News of the World
10-24-2024, 08:05 AM
USA
LATIN AMERICA
EUROPE
Kamala & Plagiarism
Quote:Vice President Kamala Harris plagiarized material in addition to her book Smart on Crime, an analysis by Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium found Tuesday.
The additional allegations of plagiarism diminish the credibility of the Harris campaign’s denial of plagiarism.
The Beacon’s Sibarium reported Harris also plagiarized pages of congressional testimony from a Republican colleague and a fictionalized story about human trafficking.
Sibarium reported on Harris’s material from congressional testimony:
Virtually her entire testimony about the bill was taken from that of another district attorney, Paul Logli of Winnebago County, Illinois, who had testified in support of the legislation two months earlier before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Both statements cite the same surveys, use the same language, and make the same points in the same order, with a paragraph added here or there. They even contain the same typos, such as missing punctuation or mistaken plurals. One error — a “who” that should have been a “whom” — was corrected in Harris’s transposition.
…
Harris, who also testified about two other bills that day, devoted approximately 1,500 words to the John R. Justice Act. Nearly 1,200 of them—or 80 percent—were copied verbatim from the statement Logli submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 27, 2007, two months before Harris delivered her testimony.
Sibarium reported on Harris’s material apparently lifted from a fictionalized story about a victim of sex trafficking:
The story came from Polaris Project, a nonprofit that runs the National Human Trafficking Hotline. By June 2012, the project had posted a series of vignettes on its website that were “representative of the types of calls” the hotline receives and “meant for informational purposes only,” according to an archived webpage. To preserve confidentiality, the project said, key details like “names, locations, and other identifying information” had been changed.
Last week, New York Times’ plagiarism consultant Jonathan Bailey admitted Harris’s “plagiarism scandal” is far “more serious” than previously stated.
Harris Hates Senate Filibuster
Quote:Vice President Kamala Harris called for eliminating the Senate filibuster during a Wednesday CNN town hall.
The filibuster is a long-standing tradition and tactic used to delay or prevent a vote on a measure from passing on the Senate floor.
While speaking with Harris’s tough talk about codifying Roe v. Wade, CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Harris how she would get a measure passed to codify Roe v Wade when the filibuster is a hurdle to passage.
“Let me ask you, you’ve talked about codifying Roe v. Wade, that would obviously require 60 votes in the Senate, a majority of the Senate … If that’s not possible, to codify it in the house, what do you do?” he asked.
“I think we need to take a look at the filibuster, to be honest with you,” Harris replied.
Breitbart News’s Katherin Hamilton reported on Harris’s past calls to terminate the filibuster:
Harris has previously called to end the filibuster but for a different reason. During her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris said she would back ending the filibuster to pass the radical Green New Deal, which is essentially a far-left socialist wishlist.
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National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman Steve Daines (R-MT) warned in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News in July that the Democrats have “radical” power-grabbing plans for the United States, which include ending the filibuster if they hold the majority in the upper chamber of Congress.
Nuking the filibuster would drop the 60 required votes to pass legislation to just 51 votes, enabling Democrats to ram through their radical agenda, Daines warned. That agenda, he said, includes packing the U.S. Supreme Court to 13 justices instead of nine, making Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico states to add four Democrat U.S. senators to the Senate, and conducting a federal takeover of election operations everywhere in the country.
Harris Loves the Idea of Packing SCOTUS
Quote:During a town hall on CNN on Wednesday, 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris responded to a question on whether she supports expanding the Supreme Court by stating that “I do believe that there should be some kind of reform of the court, and we can study what that actually looks like.”
One of the town hall attendees asked, “[W]ould you be in favor of expanding the court to say, 12, so each justice has only one circuit court, other than [the] chief justice to assist in making judgments more balanced?”
Harris responded, “Well, to your point, there is no question that the American people, increasingly, are losing confidence in the Supreme Court, and, in large part, because of the behavior of certain members of that court and because of certain rulings, including the Dobbs decision and taking away a precedent that had been in place for 50 years, protecting a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body. So, I do believe that there should be some kind of reform of the court, and we can study what that actually looks like.”
Harris then turned to criticism of her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.
