[IsraelTimes] The IDF releases footage from a tunnel belonging to Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force which was recently discovered and demolished in southern Lebanon.
The military says the 100-meter-long underground passage was used by Hezbollah to store numerous weapons, surveillance equipment, and other military gear.
The tunnel also led to a Hezbollah command center, where the IDF says it found rocket launchers used in previous attacks on Israel, alongside numerous explosive devices.
After the tunnel was cleared of threats and investigated, combat engineers demolished it.
The IDF is still deployed to southern Lebanon, and it has until late January to withdraw under the ceasefire deal.
[IsraelTimes] Leeds United soccer team has condemned their supporters for singing an anti-Palestine song in support of Israeli star Manor Solomon.
A group of fans was filmed at a game on Thursday singing the song with the words: “Looks good, looks good, looks fine, looks fine, Manor Solomon’s on the line and he hates Palestine. Singing Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do, running past defenders, scoring one or two.”
Following video of the song, the club condemned the chant.
“Discriminatory language or chanting is not acceptable and supporters could be breaking the law. The club condemns this behavior and has a zero-tolerance policy towards discrimination abuse of all kinds,” a Leeds spokesperson tells the Yorkshire Evening Post.
“Tough measures and sanctions are in place across all English football leagues to tackle illegal behaviors within football grounds, and this involves but is not limited to, discriminatory behavior and tragedy chanting,” the spokesperson says.
Solomon, an Israeli international, is on loan at the Championship league team from Tottenham Hotspur.
[Rudaw] At least 27 people, including suspected members of the Islamic State (ISIS), were arrested in a security operation by Kurdish security forces (Asayish) in the northern Raqqa province, the force said on Saturday.
“As part of the ongoing efforts to enhance security and stability in our areas, our security forces carried out a large-scale security campaign east of Raqqa … resulting in the arrest of 27 people, some of whom belonged to these [ISIS] cells and other criminals in the area,” the Asayish said in a statement.
The arrests come as ISIS cells attempt to exploit the security vacuum created in *kparts of the country after the downfall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, particularly in desert areas which the former regime used to loosely control.
[IsraelTimes] Luai Ahmed fled Yemen for Sweden after rebels rose to power, becoming an activist against Islamic fundamentalism; after Oct. 7, he joined the social media fray against antisemitism
Sweden-based Yemeni activist Luai Ahmed, 31, has become something of a celebrity in Israel. As he sits down for this interview in a Tel Aviv café, a woman at a nearby table gestures to attract his attention, pointing at her phone screen and exclaiming: “I was just looking at one of your videos!”
An obligatory selfie follows.
Ahmed’s fame stems from his prolific social media activity in support of the Jewish state after the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023. He has gained over 190,000 followers on Twitter, and many of his videos have gone viral.
An October 2024 clip, in which he debated American college students on the war in Gaza while dressed in traditional Yemeni garb, garnered two million views on Twitter.
Ahmed fled Yemen in 2014, shortly after the Iran-backed Houthi rebels – an extremist ethno-religious group from northern Yemen, affiliated with Shiite Islam – hijacked the pro-democracy Arab Spring revolution that had erupted in the country in 2011, toppled the government, and took over the capital, Sanaa.
Today, the Houthis rule over northwestern Yemen, controlling approximately one-third of the country’s territory and two-thirds of its population of 34 million. Designated as a terrorist group by many in the West, they have condemned Yemen to international isolation, as the country is blacklisted from trading with much of the outside world and from receiving humanitarian aid.
Already one of the poorest and least developed countries before the 2014 coup, Yemen appears to be sinking into a never-ending downward spiral.
Indifferent to the plight of civilians under their control, the rebels have for months been firing missiles and drones at Israel, claiming it as a campaign in support of Gaza during the ongoing war there against the Hamas terror group. They have recently stepped up the bombardment, launching five early-morning attacks on central Israel in eight days. On Thursday, the IDF launched a series of airstrikes in Yemen, targeting infrastructure used by the Houthis, including Sanaa International Airport, after several previous attacks on the country.
After fleeing Sanaa in 2014, Ahmed, who is openly gay, received refugee status in Sweden and later acquired Swedish citizenship. His family still lives between Yemen and Egypt, and his mother, Amal Basha, is one of the most prominent women’s rights advocates in Yemen.
In Sweden, he began working as a journalist for a local publication, writing about Islamic extremism, LGBTQ rights, and the challenges of integrating Muslim migrants into Swedish society.
Following the October 7 onslaught, Ahmed was appalled at the celebratory messages among friends and family for the massacre that led to the deaths of some 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and the kidnapping of 251 people. He decided to start producing short clips denouncing Islamist violence and antisemitism.
