ROME (AP) — The woman whose company was linked to thousands of pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria this week is under the protection of the Hungarian secret services, her mother told The Associated Press on Friday.
Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono has not appeared publicly since the deadly simultaneous attack that targeted Hezbollah on Tuesday and that has been widely blamed on Israel. She is listed as the CEO of Budapest-based BAC Consulting, which the Taiwanese trademark holder of the pagers said was responsible for the manufacture of the devices.
Her mother, Beatrix Bársony-Arcidiacono, told the AP that her daughter had received unspecified threats and “is currently in a safe place protected by the Hungarian secret services.”
The “Hungarian secret services advised her not to talk to media,” she said by phone from Sicily.
Hungary’s national security authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the AP could not independently verify the claim.
[JustTheNews] Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued in April to stop the program. In April, the Texas Supreme Court first halted the program as litigation continued.
Despite the Texas Supreme Court twice ruling this year that Harris County could not implement a guaranteed income program, Democrats on the county commissioner’s court created another program under a different name to implement the same scheme.
Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday sued the county again, arguing its officials were in violation of the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling.
“Harris County acts as though the Texas Constitution does not apply to them and as though they do not have to abide by the Texas Supreme Court’s rulings,” Paxton said. “Using public funds in this way directly violates the law. Harris County is willing to undermine the legal process out of apparent desperation to push this money into certain hands as quickly as possible.”
The lawsuit was filed in a Harris County district court and names the county judge, commissioners and county public health director as defendants.
Harris County first announced its “Uplift Harris” program in June 2023 to use $20.5 million in COVID-19 relief money it received through the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act to "provide no-strings-attached $500 monthly cash payments to 1,928 Harris County residents for 18 months." The Democratic-controlled Harris County Commissioner's Court approved the program despite the federal government stipulating that the funds could only be used for COVID-19-related programs.
In January, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, sounded the alarm, saying the program is illegal and requested Paxton to issue a formal opinion. He cited the Texas Constitution, which prohibits “any county, city, town or other political corporation or subdivision of the State … to grant public money or thing of value in aid of, or to any individual.”
Paxton sued in April to stop the program. In April, the Texas Supreme Court first halted the program as litigation continued. It permanently halted it in June and prohibited any payments be made through the fund.
Two months later, on Aug. 15, the Harris County Commissioners Court voted to move forward with a new program, the “Harris 2.0 Handout” program. This includes a few modifications from the original Harris Handout created through Uplift Harris but with significantly higher administrative costs of $400,000.
In response to the sole Republican on the court opposing the program, saying it implements the same program the Texas Supreme Court said was illegal, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said, "That's why this is Uplift Harris 2.0, not Uplift Harris, but it is a way for us to keep our promises to these families."
Anticipating the state would again sue to stop Harris 2.0, Hidalgo said, "If the state gets in the way of this and the program becomes stuck in court again, then the funds would be reallocated to programs that already exist to support people living in poverty."
Harris 2.0 would allocate the $20.5 million in ARPA money to the same qualified individuals as Uplift Harris: those living in 10 zip codes with the highest poverty levels. Under the new plan, they’d also receive $500 per month for 18 months as they would have under the old plan.
“Harris County intends to reenroll all previously selected participants” in the Uplift Harris program, the brief states, giving them “a reloadable debit card with limited spending categories.”
The lawsuit argues Harris 2.0 Handout is illegal and violates several sections of the Texas Constitution and state government code in the same way the first program under a different name did.
“In addition to being unconstitutional,” the lawsuit argues, county officials “lack any legal authority – constitutional or statutory – to create and implement the Harris 2.0 Handout.”
In response to the lawsuit, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said the county would defend the new program in court. It "incorporated guidance from the Texas Supreme Court by limiting the categories of items participants could purchase with the funds." He also said opposition to the program "is not about concern for the law; it’s about using people living in poverty as a means to score political points."
[JustTheNews] The militant group said that Friday's attack was a response to the strikes Israel launched on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon on Thursday
Hezbollah said it had targeted "multiple air defense bases as well as the headquarters of an Israeli armored brigade," according to the Associated Press.
The linked Ay Pee article adds:
Israel launched a rare Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... that killed a senior Hezbollah military official in a densely populated southern Beirut neighborhood on Friday. It was the deadliest such strike on Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... ’s capital in decades, with Lebanese authorities reporting at least 14 people killed and dozens more maimed in the attack.
The Israeli military’s chief front man, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the strike on Beirut’s southern Dahiya district killed Ibrahim Akil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, as well as 10 other Hezbollah operatives.
"We will continue pursuing our enemies in order to defend our citizens, even in Dahiya, in Beirut," said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, describing the Israeli strike that targeted Akil as part of "a new phase of war."
Several hours later, Hezbollah confirmed Akil’s death. In a statement, the Lebanese bully boy group described Akil as "a great jihadist leader" and said he had "joined the procession of his brothers, the great martyr leaders, after a blessed life full of jihad, work, wounds, sacrifices, dangers, challenges, achievements, and victories."
Akil served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council. He was sanctioned by the United States for his alleged involvement in the 1983 bombing that killed more than 300 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the U.S. Marine Corps barracks.
[JustTheNews] The U.S. has been in a perpetual national emergency over terrorism threats since Sept. 11, 2001, which was again extended for another year.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday extended an executive order that has been in place since it was first signed by former president George W. Bush on September 23, 2001.
The White House issued a notice, “Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Persons who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism,” stating Biden signed Executive Order 13224. The order declares a national emergency pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The law relates to “the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the grave acts of terrorism and threats of terrorism committed by foreign terrorists, including the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, in New York and Pennsylvania and against the Pentagon, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks against United States nationals or the United States.”
The order also continues an executive order first signed by former President Donald Trump on Sept. 9, 2019, the notice states. Executive order 13886 was signed “to strengthen and consolidate sanctions to combat the continuing threat posed by international terrorism and to take additional steps to deal with the national emergency.”
It states that those “who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”
The White House says the national security threat is ongoing since the 2001 executive order was signed. Biden is adopting measures “to deal with that emergency.” He extended the national emergency and order “beyond September 23, 2024, … for 1 year.”
The notice was published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress.
The extension was granted as the greatest number of illegal border crossers entering the U.S. have been identified on the terrorist watch list under the Biden-Harris administration.
According to CBP data, from fiscal 2021 through August of this year, 1,856 identified on the U.S. terrorist watch list as known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) were encountered or apprehended at the northern and southwest borders, with the greatest number in a single year of 736 in fiscal 2023.
Under the Trump administration, 1,432 KSTs were apprehended from fiscal years 2017-2020, with the greatest number reported of 541 in fiscal 2019.
CBP’s fiscal year is from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.
CBP reported KST data includes numbers from land ports of entry at the U.S.-Canada and US-Mexico borders, including all nationalities, and noncitizens apprehended between ports of entry at both borders. While many congressional and news reports solely focus on one data set, the greatest number reported every year, with the exception of 2019, are caught by U.S. officials at the US-Canada border, The Center Square first reported.
The greatest number of KSTs reported at the US-Canada border total 487 in fiscal 2023 followed by 323 this fiscal year to date.
Overall, 1,178 KSTs were apprehended at the US-Canada border under the Biden-Harris administration and 798 under the Trump administration.
Since fiscal 2021 through August of this year, 382 noncitizens identified on the terrorist watch list were apprehended after they illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico between ports of entry, according to the data. That’s up from 11 under Trump from fiscal years 2017-2020.
Those identified as KSTs are matched to the Terrorist Screening Dataset, the federal government's database that contains sensitive information on terrorist identities. The TSDS originated as a consolidated terrorist watchlist to hold information on known or suspected terrorists. Over the past decade, it evolved “to include additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals,” CBP says.
The CBP data has been reported as hundreds with ties to the Islamic terrorist group ISIS were released into the country by the Biden administration or evaded capture with ties to an alleged ISIS smuggling ring. FBI Director Christopher Wray has warned multiple times of heightened terrorist threats similar to those existing 23 years ago, The Center Square reported.
Retired national security experts have also warned that a terrorist attack is imminent; U.S. military bases have been breached by illegal foreign nationals; retired FBI national security experts have warned Biden-Harris border policies have facilitated a “soft invasion” into the U.S. of millions of military-age men illegally entering the country, including from terror-linked regions, China and Russia.
The former director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who worked under six presidents, Tom Homan, said Biden is the only president in U.S. history to “unsecure the border on purpose.” He and others argue the Biden-Harris “open border policies have created the greatest national security crisis since 9/11.”
[JustTheNews] The "subaward records alone" show several recipients of taxpayer money for purported disinformation work are only tracked by "categories" or identified by first name, House Small Business Committee finds. State implies GOP congressman linked to "Russian influence operations."
[FoxNews] A new requirement in New York that will take effect this weekend is set to grant Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James widespread power over the state’s election process, a New York election attorney said.
"Nobody is really talking about it or what a big effect it's going to have," election attorney Joseph T. Burns, partner at the law firm Holtzman Vogel, told Fox News Digital in a phone interview this week. "But it's interesting because, look, there's a lot of bad stuff that happens in New York when it comes to the elections and everything else, but this strikes me as being particularly bad. And it's certainly quite a power grab by the attorney general as well."
Under the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York, which Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law in 2022, a preclearance requirement in the law is set to take effect on Sept. 22. The new rule requires certain jurisdictions in the Empire State to request preclearance from the attorney general or a designated court to make election-related decisions, which range from changing the hours of early voting to culling deceased residents from a voter list, Burns said.
Burns published an op-ed in the New York Post this week, warning that the new law hands James "unprecedented power over election processes in some of the most hotly contested congressional districts in the nation, including those on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley." The upcoming requirement has flown under the radar, Burns said, telling Fox Digital, "Nobody's talking about. It's pretty remarkable."
"The new rule upends the system of constitutionally mandated, bipartisan election administration that has served New York’s voters ably for generations," Burns wrote in his op-ed, which was published on Sunday. "The law requires certain counties, cities, towns, villages and school districts to get the blessing of the AG or a designated court before making election-related or voting-related changes."
The new rule covers massive jurisdictions such as New York City and nine counties on Long Island, including America’s largest township of Hempstead, as well as other areas known as "covered entities" under the requirement.
The jurisdictions are determined by a handful of factors, including arrest rates for residents of "protected classes" and whether a jurisdiction committed civil rights or voting rights violations in the last 25 years, Burns said, citing documents from James’ office last year that detailed the rules.
Burns, who has a background in Republican politics and election legal issues, told Fox Digital there are "four triggers" that label a jurisdiction a "covered entity."
"Any political subdivision which, within the previous 25 years, has become subject to a court order or government enforcement action based upon a finding of any violation of this title, the Federal Voting Rights Act, the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution or a voting-related violation of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution," Burns said, reading from the 2023 document published by James’ office.
Burns gave an example of Erie County, which is considered a "covered entity" under the new rules, when the jurisdiction was hit with a court order involving the 14th Amendment about a decade ago.
"You think, ‘Wow, this sounds really sinister,’" he said of the 2014 court order. "‘They're probably doing something. They're disenfranchising a minority.’"
"No, not at all. What happened was the county executive and the county legislature couldn't agree on a redistricting plan," Burns said of the case. "… Something like that would put a local government under preclearance."
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Florida residents are being warned to brace for 'king tide' season where beach resorts are at risk of being flooded even on sunny days with no rain.
The sunshine state's year is typically broken into seasons including heat season, hurricane season, rainy season and in the fall - it's king tide season.
This is the time of year when tides are at their highest along the east coast, and salty water can be pushed up through drains and manholes, flooding the streets.
If it then rains as well, these sunny-day floods can quickly become disastrous.
King Tides are defined as the highest tides of the year, and are typically one to two feet higher than average high tides.
It is not a scientific term but is used to describe floods that occur when the moon and sun are aligned with each other and the closest distance to Earth. They typically occur during a full-moon cycle.
They are most common during September through November, and sometimes even in early December.
Residents in states from Florida, California and other coastal areas along the Southeast Atlantic including South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia are most significantly affected by king tides.
This is due to their low-lying coastlines which make them more vulnerable to high tides, particularly in areas such as Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Charleston.
With the full moon cycle approaching this week, National Weather Service meteorologists have placed all of South Florida under a coastal flood advisory through at least Friday afternoon to prepare for the annual possibility.
Tidal flooding is not a new occurrence for South Florida residents, but areas along the East Coast - Florida all the way to Maine - are now seeing flooding days, according to NBC Miami.
Experts say that king tides are also being impacted by global warming.
The earth's temperature has risen by an average of 0.11° Fahrenheit (0.06° Celsius) per decade since 1850, according to Climate.gov.
The rate of warming since 1982 has also increased - three times as fast per decade.
Oh no! Quick,Edith — let us panic together because the world is no longer experiencing a period of unusual cold!!!
#3
an average of 0.11° Fahrenheit (0.06° Celsius) per decade since 1850
So an entire degree F every century. Scary!
Just so we are clear, 1850 was near the end of a time known as the Little Ice Age, a time known for cold temps, bad weather, crop failures, famine and disease. Sounds idyllic.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
09/20/2024 11:48
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The US talks a mean sanctions game but when it comes to commodities that it can’t produce or source elsewhere it gladly pays top dollar for uranium fuel rods, tungsten or ammonium nitrate from the Russians. TPTB should be very happy that the Russians continue to be willing to sell to them despite sanctions on western products. That being said - any guesses as to how many barges currently on the Mississippi have a load of ammonium nitrate on board? The answer might surprise you
DEI: General Milley instituted a policy to warn 10,000 Army soldiers they would be identified as domestic terrorists if they revealed their Christian faith and pro-life views. The Army refused to tell @mattgaetz if anyone was separated or disciplined for being Christian. pic.twitter.com/THKemnnplv
Posted by: 3dc ||
09/20/2024
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#1
SO did they close all of the catholic services and remove all the catholic priests?? POS...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/20/2024 10:39
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I hear TX is building a wall - around their entire state. Smart move.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
09/20/2024 10:55
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Due to some earlier zipper disease among the officer corps, Congress was kind enough to amend the law to allow the recall of individuals to face criminal charges.
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09/20/2024 11:39
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The Army refused to tell @mattgaetz if anyone was separated or disciplined for being Christian.
You mean like what they did to those who refused to get the jab?
Speaking of warmongering - funniest thing I've been fed recently is about how ultra-conservative Dick Cheney is, and that he is endorsing Harris because Trump is too far out there, and you would do well to follow his lead you hypocrites. Neocon Republican Chenites are welcome in the fold, and so would you. Confess your ultra-conservatism and embrace Harris!
[Cleveland.com] Dr. Todd Morgan was a professor at Cleveland State University. Morgan was shot at his home in Hudson, Ohio on Wednesday, April 19, 2023.Cleveland State University.
Failing grades have consequences. No photo of shooter Terreionna Paschal available.
RFK was just invited to Fox to tell the nation about the dangers of Seed Oils, Food Dyes and Pesticides while exposing the immense corruption behind these products.
I never expected to see this in my lifetime and I now believe there's a real window to Make America Healthy Again pic.twitter.com/ACm3x1pXua
#2
Word games galore. GMO (genetically modified organism)- This product has been genetically modified. Human food, animal food its in nearly everything. I wonder when they stop putting expiration dates on food. Apeel one of the newer applications.
#3
As I understand it, Dale, the GMO process just increases the rate at which genetic mutations occur, from which the scientists choose the most beneficial to try to propagate. It doesn’t change which mutations occur, which is limited by the species’ innate variability.
Just like for people, most mutations are not viable, and only a very few are beneficial. But in the other side, everything that makes us human — as opposed to a single celled bacterium — is the result of a mutation that worked.
Wow - Rep @mattgaetz drops 2 major bombshells on Trump’s assassination attempts
1. DHS knows of 5 separate assassination teams, 3 foreign and 2 domestic, who are actively targeting Trump and informed Secret Service well before July 13
[Washington Examiner] A legal group aligned with Donald Trump sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service on Thursday, arguing the agencies were not honoring records requests related to the July assassination attempt on the former president in Butler, Pennsylvania.
America First Legal, a nonprofit organization founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, said it submitted expedited public records requests within hours and days of the incident, seeking details about Secret Service’s hiring standards, possible staffing shortages, and various communications and calendars of leadership.
