Quote:The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is ordering Boards of Elections throughout the state to follow its previous rulings and not count “mail-in and absentee ballots that fail to comply” with the state election code.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued its ruling on Monday, as elections board officials in Bucks County, in particular, have defied Pennsylvania Supreme Court precedent and moved to count ballots that the court has determined cannot be counted.
The ruling reads in part:
The Court hereby ASSUMES its King’s Bench authority over the instant Application, see 42 Pa.C.S. § 502, only to DIRECT that all Respondents, including the Boards of Elections in Bucks County, Montgomery County, and Philadelphia County, SHALL COMPLY with the prior rulings of this Court in which we have clarified that mail-in and absentee ballots that fail to comply with the requirements of the Pennsylvania Election Code, see 25 P.S. §§ 3146.6(a), 3150.16(a), SHALL NOT BE COUNTED for purposes of the election held on November 5, 2024.
The Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania brought the lawsuit against all 67 counties in Pennsylvania, as all eyes are on the U.S. Senate race where Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) refuses to concede to Sen.-elect Dave McCormick (D-PA) despite the Associated Press calling the race for McCormick more than week ago.
The ruling comes days after Bucks County commissioners Diane Ellis-Marseglia and chair Robert Harvie Jr. moved in a 2-1 vote to count 405 misdated or undated mail-in ballots on November 12, as counsel for McCormick pointed out in a separate lawsuit against the Bucks County Board of Elections in the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas.
“The Board did so even though its legal advisers recommended rejecting the ballots ‘based on the current state of the law,'” the appeal read.
After a warning from the county legal advisers that counting the ballots would likely lead to a lawsuit, Ellis-Marseglia said, “I just can’t vote to reject [these ballots]. I just can’t,” per the filing.
Walter Zimolong, McCormick’s counsel, wrote that the “Board violated the Election Code’s mandatory date requirement and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s repeated orders holding that the date requirement must be enforced.”
Soros Glad US Approved Use of Long-Range Missiles in Ukraine
Quote:Democrat mega-donor Alex Soros has hailed the reported decision by outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to use American-made long-range missiles to strike targets within Russia.
On Sunday, legacy media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal reported — citing unnamed U.S. officials — that with just two months left in his term, President Biden had reversed course and signed off on Kyiv using Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles to strike targets within Russia.
Previously, the 81-year-old Democrat had been wary of making such a decision over widespread concerns that long-range strikes with American arms could spark an escalation in the conflict between Western nations and the world’s largest nuclear power.
Apparently, unconcerned with the potential of an escalation, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Open Society Foundations Alex Soros wrote on X, “This is great news!” in response to a report about the sign off on ATACMS strikes inside Russia.
The scion of globalist George Soros’ international influence network has been an outspoken proponent of Ukraine continuing the war with Russia, and has even entered into partnership with a charity sponsored by President Zelensky’s wife.
Since Ukraine gained independence from Russia, the Soros family has been very active in the former Soviet state through its International Renaissance Foundation (IRF) in Kyiv.
According to the Open Society Foundations, the IRF has been the “largest independent funder of Ukraine’s vibrant array of civil society and citizen’s groups for more than three decades.”
Over the past decade, alone, the Soros organisation has poured over $230 million into the country, including to help establish the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine in 2015.
As with the network’s operation elsewhere, the Soros foundation has long sought to influence the political environment in Ukraine, with George Soros admitting in 2014 that Open Society played an “important role” in the Western-backed Euromaidan movement which toppled the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych for opposing cutting off ties with Moscow.
Soros's supportive post on X might be actually telling us it is a terrible idea indeed.
Let's hope Russia won't start using nukes after learning about this sudden approval.
National Security Adviser Admits American F-16's & Tanks Didn't Help Ukraine
Quote:During an interview with “PBS NewsHour” aired on Monday, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan responded to criticism of the Biden administration for delaying providing tanks and F-16s to Ukraine by stating that those haven’t made a significant difference on the battlefield and “the straightest line between Ukrainian performance and inputs” is “mobilization of manpower.” And “Ukraine needs to do more, in our view, to firm up its lines, in terms of the number of forces it has on the front lines.”
“NewsHour” Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent Nick Schifrin asked, “In the past, you’ve tried to avoid provoking the Russians from escalating, at times. You didn’t provide tanks, and then you did decide to make that decision to provide tanks. You didn’t provide F-16s, then you did provide those F-16s. Do you believe, at this point, looking back, if you had provided any of those authorizations earlier, it would have made a difference to Ukraine in the war?”
Sullivan responded, “Have we seen a marked difference since we have provided tanks to Ukraine, in terms of the battlefield? Similarly, on F-16s, have we seen a marked difference? Our view has been that there’s not one weapons system that makes a difference in this battle. It’s about manpower. And Ukraine needs to do more, in our view, to firm up its lines, in terms of the number of forces it has on the front lines. It’s about munitions, and it’s about all of the other things that go to a country’s national strength, their morale, their cohesion, their industrial base.”
Schifrin followed up, “But I ask because Ukraine is losing more territory today than at any point this year. So, do you really believe that nothing the U.S. could have done earlier would have changed that?”
Sullivan answered, “We provided the tanks, we provided the F-16s, we provided the HIMARS, we provided the Patriots. We provided many of the things that you said earlier we wouldn’t provide. And it’s not back then, it’s rather today that Ukraine finds itself in a more challenged position on the battlefield, suggesting that there’s not a straight line between those weapons systems and how it does on the battlefield. Where is the straightest line between Ukrainian performance and inputs? It’s on mobilization of manpower.”
Quote:John Balbus, who heads the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, says he is hardwiring his office’s work into the agency to resist President-elect Donald Trump’s vowed reforms of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Balbus’s plan of action entails senior executive service employees, who are the hardest to fire, creating and disseminating a global warming “training module” to all employees for “climate literacy.”
The goal is for his training module to remain even if Trump axes his Office of Climate Change and Health Equity.
“Health systems are recognizing that this is a business issue, this is a financial risk issue, that it’s a threat to the mission,” John Balbus told PoliticoPro on Monday.
PoliticoPro reported on the agency’s fear of Trump vow to purge the administrative state:
With President-elect Donald Trump’s second term looming, the leader of the climate change office that President Joe Biden created at the Department of Health and Human Services hopes its work can live on in atomized form.
Trump is expected to shutter the three-year-old HHS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, whose small staff focuses on efforts to communicate climate-driven risks to health-care operations and public health. The office has subsisted on staff detailed from other federal agencies.
…
Yet Trump represents a threat to many of the initiatives Balbus’ office has touted because they rely on the Inflation Reduction Act, which Trump has vowed to reverse. Biden’s climate law has supplied key funding for health-care and hospital systems to improve their defense against the effects of climate change, particularly through direct payments supported by Treasury Department tax credits, Balbus said.
The term “administrative state” describes the phenomenon of unaccountable and unelected administrative agencies, including the national security apparatus, exercising power to create and enforce their own rules. The administrative state uses its rule-making ability to essentially usurp the separation of powers between the three branches of government by creating a so-called fourth branch of government not formed by the Constitution.
Before Trump left office in 2021, he signed an executive order (EO) to reclassify federal government employees into Schedule F, which would have allowed the president to enhance accountability and job performance within the bureaucratic agencies. “You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected,” Trump said in April about Schedule F.
President Joe Biden canceled the order in 2021, but with Trump’s victory, he could reimplement the executive order and purge the unelected technocrats steering the federal government.
Quote:Hollywood star Harrison Ford, who has publicly promoted climate change activism, was recently seen disembarking a private jet, reportedly en route from celebrating the birthday of his wife, actress Calista Flockhart.
Harrison Ford was snapped on Monday stepping off the jet in Los Angeles, one day after Flockhart’s 60th birthday, according to a Daily Mail report. The actor is a regular flier of private jets, having been photographed numerous times in the past despite his support of climate change activism.
Ford called the effects of climate change the “greatest moral crisis of our time” in a 2019 video. The following year, he said “this shit is going to kill us,” referring to what he called a looming climate disaster.
He has also backed Greta Thunberg, saying that young climate activists like her represent the “moral army.”
None of these declarations appears to have dissuaded Harrison Ford from using private jets, whose carbon emissions put the actor way above the average American’s yearly output.
Harrison Ford recently endorsed Kamala Harris’ bid for the White House, claiming that Harris and running mate Tim Walz “believe in science.” Ford was one of numerous Hollywood celebrities who endorsed Harris in the days leading up to the presidential election.
But all that Hollywood star power failed to carry Harris over the finish line, with President-elect Donald Trump winning both the electoral and popular votes.
EUROPE
Ukraine: Iranian Missiles & Drones Hit Energy & Power Infrastructure
Quote:Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s energy and power infrastructure with hundreds of drones and missiles, including Iranian-made weapons.
Russia is very fond of Iran’s Shahed series of propeller-driven suicide drones. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry claims Russia has launched over 8,000 Shahed drones over the past two and a half years.
“The enemy’s target was our energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine. Unfortunately, there is damage to objects from hits and falling debris. In Mykolaiv, as a result of a drone attack, two people were killed and six others were injured, including two children,” Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian president said his forces were able to intercept 144 of the Russian-launched drones and missiles before they hit their targets, but the attack was so massive that many of the projectiles got through.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing explosions in Odesa, Zapoizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, and the capital city of Kyiv. The major port city of Odesa was reportedly left without power after the attack, forcing hospitals to run on emergency generators. Several other regions reported blackouts.
“The situation is most difficult in Odesa and Odesa district. Unfortunately, it is not yet technically possible to supply power to the critical infrastructure in the Kyivskyi and Primorskyi districts of the city,” Ukraine’s power distributor DTEK said on Monday.
DTEK said power was restored to about 400,000 homes as of Monday morning, while 321,000 customers were still without power. The regional governor of Odesa, Oleh Kiper, said work was proceeding on restoring water and heat to the region, but, meanwhile, 445 shelters had been established for residents.
Ukrainian officials warned rolling blackouts would affect most regions of the country on Monday, lasting up to eight hours in some regions.
Kiper said the Russian attack killed at least eight civilians and injured 18 more.
Quote:Russia has updated its nuclear doctrine, stating that in some circumstances attacks against it with conventional weapons will be considered sufficiently threatening to launch a nuclear retaliation.
Today is the 1,000th day since Russia attempted a blitz attack to capture Kyiv and other key Ukrainian cities, meeting stronger than expected resistance and logistical difficulties, leading to a bloody near-three year war. Following an apparent signal that the United States in the dying days of the President Joe Biden administration is willing to step up the war by permitting Ukraine to use American long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia, the Russian Federation has articulated that it could consider such attacks a matter for nuclear retaliation.
Ukraine wasted no time, however, and it is claimed they made their first long-range missile strike on the Russian interior this morning.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the nation’s new nuclear doctrine into existence by decree on Tuesday morning, Kremlin state media says. The document, now on its third revision in 15 years, is said to have been prompted by “new military threats” faced by Russia after its decision to re-invade Ukraine.
Per a statement from Moscow: “The amended doctrine expands the range of countries and military alliances subject to nuclear deterrence, as well as the list of military threats that such deterrence is designed to counter”.
Crucially for Western military planners, Russia now considers “any attack” by a non-nuclear country that is supported by a nuclear power — as could be argued is the case with the United State, France, and the United Kingdom’s support of Ukraine — as a “joint attack” and liable to a nuclear response. Such attacks include conventional weapon strikes that threaten Russian “sovereignty” and “large-scale launch of enemy aircraft, missiles, and drones targeting Russian territory”.
As well as Russian territory, the doctrine also encompasses Belarus — which has a considerable border with the European Union — and which has lately been fully locked into the Russian nuclear defence system.
President Putin signing off on the new document has been interpreted specifically as a response to U.S. President Joe Biden allegedly agreeing to allow Ukraine to launch long-range missile strikes deep into Russia’s hinterland. Those claims have yet to be confirmed by the White House, and the new Russian nuclear doctrine has been in the works at least since September, when conversations about the possibility of longer-range Ukrainian strikes with American and European weapons were kicked up a gear.
Nevertheless, Russia reacted with extreme aversion to the claim the White House had signed off on missile strikes, with several Kremlin leaders warning of escalation and even President Putin’s previous claims that such an attack would mean a state of war between the U.S. and Russia.
Emphasis is mine. Yes guys, things are moving faster than ever before now that Biden knows he has few days left in office.
kyonides Wrote:Soros's supportive post on X might be actually telling us it is a terrible idea indeed.
Let's hope Russia won't start using nukes after learning about this sudden approval.
Yeah, I admit that opinion of mine isn't aging very well.
Putin's Ideologist Makes it Clear: Russia Wants to Annex Ukraine!!
Quote:Russia’s demands for Ukraine go beyond peace deals or territorial compromises, with “full control over Ukraine” being a non-negotiable goal for Moscow, according to Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin. Dugin is known as “Putin’s brain” and has described the West as the “source of absolute evil,” claiming that Trump “underestimates” Russian ambitions while admitting that Moscow had failed to accurately explain to the U.S. “what we really wanted.”
In an interview on the New Rules podcast, Russian ultranationalist and political philosopher Alexander Dugin revealed Russia’s uncompromising stance on the Ukraine conflict, asserting that any negotiations must begin with full Russian control over all Ukrainian territory.
“Nobody in Russia [has] yet to clearly explain to your [U.S.] administration what we really want of Ukraine, but we really want the full and total control over Ukraine as part of our space,” he admitted.
Dugin dismissed current Western-backed peace proposals, such as ending the conflict or delaying NATO membership for Ukraine, as entirely unacceptable.
“We start speaking about the freezing of the conflict after we have guarantees that all territory of Ukraine will be under [Russia’s] control,” he demanded, adding that “the only way for us to start peace talks is to get full control over all the territory of Ukraine.”
Dugin further elaborated that Russia considers Ukraine’s existence, in any form, incompatible with Russia’s own survival, arguing it is an existential necessity in Moscow’s geopolitical calculus. Acknowledging that former U.S. President Donald Trump’s reelection could shift dynamics, the nationalist Russian philosopher warned that Trump “underestimates” the strategic importance of Ukraine to Russia.
“[The] existence of Russia is incompatible with the existence of any form of Ukraine, and maybe that could seem to Trump a bit exaggerated, but that is a very realistic approach,” he stated, insisting that the incoming U.S. leader “understand that it is not an exaggerated claim but rather an existential necessity of Russian geopolitical being.”
While Trump may view the conflict as an “annoying” inconvenience inherited from his predecessors, Dugin emphasized that for Moscow, Ukraine represents an “existential ontological priority” that outweighs all other concerns.
“I think that the problem is he doesn’t understand the real importance of Ukraine for Russia. He may be misjudging the situation thinking that it is just about some new acquisitions of our earths, of territories, and not recognizing it as an existential threat to Russia,” Dugin said, stressing that any future U.S.-Russia negotiations must start with the West acknowledging Russia’s unyielding demand for the entirety of Ukraine to be part of its sphere of influence.
Threatening the unleashing of Russia’s ability to “cause pain” to both the West and Trump in particular, including the complete destruction of the world, Dugin noted that the issue of Ukraine is “not the only thing” that stands between Russia and the West.
“There are many other issues, and in these issues, we could behave ourselves much more aggressively than we did before,” he warned, adding that the U.S. should calculate its gains if Russia would ultimately “start nuclear conflicts” and “destroy humanity in response to the extremist globalists position in Ukraine.”
Yeap, that portion of the article HAD to be emphasized. How terrible!
Quote:Danish lawmakers on Monday agreed on a deal to plant 1 billion trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest and natural habitats over the next two decades in an effort to reduce fertilizer usage.
The government called the agreement “the biggest change to the Danish landscape in over 100 years.”
“The Danish nature will change in a way we have not seen since the wetlands were drained in 1864,” said Jeppe Bruus, head of Denmark’s Green Tripartite Ministry, created to implement a green deal reached in June among farmers, the industry, the labor unions and environmental groups.
Under the agreement, 43 billion kroner ($6.1 billion) have been earmarked to acquire land from farmers over the next two decades, the government said.
Danish forests would grow on an additional 250,000 hectares (618,000 acres), and another 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres), which are currently cultivated on climate-damaging low-lying soils, must be converted to nature. Currently, 14.6% of land is covered by forests.
The deal was reached by the three-party Danish government – made up of the Social Democrats, the Liberals and the center Moderates – and the Socialist People’s Party, the Conservatives, Liberal Alliance and the Social Liberal Party.
A vote in parliament on the deal is considered a formality.
In June, the government said livestock farmers will be taxed for the greenhouse gases emitted by their cows, sheep and pigs from 2030, the first country to do so as it targets a major source of methane emissions, one of the most potent gases contributing to global warming.
"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.
Quote:On Friday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “On Balance,” Mike Huckabee, President-Elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. Ambassador to Israel, who was speaking in his personal capacity since he hasn’t been confirmed, praised the maximum pressure campaign under the first Trump administration, stated that things in the Middle East can’t go back to the way they were pre-October 7, and “the world needs to look to” regime change in Iran as the goal.
Huckabee said that the Middle East needs “A good dose of reality, for one thing, and that reality means that there’s got to be an understanding that it’s the Iranians who are funding the terrorism of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. The attacks that have happened on Israel in the last 400-plus days since October the 7th are largely funded because Joe Biden took his foot off the brake, put it on the gas pedal, and basically made it possible for the Iranians to have money that Donald Trump had shut off because of the maximum pressure sanctions. Donald Trump never bombed Iran. He didn’t have to. He was bankrupting them, which is far more effective and a lot less lethal for innocent people. The result, however, of what changed in that policy was the bloody mess that was created when Hamas went and massacred innocent Jewish civilians in Israel. And it’s changed the dynamics without any way to go back to thinking that it’s all going to be like it once was, it can’t be.”
Host Leland Vittert then asked, “Benjamin Netanyahu has been clear, especially in the past couple of weeks or months, that the regime in Tehran needs to change, not just sanctions, not just pressure. Should the United States look to that end goal as well?”
Huckabee responded, “I think the world needs to look to it. Quite frankly, let’s face it, Leland, every Gulf state in the Middle East would be delighted if there was regime change. I don’t think they’re probably going to say it publicly. But don’t you think there would be celebrations in Saudi Arabia, in the UAE, perhaps even in Qatar? I can’t think of any Muslim-led nation that wouldn’t be better off if there was a regime change, because the Iranians are not really interested in building a neighborhood where everyone can kind of get along and create diplomatic relationships and share tourism and trade. They’ve never been into that. They are for annihilating Israel, and, ultimately, the U.S. And one of the stupid things that happens in this country is when Americans think that all of this is just going to be contained there, that the Iranians have no intention beyond Israel, if they can just get them from the river to the sea, it’s over. They’ve repeatedly said, Israel is the little Satan, we’re the great Satan. So, their goal is not to end their conquest with Israel. It’s just the warm-up for the real fight, which they think is us.”
Huckabee added that the Iranian people would be pleased if the regime changed and that if he becomes Ambassador, it’s not going to be him setting policy.
Quote:Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) formally withdrew his name for consideration for the Attorney General position in President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration, asserting Thursday there is “no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle.”
“I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday,” Gaetz said in post in X. “I appreciate their thoughtful feedback – and the incredible support of so many.”
Gaez went on to say his nomination has become too much of a distraction, and therefore, he is withdrawing his name from consideration for the highly sought position.
“While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition. There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General,” he announced.
“Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1,” he said, adding that he remains “fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful President in history.”
“I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and I’m certain he will Save America,” he added.
Quote:US President-elect Donald Trump has nominated veteran prosecutor Pam Bondi as his new pick for attorney general, hours after Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration.
Bondi has a long track record in law enforcement and previously served as Florida's attorney general.
The 59-year-old is a long-time Trump ally who defended him during his first Senate impeachment trial.
Losing his first choice, Gaetz, to run the Justice Department is a setback for Trump but his new pick should have a less bumpy ride from senators who must approve the appointment.
"Pam was a prosecutor for nearly 20 years, where she was very tough on Violent Criminals, and made the streets safe for Florida Families," Trump said in a social media post announcing his choice.
Bondi has been close to Trump since his 2016 campaign, telling voters at a recent Trump rally that she considers him a "friend".
In 2019, she joined his White House to focus on "proactive impeachment messaging", serving both as his legal advisor and defence attorney during his first impeachment - during which he was acquitted.
She continued to be part of Trump's legal team in 2020 as it made false claims that the election had been stolen from Trump due to voter fraud.
She also served on Trump's Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission, and more recently, has headed the legal arm of the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank founded by former Trump staff members.
Quote:Radical leftist Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated on Thursday that he would allow the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Canadian soil in observance of a recently issued International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant against him, outraging leaders in his country, including from his own party.
Trudeau noted that Canada was one of the founding countries of the ICC, which has no enforcement mechanism outside of the actions of members states, and declared that arresting Netanyahu was “just who we are as Canadians.”
On Thursday, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas terrorist Mohammed Deif, who is currently in charge of the genocidal jihadists’ “armed” wing. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan requested the warrants in May in response to Israel’s self-defense operations in Gaza against Hamas, which controls Gaza, to prevent a repeat of the atrocities of the October 7 terrorist attack on Israeli soil. Khan had initially also requested warrants for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, but both were killed this summer, one in an explosion in Tehran and the other in an exchange with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza.
ICC leaders announced they were seeking Netanyahu and Gallant’s arrests on charges of “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes” in Gaza. They specifically claimed there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israeli leaders “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”
The ICC equated the military operation against Hamas with Hamas’s actions on October 7, 2023. On that day, Hamas jihadists invaded Israel and went on door-to-door raids massacring random families in multiple communities. Survivors detailed harrowing acts of torture and gang rape, as well as the mass killing of children as young as infants and the desecration of corpses. On several occasions, the terrorists published videos of their atrocities on social media, including uploading the videos to the social media accounts of their victims so their families and friends would see their dead and mutilated bodies. The attack killed an estimated 1,200 people; about 100 remain in Hamas captivity to this day.
Trudeau did not mention Hamas’s atrocities on October 7 in his remarks on Thursday, instead scolding Israel to following international law.
“It’s really important that everyone abide by international law. This is something we’ve been calling on from the beginning of the conflict,” Trudeau asserted. “We are one of the founding members of the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice; we stand up for international law.”
Quote:South Korean lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun, a member of his parliament’s intelligence committee, said Wednesday that about 10,900 North Korean mercenary soldiers have been deployed to Kursk for a counteroffensive against Ukrainian forces.
Lee said the North Koreans are mixed into Russian airborne and marine units, and some have already seen combat.
North Korea is also sending more weapons to Russia, Lee said, including 170mm self-propelled howitzers and 240mm multiple rocket launchers (MRLs). He said North Korean technicians have been sent to maintain the weapons, which are significantly different from those normally used by the Russian military.
Lee said the North Koreans underwent “on-site adaptation training” and “tactical training” with Russian soldiers before joining them in combat, with an emphasis on teaching the North Korean personnel how to use Russian drones.
There have been North Korean casualties, Lee said, and South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) is still trying to determine how many were killed and injured, along with how many have surrendered.
Park Sun-won, another member of the South Korean legislature’s intelligence committee, said North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui had an “unusual” meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin when she visited Moscow this month. One purpose of this meeting may have been laying the groundwork for North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to visit Russia.
