BreakThrough News

Breakthrough News Graphic

Breakthrough Screenshot

BreakThrough News is a propaganda outlet for China, Russia, Cuba and others. It is closely tied to the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

Neville Roy Singham, a member of the International Advisory Board at Tricontinental Institute, married to CODEPINK founder Jodie Evans, funds BreakThrough News.

People

From the BreakThrough News website as of August 14, 2023:

• Eugene Puryear, Host & Producer
• Rania Khalek, Host & Producer
• Ben Becker, Editor-in-chief
• Rachel Hu, Managing Editor Of BT Disrupters
• Kei Pritsker, Journalist
• Nicole Roussell, Producer
• Matt Belen, Video Editor
• Emily Brease, Operations Manager
• Jackie Kindall, Social Media Manager
• Andrew Nance, Graphic Designer & Video Editor

Protest Russian Sanctions after Ukraine Invasion

March 18, 2023 Answer Protest Flyer

Fund People's Needs, Not the War Machine! From BreakThrough News. Streamed live on Mar 18, 2023

ANSWER has heavily advertised a demonstration held on March 18, 2023 filmed by BreakThrough News to protest sanctions on Russia in the wake of their invasion on Ukraine. The rally was live-streamed on BreakThrough News.

Screenshot of portion of flyer for ANSWER protest for March 18, 2023

From a flyer on their website:

The war in Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia are making it harder for people to pay their rent, fill their gas tanks, put food on the table and keep the lights on. Much of the damage is due to the sanctions placed on Russia, a major producer of everything from oil to wheat. The US Federal Reserve admits that the conflict is “pushing up inflation” while slowing down growth.

To fight inflation we need to end the US’s massive international sanctions regime and demand they stop sending weapons to fuel the Ukraine war, and stop blocking peace negotiations.

The Wall Street Journal now says: “Gas Prices Poised to Rise Again as Sanctions on Russia Take Effect,” while global economists say the “massive shock” of the war will produce new “inflationary pressures, sapping confidence and household purchasing power.”

US sanctions on Venezuela and Iran are further impacting the market in oil and gas prices, driving up prices and driving the climate crisis destroying the planet. It’s clear as ever that the US’s own policies of sanctions, and the proxy war provoked by NATO policies, is directly impacting the cost-of-living crisis for working class people. Meanwhile the military industrial complex and Wall Street get richer. This is criminal — the time to act is now!

Speakers include:

• Noam Chomsky, professor
• Jacqueline Luqman, Black Alliance for Peace
• The Black Workers Center Chorus
• Jill Stein, two-time Green Party presidential candidate
• Claudia De La Cruz, The People's Forum
• Mike Inouye, Oahu Water Protectors
• Gabriel Shipton, brother of Julian Assange
• Abby Martin, Empire Files
• Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK
• Hermela Aregawi, African People's Forum
• Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance
• Yolian Egbu, AAPRP
• Carsey Blanton, cultural worker

The protest was supported by World BEYOND War.

Pro-Russia Propaganda

Neville Roy Singham has been accused of being behind a "vast dark money network [which] has fueled BreakThrough News and a raft of other online outlets pushing Moscow and Beijing’s favorite narratives." Excerpt from the leftist outlet Daily Beast:

Since it started posting to Instagram and Youtube in early 2020, nearly all BreakThrough News’ camera-facing personalities have been veterans of Kremlin-backed outfits: former Radio Sputnik host Eugene Puryear; pundit Rania Khalek of video generator ‘In the Now;’ Kei Pritsker, Abby Martin, and Brian Becker of defunct propaganda organ RT America. BreakThrough’s earliest productions lambasted America’s presidential system and persistent racial inequality, and attacked the American and Brazilian responses to the COVID-19 outbreak while praising policies in China.

But beginning in January 2022, amid the build-up to Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine, the channel began sharing videos with titles like “Risking World War III with Russia: Why?” and “​​If NATO Goes to War, U.S. & European Soldiers Will Be Called On to Kill & Die.” More recent clips have carried such headlines as “Leaked Pentagon Docs Show US Elites Want Never-Ending Ukraine War” and “G7 Sends F-16 Jets to Ukraine: Flirting with Disaster, Direct War on Russia.”

[...]

But however typical BreakThrough’s characters and proclivities might be, the lavishly funded network behind it awed Michel and the other experts The Daily Beast consulted. Unlike the stations from which its anchors hail, BreakThrough is not officially affiliated with any foreign power—rather, it’s part of the “International People's Media Network”: a coalition of eight outlets targeting not just the U.S. but Latin America, India, the Middle East, and parts of Africa. BreakThrough and its seven associate channels claim to be “a network of independent media projects from across the globe that collaborate, working collectively to uplift people’s voices and stories.”

But even the International People's Media Network’s webpage makes it clear its members all work in conjunction with the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, a Massachusetts-based think tank whose founder, controversial academic Dr. Vijay Prashad, is both a vociferous defender of China’s repressive policies toward its Uighur minority and a recurring guest on BreakThrough and its international siblings. All Network members share the same preoccupations, and even some of the same personnel—all unanimously depicting the U.S. as oppressive and imperialistic, China as admirable and benevolent, and Russia as blameless for its invasion of Ukraine.

And all the International People's Media Network’s affiliates, including Tricontinental, appear to drink from the same torrent of dark money pouring out of the bank accounts and nonprofits of tech mogul Neville “Roy” Singham. Efforts to reach Singham for this piece, including through his partner Jodie Evans of the protest group Code Pink, proved fruitless.