Kamala & the Chinese Automaker CEO
Quote:Vice President Kamala Harris is under fire for accepting campaign contributions — originally sent to President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign before he backed out — from a Chinese auto executive with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Officials with Driving Force Action PAC wrote to Harris on October 11:
We are deeply concerned about the reported $50,000 in political contributions your campaign received from Stella Ke Li, a Chinese national and senior executive at BYD, a Chinese electric vehicle company with close ties to the CCP and a company identified as a national security threat on par with Huawei.
BYD has been described as a company that benefits from substantial support from the Chinese government through direct subsidies and military-civil fusion initiatives. As detailed in various reports, BYD collaborates with military affiliates on significant projects, including data aggregation from vehicles and technology sharing with state-owned enterprises. Furthermore, Ms. Ke Li, who made these contributions, appears to be married to Wang Chuanfu, BYD’s founder and a prominent CCP member. [Emphasis added]
The acceptance of political contributions from an executive of a company with such ties to the CCP raises serious ethical and national security concerns, especially in light of your campaign’s previous stance on reducing reliance on foreign adversaries for critical industries like electric vehicles. While you have recently spoken in support of American manufacturing and expressed concern about China’s dominance in the electric vehicle market, accepting contributions from BYD appears inconsistent with these statements. [Emphasis added]
“In light of these concerns, Driving Force Action demands that your campaign return the $50,000 contribution made by Ms. Li and publicly disassociate from any financial ties to BYD,” the letter continues. “We believe this action is necessary to demonstrate your commitment to protecting American jobs, defending national security, and maintaining transparency in your campaign.” [Emphasis added]
Driving Force Action is primarily funded by the Specialty Equipment Market Association, opposing Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates like those implemented by the Biden-Harris administration.
The campaign contributions were first reported by the Washington Free Beacon’s Thomas Catenacci, who noted, “BYD Americas was selected in late 2022 to receive $395,000 under the administration’s Clean School Bus program, which was spearheaded by Harris and EPA administrator Michael Regan, EPA documents show,” Catenacci wrote. “That funding was disbursed in May 2023, six months before Li’s donations to the Biden-Harris campaign, according to the EPA.”
Trump Can't Say "Enemy from Within" According to Harris
Quote:Democrat presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and her surrogates have been attacking former President Donald Trump for using the phrase “the enemy within” to describe his political opponents, but in 2021, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) used a similar phrase to describe Republican members of Congress.
Pelosi said on January 29, 2021, “We will probably need a supplemental [funding bill] for more security for members, when the enemy is within the House of Representatives, a threat that members are concerned about, in addition to what is happening outside.”
Asked what she meant by “the enemy is within,” Pelosi said, “It means that we have members of Congress who want to bring guns on the floor and have threatened violence on other members of Congress.”
Harris referenced Trump using the phrase just on Wednesday, in a public statement she made from the Vice President’s residence at the Naval Observatory. She said:
In just the past week, Donald Trump has repeatedly called his fellow Americans the “enemy from within” and even said that he would use the United States military to go after American citizens.
Harris’s statement was about an anonymously-sourced hit piece from The Atlantic claiming that Trump used a racially-tinged epithet to describe a deceased Hispanic soldier.
The soldier’s sister, Mayra Guillen, slammed the hit piece, and said Trump treated her family with nothing but respect and said she even voted for him. She slammed the outlet for “exploiting” her sister for political purposes.
Multiple people have also spoken on the record refuting the stories’ claims, including that Trump made admiring comments about Hitler’s generals.
Alex Pfeiffer, a Trump campaign adviser, said in a statement: “This is absolutely false. President Trump never said this.”
Biden: We Gotta Lock Him Up
Quote:President Joe Biden let the veil slip during a Thursday stop in New Hampshire.
Biden told a small crowd “We gotta lock him up” during a screed on his nemesis Donald Trump, according to several reports.
The President had restrained himself from publicly endorsing jailing Trump for years.
Biden later collected himself and attempted to clean up the mess he created.
“Lock up him politically,” Biden said, reports Stephen Michael. “Lock him out, that’s what we have to do.”
Biden has denied White House involvement in the lawfare against Trump, which has continued after Biden was deposed atop the ticket for his Vice President Kamala Harris.
But in November 2022, after reports surfaced Trump would seek a return to the White House, Biden pledged to pursue measures beyond the ballot box to prevent Trump’s reelection.
During a November 9, 2022 press conference, Biden, when asked about the prospects of Trump running against him in 2024, said, “We just have to demonstrate that he will not take power, if he does run, making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next president again [sic].”
