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The biggest news of the past week has been Russia's invasion ofUkraine amid strong condemnation from the rest of the world. As news channels scrambled to provide round-the-clock coverage of the crisis, many people have pointed out "racism" in the way reports are presented.

Some Twitter users have alleged that media coverage for the Middle East, Asian and African conflict zones does not receive as much footage as the European conflict.

A Twitter thread by journalist Alan MacLeod detailed some of the instances of "racist" media coverage of the Ukraine crisis.The thread points out shocking terms used byleading news organizations including BBC, CBS News, Al Jazeera, BFM TV, The Daily Telegraph, and the ITS (UK).

On BBC News, Ukraines deputy chief prosecutor David Sakvarelidze said he wasvery emotional seeing European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed every day.

On CBS News,foreign correspondent Charlie DAgata while reporting from Kyiv said, This is a relatively civilized and European city where you wouldnt expect or hope that it is going to happen.He also said this wasn't "Iraq or Afghanistan" countries that have been suffering endless conflict. D'Agata later apologized in a broadcast.

On NBC, a correspondentwas asked what has changed in Poland since the last refugee crisis in Europe in 2015, at which time the country had been hesitant to acceptrefugees.

She shockingly replied, "Just to put it bluntly, these are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from neighboring Ukraine. That, quite frankly, is part of it. These are Christians, theyre white, theyre very similar people."

On Al Jazeera,Peter Dobbie, while talking about Ukrainians fleeing the countrysaid, "Whats compelling is just looking at them, the way they are dressed. These are prosperous middle-class people. These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from areas in the middle east that are still in a big state of war. These are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa. They look like any European family that you would live next door to..."

The Telegraph in the UK, in a column by Daniel Hannan, described the invasion as: They seem so like us. Thats what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. It's people who watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. It's not in a poor, remote country anymore."

On ITV (UK),another correspondent reporting from Ukraine said,"The unthinkable has happened...This is not a developing, third-world nation; this is Europe!"

The racist reporting was also flaggedby the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Associationwhichcautioned media housesto be "mindful of implicit and explicit bias" in their coverage.

The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Associationcondemns the"orientalist and racist implications that any population or country is 'uncivilized' or bears economic factors that make it worthy of conflict... This type of commentary reflects the pervasive mentality in Western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Latin America," the statement said. "It dehumanizes and renders their experience with war as somehow normal and expected."

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'This isn't Syria or Iraq': Western media coverage of ...

In his first State of the Union address, President Joe Biden focused on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, inflation and the coronavirus pandemic.

At one point he turned to the U.S. military, and started to speak about toxic burn pits at bases in Iraq and Afghanistan that may have caused serious illnesses among troops possibly including his late son Beau Biden, who served in the military and died from brain cancer in 2015.

But as he spoke, he made a questionable claim about the number of times he had visited the two countries.

"Our troops in Iraq have faced and Afghanistan have faced many dangers. One being stationed at bases, breathing in toxic smoke from burn pits," Biden said during the March 1 joint session of Congress. "Many of you have been there. Ive been in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan over 40 times. These burn pits that incinerate waste the wastes of war, medical and hazardous material, jet fuel, and so much more."

PolitiFact readers reached out and inquired whether the statement was accurate. Its not, and it was not included in his prepared remarks.

Biden has traveled to Afghanistan and Iraq many times, including to visit his son who was serving in Iraq. But his statement nearly doubled the number of trips. And its not the first time Biden has embellished the number of times hes traveled to the two countries.

In 2019, while on the campaign trail, Biden told a dramatic but false story about a general asking him to travel to Afghanistan to recognize the heroism of a Navy captain. At one point while relaying the tale, Biden said he had been to Iraq and Afghanistan "over 30 times."

But his campaign later clarified, and told the Washington Post that the correct number was actually 21. Some of these trips occurred when Biden was serving as a U.S. senator from 1973 to 2009.

There have been no news reports or press releases about Biden visiting either country for the remainder of 2019 or any time in 2020.

PolitiFact reached out to the White House for comment but did not hear back. Just after Biden made this statement, he was interrupted by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., who yelled out a reference to 13 service members who died while the U.S. was evacuating Afghanistan. Boebert was shushed by her colleagues.

As president, Biden visited Europe in a trip that included meetings with NATO leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He traveled to Italy and the United Kingdom in the fall of 2021 for the G20 Leaders Summit and the U.N.s convention on climate change.

According to searches of Nexis news archives, the last time Biden visited Iraq was in 2016 to try to quell a political rebellion that threatened to undercut the Obama administration's counterterrorism efforts. It was his first visit to the country in five years.

The last time we found that he traveled to Afghanistan was in 2011 for meetings meant to gauge the progress toward a drawdown of U.S. forces.