The group said it had not yet received any of the requested documents.
America First Legal was among several entities to launch investigations into the assassination attempt, during which a gunman opened fire at a Trump rally on July 13, leaving one person dead, two people injured, and the former president with a minor injury.
#2
If they are as good as current administration I have low concern. Poorly educated leadership disrespected throughout the world. Scraping the bottom of the barrel. What have they managed to do to fix anything?. They just spend money. Our current governor of Maryland couldn't get a loan prior to election because of his poor credit rating.
[LI] While Lebanon reported only 32 deaths from two days of pager and walkie-talkie explosions, the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group was hiding the actual death toll, media reports suggest.
Consecutive waves of exploding devices have incurred heavy losses on Hezbollah’s leadership and terrorist fighting forces. The command structure of Hezbollah’s elite terrorist Radwan force has been ’decimated’ by the well-coordinate strike, Israeli sources confirm.
Officially, around 3,000 Hezbollah terrorists were wounded in Tuesday’s pager explosions. The walkie-talkie blasts on Wednesday reportedly injured 450 terror operatives. The actual figures are much higher, reports suggest.
“According to Israeli reports, the pager attack alone would have caused “dozens of deaths, if not more” among Hezbollah members,” Israel’s i24NEWS TV reported. “Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force is reported to have suffered significant losses, losing “a large part of its command structure” that was either killed or maimed.”
[Breitbart] Some lawmakers are suspicious of a potential mole in the U.S. Secret Service following the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily.
Host Mike Slater pointed to the fact that now, after the second assassination attempt on Trump, the "aura of invincibility of the Secret Service" is disappearing, which could lead to more individuals with ill-intent attempting to go after the former president.
"It’s a great point. The barrier to entry to assassination chaos seems to be lowered," Gaetz said, noting that he has colleagues who are suspicious that there is something more nefarious at play within the Secret Service.
"I have Republican colleagues who have not ruled out a mole inside the Secret Service of providing information about points of vulnerability," he said. "I’ve not seen evidence of that, but I’ve got colleagues that are very, very smart at this who say they can’t rule that out, given some of the anomalies and the fact pattern here."
#3
Remember James Jesus Angleton and the wreckage at the CIA he created in his search for the mole(s), never found conclusively but almost certainly there. Once they start a zealous internal look, the mole-hunt can cause so much damage and institutional suspicion that trust and cohesive attitudes will be lost as things that even a Lifestyle Poly or Single Scope Backgrounder didn't find are uncovered or planted. Perhaps the USSS has been too close to the Executive Center of Gravity for too long and has spent its once world-class reputation through executive sloth and DEI.
[GEO.TV] Israel will face "a crushing response from the axis of resistance", Iran's Revolutionary Guards Commander Hossein Salami told Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday according to state media, after attacks on Lebanese Hezbollah's communication devices.
The axis of resistance refers to Iran-aligned armed groups in the Middle East, including Lebanon's Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis, and Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2024
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#1
You and whose balls?
Posted by: European Conservative ||
09/20/2024 10:10
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Mother of all battles, dire revenge. stomachs roasting. Yeah, anything else impotent boy.
Posted by: Difar Dave ||
09/20/2024 12:31
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[GEO.TV] US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm... on Thursday said he does not want to see any escalatory actions by any party that make a Gaza ceasefire deal even more difficult, adding that he believed a ceasefire remains possible and necessary.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2024
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[GEO.TV] Bulgaria and Norway became new focal points on Thursday of a global hunt for who supplied Hezbollah with the thousands of pagers that exploded in Lebanon this week in a deadly blow to the group.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2024
01:29 ||
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[GEO.TV] US officials now believe that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Paleostinian group Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... is unlikely before President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. The man who made Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter look competent, if only by comparison.... leaves office in January, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Thursday.
The newspaper cited top-level officials in the White House, State Department and Pentagon without naming them. Those bodies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
"I can tell you that we do not believe that deal is falling apart," Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told news hounds on Thursday before the report was published.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm... said two weeks ago that 90% of a ceasefire deal had been agreed upon.
The United States and mediators Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... and Egypt have for months attempted to secure a ceasefire but have failed to bring Israel and Hamas to a final agreement.
Two obstacles have been especially difficult: Israel's demand to keep forces in the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt and the specifics of an exchange of Israeli hostages for Paleostinian prisoners held by Israel.
The US has said a Gaza ceasefire deal could lower tensions across the Middle East amid fears the conflict could widen.
Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal on May 31 that he said at the time Israel agreed to. As the talks hit obstacles, officials have for weeks said a new proposal would soon be presented.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2024
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[GEO.TV] Components used in thousands of pagers that detonated on Tuesday in Lebanon were not made in Taiwan, Taiwan's economy minister said on Friday.
Taiwan-based Gold Apollo said this week it did not manufacture the devices used in the attack, and that they were made by a Budapest-based company BAC which has a license to use its brand.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2024
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[GEO.TV] Gaza's Civil Defence agency Friday said Israeli forces have carried out ground and air assaults across the Gaza Strip, killing at least 28 Palestinians since early Thursday.
The agency says six members of a family were killed in an assault on a home in Jabalia, whereas 12 other Palestinians have been killed in two Israeli strikes on Gaza City, Al Jazeera reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/20/2024
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[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] … scenes and all-out war' as IDF comes face-to-face with Lebanese soldiers trained by Britain.
Oh no! Gerard, call two of our stoutest footmen to bring in my fainting couch at once. Marie — my pearls, girl, and hurry! I will not be improperly dressed for the pearl clutching this time.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Indiana state officials have warned residents to turn off their lights due to unhealthy ozone levels.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management declared an Air Quality Action Day in effect through Friday for northwest, northcentral and southeast portions of the state.
Air Quality Action Days (AQAD) are days when ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, can build up to unhealthy levels in the outdoor air, according to the department.
The National Weather Service said the AQAD was issued because ozone levels are expected to be in the Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups range.
'Conserve energy by turning off lights or setting the air conditioner to 75 degrees or above,' said the weather service.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The state of Indiana was ordered to cover the cost of gender-transition surgery for a transgender inmate who murdered his baby stepdaughter.
A federal judge ruled that Autumn Cordellioné, who was born Jonathan C. Richardson, had been subjected to 'cruel and unusual punishment' after being denied gender-affirming surgery according to the ACLU, which filed the suit.
United States District Court Judge Richard Young ordered that the Department of Corrections must provide Cordellioné the surgery at the earliest opportunity.
'Today marks a significant victory for transgender individuals in Indiana's prisons,' ACLU of Indiana's Legal Director, Ken Falk, said in a statement. 'Denying evidence-based medical care to incarcerated people simply because they are transgender is unconstitutional. We are pleased that the Court agreed.'
The inmate is currently serving a 55-year prison sentence for the strangulation of her 11-month-old stepdaughter after admitting to killing 'the little f**king b**ch.'
Young found that the surgery was 'medically necessary,' and denying Cordellioné the medical care violated her Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, according to court documents.
The Eighth Amendment protects citizens from cruel punishments, while the Fourteenth Amendment provides equal protection to all citizens under the law.
'Ms. Cordellioné has shown that injunctive relief is necessary,' the judge wrote. 'There is no dispute that gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition under the objective prong.'
Young said Cordellioné was at a 'substantial risk of irreparable injury absent of injunctive relief.' Without surgery, court documents said, she may engage in self-harm, including 'another attempt to castrate herself or to die by suicide.'
Cordellioné suffers from depression and borderline personality disorder.
Young also said he was aware that finding a surgeon to preform the risky surgery 'may take time,' as the state may have to hire a doctor who is not affiliated with the Department of Corrections.
While incarcerated at the Correctional Industrial Facility in Madison, Cordellioné began identifying as transgender and started taking synthetic estrogen and an anti-androgen spironolactone, which stops male hormones from working, according to Reduxx.
Cordellioné has requested surgery that would build her a vagina, as well as providing breast implants, a brow lift and reduction, a tummy tuck, gluteal implants, a uterus transplant, hair removal, and wigs, according to Reduxx.
Despite the requests, Young is only demanding an orchiectomy, which removes the testicles, and a vaginoplasty, which constructs a vagina.
So if the taxpayers cover the costs, even of just the basic surgery, Mr. Richardson will be physically castrated and in permanent pain for the rest of his life? Hmmm….
Cordellioné is also involved in another lawsuit, as she identifies as Muslim and has sued for being denied a hijab by the prison chaplain.
#4
Gotta pay for that? How about reducing food servings and no dessert for all the other prisoners? Seems like the problem would take care of itself
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/20/2024 6:50
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#5
'cruel and unusual punishment' was interesting things like quartering, or for that matter crucifixion. Not this kind of crap. Judicial activism at work.
[Space] This month, Earth will grab itself a second moon in the form of the tiny (about 40' by 30') asteroid 2024 PT5.
Unlike the moon, Earth's primary companion which has accompanied our planet for around 4 billion years, this "new mini-moon" will stick around for just two months before it heads back to its home in an asteroid belt trailing our planet and orbiting the sun.
A team of scientists well-versed in the study of so-called "mini-moon events " identified the forthcoming gravitational capture event. They spotted the peculiar dynamic properties of 2024 PT5 as they routinely monitored newly discovered objects for potentially interesting behavior.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
09/20/2024
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[TennesseeConservativeNews] The U.S. Department of Justice has issued a warning that could potentially thwart state election officials’ future attempts to verify that all Tennessee voters are legal U.S. citizens.
Back in July, letters were sent by Tennessee’s Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins to 14,375 “potential non-U.S. citizens” in an attempt to obtain proof of citizenship for voters in Tennessee.
The letter began, “Our office has received information that appears to indicate that your voter information matches with an individual who may not have been a United States citizen at the time of obtaining a Tennessee driver license or ID card.”
Individuals were reminded of Tennessee law that states that it is illegal for a non-U.S. citizen to vote in the state and that doing so is a felony.
The letter went on to offer individuals an opportunity to update their information in order to verify that they had gone through the naturalization process and were, in fact, legal citizens who were registered to vote.
Democrats across the state immediately rallied, claiming that Republicans were using “voter intimidation tactics.”
The DOJ’s newly released stipulations instruct state election officials on how voters can be removed from voter lists. They cited federal law prohibiting discrimination, intimidation, threats, and coercion.
They also claimed that the comparison of voter files to “outdated or inaccurate records or databases” could be a violation of the standards in place for federal voter record keeping.
Goins said in July that his team had compared voter registration information with information obtained from the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, making note of those who did not appear to have been U.S. citizens at the time of registration.
However, he also acknowledged that some could have gone through that process later, which is why the letter provided them with a chance to make that correction.
State law does give election officials permission to compare voter rolls with state and federal databases to comply with the laws and make sure non-citizens are not registered.
[JustTheNews] The state removed a total 456,309 names from the rolls, consisting of 5,607 felons, 14,993 duplicate registrations, 97,065 deceased voters, 143,682 voters who moved out-of-state, and 194,962 inactive voters, Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) said.
The purge was part of state’s mandatory routine voter list maintenance, which removes ineligible voters such as those who have moved out of state, are now convicted felons, or who passed away.
Voters who were mistakenly removed from the voter database have until Oct. 11 to register to vote again. In order to register, Oklahoma residents need to prove that they are legal residents of the state, U.S. citizens, and are at least 18 years of age.
BREAKING: A federal judge in South Carolina just issued a precedent-setting ruling that voter rolls are public record under federal law and are subject to inspection by election integrity activists
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Hungary has followed the Netherlands in demanding a crisis opt-out of the EU's mandatory migration rules to try and reduce the number of refugees coming in.
Budapest has also pledged to defy EU rulings on its hardline border policies after judges said in June the country had breached refugee rights.
'Drastic action is needed to stem illegal migration,' Janos Boka, Hungary's European affairs minister, said today.
'The Hungarian government will join the Netherlands in asking for an opt-out from EU asylum and migration rules, if a treaty amendment allows it.'
Hungary and the Netherlands are expected to use any amendment to the EU's treaty to be able to opt-out of the asylum and refugee policies.
The requests come amid a deepening political crisis over the EU's common refugee system and the Schengen borderless travel zone.
Today, the Netherlands become the first EU country to demand an exemption from the increasingly unpopular rules.
The Dutch government, dominated by Geert Wilders' far-Right party, said the move was justified so it can provide 'housing, health care and education' to its citizens.
'I have just informed the European Commission that I want a migration opt-out within Europe for the Netherlands,' Dutch migration minister Marjolein Faber wrote in a letter to Ylva Johansson, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs.
'We need to be in charge of our own asylum policy again.'
However, the European Commission has already criticised the plans, saying 'you cannot evade EU legislation'.
It comes as the new Dutch government, which came to power in November, is planning to declare an 'asylum crisis' to pave the way for tougher measures.
This would include a freeze on asylum applications and powers to forcibly deport people who do not have a right to be in the Netherlands.
Under the proposal, refugees would also only be able bring in family members if they have had residence status for two years, have housing and a 'stable income'.
Currently asylum seekers receive a permit to stay for an indefinite period after five years.
Earlier this month, Germany announced it would bring in controls on all its land borders to deal with the 'continuing burden' of migration and 'Islamist terrorism'.
Interior minister Nancy Faeser told the EU that the country had no choice but to enforce proper border controls to cope with unauthorised entries.
The policy marked a U-turn from her stance just last month when she refused to extend strict controls first introduced last year on Germany's borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.
These rules have already seen more than 30,000 people turned back at the borders since mid-October last year.
Concerns about immigration have been pushed to the forefront of German politics, heightened by a series of attacks carried out by Islamists, most recently in Solingen.
The German government has also been facing increased pressure to respond to migration as support for right-wing party, the AfD has rapidly gathered pace.
And at the end of last month Germany's police union announced that Schengen was making Germany's security crisis even worse and must be abandoned immediately.
Manuel Ostermann, deputy federal chairman of the Federal Police Union, has launched a fierce condemnation of Schengen, the EU's hair-brained border-free scheme, in an interview with Focus magazine.
'The crisis in Germany's security is a direct consequence of Schengen's ineffective policies. Schengen's inability to manage migration effectively has put Germany's safety at stake.'
[AmericanGreatness] As we approach the 2024 election, many Americans are disillusioned by the notion that their votes truly matter. Why? Because there’s a growing belief that a hidden force—often referred to as the Deep or Administrative State—wields disproportionate power behind the scenes. Despite our democratic process, can we truly trust that our elected leaders are running the country, or are they merely figureheads for a larger, more insidious operation?
Posted by: Skidmark ||
09/20/2024
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#2
"The problem is, you can't do to them [Russia], what they do to you, remarked Estonia's President, Thoomas Hendrik Ilves, after his country was cyber attacked by Russia in 2007. "You can't disrupt their elections, since they are aleady decided."
~ Mark Hollingsworth,"Agents of Influence - How the KGB subverted Western Democracies," page 9.
#4
How can there be synergy in govt policy across Wester Liberal Democracies if there is no central coordination?
Whites are replaced in Canada.
Whites are replaced in America.
Whites are replaced in France.
Whites are replaced in UK.
Whites are replaced in E.Europe.
It is no coincidence that throughout all the Western Powers, we are seeing the same policies enacted whether the populations want it or not. There has to be collaboration above the President and above the Leaders of Western States - to move western powers in such a lock step.
#8
^Clearly, Joe thinks Jill is in charge. Who does Obama think is running the show?
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/20/2024 16:40
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#9
Besides, everybody knows the Juice are running everything!
/sarc
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/20/2024 16:41
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#10
Biden holds first cabinet meeting today in over one year. Basically instructed departments and agencies to execute remaining budgets before 1 Oct (end of fiscal year).
[ZeroHedge] German train conductors in the state of Thuringia have been given permission not to check the tickets of foreign migrant passengers in an effort to reduce intimidating and violent behavior from asylum seekers. That’s one way to guarantee increased AfD votes in the next election.
A married couple who had recently traveled on a Süd-Thüringen-Bahn contacted the Thüringer Allgemeine newspaper to report that they had witnessed individuals who didn’t appear to be German not having their tickets checked while German citizens still had theirs scrutinized.
After the newspaper contacted the railway service provider, they initially denied the claim, insisting that all tickets were being checked.