Quote:Russia has allegedly launched an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) at a Ukrainian city for the first time, an expensive but potentially potent reminder by the Kremlin that it has a large reserve of nuclear-capable weapons which can strike form thousands of miles away.
The central-Ukrainian city of Dnipro was struck by a single ICBM missile in the early hours of Thursday morning Ukraine claims, part of a broader air raid that state media said also saw one air-launched ballistic missile and seven air-launched cruise missiles fired at the city. The Ukrainian government has not made an official statement on casualties in the “massive attack” but said they managed to shoot down six of the cruise missiles in-flight.
The launch of an ICBM is claimed by Ukraine’s air force to have come from the Astrakhan Oblast, which borders the Caspian Sea. The launch has not been corroborated by Western states observing the conflict, the United Kingdom has called it unconfirmed, for instance. Russia has yet to confirm or deny an conventional explosive armed but nuclear-capable ICBM launch, apparently the latest sabre-rattling move by the state as it bids to discourage further Western involvement in Ukraine.
While claiming there was “no significant damage” caused, nevertheless Ukraine also stated a city medical facility and an industrial area were hit. Sergiy Lysak, the head of the regional administration said in a statement that: “Since early morning, the aggressor has massively attacked the region. Information about the consequences is being clarified. At the moment, it is known about damage to an industrial enterprise in Dnipro. There were also two fires in the city.”
Germany Ignored Warnings of Ukrainian Plot to Blow up Nord Stream
Quote:Officials in Germany were provided with intelligence detailing a Ukrainian plot to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines months before the attack took place, but the warnings were ignored and no preventative measures were taken, an investigation has claimed.
In what may become to be seen as a major intelligence failure by the German state, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government allegedly failed to make any preparations to prevent the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines despite purportedly receiving intelligence of a Ukrainian plot to destroy the energy import infrastructure.
According to a report from Germany’s Der Spiegel news magazine, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) received an encrypted, top secret cable in June of 2022 from Dutch military intelligence, which was also reportedly shared with the CIA, warning of a plot organised by then-Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi to dispatch six Ukrainian commandos traveling under false identities to rent a boat and dive to the bottom of the Baltic Sea and blow up the pipelines.
The intelligence indicated that the sabotage was planned to take place during the NATO ‘BALTOPS’ military exercise, which took place between 5 and 17 June 2022. After the exercises were complete and the attack did not materialise, the German government decided that the intelligence was false and therefore made no preparations to prevent the attack, and failed to even warn the federal police, the navy, or federal and state counter-terrorism centres of the potential threat.
If true, this failure to act turned out to be a miscalculation, and one which allowed the attackers on a budget of less than $300,000 to destroy the two pipelines on September 26th, 2022, and put Germany’s long-term energy supply in doubt.
“It was a crazy plan that only succeeded through fierce determination and enormous luck, but was also aided by incompetent security agencies and political intrigue,” Spiegel commented.
Quote:Russian President Vladimir Putin claims the ballistic missile strike on Ukraine on Thursday was the debut of a new ‘unstoppable’ weapon as he blamed the West for turning his invasion of Ukraine into a global war.
Ukraine reported what it claimed as an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) strike on the central city of Dnipro on Thursday morning, prompting a flurry of global concern at what could be the first use of a true ICBM in anger in history. Yet Western governments and intelligence agencies were apparently reluctant to openly acknowledge the claim, Russia itself refused comment, and eventually even Ukraine itself cast doubts on its own assertions.
Now Russia’s President Putin has given his own version of events, saying the strike was not by ICBM — weapons which travel into space before plunging back to earth, with ranges of thousands of miles — but rather by a never-before-seen nuclear-capable Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM). Putin identified as the ‘Oreshnik’ (‘Hazel’) type which he claimed is totally impervious to Western countermeasures in a televised speech on Thursday night.
Separately, Putin ally and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now a Kremlin attack dog frequently employed in making lurid nuclear threats, called the new missile “hypersonic” and published what purported to be footage of the strike.
Lavrov Suspects Biden Wants to Make Things Difficult for Trump
Quote:Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused outgoing President Joe Biden of trying to “muck things up” to hand a more volatile world over to successor and predecessor Donald Trump in remarks on Friday.
Lavrov was discussing unconfirmed reports this week that Biden approved Ukraine using the American Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), a long-range missile system, to target locations within Russia, and later reports that Biden would send Ukraine anti-personnel land mines. The Russian government accused Ukraine of using the ATACMS system to bomb Bryansk, a region lying within uncontested Russian territory, on Tuesday, which Ukraine neither confirmed nor denied.
Russian strongman Vladimir Putin has repeatedly described long-range missile attacks as a red line for his country, without specifying exactly how he would respond to a breach of this red line. On Thursday, however, Russia fired a new model missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Ukrainian officials initially described it as a potential intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), but Putin, in an address to the Russian people late on Thursday, claimed it was the debut of a new model of hypersonic Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM).
Lavrov remarked on the dramatic escalation of tensions in the past week between Russia and the West during a press conference on Friday, accusing the Biden administration of intentionally attempting to worsen the situation in eastern Europe to set President-elect Trump up for failure.
“As for what can be expected from Biden and his outgoing administration, well, the ATACMS supplies and allowing the British and French to use Storm Shadows and SCALPSs certainly have an element of trying to leave as negative a legacy as possible for the next administration,” Lavrov mused, according to the Russian news agency Tass.
“It seems that this desire, let’s say, to muck things up, can be seen in the current situation,” Lavrov added, going on to say that sabotaging their successors is “typical of the Democrats” and accusing former President Barack Obama of similarly attempting to “pull the same trick” on Trump before leaving office.
Quote:Ukraine says the “experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile” fired at the city of Dnipro on Thursday carried 36 “submunitions” and was travelling at Mach 11 as it struck.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence has published new claims about the new kind of ballistic missile that struck the central city of Dnipro in the early hours of Thursday morning. A statement said the missile, which left earth’s atmosphere in a ballistic arc after being launched from Russia’s Astrakhan region made the approximately 500 miles to the city in 15 minutes.
The missile had six re-entry vehicles, each of which carried a further six “submunitions” to the ground which were aimed at an industrial facility at the city, a feature common to ballistic missiles which use one large launch to deliver a larger number of ‘multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles’. These expensive and complex weapons are designed to carry nuclear warheads, but can be fitted with conventional warheads, or even no warhead at all. It is not clear exactly what the “submunitions” were loaded with in this case.
Ukraine said as the weapons plunged down to earth they reached Mach 11 (roughly 8,400 miles an hour, depending on other factors).
The weapon was initially identified on Thursday by Ukraine’s air force as an intercontinental ballistic missile, and ICBM, a military acronym that thanks to the Cold War very much became a household name. While it appears to in fact be a Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), which is probably less meaningful for most, the distinction is essentially academic for Europeans given the entire continent is within IRBM range.
Quote:Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Monday in a speech to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, that Israel had in fact targeted the Iranian nuclear weapons program in its response to Iran’s missile attack last month.
As Breitbart News has reported, journalist Caroline Glick speculated, and then Axios confirmed, that Israel hit a missile facility that was also an “undeclared” nuclear site at the Parchin military base.
The Jerusalem Post reported Monday:
Israel destroyed a component of Tehran’s nuclear program while degrading its defense and missile production capabilities during the IDF’s aerial strike on Iran in October, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset on Monday as he pledged to prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining atomic weapons.
“There is a specific component in their nuclear program that was hit in this attack,” he explained, in a wide-ranging foreign policy speech to the plenum, in which he spoke of the centrality of Iran and its pursuit of nuclear weapons to Israel’s multi-front war.
He did not identify the component but added that despite the success of that hit, Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon had not yet been blocked.
President Joe Biden had said that Israel should not hit Iran’s nuclear program in its response to the Iranian ballistic missile attack in October, the second such attack by Iran in six months.
Israel initially said its targets in the retaliatory strike had been limited to Iran’s military and missile sites.
As President-elect Donald Trump pointed out during the campaign, Israel had often succeeded in the wa by ignoring the Biden-Harris administration’s demands.
Trump was incredulous that Biden had told Israel not to hit Iran’s nuclear weapons program. “That’s the thing you want to hit, right?” he asked at a rally.
Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Friday that it had killed the head of the rocket unit of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group backed by Iran that operates inside the Gaza Strip and participated in the October 7 attacks.
In a joint statement, the IDF and Israel Security Agency (ISA, or Shin Bet, or Shabak) reported:
In the past week (Wednesday), the IAF conducted an IDF and ISA intelligence-based strike to eliminate the terrorist Khalid Abu Daqqa, Commander of the Islamic Jihad’s Rocket Unit. Khalid Abu Daqqa was operating inside the Humanitarian Area in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
Abu Daqqa was responsible for commanding and conducting numerous attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers. Both on and since October 7th, Abu Daqqa commanded rocket attacks against communities in southern Israel.
Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munitions, intelligence, and aerial surveillance.
The IDF and ISA will continue to target anyone who took part in terror activities against Israeli civilians and to achieve the goals of the war.
Israel’s Army radio added that five other terrorists were killed in the airstrike.
Palestinian terrorists have frequently abused humanitarian zones and protected sites like hospitals and schools to carry out their activities.
Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Tuesday that Hezbollah had fired rockets that struck United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers in southern Lebanon — not once, but twice in the same day.
In a first statement, the IDF said:
Earlier today (Tuesday), a report was received that a UNIFIL post in the area of Ramyeh in southern Lebanon was hit, causing a number of injuries and damage to the post.
An IDF review determined that Hezbollah fired a rocket that hit the UNIFIL post.
The rocket was fired from the area of Deir Aames, one of many fired by Hezbollah in a barrage launched at Israel at 09:50 this morning.
Later, the IDF added in a second statement:
At 13:30 today (Tuesday), Hezbollah fired a number of rockets that hit and damaged a UNIFIL post in the area of Chamaa in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah fired the rockets from the area of Maaliyeh in southern Lebanon.
This is the second time Hezbollah has fired and hit a UNIFIL post today. At 09:50 this morning (Tuesday), Hezbollah fired a rocket that hit a UNIFIL post in the Ramyeh area in southern Lebanon.
Quote:Hezbollah has reportedly agreed to ceasefire terms proposed by the United States, according to the Lebanese government — though the terror group has “comments” that may indicate it has not fully accepted the deal.
The Times of Israel reported:
Lebanon and Hezbollah have agreed to a US proposal for a ceasefire with Israel, with some comments on the content, a top Lebanese official tells Reuters, describing the effort as the most serious yet to end to the fighting.
Ali Hassan Khalil, an aide to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, says Lebanon had delivered its written response to the US ambassador in Lebanon on Monday and that White House envoy Amos Hochstein was traveling to Beirut to continue talks.
Asked about progress in the negotiations earlier Monday, State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller had been noncommittal:
I just don’t think it’s productive, unfortunately, to get into the details, the back-and-forth negotiations; only to say that we have been at this for some time now. We have been sharing proposals both with the Government of Lebanon and the Government of Israel. Both sides have reacted to their – to the proposals that we have put forward. There has been an exchange of different ideas for how to see what we believe is in everyone’s interest, which is the full implementation of UN Security Council 17 – Resolution 1701, and we’re going to continue to stay at that process because we believe a diplomatic resolution is key to allowing the fighting to stop, to protecting civilians, and allowing the civilians in both Israel and Lebanon to return to their homes.
Resolution 1701 requires Hezbollah to withdraw from southern Lebanon and to disarm. It has never been enforced.
A sticking point in negotiations has been Israel’s demand that it be allowed to react to attacks from Hezbollah by entering southern Lebanon. The Israeli government said Monday that it intended to continue to fight in Lebanon until the residents of northern Israel who had been evacuated because of Hezbollah’s attacks felt safe enough to return home.
Iran Thinks Trump Won Because Biden Supports Israel
Quote:The Iranian Foreign Ministry suggested Monday that the American public is widely opposed to Israel’s self-defense operations against Iran-backed terrorist organizations in the Middle East, most prominently Hamas, and suggested that Democrats lost the 2024 presidential race because they were too supportive of Israel.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei described President-elect Donald Trump’s win to secure a second term in the White House as a “meaningful” expression of opposition to Israel, fueled by violent leftist protests on American college campuses.
“Over the past year, public opinion in the US, both in the universities and in public circles, has openly expressed its opposition to the killing and genocide of the people of Gaza,” Baghaei claimed in an interview on Thursday, according to the Iranian state outlet PressTV. Iran refers to Israel’s self-defense operations against Hamas, which controls Gaza, as a “genocide.”
“Many Americans oppose their government’s complicity in [Israel’s] genocide in Palestine and Gaza and the dispatch of weapons [to the regime] to be used to kill innocents,” he claimed, adding that he and the Iranian regime expected Trump and his administration “adhere to their election promises” to bring about a rapid conclusion to the ongoing conflict.
Israel declared war on Hamas on October 8, 2023, a day after genocidal Hamas jihadists invaded the country and went on a killing, rape, and torture spree that resulted in an estimated 1,200 deaths, over 200 abductions, and widespread reports of infanticide, gang rape, and other atrocities. Iran, as one of Hamas’s most prominent financial backers, has enthusiastically supported Hamas, celebrating the massacre by branding it the “al-Aqsa Flood” and condemning the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for working to prevent a repeat of the disaster.
The administration of outgoing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in the November election, claimed to offer Israel “ironclad” support but routinely attempted to micromanage the war, irritating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his administration. The Biden administration proposed several deals in an attempt to end the conflict that Israel found unpalatable. Both Hamas and the Israeli government rejected Biden peace proposals.
Oh really, Ayatollah?
Biden-Harris Sanctions Israelis, Sends Aid to Palestinians
Quote:The lame-duck Biden-Harris administration is slapping new sanctions on Israelis, while sending nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in additional funding to the Palestinians, adding insult to injury in the closing weeks of its failed policy.
The Washington Free Beacon noted Monday:
The Biden-Harris administration on Monday unveiled sweeping new sanctions on Israeli Jews, just days after it awarded another $230 million in taxpayer funds to the Palestinians. The back-to-back announcements signal that diplomatic relations between Israel and the outgoing White House will continue to sour until President-elect Donald Trump retakes office next year.
The new sanctions are the broadest to date, imposing unprecedented punitive measures on three Israeli organizations the administration accuses of fomenting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. They were leveled just days after a coalition of nearly 90 congressional Democrats petitioned the Biden administration to ramp up sanctions on Israel before leaving the White House.
The sanctions were announced just three days after the Biden-Harris administration awarded another $230 million in funding for humanitarian projects in the West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The American government has now sent more than $2 billion in taxpayer funds to the Palestinians since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror spree on Israel—even as critics warn this cash is keeping Hamas on life support.
The State Department website describes the sanctions on Israelis as targeting “violent Israeli individuals and entities,” though the “violence” that two of the targets are accused of committing amounts to nothing more than providing construction vehicles to settlements that the State Department says are illegal.
The Biden-Harris administration has sanctioned a broad array of Israeli individuals and institutions, largely at the instigation of anti-Israel groups and Democrats in Congress. Many of the sanctions target people who have not broken laws; a legal challenge against the sanctions notes that some target what would be constitutionally protected protest in the U.S.
"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.
JILL COLVIN and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Wrote:A number of President-elect Donald Trump ‘s most prominent Cabinet picks and appointees have been targeted by bomb threats and “swatting attacks,” Trump’s transition team said Wednesday. The FBI said it was investigating.
“Last night and this morning, several of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees and Administration appointees were targeted in violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them,” Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
The attacks ranged from bomb threats to swatting, in which attackers initiate an emergency law enforcement response against a target victim under false pretenses, she said. The tactic has become a popular one in recent years.
Leavitt said law enforcement and other authorities acted quickly to ensure the safety of those who were targeted and Trump and his transition team are grateful.
Among those targeted were New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick to serve as the next ambassador to the United Nations; Matt Gaetz, Trump’s initial pick to serve as attorney general; Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, whom Trump chose to lead the Department of Labor, and former New York congressman Lee Zeldin, who has been tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Law enforcement officials are also looking into whether Susie Wiles, Trump’s incoming chief of staff, and Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general whom Trump has chosen as Gaetz’s replacement, and other incoming administration officials were also victims — as well as how each was targeted, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity as the investigation continues.
Wiles and Bondi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The FBI said in a statement that it was “aware of numerous bomb threats and swatting incidents targeting incoming administration nominees and appointees” and was investigating with its law enforcement partners.
White House spokesperson Saloni Sharma said President Joe Biden had been briefed and the White House is in touch with federal law enforcement and Trump’s transition team.
Biden “continues to monitor the situation closely,” Sharma said, adding the president and his administration “condemn threats of political violence.”
Stefanik’s office said that, on Wednesday morning, she, her husband, and their 3-year-old son were driving home from Washington for Thanksgiving when they were informed of a bomb threat to their residence in Saratoga County.
Police swept Stefanik’s home on Wednesday morning in response to the bomb threat but did not locate any explosive devices, New York State Police said.
Zeldin said in a social media post that he and his family had also been threatened.
“A pipe bomb threat targeting me and my family at our home today was sent in with a pro-Palestinian themed message,” he wrote on X. “My family and I were not home at the time and are safe.”
In Florida, the Okaloosa County sheriff’s office said on Facebook that it “received notification of a bomb threat referencing former Congressman Matt Gaetz’s supposed mailbox at a home in the Niceville area” Wednesday.
. . .
The U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement Wednesday that anytime a member of Congress is the victim of a swatting’ incident, “we work closely with our local and federal law enforcement partners.” The force declined to provide further details, in part to “minimize the risk of copy-cats.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called the threats “dangerous and unhinged.”
“This year, there was not just one but TWO assassination attempts on President Trump,” he wrote on X. “Now some of his Cabinet nominees and their families are facing bomb threats.” He added: “It is not who we are in America.”
AP News Wrote:BERLIN (AP) — A youth suspected of planning to build pipe bombs to carry out an Islamic extremist attack has been arrested in western Germany, authorities said Thursday.
The suspect, whose name and exact age weren’t released, was arrested on Tuesday evening, prosecutors in Koblenz said in a statement. He is accused of preparing a serious act of violence.
Prosecutors said they believe he became radicalized online and shared propaganda glorifying the actions of the Islamic State group. A search of his home in October found two bayonets and four sections of pipe.
Investigators say the suspect planned to produce pipe bombs and use them in an attack. He got instructions on how to produce such bombs from the internet, prosecutors said.
Another search of his home this week found “further utensils” which may have been intended for use in producing an ignition mechanism, they added.
There were no indications that the suspect planned an imminent attack. Investigators didn’t find any explosives or substances that could be used to make them.
A judge on Wednesday ordered the suspect kept in custody pending a possible indictment.
President Zelensky believes any ceded territory can eventually be reclaimed through diplomatic means
Read the Article Here
Alexander Butler Wrote:Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has suggested he would temporarily cede Ukrainian territory to Russia in exchange for joining Nato.
Mr Zelensky said Nato membership would have to be offered to unoccupied parts of the country to end the “hot phase” of the war and appeared to accept eastern parts of the country would fall outside this deal.
It comes after reports claimed one of US president-elect Donald Trump’s plans to end the war might be for Kyiv to cede the land Moscow has taken in exchange for Ukraine joining the alliance.
“If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the Nato umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” Mr Zelensky told Sky News.
“We need to do it fast. And then on the occupied territory of Ukraine, Ukraine can get them back in a diplomatic way.”
He said Nato should “immediately” cover the part of Ukraine that remains under Kyiv’s control, something he said Ukraine needs “very much otherwise he [Putin] will come back”.
In September 2022, Russia unilaterally declared its annexation of areas in and around the Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia following referendums that were not internationally recognised.
Mr Zelensky’s long-held position is that the territory remains Ukrainian, that Russia’s occupation of the land is unlawful and that Kyiv will not cede any of its territory in order to strike a peace deal.
Quote:Beirut — Israel on Thursday carried out its first airstrike on Lebanon since a truce with Hezbollah announced this week, saying it targeted the militant group's activity at a rocket storage facility in southern Lebanon that breached the ceasefire.
Lebanese authorities reported scattered incidents of Israeli mortar attacks, strikes and shots fired that wounded two people trying to return to southern Lebanon. Lebanon's state-run media said the wounded were civilians, while the Israeli military described them as suspects who violated the terms of the truce that ended more than a year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that "several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire. The IDF opened fire toward them."
"The IDF remains in southern Lebanon and will actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement," the military said.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said Israeli fire wounded two civilians in Markaba, a village close to the border that has been a scene of intense fighting over the past 14 months. It also reported Israeli tank fire hitting some villages and farms in the south, causing no casualties.
The bursts of violence — with no reports of serious casualties — reflected the uneasy nature of the ceasefire that otherwise appeared to hold Thursday as Lebanese troops began to deploy in parts of southern Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah has based its operations.
. . .
The Lebanese army also accused Israel of breaking the ceasefire several times on Thursday by conducting strikes on Lebanon with "various weapons" and continuing to patrol and surveil Lebanese skies with warplanes and drones. The army said it was "following up on these violations in coordination with the relevant authorities," without elaborating.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has not issued any public statements on the alleged Israeli ceasefire violations but Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah acknowledged the incidents. When asked by reporters how Hezbollah would respond, he was cautious.
"We don't want to rush things," he said, adding that Hezbollah "has the right to self-defense."
The agreement, brokered by the United States and France, includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah militants are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. As Israeli forces withdrawal, the buffer zone will be patrolled by Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers moving in to take their place, but it is expected to take weeks, and Israel retained full security control over both sides of the border region as of Thursday.
. . .
While the detailed terms of the ceasefire agreement have not been made public by the U.S., President Biden made clear when he announced it on Tuesday that Israel retained the right to self-defense, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that any violations of the deal would be met with a swift and harsh military response.
Giulia Segreti and Angelo Amante Wrote:ROME, Nov 29 (Reuters) - A nationwide strike in Italy on Friday disrupted air traffic, public transport, schools and hospitals, in a protest by two of the country's largest unions against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government budget plans.
CGIL, Italy's biggest union, said it was opposing planned cuts in spending on social security, public services and investments, while the UIL union demanded measures on health and safety after a series of workplace accidents.
"It is time to turn this country upside down, because injustices have reached a level that is no longer tolerable," Maurizio Landini, who leads the left-leaning CGIL, said during a rally in Bologna.
CGIL and UIL said in a joint statement that more than 70% of workers participated in their strike, and thousands of people took part in 43 separate rallies held across the country against government policies.
"Squares as full (as this) show that we are on the right track," Landini said.
The protest was not supported by a third large union, the centrist CISL, but nevertheless represented a challenge for Meloni, who faces backlash over efforts to tighten spending in order to bring Italy's finances into line with EU rules.
Italian media reported some clashes between police and demonstrators in the northern city of Turin, where groups of students and activists occupied the tracks of one of the city's main train stations.
Despite strained public finances, the government last month approved a budget with around 24 billion euros ($25.3 billion) of tax cuts and increased spending, reducing income tax and social contributions for middle- and low-income earners.
Although the strike was initially scheduled to last a full day, Transport Minister Matteo Salvini this week signed an injunction limiting the stoppage to four hours only for the transport sector, in order to limit disruption.
Others were allowed to walk out for the full 8-hour working day, while railways and freight services were excluded from the strike.
Jim Norman Wrote:Earlier this month, Palworld developer PocketPair detailed the patent infringement claims that make up Nintendo's ongoing lawsuit. The case itself is still underway, with both parties building their arguments, but a new prediction from a Japanese patent attorney suggests that PocketPair may be finding support in the most unlikely of places (thanks, Automaton).
