Gilets jaunes: grassroots heroes or tools of the Kremlin?


Russian media have seized on the yellow vest protests – but they don’t seem to have played a role in their genesis

Russian state television has spent much of the last two weeks playing up the chaos of France’s protests, continuing a trend of coverage that emerged long before troll factories and the modern era of “fake news”.

Seven years ago, the Kremlin-backed TV station Russia Today went all in on coverage of a leftist street protest in the west. Did Occupy Wall Street fit the Kremlin’s interests of showing a western nation in (relative) chaos? Yes. But at that time, few would have suggested that Occupy was anything but a genuine protest movement.

Continue reading...

Komentar

Posting Komentar

Postingan populer dari blog ini

Manhunt for Strasbourg gunman continues across German border

Gambar
Police appeal to public for information on suspect Chérif Chekatt who has gunshot wound to elbow Strasbourg attack: ‘It lasted for minutes, but felt like hours’ Thai tourist is first Strasbourg shooting murder victim named Chérif Chekatt: who is the Strasbourg shooting suspect? A major manhunt is continuing in France and across the German border as police appealed to the public for information about the suspected Strasbourg gunman who killed two and left several people seriously wounded before escaping the security services on Tuesday night. Although police and military exchanged fire three times with the suspected gunman Chérif Chekatt during his gun and knife attack near Strasbourg’s Christmas market , the 29-year-old managed to escape them in the Neudorf area south-east of the city centre. Continue reading...
Baca selengkapnya

Fire destroys new voting machines ahead of DRC election

Gambar
Opposition supporters accuse Kabila regime of trying to postpone historic vote A fire has destroyed much of an election commission warehouse in Kinshasa as tensions rise in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with just ten days to go before historic presidential elections which could see the country’s first ever democratic transition of power or bring further instability and violence. The fire damaged thousands of controversial new voting machines and has stoked fears that the poll will be undermined by logistic challenges and fraud. Barnabé Kikaya bin Karubi, a presidential adviser, blamed unidentified “criminals“ for the blaze, which destroyed about 7,000 of the 10,000 voting machines due to be used in the capital Kinshasa, but said preparations for the 23 December election were continuing. Kikaya said police guarding the warehouse — located in the upscale and usually secure Gombe riverside area of Kinshasa, the capital— had been arrested but made no further comment on w...
Baca selengkapnya

'Tired of eating human flesh': South African court jails two men in cannibal case

Gambar
Judge said men were guilty of ‘most heinous crime’ over murder of 24-year-old woman Two South African men accused of cannibalism were given life sentences for murder on Wednesday, with the judge saying they were guilty of “the most heinous crime”. Judge Peter Olsen sentenced Nino Mbatha, 33, and Lungisani Magubane, 32, to life in prison for the killing last year of Zanele Hlatshwayo, the Witness newspaper said. Continue reading...
Baca selengkapnya