That sensational pledge preceded an eruption of extraordinary legal assaults on Trump, most vividly represented by a trio of events on a single date – November 18, 2022.
On that day, just over a week after Biden’s pledge and Trump subsequently entering the race, three events, two which took place behind closed doors, occurred – suggesting White House coordination.
Necessarily out in the open, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump on November 18.
2.6 Million Illegal Immigrants in 2024
Quote:The migration network created by President Joe Biden’s deputies welcomed five illegal migrants through the border in 2024 for every two legal migrants admitted by Congress’s 1990 immigration law.
The combined inflow means that Biden’s deputies admitted roughly one legal or illegal migrant for every American born in 2024.
The constitution says Congress controls immigration rules, “but this is a parallel immigration system” outside the law passed by Congress in 1990, noted Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge who now works with the Center for Immigration Studies. He added:
Congress has said that people who don’t have visas, who aren’t admissible, aren’t supposed to be coming through the borders.
Border officials registered 2.9 million “inadmissible” migrants at the southern border in the fiscal year of 12 months up to October, according to agency data released on October 22.
At least 1.3 million were invited to cross the border via the humanitarian parole programs created by Biden’s pro-migration border chief, Alejandro Mayorkas. These migrants can be counted because they are registered and released by the Office of Field Operations, which works at the official “ports of entry” along the border.
In 2021, Kamala Harris declined Biden’s invitation to help oversee Mayorkas’s migration policy.
DHS Official Caught Promoting Illegal Immigration
Quote:An official who joined the Biden-Harris Department of Homeland Security a year ago has been caught using social media to encourage illegal immigration to the U.S., according to reports.
Wilson Osorio, who was hired at DHS in 2023, works for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Office of the Chief Counsel as an associate counsel, Fox News reported.
The social media posts were uncovered by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), which surveys Spanish-language social media posts aimed at migrants.
“Osorio uses his TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram channels to post video content, mostly of conversations with illegal immigrants, where he asks the individuals to tell those watching how much money they make, how they came to the United States, and how wonderful it is to illegally enter and settle in the U.S.,” the AAF said.
The organization discovered that Osorio began uploading videos and other social media posts to encourage migrants in July and had posted dozens of the messages on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
Videos included one person claiming to be an illegal migrant from Honduras who tells viewers that he now owns his own restaurant in America.
“The American Dream is alive and well. This is the story of a Honduran immigrant who entered the United States illegally ~20 years ago. With hard work and dedication, he is now the owner of an expanding restaurant which brings in over $1 million in sales,” an Instagram message read.
Other videos claim to show illegals who are earning good money in the U.S. doing various jobs along with videos giving tips on how to break U.S. immigration laws and sneak into the country illegally.
Sometimes Not Sending Anything Overseas is the Decent Option
Quote:Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) sent a letter to Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin on Wednesday demanding an explanation for the revelation in September that the Department of Defense sent Taiwan, an informal ally of America’s, packages of military equipment that were expired, unusable, and, in some cases, moldy.
The Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General (DoD OIG) revealed in September that an audit had discovered the Pentagon made the delivery to Taiwan of “unserviceable and poorly packaged equipment and munitions.” Some of the pallets of equipment included gear “soaking wet and covered in mold.” Others included expired ammunition and messy packages of mismatched munitions that made it difficult for the Taiwanese to fully grasp what the Pentagon sent them.
The mistake cost over $700,000 in taxpayers’ funds to correct, the oversight office revealed.
The shipments reportedly occurred between November 2023 and March 2024. President Joe Biden met with Chinese communist dictator Xi Jinping – who falsely claims Taiwan as Communist Party territory and regularly threatens to invade it – in November 2023 as the shipments began. One of the top issues Xi raised in that meeting was pressuring Biden to “stop arming Taiwan,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry at the time.
Sen. Ernst, addressing Secretary Austin in her letter, described the situation as an “embarrassing debacle” and demanded that Austin clarify what the Pentagon is doing to ensure that such a situation is not repeated, lest it erode international trust in the U.S. military. Sen. Ernst is also asking the Pentagon to detail where the $730,000 to make amends for the error came from exactly.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have found millions for shady Chinese labs and gifted cutting-edge weapons to the Taliban but can only manage outdated ammunition and moldy equipment for Taiwan,” Sen. Ernst told Breitbart News in a statement on the necessity of her letter to Austin.