The support in question may come from an eight-year-old Grand Theft Auto V mod — yep, that GTA 5 — which, patent attorney Ryo Arashida told Nikkei Business, might prove that Nintendo's patented throwing/catching mechanics could be found out in the wild long before the claim was submitted.
The Siarasia attorney doesn't specify the exact mod, though he does mention that it was released publicly in 2016 and involved Poké Ball-like catching mechanics in Rockstar's open world. LudicrousBeach's Pokémon GO-inspired mod appears to be the most likely source at the moment (we've attached a video of it in action below), which saw many familiar 'mon take to the streets of Los Santos to be 'caught' by a player in an Ash Ketcham-style get-up.
According to Arashida, the mod features many of the same mechanics that appear to be key in Nintendo's lawsuit — particularly Patent No. 7545191, which relates to catching creatures in an open field by throwing a sphere-like object at them. This, he states, leaves "a possibility that the GTA5 Pokémon mod will be recognised as a precedent by the court,” invalidating one of Nintendo's three key patents by proving its use before registration.
While the three patents were each applied for between February and July 2024, they are related to a 'Parent Patent' from 2021, presumably linking them and their mechanics to those found in Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
Now, Palworld does contain actions similar to those outlined in Nintendo's patents (specifically the throwing of "Pal Spheres" to catch monsters and the subsequent ability to ride on them), but the mechanic's appearance in LudicrousBeach's GTA V mod, which was released five years prior to the Nintendo parent patent, might bring up some questions about the validity of Nintendo's claim.
Of course, this is all still speculation at this point. Automaton points out that patent claims are only valid in the region they were granted, so a GTA V mod might not hold too much sway over the Japanese case. However, it seems that Nintendo is seeking to get the patents approved overseas too, so who knows what allies PocketPair will be seeking should the case come to the US.
Read the Article (and follow-up hyperlink below) Here
Zeke Miller (Associated Press) Wrote:WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, on Sunday night, sparing the younger Biden a possible prison sentence for federal felony gun and tax convictions and reversing his past promises not to use the extraordinary powers of the presidency for the benefit of his family members.
The Democratic president had previously said he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence after his convictions in the two cases in Delaware and California. The move comes weeks before Hunter Biden was set to receive his punishment after his trial conviction in the gun case and guilty plea on tax charges, and less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump is set to return to the White House.
It caps a long-running legal saga for the younger Biden, who publicly disclosed he was under federal investigation in December 2020 — a month after his father’s 2020 victory — and casts a pall over the elder Biden's legacy. Biden, who time and again pledged to Americans that he would restore norms and respect for the rule of law after Trump's first term in office, ultimately used his position to help his son, breaking his public pledge to Americans that he would do no such thing.
In June, Biden categorically ruled out a pardon or commutation for his son, telling reporters as his son faced trial in the Delaware gun case, “I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.”
As recently as Nov. 8, days after Trump’s victory, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre ruled out a pardon or clemency for the younger Biden, saying, “We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no.”
. . .
In a statement released Sunday evening, Biden said, “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice."
“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden added. "No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son.”
“I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision,” Biden added, claiming he made the decision this weekend. The president had spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Nantucket, Massachusetts with Hunter and his family, and was set to depart later Sunday on what may be his last foreign trip as president before leaving office on Jan. 20, 2025.
Hunter Biden was convicted in June in Delaware federal court of three felonies for purchasing a gun in 2018 when, prosecutors said, he lied on a federal form by claiming he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.
He was set to stand trial in September in the California case accusing him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. But he agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges in a surprise move hours after jury selection was set to begin.
. . .
The tax charges carry up to 17 years behind bars and the gun charges are punishable by up to 25 years in prison, though federal sentencing guidelines were expected to call for far less time and it was possible he would avoid prison time entirely.
. . .
Understanding is a two edged sword. We understand that the Hunter Biden Laptop story was being discredited as recalled (HERE). We know that Hunter's Tax Evasion case in California had been on-going for five years as shown (HERE). And we know that his possession of a firearm was a federal crime investigated (HERE) and was found guilty. This was not weaponization nor a miscarriage of justice when these charges were legitimate.
EDIT: I guess Joe didn't realize that this carte-blanche 10 year pardon prevents Hunter from Pleading the 5th, refusing to testify on the grounds of incriminating themselves... if ever called to testify before Congress or the courts for anything in those dates.
Up is down, left is right and sideways is straight ahead. - Cord "Circle of Iron", 1978 (written by Bruce Lee and James Coburn... really...)
Quote:They have literally learned nothing. Nothing.
The establishment media are at it again, now openly attacking President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks with salacious and unverified misinformation in an apparent campaign they are waging to try to sink the president-elect’s incoming administration. Meanwhile, the sitting and outgoing President of the United States, Joe Biden, just issued what amounts to one of the most controversial pardons in American history on Sunday evening when he pardoned his son, Hunter Biden. Biden’s complete and unconditional pardon of his son spans more than a decade and is more expansive than Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal.
Yet, again, what are the establishment media focused on? Well, the supposedly respected and revered New York Times and New Yorker are leading a campaign to try to tank Pete Hegseth’s appointment by Trump to be the Secretary of Defense in his incoming administration, while CNN’s deep state stooges are going ballistic over attorney Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to run the FBI. Others are attacking his nominee for Director of National Intelligence, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii–a former Democrat who left the party and joined the GOP this year when she endorsed Trump–over nonsensical claims that she is somehow a Russian agent. Obviously all of these smears are dubious at best, and frankly many of them are being spread by the very same people who spread fake attacks repeatedly on Trump for a decade–and also importantly by people who covered for the deep state and Democrats including Biden during this same timeframe.
It begs several questions: How did the media industry get so far off on the wrong track and does anything they say even matter anymore? What are the origins of this fact-free information warfare? Why are they waging it? What’s their end game? On whose behalf are they doing it? Will they ever change?
Let’s start with delving into what should be the biggest story in American politics by far: Biden pardoning his son Hunter after repeatedly lying to the country and telling everyone for years he would not do exactly what he just did is a massive scandal. The pardon is expansive, and will take months if not years to fully investigate but some things are abundantly clear from the outset: The president’s actions shield not just his son but himself as well from scrutiny. This pardon covers a span dating back to January 2014, when Biden was Vice President of the United States and his son was working for the natural gas company Burisma in Ukraine. Biden, of course, threatened to withhold aid to the Ukrainians if they did not fire a government prosecutor who was investigating his son’s employer. Well, the pardon of Hunter Biden by his father the president ensures that there will be no criminal consequences for that whole fiasco if there were ever going to be any to begin with.
There are plausible legal arguments in favor or against the pardon. In favor of it, former Biden family press aide Michael LaRosa offered a justification in an interview with The Hill by saying he thinks the various cases against Hunter Biden on the tax and gun issues were weak and that legally the pardon makes sense:
[VIDEO]
Okay fine, even if you agree with that argument–but certainly if you do not–you cannot miss the fact that what appears to be the first ever presidential pardon of a family member this close to the sitting President of the United States is hugely politically controversial at best and perhaps devastating for Democrats long-term. Even LaRosa understands the political problems of this, and particularly the quagmire Biden forced them into by repeatedly lying to the country and claiming that he would not under any circumstances do what he just did.
Quote:President Joe Biden unleashed a firestorm of controversy and further eroded public trust in his already damaged party by giving a shocking blanket pardon to his son, Hunter, on Sunday.
Biden fled from the controversy by jetting to Angola, one of the most corrupt nations in the world.
Biden was wheels-up for Angola within a few hours of pardoning his son for all crimes, both known and yet to be revealed, over a ten-year period. He refused to answer questions about the pardon from reporters during a stopover in Cape Verde.
According to the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index prepared by Transparency International (TI), Angola is 121st on the parade of 180 most corrupt nations.
Angola is rife with cronyism and nepotism, bribery, and conflicts of interest, particularly in its real estate, energy, and mining industries. Powerful individuals and corporations routinely pay off the justice system to avoid prosecution. Many of Angola’s municipalities do not have a court system at all. For the Angolan elite, paying bribes to avoid taxation is cheaper and easier than paying their taxes.
Just two weeks ago, the United Kingdom imposed heavy sanctions on Isabel dos Santos, the billionaire daughter of former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, in a wide-ranging crackdown on corruption and money laundering. Dos Santos has been under investigation by numerous countries ever since her father’s 38-year reign came to an end in 2017. She claims all of the charges against her are political fabrications, while international anti-corruption activists point to her as a textbook example of kleptocracy.
Angola also has major problems with slavery and human trafficking, although the Biden State Department gives the Angolan government credit for making progress on these issues over the past few years. The Labor Department was less enthusiastic, giving Angola only tepid applause for making “moderate advancement” against the use of child labor in mining, agriculture, and construction.
The Biden White House clearly wanted the president’s visit to Angola to be “historic,” as he is the first American president to visit the country, and he is making the only trip to Africa of his presidency. Early media releases touted the trip as an effort to reinforce the Biden administration’s competition against China and Russia for influence in West Africa.
CNN Legal Analyst Thinks the Pardon was a Terrible Move
Quote:CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said Monday on “News Central” that President Joe Biden tarnished his legacy with his pardon of his son Hunter.
Honig said, “There has long been a fair debate — fair on both sides — about whether Hunter Biden is being treated overly leniently or overly zealously because of his status as Joe Biden’s son I think there are pints to both sides of that. But what I think is not disputable is that this is a historic act of political nepotism. Joe Biden even says, if you really parse his statement, he acknowledges that a substantial part of this is because Hunter Biden is his son and that will land Joe Biden on a historic list that he probably doesn’t want to be a part of, along with Bill Clinton, who pardoned his half-brother, Roger Clinton, along with Donald Trump, who pardoned Charles Kushner, who is the father of his own son-in-law, Jared Kushner. So I’m sure Joe Biden understands the historic implications of what he’s done and now he’s earned his way onto that list.”
He continued, “This pardon will tarnish Joe Biden’s legacy. I mean, Joe Biden, let’s be clear here, he lied to us for a long time. He said categorically, ‘I will not pardon my son.’ He said I will take it off the table. And he couched it in very high-minded terminology, ‘I respect the Justice Department. I respect the jury’s verdict.’ Well, now he’s gone back on that.”
Honig added, “But as to whether this tarnishes the justice system, I don’t think I would go that far. I think this, like I said, will go down on the list of ignominious presidential pardons. But I don’t think law students 50 or 100 years from now are going to look back at this as a horrific miscarriage of justice that undermines the foundation of our justice system. There is a reasonable argument that in some respects, Hunter Biden was treated unfairly. And I think that will give Joe Biden some degree of cover.”
Quote:New York Democrats are sponsoring a bill that would strengthen protections for illegal aliens accused of crimes even as Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is suddenly claiming she supports deporting criminal illegal immigrants.
As the country turned to favor President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to deport illegal aliens, Hochul performed her about-face last month when she claimed during a press conference that she favors getting illegals accused or convicted of crimes deported.
“If someone breaks the law, I’ll be the first one to call up ICE and say, ‘Get them out of here,’” the sanctuary state governor exclaimed.
This head-turning and sudden proclamation aside, Hochul’s state party does not seem to be following her lead as 31 Democrats have now co-sponsored a bill in the state senate that would throw up even more protections for illegal aliens in the state’s criminal justice system in order to keep them away from ICE officers looking to deport them.
Despite her sudden claim that she supports deporting “criminals,” Hochul has not objected to this bill at all.
The bill (State Senate Bill S987) aims to prohibit the discovery and disclosure of immigration status, according to the one-line summary.
It states that “no police officer, peace officer, or school resource officer” will be allowed to communicate with ICE about any individual with whom they are dealing in the justice system. Further, they will not be allowed to facilitate the transfer of any individual from their custody to the custody or any immigration official.
New York Councilwoman Vickie Paladino is infuriated by the bill and notes that it not only bars local law enforcement from working with ICE at all, it also requires city authorities to act as immigration advocates on behalf of the criminal.
“This is not about ‘family separation’ or ‘helping our new neighbors’ as progressives like to disingenuously euphemism,” she said in her message on X, “this bill is STRICTLY about PROTECTING DANGEROUS CRIMINALS and ensuring they get to stay in our city and enjoy the comforts of our lax justice system. It’s an absolute outrage.”
Paladino is also shocked that state senators from two parts of New York City that saw a huge upswing for Donald Trump in the 2024 election are also supporting this travesty.
“Even worse, two local State Senators who represent my area of Northeast Queens are co-sponsors — John Liu and Toby Stavisky,” she wrote, adding, “Why would individuals who represent the most conservative part of the city — an area which moved dramatically to Trump in this election — sponsoring legislation with the furthest-left members of the Democrat party? Why are they doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what their constituents voted for?”
“The fact of the matter is that deporting criminals — especially gang members — is highly popular across the political spectrum, yet our Democrat monopoly simply does not care. There is seemingly nothing which will stop them from putting criminals first,” Paladino concluded.
Quote:President Donald Trump reiterated a promise Monday to punish Hamas and its sponsors severely if it does not release the 101 Israeli hostages, including several Americans, by the time he is inaugurated on January 20, 2025.
Trump posted on Truth Social in the wake of news that one of the American hostages held by Hamas was in fact dead, and a day after Hamas released a video of another, living American-Israeli hostage in an effort to pressure Trump to lean on the Israeli government to make concessions.
Trump, on Truth Social, wasn’t having it:
Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East – But it’s all talk, and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!
Trump’s promise reiterates a vow he made during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention: “To the entire world, we want our hostages back—and they better be back before I assume office, or you will be paying a very big price.”
The family of American-Israeli hostage Omer Neutra, whose death was revealed Monday, said in a statement that they hoped the Israeli government would work with outgoing President Joe Biden and President-elect Trump to “use all of their leverage and resources to return all 101 hostages — living and the deceased — to their families as soon as possible.”
(Neutra’s parents spoke onstage at the Republican National Convention, and attended the Democratic gathering.)
Schiff Against Watching Patel Become the Next FBI Director
Quote:Incoming California Senator Rep. Adam Schiff (D) demanded Sunday that the Senate reject the nomination of Kash Patel to be director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), continuing a long personal vendetta against Patel.
Schiff has been trying to destroy Patel ever since 2017, when Patel helped expose the fact that members of the outgoing Obama administration abused their power to “unmask” the names of Americans caught on foreign wiretaps, a practice that was thought to have led to the unjust firing and prosecution of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn over false allegations of collusion with Russia.
Schiff, then the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, wrote a memorandum in which he attempted, unsuccessfully, to counter the claims of the Republican majority that the FBI’s surveillance of Carter Page, an aide to then-candidate Donald Trump, was justified.
Schiff’s claims were later debunked by a report by the Department of Justice Inspector General, which validated Republican concerns about the abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court by the FBI in its efforts to target Trump.
During the first impeachment investigation of President Trump, which Schiff led as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Democrats tried, in vain, to find evidence that Patel had been a “back channel” for Russia to Trump. The impeachment report cited a phone call between then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Patel — which proved nothing but the fact that the committee had violated the president’s Sixth Amendment rights by spying on his legal counsel.
Schiff then served on the one-sided January 6 Committee, which pursued Patel again. Once again, it found no wrongdoing, and only belatedly released the transcript of his closed-door interview with the committee.
The claim that Patel wants to arrest members of the media and the government refers to his declaration that “conspirators” who broke the law in their effort to bring down Trump should be investigated and prosecuted.
Quote:Mexican immigration authorities dissolved one of the large migrant caravans moving through southern Mexico as they provided the group with bus transportation to other parts of Mexico and promised to help them with their paperwork. The move comes soon after Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum had phone calls with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump over the threats of tariffs if Mexico does not halt the flow of drugs, migrants, and asylum seekers headed north.
Over the weekend, members of Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) deployed buses to and aid to meet the more than 1,600 migrants from the Bendicion de Dios (God’s Blessing) migrant caravan that started their journey earlier this month in Chiapas. The group had walked more than 400 kilometers with the intent of reaching the U.S. border and requesting asylum. The agents told the migrants they would provide transportation to the states of Guerrero and Michoacan. Officials provided the migrants with aid and assisted them in preparing their paperwork so they could petition the U.S. government for asylum.
As Breitbart Texas reported, the caravan had been moving north towards Mexico City, where it was expected to dissolve as the migrants sought alternate transportation north via bus, plane, train, or private vehicles, as the members of other caravans have done in the past.
Despite deeply distrusting the INM, the migrants accepted the aid and got into the buses. The lack of trust comes as the INM has previously been accused of rounding up migrants in border cities and moving them to southern Mexico.
Over the weekend, the INM released a statement claiming not to have pressured or forced migrants into the buses but to have offered them aid.
Quote:A group of four heavily armed men released a video on Sunday afternoon threatening Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich and the governor of Santa Fe Province Maximiliano Pullaro, promising a wave of violence in Buenos Aires.
In the roughly two-minute video, the four hooded individuals — described by the Argentine government as members of a narco-terrorist gang — threatened both Bullrich and Pullaro in response to the government’s crackdown on violent gangs in the Santa Fe city of Rosario, a city widely described as the most violent in Argentina.
The men claimed that they are “installed” in Buenos Aires and will start “leaving dead people here,” stressing that the fight for the territory “will never end.” Each of the four men is seen wielding a weapon that Argentine outlets reportedly identified as a FMK3 submachine gun, a Glock pistol, an FAL rifle, and a 12-gauge shotgun.
“This video goes out to you, Pullaro and Bullrich. First of all, tell the people that you had innocent people killed and they set up everything to give more power to your gang,” one of the four men said in the video. “You had innocent people killed, they put everything together to cover up for your gang.”
He continued:
Mafia Governor of Santa Fe, do something for the kids. Don’t let them become delinquents. Make work, school. Stop playing politics with the prisoners.
To you, Mrs. Bullrich, old mafiosa, stop muddying the field and adding fuel to the fire, because we are installed here in Buenos Aires. We are going to start leaving you dead here. The Rosario prosecutors are the real mafia. We are all bought. We are going to start leaving dead people all over the capital of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe. We are going for everything. This will never end.
The Argentine presidency released an official statement minutes after the video began circulating on social media, describing its contents as “a clear terrorist threat” intended to instill terror in the population and in the democratically elected authorities. The Argentine presidency expressed its commitment to coordinating with law enforcement agencies to fight the threats issued in the video.
Quote:German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Ukraine for the first time in more than two years Monday and vowed to keep supporting Kyiv in the war, just weeks after he was rebuked by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for having a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The conflict is approaching a pivotal new phase, with the new U.S. administration of Donald Trump taking office next month and potentially determining the trajectory of the war after the president-elect´s pledge to end the fighting.
Ukraine is sensitive to whether cracks might be appearing in the unity of its Western allies to keep helping it against Russia, as Putin banks on outlasting the West’s commitment to Ukraine.
With the war soon to enter its fourth year, Zelenskyy said he disagreed with Scholz´s call with Putin. Zelenskyy said it could prompt phone calls with other leaders, possibly reducing Putin´s international isolation and legitimizing his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Scholz, meanwhile, defended the call, explaining he wanted to remind Putin that Ukraine is a sovereign and independent state that should be able to decide its own future. He also stressed that he conveyed to Putin that Ukraine is not alone and that its partners will continue their support.
Germany is Ukraine’s second-largest backer after the United States, and a vociferous supporter, but Scholz has refused to budge on two of Zelenskyy´s key requests: supplying German- and Swedish-made Taurus long-range missiles to Ukraine and inviting it to join NATO quickly.
Quote:Volkswagen workers launched rolling two-hour strikes Monday at nine plants across Germany to underscore their resistance to pay cuts and factory closures the company says are necessary to cope with a slack European auto market.
The work stoppages included the company’s base plant at Wolfsburg, where workers rallied against a cost-cutting drive by the automaker´s management in which they face the threat of the company’s first plant closures in its home country.
Volkswagen argues that it must lower costs in Germany to levels achieved by competitors and by Volkswagen plants in eastern Europe and South America. Chief employee representative Daniela Cavallo has said employees should not shoulder the burden of management failures to develop attractive products and come up with a cheaper, entry-level electric vehicle.
“We demand that all make their contribution – management and the shareholder side as well,” Cavallo said at the rally in Wolfsburg as employees drummed, whistled and clapped.
She said the next round of talks in a week’s time “is likely to set the course – rapprochement or escalation. We are ready for both.”
The so-called warning strikes, a common tactic in German wage negotiations, are taking place as part of talks for a new labor agreement after a mandatory peace period that bars strikes expired on Sunday. The IG Metall industrial union said any job actions beyond those occurring on Monday would be announced later.
Quote:The neo-liberal French government is likely headed toward collapse this week after Marine Le Pen’s National Rally confirmed that it would join with the left on a motion of no confidence after Prime Minister Michel Barnier attempted to push through financial austerity measures through without a vote in the parliament.
After weeks of negotiations, Prime Minister Michel Barnier turned to a controversial legal loophole in the French constitution, article 49.3, which allows his government to pass through effective cuts to social security benefits without a vote in the National Assembly.
Barnier, the former EU Brexit negotiator, was installed in the Hôtel Matignon as PM by President Emmanuel Macron in September following a three-way split in the parliament after Macron’s disastrous decision to call for snap legislative elections in July following his party’s drubbing to Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) party in the EU elections in June.
The centrist establishment Les Républicains politician was pitched as a steady hand to steer the French state through the country’s deep political divide and the looming debt crisis, which threatens to see EU funding cut unless fiscal reforms are implemented. In total, Barnier has called for 60 billion euros ($63 billion) in tax hikes and spending cuts in his contentious budget.
Appearing before the National Assembly at the Palais Bourbon on Monday, Barnier said per Le Figaro that he had “reached the end of the dialogue” and therefore said that he would turn to deploying article 49.3 to push through a measure to delay inflation adjustments to social security payments to seniors, a move which his government has claimed would save the country around €4 billion, but which opponents argue puts undue cost on the elderly.
Immediately after Barnier’s statement, leader of the far-left La France Insoumise party — the main force within the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) political alliance, Mathilde Panot announced a measure to censure the government.
While the left has been attempting to overthrow the government for months, claiming that it was the winner of the election — despite the NFP receiving far fewer votes than the National Rally — this time they were joined by the Le Pen faction, nearly guaranteeing a no confidence measure will succeed.
National Rally President Jordan Bardella said: “There is no way out for a government that reconnects with the thread of Macronism, which refuses to take into account the social emergency at the end of the month and which ignores the need to relaunch growth.
Quote:Violence erupted in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Sunday, the fourth day of massive protests that began after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze suspended talks to join the European Union (EU).
Dozens of people have been hospitalized and Kobakhidze has threatened mass arrests unless the demonstrators disperse.
Georgians have long desired to join the EU. The matter grew more urgent after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, understandably alarming the population of a former Soviet satellite state that had already suffered through its own Russian invasion in 2008. Roughly a fifth of Georgia’s territory is still occupied by Russian troops over 15 years later.
Georgia filed its application to join the EU in March 2022, a month after the Ukraine invasion began. Polls show that about 80 percent of the Georgian population supported the application. Unfortunately for them, the pro-Russian ruling party Georgian Dream (GD) and its billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili were among the 20 percent that would rather not become part of Europe.
