USA
EUROPE
ASIA
MIDDLE EAST
AFRICA
Red Alert in the Middle East & a Deposition
Quote:The Pentagon announced the identities of the three service members who were killed in Jordan on Sunday. The service members were soldiers from Georgia.
The deceased were: Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia, and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia.
They died after a drone hit their housing unit, known as a container housing unit, or CHU.
The three soldiers were assigned to the 718th Engineer Company, 926th Engineer Battalion, 926th Engineer Brigade, Fort Moore, Georgia.
Sanders, who was affectionately known as “Munchkin,” was identified on Monday as one of the three killed in the attack that also injured at least 34, according to WTOC.
Sanders was 24, according to News4JAX. Flags were flown at half-staff around Waycross, the outlet reported. WTOC reported Waycross Mayor Michael-Angelo James plans to hold an honorary service when her body is returned home.
Quote:A U.S. official said Sunday that the attack took place overnight at Tower 22, a small outpost in Jordan that is near the Syria border. The drone struck living quarters for the troops, which contributed to the high casualties, a U.S. official said.
This reporting indicates that the Tower 22 living quarters were a “soft target.” That is, a structure not “hardened” to protect those inside. The Journal continues:
Tower 22 is located close to Al Tanf Garrison in southeastern Syria, where U.S. forces have worked with local partners combating Islamic State militants. Tower 22 has served as a logistics hub for Al Tanf and, unlike the garrison, hasn’t previously been targeted in the recent series of Iran-backed militia attacks.
As think-tank analyst Andrew Tabler told the newspaper, “Tower 22 would probably be less defended than Al Tanf and any other U.S. position in Syria because it is across the border in Jordan.”
So, these soldiers were behind-the-lines logistics personnel. They—or, more pertinently, their commanders—weren’t expecting a drone attack. Hmm. Americans are fighting terrorists and militants backed by Iran, and yet they weren’t expecting an attack because they weren’t in Syria; they were in Jordan, the next country over.
Does that seem to be a failure of imagination? As in, American leaders, somewhere in the chain of command—from the field to Central Command to Washington, DC—failed to imagine that the foe would reach across a border. These are the bad guys, including Iran, who routinely refer to the U.S. as “The Great Satan.” So yeah, maybe it should have been foreseen that a borderline in the desert wouldn’t mean anything to anti-American killers.
...
Today’s big new challenge is the drone. The U.S. has been using drones for decades, both for surveillance and for offensive missile strikes. Yet drones keep getting smaller, to the point where they are a little larger than birds, and they’re easy to form into swarms that can “kamikaze” the target. The testbeds for much of this new technology are Ukraine and Russia; each side is swarming the other with drones, such that familiar movements of tanks and infantry are no longer possible. Just on January 26, a Russian serviceman recalled seeing a “flock of Ukrainian FPV [first person view] drones led by a repeater drone Queen;” the aerial armada descended onto Russian positions and started blasting. And this video, released on January 22, shows a drone literally chasing a soldier in a circle and then blowing him up; it’s like a cartoon, except it’s not funny to be dead.
Drones are a disruptive technology. They are so cheap to mass-produce (the Ukrainians have been making them out of cardboard) and so nimble (lightly trained civilians can FPV them) that they call into question our ability to defend large assets, from tanks to bases to aircraft carriers. We can’t expect, for example, the Patriot missile, which is 17 feet long, to stop a hundred or a thousand or a million drones. Even Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome has been overwhelmed at times by mass volleys of Palestinian drones and homemade rockets. The idea of missile defense was designed for…missiles. These tiny drones are more like mosquitoes.
Quote:Eric Schwerin, the Biden family’s estranged “moneyman” who shared bank accounts with President Joe Biden, will appear on Tuesday for a House impeachment inquiry deposition.
House investigators hope to ascertain information about Schwerin’s role within the Biden family’s foreign business dealings as well as Joe Biden’s knowledge of and participation in those dealings.
In December, the Committee on Ways and Means released a spreadsheet compiled by an IRS criminal investigator that included dozens of email exchanges between or among Hunter Biden, Schwerin, and pseudonyms attributable to Joe Biden between 2010 and 2019.
The National Archives released documents showing Schwerin had direct contact with White House employees regarding Burisma.
Schwerin coordinated with the White House on Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, about issues when he didn’t work for or receive payments from Burisma.
Schwerin was the president of Rosemont Seneca Partners, a fund created by Hunter and several associates that spawned business deals in Russia, Ukraine, China, and Romania. Many of those deals yielded the Biden family business millions over decades while Joe Biden was an elected official.
EUROPE
Ukraine Defends Itself Against... Critics? and Paris in Crisis
Quote:The shock claim was in response to a request for information by Breitbart News on whether or not any American tax dollars had gone specifically to Uman, a city in the war-torn Eastern European nation that is currently seeing a condo built on a Jewish mass grave, as previously reported, in violation of a bilateral agreement with the U.S., and in violation of international law.