Our ruling

Biden said he has visited Iraq and Afghanistan "over 40 times."

This isnt accurate. There is no evidence that Biden has been to either country since being president. The last time he was in Iraq appears to be in 2016. For Afghanistan, it was in 2011.

The latest estimate of his travels to the two countries come from his presidential campaign,which said in 2019 that he had visited both a combined 21 times.

Bidens statement is off by about half. We rate it False.

PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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Biden exaggerates trips to Iraq, Afghanistan in State of the Union address - PolitiFact

The guilty can be devious in concealing their crimes, and their role in them. The greater the crime, the more devious the strategy of deception. The breaking of international law, and the breaching of convention, is a field replete with such figures.

Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine has presented a particularly odious grouping, a good number of them neoconservatives, a chance to hand wash and dry before the idol of international law. Law breakers become defenders of oracular force, arguing for the territorial integrity of States and the sanctity of borders, and the importance of the UN Charter.

Reference can be made to Hitlers invasions during the Second World War with a revoltingly casual disposition, a comparison that seeks to eclipse the role played by other gangster powers indifferent to the rule and letter of international comity.

Speculation can be had that the man in the Kremlin has gone mad, if he was ever sane to begin with. As Jonathan Cook writes with customary accuracy, western leaders tend to find it convenient that every time another country defies the Wests projection of power, the western media can agree on one thing: that the foreign government in question is led by a madman, a psychopath or a megalomaniac.

It might well be said that the US-led Iraq invasion in 2003 was a product of its own mental disease, the product of ideological and evangelical madness, accompanied by a conviction that states could be forcibly pacified into a state of democracy. Where there was no evidence of links between Baghdad and al-Qaeda operatives responsible for the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, it was simply made up.

The most brazen fiction in this regard was the claim that Iraq had the means to fire weapons of mass destruction at Europe within 45 minutes. Showing that farce sometimes precedes tragedy, that assessment was cobbled from a doctoral dissertation.

When the invasion, and subsequent occupation of Iraq, led to sectarian murderousness and regional destabilisation, invigorating a new form of Islamicist zeal, the neocons were ready with their ragbag excuses. In 2016, David Frum could offer the idiotic assessment that the US-UK intervention offered Iraq a better future. Whatever [the] Wests mistakes: sectarian war was a choice Iraqis made for themselves. Such ungrateful savages.

On Fox News Sunday, this nonsense was far away in the mind of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She could merely nod at the assertion by host Harris Faulkner that when you invade a sovereign nation, that is a war crime I mean, I think were at just a real, basic, basic point there.

Jaw-droppingly to those familiar with Rices war drumming in 2003, she agreed that the attack on Ukraine was certainly against every principle of international law and international order. That explained why Washington was throwing the book at [the Russians] now in terms of economic sanctions and punishments is also part of it. She also felt some comfort that Putin had managed to unite NATO in ways that I didnt think I would ever see again after the end of the Cold War.

As Bushs National Security Advisor, Rice was distinctly untroubled that her advice created a situation where international law would be grossly breached. She was dismissive of the role played by UN weapons inspectors and their failed efforts in finding those elusive weapons of mass destruction and evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons, she warned in 2002. But we dont want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

As the seedy conspiracy to undermine security in the Middle East and shred the UN Charter gathered place in 2002, those against any Iraq invasion were also denouncing opponents as traitors, or at the very least wobbly, on the issue of war. Frum, writing in March 2003, was particularly bothered by conservatives against the war the likes of Patrick Buchanan, Robert Novak, Thomas Fleming, and Llewellyn Rockwell. Thankfully, they were relatively few in number, but their ambitions are large. They favoured a fearful policy of ignoring threats and appeasing enemies.

In the Ukraine conflict, the trend has reasserted itself. Neoconservatives are out to find those appeasing types on the Right and everywhere else. Today, rues Rod Dreher, theyre denouncing us on the Right who oppose war with Russia as Neville Chamberlains. Conservatives are mocked for daring to understand why Russia might have an issue with NATO expansion, or suggest that Russias invasion of Ukraine is not, in the end, of vital interest to Washington. Its Chamberlains folly, comes the improbable claim from Matt Lewis of The Daily Beast, delivered with a confident Churchillian swagger.

A more revealing insight into neoconservative violence, the lust for force, and an almost admiring take on the way Putin has behaved, can be gathered in John Boltons recent assessment of the invasion. Bolton, it should be remembered, detests the United Nations and was, just to show that President George W. Bush had a sense of humour, made US ambassador to it. For him, international law is less a reality than a guide ignored when power considerations are at play an almost Putinesque view.

