Investigators believe that an electrical short-circuit likely caused the fire that partially destroyed Paris’ iconic Notre Dame Cathedral, a French official has said. An earlier investigation too found no evidence of foul play.

Speaking to the Associated Press, the judicial police official said that investigators are still unable to search through rubble inside the cathedral for safety reasons.

The devastating blaze ravaged the centuries-old building on Monday, gutting the cathedral’s insides, completely destroying the spire and large sections of the roof.

A preliminary investigation of the scene on Tuesday found no immediate signs of arson, the city’s public prosecutor said. More than 50 people are still investigating the fire, which broke out while the landmark cathedral was under reconstruction.

French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to rebuild Notre Dame within five years “even more beautiful than before.” Donations towards the church’s reconstruction have flowed in from the private sector too. French businessman Francois-Henri Pinault has pledged €100 million and fellow billionaire Bernard Arnault offered €200 million towards the restoration.

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It was no surprise that the Mueller team, which did so much to prove a “hollow and laughable” Russiagate conspiracy, delivered no tangible result, the Russian Embassy in the US said in its own report on the issue.

The embassy responded to the much-anticipated report by Robert Mueller and his team just two days after it was made public on Thursday. In a massive 120-page paper, the diplomatic mission debunked key Russiagate claims, including allegations of meddling in the 2016 US election, involvement in the DNC hack attack, and Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia.

The publication also featured a long list of “groundless accusations” made by US mainstream media, politicians and experts in relation to the Russiagate conspiracy theories. It notes that the tremendous efforts made by the Mueller team to find any sign of collusion had failed.

“All this time, Russia pointed to the obvious made-up nature of these insinuations,” the report reads. Moscow had “fruitlessly” asked Washington to provide any hard proof of the allegations, and even offered help to investigate those claims, but “the US refused every single time.”

The embassy said it hopes that the “end of the Mueller saga would contribute to further dispelling the smoke and mirrors on this topic.” Now, it is time for the US and Russia to heal ties and “join efforts to repair the damage to bilateral relations.”

The Mueller report generally obliterated the Russiagate conspiracy theory, but it still claims that Russian “interference” in the election did happen, and that Russian military intelligence was complicit in “hacking” the DNC, as well as the private email account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, John Podesta.

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Yellow Vests protests brought clashes and tear gas back to the streets of Paris, despite politicians’ calls for “unity” in the wake of the Notre Dame fire. For protesters, the response to the fire only showed more inequality.

Saturday’s protests mark the 23rd straight weekend of anti-government demonstrations, but the first since Notre Dame de Paris went up in flames on Monday. Officials were quick to criticize the protesters for returning to the streets so soon after the disaster.

“The rioters will be back tomorrow,” Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told reporters on Friday. “The rioters have visibly not been moved by what happened at Notre-Dame.”

For many of the protesters, grief over the destruction of the 800-year-old landmark has made way for anger. With smoke still rising from Notre Dame, a group of French tycoons and businessmen pledged €1 billion to the cathedral’s reconstruction, money that the Yellow Vests say could be better spent elsewhere.

“If they can give dozens of millions to rebuild Notre Dame, they should stop telling us there is no money to respond to the social emergency,” trade union leader Philippe Martinez told France 24.

Saturday’s protests saw a return to scenes familiar since the Yellow Vests first mobilized in November to protest a fuel tax hike. Demonstrators in Paris’ Bastille district set barricades on fire and smashed vehicles, and police deployed tear gas to keep the crowds at bay.

Some 60,000 police officers were deployed across the country, while a security perimeter was set up around Notre Dame in Paris. A planned march that would have passed the site was banned by the authorities, but sporadic incidents of vandalism and looting took place across the city, with at least one car torched.

There were also clashes between protesters and gendarmerie in the capital. The police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the crowd, arresting 189 people, according to France Info.