“Delivering damaged military aid to a key partner is sadly part of a dangerous pattern of incompetence by the White House that has pushed the world to the brink and jeopardized America’s national security,” she added. “We cannot afford four more years of Kamala Harris continuing to alienate key partners and allies while emboldening adversaries.”
In the letter, obtained by Breitbart News, Sen. Ernst similarly condemned the “shortcomings” of the Biden-Harris administration in addressing the threat to America from China and its unsuccessful foreign policy generally.
“This embarrassing debacle highlights shortcomings in the Biden-Harris administration’s counter-China strategy,” the senator wrote, “undermining our relationship with a key regional partner, weakening deterrence against China, and wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.”
The failures presented in the moldy shipment to Taiwan, she continued, “are particularly alarming, not only because of Taiwan’s critical role as a key security partner but also because they could impact the confidence of other U.S. allies and partners that rely on timely and reliable defense support.”
Trump's Campaign on UK Labour Party
Quote:Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has filed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint against the UK’s left-wing Labour Party, accusing it of “blatant foreign interference” in the U.S. election by sending staffers to campaign for Kamala Harris in swing states.
The complaint, as seen and reported on by the BBC, cites media reports about contact between Labour and the Harris campaign as well as apparent volunteering efforts, arguing this amounts to illegal “contributions.”
Specifically, the complaint cites newspaper reporting that Labour-linked individuals have travelled to the U.S. to campaign for the vice president.
That coverage, the complaint alleges, creates a “reasonable inference that the Labour Party has made, and the Harris campaign has accepted, illegal foreign national contributions.”
As Breitbart News reported, around 100 British left-wing activists are being funded to campaign for Harris in swing states.
A social media post by the Director of Operations of the UK’s governing party, Labour, recruiting “Labour Party staff” for campaigning in North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia has caused concern.
The message from Labour’s Sofia Patel promised paid-for accommodation for those taking up the offer. She wrote, in the now-deleted post:
I have nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the US in the next few weeks heading to North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia. I have 10 spots available for anyone available to head to the battleground state of North Carolina – we will sort your housing. Email me on labourforkamala@gmail.com if you’re interested. Thanks!
NBC15 News notes Patel has previously campaigned in the U.S. for the Hillary Clinton 2016 effort.
LATIN AMERICA
Mexicans Know Better than Biden
Quote:A small town in southern Mexico voted to kick out U.S.-bound migrants who had been staying in their community during their journey north. The vote to expel the migrants comes after at least one of them is believed to have killed a local woman.
The crime occurred on September 29 in Barras de Copalita, Oaxaca, the local station Encuentro Radio reported. The victim, 28-year-old Rebeca Hernandez Flores, was in her house when at least one migrant who was working a construction job nearby barged in, assaulted her and beat her to death.
In the days after, authorities arrested a migrant identified only as Jose Enrique A.E., who is from Honduras. The Honduran migrant had been part of one of the caravans headed north but had remained in town for at least two months, working odd construction jobs. It remains unclear if other individuals were involved in the violent killing. The state attorney general’s office announced the suspect’s arrest and classified the case as femicide, a particular classification under Mexican law for female killings due to their gender. The offense can carry stricter penalties than a traditional homicide.
According to a report from Mexico’s Proceso, local town officials and officials from the municipality of San Miguel del Puerto voted in their local assemblies to kick migrants out of their town and to stop migrants in transit from settling there. Authorities are planning to carry out operations where they will ask migrants to leave their community, Proceso reported.
The controversial measure comes when immigration remains a top issue in Mexico. Earlier this month, six Middle Eastern migrants and several others were injured in the border state of Chiapas after Mexico’s military mistook the convoy that human smugglers were moving the migrants in for a convoy of cartel gunmen, Breitbart Texas reported.
UN on Haiti Conflict
Quote:The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) said on Tuesday that the situation in the impoverished and violence-torn nation has “regrettably worsened” because ambitious gangs are now attacking territory they do not control yet, rather than merely terrorizing people on the turf they already rule.
“The situation in Haiti has not improved. There has been a 22% increase in the number of displaced people, and the political process is facing significant challenges, turning hope into deep concern,” BINUH director Maria Isabel Salvador told the U.N. Security Council (UNSC).
