US NEWS
Finally, somebody is doing the job but we can't tell for certain for how long they will be able to do so.
And here's the joke of the week, guys!
EUROPEAN NEWS
ASIAN NEWS
MIDDLE EASTERN NEWS
Several Articles
Quote:The Texas Military Department seized a city-owned golf course located in the busiest border crossing point along the Rio Grande. The Texas National Guard then ejected U.S. Border Patrol agents from the park and took total control of this section of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Border Patrol officials told Breitbart Texas that Texas National Guard units quickly moved into Shelby Park in Eagle Pass on Thursday. The guardsmen erected barriers around the park and instructed Border Patrol agents to leave the area.
“This move only serves to raise tensions at the ground level between the State and Border Patrol agents who are bound by policy set in Washington D.C.,” the official stated. If the number of crossings we saw in December return, we will be the first ones the State calls to deal with another humanitarian crisis of that magnitude.”
The Texas Military Department moved quickly to secure the area under the authority of Governor Greg Abbott’s emergency declaration and Operation Lone Star. It is not clear what the National Guard soldiers will do if any migrants attempt to cross the border into Shelby Park.
Finally, somebody is doing the job but we can't tell for certain for how long they will be able to do so.
Quote:House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) launched an investigation into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Friday for accepting more than $14.6 million in grant funds from President Joe Biden’s Justice Department (DOJ) between 2020 and 2023.
The timeframe of the funds suggests the DOJ granted Willis federal funds to finance former President Donald Trump’s prosecution.
Jordan sent a letter to Nathan Wade, a Willis associate, requesting documents and information about the coordination of Willis’s office with politically motivated probes and alleged misuse of federal funds.
Jordan’s letter comes after a Monday court filing by Mike Roman, a political operative and co-defendant of Trump in the Georgia election case, who alleged four explosive facts about Willis’s conduct while prosecuting Trump:
- Nathan Wade, Willis’s lead prosecutor in the Trump case, had an “improper” relationship with Willis.
- Wade’s law firm used funds paid by the county to take Willis on luxury vacations by using potentially fraudulent payments.
- Wade was appointed without the required approval by authorities and had little to no prosecutorial experience.
- Wade met twice with President Joe Biden’s White House counsel before indicting Trump in August, calling into question if the White House coordinated prosecuting Biden’s 2024 political opponent.
And here's the joke of the week, guys!
Quote:Hunter Biden said Friday he will sit for a closed-door deposition if Congress reissues a subpoena, arguing the prior subpoenas “are legally invalid” because the impeachment inquiry “did not yet exist when the subpoenas were issued,” Hunter’s lawyer wrote in a letter to congressional leaders obtained by Breitbart News.
The letter comes just hours after the House of Representatives set a vote next week to hold Hunter in contempt of Congress for repeatedly defying subpoenas. Hunter failed to appear for a subpoenaed closed-door deposition in December, offering instead to only testify in public before the committee.
In response, the House Oversight Committee voted on Wednesday to advance a contempt of Congress resolution against Hunter to the House floor.
It appears Hunter fears the House will approve holding him in contempt. Abbe Lowell, Hunter’s lawyer, told House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) that Hunter will sit for a closed-door deposition if another subpoena is issued:
Consequently, the November 8 and 9, 2023, deposition subpoenas to Mr. Biden and the contempt resolutions approved by your committees on January 10, 2024, based on those subpoenas were and are legally invalid. You have not explained why you are not interested in transparency and having the American people witness the full and complete testimony of Mr. Biden at a public hearing. If you issue a new proper subpoena, now that there is a duly authorized impeachment inquiry, Mr. Biden will comply for a hearing or deposition. We will accept such a subpoena on Mr. Biden’s behalf.
Quote:According to records reviewed by the New York Post, Streisand’s Barwood Films Ltd. received the COVID relief loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in 2020 and 2021. These loans were later excused by the federal government and Streisand did not have to pay them back.
However, instead of the funds going to support the film company’s staff, some of the cash went to pay for the Funny Girl star’s personal gardener at her Malibu home.