Yellow Vest rallies also took place in Nantes, Pau, Caen, Montbeliard, Bordeaux, Lyon and other French cities. The total number of people who took to the streets on Saturday reached 9,600, with 6,700 of them protesting in Paris, the Interior Ministry said.

Beginning as a show of anger against rising fuel costs in November, the Yellow Vests movement quickly evolved into a national demonstration of rage against falling living standards, income inequality, and the perceived elitism and pro-corporation policies of President Emmanuel Macron. Over 23 weeks of unrest, Macron has made several concessions to the protesters’ demands, but has thus far been unable to quell the rising dissent.

After Notre Dame caught fire on Monday, the president postponed a television address to the nation, during which he was expected to unveil a package of tax cuts and other economic reforms, another measure to calm the popular anger in France.

Macron’s address will be held on Thursday.

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EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker has added a bit of romance to his song of praise for Angela Merkel, saying such a “lovable work of art” can’t “disappear into thin air” after 2021, when her chancellorship ends.

Speaking to German media this Saturday, Juncker confessed that he could not imagine Merkel disappearing without a trace as a politician. The chancellor, who promised not to run for office again in 2021, would be “highly qualified” for a top-tier EU position, the European Commission chief explained before suddenly upping the ante.

Juncker’s European People’s Party is poised to score big wins during the upcoming Europe-wide election in May, but he himself will quit his job afterwards. Manfred Weber, a Bavarian politician, has been put in pole position to be Juncker’s successor.

That, of course, raises questions as to what is left for Merkel if she is promoted to one of the EU’s top jobs. Some other leaders have suggested that she will lead EU’s foreign policy or become European Council president, but the German chancellor herself hasn’t make any statement on it yet.

Juncker’s relations with Merkel – who backed his European Commission chairmanship in 2014 – are generally warm, but maintaining them wasn’t free of embarrassing blunders.

Two years ago he mistook a call from Merkel for one from his wife right in front of TV cameras. “That’s my wife calling – sorry,” Juncker said, taking his phone from his pocket at a press conference in Brussels.

“No, it’s Mrs Merkel,” Juncker exclaimed before hanging up, prompting laughs from those in attendance.

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Vietnam is again seeking justice for the victims of Agent Orange, inspired by the multimillion-dollar verdicts against Monsanto in California. The biotech firm had supplied the US military with the chemical during the Vietnam War.

The Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA) has written a letter to a US court asking that it restart a class-action lawsuit by Agent Orange victims against American chemical firms, including Monsanto, which the Eastern District Court of New York dismissed in 2004, claiming a “lack of evidence” and asserting that “herbicide spraying.. did not constitute a war crime pre-1975.”

Citing two recent court rulings in San Francisco, where Monsanto’s Roundup was found responsible for health damages and the company was ordered to pay millions of dollars in compensation, VAVA asserted that it is time for the company to take responsibility for supplying the US military with Agent Orange during the brutal chemical warfare campaign (1961-1971) against Viet Cong guerilla fighters in which 12 million gallons of herbicide were used.

Dioxin, a highly toxic element of Agent Orange, has been linked to major health problems such as birth defects, cancers other deadly diseases. Stressing that Vietnam currently has more than 4.8 million Agent Orange victims, the letter asked for justice for people with hideous deformities.

“Where is the justice for Vietnamese victims who are being destroyed every day by the toxic chemical?” the letter asks.

Monsanto, which was acquired by German giant Bayer AG last June, in the past argued that it was the US military that had set the specifications for making Agent Orange and decided on where and how the herbicide was used. The company also noted that it was just one of many wartime US government contractors who manufactured the toxin.

Last month a jury in San Francisco awarded $80 million in punitive damages to Edwin Hardeman after the court found that Roundup, Monsanto’s infamous glyphosate-based herbicide, was a “substantial factor” in causing non-Hodgkins lymphoma cancer. In a similar case in August 2018, Dewayne Johnson was awarded $289mn after developing cancer from long-term exposure to Roundup. After months of legal drama, the terminally ill cancer patient agreed to a reduced payout of $78 million.