However, after further enquiries, the company admitted that train conductors had been given powers not to check the tickets of passengers who posed a risk of being troublesome in order to de-escalate tensions.
If the conductors feel threatened or intimidated by approaching such individuals, they can bypass the ticket check and the individual effectively gets to travel for free.
The same company recently complained to Thurinigia’s left-wing Minister-President Bodo Ramelow that its staff were increasingly on the receiving end of unprecedented abuse from foreigners on public transport.
“State and federal politics repeatedly talk about “integration” and tolerance of/towards migrants/refugees. We ask you seriously, how can you expect citizens of this country to be open to the refugee policy being practiced when they have to witness – practically every day, and not just on public transport! – such violence, brutality, and absolute contempt and mockery of our laws and society, including its so-called “values”? asked the letter.
As Remix News highlights, mass migration has also heightened violence and disorder on the train network in neighboring France.
“Annual figures provided by the French interior ministry’s statistics bureau, the SSMSI, in September last year revealed that 69 percent of violent robberies and other violent crimes, including sexual assaults, on public transport in the greater Paris region of Île-de-France were perpetrated by foreign nationals.”
“A closer look at the data showed Africans alone were responsible for 52 percent of such crimes while only representing 3.2 percent of the population of France.”
“Across the whole of France, 55 percent of suspects pertaining to offenses on public transport are foreign nationals, the data indicated.”
Earlier this month, the anti-mass migration right-wing AfD party won a significant victory in the state of Thuringia’s regional election.
The German political establishment has been busy trying to outlaw the AfD, laughably, in the name of ‘protecting democracy’, despite it now being the second most popular party in Germany.
[IsraelTimes] Several explosive-laden drones launched from Lebanon struck northern Israel a short while ago.
…around noon local time.
According to the IDF, one of the drones impacted outside of the northern community of Ya’ara in the Western Galilee. Several people were reportedly wounded by the impact.
Several more drones struck outside the northern community of Beit Hillel near Kiryat Shmona, the IDF says.
The IDF says the drone impacts near Beit Hillel sparked fires but caused no injuries.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] In the Kurakhovsky direction, fierce battles are taking place near Tsukurino, Georgievka, Konstantinovka and Yekaterinovka.
Since the beginning of the day, 95 combat clashes have occurred on the front. Most of them are in the Kurakhovsky and Pokrovsky directions, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in a report as of 16:00 on Thursday, September 19.
Thus, in the Kharkov direction, the Russians once attempted to carry out an assault in the Volchansk area.
In the Kupyansk direction, the enemy actively attacked four times in the area of Sinkovka, Stelmakhovka and Glushkovka. One combat clash continues.
In the Liman direction, the invaders carried out seven attacks near Makeyevka, Cherneshchyna, Nevsky and Torsky. Five clashes have ended, two more are ongoing.
In the Seversky direction, our troops repelled three attacks by the occupation army near the settlements of Verkhnekamenskoye, Ivano-Daryevka and Vyemka. Four more attacks are ongoing.
In the Kramatorsk direction, the invaders stormed near Kurdyumovka. The attack was repelled.
In the Toretsk direction, the enemy organized seven attacks in the area of Toretsk, Shcherbinovka and Nelipovka. Three combat clashes are still ongoing.
In the Pokrovsk direction, the occupiers have already made 22 attempts to push our defenders from their positions in the areas of Vozdvizhenka, Novotoretsk, Grodovka, Mirolyubovka, Nikolaevka, Novogrodovka and Marinovka. The defense forces have repelled 16 enemy attacks, six are still ongoing.
In the Kurakhovsky direction, the most fierce battles are taking place near Tsukurino, Georgievka, Konstantinovka and Yekaterinovka. Today, 13 of 36 attacks by the occupation army have been repelled.
In the Vremevsky direction, the enemy has attacked four times near Ugledar, Rivnepolye and Katerynivka. Two combat clashes are ongoing.
In the Orekhov direction, the occupiers made three attempts to attack our units near Pyatikhatki and in the direction of Novoandreyevka.
The enemy has carried out three offensive actions in the Dnieper direction . Currently, one combat clash is ongoing.
Let us recall that in the past 24 hours on September 18, the number of occupiers on Ukrainian soil has decreased by 1,130 people . Russia's total losses are approaching 640 thousand since the beginning of the war.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The death toll in Lebanon as a result of the second series of explosions of communication devices has risen to 25. This was announced on September 19 by Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abyad at a press conference.
It is noted that at least 608 people were injured.
As reported by Regnum News Agency, radios, mobile phones and other means of communication began to explode in Lebanon on September 18. According to the Al-Nahar TV channel, the radios were purchased together with pagers, which detonated en masse in the country on September 17.
According to a source for Reuters, Israel's Mossad national intelligence service planted a small amount of explosives in 5,000 devices ordered by Hezbollah members several months before the latest events. The NYT newspaper reported that Israeli intelligence services paged Lebanese residents with Arabic-language messages with a sound signal before the explosion, similar to a message from the Lebanese movement's top leadership.
The Hezbollah movement promised Israel a harsh response to the massacre of the Lebanese people that same day. The movement also called retribution for the sabotage inevitable for Tel Aviv.
Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov emphasized that the explosions of communication devices in Lebanon are leading to an escalation of tensions in the Middle East, and such events could become a trigger for the situation to spiral out of control.
Raylan Givens:
"Sometimes, we have to make deals with lowlifes because we have our sights set on life forms even somehow lower on the ladder of lowlife than they."
[Breitbart] Israel has made a new hostage deal offer to Hamas leaders: free all 101 remaining hostages, and we will let you live.
The offer came after months of futile negotiations over an American-backed proposal that would see the hostages released in stages. Israel reluctantly accepted the American deal, which did not guarantee the release of all of the hostages, and which was vague about whether Hamas would be fully disarmed or removed from the Gaza Strip.
The new proposal is a single-stage deal: all 101 hostages, alive or dead, and an end to Hamas rule in Gaza, in return for safe passage for Hamas leaders out of Gaza, and possibly the release of a number of Palestinian terror convicts.
The Times of Israel reported Thursday:
Israel has proposed a framework for a deal with Hamas that would see all the hostages released at once and an end to the fighting in the Gaza Strip, along with safe passage out of the enclave for Yahya Sinwar and his associates, the Kan public broadcaster reports.
The proposed plan would see the release of Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel, the demilitarization of the Strip, and a new system of governance for Gaza, the report says. No further details are given.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which has been opposed to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent months, welcomed the announcement of the new plan, urging the government to pursue it.
“A one-shot deal that includes all 101 hostages is the wish of all Israeli citizens and the families of the hostages. The proposal strengthens security in Israel and makes it possible to reach a comprehensive regional settlement,” the forum said in a statement, as reported by the Times of Israel.
(This author has long argued that the only possible deal in circumstances where Israel had committed, out of necessity, to destroying Hamas as an organization was one in which the leaders could be convinced to save their own individual lives in exchange for the hostages’ release.)
[France24] Indian munitions are being diverted by European intermediaries to support Ukraine's defence against Russia, according to government and defence sources and customs data. Despite Indian arms export regulations and protests from Moscow, transfers of Indian ammunition by European providers have been ongoing for more than a year as sources say Delhi intends to develop its nascent arms export sector.
#8
I don't read the no news outlets. Many of the youth don't read or watch medias as well. Poorly understand what is going on. I speak to youth of all ages and few bother to get informed. Drugs main interest in their lives for most. Those who live best seem so out of place of the current norm.
#9
IF Trump gets in, they should pull all WH press passes. The DNC agencies should get one for all. They can decide among themselves who goes to the WH for the day.
#11
"Why do you make me beat you! Look at what you are making me do! You must really hate me to make me punch you like this!"
Harris tells Oprah anyone breaking into her home is 'getting shot:'
Two old, pampered, well-to-do childless cat ladies talking about how you should live your life.
...say, doesn't saying something like that in some states get you in real trouble, especially in must retreat states?
That said, of course this is all highly scripted, well except for Harris' blurp out because she is a moron, so what's the angle? Trying to steal some assassination juice? Polls showing safety and security is a leading concern topic? They both have war wigs which needed to be worn?
#16
So Kamala isn't just short; she is shorter than Oprah short.
I know they used all the production tricks (see Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds and the 'refrigerator' he was taller than) but they fudged a couple of times and showed a shot which featured them both on screen.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Korrespondent] 10:57 The US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports, citing geolocation footage, that Ukrainian forces have expanded their bridgehead and are advancing in the Kursk region - in particular, east of Krasnooktyabrskoye (southwest of Korenevo). The Russians have also made minor advances in the region - to the east along two wooded areas southeast of Kornevo, where a mechanized assault took place, and south of Obukhovka.
Article Linked Is Available Only Via VPN.
[EngMilRu] The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
The Sever Group of Forces in Liptsy and Volchansk directions inflicted damage on the 57th Motorised Infantry Brigade of the AFU, 5th Border Security detachment, International Legion formations, and 113th Territorial Defence Brigade near Liptsy and Volchansk (Kharkov region), and the city of Kharkov.
One counterattack launched by an assault group of the Kraken nationalist formation was repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to more than 195 troops, an armoured personnel carrier, three motor vehicles, and one 122mm 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system.
The Zapad Group of Forces improved the tactical situation and inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the 14th, 44th, 53rd, 63rd, and 116th Mechanised brigades, 3rd Assault Brigade of the AFU, 1st National Guard Brigade, and 125th Territorial Defence Brigade close to Kovsharovka, Vasilevka, Petropavlovka, Borovaya, Kruglyakovka (Kharkov region), Krasny Liman, Serebryanka (Donetsk People's Republic), and Novovodyanoye (Lugansk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 420 troops, a Kozak armoured fighting vehicle, 11 motor vehicles, a UK-made 155mm Braveheart self-propelled artillery system, two U.S.-made 155mm M-777 howitzers and one 155mm M-198 howitzer, a UK-made 152mm D-20 gun !, a UK-made 155mm FH-70 howitzer, a UK-made 122mm Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system !, a 122mm D-30 howitzer, and one 122mm Verba MLRS.
Three electronic warfare stations and three field ammunition depots were destroyed.
As a result of active efforts, the Yug Group of Forces liberated Georgiyevka (Donetsk People's Republic).
Russian troops have hit 24th, 28th, 30th, 33rd, 118th Mechanised brigades, 143rd Infantry Brigade, and 56th Motorised Infantry Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Konstantinovka, Kurakhovo, Grigorovka, Zaliznyanskoye, and Chasov Yar (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 690 troops, two German-made Marder infantry fighting vehicles, eight motor vehicles, one 155mm M-777 howitzers and one 105mm M119 howitzer made in the USA, three 122mm D-30 howitzers, one Anklav-N electronic warfare station, and one U.S.-made AN/TPQ-50 counter-battery radar.
The Tsentr Group's units captured more favourable lines and inflicted damage on manpower and hardware of the 68th Infantry Brigade, 71st Jaeger Brigade, 5th Assault Brigade of the AFU and the 109th Territorial Defence Brigade near Dzerzhinsk, Kalinovo, Gorkogo, Mikhaylovka, and Rozovka (Donetsk People's Republic).
Nine counter-attacks launched by assault groups of the 25th Airborne Brigade of the AFU, the Lyut Brigade of the National Police of Ukraine, and 2nd, 3rd, 12th, and 142nd National Guards brigades have been repelled.
The AFU sustained losses of more than 510 troops, two motor vehicles, one 152mm Msta-B howitzer, one 122mm D-30 howitzer, one U.S.-made 105mm M101 gun, and one 100mm Rapira anti-tank gun.
The Vostok Group of Forces has improved the situation along the front line and engaged manpower and hardware of the AFU 58th Mechanised Infantry Brigade and the 118th Territorial Defence Brigade near Dobrovolye and Zolotaya Niva (Donetsk People's Republic).
Two counter-attacks launched by assault detachments of the AFU 72nd Mechanised Brigade were repelled.
The enemy lost up to 95 troops, two motor vehicles, one French-made 155mm Caesar self-propelled artillery system, one 155mm Bogdana self-propelled artillery system, and one 122mm D-30 howitzer.
The units of the Dnepr Group of Forces have inflicted fire damage on the 141st Infantry Brigade of the AFU and the 39th Coastal Defence Brigade close to Veselyanka and Yulyevka (Zaporozhye region).
The enemy's losses included up to 30 troops and two motor vehicles.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have hit the main centre for special radio communication of the Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence, key facilities of Ukraine's airfield infrastructure, as well as clusters of enemy manpower and military hardware in 142 areas.
Air defence systems shot down 41 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, 646 airplanes and 283 helicopters, 31,765 unmanned aerial vehicles, 579 air defence missile systems, 18,167 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,455 combat vehicles equipped with MLRS, 14,813 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 26,203 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation.
The Sever Group of Forces carrying on offensive actions inflicted damage on the 22nd, 41st, and 115th Mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 82nd Air Assault Brigade, 1st National Guard Brigade, 129th Territorial Defence Brigade of the AFU near Lyubimovka, Daryino, Nikolo-Daryino, Tolsty Lug, and Plekhovo.
Over the past 24 hours, the Group's units foiled the enemy's attempted counterattacks in the direction of Borki, Kremyanoye, Lyubimovka, and Obukhovka.
As a result, the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered losses of up to 20 troops killed and wounded, three armoured fighting vehicles, and one motor vehicle. One AFU serviceman was taken prisoner.
With support of army aviation and artillery fire, the Russian troops repelled three attempts of the AFU to break through the border of the Russian Federation in the direction of the Novy Put, Malaya Obukhovka, and Medvezhye.
The AFU sustained losses of up to 30 troops killed and wounded, two infantry fighting vehicles, an armoured personnel carrier, four armoured fighting vehicles, and two motor vehicles.
Air strikes, artillery fire, and actions of the troops inflicted fire damage on manpower and hardware clusters of the 21st, 22nd, 41st, 61st, and 115th Mechanised brigades, 17th Tank Brigade, 80th and 95th Air Assault brigades, 36th Naval Infantry Brigade and 1st National Guard Brigade, and 103rd and 129th Territorial Defence brigades near Bogdanovka, Guyevo, Daryino, Kurilovka, Kruglenkoye, Kolmakov, Kazachaya Loknya, Lyubimovka, Leonidovo, Makhnovka, Mikhaylovka, Martynovka, Malaya Loknya, Novy Put, Novaya Sorochina, Novoivanovka, Obukhovka, Plekhovo, Tolsty Lug, and Cherkasskaya Konopelka.
Operational-Tactical Aviation and Missile Troops launched strikes against concentration areas and reserves in Sumy region of the 21st, 22nd, 41st, and 115th Mechanised brigades, 82nd Air Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 1st National Guard Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 1004th Security Brigade, and 101st, 103rd, 106th, and 107th Territorial Defence brigades of the AFU near Atynskoye, Belovody, Verkheye Peschanoye, Glukhov, Zhuravki, Kondratovka, Kazachye, Katerinovka, Malushino, Obody, Pavlovka, Peremoga, Rechki, Sumy, Shalygino, and Khoten.
In the past 24 hours, the AFU losses amounted to more than 300 troops and 14 armoured vehicles, including one tank, two infantry fighting vehicles, one armoured personnel carrier, and 10 armoured fighting vehicles, as well as two artillery guns, one mortar, two electronic warfare stations, and seven motor vehicles. Three pontoon crossings were eliminated.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk direction, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have lost more than 14,950 troops, 122 tanks, 52 infantry fighting vehicles, 93 armoured personnel carriers, 768 armoured fighting vehicles, 464 motor vehicles, 109 artillery guns, 28 MLRS launchers, including seven of HIMARS and six of MLRS made by the USA, eight SAM launchers, four transport-loading vehicles, 28 electronic warfare stations, seven counter-battery radars, two air defence radars, 14 engineering vehicles, including eight counterobstacle vehicles and one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
[IsraelTimes] Revelation comes in Channel 12 report that claims Netanyahu keeps ‘torpedoing’ 2nd hostage deal for political reasons; PM’s office says ‘false claims… echo Hamas propaganda’
Israeli television on Wednesday reported that November’s hostage-truce deal collapsed after a week because Hamas — instead of the 10 living hostages it was supposed to release on the eighth day of the deal — offered to return seven bodies and three living captives, who were two men and one woman. In fact, the report quoted a senior Israeli security source saying, Israel knew that the women among the seven purportedly dead hostages were alive and assessed that Hamas would immediately kill them if Israel accepted the changed terms.