Almost approvingly, he writes in The Economist of the need to pay attention to what adversaries say. He recalls Putins remark about the Soviet Unions disintegration as the 20th centurys greatest catastrophe. He notes those efforts to reverse the trend: the use of invasions, annexations and the creation of independent states, and the adoption of less kinetic means to bring states like Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan into closer Russian orbits.

With a touch of delight, Bolton sees that the aggressive use of military force is back in style. The rule-based international order just took a direct hit, not that it was ever as sturdy as imagined in elite salons and academic cloisters. And with that, the war trumpet sounds. World peace is not at hand. Rhetoric and virtue-signalling are no substitute for new strategic thinking and higher defence budgets. In this equation, the UN Charter is truly doomed.

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Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine: Outing The Iraq War White Washers OpEd - Eurasia Review

The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill that would greatly expand healthcare coverage for military veterans exposed to toxic chemicals and other materials.

The Honor our PACT Act would grant new disability benefits to 23 illnesses that have been linked to battlefield pollutants, most notably smoke from so-called burn pits that gained such notoriety in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bill passed the House with a 256-174 vote.

For too long, Congress and VA have been slow to act on toxic exposure but today, the House took a bipartisan vote to change that and finally make good on our promise to toxic-exposed veterans, said Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), the bills sponsor and Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman on Thursday.

The vote came two days after President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union speech, where he called upon Congress to pass a law to make sure veterans devastated by toxic exposure in Iraq and Afghanistan finally get the benefits and the comprehensive health care they deserve.

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military used open-air pits to burn waste everything from plastics, medical waste, computer equipment, tires, all doused with jet fuel and set ablaze. While the practice was supposedly curtailed in 2009, a 2010 report from the Government Accountability Office found that the military was still using unsafe protocols to burn waste, and Stars and Stripes reported in 2014 that the practice had made a resurgence in Iraq with the return of U.S. forces there.

As many as 3.5 million service members are thought to have suffered some exposure to toxic fumes and substances from burn pits since 2001.

Accessing health care for medical issues thought to be associated with that exposure has proven a challenge for many, as the effects of exposure to smoke and fumes from the burn pits was poorly understood.

The Department of Veterans Affairs had attributed a limited range of health effects to burn pit exposure and had placed the responsibility on individual veterans to prove that their adverse health effects were directly attributable to burn pit exposure. Nearly 78 percent of these claims have been denied since 2007.

In addition to burn pit exposure, the bill would also expand healthcare coverage to Cold War-era service members exposed to radiation, add hypertension and monoclonal gammopathy to the list of illnesses linked to Agent Orange exposure in the Vietnam War and require new medical exams for all veterans with toxic exposure claims.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill could cost $208 billion over the next decade. That price tag is also the major sticking point for those who have opposed the measure.

While the Senate has not indicated it would vote on the Honor the PACT Act, it did last month approve a bill that would create a one-year enrollment period for VA medical care for post-9/11 combat veterans who served after 1998 and never enrolled, and also extend the enrollment period for all formerly deployed post-9/11 combat vets from five years to 10. Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.) described it as a first step.

Nevertheless, at a Wednesday news conference, advocates for the bill encouraged the Senate to take up the bill as opposed to a more piecemeal approach.

If he [Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)] does that, said advocate John Feal, Then I will make his life miserable.

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Congress takes step towards granting free health care to millions of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans - Task & Purpose

Iraq is starting to catch its breath. The Iraqi city of Hatra has suffered from damage and lost its beauty. However, after so much torment, the ancient city is getting restored and revived. With the recovery of three colossal sculptures, Hatra starts to undo the destruction it has faced!

The city of Hatra witnessed ISIS, taking its guns and pickaxes to its historical monuments that date back to the Roman and Parthian empires. Some sites were even destroyed during the battles to drive ISIS out. Their rule over the city has led to so much loss, with smashed historical pieces wasted.

However, the countrys efforts to regain its losses are going in the right direction. In association with the Italian International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies, Iraqi experts are unveiling the countrys ancient heritage. Meanwhile, its all done with funding of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas.

The head of antiquities in Nineveh province, Khair Al-Din Ahmed Nasser, said, We recovered some pieces. Others which were missing, we replaced with the same type of stone. Furthermore, restored pieces include a Roman-style, life-size sculpture and faces on the side of the great temple.

The project of restoring the city is more than just reclaiming Hatras ancient history. It also provides training for the curators and archaeologists of Iraq, marking a positive change and what seems like a bright future for the country!

Nadine is a Faculty of Arts graduate who's into telling stories. She loves music, singing, and watches movies in her free time. Nadine is interested in handicrafts and creating. One day, she is going to have a number one bestseller novel.

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Iraq Is Celebrating the Restoration of Three Major Sculptures That Were Destroyed by ISIS - Scoop Empire