A spokesperson for Streisand has disputed the claim that her gardener was paid by COVID relief funds, but the paper determined that the gardener is listed as an employee of Barwood Films Ltd. and the company took the funding to pay its employees for those few years.
The Post added that Barwood Films Ltd. qualified as a “small business” at the start of the pandemic when it applied for the funding meant to keep small businesses afloat during the Democrat’s constant social and business shut downs.
“Almost all PPP loans have been forgiven: Out of $793 billion issued, the SBA has written off $762 billion,” the Post added.
Quote:On Thursday’s broadcast of ABC’s “GMA3,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) stated that the city has “done a great job” handling the migrant surge and the problem “has nothing to do with sanctuary cities.” It’s because the migrants aren’t being spread across the nation. He also criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ® for “his intentionality of just placing people on buses, compelling them to leave the city.”
Adams said, “This has nothing to do with sanctuary cities. Migrants and asylum seekers are paroled into the [country]. They’re here legally. And so, when you have a national leader talking about [being a] sanctuary city is the reason we’re having this, it’s telling me she’s not knowledgeable on the real topic. The problem is, when you parole someone into a country, you should have a decompression strategy on a national level to spread it throughout the country and not target just certain cities.”
He added, “Cities should not be handling a national crisis of this magnitude. We’re getting an average — and just think of this number — there are weeks we get 4,000 migrants that come into our city. When you have anywhere from 2,500 to 4,000 coming in a week and you have to find housing, food, shelter, clothing, educating the children, health care, that’s not sustainable. It’s a $12 billion hole in the budget of our economy. It’s going to impact low-income New Yorkers and it’s going to impact every service in this city. And I said it last year, we’re going to start seeing the visualization of this crisis. We’ve done a great job, but we can’t continue to sustain this.”
EUROPEAN NEWS
Several Articles
Quote:Tesla stumbles over ‘Just-in-Time’ logistics and suspends production at its Brandenburg, Germany Gigafactory for two weeks as Iran-backed drone and missile attacks on cargo ships in the Red Sea interrupt supply chains.
Delays to components coming to Europe from the East caused by Shiite Islamist militias in Yemen attacking merchant ships attempting to transit the Red Sea means Tesla has been forced to suspend production at their Gigafactory in Grünheide, Brandenburg on the outskirts of Berlin. The stoppage is expected to last two weeks, the company said per Gemran broadsheet Die Welt.
Production is slated to restart on February 12th at the 11,500-employee factory, they said.
Attacks on cargo ships carrying goods from the workshops of China and the Pacific to Europe through the Red Sea have been ongoing since Hamas launched its massive terror attack on Israel in early November. Houthi militias in Yemen, which are equipped by and operate as a proxy for the Iranian regime, launched attacks on passing ships in solidarity with Hamas, claiming they were targeting Israel-linked ships, although attacks have since devolved to general attacks on the global trade that underpins the prosperity and security of the West.
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The longer route adds over a week to the delivery time from Asia to Europe or the U.S. East, which not only creates supply bottlenecks for businesses that rely on efficient but fragile Just-in-Time delivery for components, as Tesla is now discovering, but also increases the overall cost of shipping for all users as it saps capacity from the global system.
Quote:German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday sharply condemned alleged plans by members of far-right groups who supposedly met recently at a mansion outside Berlin to devise a plot to deport millions of immigrants, even those with German citizenship, if the groups take power.
The alleged plan, which was published in an article by the investigative journalists’ group Correctiv on Wednesday, has led to an uproar in the country because it echoes the Nazis´ ideology of deporting all people who are not ethnically German.
Scholz said Germany will not allow anyone living in the country to be judged based on whether they have foreign roots or not.
“We protect everyone – regardless of origin, skin color or how uncomfortable someone is for fanatics with assimilation fantasies,” the chancellor wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“Anyone who opposes our free democratic order” is a case for Germany’s domestic intelligence office and the judiciary, he said, adding that learning the lessons from Germany’s history should not just have been lip service.
Quote:Canada and Germany rallied to Israel’s side on Friday, hours after Israeli legal representatives delivered their rebuttal to South Africa’s claim of “genocide” at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands.