Georgian Dream was founded in 2012 by Ivanishvili, the richest and most influential man in Georgia. Much of his wealth was acquired by doing business in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Even as most Georgians longed to join the Western world, Ivanishvili was denouncing Western influence and demanding closer ties with Moscow.
GD cemented its grip on power with an October parliamentary election denounced by the opposition — and by many foreign observers — as rigged. The outgoing president, Salome Zourabichvili, denounced the election as a “constitutional coup” and said the “illegitimate” GD government has “declared war on its own people.”
Zourabichvili is threatening to remain in office after her term expires in December, holding her seat until a “new legitimate president” is elected.
"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.
Quote:Brian Thompson, the slain CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was gunned down on Wednesday while top executives at his company have reportedly been under investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for alleged insider trading and a monopoly.
“Multiple senior executives at UnitedHealthcare have been under investigation by the Department of Justice, though it is not clear if CEO Brian Thompson was part of that investigation before his murder,” reported Fox Business.
“There were reports that the executives were accused of insider trading and fraud, and last year the DOJ launched a probe into whether the nation’s largest insurer was unfairly restricting competitors and running a monopoly,” it added.
Lawsuits were filed by the DOJ in conjunction with attorneys general from Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York to block the $3.3 billion acquisition of rival health and hospice provider Amedisys, which would have eliminated the competition. Attorney General Merrick Garland said last month that the merger could harm vulnerable patients.
“We are challenging this merger because home health and hospice patients and their families experiencing some of the most difficult moments of their lives deserve affordable, high quality care options,” said Garland. “The Justice Department will not hesitate to check unlawful consolidation and monopolization in the healthcare market that threatens to harm vulnerable patients, their families, and health care workers.”
“American healthcare is unwell. Unless this $3.3 billion transaction is stopped, UnitedHealth Group will further extend its grip to home health and hospice care, threatening seniors, their families and nurses,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.
The company also experienced a major hacking scandal earlier this year in which large numbers of Americans’ personal data was lost.
As Breitbart News reported on Wednesday, the NYPD characterized the killing of Brian Thompson as a “brazen targeted attack” after the CEO was shot and killed outside his hotel in Manhattan by a masked gunman.
“The attacker fired more than once–striking Thompson more than once–and was able to clear jams in the gun as he was firing. The attacker’s ability to clear jams in the gun leads Kenny to believe the attacker was ‘proficient in the use of firearms,'” reported Breitbart News.
“The attacker fled the scene on an E-City bike and was last seen ‘riding into Central Park at Central Drive,'” it added.
Quote:The NYPD released photos drawn from surveillance footage showing the suspected killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Breitbart News reported that 50-year-old Thompson was shot and killed outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan just after 6:45 a.m. on Wednesday.
The NYPD held a late morning press conference and made clear they believe the killing was targeted, not random.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny pointed out that the suspect was wearing a “distinctive gray backpack,” black face mask, light brown jacket, and black and white sneakers. He said the suspect “[ignored] numerous other pedestrians,” approached Thompson from behind, and shot him in the back.
...
The suspected killer fired more than once–striking Thompson more than once–and was able to clear jams in the gun as he was firing. The attacker’s ability to clear jams in the gun leads Kenny to believe the attacker was “proficient in the use of firearms.”
The NYPD is asking anyone with information on the suspect or the incident to contact the department at 1(800)577-TIPS.
Quote:The Biden administration might be in its final days but that doesn’t mean the flow of lethal U.S. weaponry to Ukraine shows any sign of slowing. Far from it.
That was confirmed Monday when an additional $725 million in military assistance, including counter-drone systems and munitions for its High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), was announced by the White House.
AP reports it is unclear whether the munitions for the HIMARS are the coveted ATACMS — the Army Tactical Missile System — but Ukraine has been pressing for more of the longer-range missiles to strike additional targets inside Russia.
The package also includes more of the anti-personnel land mines Ukraine seeks to slow Russian and North Korean ground forces in Russia’s Kursk region and comes on the back of the billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds already used to support Kiev in its fight against Russia.
President Joe Biden has pledged to spend all of the military assistance funds Congress approved this year for Ukraine before the end of his administration on Jan. 20, which before Monday’s announcement included about $7.1 billion in weapons that would be drawn from the Pentagon’s stockpiles.
The latest package of support comes after President-elect Donald Trump vowed to end the conflict as a priority upon assuming office.
In a major shift, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signaled on Friday an an offer of NATO membership to territory under Kyiv’s control could end “the hot stage of the war.”
Quote:Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said on Wednesday that there should not be more aid for Ukraine ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Johnson said that the decision to provide more aid for Ukraine should fall on Trump when he becomes the president again in January.
“As we predicted and as I said to all of you weeks before the election, if Donald Trump is elected it will change the dynamic of the Russian war on Ukraine, and we’re seeing that happen,” the Louisiana leader of the House said during a House Republican leadership press conference. He added that Trump’s electoral victory will change the dynamic of the protracted conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
“So it is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now, we have a newly elected president and we’re going to wait and take the new commander in chief’s direction on all that, so I don’t expect any Ukraine funding to come up now,” Johnson continued.
The Biden White House called for $8 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, which includes providing military equipment to Ukraine, funding training of its armed forces, and more. Another $16 billion was requested for the Department of Defense (DOD) to send more supplies to Ukraine.
Trump said in September he would seek to end the Ukraine-Russia conflict as president-elect, even before he takes office:
I want to get Russia to settle up with Ukraine and stop this — millions of people being killed, far greater than the number you read about. But I want to get that done before I even take office, I want to get that done as president-elect, because it has to be solved — too many people dying, too many cities are just in rubble right now, you look at the cultures just being destroyed. We’ve got to get that done, and I’ll get it done. There wouldn’t have been an October 7th, there wouldn’t have been Russia attacking Ukraine, there wouldn’t be inflation, all this inflation which has hurt people so badly. You wouldn’t have had that horrible type of withdrawal — we were getting out of Afghanistan, but with dignity and strength — that was the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. And frankly Russia would have never gone into Ukraine if it weren’t for that. They looked at that and they said, “This country is no longer run by Trump. This country is run by stupid people.”
In late November, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said that the “hot war” with Russia could end if Ukraine is guaranteed protection under a “NATO umbrella” while the country seeks to retake territories controlled by Russia “diplomatically.”
Would Biden Pardon Cheney, Schiff & Fauci as Well?
Quote:President Joe Biden is weighing preemptive pardons for his allies in Congress and current and former federal officials, senior Democrats familiar with the discussions told Politico’s Jonathan Martin.
Receiving a preemptive pardon would indicate an admission of guilt, although some Democrats claim a preemptive pardon would only be intended to block President-elect Donald Trump from cleaning up Washington.
If Biden delivered preemptive pardons, it would fulfill the request of Democrats and media allies.
Politico reported on the potential pardons:
The deliberations touch on pardoning those currently in office, elected and appointed, as well as former officials who’ve angered Trump and his loyalists.
Those who could face exposure include such members of Congress’ Jan. 6 Committee as Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Trump has previously said––Cheney “should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!” Also mentioned by Biden’s aides for a pardon is Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who became a lightning rod for criticism from the right during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The West Wing deliberations have been organized by White House counsel Ed Siskel but include a range of other aides, including chief of staff Jeff Zients. The president himself, who was intensely focused on his son’s pardon, has not been brought into the broader pardon discussions yet, according to people familiar with the deliberations.
A White House spokesperson declined to confirm or deny the discussions to Politico.
For weeks, Democrats and media allies urged Biden to offer preemptive pardons to his allies, Breitbart News reported Wednesday.
Democrats & Republicans Pressing NY Governor & NYC Mayor to Suspend State Law
Quote:New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) are under mounting pressure to suspend the city and state’s sanctuary policy that shields criminal illegal aliens from deportation.
Since President-Elect Donald Trump’s victory last month, Adams and Hochul have both voiced support for aiding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents with deporting criminal illegal aliens from New York — one of the nation’s largest sanctuary states.
“Someone breaks the law, I’ll be the first one to call up ICE and say, ‘Get them out of here,'” Hochul said during a press conference last month.
Democrats and Republicans on the New York City Council are now urging Hochul to back up her words and suspend the state’s sanctuary law that bans local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE agents.
“The recent surge in violent crime, including incidents involving migrant gangs in Central Park and Queens parks — where they have been reported to be raping, robbing, assaulting, and even shooting at police officers — demands immediate and decisive action,” the coalition of councilmembers write to Hochul:
We urge you to consider issuing an executive order under the emergency powers granted to your office that would allow New York City to temporarily waive its sanctuary city laws. This would enable federal agencies, including ICE, to work more effectively with local law enforcement to address these grave threats. During the COVID-19 pandemic, your office and that of your predecessor utilized executive orders to respond swiftly to the crisis. We believe that the current situation, with its potential for terror-related activities and the escalating violence in the city, warrants a similar response. [Emphasis added]
The letter was led by Robert Holden (D-Queens) and signed by Joseph Borelli (R-Staten Island), Inna Vernikov (R-Brooklyn), David Carr (R-Staten Island), Kalman Yeger (R-Brooklyn), Joann Ariola (R-Queens), Vickie Paladino (R-Queens), Kristy Marmorato (R-Bronx), and Susan Zhuang (D-Brooklyn).
Similarly, Holden sent a letter to Adams pressing him to begin lobbying in opposition to New York City’s sanctuary policy. In particular, Holden said Adams should start by reopening the shuttered ICE office at Rikers Island.
Quote:A German military helicopter was fired upon by a Russian ship in the Baltic Sea, the latest escalation in tensions between Moscow and the West, a report in German media states.
A Bundeswehr (Federal German armed forces) helicopter was shot at by a Russian ship in the Baltic Sea with a signalling flare, the German Press Agency (DPA) has said. When this event is alleged to have taken place has not been made clear, but Deutsche Welle states the Russian ship responsible for the dangerous act was a “tanker”.
A signal flare launcher is generally a gun in the conventional sense and fires a rocket-propelled pyrotechnic that gives off a great deal of heat and light to assist in search and rescue operations, or for other communications at sea. Other forms of flares are used as countermeasures, as the emission of heat and light can be used to protect ships, tanks, aircraft and missiles by confusing missiles trying to seek heat or other radio-wave signatures.
While they are not meant as weapons, the directed energy and high heat could pose some risk, particularly to aviation.
The Baltic Sea incident appears to have come to light after it was referred to obliquely by German Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock at the side-lines of a NATO conference. Concerns about the state of relations between Russia and the West are high, and talk of escalation is widespread in European capitals. At the time of publication, Germany’s defence ministry has only no-commented on the claims raised by the DPA.
The firing of a flare directly at a helicopter was by a legally civilian ship. Yet on one hand the use of ostensibly merchant vessels to engage in hybrid warfare-style attacks has already been recently alleged, and on the other Moscow has a very long history of disguising military ships as civilian.
The use of signal flares is a very clear return to the behaviour of the Russian fleet at the height of the Cold War when confrontations with non-lethal techniques were commonplace. As recorded by former top U.S. Admiral “Bud” Zumwalt Jr., American fleets were frequently locked in “an extremely dangerous, but exhilarating, running game of chicken” with the Russians who worked to make life as difficult as possible for American sailors without actually opening fire on them.
Quote:The government of France has fallen for the second time this year, as a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Michel Barnier was passed by the National Assembly on Wednesday, giving the former Eurocrat the ignominious distinction of being the shortest tenured prime minister in modern French history.
Just 91 days after being installed in the Hôtel Matignon by President Macron, Michel Barnier saw his government collapse on Wednesday, as Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally (RN) party joined onto a censure motion to dethrone the government launched by the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) bloc, Le Figaro reports.
While Le Pen and her faction gave Barnier’s government benefit of the doubt support following July’s snap legislative elections, in which the National Assembly was left in a three-way split between the leftist NFP, the National Rally, and neo-liberal Macronists, Prime Minister Barnier’s move on Monday to invoke a constitutional loophole in an attempt to push through effective cuts to social security payments to seniors without a vote in the parliament, saw Le Pen revoke her support from the government and announce her support for the NFP’s no confidence vote.
The motion passed the National Assembly on Wednesday as 331 MPs voted in favour of collapsing the government, far surpassing the 289 needed to pass. It marks the first time since 1962 that a government in Paris was ousted by parliamentary vote. Having only served 91 days in the post, former Eurocrat and top Brexit villain Barnier now owns the title for the least time spent as prime minister, behind Pierre Bérégovoy at 362 days, Maurice Couve de Murville at 345 days, Edith Cresson at 322 days, former Macron PM Gabriel Attal whose reign ended at 240 days earlier this year, and Bernard Cazeneuve at 161 days.
In his final speech in front of the National Assembly on Wednesday ahead of his fait accompli removal, Barnier said: “This is reality. I tried to confront it by presenting difficult financial texts. I would have preferred to distribute money, even if we don’t have any. But this reality remains there, it will not disappear by the magic of a motion of censure. This reality will be remembered by any government whatever it may be.”
Quote:Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky conceded in an interview on Tuesday that Ukraine does not have “enough forces” to restore sovereignty over Russian-occupied Crimea and “must seek diplomatic means” to end the Russian invasion and regain its land.
The state-run Ukrinform outlet reported that Zelensky described Crimea – which Russia colonized in 2014, long before Zelensky himself entered politics – as “strategic in principle for the world” and suggested that Russia occupying it is a threat to global food supply and other critical economic sectors. His call for diplomacy follows several similar remarks out of Ukrainian officials following the election of Donald Trump to a second term as president in the United States in November, indicating an openness to dialogue that was largely absent for most of the term of President Joe Biden.
Adding to the perception of inclination towards more diplomacy, Zelensky’s former foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said in a series of interviews last week that he does not believe Ukraine is in a good position to win the war against Russia and “things look bad on the battlefield.” Kuleba, who resigned in bizarre fashion from his longstanding position as Ukraine’s top diplomat in September, also suggested that Zelensky is limited on how many issues he can compromise on by the popular will of the Ukrainian people, who would end his political career if he offers too many concessions.
Polls indicate that attitudes in Ukraine are changing from majority support for warring to victory. A Gallup poll published in late November found that slightly more than half of Ukrainians want the war to end as quickly as possible; in 2022, 73 percent of Ukrainians said they would prefer to fight until victory.
Quote:President Joe Biden appeared drowsy and closed his eyes Wednesday for about 80 seconds during a summit in Angola.
Biden’s eyes were closed briefly while summit members spoke about trains in Africa.
During his trip, Biden vowed to give the African nations $2.5 billion of taxpayer funds for a railway corridor through the continent.
“‘Mr. President I’m coming back to ride on the train all the way from end to end,’ Biden told Angola President João Lourenço. “I like trains a lot. So I’m coming back. You’re stuck with me.”
“Africa has been left behind for much too long. But not anymore. Africa is the future,” Biden added.
Twice, however, during Wednesday’s summit, Biden closed his eyes for at least a minute.
“At one point, his hand twitched and he dropped something,” the Daily Mail reported.
It is not the first time Biden seemed to nod off during a meeting. In 2021, Biden appeared to sleep during the opening speeches of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.
In early July, Biden told governors he needed more sleep and planned to schedule events only before 8:00 p.m.
“I’m fine — I don’t know about my brain, though,” Biden joked.
Biden dropped out of the presidential race on July 21.
Quote:Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Tuesday that China expects fellow members of the BRICS economic bloc to push back against President-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
“As an important platform of cooperation for emerging markets and developing countries, BRICS advocates openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation, not bloc confrontation, and does not target any third party. The aim is to realize common development and prosperity,” Lin said at a press conference on Tuesday.
“China stands ready to continue working with BRICS partners to deepen practical cooperation in various fields and make more contributions to the sustained and steady growth of the world economy,” he said.
Russia, the “R” in BRICS, likewise rejected Trump’s statements on Monday.
“More and more countries are switching to the use of national currencies in their trade and foreign economic activities,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“If the U.S. uses force, as they say economic force, to compel countries to use the dollar it will further strengthen the trend of switching to national currencies,” Peskov predicted.
“The dollar is beginning to lose its appeal as a reserve currency for a number of countries,” he argued.
Lin and Peskov were responding to Trump’s warning on Saturday that BRICS member nations should abandon any plans to create a new currency to replace the U.S. dollar as a medium for international trade.
“The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER,” Trump said, writing originally on his preferred social media platform, Truth Social.
“We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy,” Trump wrote, clearly planning no tariff hikes or trade restrictions on capital letters.
“They can go find another ‘sucker!’ There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade, and any Country that tries should wave goodbye to America,” Trump declared.
BRICS has indeed been talking about developing its own currency, egged on by China and Russia, which have long plotted to dethrone the dollar. China and Russia are particularly insistent on replacing the dollar because they think it gives the U.S. too much power to impose financial sanctions.
Quote:South Korean Yoon Suk-yeol stunned the world on Tuesday morning by declaring a state of “emergency martial law” because “subversive, anti-state elements” among the opposition are blocking his agenda.
Martial law has not been declared in South Korea since it emerged from military dictatorship in the 1980s.
“I declare martial law to protect the Republic of Korea from the threats of North Korean communist forces, to immediately eradicate the unscrupulous pro-Pyongyang anti-state forces that pillage the freedom and happiness of our people and to protect free constitutional order,” Yoon said in an emergency press conference from his office in Seoul.
Yoon accused the opposition of “paralyzing the courts in the country by threatening the judges and impeaching prosecutors, and by attempting to remove the Interior Minister, top broadcasting regulator, chief of the Board of Audit and Inspection, and the Defense Minister.”
Yoon also said the opposition’s move to cut $2.8 billion from the $483 billion 2025 national budget was a scheme to paralyze his government. The opposition wants to deny extra spending for the presidential office, prosecutors, and police requested in Yoon’s budget.
The president’s supporters say one reason for these cuts is to undermine court cases against opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, who was convicted of election law violations last month. Yoon referred to the National Assembly, where Lee’s Democratic Party holds 170 out of 300 seats, as a “hotbed of criminals” in his declaration of martial law.
On Monday, the speaker of parliament froze voting on the budget until December 10.
Yoon said on Tuesday that martial law would remain in effect until he could “eradicate such anti-state forces and the culprits of the country’s ruin who have committed evil acts up until now.”
“The declaration of martial law will cause some inconveniences for good citizens who believed in and followed the constitutional values of free people, but we will focus on minimizing such inconveniences,” he said.
Yoon said these inconveniences were necessary to “guarantee the people’s freedom, safety and national sustainability against the actions of anti-state forces seeking to overthrow the system.”
“I will wipe out anti-state forces as soon as possible and normalize the country’s operation,” he promised. “Please trust me.”
The South Korean Defense Ministry announced that key commanders from all of South Korea’s armed forces met to “strengthen emergency preparedness” and discuss implementation of Yoon’s order.
Quote:South Korea awoke on Wednesday to a flurry of resignations of senior presidential staff, a united opposition filing an impeachment motion against President Yoon Suk-yeol, and a confused ruling party demanding answers from Yoon after his failed attempt to impose martial law on Tuesday night.
Yoon, an unpopular conservative narrowly elected in a bitterly fought election in 2022, declared martial law on television on Tuesday night – a widely unexpected move that shocked the nation and international observers. Yoon argued that legislative obstruction by the opposition Democratic Party had turned the National Assembly into a “den of criminals” and necessitated military action.
“I declare martial law to protect the Republic of Korea from the threats of North Korean communist forces,” Yoon announced, “to immediately eradicate the unscrupulous pro-Pyongyang antistate forces that pillage the freedom and happiness of our people and to protect free constitutional order.”
The Democratic Party-controlled National Assembly rapidly sprung into action, flooding into legislative chambers while blocking heavily armed soldiers, under martial law, political assemblies were illegal. The Democrats have controlled the Assembly since April, when they won regional elections against the conservatives in a landslide on the back of Yoon’s massive unpopularity.
At around 1 a.m. local time, the Assembly voted unanimously against martial law. Shortly thereafter, Yoon announced he had lifted the martial law declaration.
At press time, Yoon has not explained his decision to impose martial law or his decision to withdraw the dramatic measure. Aides postponed Yoon’s first scheduled public appearances on Wednesday, leaving unclear when he would address the country next.
In Yoon’s absence, the Democrats and the ruling People Power Party (PPP) – Yoon’s own party – are demanding answers. The Democrats announced early on Wednesday they would pursue the president’s impeachment and removal as soon as possible. They formally filed an impeachment motion later on Wednesday alongside five other minority parties.
“Yoon’s declaration of martial law is a clear violation of the Constitution,” the Democrats wrote in a resolution seeking his impeachment, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap. “This is a serious act of rebellion and a perfect reason for impeachment.”
Lawmakers now have 24 to 72 hours to vote on whether to oust the president. Notably, no PPP lawmakers supported the impeachment motion, though the head of the party expressed exasperation with the martial law decree on Tuesday. According to Yonhap, given the current makeup of the Assembly, eight PPP lawmakers would have to defect to give the motion the two-thirds majority it requires to remove Yoon.
Quote:The ceasefire in Lebanon, barely five days old, is near collapse as of Monday after Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel, following the Biden-Harris administration’s erroneous claim that Israeli surveillance drones violated the agreement.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported Monday that two Hezbollah rockets had been fired at Har (Mount) Dov, a strategic mountain that Breitbart News visited last Thursday and which Hezbollah claims, wrongly, is Lebanese.
No international authority recognizes Hezbollah’s claim, but the Iranian-backed terror group wants Israel to give up the mountain, which commands all of northern Israel below. Before Israel went on the offensive in the war, the Biden -Harris administration tried to convince Israel to comply with Hezbollah’s demands and withdraw from Har Dov.
Hezbollah’s rocket fire followed the Biden-Harris administration’s claim that Israel had violated the ceasefire by flying surveillance drones over Beirut. As Breitbart News noted earlier Monday, nothing in the text of the ceasefire agreement prevents that, and the deal explicitly states that each side may engage in legitimate self-defense activity.
Instead of protecting Israel, the Biden-Harris administration sided with France, which has an anti-Israel posture and regards Lebanon, a former French colony, as its own turf. That sent a signal of weakness to Hezbollah and to Iran.
With the Biden-Harris administration’s claim in hand, Hezbollah fired at Har Dov, testing Israel’s resolve. Israel responded immediately, with attacks reported on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, including artillery fire.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement (translated from Hebrew by the Government Press Office): “Hezbollah fire at Mt. Dov constitutes a severe violation of the ceasefire, and Israel will respond forcefully. We are determined to continue enforcing the ceasefire and will respond to every Hezbollah violation — minor and major.”
Quote:Israel Defense Forces (IDF) personnel on Tuesday accused peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) of ignoring ceasefire violations by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to “respond strongly” after Hezbollah launched projectiles at an Israeli military post.
Israeli officials said on Monday that Hezbollah fired on Mount Dov, an area near the combined borders of Israel, Syria, and Lebanon. Hezbollah said the shots were fired as a “defensive and warning response” due to “repeated violations” of the ceasefire by Israeli forces.
Israel has conducted at least four airstrikes and one artillery barrage on positions in southern Lebanon since the ceasefire began last Thursday, ostensibly to neutralize “threats to Israeli civilians.”
“Hezbollah’s firing at Mount Dov constitutes a serious violation of the ceasefire, and Israel will respond strongly to this,” Netanyahu said on Monday.
“We are determined to continue to enforce the ceasefire, and to respond to any violation by Hezbollah – minor or serious,” he said.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz added that Hezbollah violations would be met with a “harsh response.”