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Responding to the State Department “applauding” countries that sided with Washington’s regime-change efforts in Venezuela, the Russian Foreign Ministry said clapping is at least harmless and keeps the trigger-happy US hands busy.

Applauding Malta’s decision to deny passage to Russian planes headed for Caracas, newly minted State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus called on all countries “to follow Malta’s example to stop the Kremlin’s support for the dictator,” namely Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Responding to Ortagus on Twitter, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the US should keep clapping, since that would keep it busy enough not to start any wars.

The State Department’s understanding of “democracy” in Venezuela is to back opposition leader Juan Guaido and impose sanctions until he is installed in power. Guaido’s attempts to claim the title of “interim president” since January have failed to impress the police, the military, and the bulk of Venezuelan people.

Reminding the US how its attempts to “promote democracy” around the world usually end, MFA spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Thursday that the unfortunate situation with Maltese airspace was nothing new.

“Let me remind you that we’ve been through this before,” Zakharova said. “When we sent humanitarian aid to Syria, our planes were also denied airspace clearance. Remember what obstacles they put up before Russian flights.”

The same countries seeking to prevent Russian aid to Syria were trying to effect “regime change” in Damascus by giving illegitimate support to “moderate” militants, Zakharova noted. “We all remember how [that] ended,” she said.

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WikiLeaks has called for the US Justice Department to remove some of its redactions to the Mueller report, claiming that the blanked-out sentences only fuel conspiracy theories about WikiLeaks’ role in Trump’s election.

“WikiLeaks has always been confident that this investigation would vindicate our groundbreaking publishing of the 2016 materials, which it has. We disapprove of the large redactions which permit conspiracy theories to abound. Full transparency please,” WikiLeaks tweeted on Thursday.

Some observers wondered whether WikiLeaks disputes Mueller’s claim – expounded in the report – that ‘Russian hackers’ had stolen Democratic National Convention emails in 2016. Large chunks of text concerning the supposed hacking operation are left blank in Mueller’s report, to protect the investigative techniques used.

Moreover, Mueller’s report never established precisely how the  hackers – supposedly affiliated with Russia’s GRU intelligence agency – actually transferred the information to WikiLeaks. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange repeatedly denied that the emails had come from Russia, and had reportedly told a US congressman that the DNC breach was an “inside job.”

Likewise, large blocks of text regarding the Trump campaign’s contact with WikiLeaks are obscured, as they would cause ‘harm to an ongoing matter,’ possibly the ongoing case against Republican operative Roger Stone, who allegedly had made false statements to prosecutors about his own contact with WikiLeaks.

The report did make clear that WikiLeaks’ publishing of the supposedly hacked materials “would not be criminal unless the publisher also participated in the underlying hacking conspiracy.” Donald Trump Jr.’s brief Twitter contact with WikiLeaks, and retweeting of a link to the leaked emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, therefore were not criminal acts.

As pundits and politicians pore over the Mueller report with a magnifying glass, Assange himself is currently in police custody in London, after British police removed him from the city’s Ecuadorian embassy last Thursday. He is awaiting sentencing for skipping bail in 2012, and US authorities are simultaneously preparing an extradition case against him, for his alleged involvement in the hacking of classified US military files in 2010.

“Arrest warrant and extradition request for Assange is for wikileaks exposing war crimes in 2010,” WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson tweeted on Thursday. “Despite this, US media has been insisting on talking about 2016 in interviews all week.  Publishing truths is not a crime. Was not in 2010 nor 2016, nor ever. Period.”EditDelete

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A leading member of South Africa’s ruling party has stirred controversy as he called on the country’s black population not to vote for white candidates. RT has asked a local politician and activist to weigh in.