Salvador said the security environment in Haiti “remains extremely fragile, with renewed peaks of acute violence.” She highlighted the savage October 3 gang attack on Pont-Sonde in the Artibonite Department, in which 115 civilians were killed by heavily armed gangsters seeking revenge for police killing members of their organization.
Another massacre spotlighted by the BINUH director occurred in the town of Arcahaie, famed as the birthplace of Haiti’s flag, during the first two weeks of October. Gang enforcers murdered entire families in Arcahaie and tossed their bodies into mass graves, evidently to extend the authority of warlord Jeff Larose and his Canaan gang over the area.
Salvador said the rapid expansion of gang violence into the suburbs of Port-au-Prince, and then into the surrounding farmlands, is too much for the Haitian National Police (HNP) and the handful of officers sent by Kenya to keep up with. She said gang leaders are “spreading terror and fear, overwhelming the national security apparatus.”
Several countries have pledged to send over 3,000 troops to Haiti for peacekeeping, but only a few hundred have arrived to date. Gang leaders have scoffed at the Kenyan officers, deriding them as entirely ineffective. Kenyan officers have only been involved in one major operation to date, recapturing the town of Ganthier from a gang called 400 Mawozo in July. The gangsters simply left town when the Kenyan officers arrived, then recaptured the town within days of their departure.
Catherine Russell, advocate for Haiti from the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said Haiti’s gangs are increasingly using sexual violence against women and children to keep the population in line.
Hezbollah Operates in Latin America
Quote:Israeli Ambassador to Costa Rica Mijal Gur-Aryeh denounced on Monday that Hezbollah and other Iranian radical groups have established bases in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
Gur-Aryeh issued the warning in remarks during an online press conference with Nicaraguan journalists working in exile on the subject of Israel-Nicaraguan relations — organized by the Israeli Diplomatic Mission in Costa Rica after communist dictator Daniel Ortega recently ordered the rupture of Nicaragua’s diplomatic ties with Israel.
“I can say that there are also other countries in the region that have Iran and Hezbollah bases, and in particular Venezuela and Bolivia,” Gur-Aryeh told journalists.
The Israeli diplomat stated that her government is following Hezbollah’s presence and that “when we see that there is an opportunity to stop these terrorists, we cooperate with governments on the American continent.”
Gur-Aryeh was asked if Israel maintains cooperation with the United States in Latin America against Hezbollah, which the diplomat responded affirmatively.
“It is very, very close … We share information,” she said, stressing that she “cannot say more than that in the media” due to the nature of the intelligence.
The Iranian regime, and its proxy terror group Hezbollah, has maintained a decades-long presence in the region that has dramatically increased in recent years under the auspices of leftist governments such as Venezuela’s socialist regime — whose dictator Nicolás Maduro publicly lamented the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) airstrike in late September.
Bolivia, led by socialist and pro-Iran President Luis Arce, has been widely denounced by experts as the Islamic regime’s “most successful project” in spreading its influence in the region. Arce’s government has signed several agreements with the Iranian regime, including a deal for the purchase of Iranian-made drones and a highly controversial “memorandum of understanding reportedly on defense and security” whose contents have not been publicly disclosed.
Bolivia is among the leftist-led Latin American nations that broke ties with Israel in response to the start of its self-defense operations against the jihadist terror group Hamas.
While Ambassador Gur-Aryeh did not disclose specific details to the Nicaraguan journalists, she listed Hezbollah’s terrorist attacks against Israeli targets in Argentina as an example, and asserted that the Israeli government “clearly knows that they were handled inside the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires.”
The Argentine government believes Iran, via Hezbollah, is responsible for the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) — the deadliest terrorist attack in the Western Hemisphere prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks.
“We have this information about attacks in the past and I can only say that we are following the situation now as well,” Gur-Aryeh said.
Similarly, the ambassador assured that there is cooperation “all over the world … unfortunately, very close cooperation between terrorist organizations and organized crime.”
“They cooperate very fluidly. In fact, you don’t generally know when organized crime ends and when terrorism begins, because many of these terrorist groups are very, very involved in organized crime,” she asserted.
The Bolivian government rejected Gur-Aryeh’s “irresponsible statements” in a note issued by its Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, in which it claimed that “Bolivia is a pacifist state that promotes the culture of peace, which is why it has constitutionally assumed the prohibition of installing foreign military bases in its territory.”