His content caught the attention of pro-Israel advocacy organizations. One such group, Sharaka, a nonprofit promoting people-to-people contact between Israel and the Arab world, invited him to Israel, where he has since become a regular visitor.
He recently began collaborating with Builders of the Middle East, a nonprofit social media initiative that promotes tolerance and dialogue in the region.
In his frequent interactions with Israelis, Ahmed has come to appreciate the Middle Eastern immediacy and warmth with which people approach him.
“Coming from Scandinavia, where the culture is so cold and people are a bit like mummies, Israel feels very familiar to me. I trigger my Jewish friends when I tell them, ‘you guys are basically Arabs, with another religion.’ I say it in many of my videos: Arabs and Jews are cousins, or even brothers and sisters,” he said.
In an interview with The Times of Israel on Wednesday, Ahmed discussed his life in Yemen prior to the Houthis’ takeover, the recent escalation with Israel, and his efforts to explain the Jewish state to the world. The interview was lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
The Times of Israel: Early this morning, you and millions of others in central Israel were awakened by sirens triggered by a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis – the second night in a row and the fourth in less than a week. Forgive the facile sarcasm, but as a Yemeni in Tel Aviv, did you feel like you were receiving a souvenir from home?
Luai Ahmed: [laughs] My Israeli friends are always making fun of me. They tell me, “You Yemenis woke us up again.”
I feel the Houthis have become a bit of a joke in Israel, and for a long time, people underestimated them. But to Yemenis, it’s no laughing matter.
They want to destroy Israel; that’s their main mission. Death and destruction are their motto.
Last week, I made a video addressing the Houthis directly, highlighting how they betrayed the Arab Spring of 2011 by turning it into an Islamic revolution that sank Yemen further into poverty and isolated it internationally. My message was: You’re attacking Israel now, but soon, Israel will retaliate, and you will cry about it. Look at Gaza right now. Do you want to turn Yemen into Gaza?
There are millions of Yemen children who are malnourished and living below the poverty line. People have no money, no food, no water, no gas. Instead of focusing on allocating resources to the most vulnerable, the Houthis hand them out to Hashemites, the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, and the rest is spent on throwing rockets at Israel to kill Jews. How is that going to help Yemen? But to them, it’s a religious war.
So where does their obsession with Israel come from? Is it simply religious fervor?
I always say that the religions of Yemen are Islam and Palestine. This predates the Houthi takeover. When I was growing up, the Palestinian flag was in every shop, every restaurant, everywhere. There were signs calling to save our Palestinian brothers and sisters, images of women in a hijab crying with their babies.
That’s the psychology of Yemenis. Their hate is not only driven by Islam.
Most people in Yemen don’t back the Houthis, because they took power by force and worsened the living conditions. However, after the war in Gaza broke out, the Houthis’ support base has expanded, because they attack Israel. People may still see them as a medieval terrorist organization that took over the country by a coup, but they are fighting the evil Jews, and they are the pride of Yemen.
I see three reasons for their obsession with Israel. Firstly, they have nothing else going for them; they have not built an infrastructure and are unable to develop the country in any way, shape or form. The only thing they have accomplished is this religious war, and they know that by fighting it, they earn the admiration of much of the Arab world, which is obsessed with Palestine.
Another reason is the sheer antisemitism in our society. I’ll give you two examples.
There was an ancient Jewish village near the city of Taiz, where my grandmother lived, that had been abandoned after the Jews left Yemen. We were not allowed to come near that village. People believed evil Jewish spirits were still haunting that area.
I remember that growing up in Sanaa, I would go to the mosque, and at the end of every prayer, we would recite a series of supplications to God that included, “May Allah destroy Israel, kill the Jews, make the Zionist orphans.” It was absolutely normal for us as children to repeat them.
The third reason is that the Houthis are simply insane. They are an extremist religious group willing to sacrifice all of Yemen for the Palestinians and for the destruction of Israel, even though they’ve never met a Palestinian and don’t know anything about Israel.
What was it like to grow up in Yemen as a gay man?
I knew about myself, but I hid it. I’ll sum up the cultural attitude toward gay people with an anecdote. When I was about 16, before the Houthis took power, I decided to ask a Yemeni what he thought of homosexuals. We were sitting on a bus, and he was holding a gun – all Yemenis have guns. I told him I had a gay friend and asked him what I should do with him. He handed me his weapon and said, “Take this gun and kill him.”
When I moved to Sweden, it was hard to explain to Swedish people these complexities. You can’t bring into your country someone from the Middle East and expect them to believe in gay rights and women’s rights. I’ve been writing a lot about these issues. I love Sweden, and I want to save it – to save Europe.
So how did your activism for Israel come about?