The report was included in a lengthy story on Channel 12 that alleged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently acted since December to “torpedo” a further possible hostage deal with Hamas for political reasons — a claim that was immediately and forcefully denied by the premier’s office.
In its report, Channel 12 news blamed Hamas, not Netanyahu, for the collapse of the seven-day ceasefire deal that enabled the release of 81 Israeli hostages and 24 foreign nationals in late November.
It specified that among the seven hostages who Hamas claimed were dead was Noa Argamani, who was rescued by the IDF along with three other living hostages in June. And it quoted the senior security official stressing that if Israel had accepted Hamas’s changed offer, the terror group would have simply shot the living female hostages it was claiming were dead.
“In the hours before [that day’s scheduled set of releases], Hamas announced via the mediators that the women who were supposed to be freed were dead,” Channel 12 quoted the senior Israeli security source saying.
“But we knew for certain that they were alive. Hamas said that Noa Argamani was dead, but not only her, and that others could not be located. And that was despite the fact that we had agreed in advance on the whole list of names [of living hostages to be freed].”
Added the security source, “As far as we were concerned there was no dilemma” regarding how to proceed. “If we played their game, we made clear to the political echelon, Hamas would murder the women. A minute later, they’d shoot them in the head. If we’d allowed them to play us, we’d never have seen those women again.”
The TV report also said that Hamas insisted on listing all the younger women it was holding hostage, including Mia Shem, Romi Gonen, and Carmel Gat, as soldiers. Shem was released on November 30, the day before the truce collapsed. Gonen is still held hostage. Gat was one of six hostages murdered by their Hamas captors last month.
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
A senior cabinet minister told the network that “coalition threats” at the time from far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich dominated cabinet discussions about finding a way to continue the release of hostages despite Hamas’s games.
“That was the biggest missed opportunity. It would have been right to see the process through to the end, and move to the next category [of hostages]. It was possible to bring back the elderly men who died later in captivity, it was possible to bring Yarden Bibas home on humanitarian grounds,” the unnamed minister was quoted as saying.
In an interview last month, MK Gadi Eisenkot (National Unity), a former IDF chief who was an observer in the war cabinet at the time, said Israel could have gained the release of some elderly men if the government hadn’t resumed fighting in response to Hamas’s breaches of the deal, but “then Ben Gvir put out a statement that he would topple the government” if the truce continued.
The “threats from extremists in the government,” said Eisenkot, are a “cloud that hangs over all decision-making.”
Israel was right to insist on releasing women, he said, “but I didn’t think it was right to insist toward the end… I was in favor of actualizing the agreement in any way, even if we moved on to the category of elderly men and then returned to women,” he said, adding that he was alone in the war cabinet in this opinion.
Wednesday night’s TV report laid out Netanyahu’s decision to turn down an Egyptian proposal on December 24 and prevent Defense Minister Yoav Gallant from holding a discussion with Mossad chief David Barnea the next day.
There was also the potential for a breakthrough in January with a summit in Paris, said the report, but after Ben Gvir threatened to bring down the government, Netanyahu stressed five times over the next four days that there were obstacles in the talks.
Netanyahu continued along that line in March, refusing to expand the negotiators’ mandate. The report cited a former associate of Netanyahu, who argued that when the premier wants a deal he doesn’t speak publicly about his red lines, as he has done repeatedly since US President Joe Biden presented Israel’s proposal on May 31. Channel 12 also said the top security officials were surprised by Netanyahu’s announcement in June laying out his red lines, including continued IDF deployment in the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border.
Netanyahu’s office later issued a statement denouncing the TV report, saying the “false claims” in the media “echo the propaganda of the terrorist organization Hamas.”
The Prime Minister’s Office argued that Netanyahu accepted all of the US proposals, which “completely refutes the claim that he sabotaged any deal for political reasons.”
It noted that Netanyahu sent a proposal on April 27 that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called “very generous”; that he agreed to US President Joe Biden’s proposal on May 31; and that, on August 16, he accepted the US “final bridging proposal,” all of which were turned down by Hamas.
Netanyahu’s office also pointed out that US officials have said repeatedly that there is no deal because of Hamas — though they have also put some of the blame on Israel on occasion.
“Those who want to help in the effort to free our hostages should put pressure on the murderer [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar and not on the prime minister of Israel,” Netanyahu’s office said.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Along with the 105 civilians freed during a weeklong truce in late November, Hamas released four hostages before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
It can also be said that Hamas was gaming for a Hostage Deal where to honor the deal, Hamas would have to execute the women...
There it is, they see the complete picture.
“As far as we were concerned there was no dilemma” regarding how to proceed. “If we played their game, we made clear to the political echelon, Hamas would murder the women. A minute later, they’d shoot them in the head. If we’d allowed them to play us, we’d never have seen those women again.”
[FrontPage] Glass ceilings get broken, then wallets get stolen. Only in America? No. Only in Gov. Walz’s Minnesota.
But first, let’s pause to celebrate the incredible historic moment of the first Somali refugee to run a public housing agency.
Sharmarke Issa was confirmed by the Minneapolis City Council to chair Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA). Issa is the first immigrant and first East African to serve as chair of the MPHA Board of Commissioners.
“Having grown up in in Minneapolis public housing after coming to our city as a refugee, Sharmarke’s story of success highlights public housing as vital asset in Minneapolis,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. “Sharmarke’s life experience and background in urban planning are especially important to MPHA’s mission. At a time when the federal government continues to shortchange housing funding, he will be a skilled steward of our public housing infrastructure who understands and centers the needs of residents.”
Approximately one-third of Minneapolis Public Housing residents are members of the East-African community.
One third. 1 in 3 are Somalis. Just one of those little factoids about diversity being our strength. Kinda like Issa’s stewardship.
An Edina man who chaired the board of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal wire fraud charges for his role in the Feeding Our Future nutrition program fraud scheme.
That was a $250 million social welfare fraud to help the Somali community.
Sharmarke Issa, 42, admitted to running entities that laundered federal funding for the scheme, including Wacan Restaurant LLC and a nonprofit called Minnesota’s Somali Community.
Issa was responsible for $7.6 million of the $50 million in fraud scheme money that the federal government says it lost,
Issa claimed to serve 2.3 million meals to children at his food sites. He admitted that some of the fraud scheme money instead went to properties he purchased in Edina, Minneapolis and elsewhere.
Everyone is now pretending to be shocked and outraged at water being wet.
When Sharmarke’s name first surfaced in 2022 as part of the case, Frey said the allegations against him were “appalling” and “run counter to the values that we are entrusted to uphold in the City of Minneapolis.”
#2
Clan based, paternalistic kleptocracy with frequent Sharia-based restrictive attitudes towards cultural integration into traditional American society.
"Feds Charge 47 Somali Immigrants with Stealing $250M in Food Aid from Children" - June 2024
And yet :
"Temporary Protected Status Designated Country: Somalia
Alert Type info
ALERT: On Jul. 19, 2024, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas announced the extension and redesignation of Somalia for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months. This extension and redesignation will be in effect from Sep. 18, 2024, through Mar. 17, 2026. "
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] On the morning of September 19, Israeli warplanes attacked southern Lebanon after 32 people were killed and more than 3,000 injured when pagers and radios exploded across the country.
Go Israel!
IDF fighter jets targeted Shekhin, Tayb, Blade, Mis al-Jabal, Eitaron, al-Hyam and Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also shelled several areas in southern Lebanon with artillery.
Go Israel! Go Israel! Go, go, go Israel!
At the same time, Israeli media reported that eight people were wounded in a Hezbollah attack on Israeli bases on the Ramim Ridge in the northern Galilee. Hezbollah reportedly fired anti-tank missiles from Lebanese territory. The condition of two people taken to a hospital in Haifa is assessed as serious.
In addition, at least three drone attacks were carried out by Hezbollah in the Kiryat Shmona and Beit Hillel areas near the Lebanese border. A shell also hit the northern Israeli community of Ya'ara, wounding several more people.
Tensions on Israel's northern front escalated after Defense Minister Yoav Galant vowed to begin a "new phase of war" with Hezbollah. Speaking at an air base yesterday, Galant said: "This requires courage, determination and persistence from us."
In turn, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previously presented a proposal to the cabinet, adding a new official goal of the war - “the return of security to the North and the return of its citizens.”
TWO VERSIONS
However, the "untimely" exploding pagers indicate that the promised war in Lebanon is unlikely to resemble a simultaneous large-scale invasion of IDF brigades, as happened in 2006. Although such a scenario cannot be ruled out.
Perhaps Israel had planned to blow up Hezbollah pagers on more important occasions, such as simultaneously with a military operation in southern Lebanon and the start of an assault on the border fortifications of the Party of God. However, no decision was made to do so, and there was no way to postpone the action.
But here Hezbollah itself provoked the Netanyahu regime to use the schemes that were planned for the “X” hour, that is, for the moment of the direct invasion.
Al-Mayadeen, citing European security sources, reported that Hezbollah's Operation Arbaeen against the IDF's Unit 8200 intelligence headquarters at the Glilot base on August 25 resulted in the death of 22 IDF soldiers and the wounding of 74 more.
Not according to the Rantburg archives. A translated Regnum article on the subject, in fact. See Related link, below.
Other sources indicated that Brigadier General Yossi Sariel, commander of Intelligence Unit 8200, announced his resignation due to such high losses.
8200 is a signals intelligence unit within the Israeli military's Military Intelligence Directorate (AMAN). In English-language military publications, it is known as the "Central Collection Unit of the Intelligence Corps." Operations such as the pager bombings in Lebanon are precisely the unit's responsibility, and in this case, it looks like an act of revenge.
I would have described it as proactively shaping the battlefield, but I’m no expert on matters military. (My dinner parties, on the other hand…)
Israel has long demonstrated its inability to defeat Hamas in Gaza. Its army constantly leaves some areas and enters others where, according to Israeli statements, the "last battalions" of Hamas were eliminated long ago.
The battalions are staffed by dead bodies. Smaller units inevitably coalesce out of the remnants, so when they do they are in turn destroyed until they are too few to reform. This is the Rinse and Repeat strategy… or perhaps it’s a tactic —I’m not quite clear on which.
Against this backdrop, on September 13, Hezbollah shelled Safed, which Israel's air defenses were unable to prevent. Then, Yemen's Houthis from the Ansar Allah movement launched a ballistic missile, which also penetrated the air defenses.
Parts of the missile penetrated the air defenses, reportedly — the silly thing was no longer whole by the time it arrived.
Hezbollah's successful attack on Unit 8200's base added another major blunder to the Israelis.
Y’all keep telling yourselves that.
Perhaps all these events, concentrated in a short period of time, forced Israel to activate the prepared schemes earlier than planned. Its own blunders required urgent counteractions that had to look like win-win and resonant, and therefore they became asymmetrical.
Perhaps…
Although, apparently, the decision to carry out this cyber attack was not made immediately, just like the decision to transfer military efforts from Gaza to the north.
The massive strikes on Hezbollah bases, launch pads and missile depots in late August did not weaken the organization's potential and, apparently, mostly fell flat. The same applies to the IDF strikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeida, which failed to harm the Houthis' potential.
I know! It’s Opposite Day!
In this regard, Netanyahu felt the need to step up efforts on the Lebanese and Yemeni fronts. And if the Houthis are an unattainable target for Israel, then the intelligence services had the necessary preparations for attacks on Hezbollah.
At the same time, there is another version.
In recent days, Israeli leaders have become concerned that Hezbollah might detect the threat posed by the pagers. So Benjamin Netanyahu, the military commanders, and the heads of intelligence services decided to detonate the explosives rather than risk Hezbollah discovering them.
Israel's concerns that led to the decision to carry out the attack were first reported by Al-Monitor, which reported that two Hezbollah militants had raised suspicions about the pagers in recent days.
However, this version rather complements the first, since in any case it is obvious that the decision on a land invasion of southern Lebanon had not been made at the time of the pager explosion.
Another issue is that the current cyber attack on Lebanon, although it did damage Hezbollah, was not as damaging as it might have seemed at first glance. Most of the dead and wounded were civilians: doctors, teachers and other employees who used pagers from the same batch that was prepared by Israeli intelligence services. Children were also injured and killed.
Why on earth was Hezbollah handing out pagers to civilians and children?
USA VS.
The European Union condemned the actions of the initiators of the "action", calling them unacceptable. Many qualify the actions of the special services as a terrorist act. The United States also hastened to distance itself from this attack.
According to Axios, minutes before the pagers started exploding, Yoav Galant called US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and told him that Israel would soon carry out an operation in Lebanon.
The US minister said the Israelis had not told the US the details, but added that Galant's call was an attempt to avoid leaving the US completely in the dark about Israel's actions. However, Washington was running out of time to dissuade Tel Aviv from the attack.
At the same time, Israeli and US officials have already stated that Hezbollah itself could launch a retaliatory operation by carrying out a large-scale attack on Israel.
Therefore, regardless of which version is more true, it is likely that the Netanyahu regime has “passed the ball” to Hezbollah and will wait for a massive attack to justify the start of a full-scale war in southern Lebanon. Although the option of Israel’s preemptive action cannot be ruled out.
One way or another, the Israeli cabinet, despite its bellicose rhetoric, is under pressure from the Americans. And even despite Netanyahu’s ability to find ways around certain American prohibitions and even act against the will and desire of the Biden administration, the invasion of Lebanon is not an issue where Washington’s position can be completely ignored.
Therefore, the Israelis will most likely try to follow the path of increasing escalation in order to prepare the ground for an invasion, if they do decide to do so.
The difference from the previous stage of the confrontation with Hezbollah will be the speed of action. Let us recall that the finger has been on the trigger of the invasion of Lebanon for a long time and one of the main obstacles is Washington's position. Shortly after the Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel almost started a preventive war against Hezbollah.
At the time, Israeli intelligence reported that the Party of God fighters were allegedly ready to cross the border into Israel and launch a full-scale invasion in support of Hamas. In turn, the IDF had already prepared combat aircraft and deployed units on the border with Lebanon, awaiting orders.
Israeli officials apparently notified the White House around 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 11, 2023, that they were considering preemptive strikes and asked for support. But senior U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, have strongly opposed them.
According to CSIS, which interviewed U.S. officials, Americans were concerned that Israeli strikes on Lebanon could trigger a regional war and were skeptical of Israeli intelligence that a Hezbollah attack was imminent.
Therefore, since then, the Netanyahu regime itself has been trying to provoke the “Party of God” into actions that Washington would consider an appropriate pretext for intensifying the IDF’s military efforts in southern Lebanon.
Another issue is that the mass explosions of equipment have not met with understanding in Washington, at the very least. And if Hezbollah continues to act within the framework of its previous strategy, launching limited strikes on Israeli territory, then for the US this will hardly become a compelling reason to support the IDF's Lebanese campaign.
Moreover, the red banner of revenge for the murdered Ismail Haniyeh still flutters over the dome of the Iranian Jamkaran mosque, and any escalation in Lebanon could lead to the very same retaliatory strike from Iran that has been long postponed in the hope of the IDF leaving Gaza. This significantly increases the risks of regional escalation.
WAR WITHOUT END
The “Axis of Resistance” already sent an important signal to Israel when a Houthi missile penetrated Israeli air defenses on September 14, reminding Israel that the retaliatory strike had been postponed, but not cancelled. The Houthis showed that such an attack, if massive, consisting of dozens or hundreds of missiles, could be very destructive.
And if Israel decides to invade southern Lebanon, it will be a step toward regional escalation, which is exactly what both the US and Iran are trying to avoid.
They are indeed. Israel does not share that opinion.
At the same time, Netanyahu may decide to invade regardless of Washington's position. He has no other way to achieve his stated goals of "returning peace to the north" except by accepting the conditions of Hezbollah and Iran and leaving Gaza, ending military operations there.
But even this does not guarantee that the scenario of October 7, 2023 will not be repeated in the northern regions of Israel, but this time by the "Party of God", whose military potential is incomparably greater than that of Hamas. That is why Israel needs a security zone in southern Lebanon.