“Unsubstantiated statements such as the one issued by the Israeli diplomat, seek to generate confrontation between Latin American states, governments and peoples, contrary to the objective outlined in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to consolidate Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace,” the statement read.
“The Plurinational State of Bolivia calls upon the brotherly Latin American countries not to fall into these provocations that seek to affect the brotherly relations between states and peoples of the region,” it continued.
Prior to Monday’s press conference, the Ortega regime released a statement condemning other comments made last week by the Israeli Ambassador and Consul Amir Rockman, who accused the communist regime of allowing Iranian-linked terror groups to freely operate in Nicaragua and of turning the country into a “platform for terrorism in the region.”
“Israeli officials claim that in Nicaragua there is now a terrorist base being used as a platform for terrorism in the region. In this regard, Nicaragua rejects such statements, which are aimed at diverting attention from the genocide being carried out by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories,” the statement reportedly read.
EUROPE
BRICS Summit in Russia
Quote:Russian President Vladimir Putin scored a public relations victory on the second day of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, by embracing Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — a photo opportunity that sent the message that Western efforts to diplomatically and economically isolate Russia for invading Ukraine have failed.
Putin claimed at the summit that over 30 nations have expressed interest in joining BRICS. The group was founded by Brazil, Russia, India, and China in 2009, adding South Africa the following year.
The first expansion since 2010 occurred in January when Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Ethiopia were added to the roster.
BRICS has previously hinted that 13 more potential members are working closely with the group, but Putin’s claim on Wednesday more than doubled that number. BRICS officials said representatives from 36 nations, plus U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, attended the Kazan summit.
Putin said BRICS should consider further expansion carefully.
“It would be wrong to ignore the unprecedented interest of the countries of the Global South and East in strengthening contacts with BRICS. At the same time, it is necessary to maintain a balance and prevent a decrease in the effectiveness of the BRICS,” he said.
“We are all witnessing the dynamic growth of BRICS and the strengthening of its authority and influence in global affairs,” he said.
Putin said the BRICS approach is “especially relevant in the current conditions when truly radical changes are underway across the globe, including the shaping of a multipolar world.”
India and China have serious differences, but they are united in their appetite for buying Russian oil. India is more concerned than China about the war in Ukraine, but Modi merely expressed his hopes for peace at the summit without stern criticism of Russia’s brutal conduct in the conflict.
Putin squeezing Xi and Modi in his onstage embrace was a signal that a new post-American order is rising. Some analysts believe Putin could hammer that message home by accepting some version of the peace proposal for Ukraine that has been floated by China and Brazil, freezing the U.S. and European powers out of the process. The Ukrainians, however, have displayed little interest in accepting the China-Brazil proposal.
The “Kazan Declaration” produced by the summit excoriated Israel for the Gaza war, but only mentioned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine once. Ukraine mocked this outcome as transparently absurd.
Labour Party's Donor in the Spotlight
Quote:Lord Waheed Alli, the Labour Party megadonor at the centre of the donations scandal, has been found to have violated House of Lords rules regarding declaring interests.
Lord Alli, who was elevated to become a peer of the realm by Tony Blair, committed four breaches of the upper chamber of the British Parliament’s code of conduct, according to a House of Lords commissioner for standards investigation over conflicts of interest that might influence parliamentary actions.
“While I consider each individual breach of the Code to be minor, I have found there to be four breaches in total, and have therefore recommended that Lord Alli write a letter of apology to the Chair of the Conduct Committee, Baroness Manningham-Buller,” the report said per The Telegraph.
The breaches included failing to disclose that he serves as a “person with significant control” of Silvergate BP Bidco Limited and as an unremunerated director of The Charlie Parsons Foundation.
Meanwhile, Lord Alli was also found to have breached the code of conduct by failing to register in time his interest as a director of the MAC (BVI) Limited firm.
Admitting fault, Lord Alli said in a letter of apology: “I am writing to you today to offer my apology for my breach of conduct by not registering my interests correctly.
“I will endeavour to keep to the code of conduct at all times to avoid such circumstances again.”
The case is separate from the ongoing scandal surrounding so-called “freebies” gifts given to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and senior members of his cabinet.