Quote:Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday for his statement on Monday warning Hamas of severe consequences if it does not free its remaining hostages by the time he takes office.
Netanyahu said (via Government Press Office):
I want to thank President Trump for his strong statement yesterday about the need for Hamas to release the hostages, the responsibility of Hamas, and this adds another force to our continued effort to release all the hostages.
Thank you, President Trump.
As Breitbart News reported, Trump dispensed with the Biden-Harris language of compromise, and said explicitly that Hamas would face a massive response if it did not free the 101 remaining Israeli hostages, including Americans:
He posted on Truth Social:
Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East – But it’s all talk, and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!
Many Israelis and Jews welcomed Trump’s response as a long-overdue threat of force. Other observers, including Democratic pollster Mark Penn — who has been critical of his party’s drift on Israel — also applauded Trump’s post.
Syrian Chemical Weapons Might Fall into Rebel Hands
Quote:Israel is reportedly worried that Syria rebels may seize chemical weapons stockpiles or production facilities used by Bashar a-Assad’s regime as the militias continue their surprising advance against the government’s own forces.
Syrian rebels have made unexpected advances in recent days, taking the city of Aleppo — the country’s second-biggest — and seizing the regime’s weapons, including Russian aircraft and air defense systems, and Iranian-made drones.
Israel has said that it has no interest in either side of the fight, which has raged since the Arab Spring of 2011. However, the Times of Israel, citing Ha’aretz, reports that Israel is concerned about the fate of Syria’s chemical weapons facilities:
The Israeli military fears that amid the Syrian rebel assault and their taking over of military sites belonging to the Assad regime in the country, chemical weapons could fall into the wrong hands, Haaretz reports.
The report says that the main concern is that rebels or Iran-backed militias could reach weapons in Syria that pose a significant threat to Israel, such as missiles or chemical weapons.
If such weapons fall into the hands of the rebels or Iranian militias, Israel would have to act in a way that “may affect Syria and the entire Middle East,” according to Haaretz.
Syria was supposed to have disposed of its chemical weapons in a deal brokered by the Obama administration, after a gaffe by then-Secretary of State John Kerry. Under the deal, Russia was to have supervised the removal and destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons. In reality, Syria retained its deadly arsenal — and Russia obtained tacit U.S. approval to return to the Middle East as a major player on the side of America’s enemies.
Israel Kills Senior Hezbollah Terrorist in Damascus
Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Tuesday that they had successfully eliminated Hezbollah’s top envoy to the Bashar Assad regime in Syria, Salman Nemer Jamaa, in an airstrike on Damascus.
The Israeli military activity follows a tumultuous week in Syria after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an al-Qaeda affiliated jihadist militia, invaded and apparently seized control of the second-largest city in the country, Aleppo. The Assad regime responded to the apparent surprise attack by HTS with a flurry of airstrikes on jihadist targets, aided by its Russian allies.
Simultaneously, clashes began erupting between the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ), who have kept control of some of Syrian Kurdistan in the stagnant years of the decade-old Syrian civil war, and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), which rose out of the remnants of the Free Syrian Army.
The elimination of Jamaa is the latest development in an ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah that began after a key Hezbollah ally, the fellow Iran-backed terrorist organization Hamas, invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, massacring an estimated 1,200 and retaining dozens of captives to this day. Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a tenuous ceasefire in neighboring Lebanon last week that at press time has not entirely collapsed, though Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel on Monday.
According to the IDF, in a statement shared with reporters, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) “conducted an intelligence-based strike in Damascus” that eliminated Jamaa, who it described as a “senior Hezbollah terrorist.”
“The Syrian regime has actively supported Hezbollah, enabling weapon smuggling to Lebanon and by that endangering Syrian and Lebanese civilians. Jamaa was a key Hezbollah figure supporting these operations,” the IDF said in its statement. “As part of his role, Jamaa was responsible for coordinating between Hezbollah operatives and the Syrian military, including supporting weapons smuggling from Syria to Hezbollah including during the ‘Swords of Iron’ war.”
The IDF declared that Jamaa’s elimination from the battlefield “degrades both Hezbollah’s presence in Syria and Hezbollah’s ongoing force-building efforts.”
Quote:Israel conducted a daring mission Wednesday to retrieve the body of a hostage who was kidnapped and murdered, and published an analysis that concluded that six other hostages were murdered by Hamas, not killed by an airstrike.
Hamas has often claimed that Israeli hostages who have died in captivity were killed by Israeli airstrikes. The purpose of such claims is to dissuade airstrikes on Hamas terrorists, and to demoralize the Israeli public. Such inadvertent strikes have occurred, and last December Israeli soldiers mistakenly shot and killed three escaped hostages in northern Gaza who were trying to signal to them, and who were mistaken for terrorists luring soldiers into a trap.
However, in the cases of Yagev Buchstab, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Poppelwell, and Haim Perry, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) concluded that Hamas had likely executed them. In a published report, the IDF said:
The pathological examination found indications of gunshots on the bodies of the hostages, while no gunshot wounds were found on the bodies of the terrorists. Due to the extended time that had passed, it was not possible to determine with complete certainty the precise cause of death of the hostages or the exact timing of the gunfire.
It is highly probable that their deaths were related to the strike near the location where they were held. According to the most plausible scenario, the terrorists shot the hostages close to the time of the strike. However, it is also possible that the hostages were shot by other terrorists post-mortem; it is even possible that the hostages were killed prior to the strike in the area.
At the time of the strike, the IDF had no information, not even a suspicion, that the hostages were in the underground compound or its vicinity. Had such information been available, the strike would not have been carried out.
Nadav and Yagev were abducted from Kibbutz Nirim; the other four hostages were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz.
The hostage whose body was retrieved Wednesday by the IDF and Israel Security Agency (ISA, or Shin Bet, or Shabak) was 38-year-old Itai Svirksy. He was abducted from Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, 2023, and was held in captivity for months with Yossi Sharabi and with Noa Argamani. Sharabi was executed, as was Svirsky; Argamani was rescued.
Quote:Iran reportedly halted an attack on Israel following President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
A recent report from The New York Times highlighted Iran has struck a more “conciliatory tone” since the November election, which included halting a retaliatory attack on the Jewish state.
In mid-November, Iran dispatched a top official to Beirut to urge Hezbollah to accept a cease-fire with Israel. Around the same time, Iran’s U.N. ambassador met with Elon Musk, an overture to President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inner circle. And on Friday, it will hold talks in Geneva with European countries on a range of issues, including its nuclear program.
All this recent diplomacy marks a sharp change in tone from late October, when Iran was preparing to launch a large retaliatory attack on Israel, with a deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps warning, “We have never left an aggression unanswered in 40 years.”
Five Iranian officials, including one Revolutionary Guard member, said the shift in tone occurred in response to the president-elect’s victory on November 5 along with Israel’s assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“They said Iran suspended plans to strike Israel following Mr. Trump’s election because it did not want to exacerbate tensions with the incoming administration, which was already lining up cabinet nominees who were hostile to Iran and staunch supporters of Israel,” noted the Times.
The president-elect has been emphatic in his support for Israel, pledging that he will cancel delays and restrictions on arms shipments to the nation on his first day in office.
"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.
Quote:A Chinese national was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly shipping weapons and ammunition from Long Beach, California, to North Korea.
Shenghua Wen, 41, who had been “illegally residing in the United States,” was charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. The press release described Wen as being a Chinese nation who had overstayed his student visa in the U.S. and who was “therefore prohibited from possessing any firearms or ammunition.”
Violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act is described as a “felony that carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison,” according to the press release.
Wen reportedly “exported to North Korea shipments of firearms, ammunition and other military items” that had been “concealed inside shipping containers” from Long Beach. The containers were then shipped from Long Beach to Hong Kong and from Hong Kong to North Korea.
“It is essential that we protect our country from hostile foreign states that have adverse interests to our nation,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. “We have arrested a defendant who allegedly acted at the direction of the North Korean government by conspiring to illegally ship firearms, ammunition, and other military equipment to North Korea.”
The press release noted that “an affidavit filed on November 26 with the complaint” claimed that Wen had “obtained firearms, ammunition, and export-controlled technology with the intention of shipping them to North Korea”:
According to an affidavit filed on November 26 with the complaint, Wen obtained firearms, ammunition, and export-controlled technology with the intention of shipping them to North Korea — a violation of federal law and United States sanctions against that nation. Wen and his co-conspirators allegedly exported shipments of firearms and ammunition to North Korea by concealing the items inside shipping containers that were shipped from Long Beach through Hong Kong to North Korea.
Wen’s arrest comes months after law enforcement officials “seized” from Wen’s residence on August 14, “two devices that he intended to send to North Korea for military use.” One was reportedly a “chemical threat identification device” and another was a “hand-held broadband receiver that detects eavesdropping devices.”
Quote:California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) visited the United States-Mexico border on Thursday to repeat big business talking points about tariffs and President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to deport millions of illegal aliens with no legal right to be in the U.S.
In recent weeks, Trump has threatened 25 percent tariffs on Mexico for refusing to get a handle on the drug cartels’ billion-dollar illicit drug and human smuggling business at the southern border.
“This tariff will remain in effect until such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last month.
Newsom, repeating big business talking points ripped from the pages of the Wall Street Journal, claimed such tariffs would spur inflation, eliminate American jobs, cause food shortages, and crush small businesses.
“[These tariffs] would lead to, an example … upwards of you having to spend $3,000 more to purchase a car coming from Mexico,” Newsom claimed, repeatedly calling such tariffs a “25 percent tax increase.”
Likewise, Newsom trashed Trump’s plans to carry out the largest mass deportation program in American history, claiming such plans will drive up food prices and increase housing costs.
Quote:A competition for the person who most looked like the assassin behind the death of Brian Thompson, the slain CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was held in New York City on Saturday.
The look-alike competition involved eight contestants, who were all seen wearing jackets or sweatshirts with hoods, with some wearing facial masks, according to the New York Post. The competition, which was held in Washington Square Park, comes days after Thompson was shot and killed outside of the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday as he was heading to a conference.
“I got no looks until I got over here and now everyone wants a picture with me,” the winner of the contest, who was dressed in a hooded green jacket and a facial mask, told the outlet.
One of the contestants in the competition “had a handwritten sign draped over their black clothing” with the words “Deny Defend Depose,” according to the outlet. The suspect behind Thompson’s killing has been reported to have “left a message on shell casings” with the words “Defend,” “Deny,” and “Depose.”
As Breitbart News’s AWR Hawkins previously reported, the New York Police Department (NYPD) released photos of the suspected killer on Thursday, showing him wearing a green hooded jacket, but no mask.
The photos released by the NYPD on Thursday came after the NYPD released photos on Wednesday showing the suspect wearing a black mask over his face.
Quote:White House lawyers are studying preemptive pardons that President Joe Biden has discussed with senior aides, according to multiple establishment media reports.
Democrat and media allies have urged Biden in the last several weeks to pardon many of his comrades, including Mark Milley, Christopher Wray, Justice Department lawyers, Joe Biden himself, the whole Biden family, Liz Cheney, Mark Milley, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and Adam Kinzinger, among others.
Receiving a preemptive pardon would indicate an admission of guilt, although some Democrats claim a preemptive pardon would only be intended to block President-elect Donald Trump from cleaning up Washington.
The Associated Press reported Thursday on the White House deliberations:
The deliberations so far are largely at the level of White House lawyers. But Biden himself has discussed the topic with some senior aides, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday to discuss the sensitive subject. No decisions have been made, the people said, and it is possible Biden opts to do nothing at all.
…
Recipients could include infectious-disease specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was instrumental in combating the coronavirus pandemic and who has become a pariah to conservatives angry about mask mandates and vaccines. Others include witnesses in Trump’s criminal or civil trials and Biden administration officials who have drawn the ire of the incoming president and his allies.
Some fearful former officials have reached out to the Biden White House preemptively seeking some sort of protection from the future Trump administration, one of the people said.
Quote:Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced on Thursday that 324 more “assault-style firearms” have been added to Canada’s list of banned guns.
Defense Minister Bill Blair suggested the legally purchased but now-banned weapons could be confiscated and shipped to Ukraine for use against Russian invaders.
“We’ve been working very closely with our friends in Ukraine to ensure that weapons that were intended to be used in combat, could be made available to them,” Blair said.
“The Department of National Defense will begin working with the Canadian companies that have weapons that Ukraine needs and which are already eligible for the assault-style firearm compensation program, in order to get these weapons out of Canada, and into the hands of the Ukrainians,” he said.
Blair said Canada’s ruling Liberal Party checked with the Ukrainians in October, and they “confirmed that indeed some of the weapons that are part of the program would be suitable” for their purposes.
The guns added to the ban list are all semi-automatic weapons with “sustained rapid-fire capability.” Owners will be required to surrender them before the end of an amnesty window on October 30, 2025.
“The best thing we can do to honour the memories of those we lost in mass shootings, is to act on gun control and to restrict access to the very weapons used to commit these horrible crimes,” said LeBlanc.
“Our goal is to ensure that no community, no family, is devastated by mass shootings in Canada again,” he said.
LeBlanc was alluding to the Ecole Polytechnique massacre, a 1989 mass shooting whose 35th anniversary was on Friday. The killer ordered all of the men to leave a classroom and then fatally shot the 14 women who remained.
Canadian gun rights groups criticized the expanded ban list as a theatrical gesture that would do nothing to improve public safety.
Wes Winkel of the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association told CTV News the government’s move could be “devastating for our industry.”
“Anger and disappointment would be definitely the two emotions, I would say, are the most fitting for this. We very rarely see these types of firearms used in crimes at all,” Winkel said.
Quote:A large explosion in The Hague on Saturday morning saw a building partially collapse and multiple victims sent to hospital.
UPDATE 2100: A fifth body has been found as rescue workers continue their search for victims. Hague Mayor Jan van Zanen said that the search for victims will continue throughout the night. There still has yet to be any official statement on the cause of the blast.
Following a meeting with local residents, Mayor Van Zanen said: “It was an emotional meeting, because neighbors and friends are missed. There is still uncertainty.”
“I have told the people that everyone is doing their best to remove the uncertainty and provide clarity as quickly as possible and in the most careful way. People have the right to that.”
UPDATE 1900: Rescue workers have recovered the body of a fourth victim of the blast. Some 12 hours after the explosion, another person was found alive under the rubble and sent to hospital, however, their condition is unclear.
UPDATE 1600: Three bodies have now been recovered from the rubble of the explosion. It is unclear how many more potential victims may have been caught in the blast. However, initial reports claimed that up to 20 people were missing. Mayor Van Zanen said the public should prepare for the “darkest scenario”, saying that “the reality is that there is only a small chance of survival” for other victims.
UPDATE 1445: Hague Mayor Jan van Zanen has confirmed that at least one dead body has been recovered from the scene of the explosion. The identity of the victim has not been made public.
The original story continues as follows…
Police said that a car was seen speeding away from the explosion in the Tarwekamp area of The Hague, broadcaster NOS reports. However, Dutch authorities have not confirmed the explosion is terror-related.
The police have called for witnesses to come forward, specifically regarding the car seen driving away “at very high speed at 6:15 a.m.”
The force also called on the public to submit any footage of the explosion or aftermath to help determine the cause.
At least four victims have been taken to hospital so far, but at the time of this reporting, searches in the rubble are ongoing for further victims. The partially collapsed building was comprised of apartments with a bridal fashion store at the ground level.
Quote:In a national address following the historic collapse of his government, President Emmanuel Macron attempted to shirk responsibility for the political chaos in Paris and vowed to stay on until the end of his term despite growing calls for his resignation.
Speaking from the Élysée Palace on Thursday evening, President Macron declared that he will “never take responsibility” for the actions of others and that the true culprits of the instability facing France is an “anti-republican” alliance between the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition and Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally (RN) after they joined together to censure the government of Michel Barnier over an attempt to pass effective cuts to social security payments to seniors without a vote in the National Assembly.
Macron chastised National Rally MPs for siding with the “extreme left” — ignoring that he sided with the far-left just months ago in the legislative elections — and said that “disorder is the only project which unites them with the extreme left, and this with the complicity of the rest of the New Popular Front.”
“The extreme right and the extreme left have united, in an anti-republican front, and because forces which until yesterday governed France have chosen to ally themselves. I would never take responsibility for others,” Macron said.
The president also attempted to deny responsibility for choosing former EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as his prime minister following the snap legislative elections in July. Macron claimed that he only selected Barnier as a compromise candidate to ensure that the incoming prime minister would not be “censored upon his appointment”. In the end, Barnier lasted just 91 days in office, the shortest tenure for any prime minister in modern French history.
After trying to shift blame away from his office, the president sought to put a positive spin on the situation facing France — a country currently without a government and no budget for next year — comparing it to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which will have its reopening ceremony held on Saturday in an event to be attended by incoming U.S. President Donald Trump.
“This project was thought to impossible but we did it,” he said. “Because there was a clear direction, a will. Everyone had an essential role for a cause above all of us. This is the same thing we need to do for the nation”. The president also said that he will seek pass a budget before the end of the year, however, it is unclear how he will manage to do so given the divisions in the National Assembly.
It is also unclear how Macron will attempt to rescue his own political future from the flames surrounding it. Contrary to early indications, he chose not to name a new prime minister on Thursday, perhaps suggesting that he has not found a worthy candidate willing to take up the job. However, the president repeated his vow to continue serving until the end of his term, saying: “The mandate that you democratically entrusted to me is a five-year mandate and I will exercise it fully until its end.”
Quote:President-Elect Donald J. Trump joined dozens of world leaders and dignitaries on Saturday for the grand reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, five years after the famed Gothic cathedral was tragically ravaged by fire.
On April 15, 2019, a fire broke out in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, severely damaging much of its medieval roof and famed spire. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of hundreds of brave firefighters and emergency services, much of the 861-year-old structure, including its two bell towers, was saved from destruction.
The tragic damage to the 12th-century Catholic church sparked an outpouring of support worldwide, with 340,000 people donating €900 million to the reconstruction effort.
The reconstruction was completed in just five years after a monumental effort involving some 2,000 people, including architects, artists, blacksmiths, carpenters, roofers, sculptors, and stone masons. French President Emmanuel Macron branded the project as an “insane challenge” and the “construction project of the century”.
On Saturday, tens of thousands poured into central Paris to attend the cathedral’s reopening. The monumental event also drew world leaders and dignitaries, including U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump, First Lady Jill Biden, Britain’s Prince William, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, among others who flocked to Paris to celebrate the icon of Christian heritage.
Mr Trump announced Monday that he would be attending the ceremony, writing on Truth Social: “It is an honor to announce that I will be traveling to Paris, France, on Saturday to attend the re-opening of the Magnificent and Historic Notre Dame Cathedral, which has been fully restored after a devastating fire five years ago.
“President Emmanuel Macron has done a wonderful job ensuring that Notre Dame has been restored to its full level of glory, and even more so. It will be a very special day for all!”
Quote:Poland’s Foreign Minister said Russia should be kicked out of a Cold War-era body created to de-escalate nuclear tensions because it is trying to rebuild its former empire, as several European delegations protested a Russian speech by leaving the room.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made his first trip to a European Union member state on Thursday since the renewed invasion of Ukraine to attend the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) meeting in Malta. A group of the European states who feel most keenly threatened by Russian expansionism — all of them controlled by Soviet Russia to greater or lesser extents in the 20th century — signalled their displeasure at Lavrov’s presence by walking out of the conference as he rose to speak.
Apparently leading the dissenting faction was Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, a political veteran and husband of American journalist Anne Applebaum, who said before the meeting he would not stand for the Russian’s presence. Polish state television reported him as having said in the morning: “Mr Lavrov is coming here to lie about the Russian invasion and what Russia is doing in Ukraine and I’m not going to listen to those lies.”
Mr Sikorski later stated of the meeting: “I told the Russian delegation that we will not succumb to this cascade of lies, which we have heard again from its representatives. We know what they are doing – trying to rebuild the Russian empire. There is no consent to this, as in the past, we will oppose it”.
The OSCE walkout was by the delegations from Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Czechia.
Sikorski said because of Russia’s actions against Ukraine, the nation should be suspended from the OSCE until they end the war, stating the Organisation had been “paralysed” by having Russia as a member.
Yet the demand would undermine the purpose of the OSCE existing in the first place. Created during the Cold War as a means to provide a forum for discussion between otherwise isolated nuclear powers to prevent escalation, conflict, and crises, it essentially serves no purpose whatsoever if the United States and Russia are not both members and talking to each other. The United State’s Secretary of State Anthony Blinken remained in the room while the central European states walked out, but broadly speaking dialogue between Washington and Moscow appears to have been suspended for many months, although that may be on the verge of change.
Romania: Elections Cancelled, Possible Russian Interference
Quote:The Romanian Constitutional Court on Friday annulled the first round of the presidential election after declassified intelligence documents suggested Russian influence operations gave nationalist candidate Calin Georgescu his surprising victory.
The Romanian president is an influential political leader but has limited power compared to the country’s prime minister. Romanians nonetheless vote for a president to work in tandem with the prime minister and other political leaders.
Georgescu, 62, is a former soil scientist who worked for the Romanian environmental ministry and later represented Romania for the United Nations Environment Program. He entered politics as a member of the nationalist Alliance for the United of Romanians (AUR) party, but quit during party squabbles and became an independent candidate.
Georgescu is an admirer of President-elect Donald Trump and has expressed agreement with him on numerous issues, including climate change and pushing back against LGBTQ propaganda. He has also expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, deep skepticism of Western support for Ukraine, and very harsh criticism of left-wing billionaire George Soros.
This week, Georgescu said he intended to ban Ukrainian grain exports through Russia – a major pipeline for Ukrainian grain to avoid Russian blockades – and would discontinue further military aid to Kyiv.
“It is unimaginable that there be a war next to us in the middle of Europe, so a priority will definitely be that this war in Ukraine must immediately be stopped,” he said.
One area where Georgescu strongly disagrees with Trump is NATO spending. Trump has insisted NATO members should meet their obligation to spend two percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defense, while Georgescu said he is “not even interested” in increasing military outlays.
“The concern of the Romanian people is to be happy. They cannot be happy spending money on other things. If NATO is defensive, then it should remain defensive. I believe one thing – Romania has an obligation to no one,” he said.
Georgescu is also an economic nationalist, running on a platform of giving Romanian companies majority control over joint investments with foreign entities, opposing the privatization of state assets, and challenging European Union funding programs that have failed to lift Romania out of poverty.
Quote:Oil delivery to the Czech Republic from Russia through the Druhzba pipeline has resumed after it was interrupted two days ago, the state Mero company that operates the pipeline network in the country said on Friday.
It was still not clear why the delivery was halted on Wednesday morning. The Czech refiner Orlen Unipetrol said Friday its operations have not been affected.
The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary are the only European Union member states receiving oil from Russia. Other EU countries stopped buying Russian oil following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as part of the EU sanctions to punish Russia for the aggression.
The Czechs have invested some 1.6 billion Czech koruna or crowns ($67 million) to double the capacity of the Italian TAL pipeline to eight million metric tons a year which continues as IKL through Germany and to the Czech Republic, or Czechia. That amount would cover the country´s need.
The project is expected to be operational in early 2025.
ASIA
S. Korean Police Open Treason Case Against Yoon Suk-yeol
Quote:Police in South Korea formally began an investigation into President Yoon Suk-yeol after receiving two complaints accusing him of treason.