For now, the IDF will likely choose to proceed cautiously, increasing the number of air attacks and then possibly attempting to attack individual Hezbollah strongholds near the border from which ATGMs are launched. If such limited operations are successful, the IDF will likely move on to the next stage – a larger ground campaign.
But each operation will have a “face-saving” option, which will allow any combat action to be declared a success, even in the event of heavy losses. After that, the air offensive against Hezbollah will continue, and new attempts will be made to switch to ground operations using the same scheme, probing the enemy’s weak points.
In any case, what matters to Netanyahu is not victory, but war. And not just any war, but a war without end.
#1
Al-Mayadeen, citing European security sources, reported that Hezbollah's Operation Arbaeen against the IDF's Unit 8200 intelligence headquarters at the Glilot base on August 25 resulted in the death of 22 IDF soldiers and the wounding of 74 more.
#5
Deliciousness from Skidmark’s Russia Today link:
On September 17, a series of explosions rocked Lebanon, as pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah for communication were detonated. The blasts occurred in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah, as well as other parts of the country and Syria. According to Reuters, the explosions lasted for more than half an hour, claiming at least 12 lives, including the ten-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member. Thousands were injured, including Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon.
The next day, Lebanon witnessed another wave of detonations, this time involving communication devices and equipment installed in cars and motorcycles, as reported by Al Hadath. The explosions occurred in Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley, leaving around 100 people injured and at least three dead in the town of Sohmor.
Al Jazeera confirmed that the blasts were linked to portable devices used by members of Hezbollah. Iran’s Press TV added that radios and ICOM communication devices were among those that exploded. Al Hadath also reported that laptops and equipment installed in vehicles were destroyed, some of which were unrelated to communication devices. A security source told Reuters that the portable radios were acquired by Hezbollah five months ago, similar to the pagers that were also sabotaged.
As reported by Reuters and AFP, one explosion occurred near the funeral of Hezbollah fighters who died the previous day. According to Al Jazeera, the explosions were also heard near Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut. Videos shared online show burned-out cars and destroyed scooters and motorcycles. Witnesses said the devices made strange noises and vibrations before the detonations.
Hezbollah issued a warning to Lebanese citizens, urging them to dispose of all gadgets and electronic devices
So the entire country — plus, probably, the Shiite sections of Syria and Iraq — are incommunicado except for in-person gossip? Kudos to Mossad and Unit 8200.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Russian military in the Syrian province of Idlib repelled an attempted attack by militants and killed one terrorist, Captain First Rank Oleg Ignasyuk, deputy head of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria (CRPS), told reporters.
The contents of the briefing are published on the website of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The deputy head of the center specified that the terrorist sabotage and reconnaissance group intended to penetrate the positions of the government forces of the republic in the Maaret El-Ulia region.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, in early June, Russian military personnel eliminated terrorist bases in hard-to-reach areas of the Al-Amur mountain range in the province of Homs and Al-Bishri in the province of Deir Ezzor. The targets were struck by the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS).
On August 23, the Russian Aerospace Forces destroyed three locations in Syria where militants had left the At-Tanf zone and taken refuge in hard-to-reach areas of the Syrian White Desert.
[Bee] MANHATTAN, NY — All three people who watch The View were completely unaffected by the talk show's recent decision to replace their entire cast with shrieking feral pigs.
According to Matylda Männer, an unemployed 45-year-old Kamala voter and antique hoarder, the show swapped out Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, and the rest of the cast for a newborn brood of clamoring pigs, but it hasn't actually changed anything about the show.
"I plopped down to hear some wisdom from Whoopi Goldberg," Männer said. "And then I realized — there was no Whoopi Goldberg. So I watched the show through anyway. Not bad. The new squallers were unusually quiet compared to the normal hosts and they were a little easy on Trump today, but I'll survive."
According to the estate of Barbara Walters, the show's creator, the decision to switch to feral pigs was "nothing personal, just good business."
"I mean, I like Joy and Sara, don't get me wrong — they're just a little repetitive and loud sometimes," a spokesperson for the Walters estate said. "These porkers actually bring a little bit more to the table — figuratively speaking, that is. And they look better, too. I'm fine with the decision, all around."
The View's new hosts were unavailable for comment, though several oinks and squeals were able to be heard through a locked door marked "View Makeup Stye."
At publishing time, MSNBC had also added squealing feral pigs to their talk show, nearly doubling their viewership to an all-time high of five.
#4
The only time I ever watched the View was when I was stuck in a dentist's waiting room while it was on. I'm not sure which was more painful: watching the View or getting my tooth extracted.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
09/20/2024 10:12
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#5
^#3
That was funny Skid!
Certainly changed how I'm going to view them from now on...
#8
On the Gutfeld show last night Michele Trafoya said when she was on the view she had never met a more sad, unhappy, vicious bunch of women. She said when they were preparing she was submitted to ridicule from Joy Behar and Sunny Hoston.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/20/2024 14:15
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Victor Vasiliev
[REGNUM] The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which took place in Beijing in early September, caused a wave of inspiration in African countries and criticism in Western media, which has not subsided to this day. In Russia, opinions were divided regarding this significant event for the Black Continent.
On the one hand, China is our strategic ally in the context of global confrontation with the West. On the other hand, real achievements and growth points of the Chinese presence in African countries are often realized through direct competition with Russia.
Of course, China is an ally of Russia in a number of international organizations – BRICS, SCO, and also acts as our permanent ally on most controversial issues in the UN Security Council.
Beijing and Moscow have reached a significant understanding in a number of joint and border zones of influence, primarily in Central Asia, partly in the South Caucasus and Eastern Europe. There is even talk of mutual complementarity of the two states' strategies in these regions. This would have been unimaginable three years ago.
It would be natural to assume that in other areas, relations between China and Russia remain just as friendly and mutually interested. And in this sense, China's strategy in Africa unpleasantly surprises Russia. Not only does China not need anyone's help or coordination of efforts on the Black Continent, but it is also ready to take into account only its own interests.
Including achieving new successes in cooperation with African countries, becoming our direct competitor in certain areas. In particular, this is how things stand in the area of arms sales.
THREE REASONS TO CHOOSE CHINESE WEAPONS
China has become the largest arms supplier to sub-Saharan Africa, surpassing Russia for the first time. Russian arms sales fell by 44% between 2019 and 2023, while China is increasing its presence. In effect, China is looking for new markets where Russia is weakening.
The fact is that both Russian and Chinese weapons are in approximately the same price segment with a generally similar range. Yes, the quality and reliability of Russian weapons is still higher, but China takes it in a different way.
Firstly, Beijing has the potential for significant dumping. Secondly, Chinese manufacturers offer interesting purchasing mechanisms (loans for the purchase of weapons), related services for equipment maintenance and training of armed forces. That is, we are not talking about just selling weapons, but about a whole package deal, the terms of which are quite advantageous for the African side.
Third, and just as important, Beijing often uses military contracts as a nice bonus for major investment and trade deals with African countries.
Thus, China is realizing its primary interest in Africa - increasing its influence, and in the medium term it may sacrifice its own earnings.
One of the factors complicating Russia's competition is the sanctions pressure from Western countries, which is having a painful impact on the prospects of the Russian military-industrial complex. This, in particular, is something our traditional partner Egypt is very concerned about.
In general, the Celestial Empire is doing excellently in Africa on its own; it does not need Russia as an ally. Even in the most successful area for us, the security sector, China gives preference exclusively to its own private security structures and PMCs.
Moreover, it was in Africa that China built its first military base abroad in 2017. We are talking about the logistics base for the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy in the small but strategically important for the entire East African coast African state of Djibouti.
In any other areas - from the extraction of natural resources to the construction of nuclear power plants - Russia in Africa is of no interest to China as an ally or a side complementing its strategy. Quite the contrary.
China has been implementing its own African strategy for decades. It called itself the leader of the third world, meaning Africa, back in the days of Mao Zedong, competing with the USSR in the 1970s. And, unlike the latter, it has never left the Black Continent.
Therefore, from the Chinese point of view, it is not they who have come to our potential territory, but we who have come to their fiefdom. Another thing is that there will be no open confrontation between our countries anywhere in the near future.
FOSSIL CONTROL
In 2023, according to the International Trade Center (ITC), China's trade turnover with African countries amounted to $283 billion (it has grown more than 20-fold since 2000). China is Africa's second-largest trading partner after the European Union. In 2009, it surpassed the United States in this indicator. More than 10,000 Chinese companies and enterprises operate on the continent.
China mainly imports minerals from Africa, and this is the key point. It turns out that for the entire ten years since the announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative, China has been rapidly and at the same time painstakingly moving towards its goal - establishing control over some strategically important minerals and stable and safe logistics from Africa to Asia for their further processing in China.
The proposal to merge the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road projects was first put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia in the fall of 2013.
However, this initiative was most successfully implemented in Africa, which is relatively far away from China. 44 African countries were involved in this initiative, receiving large infrastructure projects implemented on their territory. Chinese-African cooperation with the launch of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative in 2013, according to China Daily, led to the construction of 6,000 km of railways, 6,000 km of highways and 20 ports in Africa.
At first glance, the situation is paradoxical: China’s priorities in foreign economic activity are not in the border countries of Central Asia or Southeast Asia, but in Africa.
The goal-setting becomes clearer if we analyze the structure of the current economic confrontation between Beijing and Washington, in which Chinese companies are currently winning. And this is happening due to the presence of indisputable advantages in the form of control and access to the raw materials base in Africa.
THE AMERICANS ARE TRYING TO FIGHT BACK
For example, the struggle between the US and China in such a key area as the electric car market is based on access to metals mined in Africa. Leading American expert on this continent Peter Pham shares an interesting analysis of the current confrontation between the US and China on the pages of the conservative international relations magazine The National Interest.
Due to the commitments made by Western countries to limit their impact on the environment, the production and operation of electric vehicles is acquiring strategic importance.
The Biden administration has used formal and informal measures to regulate the auto market to ensure that two-thirds of cars and trucks sold in the United States, the world's largest market, will be electric or hybrid by 2032.
However, the artificial increase in demand for electric cars primarily had a beneficial effect on the Chinese auto industry. It turned out that the Chinese hybrid Yuan Plus is several times cheaper than its analogues from the American manufacturer Ford.
Faced with such a problem, the State Department took an unprecedented step on May 14, 2024: it raised the tariff rate on foreign-made electric vehicles from 25% to 100% (a classic example of trade wars and protectionism). However, this did not help: China still retains its dominance.
American and European electric vehicle manufacturers are almost entirely dependent on supplies of batteries used in new cars, as well as the materials and metals used to create the low-carbon energy systems so essential to a “green economy.”
The International Energy Agency estimates that the net-zero emissions target by 2050, set out in the European Union's climate law and President Joe Biden's December 2021 executive order, will increase demand for lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel by a factor of thirty over the next twenty years.
Here again, much depends on Africa. The Dark Continent contains about a third of the world's mineral resources, including more than half of the world's cobalt, manganese and platinum.
Only China has reliable access to supplies of the necessary strategic materials. Beijing has achieved this through years of investment in African mining and supply chains.
Today, China produces enough batteries to supply all EV manufacturers in the world. In fact, one Chinese firm, CATL, controls more than 30% of the global EV battery market and has been the leading manufacturer for seven years in a row.
For example, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) accounts for just under three-quarters of all cobalt produced in the world. And almost all of the metal is then exported to China, which processes about 90% of the world's cobalt and rare earth element production, concentrating in its hands 50-70% of lithium supplies and 35% of nickel supplies.
It must be acknowledged that the Biden administration is aware of the scale of the problems and the corresponding adjustment of the US strategy in Africa is already taking place. In particular, the Lobito Corridor project, which is already being implemented and connects Angola, the DRC and Zambia, is a major geopolitical and infrastructure project to get rid of direct dependence on Beijing.
The corridor will provide a shorter and more reliable transport route from the mineral-rich inland countries to the Angolan port of the same name on the Atlantic Ocean via a new railway.
WEST AFRICA
In recent years, Beijing has been making some adjustments to its African strategy. Having abandoned support for risky projects and the distribution of loans, it is focusing on cooperation in key areas for itself, trying to secure the support of the largest players on the continent.
This primarily concerns Nigeria, South Africa and Ethiopia, with which the Chinese side has the most impressive indicators of trade and economic turnover, and whose economies are the largest in the African subregions.
It is pro-American Nigeria that today strives not only for economic but also political leadership in the regional association ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States).
Our main geopolitical project on the Black Continent, the Sahel Alliance, which has announced its complete withdrawal from ECOWAS structures, is the main obstacle to the implementation of this plan. It is logical to assume that Nigeria, which is China's key partner in the region, may ask Beijing to put pressure on Russia in West Africa. There is reason to say that the Sahel Alliance (which includes Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger) may face tacit opposition from China.
The fact that in this case the interests of the pro-American regime and China may coincide should not be disconcerting. We can see something similar in Kenya, where China is implementing large infrastructure projects, while the country's political leadership remains pro-American. The whole point is that the struggle on the African continent is not two- or even three-sided. It is a multi-sided game, with a large number of countries and factors. Therefore, the most unexpected temporary combinations and alliances are possible here.
According to African observers, Nigerian leader Bola Tinubu's participation in the Beijing summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) can be considered the clearest indicator of the success of China's strategy, even though as many as 54 African delegations attended the summit.
Even a brief list of the results of the talks between Tinubu and Xi is impressive. In particular, Nigeria is ready to strengthen partnership in the development of energy and mineral resources and to build factories together with Chinese companies both to meet local needs and for export, says Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar.
The two sides also decided to make joint efforts to build on Nigeria's geographical and economic advantage in West Africa to establish the continent's flagship projects for inter-ethnic and inter-regional cooperation. China commended Nigeria's leading role in ECOWAS and its efforts to ensure stability in the region.
Nigeria has long been laying claim to clear leadership in West Africa. For a long time, the language barrier with the rest of the Francophone part of the region and the active policy of Paris prevented the local elites and the US standing behind them from realizing these ambitions.
In fact, it is precisely these motives that explain Abujdi's very restrained reaction to the militaristic rhetoric of Côte d'Ivoire towards the new authorities of Niger. De facto, it was Nigeria's position that nullified the real attempts of the French side to restore the status quo in Niamey by military means in the summer and autumn of last year.
Having achieved recognition of its regional ambitions from Beijing and, as a result, pressure on Russia’s position, Nigeria has every chance of becoming not only an economic but also a political leader in ECOWAS.
This can only be realized if the "Sahel Alliance" countries return to this community. Simply under new conditions and without obvious tutelage from Paris. But without a serious role for Russia in the region, of course.
And such political consequences of the alliance between the “Chinese dragon” and the regional leader in West Africa are much more important to us than the “pure” economy.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The death toll from the four-month-long riots in New Caledonia, a French overseas territory in the Pacific Ocean, has risen to 12. This was reported on September 18 by the French television channel BFMTV.
"One person was killed during an operation by French security forces in St. Louis on Thursday night, bringing the death toll since the start of unrest in the archipelago to twelve," the statement said.
Police are also reportedly continuing to search for 10 people in St. Louis County suspected of shooting law enforcement officers with an armed gun.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on May 13, a peaceful demonstration in the capital of New Caledonia, Noumea, against the French constitutional bill aimed at expanding the electoral corps in local elections, escalated into clashes with the police and mass riots. In connection with the outbreak of violence in Noumea, a curfew was imposed, and later the French authorities brought troops into New Caledonia to ensure the security of ports and airports.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 23:58 Official summary of the DPR Representative Office in the JCCC from 00:00 09/19/2024 to 00:00 09/20/2024.
A total of 23 cases of armed attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces were recorded by the DPR Representative Office in the JCCC over the past 24 hours.
There were reports of five civilians being injured.
DAMAGED:
One car,
Two civil infrastructure facilities.
Two artillery attacks in the Donetsk direction.
A total of 20 artillery attacks in the Gorlovka direction.
One artillery attack in the Volnovakha direction.
A total of 71 units of various ammunition were fired.
23:15 RF Armed Forces are applied strikes from large-caliber MLRS in the area of Borshcheva and Slobozhanske in the Khar'kov region. At least 10 hits were recorded.