Breitbart reported on January 10 that a city in Ukraine is proceeding with building a condo on a Jewish mass grave, despite three letters from members of Congress from both parties to the Ukrainian government demanding the cemetery be protected.
Replying to an inquiry about whether or not U.S. dollars are going to the city where this is taking place, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Embassy told Breitbart that “funds authorized by American lawmakers to support Ukraine’s armament are not directly allocated to Ukraine” — after claiming the Ukrainian Embassy “did not receive” a request sent by Breitbart News eight months ago for information on the construction project, which requires desecrating the remains of victims of the 1768 Haidamacks massacre.
The spokesperson explained that, instead, a “significant portion” of the billions of dollars to Ukraine is “utilized in the United States for the construction of new weapons or to replenish those dispatched to Kyiv from U.S. reserves,” adding that “an analysis” (not specifically cited) found that “nearly 90 percent” of aid granted by Congress “is benefiting American interests.” The email continues, “The allocation of funds doesn’t imply immediate expenditure.”
“American interests” in this context presumably means weapons manufacturers.
Quote:In an escalation of the latest example of popular uprisings that have come to define President Macron’s tenure in office, farmers descended in their tractors to shut down major highways leading into Paris on Monday following a week of similar protests throughout the country.
According to the Le Figaro newspaper, farmers successfully enacted blockades on eight major highways, with tractors lined up for tens of kilometres around the ring road surrounding Paris. In total 16 highways and 30 administrative departments around the city were impacted by the demonstrations on Monday, while separate farmer uprisings continued in at least 40 other locations throughout the country.
President Emmanuel Macron will reportedly hold an emergency meeting with his government ministers at the Élysée on Monday to be briefed on the “overview of the agricultural situation”. Meanwhile, Gabriel Attal, who was installed as France’s youngest-ever prime minister earlier this month by Macron, will reportedly hold crunch negotiations with the leader of the FNSEA farmer’s union Arnaud Rousseau and the head of the Young Farmers Arnaud Gaillot on Monday evening.
...
It is unclear exactly how many of the farmer’s 140 demands the French government can actually meet, given that many of the stifling green agenda regulations were imposed by the EU. However, farmers groups and populist politicians have noted that Macron’s party in Brussels was a principal backer of the climate change cause and, therefore, is still to blame.
Speaking from a blockade outside Paris on Monday, the president of the FDSEA farmer’s union in Yvelines, Luc Janottin said: “We want to tell Mr Attal that he must work for his subjects rather than going for walks on the farms. France could suspend overnight all the environmental standards that complicate our lives and we expect it to do so!”
ASIA
China & UNRWA & Evergrande's Collapse
Quote:China’s state-run Global Times on Monday dismissed the controversy, blithely accepting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ assurances that “any U.N. employee involved in accounts of terror will be held accountable.”
“It is necessary to emphasize that both the ongoing probe and the future investigation results should be handled on a case-by-case basis, without politicizing or exaggerating the issue. In particular, precautions should be taken to prevent any serious secondary humanitarian disaster resulting from this incident,” the Global Times pontificated.
The Chinese Communist paper falsely asserted that UNRWA is the only means for delivering humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians, so it must be forgiven all of its sins without any interruption in funding, so the bureaucracy can take its time figuring out precisely which Gaza employee belongs to what bloodthirsty terrorist gang:
"During the era of the Trump administration, the US temporarily suspended donations to the agency and even planned to propose alternative solutions. However, after the Biden administration took office, it gradually resumed funding and adopted a cooperative attitude toward UNRWA..."
The Global Times concluded by lauding the “indispensable role” UNRWA supposedly plays in humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians and pushing for a “two-state solution” as the only way to “achieve a comprehensive, fair, and lasting resolution to the Palestinian issue.”
The UNRWA already had a troubling history of working with Palestinian terrorists before last week’s explosive allegations, including UNRWA schools that were caught teaching murderous hatred of Jews and glorifying terrorism. Some of the now-infamous Hamas terror tunnels were built suspiciously close to UNRWA facilities.
Quote:Hong Kong Justice Linda Chan noted in her ruling that Evergrande has over $300 billion in liabilities and has been unable to come up with a realistic plan for restructuring after two years of effort.
A good deal of that mountain of liabilities consists of property development that will never be completed and unfinished apartments no one can live in. Evergrande has dozens of subsidiary companies and owns property in hundreds of cities, but most analysts believe its combined assets are no longer worth as much as its liabilities.
“It is time for the court to say enough is enough,” Chan said.
The court appointed a bankruptcy firm called Alvarez & Marsal to begin disposing of Evergrande’s assets to return some value to its investors and creditors.