South Africa presented its arguments on Thursday, claiming that Israel did not even have the right of self-defense against terror. Israel responded with a demolition of that argument Friday, saying South Africa’s logic would allow Hamas to commit genocide.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — who has been faulted by conservative critics for backing a ceasefire resolution at the United Nations — criticized South Africa’s case in harsh terms, implying that it risked the integrity of the ICJ as an institution.
The Times of Israel noted:
“Canada is engaged in five cases at the ICJ because we believe in the importance of that as an institution,” Trudeau says during a press conference.
“But our wholehearted support of the ICJ and its processes does not mean that we support the premise of the case brought forward by South Africa,” he adds.
Germany went even further, saying that it would file a motion to intervene as a third party to argue that Israel was not, in fact, committing genocide in Gaza in defending itself against terrorism by Hamas.
In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office reported that he had personally phoned German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to thank him.
Quote:Police entered the Presidential Palace of Poland to arrest politicians of the recently dethroned right-wing government, after a fresh ruling by a court friendly to the new government.
Former Polish Home Affairs Minister Mariusz Kamiński and deputy Maciej Wąsik were arrested by police on Tuesday, apparently part of a push to tie up loose ends by the newly installed globalist-centrist Donald Tusk government. The pair were taken by officers at the Presidential Palace after President Andrej Duda himself had left the building to attend a meeting.
Duda has expressed his outrage at the “brutal” arrest of politicians at the official building, saying “I won’t rest until Minister Mariusz Kamiński and his colleagues are free people again, as they should be, until they are released from prison”. The President says the arrests were illegal.
Poland’s recently unseated Prime Minister Mateusz Morawicki also spoke out against the arrests, praising his country’s post-Cold War achievements of ending political persecution, saying in the 35 years since the end of the Soviet Union “no one was persecuted in our country because of their political views, and no political prisoners were held”. This has now changed, he said, continuing: “For the first time since the dark days of totalitarian rule we have political prisoners in Poland. They are the former Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński and deputy Maciej Wąsik.
“Both are members of the Polish Parliament. Both fought against communists. Both fought for justice in a free Poland… unfortunately, both are victims of political revenge, targeted by Donald Tusk’s government.”
Quote:Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in Latvia, the final stop on his Baltic mini-tour as he attempts to drum up further support and particularly more missiles for his nation’s taxed air defence system.
Ukraine has proven stopping Russia is possible, but it “badly” needs modern air defence systems, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said as he tours European nations again, seeking more arms for his defensive war against Russia. His visits to the first two tour stops Lithuania and Estonia were fruitful, with new support packages announced, and he arrived in Latvia, the final stop, on Thursday afternoon.
As ever, requesting more air defence missiles was a major focus of Zelensky’s trip. He said on Wednesday while in Lithuania that while “we have proven that Russia can be stopped, that deterrence is possible”, the country still lacks “modern air defence systems badly… [they are] what we need the most.” Nevertheless, Zelensky acknowledged there were already shortages and producing more advanced missiles in a hurry isn’t something Western defence contractors were necessarily geared up for.
Quote:U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak traveled to Kyiv on Friday to unveil a new support package for Ukraine, including an increase in military funding for its war with Russia that after 22 months shows no sign of ending.
The 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) in military funding for Ukraine over the next financial year will cover long-range missiles, thousands of drones, air defense, artillery ammunition and maritime security, according to a statement from Sunak’s office.
Those are some of the items that Kyiv officials have been urging Ukraine´s Western allies to send more of, as the grinding war of attrition brings little change along the front line and both sides turn to long-range strikes.
Ukraine and Russia are seeking to replenish their arsenals this year, military analysts say, in anticipation of possible major ground offensives in 2025.
“I am here today with one message: the U.K. will also not falter,” Sunak said. “We will stand with Ukraine, in their darkest hours and in the better times to come.”
Sunak first visited Ukraine in November 2022, soon after he became prime minister. Britain has been one of Ukraine’s most vocal backers.
