[IsraelTimes] President Xi Jinping tells PA leader Beijing has ’always firmly supported the just cause of the Paleostinian people to restore their legitimate national rights’.
From the beginning secular Palestinian jihadi groups have had the patronage of the key Communist government of the time — first the Soviet Union and now China. But for all the brotherly socialist posturing (and free university educations), that’s not helped them get any closer to real independence.
China said Wednesday it has established a "strategic partnership" with the Paleostinian Authority during a visit to Beijing by PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase.... The announcement marks another step in China’s campaign to gain political and economic influence in the Middle East, where it is competing for influence with the United States.
China is seeking energy resources and markets for its military and civilian exports, while promoting its version of authoritarian government in a joint challenge with Russia to the Western-led democratic world order.
China has appointed a special envoy to meet with Israeli and Paleostinian officials, but its experience in the region is mainly limited to construction, manufacturing and other economic projects.
Beijing has long maintained diplomatic ties with the Paleostinian Authority and Abbas was welcomed with full military honors at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing.
"We are good friends and partners," Chinese president and head of the ruling Communist Party Xi Jinping told Abbas at the start of their meeting. "We have always firmly supported the just cause of the Paleostinian people to restore their legitimate national rights."
Xi called the strategic partnership an "important milestone in the history of bilateral relations," but its financial details were not immediately released.
There it is. China wants to tap those lavish Western and Arab donations to the PA.
China relies on such partnerships to bolster its diplomatic posture and give large Chinese corporations a leg-up when negotiating infrastructure deals in line with the government’s "Belt and Road Initiative" that has left many struggling countries in deep debt to Chinese banks.
As Fred has written, some people need to learn by peeing on the electric fence for themselves.
China has also sought close ties with Israel to both expand its diplomatic presence and gain access to high technology.
Abbas’s visit comes after China recently hosted talks between Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... that resulted in the restoring of diplomatic relations between the two Mideast rivals and boosting China’s standing in the region. The Riyadh-Tehran rapprochement is seen as a diplomatic victory for China as Gulf Arab states perceive the United States as slowly withdrawing from the wider region.
They’ve rapproched before. It never lasts, but every one is excited until it falls apart.
[IsraelTimes] Avdullah Hoti, who opened embassy in Jerusalem, wants Israel to open a mission in Pristina; Foreign Ministry points to budgetary constraints
The Kosovar leader who normalized ties with Israel and opened up Pristina’s embassy in Jerusalem said on Wednesday that his country seeks a "strategic partnership" with Israel.
"That would mean working extremely closely, not only in economic cooperation and diplomatic relations and things like that, but working together and sharing information, helping each other to increase capacities in terms of security issues, strategic development," former prime minister Avdullah Hoti, who is now in the opposition, told The Times of Israel. Hoti, who heads the Israel parliamentary friendship group, led the delegation’s first trip to Jerusalem this week.
Continued on Page 49
“Awwwwright, people! Up off your keesters, the war is over and it’s time for you lot to start earning your keep again! Go on home, now, and figure out a way to get your old jobs back.”
[Rudaw] The United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... World Food Programme (WFP) on Tuesday said that it is forced to slash aid to Syria by about half, due to an "unprecedented funding crisis," cutting around 2.5 million people out of the food programme.
"An unprecedented funding crisis in Syria is forcing the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to cut assistance to 2.5 million of the 5.5 million people who rely on the agency for their basic food needs," the WFP said in a statement.
The food agency said it was forced to make the decision in order to use its "extremely limited resources" to those who require the food assistance the most in the country by "prioritizing 3 million Syrians who are unable to make it from one week to the next without food assistance."
The WFP said there are currently 5.5 million people in Syria who depend on them for their basic food needs, warning that it runs the risk of running "out of food completely by October" if they do not make the cuts.
"Instead of scaling up or even keeping pace with increasing needs, we’re facing the bleak scenario of taking assistance away from people, right when they need it the most," said WFP representative in Syria Kenn Crossley said in the statement.
The decision comes as the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... is set to host the seventh conference on "Supporting the future of Syria and the Region" on Wednesday. The UN Agency says it urgently requires $180 million to avert the cuts and continue the assistance "at its current rate" until the end of the year.
The WFP said that it has "exhausted all the other options" to stretch the available resources to maintain the assistance, including a gradual reduction of the size of the monthly food ration.
"Further reductions in ration size are impossible. Our only solution is to reduce the number of recipients," Crossley added.
Syria’s 12-year war broke out after a crackdown by Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... ’s on anti-government protests, pulling foreign powers into the scuffle in the country, and causing a dire humanitarian crisis.
More than half of the country’s pre-war population was killed
...the prewar population was about 22 million. As of 2021, the population was estimated to 20.4 million, including 26 million external refugees. Deaths during this period are estimated at 470,000, nowhere close to half the national population, but certainly bad enough to go on with ...
while millions were displaced. The coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic, worsening economic crisis, a devastating earthquake in February, and the redirection of international aid to the war in Ukraine further exacerbated the situation.
"Currently, an average monthly income covers only around one-quarter of a family’s food needs. Even those receiving regular food assistance from WFP were already struggling to cope," WFP said.
#Lebanese Parliament, in its 12th Session, fails to elect a president. Jihad Azour: 59 votes. Hezbollah-backed Suleiman Frangieh: 51 votes. After the vote-counting process, lawmakers from #Hezbollah and allied parties walked out, preventing a second session#مجلس_النواب#lebanonpic.twitter.com/zjzIOVLUWt
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