21:35 Krasnoarmeysk – Novogrodovka
Active military operations in the Krasnoarmeysk direction. Successful defeat by the RF Armed Forces of an M-113 armored personnel carrier of the Ukrainian Armed Forces north of Novogrodovka near the railway to Krasnoarmeysk.
20:42 Dnipropetrovsk region. Powerful sound of an explosion.
It is reported about the sound of an explosion in the southern part of the region in the industrial zone area.
20:11 Advance of the Russian Armed Forces in Makeyevka (Svatovo-Kupyansk direction) –map.
There are also advances today in the Gulyaipole area, in Dzerzhinsk, in the Grodovka area and in the Kursk region.
19:45 Statements by representatives of the North, West, South, Center, East and Dnepr groups on the progress of the special military operation (as of September 19, 2024) –video.
18:25 During reconnaissance activities in one of the settlements in the border area of the Kursk region, servicemen of the Sever military group revealed s car with militants.
After analyzing the intelligence data received, a decision was made to fire at the enemy vehicle with identification marks. As a result of a direct hit from a grenade launcher, the enemy vehicle was destroyed.
17:57 Special military operation. Situation as of September 19 –map.
17:21 Krivoy Rog. Explosion.
It is reported, that the explosion in Krivoy Rog was the result of our tactical aviation. Our Su-34 worked. The X-59 cruise missile accurately hit the target.
16:44 The Mi-28NM crew carried out an air strike on a concentration of manpower and armored vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the border area of the Kursk region –video.
According to intelligence reports, the personnel and armored vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were destroyed.
16:12 Liptsy – Deep.
Positional military operations in the Liptsy area. The forward positions of the Russian Armed Forces in the "Glubokoe" gardening community along the bank of the Travyanskoye Reservoir came under fire from a Ukrainian Armed Forces drone. The advance of the Russian Armed Forces towards Liptsy is more than 300 meters. Entry into the gardening community area.
15:47 Around 13.10 Moscow time stopped another attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out terrorist attacks using aircraft-type UAVs against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed over the territory of the Kursk region by air defense systems on duty.
14:55 Svatovo – Makeyevka.
Positional military operations in the Svatovo area. The Russian Armed Forces expanded their presence on the western bank of the Zherebets River in Makeyevka, taking up new positions in the Church of Peter and Paul, advancing more than 700 meters from the previously occupied positions. The forward position of the Russian Armed Forces is under fire from the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
14:34 German tanks are burning again near Kursk. Our drone operators destroyed another German tank "Leopard 2A6" –video.
13:45 The Russian Armed Forces entered Gornyak from the northern side. They also advanced towards the Selidovskaya mine –map.
The liberation of Ukrainsk creates the preconditions for a further bypass of Selidovo from the south and an advance south to Kurakhovo. The liberation of Gornyak will be an important stage in solving the tasks of the Kurakhovo operation.
13:17 Selidovo - Marinovka.
Active military operations in the Krasnoarmeysky direction. A successful hit by a Russian Armed Forces FPV drone on a Ukrainian Armed Forces tank when it reached a firing position in the vicinity of the village of Marinovka near the E50 highway.
12:34 Around 11:30 Moscow time stopped another attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out terrorist attacks using aircraft-type UAVs against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed over the territory of the Belgorod region by air defense systems on duty.
11:55 Changes to map in the SVO zone the day before:
— Most of the village of Grodovka is under the control of the Russian army.
— Minor advance of the Russian Armed Forces north of the settlement of Vodyanoye.
— The Russian Armed Forces have advanced in Makeyevka in the Krasnolimansk direction.
— The Russian Armed Forces advanced 400 m north of the settlement of Peschanoye in the Kupyansk direction.
— The Russian army liberated the villages of Darino and Nikolayevo-Daryino in the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region.
11:11 In Khar'kov, multiple arrivals "Iskander".
10:53 Seversk – Vyemka.
Positional military operations in the Seversk area. The Russian Armed Forces took up new positions near the Vyemka railway station after advancing about 600 meters toward Seversk. The forward position of the Russian Armed Forces was fired upon by a Ukrainian FPV drone.
10:14 During the past night stopped attempts by the Kyiv regime to carry out terrorist attacks using aircraft-type UAVs against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed by air defense systems on duty over the territory of the Kursk region and one UAV was destroyed over the territory of the Belgorod region.
09:55 The Russian Ministry of Defense is in touch with the heads of border territories. We are working in 24/7 mode.
In total, at the moment, the operational group of the Coordinating Council of the Russian Ministry of Defense on military security issues of the border territories of the Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions has received 91 questions from the operational headquarters under the governors related to key types of support for the state border cover group (including logistics, transport, military-technical, medical, engineering and construction).
Requests are accepted 24/7.
The task force processes them within 24 hours.
If a solution is not possible, an urgent report is made to the Minister of Defense.
- No new requests have been received from the Kursk Region operational headquarters.
All 45 issues have been resolved.
- No new requests have been received from the Belgorod Region operational headquarters.
All 27 issues have been resolved.
– 19 requests were received from the operational headquarters of the Bryansk region.
18 requests were implemented.
In terms of fulfilling the schedule for the delivery of military equipment, 124 events have been completed.
Deadlines are being met.
09:23 Crews of 152mm guns 2A36 "Giatsint-B" destroyed Ukrainian Armed Forces vehicles in the Kakhovka direction
Crews of 152mm towed guns "Giatsint-B" of the "Dnepr" group of forces carry out fire missions to destroy armored vehicles, fire weapons, ammunition depots, fortified positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the right bank of the Dnieper.
The high professionalism of the artillerymen of the Dnepr group of forces is evidenced not only by the high results of their combat work, but also by the conditions in which it is conducted.
"Shooting through water obstacles is considered one of the most difficult in artillery. On the Dnieper, the wind is stronger than on land, it blows in the other direction," said the commander of an artillery platoon with the call sign "Dome."
08:52 Telegram channel «WarGonzo»:
Frontline report for the morning of 19.09.2024
Zaporizhzhya Front. On the ground, no significant changes. Positional battles continue using long-range weapons. (Fig. 1)
- Donetsk Front. Fighting for mines in the Ugledar area continues. Russian troops, in the classic military actions in Donbass, are trying to take the most advantageous positions. Fighting also continues in the Vodyane area.
There are more tactical successes in Grodovka, but the fighting there is very heavy. Fierce fighting also continues in the Ukrainsk area, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces still hold a number of positions.
- Chasovoyarskoe direction. Fighting continues in the eastern part of the city. The Russian Armed Forces continue to methodically improve their positions on the flanks. In some areas, the fighting has recently been positional in nature.
- Khar'kov Front. Without any changes in LBS. Fighting continues in Volchansk and in the area of Glubokoe.
– Kursk Region. In Glushkovsky District, fighting continues in border settlements. The Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to bring up military equipment and personnel in this area, but any enemy advances on the ground are currently unknown.
In Korenevsky District, Russian troops continue to put pressure on the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defense, pushing them out of their occupied positions. The liberation of the settlements of Darino and Nikolayevo-Daryino is reported.
08:00 Telegram channel «Fisherman»
Chronicle of the special military operation for September 18, 2024
– Ukrainian troops attacked an ammunition depot in the village of Toropets in the Tver region during a night drone raid; the aftermath is still being dealt with at the site of the attack.– In the Kursk region, Russian troops are expanding their zone of control in the Sudzhansky and Korenevsky districts; the Ukrainian Armed Forces are not trying to gain a foothold on the outskirts of the Glushkovsky district.
– In the Kupyansk direction, Russian troops are advancing west of Peschanoye, expanding the bridgehead in the northern and western directions towards the Oskol River.
– In the Pokrovsk direction, fighting continues in the Grodovka area and in the fields north of the village. Russian troops control about 80% of the settlement.
– In the South Donetsk direction, the Russian Armed Forces have expanded the control zone in the Vodyanoye area, and active clashes are underway in the area of the Yuzhnodonbasskaya mine No. 1.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The weapons of the 25th division of strategic nuclear-powered missile submarines of the Russian Pacific Fleet (PF) are at an extremely high level of readiness for use, said Admiral Alexander Moiseyev, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy (VMF) on September 19.
"It should be noted that these are modern ships. This is a completely different level of technology. Weapons that are, first of all, of the highest technical reliability. And I'm not even talking about the readiness to use weapons - an extremely high level," he said.
The admiral's words are quoted by the Russian Defense Ministry. He gave a speech at a ceremonial event, during which he presented the cruiser unit with the Order of Nakhimov. Moiseyev emphasized that these submarines are armed with the most powerful and destructive weapons, which ensures Russia's security.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on September 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin, while on a visit to Vladivostok, conveyed his best wishes to the Pacific Fleet fighters. He visited the base of the Primorskaya flotilla of the Pacific Fleet's mixed forces in Ulysses Bay, where he inspected the corvette Rezkiy.
On September 18, Putin noted that the Russian authorities are paying great attention to strengthening the Russian army and the Russian Navy. The President added that their re-equipment program is being implemented.
Untethered witch flits about seeking vindication
[Breitbart] Former First Lady Hillary Clinton suggested she would be open to accepting an official position in a potential Harris administration, drawing jeers from Republicans who mocked her willingness to unretire.
Clinton is a two-time failed presidential contender, an election denier, a former senator, and a former secretary of state.
During an interview with CBS News, reporter Erin Moriarty asked Clinton if she wanted to work in a potential Harris administration, either officially or unofficially.
“Well, certainly, unofficially, I want to be as helpful as I can and would do anything I was asked to be helpful,” Clinton replied. “We have so much to do that it really should be all hands on deck. And anybody who can help in any capacity should be willing to do so.”
“Yikes,” Republican strategist Steve Cortes posted on X. “A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote to make Hillary Clinton the Defense Secretary or Secretary of State.”
Clinton, who immediately endorsed Harris when she entered the race, is a longtime election denier:
2016: Claimed the Supreme Court “took away a presidency” in Bush v. Gore.2017: Alleged she would not “rule out” questioning the legitimacy of the 2016 election.
2020: Claimed the 2016 presidential election was not conducted legitimately, saying, “We still don’t really know what happened.”
2020: Claimed Stacey Abrams “would have won” Georgia’s gubernatorial race “if she had a fair election” and that Abrams “should be governor” but was “deprived of the votes [she] otherwise would have gotten.”
[Jpost] Iran plotted to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar, the Shin Bet, in cooperation with the police, announced on Thursday. In addition, the Islamic Republic, at a somewhat more vague level, explored assassinating former prime minister Naftali Bennett and other top Israeli defense officials.
Its efforts were particularly intense following the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, which most of the world has attributed to Mossad. However, Israel has been careful not to take any credit for it.
The plot was to use an Israeli businessman named Moti Maman – a 73-year-old man from Ashkelon who spent extensive time living in Turkey and had financial dealings with both Turkish and Iranian people – to develop assassination plans in Israel.
To effectuate the plan, in April of this year, Turkish citizens Andrei Farouk Aslan and Guneid Aslan contacted Maman to conduct financial transactions, inviting him to the Turkish city of Samandag to meet with two representatives of a rich Iranian named Edi. In May, the meeting was held.
ISRAELI BUSINESS IN IRAN
But when Maman was told that Edi could not leave Iran for Turkey, he agreed to have himself smuggled by car from Turkey into Iran, where he met Edi and a member of the Iranian security establishment named Haj.
Maman initially had requested one million dollars before undertaking any activities.
The Israeli businessman later visited Iran a second time in August and received 5,000 Euros as part of the start of his undertaking financial, logistics, and weapons-related actions for accomplishing the plot, including potentially converting a Mossad agent into a double agent.
During the second visit to Iran in August, he was smuggled again into Iran from Turkey, this time in a truck, and met again with Edi, though this time also with multiple other unidentified Iranian security officials. During this meeting, they asked him to assist with the assassination plots.
The Israeli businessman was also requested to take videos of certain Israeli sites for surveillance and intelligence gathering purposes as well as to deliver threats to Israeli citizens who Iran had contacted to carry out missions that were not complying with Iranian directives.
During the second visit to Iran in August, he was smuggled again into Iran from Turkey, this time in a truck, and met again with Edi, though this time also with multiple other unidentified Iranian security officials. During this meeting, they asked him to assist with the assassination plots.
Maman initially had requested one million dollars before undertaking any activities.
TWO BIRDS, ONE ISRAELI
Also, during the second visit to Iran, the Iranians asked the businessman if he would be able to recruit Russians and Americans who could be used to kill Iranian figures opposed to the regime who live in Europe and the US.
The Shin Bet did not provide any indications that the Israeli businessman made any significant progress toward any of the terror activities. Still, it did stress that any involvement with hostile Iranians during a time of war, let alone on Iranian territory itself, was viewed as a very serious security crime. Further, the Shin Bet said that Iran appeared to be continuing a hard push for such terror activities, such that uncovering this one plot did not bring an end to the danger.
The businessman was indicted on Thursday.
SHIN BET OPAQUE TIMING
It was unclear why the Shin Bet published the disclosure on Thursday, two days after it published the attempt by Hezbollah to assassinate former defense minister Moshe Yaalon.
In addition, it was unclear if there was any coordination between Iran and Hezbollah regarding the various plots or a delineation of who would target whom.
Questioned about the timing, the security agency initially responded that the cases were published based on when the indictments were being filed and when the relevant courts lifted the gag order relating to them.
The Jerusalem Post noted that the Shin Bet and law enforcement have significant control over the timing of filing indictments and requesting lifting gag orders, and as such the initial answer did not really answer the question.
In a second response, the agency noted that the Yaalon case was a year old and that this, along with the revelation that the same cell had attempted a second terror attack near Park Hayarkon in Tel Aviv had been part of the process for the lifting of gag order on the whole history of the terror group, including regarding Yaalon.
Further, the Shin Bet indicated that there are a much larger number of terror threats regularly being considered for publication as well as others which are never published for national security reasons.
TURKISH CO-OPERATION
Questioned as to whether Turkish authorities are cooperating with Israel against its citizens involved in the plot - which it has sometimes done in the past - the Shin Bet had not yet responded.
Issues of cooperation between Israel and Turkish authorities are extremely sensitive, though Ankara has publicized some such cooperation in the past when Iran tried to kill Jews inside Turkey, and the Mossad helped Turkish authorities thwart the plot.
A lawyer for Maman, Eyal Besserglick, did not deny the allegations, but maintained that his client had made a temporary faulty judgment with no real world consequences and that he should be dealt with leniently.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 20:55 Biden and Zelensky will meet in Washington on September 26 at the White House. The leaders will discuss the state of the war between Russia and Ukraine, including Kyiv's strategic planning and U.S. support, the U.S. presidential administration said. Zelensky will also meet with Vice President Kamala Harris and former U.S. President Donald Trump.
18:09 Russians have attacked a regional geriatric boarding house in Sumy where elderly people are housed. According to preliminary information, one person was killed and nine were injured, OVA reported.
16:14 Russians fired at a medical facility in the city of Seredina-Buda, Shostka district, Sumy region, causing a fire in a utility room. While local residents were helping doctors put out the fire, the enemy struck the same place with a drone - two people were injured, the regional prosecutor's office reported.
15:58 Ukraine needs 17 GW of capacity this winter, of which more than 25% will be covered by the EU through repairs and connection to the European network, said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. She specified that thanks to repairs and restoration, 2.5 GW of capacity will be provided this winter, or approximately 15% of Ukraine's needs. The head of the EC added that the European Union, as part of its assistance to Ukraine in the energy sector, will act in three areas: "repairs, connection and stabilization."
14:21 Germany plans to approve 397 million euros in emergency military aid to Ukraine, Reuters writes, citing a letter from the German Finance Ministry. It says that given the ongoing deterioration of the military situation in Ukraine, there is a serious risk that Kiev could suffer a defeat in its defense campaign without a significant increase in material support.
Germany has also updated the list of equipment supplied to Ukraine in recent weeks. It includes 22 Leopard 1A5 tanks, three Cheetah self-propelled anti-aircraft mounts, 22 MRAP heavy wheeled armored vehicles, two TRML-4D radars, 30 Vector UAVs, 20 RQ-35 UAVs, 20 Sonobot 5 surface drones, 12 Songbird UAVs, six Hornet XR UAVs, 1 million rounds of small arms ammunition, 61 thousand 155 mm shells, etc.