ASIAN NEWS
Quote:The Chinese Defense Ministry on Friday sought to bully Taiwanese voters by warning it will “smash any Taiwan independence plots,” implicitly threatening the Taiwanese if they make the “wrong” choice by voting for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate William Lai Ching-te on Saturday.
Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang said Taiwan’s purchase of upgraded U.S. F-16 fighter jets would not “stop the trend of complete reunification of the motherland.”
“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army remains on high alert at all times and will take all necessary measures to resolutely crush any form of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist plots and firmly defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Zhang said.
China has previously framed the Taiwanese election as a choice between “peace and prosperity” versus “war and decline.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Friday refused to answer questions about Taiwan’s elections, describing them as “China’s internal affairs.”
MIDDLE EASTERN NEWS
2 Articles
Quote:The ability of Iran proxy Houthi terrorists to threaten merchant shipping “has taken a blow”, the MOD said after a major strike against 60 targets in Yemen by the U.S. and UK by warships, aircraft, and a submarine.
The United States and the United Kingdom made good on days of warnings that continued attacks on global trade in the Red Sea would incur “consequences” overnight into Friday morning with what had been described as a “massive retaliatory strike” on Houthi targets in Yemen.
Iran-backed Shiite Houthi militias have been striking at civilian merchant ships carrying the world’s trade including cargo containers, cars, and oil through the strategically crucial Red Sea in solidarity with Hamas’s attack on Israel since November. According to the United States, they have launched 27 separate attacks, some of which have hit targets.
United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said the strikes targeted “radar systems, air defense systems, and storage and launch sites for one-way attack unmanned aerial systems, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles”. The Associated Press, citing anonymous defence sources, said 60 targets at 16 sites were attacked in the strike.
The strike was committed by a combination of warships, aircraft, and a submarine. U.S. surface ships including an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and submarines launched Tomahawk cruise missiles and F/A-18E Super Hornets from the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. The warships of the British Royal Navy (RN) in the area lack a major stated land attack capability, having been fitted ‘for but not with‘ land strike cruise missiles, so the British contribution was land-launched jets from the Royal Air Force (RAF) instead.
The British minister of defence Grant Shapps said in a statement Friday morning that four RAF Typhoons launched from the British sovereign base in Cyprus and “conducted precision strikes on two Houthi military targets alongside US forces”. The distance involved to strike targets in Yemen from the eastern Mediterranean is considerable, and involves complications including air refuelling tankering and overflight of third nations. It is possible the British Prime Minister’s call with his Egyptian counterpart on Thursday was meant to facilitate a corridor.
Quote:The Iranian government said on Thursday it has already arrested 35 people in connection with the deadly bombing on January 3 in Kerman, the hometown of terrorist mastermind Gen. Qasem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), but an international manhunt for more suspects is underway.
The January 3 bombing involved two devices detonated near Soleimani’s grave at a memorial event marking the fourth anniversary of his death. Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2020 while he was coordinating terrorist attacks against American troops and attempting to organize an assault on the U.S. embassy.
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While the Iranian regime floated conspiracy theories that the United States or Israel was behind the bombing, ISIS did indeed take credit for the atrocity the following day.
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Iranian officials continued to insist the ISIS bombers were “U.S.-backed,” and top officials — including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — vowed revenge.
“Cruel criminals must know that they will be strongly dealt with from now on and undoubtedly there will be a harsh response,” Khamenei said last week.
On Wednesday, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi told reporters at a cabinet session that the “main elements” of the terrorist attack have been taken into custody, including the alleged mastermind, a Tajik national. Vahidi said more arrests would be forthcoming, including some outside Iran’s borders.
On Thursday, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry released a statement identifying the bombing mastermind by the alias “Abdullah Tajiki.”
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Bazirov Israeli was supposedly recruited to ISIS through the encrypted messaging application Telegram, came to Iran via Turkey with the assistance of “human traffickers,” and received training at an ISIS camp in Afghanistan.
The statement claimed that Israeli, evidently second-in-command of the operation as well as being one of the bombers, and Tajiki were originally planning to blow up Soleimani’s mausoleum, but they changed their minds after sizing up its “strict and multi-layered security” and opted for a nearby detonation instead.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
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Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE