“Look, France now raises the retirement age to 74, oh to 64, in other countries 67. Look, yes, they will soon retire 2 weeks before death,” he claimed.

The General Secretary of the Belarusian Red Cross is outraged, although, at the same time, Belarusian men retire at 63, that is, almost at the same age, and Belarusian women at 58.

The retirement age in Belarus began to be raised in 2017. And Shevtsov, being a deputy, voted for it himself.

Here is how he explained at ONT a few years ago why this is necessary.

“When we increase the retirement age, we enable one to continue working. And most importantly, we should think about the state. That is, we give an additional increase in GDP,” he said.

It is worth noting that life expectancy in France is longer than in Belarus. The average Belarusian lives 70 years, and the Frenchman lives 80 years on average. A man retires at 63 in Belarus, and in France at 62. If the reform is adopted, he will retire at 64.

It turns out that the life expectancy in retirement for Belarusians is 7 years, and for the French 18 years. Women have almost the same, a little over 20 years.

Belarus' Red Cross Secretary General presented the information as if in the West, the retirement age comes shortly before death, without mentioning that the situation in Belarus is worse.

Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has not found any war crimes committed by Russian military forces

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine published its preliminary report on human rights violations. According to The Guardian, they "have not found that there has been a genocide within Ukraine".

But the Telegram channel ZhS Premium interpreted it another way, claiming that the commission has not found any war crimes committed by the Russian military.

Here is what they reported. Firstly the Telegram channel quoted the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry (COI). 

“Erik Mose, chairman of the COI, said that they "have not found that there has been a genocide within Ukraine". 

For a year, Ukrainian journalists have been squealing about rape, executions, torture, and other atrocities, but none of this has been confirmed.

And it cannot be claimed that the checks were carried out by some biased structures, rather the opposite.”

According to the UN, genocide is a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

And by the way, child abductions and forcible transfer of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia can be regarded as genocide, the Ukrainian leadership stated.

Indeed Eric Mose hasn't constituted it as genocide yet. But asked about specific accusations of genocide, including the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to areas under Russian control, Mose said: "We are absolutely aware of these possibilities, and we will pursue this" if the commission's mandate is expanded.

Then. “No evidence on Genocide in Ukraine” doesn't mean “no evidence on Russian armed forces war crimes”. Just the opposite. Here is what was reported.

The Commission also documented cases of intentional killings, illegal imprisonment, acts of torture, forced deportation of children, and enforced disappearances in areas under Russian military forces' control.

The Сommission confirmed the death penalty for 65 men, two women, and a 14-year-old boy.

The Сommission documented the acts of rape and sexual and gender-based violence including violence against females, males, and girls, ages 4 to 82.

​​For the report, the Commission visited Ukraine 8 times including 56 localities, and interviewed 610 persons. Its investigators inspected sites of destruction, graves, places of detention and torture, etc. 

Thus, this is a lie, the statement that the atrocities that Ukrainian journalists have been talking about for a long time are not confirmed.

A $100 million agreement with Iran allows Belarus to compensate for its losses of  EU and US trade

Alexander Lukashenko reached a $100 million trade agreement with Iran.

These agreements with Iran compensate Belarus for its losses of economic ties with the EU and the US, claimed Ivan Eismont, head of the Belarus-1 TV channel.

“Well, now we can applaud the West for imposing sanctions on us. We used to talk about China, but now about Iran.

Here is the information. Last year, the trading turnover exceeded $100 million. Compared to 2021, this is a threefold increase.

Now it’s clear where Belarusian goods go if one doesn't want to buy them; and where do we buy goods if one doesn't want to sell them to us,” Ivan Eismont said.

In fact, in recent years Belarus' trade turnover with Iran had been very low, at about 30 million dollars. That's why it wasn't difficult to triple it.

If Lukashenka's agreements come true, it will grow to $200 million. 

But the question is whether it can be real compensation for lost ties with the West. Because in 2021 Belarus-US trade turnover increased over $1 billion, and Belarus-EU exceeded $16 billion.

According to Belarus' economy minister, last year, there were $6 billion in direct losses from cutting off supplies to Europe, $5 billion of which were compensated by Russia and China.