Yoon imposed a brief state of martial law on Tuesday night that shocked an alarmed the country, stating in a nationally televised address that military rule was necessary to combat the nefarious influence of North Korean communist sympathizers. At press time, Yoon has not named any of those alleged sympathizers or offered the public specifics on the threats that he claimed required the imposition of martial law.
The state of martial law only briefly stood, as members of the National Assembly flooded the legislative floor and voted unanimously to overturn it, exercising their constitutional power. To get to the voting floor, however, they had to barrel through a wave of soldiers deployed to enforce the ban on political activity that martial law requires, meeting minimal resistance from the heavily armed fighters. No reports of major injuries or death were reported during the martial law phase.
By the early morning hours of Wednesday, Yoon had announced that the martial law order was rescinded. He has since held a meeting with senior members of his People Power Party (PPP), who loudly protested the martial law order along with the rest of the nation’s major minority parties, but has not addressed the South Korean people.
The Democratic Party, the largest opposition party, began an impeachment process against Yoon on Wednesday. Yoon is also facing criminal proceedings however on the grounds that he may have committed insurrection or treason against his own government. The National Assembly is expected to vote on Yoon’s impeachment on Saturday.
The South Korean newswire agency Yonhap reported that the opposition Rebuilding Korea Party and a coalition of dozens of activists filed two separate complaints against Yoon for the martial law declaration, which opens a formal criminal process.
“The complaints accused not only Yoon but also former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Park An-su and Interior Minister Lee Sang-min of treason,” Yonhap reported, “and other related charges for their roles in the declaration and subsequent lifting of martial law on Tuesday.”
The head of the Rebuilding Korea Party, Hwang Un-ha, was among the first to publicly accuse Yoon of treason.
“The president committed an act tantamount to treason by mobilizing the military,” Hwang said on Wednesday. “It is clear that he cannot remain in office even for a moment longer. Therefore, we must urgently pass an impeachment motion.”
MIDDLE EAST
Israel's Branch of Amnesty Int'l Rejects Genocide Claim
Quote:Amnesty International, the global human rights organization, accused Israel of “genocide” in a report Thursday — but the Israeli branch of the group disagreed, saying it was never consulted and accusing the main organization of bias.
Amnesty International has long been considered anti-Israel, and lived down to that reputation, blaring on the organization’s website: “Israel Is Committing Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.” The report says that “during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity.”
But the organization’s own branch in Israel, while critical of the war effort, said Thursday that Israel is not committing “genocide,” and pointed out that the Palestinian terror group Hamas, in fact, had begun the war with genocidal intent. It added that Amnesty International had never consulted its local members about its inquiry, which appeared to have been conducted to reach a predetermined conclusion, unlike investigations elsewhere in the world.
The Times of Israel reported:
The Israeli branch of the international rights group says in a statement that it was not involved in the research, funding, or writing of the report released today, and that it “does not accept the claim that genocide has been proven to be taking place in the Gaza Strip and does not accept the operative findings of the report.”
…
In a separate statement obtained by the Haaretz newspaper, several members of Amnesty Israel and Jewish members of Amnesty International go one step further and accuse the report of producing an “artificial analysis” of the situation in the Gaza Strip.
…
Accusing the report of having been “motivated by a desire to support a popular narrative among Amnesty International’s target audience,” the joint statement calls for the organization to “critically reconsider the working procedures and methodologies that led to the publication of this flawed report.”
Quote:Reports from the Middle East indicate that the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has fallen, with the dictator fleeing the country as rebel forces entered the capital city of Damascus.
Unconfirmed social media reports also suggest that Assad’s plane crashed.
The sudden collapse of the Assad regime, dating back over half a century to the rule of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, has rocked the Middle East and could mean the Iranian regime, a Syrian ally, is in danger.
Assad was one of the most notorious tyrants in the world, one who used chemical weapons against his own people. His regime nearly fell in the civil war that erupted during the Arab Spring in 2011, but he was shored up by Russian and Iranian forces.
President Vladimir Putin used Syria to restore Russia’s presence in the Middle East for the first time since the Cold War, while Iran used Syria as a conduit to Hezbollah in Lebanon, sending weapons and advisers.
Assad had bombed rebel-held cities with no regard for civilian life, and torturing suspected rebels and dissidents. President Barack Obama drew a “red line” in 2012 when he said the U.S. would intervene militarily if Assad used chemical weapons, but then failed to act.
President Donald Trump launched airstrikes against the regime in 2017 after a chemical weapons attack, firing nearly 60 cruise missiles at Syrian air bases, which had the intended effect.
Trump reduced the U.S. troop presence in Syria, though small forces remained to counter threats from the so-called “Islamic State,” or ISIS, which still operated in the country. Turkey also had an interest in Syria, targeting Kurdish militias operating in Syrian territory.
But Assad remained in power, thanks to Russia and Iran. Iran used Hezbollah forces from Lebanon to defend the regime, and they were accused of carrying out atrocities against Sunni regions.
The Syrian rebels — including radical Islamist forces affiliated with Al Qaeda — remained relatively weak. But the Third Lebanon War, which Hezbollah started by firing at Israeli cities after the Hamas terror attack of October 7, 2023, saw Hezbollah weakened and its supply lines disrupted.
In the wake of the ceasefire in Lebanon, the Syrian rebels, emboldened by Hezbollah’s apparent defeat, began making rapid advances, meeting with little resistance.
Russia, tied down by the war in Ukraine, was apparently unable (or unwilling) to intervene. Iran reportedly sent new military advisers, but also evacuated Iranian militias and personnel from the country.
Assad was reported to have pulled his forces back to Damascus for a last stand, but there were reports of defections from his army as the rebels approached. The rebels appear to have used social media successfully to project strength and encourage surrender.
There were concerns about the fate of Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile, which a deal brokered by Obama was supposed to have eliminated (but did not). There were unconfirmed reports that Israel had recently attacked a chemical weapons depot in Syria in an attempt to prevent the materials from falling into rebel hands. The rebels, according to social media reports, have claimed they will not use such weapons; their credibility is uncertain at best.
IDF Moves Tanks into Demilitarized Zone Between Israel & Syria
Quote:Israel’s Army Radio reported on Sunday morning local time that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had moved tanks into the demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria to deter Syrian rebels after the apparent fall of the Assad regime.
As Breitbart News reported, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was reported to have fled the capital city of Damascus on Sunday. Unconfirmed social media reports suggested that he had been aboard a plane that appeared to have crashed.
On Friday, the IDF said that it had reinforced Israeli positions on the Golan Heights, the plateau seized by Israel from Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967. (Syrian forces had used the Heights to shell the Israeli villages below for years.)
On Sunday, Israel’s Army Radio reported that the IDF had moved tanks into the demilitarized zone between Syria and Israel, an area that is supposed to be free of any military presence under the disengagement agreement that ended the Yom Kippur War in 1973. In that war, Syria and Egypt conducted a surprise attack on Israel during the holiest day on the Jewish calendar; Syria nearly overran the Golan Heights before IDF reservists pushed it back.
Army Radio also said that the IDF had set up checkpoints throughout the Golan Heights — i.e. within Israel itself — to prevent infiltrations by Syrian rebels, lest they attempt to cross the border. The rebels control the Quneitra province, which borders Israel.
Several years ago, the presence of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) in the same region also caused Israel to take precautions, though none as active as those that are unfolding with the Assad regime’s collapse.
"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.
Quote:The Biden administration quietly extended a sanctions waiver that will grant Iran access to roughly $10 billion from Iraq two days after President-elect Donald Trump’s Election Day victory.
The controversial waiver, which has been repeatedly extended by Secretary of State Antony Blinken despite strong opposition from congressional Republicans, allows the Iranian regime access to funds from Iraq in exchange for electricity purchases.
“On November 7th, the [State Department] did renew Iraq’s electricity waiver for the 23rd time since 2018,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel confirmed last week.
“It was done so for an additional 120 days,” Patel noted – a time frame that will overlap with the early months of Trump’s second term in office.
Under the conditions of the waiver, Iran will receive nearly $10 billion being held in escrow accounts in Iraq that US officials claim may only be used for humanitarian trade.
However, the waiver extension allows the Iranian regime to transfer the electricity payments to accounts in Oman, which can then be converted to other currencies for the Islamic Republic to purchase non-sanctioned products.
It’s unclear if Trump, 78, plans on scrapping the Iran sanctions waiver when he returns to office.
In September, the Justice Department brought charges against three members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for hacking Trump campaign staffers and leaking sensitive information to media outlets and the campaign of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in an effort to undermine the 45th president’s White House bid.
The Trump-Vance transition team did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Quote:Secretary of State Antony Blinken will begin a brief trip to the Middle East on Wednesday with stops in Jordan and Turkey, the State Department announced following remarks from Blinken supporting the creation of a “credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian” government in Syria.
Blinken promised America would “recognize and fully support” a Syrian government that arises from “an inclusive and transparent process” to replace Bashar Assad, currently being led by an al-Qaeda offshoot led by a U.S.-wanted terrorist.
The longtime government of Syria under Iran-backed dictator Assad fell on Saturday as members of the jihadist al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) arrived in Damascus, the national capital. HTS, formerly known as the Nusra Front, has long been one of the many factions fighting in the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011 and launched a new campaign to topple the regime in late November that proved rapidly successful.
Following Assad’s decision to flee to Moscow, Russia, this weekend, HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani – now wishing to be referred to by his real name, Ahmed al Sharaa – positioned himself as the leader of a transition process to replace Assad with a government representative of the Arab Sunni majority of Syria.
HTS is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and America has an outstanding $10 million bounty in place for information leading to the arrest al-Jolani’s (or al Sharaa’s) arrest. Global terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the Taliban have celebrated HTS and its success in ousting Assad this week.
Despite the rise of a jihadist organization in the face of the collapse of the brutal Assad regime, outgoing President Joe Biden has openly celebrated the developments in Syria and taken credit for them. An unnamed “senior administration official” told reporters on Monday that it was “impossible not to place” the fall of Assad “in the context” of decisions Biden made as president. In reality, the United States was not a major player in the events of the past month, as its top ally in Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has been embroiled in its own war against the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) militia.
Blinken issued a statement on Tuesday insisting that the United States would play no major political role in the future of Syria, but stood by to help whatever government arose from the collapse of the decades-old Assad regime.
Quote:President Biden’s administration used $267 million of your money to study “misinformation” since he took office, a new report reveals — as President-elect Donald Trump vows to purge the term from the federal lexicon and make sweeping spending cuts.
The cash doled out to universities, nonprofits and companies peaked at $126 million in 2021 while US public health officials were imposing mandates they later admitted had no scientific basis, the taxpayer-transparency group OpenTheBooks said in its report Friday.
The scope of the “misinformation” grant-making emerged as Trump’s advisory Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) looks for areas to trim wasteful spending.
“When it comes to government spending, the truth is often stranger than fiction,” entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who is leading the DOGE with billionaire Elon Musk, told The Post regarding the findings.
“We’re gearing up to fix the egregious waste of taxpayer dollars,” Ramaswamy said.
OpenTheBooks, which was founded by Republican budget hawks, does not account for the cost of in-house efforts by the Biden White House and various executive branch agencies to fight purportedly incorrect speech, including by pressuring social media companies to censor content.
Proponents of fighting alleged “misinformation” argue that it’s in the public’s interest to weed out false claims — with Biden personally accusing social media companies of “killing people” by platforming posts critiquing the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, as anti-“misinformation” spending surged.
Opponents of speech-policing argue it both violates the First Amendment and prevents vigorous debate and competing narratives that allow for a more full understanding of issues of public concern.
Critics also note that much of what is initially deemed “misinformation” later turns out to gain evidentiary support, such as the theory that COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab that was doing risky US-funded “gain of function” research.
Quote:A New Jersey congressman claimed Wednesday that the mystery drones over the Garden State are from Iran, and they’re being launched by a mothership parked off the East Coast.
Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Republican, said the drones “very possibly could be” from Iran, citing confidential sources during an appearance on Fox News Wednesday morning.
“These drones should be shot down,” he said, adding that “the military is on full alert with this.”
He did not reveal where he got the information. Van Drew, whose district includes most of the Jersey Shore, sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
“I’m going to tell you the real deal. Iran launched a mothership that contains these drones,” Van Drew said. “It’s off the East Coast of the United States of America. They’ve launched drones.”
“These are from high sources, I don’t say this lightly,” he added, categorically ruling out that the drones were being flown by hobbyists or the US government itself.
Van Drew’s startling claim comes as officials have continually told Americans that the drones pose no threat — even as the FBI has admitted it has no idea what they are or how to stop them.
The large drones have been spotted flitting across the night skies across New Jersey for weeks, baffling residents with mysterious arrays of flashing lights and seemingly aimless movements.
Activists Rally in Albany Against Closure of Hotel Migrant Shelters
Quote:Activists and several elected officials gathered outside New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office in the Capitol in Albany on Monday to protest the closure of two hotels housing several hundred migrants in the state’s capital region.
New York City has a “right to shelter” law, requiring the city to provide shelter for anyone who asks for it and has no other options.
Protest organizers said they were advocating for Hochul to intervene to prevent the migrants’ eviction and to provide new state funding to shelter the migrants.
Speaking during the protest, Angelica Perez-Delgado, president of the pro-migrant nonprofit Ibero-American Action League, said, “Our need right now is to ensure that people in our hotels are not evicted. We need leadership and money from Gov. Hochul right now to fund at least six months of housing and related services.”
The migrants in Albany have been staying at a Ramada Plaza and Holiday Inn Express, both of which are being paid for by the New York City government and are set to close this month.
The hundreds in Albany are just a fraction of the 58,000 migrants being housed by the city of New York and the more than 223,000 migrants who have received taxpayer aid since 2022.
According to a report released this year by the New York City Comptroller’s Office, the city is projected to spend $987 million in two years on contracted hotels for tens of thousands of migrants. In total, the city is projected to spend more than $12 billion in responding to the migrant surge through fiscal 2025.
Since the election of President-elect Donald Trump last month, however, the city has moved to scale back its shelter program, closing some 12 shelters by the end of the year.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been behind many of the moves to crack down on services for migrants, saying, “We have been wasting taxpayers’ money for far too long.”
Quote:FBI Director Christopher Wray announced Wednesday he was stepping down as head of the bureau, just days after Republicans expressed a loss of confidence in him.
Wray, 57, told FBI employees in an afternoon town hall that “after weeks of careful thought,” he had decided to resign in January at the end of the current administration, caving to pressure from GOP senators and President-elect Donald Trump.
“My goal is to keep the focus on our mission — the indispensable work you’re doing on behalf of the American people every day,” he said. “In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work.”
“It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway — this is not easy for me. I love this place, I love our mission, and I love our people — but my focus is, and always has been, on us and doing what’s right for the FBI,” he added.
“What absolutely cannot, must not change is our commitment to doing the right thing, the right way, every time,” Wray also said. “Our adherence to our core values, our dedication to independence and objectivity, and our defense of the rule of law — those fundamental aspects of who we are must never change.”
The FBI honcho made no reference to Kash Patel, the successor whom Trump, 78, has tapped to lead the bureau.
Quote:“Wanted” posters bearing the names and photos of murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and other high-profile heath insurance executives began popping up around Manhattan sometime this week.
Videos shared on social media showed “wanted” signs plastered on scaffolding and green boxes featuring a big red X over Thompson’s face appeared on the corner of Canal Street and Centre Street in Lower Manhattan.
Other posters donned the faces of Optum CEO Heather Cianfrocco and UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty were seen on green scaffolding on Wall Street, according to video.
The posters warn that “HEALTH CARE CEOS SHOULD NOT FEEL SAFE” and include “DENY… DEFEND… DEPOSE” — the three words found on the bullets allegedly shot by Luigi Mangione, who is accused of gunning down Thompson outside a Midtown hotel last week.
The “hit lists” are considered a fear-mongering social media stunt to incite hysteria, sources told The Post, adding that there’s no actual person with a hit list.
Remains of the posters on Canal Street were torn down by noon Wednesday.
Mangione’s manifesto, recovered when he was arrested in Pennsylvania Monday, revealed that he targeted the CEO over his disillusionment with US healthcare and health insurance companies.
Quote:A former TD Bank employee based in Florida was arrested and charged with facilitating money laundering to Colombia, New Jersey’s attorney general said on Wednesday, in the first such arrest since the Canadian lender paid a $3 billion fine.
TD Bank’s US arm pleaded guilty in October to conspiracy to commit money laundering, becoming the first bank in the US to do so. It also is the largest bank to plead guilty to US Bank Secrecy Act program failures.
Regulators levied hefty fines, an asset cap and asked to install government-ordered monitors for, among other things, failures in TD’s compliance system that enabled laundering of up to $670 million from the sale of narcotics.
Dozens of people have been arrested or charged in the US in connection with money laundering involving TD in recent years.
In the latest case, Leonardo Ayala, 24, who worked at a TD Bank outlet in Doral, Florida between February and November 2023, is accused of assisting a money laundering network by issuing dozens of debit cards for accounts opened in the names of shell companies in exchange for bribes, court documents show.
Those accounts were used to launder proceeds from narcotic trafficking through cash withdrawals at ATMs in Colombia, according to a statement by New Jersey’s attorney general.
“The investigation has revealed that millions of dollars were laundered to Colombia through accounts Ayala serviced,” the statement said.
Ayala could not immediately be reached for comment.
“We identified the activity, reported it, and cooperated closely with authorities in their investigation. We continue to actively support their efforts,” a TD spokesperson said.
In October, US officials said TD bank employees received at least $57,000 in gift cards in 2020 and 2021 from one criminal who moved more than $400 million in transactions through the bank.
"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.
Quote:The Biden administration announced another package of weapons aid for Ukraine on Thursday, valued at $500 million, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
White House spokesperson John Kirby said earlier the U.S. would continue to provide additional packages for Ukraine "right up to the end of this administration."
Washington said 10 days ago it would send Ukraine $725 million worth of missiles, ammunition, anti-personnel mines and other weapons.
Biden's outgoing administration is seeking to bolster Ukraine in tackling Russia's invasion, before Biden's term ends in January when Republican President-elect Donald Trump would take office.
Thursday's package worth about $500 million included ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and High-speed Anti-radiation missiles (HARMs), among other assistance, according to Blinken.
After Thursday, about $5.6 billion worth of Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) to rush weapons from U.S. stocks to the front lines remains available to Biden without requiring congressional approval.
Moscow's troops have been capturing village after village in Ukraine's east, part of a drive to seize the industrial Donbas region, while Russian air strikes target a hobbled Ukrainian energy grid as winter sets in.
Liberals React to Trump's Nomination as Person of the Year
Quote:Liberals are calling on their peers to “cancel” TIME Magazine after the publication named President-elect Donald Trump its 2024 “Person of the Year” — a title that has been given to well-known figures regardless of political views or controversy.
“Cancel TIME Magazine,” popular leftist Facebook page “The Other 98%” posted on Saturday, along with the publication’s customer service number:
Cancel TIME MagazineCancelation and Refunds.1-800-843-TIME (8463)
Posted by The Other 98% on Saturday, December 14, 2024
“Also BLOCK them on ALL social platforms,” a commenter wrote on the post, which garnered nearly 30,000 “likes.”
“I did that yesterday after a 20 year subscription. Felt so good,” another person replied.
Trump, who was also awarded the “Person of the Year” title in 2016, celebrated by ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday:
[Tweet]
When TIME posted the cover image featuring Trump on social media, they also received comments from critics saying they had canceled their subscriptions:
[Tweet]
Others bizarrely said the title should have gone to Luigi Mangione, the former University of Pennsylvania student accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood:
[Tweet]
Quote:The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) issued a joint statement on Thursday suggesting that the drone sightings in areas like New Jersey do not pose a national security threat based on current evidence.
“We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus,” the statement said.
The two organizations said that they will be working closely with local and state police to “confirm whether the reported drone flights are actually drones or are instead manned aircraft or otherwise inaccurate sightings.”
The statement further noted that some drone sightings in the past have been cases of mistaken identity or may have been manned aircraft.
We are supporting local law enforcement in New Jersey with numerous detection methods but have not corroborated any of the reported visual sightings with electronic detection. To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft, operating lawfully. There are no reported or confirmed drone sightings in any restricted air space.
We take seriously the threat that can be posed by unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), which is why law enforcement and other agencies continue to support New Jersey and investigate the reports. To be clear, they have uncovered no such malicious activity or intent at this stage. While there is no known malicious activity occurring in New Jersey, the reported sightings there do, however, highlight the insufficiency of current authorities.
Quote:Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan ® claims he saw “large drones” in the sky above his Davidsonville home, located roughly 25 miles from Washington, DC, and called for the federal government to “immediately address” the ongoing issue of reported drone sightings.
In a post on X, Hogan explained that he had “observed” the unidentified drone activity for “approximately 45 minutes.” Hogan criticized the “White House, the military, the FBI” and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for saying they don’t know “what they are” or “where they came from,” while also saying “they pose no threat.”
Hogan’s post comes as people have reportedly claimed to see unidentified drones in the sky in New Jersey, Staten Island, New York, and Pennsylvania, among other places.
“Last night, beginning at around 9:45 p.m., I personally witnessed (and videoed) what appeared to be dozens of large drones in the sky above my residence in Davidsonville, Maryland (25 miles from our nation’s capital),” Hogan wrote in his post. “I observed the activity for approximately 45 minutes.”
Hogan admitted that “like many” people who have claimed to see the drones, he did “not know if this increasing activity over our skies is a threat to public safety or national security.”
“But the public is growing increasingly concerned and frustrated with the complete lack of transparency and the dismissive attitude of the federal government,” Hogan continued. “The government has the ability to track these from their point of origin but has mounted a negligent response. People are rightfully clamoring for answers, but aren’t getting any.”
Quote:On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Faulkner Focus,” Belleville, NJ, Mayor Michael Melham stated that the state of New Jersey gave them guidance that day that if a drone is downed “we’re immediately to call the bomb squad of our county, and, second, our fire department has been instructed to make sure they wear HAZMAT suits” like it’s an attack on the homeland.
Melham stated, “On the way here, I was on the phone with my OEM team and we now have guidance coming from the state. And that guidance does say two different things. First of all, if there is a downed drone in our vicinity, we’re immediately to call the bomb squad of our county, and, second, our fire department has been instructed to make sure they wear HAZMAT suits.”
Host Harris Faulkner then asked, “So, if something falls out of the sky that people have seen…you’re to treat this [like] more than a plane crash, it’s treated like an attack on the homeland?”
Melham answered, “That is correct, because they’re not quite sure if there’s a payload or not, and that’s what we were told during our briefing on Wednesday.”
Later, he said that “it sounds like it might very well be our highest-level government, it might be government assets that are being deployed as a countermeasure.”
Quote:Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that his agency was “limited” in its authority to shoot down drones.
Mayorkas said, “There are thousands of drones flown every day in the United States, recreational drones, commercial drones. That is the reality, and in September of 2023, the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, changed the rules so that drones could fly at night, and that may be one of the reasons why now people are seeing more drones than they did before, especially from dawn to dusk. So that is the reality, but I want to assure the American public that we are on it. We are working in close coordination with state and local authorities, and it is critical, as we all have said, for a number of years, that we need from Congress, additional authorities to address the drone situation. Our authorities currently are limited, and they are set to expire. We need them extended and expanded.”