13:17 The Russian Defense Ministry is pressuring Putin to announce a new wave of mobilization, The Wall Street Journal writes. According to the publication, the Russian Defense Ministry urged Putin to use his inauguration and the associated increase in support among the population to explain the need for a new mobilization. Putin refused at the time, but six months later the problem of a shortage of troops in Russia has worsened, forcing the military leadership to return to this issue again.
13:05 The European Union will allocate 160 million euros to support Ukraine's energy security ahead of winter, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. Of this, 60 million euros is humanitarian aid for shelters and the purchase of heaters, and 100 million euros from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets will be directed to repair work and renewable energy sources. Since the beginning of the war, the EU has already provided at least 2 billion euros to support Ukraine's energy security.
Von der Leyen also said that she would visit Ukraine on Friday, September 20, including to meet with Zelensky. According to her, the key topic of discussions will be assistance in providing Ukraine with energy resources for the coming winter.
12:58 In its resolution, the European Parliament welcomed public initiatives in EU countries that help supply weapons to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and called on residents of EU countries to donate more to help Ukraine. In addition, in its resolution, the European Parliament calls on EU countries to immediately lift restrictions on the use of Western weapons systems against legitimate military targets on the territory of the Russian Federation. In the document, MEPs also express "deep regret" over the reduction in military aid from member states.
12:40 The EU has already allocated 400 million euros from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets to develop the Ukrainian defense industry, EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarina Mathernova said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine. According to her, Denmark was the leader in this process - in particular, of the 18 Bohdan self-propelled howitzers that the country acquired for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, two-thirds were financed by the EU using funds received from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets. Mathernova assured that such assistance would increase.
11:22 One of the people wounded in the Russian shelling of civilian infrastructure in the Krasnopolskaya community of the Sumy district has died in hospital, the prosecutor's office reported. Thus, as a result of the attack, three people were killed and one was wounded.
11:13 Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has proposed transferring Crimea to a UN mandate to prepare a "fair referendum." In his opinion, Crimea is "symbolically important" for Russia, and it is "strategically important" for Ukraine, so the parties will not be able to reach an agreement without demilitarizing the peninsula. "We could transfer Crimea to a UN mandate to prepare a fair referendum after verifying who the legal residents are... And we could postpone this for 20 years," the Polish Foreign Minister believes.
10:34 Ukraine has been receiving shells from India for over a year, despite Moscow's protests, Reuters writes. Artillery shells are purchased from Indian manufacturers by European buyers, who then ship them to Ukraine. At the same time, the publication notes that this is a small number of shells, which makes up less than 1% of the total volume of weapons imported by Kiev since the beginning of the war.
09:16 In the Kherson region, over the past day, six people were injured as a result of Russian shelling, reported the head of the OVA, Oleksandr Prokudin.
09:05 In Donetsk region on September 18, as a result of Russian shelling, ten people were wounded: three in Konstantinovka, three in Malinovka, two in Udachny, one each in Chasovy Yar and Toretsk, reported the head of the OVA Vadim Filashkin.
08:57 In the morning, Russians shelled the city of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region - six people were wounded, said the head of the OVA Oleg Sinegubov. In addition, the day before, one person was killed and one was wounded as a result of enemy shelling of the village of Glushkovka in the Kupyansk district. At night, Russians also launched several strikes on Kharkiv - on the Saltovsky, Industrialny and Shevchenkivsky districts. A civilian infrastructure facility, a school building, a kindergarten, and apartment buildings were damaged. No one was hurt.
08:51 The General Staff announced the estimated losses of the Russian Federation as of the morning of September 19:
personnel - about 638,140 (+1,130) people,
tanks - 8705 (+14),
combat armored vehicles - 17,093 (+13),
artillery systems - 18,177 (+23),
MLRS - 1189 (+1),
air defense systems - 947 (+0),
aircraft - 369 (+0),
helicopters - 328 (+0) units,
Operational-tactical level UAVs - 15,417 (+63),
cruise missiles - 2592 (+0),
ships/boats - 28 (+0),
submarines - 1 (+0),
automotive equipment and tank trucks - 24,839 (+55),
special equipment - 3109 (+0).
08:38 Air defense destroyed all 42 Shahed-type attack UAVs and one Kh-59/69 guided air missile at night, the Air Force reported. In addition, the Russian Federation struck the Kharkiv region with three S-300/S-400 anti-aircraft guided missiles. Air defense forces operated in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions.
08:27 Russians fired from MLRS at the Krasnopolskaya community of Sumy Oblast - two people were killed, two were wounded, OVA reported. In addition, at night the enemy again struck a critical infrastructure facility in Sumy. The attack resulted in power outages, and all water utility facilities were de-energized.
06:26 The Russian army struck the Zaporizhzhya district with KABs - one person was killed, two were wounded, the head of the OVA Ivan Fedorov reported. The enemy struck the Kamyshevatskaya and Novoalexandrivska communities at least four times.
04:22 Zelensky's victory plan will include a detailed list of military resources vital to defeating Russia, as well as permission to attack Russian territory with long-range missiles, the Japanese news agency Kyodo writes, citing sources. In addition, the plan talks about the need for investments to strengthen Ukraine's defense potential, increase pressure on Moscow, and invite Ukraine to NATO.
"While highlighting the success of Ukraine's operation in Russia's Kursk region, the plan also suggests that increased attacks on Russian territory would be effective in creating social unrest in the country led by President Vladimir Putin," the report says.
01:53 Trump said he would likely meet with Zelensky on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York next week. When asked by reporters whether he would meet with Zelensky, Trump said: "Probably, yes." In turn, Bloomberg, citing sources, writes about a likely meeting between Zelensky and Kamala Harris.
The Slovenian Mission to the UN reported that Zelensky will address the UN Security Council on September 24. Earlier, the media reported that the Ukrainian president would address the UN General Assembly on September 25.
September 18
23:46 In Toropets, Tver Region, there is an arsenal for the complex storage of ammunition, missiles and explosives. Russian state media have written about the missile arsenal many times; its construction was completed only a few years ago. Read more about the Ukrainian strike on one of the largest ammunition depots in the Russian Federation in the article Drones reached the missiles.
23:23 Defense forces have strengthened their positions in the Liptsy area of the Kharkiv region, which is why the enemy has gone on the defensive and has been cut off from logistics, said Vitaly Sarantsev, spokesman for the operational-tactical group of troops in Kharkiv. According to him, the most difficult situation in the Kharkiv region remains in Vovchansk, where there is constant fighting. At the same time, Sarantsev noted that in the Liptsy-Glubokoe area, the Russians are strengthening their positions, building fortifications and assembling infantry units for an offensive.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Ukraine should be immediately accepted into NATO — even before the country's armed conflict with Russia is resolved. This opinion was expressed by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in an article for The Spectator.
Former British prime minister Johnson turns out not to be nearly as clever or insightful as his long-form television interviews predicted.
"We need to bring Ukraine into NATO immediately, and I mean immediately. There is a way to do that. We can invite Ukraine to join before the end of "the conflict." Because we could extend the Article 5 security guarantee to all Ukrainian territory currently controlled by Ukraine," Johnson wrote.
Johnson believes that this step would protect most of Ukraine and at the same time help it to return the rest of its territories. The former prime minister believes in the feasibility of his proposal, but emphasizes that its implementation will depend on the determination of NATO countries, primarily the United States.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, in March 2022, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the issue of Ukraine joining NATO is not a question of the near future. Noting that Ukraine, like any country, has the right to decide for itself whether to become part of NATO, Stoltenberg emphasized that the alliance has the right to decide whether to accept a candidate country into its ranks and whether it meets the bloc's requirements.
In July 2023, the head of the Kyiv regime, Volodymyr Zelensky, admitted that his country, since it was waging military action, would not be able to become a member of the alliance until its end. A few days before that, he called the situation absurd and unprecedented in which NATO was not going to accept specific deadlines for inviting Ukraine to the bloc. Zelensky assessed such uncertainty as weakness.
Earlier that month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine's admission to the North Atlantic Alliance threatens Russia's security. The president noted that Kiev's desire to join the military-political bloc was one of the reasons for conducting the special military operation.
In November 2023, Ukrainian politician David Arakhamia admitted that it was Boris Johnson, who was the British Prime Minister at the time, who had disrupted the peace talks in Istanbul and convinced Kiev to continue military action.
#1
Escalation at any cost. UK wants war period. Leadership no longer represents its people. Doing their best to drag USA into their conflict. Austerity for many years to come. Increasing isolated. Increasingly meaningless.
[Breitbart] Texas Department of Public Safety Highway Patrol troopers interdicted a large group of migrants shortly after they waded across the shallow Rio Grande north of Eagle Pass on Wednesday. In all, 124 migrants from a host of different countries were arrested by the troopers in a surprising twist to the election-year slowdown along the Texas border.
Some in the group will face criminal prosecution by state authorities for trespassing violations. According to a source within CBP, the others will likely be released to pursue asylum claims.
The large migrant group crossed the Rio Grande late in the afternoon near the small community of Normandy, Texas, roughly 16 miles north of Eagle Pass. As reported by Breitbart, Texas, the area was once notorious for the frequency of large migrant crossings but has since slowed after increased election-year enforcement efforts in Mexico significantly slowed the flow of migrants arriving at the United States border.
According to a spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety Highway Patrol, one migrant within the group was an adult female Iranian national. The Iranian woman, Masoumeh Fooladlou, was referred to the department’s intelligence specialists for further vetting as she falls within the category of Special Interest Migrant under DHS standards.
According to the spokesperson, 27 migrants within the group from Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Colombia, and Ecuador were taken to the state’s Val Verde Processing Center in Del Rio and will face prosecution for criminal trespass. The remainder of the migrants, which included family unit migrants and 22 unaccompanied children, were turned over to the Border Patrol for processing and placement in removal proceedings.
According to a source within CBP, the unaccompanied migrant children will be processed and referred to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), who will find sponsors within the United States to care for the children while they pursue asylum claims. The Border Patrol has apprehended more than 519,000 unaccompanied migrant children under the Biden-Harris administration.
The CBP source, not authorized to speak to the media, says some of the migrants in the group arrested on Wednesday will likely be released to a local non-government shelter to pursue asylum claims within the United States. Since October, more than 237,000 migrants have been arrested after entering by the Border Patrol in the Del Rio Sector, which includes Normandy.
#5
"This bombshell revelation should end Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign…
Kamala previously mocked the idea that America needs a wall to secure our border and stop terrorists from entering. But the former Chief Patrol Agent for the Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector under Kamala testified yesterday that there’s been a massive increase in illegal aliens with ties to terrorism crossing the border and that they were explicitly told not to release any information about it:
Kamala: “To suggest that we have to build a wall across our southern border because there are terrorists who are trying to invade the country, it couldn’t be farther from the truth.”
Former Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke: “Simultaneously in San Diego, we had an exponential increase in significant interest aliens. These are aliens with significant ties to terrorism. Prior to this administration, the San Diego sector averaged 10 to 15 SIA arrests per year. Once word was out the border was far easier to cross San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022 well over that in 2023, and even more than that registered this year. These are only the ones we caught. At the time I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIAs or mention any of the arrests. The [Biden-Harris] administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border.”
[Yahoo] The mass pager attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon has turned the spotlight on Israel's secretive Unit 8200, the Israel Defense Forces' intelligence unit, which a Western security source said was involved in planning the operation.
Israeli officials have remained silent on the audacious intelligence operation that killed 12 people on Tuesday and wounded thousands of Hezbollah operatives. At least one person was killed on Wednesday when hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated.
A senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters that Israel's Mossad spy agency was responsible for a sophisticated operation to plant a small quantity of explosives inside 5,000 pagers ordered by Hezbollah.
One Western security source told Reuters that Unit 8200, a military unit that is not part of the spy agency, was involved in the development stage of the operation against Hezbollah which was over a year in the making.
The source said Unit 8200 was involved in the technical side of testing how they could insert explosive material within the manufacturing process.
The Israeli military declined to comment. The prime minister's office that has oversight of Mossad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yossi Kuperwasser, a former military intelligence official and now research director at the Israel Defense and Security Forum, said there was no confirmation that the military intelligence unit was involved in the attack.
But he said 8200's members were some of the best and brightest personnel in the Israeli military, serving in a unit at the centre of Israel's defence capabilities.
"The challenges they are facing are immense, very demanding, and we need the best people to get involved in that," he said.
The unit - and its legion of young, hand-picked soldiers - develops and operates intelligence gathering tools and is often likened to the U.S. National Security Agency.
In a rare public statement about the unit's activities, the IDF said in 2018 that it had helped to thwart an air attack by Islamic State on a Western country. At the time, it said the unit's operations ran from intelligence gathering and cyber defence to "technological attacks and strikes."
While Israel has never confirmed its involvement, Unit 8200 was reported to have been involved in the Stuxnet attack that disabled Iranian nuclear centrifuges as well as a series of other high profile operations outside Israel.
YOUNG RECRUITS
The unit is effectively Israel's early warning system, and like much of the rest of the defence and security establishment, shouldered some of the blame for failing to detect Hamas' Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel.
Its commander last week said he was stepping down. In his resignation letter carried by Israeli media he said he hadn't fulfilled his mission.
The unit is famous for a work culture that emphasizes out-of-the-box thinking to tackle issues previously not encountered or imagined. This helped some graduates build Israel's high-tech sector and some of its biggest companies.
"Whether it's a problem with software weakness, math, encryption, a problem hacking into something ... you must be capable to do it on your own," said Avi Shua, a graduate of 8200, who went on to co-found Orca Security, a cloud security unicorn.
The unit has a high turnover rate of young recruits replacing veterans, said Kobi Samboursky, another former 8200 member and Managing Partner at Glilot Capital Partners, an early stage fund investing in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
"The most significant thing here is the 'can-do' culture, where everything is possible," Samboursky said.
[France24] A jihadist attack in the Malian capital targeting a military police training camp and airport left more than 70 people dead and 200 wounded, one of the highest tolls suffered by the security forces in recent years.
A security source speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP that 77 people had been killed and 255 wounded in Tuesday's attacks in Bamako.
An authenticated confidential official document put the toll at around 100, naming 81 victims.
Thursday's edition of Le Soir daily reported that the funerals of around 50 military police students would take place that day.
Mali's military-led authorities have so far not released a precise death toll from the attacks, claimed by the al Qaeda-linked Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM).
GSIM, actually. JNIM is the Arabic acronym for the group.
The operation was the first of its kind in years and dealt a forceful blow to the ruling junta, experts say.
The Malian capital is normally spared the sort of attacks that occur almost daily in some parts of the West African country.
The general staff admitted late Tuesday that "some human lives were lost", notably personnel at the military police centre.
JNIM claimed that a few dozen of its fighters had killed and wounded "hundreds" from the opposing ranks, including members of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner.
The attack came a day after junta-led Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso marked a year since the creation of their breakaway grouping, the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).
The trio, which have been under military rule following a string of coups since 2020, have broken ties with former colonial ruler France and turned militarily and politically towards other partners including Russia.
The Sahel states in January said they were turning their backs on regional bloc the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Mali has since 2012 been ravaged by different factions affiliated to al Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
Volleys of gunfire interspersed with explosions broke out in Bamako at around 5:00 am (0500 GMT) Tuesday. JNIM fighters attacked a military police school and stormed part of the nearby airport complex, where a military facility adjoins the civilian one. The jihadist group broadcast images showing fighters strolling around and firing randomly into the windows of the presidential hangar and destroying aircraft.
Bamako has not seen such an operation since 2016, when gunmen attacked a hotel housing the former European training mission of the Malian army, with no casualties reported among the mission staff.
The flow of information is restricted under the ruling junta and details on how Tuesday's attack was carried out and its impact are sketchy.
[ZeroHedge] Bloomberg has unveiled one of the most detailed maps yet, showing where the 2023 migrant invasion has spread across the US, broken down on a county-by-county basis. The map, built on immigration court case data, highlights clusters of new migrant populations that primarily emerged across the eastern half of the nation. The question becomes if the federal government and a shadowy network of non-governmental organizations worked in unison to precision dump migrants in small towns and cities to replace native blue-collar workers.