Against this background, the $100 million agreement doesn't make the weather.

The great prospects for Belarusian-Iranian relations were also discussed at the state-run CTV.

“Our people ask: what is it for us now?

True, I say that we have had good relations with Iran and we can remember the same Samand cars that have been assembled near Minsk.

It was the result of agreements in the mid 2000s. Building of some structures, including those on avenues, by Kayson, a very famous construction company in Iran,” state-run CTV host Kirill Kazakov said.

Only Kirill Kazakov forgot to mention how these good relations with Iran ended up.

The assembly production of Samand cars was launched in 2006 at the Unison plant near Minsk. And then the production of 60 thousand cars a year was expected. But 7 years later, in 2013, the project died, and Samand cars did not win much love from motorists.

The project of the Iranian construction company “Kayson” is also notorious.

The Magnet of Minsk shopping center near the National Library, unfinished since 2009, is well known to Minsk residents. Nevertheless, this company has launched the Prilesye logistics center near Minsk.

The shopping center was put up for auction, but no one was willing to buy it. That's why the state is now forced to finish it.

Bill Gates acknowledges the danger of Covid-19 vaccines

Bill Gates is not losing his popularity among conspiracy theorists.

Bill Gates acknowledges the danger of vaccines, Belarusian propagandist Grigory Azarenok reported, and some Russian bloggers as well.

Here is an alleged quotation of Bill Gates posted on the Telegram channel Azarenok.

Bill Gates: We made a terrible mistake. We wanted to protect people from a dangerous virus. But it turns out that the virus is much less dangerous than we thought. And the vaccine is much more dangerous than anyone could have imagined.”

Azarenok added: “Where are all those who yelled about universal and compulsory vaccination in our country?” 

The report on the Telegram channel is given with a video without translation, where Gates says nothing about the safety of the virus and the dangers of vaccines. Probably, the fake is designed for those who do not know English.

Here is what Mr. Gates actually said:

“There was early February when I’ve seen in a meeting that experts of the foundation said that there was no way that there was too much travel without a diagnosis for us to contain this.

And then, at that point, we didn't really understand the fatality rate and we didn't understand that it's fairly low fatality and that it's a disease mainly of the elderly, kind of like the flu, but a bit different.

So that was a pretty scary period when the world did warn aloud including the US nearly as fast as it needed to.”

Although Gates does not say the word vaccine, the topic is clear.

This interview dedicated to the release of his book "How to Prevent the Next Pandemic" was published back in May 2022. Then Gates, among other things, supported the wearing of masks and vaccination.

“When you get local outbreaks, which you know in the fall will have some of that, it helps a lot to have very high vaccination levels and in certain settings mask wearing,” he said.

In Belarus, state-owned Integral plant is not far behind in microelectronics, Lukashenko claims

In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko became concerned about the level of microelectronics after import substitution has yet again gained relevance, caused by Western sanctions on Belarus and Russia.

As a result of a recent meeting on the microelectronics topic Lukashenko was satisfied with its condition.

“In terms of microelectronics, they are just great, they are not far behind in anything. Here Putin tells me, you know, 7 nanometers and so on. And after talking  about electronics, I called him in the evening and said: "We have everything to fly planes, move tanks and launch rockets into space,” Lukashenko said.

We became interested in what technologies Belarus owns in microelectronics. This is what the representative of "Integral" plant said:

“We work with sizes of 350-600 nanometers, which is 150-250 times thinner than a human hair.”

Semiconductors 600 nanometers and 350 nanometers were considered breakthroughs in the mid-90s. To make it clearer, for example, Pentium Pro processors, which Intel released in 1995, were built on 350 nanometer chips.

Almost 30 years have passed since then.

Of course, even now such chips are needed for relatively simple equipment. However, world leaders in semiconductors development have already preoccupied the production of 3-nanometer chips.

And now in the world more than 70% of produced semiconductors are under 180 nm. The share of production of under 350 nm semiconductors is even higher.

This suggests that the chips of the 90s  produced in Belarus are no longer in demand in the world.

Thus, the Alexander Lukashenko's statement that the plant "Integral" has not lagged behind in anything, hasn't passed the fact check.