Alvarez & Marsal managing director Tiffany Wong said her company’s goal was to “see as much of the business retained, restructured, or remain operational.”
“It is important to emphasize that the winding up order has been made to the parent company only. It does not have a direct impact on the operations of its subsidiaries, most pertinently the subsidiaries operating in the mainland [China],” she noted.
Wong’s reassuring statement seemed intended to calm jittery Evergrande executives and encourage them to work with the bankruptcy firm. If Evergrande does not cooperate fully with the Hong Kong court order, the case could be picked up by a court in China – a step that could either affirm the longstanding practice of China recognizing Hong Kong court decisions or nullify Justice Chan’s ruling, if the Chinese government decides not to let foreign creditors devour Evergrande’s assets.
Fergus Saurin, partner at a law firm called Kirkland and Ellis that represents a group of Evergrande’s creditors, said his clients were “not surprised by the outcome,” because Evergrande has a history of “failing to engage with us.”
MIDDLE EAST
Hostage Negotiation Failed, Houthis Hit Russian Cargo Ship
Quote:U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hailed a potential agreement on Monday that would have seen a phased release of hostages in return for lengthy pauses in fighting and the release of a large number of Palestinian terror convicts — up to 10,000 terrorists.
But Hamas issued a statement along with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), another terrorist organization in which it said that it would not accept any agreement that did not end the war and include a full Israeli troop pullout from Gaza.
...
According to Channel 12 news, the offer centers around a 45-day pause in the fighting in exchange for 35-40 hostages in the first stage. Some 100-250 Palestinian prisoners would be released for every hostage. This would be followed by further releases in exchange for an extension of the truce, and a larger ratio of Palestinian security prisoner releases for each hostage.
Hamas is holding out for a permanent ceasefire. Israel would regard an end to the war that left Hamas intact in Gaza as a defeat.
Hamas has already broken an agreement to provide evidence that medications sent via Qatar actually reached Israeli hostages.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are reportedly near victory in the Hamas stronghold of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, where the leaders of the organization are thought to be hiding.
Quote:The Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen launched a missile at a tanker carrying Russian fuel through the Gulf of Aden on Friday, destroying Houthi claims that Russian and Chinese cargoes would not be targeted and raising anxieties across the energy industry.
Trading firm Trafigura said on Friday that a Houthi missile struck the fuel tanker Marlin Luanda, which was hauling a load of Russian naphtha, a petroleum product used in creating plastics and refining fuel.
A fire broke out in one of the cargo tanks after the missile struck, prompting the crew to break out firefighting gear. Several hours after the attack, Trafigura reported the fire had been “fully extinguished” without injuries to the crew, and the ship was “sailing towards a safe harbor.”
Another ship carrying crude oil reversed course and fled the Gulf of Aden shortly after the attack on Marlin Luanda. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) responded by destroying a Houthi anti-ship missile that was “prepared to launch” and “presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and U.S. Navy ships in the region.”
Oil prices rose one percent on Monday as traders grew concerned about the flow of oil through the Red Sea. Friday’s missile strike was the most serious Houthi attack on oil tankers to date and the first sign that Russian oil may not be safe from the Iran-supported insurgents of Yemen. The Russian oil industry was already dealing with disruptions in production and supply caused by the war with Ukraine.
AFRICA
Quite Unstable
Quote:All three nations had already been suspended by ECOWAS because their governments were deposed by military force.
The three juntas said on Sunday they were quitting because ECOWAS lost touch with its founding ideals and the “spirit of pan-Africanism.” They said the organization is now “under the influence of foreign powers” and has “become a threat to its member states and its population.”
All three accused ECOWAS of imposing “illegitimate, inhumane, and irresponsible” sanctions on them while they were fighting against Islamist insurgent movements. The junta leaders insisted that imposing military dictatorships was the only way for them to “take their destiny into their own hands.”
Niger junta spokesman Col. Amadou Abdramane said ECOWAS “notably failed” to assist the three departing states “in their existential fight against terrorism and insecurity.”
Representatives from ECOWAS were supposed to visit Niger last week for talks with military leaders, but they canceled their trip at the last minute, ostensibly because their chartered plane had mechanical problems. Only the representative from Togo made it to Niger, prompting the junta to complain about the “bad faith” demonstrated by most of ECOWAS skipping the meeting.
Sunday was the first time member states have unilaterally withdrawn from ECOWAS since the 15-member bloc was formed in 1975. Since all three countries are landlocked, their economies are likely to suffer for having alienated their neighbors.
The move will probably be especially irritating for Nigeria, the headquarters of ECOWAS. Nigerian President Bola Tinubu took over as chairman of ECOWAS in July 2023 with high ambitions to strengthen the alliance and bring greater stability to West Africa.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
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HiddenChest & Roole
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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