He added, “We want state and local authorities to also have the ability to counter drone activity under federal supervision. That is one important element that we have requested, and we’ve heard it echoed by the state and local officials themselves.”
Host George Stephanopoulos said, “You know, President-elect Trump has put out a post on this. I want to put it up on the screen right now. He says, mystery drone sightings all over the country. Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge? I don’t think so. Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down.’ Your response?”
Mayorkas said, “Well, we are aware of the drone sightings. As I’ve said, I think there are more than 8,000 drones flown every day in the United States. With respect to the ability to incapacitate those drones, we are limited in our authorities. We have certain agencies within the Department of Homeland Security that can do that, and outside our department, but we need those authorities expanded as well.”
Quote:A New Jersey sheriff attempted to track the mysterious drones that have been spotted flying over the state with his department’s own drone, which he said the mystery aircraft “easily evaded.”
Ocean County Sheriff Michael Mastronardy said that one of his officers witnessed a swarm of 50 drones “coming off the ocean.”
“We contacted state police, we contacted the FBI, we contacted the Coast Guard, at which point the Coast Guard went out with their boat, and they reported seeing 13 following their boat,” Mastronardy told NewsNation on Friday:
...
The Coast Guard told his office the unexplained aircraft had a wingspan of eight feet, Mastronardy said.
The sheriff’s office then put up their own “industrial-grade drone” to follow one of the strange aerial devices, but the sheriff told NewsNation’s Rich McHugh that it “easily evaded” their drone and “disappeared out of thin air.”
“If this is not our military, then it’s even more scary,” McHugh said. “These things look like they are fixed-wing and they have multiple lights. I’m not really sure how to process what I saw last night. Both the photographer and I were kind of stunned.”
In an interview with CBS News, the sheriff said the mystery drones sped away at 60 mph, explaining that “our drones only go 40”:
...
Quote:French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday named centrist ally François Bayrou as prime minister in an effort to address the country's deep political crisis, after a historic parliamentary vote ousted the previous government last week.
Bayrou, 73, a crucial partner in Macron’s centrist alliance, has been a well-known figure in French politics for decades. His political experience is seen as key in efforts to restore stability as no single party holds a majority at the National Assembly.
Macron’s office said in a statement that Bayrou "has been charged with forming a new government."
Former Prime Minister Michel Barnier resigned last week following a no-confidence vote prompted by budget disputes in the National Assembly, leaving France without a functioning government. Macron in an address to the nation vowed to remain in office until his term ends in 2027.
Bayrou vows to seek 'needed reconciliation'
During the handover ceremony, Bayrou said that "no one knows the difficulty of the situation better" than he does.
"I’ve taken reckless risks all along my political life to raise the issue of debt and deficits in the most important elections," he said.
France is under pressure from the European Union’s executive body and financial markets to reduce its colossal debt, estimated to reach 6% of its gross domestic product this year.
"I know that the risks of difficulties are much greater than the chances of success," Bayrou said, adding that he hopes to lead the country towards a "needed reconciliation."
"I think this is the only possible path to success," he said.
Bayrou is expected to hold talks with political leaders from various parties in the coming days in order to choose new ministers.
Quote:Germany and several other European countries said Monday they are suspending decisions on asylum claims by Syrian nationals because of the unclear situation in their homeland following the fall of Bashar Assad.
Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees said Monday that more than 47,000 applications are currently pending. It said it would reassess the situation and resume decisions once things in Syria have stabilized.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Sonja Kock noted that asylum decisions take account of the circumstances of each case, which involves assessing the situation in the applicant's country. She said the migration authority has the option of prioritizing cases from other places if a situation is unclear, as it currently is in Syria.
More broadly, German officials said it's too early to tell what the fall of Assad will ultimately mean for the many Syrians who sought refuge in Germany in recent years, particularly in the mid-2010s.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said it's not yet possible to predict "concrete possibilities to return" and "it would be unserious to speculate about this in such a volatile situation."
Her ministry said that, as of Oct. 31, there were 974,136 Syrian nationals in the country, the majority of whom had some kind of refugee or other protected status.
In neighboring Austria, Chancellor Karl Nehammer also tasked his interior minister with suspending decisions on current asylum applications by Syrians, the Austria Press Agency reported.
"It is important to first establish facts, to put asylum and family reunion procedures on hold," Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said. "We need to wait until the dust settles, so we can see what is happening, what the next points are."
Sweden's Migration Agency said it will also pause decisions on Syrian asylum cases, arguing that it isn't possible at present to assess applicants' reasons for seeking protection. It didn't specify how long the pause would last, but said a similar decision was made in connection with the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan in 2021.
In Finland, the director of the Department for International Protection at the Finnish Immigration Service, Antti Lehtinen, told public broadcaster YLE that decisions have been suspended there, and he can't immediately estimate when they will resume.
In Norway, the Directorate of Immigration announced a similar decision, saying that it has put asylum applications from Syria on hold "until further notice."
France says it was considering following Germany's example.
"We are working on a suspension of ongoing asylum files from Syria," the French Interior Ministry said. "We should reach a decision in the coming hours."
The ministry said 450 applications from Syrian citizens are pending in France.
German Politician Questions NATO Membership Because it Doesn't Benefit Russia as Well!?
Quote:The co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Sunday said Germany should reconsider its membership of NATO if the U.S.-led military alliance did not consider the interests of all European countries, including Russia.
"Europe has been forced to implement America's interests. We reject that," the AfD's Tino Chrupalla told German daily Welt.
"NATO is currently not a defense alliance. A defense community must accept and respect the interests of all European countries — including Russia's interests," Chrupalla said.
"If NATO cannot ensure that, Germany must consider to what extent this alliance is still useful for us," he added.
The far-right AfD is polling at around 18-19% ahead of snap elections on February 23, following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition government last month.
The score puts the party ahead of Scholz's Social Democrats at 16-17% and behind only the conservative CDU-CSU bloc, which is polling around 31-32%.
The AfD has little chance of forming a government because other parties have ruled out cooperation with the far-right group.
But it could continue a streak of strong electoral showings, after a landmark win in Thuringia, one of the regions in Germany's formerly communist east.
The far-right party has been a vocal critic of Germany's military support for Ukraine and has argued for a swift end to the war prompted by Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.
"The German government must finally get to the point of wanting to end the war," said Chrupalla, whose colleague, Alice Weidel, will lead the AfD into the election as the party's candidate for chancellor.
"Russia has won this war. Reality has caught up with those who claim to want to enable Ukraine to win the war," he said.
Quote:NATO's secretary-general warned Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to “wipe Ukraine off the map,” and he urged the bloc “to shift to a wartime mindset and turbocharge our defense production and defense spending."
In a speech Thursday in Brussels, Mark Rutte said Russia was "preparing for long-term confrontation, with Ukraine and with us.” He added that Europeans need to brace themselves for the possibility of Russia using “swarms of drones” on the continent. Putin, he said, "is trying to crush our freedom and way of life."
“We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years,” said the former Dutch prime minister, who warned that NATO states might need to give more than the standard 2% of gross domestic product for military spending that's required for alliance membership.
During the Cold War, Rutte said, Europeans spent more than 3% of their GDP on defense, a sum that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has also urged NATO members to pay into the alliance.
Only 23 of NATO’s 32 members are expected to meet the 2% target this year, according to the bloc. Rutte said Russia would probably spend up to 7% or 8% of its GDP on its military next year.
Russia is already engaged in a “coordinated campaign to destabilize our societies,” Rutte warned, citing recent “hostile actions” that Moscow has launched against NATO members, including cyberattacks and assassination attempts.
“Danger is moving towards us at full speed,” Rutte said. “We will not be safe in the future unless we are prepared to deal with danger."
Quote:European Union ambassadors have agreed to a new raft of sanctions against Russia because of its war on Ukraine, mainly targeting Russia’s massive shadow fleet of ships, the EU’s Hungarian presidency said Wednesday.
The Associated Press reports the new sanctions are directed at some 50 “routinely decrepit” ships that Russia uses to avoid restrictions on transporting oil and fuel.
"I welcome the adoption of our 15th package of sanctions, targeting in particular Russia's shadow fleet," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted on X.
The sanctions, which are expected to be formally adopted by the EU on Monday, will add additional entities and individuals to the current list. Details about the new list of sanctions will be revealed when they are published in the EU’s legal journal.
The current roster of sanctions imposed against Russia by the 27-member European bloc names more than 2,000 individuals and entities. The sanctions have included travel bans and the freezing of assets of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his associates, as well as several Russian lawmakers.
The EU initiated the sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago.
Quote:On Dec. 8, President-elect Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that Russia did not help the Assad regime in Syria because "close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead" in the war with Ukraine. In the same post, Trump estimated Ukraine's losses at "400,000 soldiers."
On the same day, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary for the Russian president, rejected Trump’s claim, asserting that the figure originated from inaccurate estimates by Kyiv. Peskov further claimed that Ukraine had suffered significantly higher military losses compared to Russia:
“As concerns the figures announced with regard to losses on both sides, it is obvious that they were presented in the Ukrainian interpretation and reflect Ukraine’s official position. The actual numbers are completely different. Ukraine’s losses are multiple times higher than those of Russia.”
These claims are false.
The figures for casualties in the war between Russia and Ukraine cited by Trump are close to estimates given in recent months by Ukraine, Western defense and intelligence officials, and Western media reports. All the data indicates that Russia has lost more soldiers than Ukraine.
According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as of Dec. 8, Russia's losses in the war with Ukraine since Feb. 24, 2022, in killed and wounded, amount to about 751,910 soldiers – higher than the 600,000 figure mentioned by Trump.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on Telegram that as of Dec. 8, "Russian losses exceed 750 thousand of their people. That's 198 thousand Russians killed and more than 550 thousand wounded" in the war with Ukraine.
Zelenskyy estimated Ukraine's losses at 43,000 dead and 370,000 wounded, which is a total of 413,000, which is close to the data provided by Trump.
Non-Ukrainian estimates of the two sides’ casualties in the war are about the same. On Dec. 7, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the Reagan National Defense Forum that Russia has suffered over 700,000 casualties since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, He noted that Russian losses in the first year exceeded those of all post-WWII conflicts combined, with recent casualty rates surpassing 1,000 troops daily.
On Nov. 10, the U.K.’s chief of defense staff, Sir Tony Radakin, stated that Russia is on the brink of reaching 700,000 casualties, both killed and wounded, due to the war in Ukraine.
On Oct. 28, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said, “Over 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in [President Vladimir] Putin's war, and he is unable to sustain his assault to Ukraine without foreign support."
A U.S. defense official quoted by Politico said that as of Oct. 9, Russia had suffered more than 600,000 casualties in the war with Ukraine, with September 2024 being the deadliest month.
The United States has not provided any official figures on Ukrainian casualties in the war.
Quote:Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that Russia has begun deploying North Korean soldiers to storm Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region.
Zelenskyy said in his evening address that he had "preliminary evidence that the Russians have begun to use soldiers from North Korea in assaults — a noticeable number of them."
He said that according to his information, "the Russians include [North Koreans] in combined units and use them in operations in the Kursk region," where Ukraine has been mounting an incursion since August.
Zelenskyy said he has also heard that the North Koreans "may be used in other parts of the front line," and that "losses among this category are also already noticeable."
Zelenskyy said last month that 11,000 North Korean troops were in Russia's western Kursk region and had already sustained "losses."
Washington and Seoul have accused Pyongyang of sending more than 10,000 soldiers to help Moscow, after Russia and North Korea signed a landmark defense pact this summer.
North Korea and Russia have strengthened their military ties since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Surprised by the Kursk incursion, Russia has since continuously clawed back territory, halting Ukraine's advance and rushing reinforcements to the region.
A Ukrainian army source told AFP last month Kyiv still controlled 800 square kilometers of the Kursk region, down from previous claims it controlled almost 1,400 square kilometers.
Quote:Ukrainian drone strikes on southern Russia killed a 9-year-old boy and set fire to a major oil terminal, officials said Saturday, the day after Moscow launched a massive aerial attack on its neighbor that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said was one of the heaviest bombardments of the country’s energy sector in the nearly three-year war.
The boy died when a drone struck his family’s home outside Belgorod, a Russian city near the border with Ukraine, local Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported on Saturday morning on the Telegram messaging app. His mother and 7-month-old sister were hospitalized with injuries, Gladkov said.
He posted photos of what he said was the aftermath of the attack, showing a low-rise house with gaping holes in its roof and front wall flanked by mounds of rubble.
Elsewhere in southern Russia, Ukrainian drones overnight hit a major oil terminal in the Oryol region, sparking a blaze, Ukraine’s General Staff reported. Photos published by the General Staff and on Russian Telegram news channels showed huge plumes of smoke engulfing the facility, backlit by an orange glow.
Oryol Gov. Andrey Klychkov confirmed that a Ukrainian drone strike set fire to a fuel depot. He said later the blaze had been contained and that there were no casualties.
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday claimed its forces shot down 37 Ukrainian drones over the country’s south and west the previous night.
Russia pummels Ukrainian energy targets
The Ukrainian strikes came a day after Russia fired 93 cruise and ballistic missiles and almost 200 drones at its neighbor, further battering Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, around half of which has been destroyed during the war. Rolling electricity blackouts are common and widespread, and Zelenskyy charged Friday that Moscow is “terrorizing millions of people” with such assaults.
Quote:The United States plans to introduce sanctions against Serbia’s main gas supplier, which is controlled by Russia, Serbia’s president said Saturday.
President Aleksandar Vucic told state RTS broadcaster that Serbia has been officially informed that the decision on sanctions will come into force on January 1 but that he has so far not received any related documents from the U.S.
There has been no comment from U.S. officials.
Serbia almost entirely depends on Russian gas, which it receives through pipelines in neighboring states. The gas is then distributed by Petroleum Industry of Serbia, which is majority-owned by Russia’s state oil monopoly Gazprom Neft.
Vucic said that after receiving the official documents, “we will talk to the Americans first, then we go talk to the Russians” to try to reverse the decision. “At the same time, we will try to preserve our friendly relations with the Russians and not to spoil relations with those who impose sanctions.”
Although formally seeking European Union membership, Serbia has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over its invasion in Ukraine, in part because of the crucial Russian gas deliveries.
Vucic said that despite the embargo threat, “I’m not ready at this moment to discuss potential sanctions against Moscow.”
Asked if the threat of U.S. sanctions against Serbia could change with the arrival of Donald Trump’s administration in January, Vucic said, “We must first get the [official] documents, and then talk to the current administration, because we are in a hurry.”
The Serbian president is facing one of the biggest threats to more than a decade of his increasingly autocratic rule. Protests have been spreading by university students and others following the collapse last month of a concrete canopy at a railway station in the country’s north that killed 15 people on November 1.
Many in Serbia believe rampant corruption and nepotism among state officials led to sloppy work on the building reconstruction, which was part of a wider railroad project with Chinese state companies.
Quote:Former soccer player Mikheil Kavelashvili became president of Georgia on Saturday, as the ruling party tightened its grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country's EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia.
Kavelashvili, 53, easily won the vote given the Georgian Dream party's control of a 300-seat electoral college that replaced direct presidential elections in 2017.
Georgian Dream retained control of parliament in the South Caucasus nation in an October 26 election that the opposition alleges was rigged with Moscow's help. Georgia's outgoing president and main pro-Western parties have since boycotted parliamentary sessions and demanded a rerun of the ballot.
Georgian Dream has vowed to continue pushing toward EU accession but also wants to "reset" ties with Russia.
In 2008 Russia fought a brief war with Georgia, which led to Moscow's recognition of two breakaway regions as independent and an increase in the Russian military presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Critics have accused Georgian Dream — established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia — of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow, accusations the ruling party has denied. The party recently pushed through laws like those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.
Pro-Western Salome Zourabichvili has been president since 2018 and has vowed to stay on after her six-year term ends Monday, describing herself as the only legitimate leader until a new election is held.
Quote:In the story of the fall of the regime in Damascus, Putin should have been frightened by the fact that the Syrians did not come to Assad's defense, says Professor Mark Katz
After the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Russia may lose its military bases in the country, says George Mason University political science professor Mark N. Katz.
Answering a question from a correspondent for the Voice of America Russian Service about what the latest events in Syria mean for Russia, Professor Katz noted:
MK: Russia has suffered serious losses. Russia supported the Assads, Hafez and Bashar, since the Cold War, and with the fall of this regime, Moscow has obviously lost all influence. It is unclear whether Russia will be able to maintain its naval and air force bases in Syria.
Besides, I think it's just a shame for Putin, who advertised himself as a more reliable ally than the Americans, who let Mubarak fall (in Egypt), left Afghanistan, left Iraq, while the Russians helped the Syrians.
But the Russians, it turns out, when it came to battle, were not ready to support Assad.
VOA: What might Russia try to do with its military bases in Syria?
MK: The Russians would like to keep them, but I can’t imagine that Turkish President Erdogan would be very helpful to Moscow in this. Why would he do that? – If anyone has won in Syria, it’s Turkey. What
might happen is that if there is an internal conflict in Syria, there is a possibility that the Alawites – who have been the mainstay of the Assad regime and who live mainly on the Mediterranean coast, where the two Russian bases are – will become some kind of small state. They might very well want the Russians to stay. And I’m sure the Russians would support that.
In a sense, the US has set a precedent. If the US can support the Kurds in north-east Syria, why shouldn’t Russia support a loyal Alawite state? I think it’s possible, but I don’t think Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (a US-designated terrorist organization – GA) will allow the Russians to stay, because they were bombed by Russian planes taking off from a Russian airbase.
I don’t think the rebels will want to forget the past. The fact that the Russians pulled their warships out of Latakia to sea, in my opinion, suggests that they don’t think they can keep that base. And if the Russians think that the security is insufficient, they will pull their planes out of another base (in Khmeimim – ed.) – I don’t think they want to take that risk.
Let’s see what happens: I think the Russians will try to stay. But if I had to bet, I would say they won't be able to keep those bases.
"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.
Quote:Mexican immigration authorities dissolved one of the large migrant caravans moving through southern Mexico as they provided the group with bus transportation to other parts of Mexico and promised to help them with their paperwork. The move comes soon after Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum had phone calls with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump over the threats of tariffs if Mexico does not halt the flow of drugs, migrants, and asylum seekers headed north.
Canada has promised to implement a set of sweeping new security measures along the country's US border, including strengthened surveillance and a joint "strike force" to target transnational organised crime.
The pledge follows a threat from President-elect Donald Trump to impose, when he takes office in January, a 25% tariff on Canadian goods if the country does not secure its shared border to the flow of irregular migrants and illegal drugs.
Economists say such tariffs could strike a blow to Canada's economy.
Announcing details of the plan, Canada's minister of finance and intergovernmental affairs said the federal government would devote C$1.3bn ($900m; £700m) to the plan.
The measures "will secure our border against the flow of illegal drugs and irregular migration while ensuring the free flow of people and goods that are at the core of North America's prosperity", Minister Dominic LeBlanc said on Tuesday.
The five pillars of the plan cover the disruption of the fentanyl trade, new tools for law enforcement, enhanced coordination with US law enforcement, increased information sharing and limiting traffic at the border.
They include a proposed aerial surveillance task force, including helicopters, drones and mobile surveillance towers between ports of entry.
The government is also giving the Canada Border Service Agency funds to train new dog teams to find illegal drugs, and new detection tools for high-risk ports of entry.
And LeBlanc provided further detail on the so-called "joint strike force" for Canadian and US authorities, saying it would include "support in operational surges, dedicated synthetic drug units, expanded combined forces, special enforcement units, binational integrated enforcement teams, and new operational capacity and infrastructure".
The new plan appears to correspond to the concerns publicly disclosed by Trump in recent weeks: the flow of fentanyl and undocumented immigrants into the US.
The number of crossings at the US-Canada border is significantly lower than at the southern border, according to US Border Patrol data on migrant encounters, as is the amount of fentanyl seized.
The Biden administration is reportedly spending its final weeks quietly clearing away unused southern border wall materials to put up for auction — a move characterized by some lawmakers as an apparent ploy to sabotage President-elect Donald Trump’s goal to secure the US-Mexico border.
Alarming footage taken by a US Customs agent captured numerous flatbed trucks hauling away dismantled sections of the steel wall near Tucson, Arizona — a hotspot for illegal crossings — with the agent estimating a half-mile’s worth of parts are being removed daily, the Daily Wire reported.
“They are taking it from three sections: Nogales, Tucson, and Three Points,” the agent, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, told the outlet.
“The goal is to move all of it off the border before Christmas.”
The materials are being transported to Pinal Airpark in Marana, Arizona, where it’s being sold through GovPlanet, an online auction house specializing in military surplus, with bidding starting at just $5.
. . .
Up to $300 million worth of taxpayer-funded wall components have been left to rust since Biden came to office, Republicans have said, condemning the Democratic president for worsening the migrant crisis.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton submitted a motion on Tuesday to halt the sale of sections of the border wall.
Paxton said in a statement that he took action "following reports that the Biden administration is illegally selling segments of the border wall at the United States-Mexico border."
It comes after reports emerged that material intended for the wall was removed in Arizona and set for auction, just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, the barrier's staunchest advocate, returns to the White House to implement his hard-line immigration agenda.
Newsweek contacted the White House for comment via email outside of normal office hours.
Video footage obtained by The Daily Wire revealed sheets of the border wall being towed near Tucson, Texas, en route to a government surplus equipment auction site called GovPlanet.
. . .
A narrow majority of respondents support Trump's flagship border wall policy initiated in 2016, with 53% backing a major expansion of wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border, a 13-point increase since 2019, according to polling by Gallup.
. . .
Paxton's motion claims the sale of border wall pieces violates a May 2024 federal court order that ruled that the Biden administration must continue border wall construction using roughly $1.4 billion that Congress allocated for a barrier along the southern border that the administration had previously tried to redirect.
. . .
To this day, you're gonna hear news repeating that the FBI had no agents at the Capital on January 6. However...
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed Thursday that the FBI used confidential sources as part of its response to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, a revelation that lends clarity to an aspect of the event that has long been a source of speculation.
Horowitz said in a long-awaited 84-page report that 26 FBI sources were in Washington for the riot. Some of them were embedded among rioters in restricted areas, and four FBI sources also entered the Capitol with the rioters. He noted, however, that the FBI did not authorize any of those sources, also known as informants or “confidential human sources,” to enter restricted areas or the Capitol or to otherwise break the law.
The FBI sources who entered the restricted areas have not faced any charges to date, Horowitz said.
Horowitz also noted that no FBI employees, which are different than the FBI confidential human sources, were working undercover at the riot.
The FBI had tasked three of the 26 sources with being in Washington on Jan. 6 to “report on domestic terrorism subjects,” Horowitz said. The other 23 traveled to the city “on their own initiative and were not tasked by the FBI to do so,” he said. The FBI used these 23 sources in advance of Jan. 6 to gather information about the riot.
. . .
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) told the Washington Examiner that the report raised several questions for him that he planned to follow up on, including how four FBI sources entered the Capitol.
. . .
Jordan Wrote:Now when regular Americans do that, they get in trouble for that,. So how did they get in? Did they go through a broken window? They walk right in the door? What’d they do? Another fundamental question is, why weren’t they charged? How much did they get paid? … We know one guy who was being reimbursed actually entered the Capitol. So, we’re paying a guy for information who actually didn’t follow the rules and broke the law. What did we pay him?