Lord Alli, one of the left-wing Labour Party’s top donors, has reportedly given Prime Minister Starmer the equivalent of £134,000 in hospitality and gifts since 2019, making him the largest personal donor to the now-Prime Minister.
This year alone, the Trinidadian-Guyanese heritage media mogul gave Stamer some £19,000 for “work clothes” and designer glasses. Additionally, the Labour Party leader was given use of Lord Alli’s £18 million Central London penthouse and his £4 million Soho townhouse.
3K North Korean Troops in Russia
Quote:South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) director Cho Tae-yong told lawmakers on Wednesday that 3,000 North Korean troops are already in Russia, training and preparing for deployment against Ukraine.
The U.S. government confirmed for the first time that it has seen evidence of North Korean troops in Russia.
South Korean parliamentarians who attended the briefing with Cho said the North Korean troops have been split up between several Russian military bases for training, including the use of Russian drones. Russian instructors are reportedly somewhat frustrated by the language barrier and the North Koreans’ lack of familiarity with modern military tactics.
Cho’s report said the Russians are bringing in more interpreters to help with overcoming the language barrier. He said the North Korean troops are being paid about $2,000 per month each, which is much higher than typical wages in the harsh Communist country.
Meanwhile, the North Korean government is reportedly taking steps to “isolate” the family members of soldiers deployed to Russia, to keep them quiet. This was evidently necessary because rumors of the troop deployments are spreading through North Korea like wildfire, but both Pyongyang and Moscow are still officially denying that North Korean soldiers are in Russia.
Cho’s estimate of 3,000 troops already training in Russia is double the previous estimate offered by South Korean intelligence. Cho said North Korea plans to have 10,000 troops in Russia by the end of December.
Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Directorate, said on Tuesday that Russia plans to send its North Korean mercenaries to take back the Kursk region of Russia, which was invaded and occupied by Ukrainian troops in August.
Budanov said he expected the first North Korean forces to arrive in Kursk imminent, perhaps even as early as Wednesday.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Wednesday became one of the first U.S. officials to offer public support for South Korea’s claims.
Austin said the U.S. has seen “evidence that there are DPRK troops in Russia.”
“What exactly they are doing? Left to be seen. These are things that we need to sort out,” he said.
Austria: Populist Party Cannot Form a Government
Quote:Breaking from tradition, the populist Freedom Party will not be given a chance to form a government despite winning last month’s elections.
Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen announced Tuesday that incumbent Chancellor Karl Nehammer would be granted the chance to form a new government, despite his centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) coming in second place at 26 per cent of the vote behind the Freedom Party of Austria’s (FPÖ) 29 per cent.
The 80-year-old president argued that even though tradition dictates that the winner be given the first crack at forming a coalition because the other parties have ruled out working with the anti-mass migration populist party, the only option would be to provide Nehammer an opportunity to band together with left-wing parties to form a government, Kronen Zeitung reports.
Like leaders of other so-called conservative parties in Europe, the Chancellor steadfastly ruled out a partnership with the Freedom Party following the September election, accusing leader Herbert Kickl of being a “conspiracy theorist.”
Therefore, to stay in power, Nehammer’s quote-unquote “conservative” party will need to partner with the leftist Social Democrats (SPÖ).
However, because a partnership between the two main establishment parties would only have a majority of one seat in the parliament, Nehammer will likely seek a third partner, either the liberal-globalist New Austria and Liberal Forum (NEOS) or the climate alarmist Green Alternative (GRÜNE).
Responding to being formally shut out of government despite winning the election, Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl said: “This may seem like a slap in the face to many of you. But I promise you: The last word has not yet been spoken. Today is not the end of the world.”
“On September 29, the majority of voters voted in favour of bringing Austria five good years. It was an unmistakable call for change and renewal. The situation our country has been brought into due to political mistakes is more than challenging, and the issues are on the table.
“I, therefore, see it today as I have done up to now: it is our political responsibility to keep our hand outstretched. We want to work for Austria and are prepared to take on responsibility.
"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.
![[Image: SP1-Scripter.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Scripter.png)
![[Image: SP1-Writer.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Writer.png)
![[Image: SP1-Poet.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Poet.png)
![[Image: SP1-PixelArtist.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-PixelArtist.png)
![[Image: SP1-Reporter.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/GmxWbHyL/SP1-Reporter.png)
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
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
