We have a large readership which can now be forgiven for wondering if DER SPIEGEL should still be trusted. We have many journalists on our staff who do excellent work and who must now face the reality of living under a cloud of suspicion. It is up to us to prove that such suspicions are unfounded.

We are aware that the Relotius case makes the fight against fake news that much more difficult. For everyone. For other media outlets that are on our side and for citizens and politicians who are interested in an accurate portrayal of reality. We would like to apologize to them, too. But we can assure them: We understand the gravity of the situation. And we will do everything we can to learn from our mistakes.

Claas Relotius apparently had the feeling that he could never live up to our expectations with stories that were merely good or very good. He had the impression that they had to be excellent. It is not something we ever communicated to him, but we were naturally proud of the enormously positive feedback they generated and of the many prizes he won. That increased the pressure on him to repeat his successes and win the next prize. He apparently thought he could only do so with fabrications.

Misguided

We are now fighting for our credibility and of course we are angry that Relotius so bitterly disappointed our readers and us. But we don't see Claas Relotius as an enemy. We see him as one of us who found himself at a psychological dead-end, and who then reached for the wrong, badly misguided remedies. We also have compassion for him.

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/der-spiegel-statement-on-r...

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