With even members of his own party condemning the decision to “campaign along race lines,” the pressure is mounting against African National Congress secretary-general Ace Magashule. He has already found himself at the wrong end of a number of corruption scandals and has now been slammed for his “racist” remark.

A few weeks shy of the 25th anniversary of the end of apartheid, racial tensions remain an undeniable part of life in modern South Africa. And some in South Africa support Magashule’s sentiment.

“White people are the beneficiaries of racism, all of them,” Andile Mngxitama of the pan-Africanist Black First Land First party told RT. He believes that the disproportionate amount of resources that remain in the hands of the country’s white minority is an indication that they “still maintain an apartheid hold on the economy.” Given the circumstances, Mngxitama asks “why any black person would vote for a white person?”

Self-described “disillusioned left wing South African” Helen Heldenmuth sees this outlook is destructive, and not the opinion of the majority. Having been arrested for raising black children during apartheid, she believes that the solution has to move beyond black and white. According to her, comments like Magashule’s don’t help to “mend” the damage from the past, and only serve to further divide society along racial lines.

Watch the interviews on RT.

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Despite losing territories in Syria and Iraq, Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and Al-Qaeda militants still pose a threat as terrorists cells spread in Europe and Asia, FSB head Alexander Bortnikov has said.

Terrorist groups operating on a network basis are taking root in Europe, Central and South-Eastern Asia, the director of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) warned. Organized groups of criminals for instance advance deep into Africa including Libya, the official said adding that the same can be said about Afghanistan.

According to Bortnikov, the driving force behind IS expansion is militants who are now returning to their countries of origin and creating terrorist cells at home. More than 1,500 out of 5,000 jihadists from Europe who earlier joined IS managed to come back from the Middle East, Bortnikov said citing expert estimates.

Most of them “had no difficulties” in reaching their home countries, the official bemoaned. He also hinted that Brussels’ migration policy might be the reason for such a drastic advance as hundreds of thousands refugees entered EU since 2015, many of which stemmed from the countries with high terrorist activity.

In March, US President Donald Trump declared victory against IS in Syria after the Washington-backed SDF militia gained control over Baghouz, the jihadists’ last stronghold in Syria.

Trump’s claim, however, has been questioned by Syrian envoy to UN Bashar Jaafari who said that the Islamic State “is not over yet.” French President Emmanuel Macron was also cautious about the matter indicating that the threat persists and the fight against terrorist groups must continue.

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Pornhub’s new channel affords users the opportunity to save the environment while browsing the adult website; for every minute of ‘bee-sexual’ video content watched, the company will make a donation to bee conservation efforts.

The video footage of bees getting down and dirty while pollinating flowers will be voiced by actual, human, pornstars like Brett Rossi, Dante Colle, and Domino Presley, among others, though there are no actual human boo-bees featured in the ‘bee-sexual’ genre.

According to a press release, Pornhub has partnered with leading bee conservation charities Operation Honey Bee and The Center for Honeybee Research on the bizarre but surprisingly heartwarming initiative. Reaction online has been overwhelmingly positive so far.

Without meaning to be a buzzkill, Pornhub points out that more than 700 North American bee species are headed toward extinction due to habitat loss and increased pesticide use with some “$235 billion worth of annual food production” relying on bees.

“With over 110 million daily visitors, we thought our users could come together to lend a helping hand and help conserve this precious species. It’s our duty to ensure bees continue to fornicate and pollinate,” Pornhub Vice President Corey Price said in a press release.

“Their sex LITERALLY saves humanity. If you ask me that makes for porn worth watching,” Creative Director David Martin Angelus said.

The ‘bee-sexual’ initiative is just the latest endeavor by Pornhub Cares, the company’s philanthropic division, which includes other campaigns like “Save The Whales,” “Pornhub Blows,” a campaign to provide free leaf removal service across the US and its Closed Captioning category content geared towards deaf and hard of hearing users.

It also introduced a PG category earlier this year.

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