The data plotted on the map includes immigration court data showing where the 1.8 million migrants landed in the US and have since taken up residence. Notice massive clusters of new migrants across the Mid-Alantic and Northeast metro areas, as well as the Midwest and Rust Belt regions.
"In the battleground states that will decide this November's election, about 72% of migrants in 2023 went to Biden counties while less than a third went to Trump counties, the Bloomberg analysis found. Counties that voted for Biden four years ago are home to roughly 60% of the overall US population," Bloomberg said.
A useful little map at the link is subtitled: “In the battleground states that will decide this November's election, about 72% of migrants in 2023 went to BIDEN COUNTIES while less than a third went to TRUMP COUNTIES, the Bloomberg analysis found. Counties that voted for Biden four years ago are home to roughly 60% of the overall US population. “
#1
Just think if the Trump campaign started to use the phrase - "Workers of the World Unite". That would cause some serious death of brain cells on the Left.
Australian police announced that they have infiltrated Ghost, an encrypted communications app developed for criminals.
Jay Je Yoon Jung, the app's alleged administrator, appeared in a Sydney court facing charges of supporting a criminal organization and profiting from crime.
Police arrested 38 suspects in raids across four states in Australia, with additional arrests made in Canada, Sweden, Ireland and Italy.
[JustTheNews] The SAVE Act requires proof of citizenship to vote in elections. The House passed the SAVE Act in July with five Democrats voting in support of it.
It was never going to pass in the Democrat-controlled Senate anyway. They knew that going in. But it got both parties on record on the issue.
Discretionary funding for the fiscal year 2024 will expire on Sep. 30 and so far the House has not enacted any of the 12 full-year appropriations bills to fund the government for the next year.
Multiple Republicans voted against the continuing resolution along with the SAVE Act because they argued that it didn't properly fund the government.
"It's unserious because we're cramming all government spending into one bill and instead of deciding what to spend it on. We're saying, 'let's just spend at least as much as we spent last year and not worry about any of these bills through committee or debating how much we should spend on those things,'" Rep. Thomas Massie said prior to the vote.
Johnson had to punt the SAVE Act and continuing resolution vote last week because there were not enough votes for it. He argued Republicans needed to "build consensus."
Currently, one major disagreement going on in the GOP-led House is funding the government and continuing resolutions, with moderate Republicans being willing to pass more while members of the Freedom Caucus refuse to cooperate. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was ousted last year by eight House Republicans who cited budget negotiations as the reason for removing him.
With Johnson, some Republicans in the Freedom Caucus are having the same issues with him that they had with McCarthy.
Johnson used to be a member of the Freedom Caucus and seems to be unable to read the caucus he was once a part of, as many have refused to support the continuing resolutions.
#1
Every representative and Senator should be barred from federal offices and appointments for a decade if they can not approve appropriations by the end of the fiscal year. Suddenly, you'd see a lot of work getting done. Or as the phrase goes, a hanging in the morning focuses a man's mind.
#3
The job of the Speaker of the House is to make things happen, which requires compromise almost always.
I have no problem with the government getting shut down because House Republicans refuse to compromise by giving Senate Democrats things that are bad for the nation.
[FoxNews] ‘Seinfeld’ star says new Watergate doc proves that Nixon was ‘railroaded’: ‘Didn't get his day in court’. Director George Bugatti says Watergate was America's first instance of 'lawfare' against a president.
John O'Hurley, the "Seinfeld" actor and narrator of the documentary "Watergate’s Secrets and Betrayals," says that the new film about the scandal that sunk Richard Nixon’s presidency finally proves that the former president "didn’t get his day in court."
Fox News Digital spoke to O’Hurley, as well as the documentary’s director, George Bugatti, about their new film which they believe should reset the narrative about the Watergate scandal and show it was weaponized to force Nixon from office in 1974.
"What the film will expose is the fact that he didn't get his day in court. And there were a lot of things that were going on behind the scenes that are otherwise considered illegal and to the point where he did not get fair jurisprudence," O’Hurley told Fox News.
Nixon was the first and still the only U.S. president to resign when he stepped down in 1974. He left the White House in the face of a near-certain impeachment and conviction amid the Watergate scandal, which involved his administration's cover-up of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters during the 1972 election.
The subsequent sprawling political and media investigation, and the stunning resignation of Nixon, made Watergate the most famous scandal in American political history – to this day, the suffix "gate" is affixed to many political scandals.
The new film is based on the works of Geoff Shepard, a former deputy counsel on Nixon’s Watergate defense team, who spent 27,000 hours combing through the records of the Watergate special prosecutor and uncovered what he believes is proof that "judicial and prosecutorial interests" colluded to force Nixon out of office.
Shepard’s research finds, though Nixon is still tied to the Watergate break-in and cover up, the paper trail left behind by the special prosecutor reveals alleged prosecutorial misconduct involved in the conviction of Nixon’s people, which ultimately led to the former president’s political demise.
O’Hurley said this film presents how there were "backstage meetings there between the judge and the prosecutor where counsel was not advised of."
Bugatti noted that there "were about ten, maybe a dozen" meetings between the two without Nixon’s defense counsel knowing.
"But it's very hard to take a look again at a document that says, from a prosecutor – lead prosecutor – I met with the judge secretly. And no one else knew," he said, paraphrasing what Shepard’s research demonstrated.
O’Hurley, who famously portrayed supporting character J. Peterman on "Seinfeld," added that these findings prove that Nixon was "railroaded" during the Watergate trial and decided his only option was to resign.
"He chose to resign because there was no other recourse for him," the actor said, adding, "And I think that history will now bear this out if this is layered to the fabric of what the story is, that he was actually railroaded."
Bugatti argued this railroading of Nixon was the country’s first instance of "lawfare."
"What happened then is the birth of lawfare. It's the weaponization of the criminal justice system and how they use that weapon to drive a president from office. They used it to avoid Nixon's landslide reelection, which essentially is the will of the people. And this document shows that we need to be aware, to be alert, that this is still happening today."
#1
I worked in DC at the time. It was a setup. The Washington Post used as tool. Woodward teamed up with Carl Bernstein in collusion hit piece. One day boy wonders.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Victor Lavrinenko
[REGNUM] Sweden's biggest domestic problem remains crime, both organized and street. In recent months, this larger story has taken on additional, worrying ramifications.
Criminals are increasingly recruiting children and teenagers to participate in their crimes. As a result, the number of underage murderers in Sweden is growing every month.
It is no secret that the lion's share of Swedish crime is ethnic, fueled by the migrant communities that have settled in the country.
Mostly Syrians, Kurds, and Iraqis, a very few native Swedish biker gangs affiliated with Hells Angels and such. This mostly is not mentioned, the Swedes being accustomed to being polite.
And now Sweden's current moderate right-wing government is doing something unthinkable for its liberal predecessors: it is trying to push the newcomers out of the country. True, it is using carrots rather than sticks.
NOT AFRAID OF PUNISHMENT
The current situation in Sweden is deplorable. According to official figures, the local organized crime scene numbers around 30,000 people, and the criminal underworld is clearly becoming younger.
"In just ten years, this Scandinavian country has gone from being one of the safest on the continent to topping the European rankings for deadly shootings.
Deeply rooted criminal gangs (mainly run by second-generation immigrants) are no longer just killing each other, but increasingly innocent bystanders. Many of the perpetrators are teenagers under the age of 14," writes the British newspaper Financial Times.
Indeed, ethnic gangs in Sweden are happy to recruit minors to use as hitmen.
Teenagers often lack fear of possible responsibility, since where an adult can get a life sentence, a minor gets off with a few years in a correctional boarding school.
The Financial Times gives a telling example, one of many: "In October, several people were convicted of two powerful explosions in a fashionable Stockholm district. A 25-year-old was given a five-year prison sentence, while two 17-year-olds were sent to correctional facilities for ten months."
In previous years, the Swedish press, as well as Swedish government agencies, infected with the ideology of "tolerance", tried to avoid a direct parallel between the growth of the migrant community and the growth of crime. In the media and in official documents, all criminals are called "Swedes", without specifying their ethnicity. And formally, everything seems to be so: after all, people from Asia and Africa who received a Swedish passport are now also Swedes, if we understand this not as nationality but citizenship.
But it is impossible to ignore the obvious forever – and now the head of the Swedish police, Petra Lund, has admitted : “We brought too many people here, and now most agree that we have failed to integrate them.” According to Lund, there have already been 186 shootings in Sweden this year, in which 31 people have died, and the perpetrators are becoming younger and younger.
RAIDS ON NEIGHBORS
Gangs staffed by “also Swedes” are growing so rapidly that Sweden itself is no longer enough for them.
The gangs wage fierce wars among themselves for territory: in fact, the main area of application of the “soldiers” (as juvenile criminals are called) is the killing of representatives of competing criminal communities.
But there is another way of expansion - active development of neighboring countries. Recently, gangs from Sweden have been active in Denmark and Norway. And now the Norwegian and Danish press is telling about the "art" of these "guests", predicting: soon all this will be here too.
Thus, the Norwegian portal Aftenposten describes a shootout that broke out in the southern suburbs of Stockholm. Bandits opened fire from military automatic weapons right at the exit of a local metro station. Four people were injured, two of whom, including a 15-year-old boy, died.
Malmö University criminologist Manne Gerell complained: "Young people are increasingly becoming targets. We have 15-year-olds shooting with machine guns and 15-year-olds being shot with machine guns."
Gerell said that adult gangsters recruit children because minors receive more lenient sentences. "They want to be cool and make good money. And they get what they want when they carry out murder orders," the expert noted.
Deputy Chief of Police of the Kingdom of Denmark Peter Svarrer says that local criminals are hiring Swedish "soldiers" via the Internet. "You can get, for example, $100,000 for killing a person in Denmark," says Svarrer. He is considering how to stop the "cross-border cooperation" between Swedish and Danish criminals.
The police are being spurred on by Danish politicians who are demanding an urgent crackdown on the "Swedes" who cross the strait to commit crimes.
Svarrer sees a possible solution in organizing educational work and conveying to the "soldiers" that they will not get off as easily as in Sweden. "In Denmark, a child can get the same punishment as an adult," warns a high-ranking police officer.
Another problem is that about six hundred influential criminals who run things in Sweden are not physically in the country - and Swedish police cannot get to them.
EVERY THIRD
Lund notes that even against the backdrop of the rest of Europe, where the crime situation is generally far from ideal, Sweden has managed to stand out for the worse. The police chief sees the root of the evil in the fact that the country has been flooded with people who adhere to the customs inherent in “clan communities” and do not trust the Swedish authorities.
"We may never return to the calm Sweden that was before," says Petra Lund.
Sweden's 2022 parliamentary elections have brought a moderate right-wing coalition to power, supported by a majority of voters due to its promises to bring order to the migration sphere and stop the influx of immigrants from third world countries allowed by their left-liberal predecessors.
The situation required immediate intervention, because, according to the latest data, already 29% of children aged seven to sixteen in Swedish schools speak at home not Swedish, but Arabic, Somali, Kurdish, Bosnian, etc.
The government has begun to tighten the conditions for entry and stay in the country – and this is already bearing fruit. According to Statistics Sweden, 44,100 people emigrated from the country in the first half of 2024.
The indignant liberal press is longingly recalling the times ten years ago, when then Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt called on Swedes to “open their hearts” to refugees. Now, the Migration Ministry is presenting as a positive the fact that “the number of asylum applications is approaching a historically low level, and the number of residence permits issued continues to decline.”
DEPARTURE FEE
The authorities are currently preparing a law that will legally oblige public sector employees to report people without documents. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain refugee status in Sweden. The migrants themselves are beginning to feel a change in attitude towards themselves and are gradually moving to other EU countries, where they feel more at ease.
"Statistics show that Sweden is seeing a net outflow of immigrants for the first time in decades," Annika Sandlund, the UNHCR representative for the Nordic and Baltic countries, told The Guardian recently.
Sandlund, who holds liberal views, warned: "This may not be such a good thing for the country. Immigrants play an important role in the workforce, given Sweden's ageing population."
Tobias Hübinett, a senior lecturer in intercultural studies at Karlstad University, says that a “historic event” is taking place before our eyes: in 2024, the number of people leaving Sweden exceeded the number of people arriving. Hübinett is also a liberal and also complains about the state allegedly losing valuable foreign specialists.
“The prospect of tighter restrictions has made Sweden unattractive, especially among highly educated people from countries like Somalia, Iraq and Syria,” says the lecturer, calling the situation nothing less than a “disaster.” Terje Holmgren, head of a refugee aid organization, bitterly echoes his sentiments : “Compared to Sweden ten years ago, it is now much more acceptable to be openly hostile to asylum seekers.”
But the government continues to push its line, supported by the majority of Swedes who are tired of constant news of shootings, explosions, robberies and rapes. Now the authorities are looking for new ways to show the newcomers that they need to adapt to the realities of their adopted country.
Thus, the Minister for Gender Equality and Labor, Paulina Brandberg, proposed a legislative ban on girls wearing the hijab. This proposal caused unrest in the Muslim community in Sweden. Outraged Muslims staged a demonstration in the square of the Stockholm district of Rickenby, where many migrants live, with both men and women taking part.
Speakers shouted into the microphone: "Sweden needs Muslims more than Muslims need it!"
Next year, the Swedish government intends to go even further and radically increase the allowance for voluntary consent to leave the country. Currently, an adult can receive a maximum of 10,000 kronor for this, but soon this amount will increase to 350,000 Swedish kronor (almost 3 million rubles) per person. In total, the authorities are ready to allocate an impressive budget of 1.4 billion kronor for this.
True, the result may not be so impressive - experts predict that no more than seven hundred people will want to take advantage of this offer annually. The fact is that it does not apply to those migrants who have already received Swedish citizenship; Ukrainians; those who have enough of their own funds to pay for their return to their homeland; those who have debts in Sweden.
However, Migration Minister Johan Forschell counters critics of the government's plan: "If we do nothing at all, it will be a big risk." According to Forschell, something must be done.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
09/20/2024 5:41
Comments ||
Top||
#3
"German food critic and author Wolfgang Fassbender wrote that "the biggest challenge when eating surströmming is to vomit only after the first bite, as opposed to before".[24]"
[ZeroHedge] As we have been writing for the better part of the last year, the next AI trade continues to look like it's going to be energy. And now, both BlackRock and Microsoft are making it known that they understand this, too.
Yesterday it was reported that the two industry giants are prepping the launch of a $30 billion AI investment fund that'll see Microsoft build data centers and energy projects to meet the demands of AI, according to the Financial Times.
BlackRock’s new infrastructure investment unit, Global Infrastructure Partners, is launching a major investment fund with Microsoft and Abu Dhabi’s MGX as general partners. Nvidia will provide advisory on factory design and integration.
The FT wrote that the partnership aims to tackle the massive power and infrastructure needs of AI development, which is expected to strain current energy systems. AI’s computing demands far exceed past technologies.
The partnership seeks to raise up to $30bn in equity, with plans to leverage an additional $70bn in debt.
In a statement, Larry Fink said: “Mobilizing private capital to build AI infrastructure like data centers and power will unlock a multitrillion-dollar long-term investment opportunity.”
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, added: “The country and the world are going to need more capital investment to accelerate the development of the AI infrastructure needed. This kind of effort is an important step.”
#1
Control main objective. Just another arm of neocon control efforts. Black-Rock is purchasing lands of Ukraine now (world food supplies next leveraging tool). Who really is in charge?.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] ... as Israel is blamed for pager bombs, how Mossad has carried out some of the world's most daring undercover operations.
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.
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
[LI] While Lebanon reported only 32 deaths from two days of pager and walkie-talkie explosions, the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group was hiding the actual death toll, media reports suggest.
[GEO.TV] Israel will face "a crushing response from the axis of resistance", Iran's Revolutionary Guards Commander Hossein Salami told Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday according to state media, after attacks on Lebanese Hezbollah's communication devices.
...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm...
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The state of Indiana was ordered to cover the cost of gender-transition surgery for a transgender inmate who murdered his baby stepdaughter.
[Bee] MANHATTAN, NY — All three people who watch 