Horowitz said his investigation did not include reviewing the DOJ’s prosecutorial activity, but rather it involved reviewing the FBI’s preparations and responses to the riot. He said he interviewed more than 200 witnesses and reviewed hundreds of thousands of documents as part of his investigation.
A House Republican-led panel on Tuesday called for a federal criminal investigation of former Rep. Liz Cheney for possible “criminal witness tampering” with a star witness while serving as vice chairman of the since-disbanded House select committee that investigated the 2021 Capitol riot.
Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Cassidy Hutchinson, a first-term White House aide to then-President Donald Trump, communicated via the encrypted Signal app before her explosive and later largely debunked public testimony in June 2022, according to documents previously released by House Republicans.
Citing those communications, the Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight on Tuesday issued an interim report calling for the Justice Department to investigate Cheney as Trump prepares to retake the White House.
“Evidence uncovered by the Subcommittee revealed that former Congresswoman Liz Cheney tampered with at least one witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, by secretly communicating with Hutchinson without Hutchinson’s attorney’s knowledge,” the report from chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) says.
“This secret communication with a witness is improper and likely violates 18 U.S.C. 1512. Such action is outside the due functioning of the legislative process and therefore not protected by the Speech and Debate clause.”
. . .
Much of what Hutchinson testified publicly later was called into question by other witnesses — most notably her testimony that she was told that Trump was so enraged when Secret Service agents refused to take his motorcade to the Capitol on the day of the attack that he “lunged” for the steering wheel.
. . .
Photos showed that Hutchinson had misidentified the vehicle where the alleged encounter took place and the driver later denied it was true.
Press release by Chairman Barry Loudermilk Wrote:Cassidy Hutchinson’s most outrageous claims lacked any evidence, and the Select Committee had knowledge that her claims were false when they publicly promoted her.
President Trump did not attack his Secret Service Detail at any time on January 6. President Trump did not have intelligence indicating violence on the morning of January 6. Cassidy Hutchinson falsely claimed to have drafted a handwritten note for President Trump on January 6.
A state appeals court on Thursday removed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump and others, the latest legal victory for the president-elect in criminal cases that once threatened his career and freedom.
The case against Trump and more than a dozen others had already been stalled for months over an appeal related to a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she had hired to lead the case.
Citing an “appearance of impropriety” that might not typically warrant such a removal, a Georgia Court of Appeals panel said in a 2-1 ruling that “this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.” Willis’ office immediately filed a notice of intent to ask the Georgia Supreme Court to review the decision.
But pursuing a criminal case against a sitting president is a virtual impossibility. And Trump will return to the White House having overcome efforts to prosecute him and empowered by a Supreme Court ruling granting him presumptive immunity for any “official acts” he takes in office.
The development comes weeks after Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith abandoned two federal prosecutions against the incoming president, and as sentencing in a separate hush money case in New York is indefinitely on hold as a result of Trump’s victory in November over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
. . .
Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia Wrote:This decision puts an end to a politically motivated persecution of the next President of the United States.
Representatives for Willis did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment on the ruling.
Accused UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione stood before a judge in Manhattan for the first time Thursday since allegedly gunning down Brian Thompson in the city, as his attorney griped she was blindsided by the concurrent state and federal charges brought against him.
Mangione entered the courtroom in civilian clothes – a black quarter-zip sweater over a white shirt, tan khakis and orange prison shoes with a “12” on his right foot. He was not wearing handcuffs, but the sound of ankle shackles being removed rang out in the courtroom.
The alleged killer sat calmly between his attorneys as magistrate Judge Katharine Parker read him his rights followed by the charges against him, which include murder through the use of a firearm, two counts of stalking and one count of possession of a firearm.
She asked if he understood what he was being accused of, to which Mangione replied “yes.”
Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Mangione’s lead attorney – who a short time earlier arrived outside Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse relying on crutches to walk – told the court she was blindsided by the new spate of federal charges, saying she’d never encountered anything like it in her career of “over three decades.”
She said she had initially been prepared to go to Manhattan Supreme Court for a hearing at 2 p.m. before Judge Gregory Carro.
“I don’t think they knew this was going to happen,” Agnifilo said, seemingly insinuating that the Manhattan DA’s office didn’t know that the feds were going to have the accused gunman appear today.
She went on to say that Mangione is being charged with two separate crimes, and doesn’t understand how the charges can be so different.
“These seem like two different cases,” Agnifilo said.
“The theory of the murder charge of the Manhattan DA case is terrorism and intimidating a group of people. This is stalking an individual,” she added.
. . .
“Is there one case, two cases, two investigations? Is there a joint investigation? Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like that and what’s happening here.”
“This is a highly unusual situation that we find ourselves in,” she said, questioning the logistics regarding the parallel state and federal cases.
Do note, the charges being questioned are because this was a murder months in planning...
Mangione, 26, is accused of shooting and killing Brian Thompson, the then CEO of United Healthcare, outside his Manhattan hotel on the early morning of December 4, as the executive headed to speak at an annual investor's conference. The alleged killer on Thursday was extradited to New York from Pennsylvania, where he was arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona five days after Thompson's shooting.
Thompson's murder has captured the attention of the nation, with some in society expressing a level of understanding for Mangione's alleged actions. While many also have condemned the killing and expressed disgust at the support Mangione has received, others have said they struggle to feel empathy for a murdered executive of a private health insurer.
The criminal complaint filed by federal prosecutors included several quotes allegedly from Mangione's notebook.
What was in Luigi Mangioni's Notebook?
On August 15, Mangione allegedly wrote, "the details are finally coming together" and "I'm glad - in a way procrastinated, bc [because ] it allowed me to learn more about [acronym for Company- 1] ." The notebook allegedly went on to say that "the target is insurance."
On October 22, the notebook included the following, "1.5 months. This investor conference is a true windfall . . . and most importantly-– the message becomes self evident," according to the criminal complaint. The notebook also included an intention to "wack" the CEO of the health insurance company.
What was in the Criminal Complaint?
"Hostility": The complaint stated that "the Notebook contained several handwritten pages that express hostility towards the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular."
Gun photos: The Thursday complaint filed in Manhattan also included photos of the gun allegedly used in the attack and a backpack that allegedly belonged to the suspect. It outlined a timeline of Mangione's alleged movements surrounding the shooting and other evidence prosecutors plan to present against him in court.
"Manifesto": Quotes a separate letter allegedly recovered from Mangione, which was dubbed my some as his "manifesto", which was first reported by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein on his Substack blog, and later confirmed to be a legitimate transcription by law enforcement authorities:
"'I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: Some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience.' Based on my own research, I believe that 'CAD' refers to 'computer-aided design.' The Feds Letter also stated: 'P.S. you can check serial numbers to verify this is all self-funded. My own ATM withdrawals.'"
In New York on Thursday, people stood outside court holding signs reading "healthcare reform now" and "health over wealth." At least one apparent Mangione supporter was also photographed outside the courthouse wearing a shirt featuring a now iconic photo of the suspect.
. . .
Up is down, left is right and sideways is straight ahead. - Cord "Circle of Iron", 1978 (written by Bruce Lee and James Coburn... really...)
Quote:After nearly five months, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has announced charges against two men over alleged attacks on police officers caught on CCTV at the Manchester Airport.
Brothers Mohammed Amaaz, 20, and Muhammed Amaad, 25, have been charged with assaulting police officers and will appear at the Liverpool Magistrates’ Court on January 16th, the BBC reports.
The charges stem over a incident at the Manchester Airport in July in which multiple police officers were injured, including a female officer who reportedly suffered a broken nose.
Initially, the police were accused of racism after a clip of the incident appeared to show an officer kicking a man in the head. The clip sparked Muslim protests in the area, including outside of the Rochdale police headquarters.
However, additional footage later emerged seeming to show that the police were attacked first.
The Crown Prosecution Service said Friday that no charges were being brought against any police officers involved in the incident. Meanwhile an officer who was suspended following the fight has since been reinstated.
A separate investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is still examining the actions of two officers.
The CPS said that Mohammed Amaaz has been charged with two counts of causing bodily harm, one count of assaulting an emergency worker, and one charge of common assault. His brother, Muhammed Amaad, has been charged with assaulting an emergency worker and causing bodily harm.
Frank Ferguson of the Crown Prosecution Service said that it was a “high-profile incident that attracted significant public interest”.
He said that following “careful consideration”, including examining the video footage and witness statements, the CPS had “concluded that two men should be charged with offences including assaults on police officers”.
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, which had hired private prosecutors to wage a case against the brothers amid apparent innaction from the Crown Prosecution Service, claimed Friday that the decision to charge Amaaz and Amaad was due to “the pressure applied by Reform UK MPs.”
Quote:A Russian ballistic missile attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv early Friday killed at least one person and injured nine others, officials said. Moscow claimed it was in response to a Ukrainian strike on Russian soil using American-made weapons.
At least three loud blasts were heard in Kyiv shortly before sunrise. Ukraine´s air force said it intercepted five Iskander short-range ballistic missiles fired at the city. The attack knocked out heating to 630 residential buildings, 16 medical facilities, and 30 schools and kindergartens, the city administration said, and falling missile debris caused damage and sparked fires in three districts.
“We ask citizens to immediately respond to reports of ballistic attack threats, because there is very little time to find shelter,” the air force said.
During the almost three years since the war began Russia has regularly bombarded civilian areas of Ukraine, often in an attempt to cripple the power grid and unnerve Ukrainians. Meanwhile Ukraine, struggling to hold back Russia’s bigger army on the front line, has attempted to strike Russian infrastructure supporting the country’s war effort.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said the strike was in response to a Ukrainian missile attack on Russia’s Rostov border region two days earlier. That attack used six American-made Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, missiles and four Storm Shadow air-launched missiles provided by the United Kingdom, it said.
That day, Ukraine claimed to have targeted a Rostov oil refinery as part of its campaign to strike Russian infrastructure supporting the country’s war effort.
The use of Western-supplied weapons to strike Russia has angered the Kremlin. Ukraine fired several American-supplied longer-range missiles into Russia for the first time on Nov. 19 after Washington eased restrictions on their use.
That development prompted Russia to use a new hypersonic missile, called Oreshnik, for the first time. President Vladimir Putin suggested the missile could be used to target government buildings in Kyiv, though there have been no reports of an Oreshnik being used for a second time.
Quote:French President Emmanuel Macron is reportedly leading efforts to deploy a European force of up to 100,000 troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers in the event of ceasefire deal brokered by incoming President Donald Trump.
According to a report from Reuters, President Elect Trump impressed upon Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a meeting on the sidelines of the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral earlier this month that American troops will not play a role in guaranteeing the safety of Ukraine following any peace deal negotiated with Moscow.
This has led to President Macron attempting to convince European partners to commit soldiers to the region whether Ukraine is granted NATO membership or not.
“Even if there were a NATO security guarantee, where would the impetus on the ground come from? It would be European so our army chiefs are already preparing plans for European leaders to consider in the future,” a senior European official is quoted as saying by the news outlet.
Former Austrian military planner and current analyst for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Franz-Stefan Gady suggested that around 100,000 European troops could be sent to Ukraine, which he noted will “severely stretch European land forces.”
Gady noted, however, that the number of troops could be met if European powers reduce their footprint in other regions, such as in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Quote:An unnamed American official reportedly told the British newspaper the Guardian on Tuesday that communist North Korea has documented hundreds of casualties in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
That estimate is potentially higher than the “dozens” that White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby offered on Monday and suggests a massive deployment of force by Pyongyang onto the European border. American and other Western officials, including Ukrainians, believe most of these soldiers are operating in the area around Kursk, a Russian region Ukraine invaded in August in a surprise operation meant to deter the Russian advance into its territory.
Reports of significant battle losses for North Korea this week accompany a barrage of sensational reports on the situation for North Koreans on the battlefield from the Ukrainian government, which accused Russian soldiers of burning the faces of dead North Koreans to obscure their origin and claimed that a large “friendly fire” incident occurred in which North Koreans killed several Russian soldiers.
North Korea has not at press time confirmed the deployment of any troops to the Russian war effort, though its state media and its dictator, Kim Jong-un, enthusiastically support the invasion. Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defense agreement in June that many have suggested now required North Korea to participate in defending Russian territory from Ukrainian attack.
The unnamed “senior U.S. military official” speaking to the Guardian described North Korea as suffering “several hundred casualties” since it involved itself in the Russian invasion this fall. Russia initially invaded Ukraine in 2014 but launched a “special operation” to oust President Volodymyr Zelensky in February 2022 that prompted direct Russian military action, rather than attacks by pro-Russian separatist forces.
“Several hundred casualties is our latest estimate that the DPRK [North Korea] has suffered,” the official said, describing casualties as spanning “everything from … light wounds up to being KIA (killed in action).”
The official attributed the high casualty count to the lack of experience among North Korean troops, though he or she also said that “all ranks” of North Korean soldiers were affected.
The Ukrainian government independently suggested on Wednesday that hundreds of North Koreans had died in the war, citing intercepted phone communications in which Russians working at hospitals commented on the high number of apparent North Koreans coming in. According to the Ukrainian state outlet Ukrinform, the intercepted communications included a nurse lamenting to her husband that hundreds from the battle lines were being brought to her hospital in Moscow by train.
The nurse also reportedly complained that her hospital is “freeing up certain wards” for the Koreans, asking if they were “elite.”
Kirby, the top White House official, described North Korea as suffering “significant losses” in remarks to reporters on Monday.
Quote:Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready for talks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at any time he revealed Thursday during a lengthy year-end press conference.
Trump said during his successful 2024 presidential campaign that he would quickly negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, possibly even before taking office in January.
Putin was specifically asked about Trump’s desire to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine. The Russian autocrat responded he was ready for “negotiations” and “compromises.”
“I don’t know when I’m going to see him. He isn’t saying anything about it. I haven’t talked to him in more than four years. I am ready for it, of course. Any time,” Putin said.
“If we ever have a meeting with President-elect Trump, I am sure we’ll have a lot to talk about,” he added.
Putin insisted Russia will not be in a weaker position to negotiate due to recent setbacks in the Middle East, such as the overthrow of Russia-backed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, or battlefield losses in Ukraine.
“You said that this conversation will take place in a situation when I am in some weakened state,” Putin said mockingly to NBC News reporter Kier Simmons. “And you, and those people who pay your salaries in the US, would very much like Russia to be in a weakened position.”
“I adhere to a different point of view. I believe that Russia has become much stronger over the past two or three years. Why? Because we are becoming a truly sovereign country, we are already hardly dependent on anyone,” Putin said.
Putin claimed Russia is “thinking” about whether it still needs its military bases in Syria, implying it would be no great loss if the insurgent government decides to void Moscow’s leases and kick Russian forces out of the country. He claimed the “overwhelming” majority of Syrians want the Russians to stay.
“We’ll need to decide for ourselves how our relationships will look with those political forces that now control and will control the situation in the country in the future. Our interests need to coincide,” he said, offering his first public comments on the fall of the Assad regime.
Putin added that he has not spoke with Assad since the deposed Syrian dictator sought refuge in Moscow, but he plans to do so, and he promised to inquire about the fate of American journalist Austin Tice, who was kidnapped in Damascus in 2012.
As for the situation in Ukraine, Putin claimed victory was in sight after years of bloody stalemate.
Quote:Two Russian oil tankers were wrecked in the Kerch Strait over the weekend, coating almost 40 miles of Black Sea coastline in heavy fuel oil.
Several towns along the coast have declared a state of emergency, while a furious Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Russians of causing an environmental catastrophe by sending two “old, poorly maintained” ships into rough seas.
“These ships were nearly 50 years old. They shouldn’t have been in operation at all, especially in this part of the waters and during this season. Right now, our sea is facing yet another environmental disaster caused by Russia,” Zelensky said on Tuesday.
The two ships in question are 50-year-old tankers called Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft 239. They were sailing through the Kerch Strait, which separates Russian-occupied Crimea from the Ukrainian mainland, when they ran into 25-foot waves and 45 mile-per-hour winds.
Each ship was loaded with thousands of tons of low-grade heavy oil known as mazut. This type of fuel is rarely used in the West, where it is generally referred to as “waste oil.” Russia and the former Soviet satellite states make much heavier use of mazut in their boilers and furnaces.
The storm in the Kerch Strait ripped Volgoneft 212 in half, leaving the horrified crew to watch as the bow of their ship drifted away. According to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, one member of the crew was killed, two are still missing, and the other 12 have been rescued. Two of the rescued crew members have been hospitalized in serious condition.
Volgoneft 239 ran aground off the village of Taman, Russia at around the same time its sister ship was breaking up. The crew was rescued after weather conditions improved.
Greenpeace Ukraine said on Monday that at least 3,700 tons of oil have spilled from the two ships — an even larger spill than in 2007, when a damaged tanker bathed both sides of the Kerch Strait in oil and caused environmental damage that took years to heal.
“Any oil or petrochemical spill in these waters has the potential to be serious,” Greenpeace Research Laboratories chief Dr. Paul Johnston said on Tuesday.
“It is likely to be driven by prevailing wind and currents, and in the current weather conditions, is likely to be extremely difficult to contain. If it is driven ashore, then it will cause fouling of the shoreline which will be extremely difficult to clean up,” Johnston said.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, yet another Russian-flagged tanker, the Volgoneft 109, issued a distress call from the Kerch Strait due to a damaged cargo tank. The third ship is also carrying about 4,000 tons of mazut. The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations insisted the situation aboard the Volgoneft 109 is “not critical.”
I don't recall the Black Sea asking anybody, especially the Russians, to paint it black literally.
Quote:A 7-year-old girl died and a teacher and five other students were wounded in a knife attack at a school in the Croatian capital, Zagreb, on Friday, police said.
They said the attack happened at 9:50 a.m. at the Precko Elementary School in the neighborhood of the same name. They described the attacker as a “young male” and said he had been detained.
Health Minister Irena Hristic said the attacker was over 18, while media reported he was 19.
Video footage published by Croatian media showed children running away from the school building and a medical helicopter landing in the schoolyard.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said at the start of the government session that he is “appalled” by the attack and that authorities are still working to determine exactly what happened. Plenkovic said several children have been taken to various hospitals in Zagreb.
State HRT television said the attacker entered the school and went straight into the first classroom he found and attacked the children.
School attacks are rare in Croatia. Last May, a teenager in neighboring Serbia opened fire at a school in the capital Belgrade, killing nine fellow students and a school guard.
Quote:France began withdrawing soldiers from Chad on Friday, Chad’s defence ministry said, after N’Djamena last month abruptly ended military cooperation with the former colonial power.
A contingent of 120 soldiers departed for France from a military airport in the capital, the ministry said in a statement on Facebook, 10 days after French fighter aircraft left the Sahel country for good.
Chad had been a key link in France’s military presence in Africa and its last foothold in the wider Sahel region after the forced withdrawal of French troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in the wake of a series of military coups.
But it announced on November 28 its decision to end a defence accord with Paris mainly dating from independence in 1960.
“At midday, 120 French soldiers took off from the military airport of N’Djamena on board an Airbus A330 Phoenix MRTT, headed for France,” the ministry said in a statement on Facebook.
The French army, which had some 1,000 personnel in the country, did not immediately comment on the announcement.
The departure on Friday of French soldiers took place in the presence of Chadian military authorities, a move which “testifies to the intensity of cooperation between the two countries in the field of security”, the statement said.
– Shifting alliances –
French soldiers and fighter aircraft have been stationed in Chad almost continuously since the country’s independence in 1960, helping to train the Chadian military.
The planes provided air support that proved crucial on several occasions in stopping rebels seeking to seize power.
Chad’s decision to break military ties with France came only hours after a visit by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, whose delegation appeared unaware the move was looming.
The central African country was the last Sahel nation to host French troops.
Quote:Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Wednesday that it is his country's destiny to expand its borders, particularly into Syria.
Speaking at the Scientific and Technological Research Council (TÜBİTAK) and Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA) Awards Ceremony at the Beştepe National Congress and Culture Center, the President stated: "Every incident that has occurred in our region, especially in Syria, recently reminds us of this fact; Turkey is bigger than Turkey. As a nation, we cannot limit our horizon to 782,000 square kilometers."
According to him, "Just as a person cannot escape his destiny, Turkey and the Turkish nation cannot escape or hide from their destiny. As a nation, we have to see the mission that history has assigned to us and act accordingly. We see this, we do not turn a deaf ear to the calls."
Erdoğan continued: "Those who ask, 'What is Turkey doing in Libya and Syria?' may not be able to comprehend this mission. Those who do not know how Turkey has changed may have difficulty understanding the course of events. We leave them alone with nonsense. No matter what we tell those who have abandoned their empathy with their nation, it is useless. We will not waste time with them, we will focus on our goals."
Turning to the scientists at the event, he added: "I believe that you will also fulfill your responsibilities on this blessed journey."
Erdoğan's address comes as he continues building troops on the Syrian border near a majority Kurdish area.
Senior US officials told the Wall Street Journal on Monday night that the Turkish forces on the border include militia fighters, Turkish uniformed commandos, and a large force of artillery.
The officials said that the invasion could be imminent and the current troop buildup appears similar to Turkish military moves ahead of its 2019 invasion of northeast Syria.
Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli attacked the Turkish President on Wednesday for his military actions in the Kurdish-majority regions of Syria. "Kurdistan must be granted independence, while Erdoğan should be expelled from NATO and left to crown himself as the caliph of an Islamic state, ruling alongside his friends in ISIS and Al-Qaeda," Chikli wrote on X.
Quote:Israel conducted its third long-range airstrike on the terrorist Houthi militia in Yemen early Thursday morning, hours after the rebels fired a ballistic missile at Israel’s population centers that was intercepted outside Israeli airspace.
The ballistic missile was the seventh fired at Israel by the Houthis in recent weeks, in addition to five drone launches.
Sirens were heard just after 2:30 in the morning in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, due to the danger of shrapnel fragments continuing the missile’s trajectory and spreading out across the targeted area. No injuries were reported.
Israel responded almost immediately to the Houthis, according to a statement by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF):
A short while ago, following the approval of strike plans by the Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz, IAF fighter jets, with the direction of the Intelligence Directorate and the Israeli Navy, struck military targets belonging to the Houthi terrorist regime on the western coast and in inland Yemen.
The Houthi terrorist regime has repeatedly attacked the State of Israel, including by attacking Israeli territory using UAVs and surface-to-surface missiles. Most of these projectiles were successfully intercepted.
The targets struck by the IDF were used by the Houthi forces for military purposes. The strikes degrade the Houthi terrorist regime, preventing it from exploiting the targets for military and terrorist purposes, including the smuggling of Iranian weapons to the region.
Over the past year, the Houthi terrorist regime has been operating with the direction and funding of Iran, and in cooperation with Iraqi militias in order to attack the State of Israel and Israeli civilians, undermine regional stability and disrupt global freedom of navigation.
The IDF is determined to continue operating against all threats posed to the citizens of the State of Israel, wherever necessary.
Israel’s Army Radio reported that Israel had struck targets in Sana’a, the capital city of Yemen, for the first time.
"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.
News of the World
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Understanding is a two edged sword. We understand that the Hunter Biden Laptop story was being discredited as recalled (
I guess Joe didn't realize that this carte-blanche 10 year pardon prevents Hunter from Pleading the 5th, refusing to testify on the grounds of incriminating themselves... if ever called to testify before Congress or the courts for anything in those dates.
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