The first Israeli I ever met was in Sweden. One day, I was sitting in a room full of blonde people in a student dorm, and someone walked in, and he looked a bit like me. I went up to him and introduced myself, and he said he was Tal from Israel. My first immediate reaction was physical — I blacked out.
Tal said he could make Yemeni food and that he would make me jachnun [a traditional Yemeni pastry eaten by Yemenite Jews on Shabbat]. I was sure he hated me and was just being a manipulative Jew, who would try to earn my trust and then tell the Swedes behind my back that I’m a Muslim terrorist. But he didn’t. Long story short, six months later, he was my favorite person in the student dorm.
After October 7, I was so disillusioned by family and friends who hailed Hamas as freedom fighters that I took to uploading videos to my social media, asking: How dare you celebrate or excuse the murder of innocent human beings? One thing is to be critical toward the Israeli government, but this was different.
However, the content I make is not your typical hasbara [pro-Israel public diplomacy]. I’ve made videos where I said I’m happy that Sweden recognized the state of Palestine, and I got a lot of backlash. My argument was: There needs to be a Palestinian state, but to get there, we need to deradicalize the mosques and schools so that the Palestinian cause is focused on creating a state for the Palestinians, not on destroying Israel.
I’ve also made a video of a trip to the Bedouin town of Rahat in southern Israel and interviewed residents who criticized Israel for the discrimination they suffer in Israeli society. A lot of my followers said I should not have let them say that. But the videos I make with Builders of the Middle East are not hasbara – they are aimed at giving different perspectives.
Do you have any hopes for a peaceful future in the Middle East?
What I try to explain to Israelis and Jews about the Houthis, the Yemenis, and the Palestinians, is that we are brainwashed into hating Israelis and other groups of people. It starts in the schools and the mosques.
I think Israel should do its best to improve its connections with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It’s important to gain the acceptance of the main key players in the region.
In recent years, those two countries have done what the rest of the Middle East should do: Get rid of all the antisemitic rubbish in the textbooks, get rid of the extremism in schools and mosques.
Today, at Friday prayers in mosques, imams in those countries get a script of what to read, and everything is about love and coexistence and how beautiful Islam is. If an imam says a single word that’s outside of the script, he goes to jail. It’s an enlightened dictatorship, but that’s what we need. It’s the only way to eliminate the toxicity that has taken over the region and the minds of the people.
[IsraelTimes] Security forces flood major mixed city, patrolling and checking IDs, days after gunfire at protest by members of Alawite minority; Christians say new regime protecting churches
Syria’s new security forces checked IDs and searched cars in the central city of Homs on Thursday, a day after protests by members of the Alawite minority erupted in gunfire and stirred fears that the country’s fragile peace could break down.
A tense calm prevailed after checkpoints were set up throughout the country’s third-largest city, which has a mixed population of Sunni and Shia Moslems, Alawites and Christians.
The security forces are controlled by the former Death Eater group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... , which led the charge that unseated former president Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... . On the road from Damascus, security teams at the checkpoints waved cars through perfunctorily, but in Homs, they checked IDs and opened the trunk of each car to look for weapons.
Armed men blocked the road leading to the square formerly named for Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, where one foot was all that remained of a statue of him that once stood in the center of the traffic roundabout. The square has been renamed Freedom Square, although some call it "the donkey’s square," referring to Assad.
Protests erupted there Wednesday among Alawites — the minority sect to which the Assad family belongs — after a video circulated showing an Alawite shrine in Aleppo being vandalized. Government officials later issued a statement saying that the video was old.
Wednesday’s protests began peacefully, said Alaa Amran, the newly installed police chief of Homs, but then "some suspicious parties... related to the former regime opened fire on both security forces and demonstrators, and there were some injuries."
Security forces flooded the area and imposed a curfew to restore order, he said.
Mohammad Ali Hajj Younes, an electrician who has a shop next to the square, said the people who instigated the violence are "the same shabiha who used to come into my shop and rob me, and I couldn’t say anything," using a term referring to pro-Assad militia members.
The protests were part of a larger flare-up of violence Wednesday. Pro-Assad Death Eaters attacked members of the new security forces near the coastal town of Tartous, killing 14 and wounding 10, according to the Interior Ministry in the transitional government.
In response, security forces launched raids "pursuing the remnants of Assad’s militias," state media reported. The state-run SANA news agency reported late Thursday that festivities broke out in the village of Balqasa in a rural part of Homs province.
The unrest left many people fearful that the relatively peaceful conditions that have prevailed since Assad’s fall could break down into sectarian fighting, as the country begins to recover following nearly 14 years of civil war.
Those who instigated the violence "are supported by parties that may be external that want strife for Syria to return it to square one, the square of sectarianism," Amran said.
Ahmad al-Bayyaa, an Alawite in the al-Zahra neighborhood of Homs, said he and his wife and three daughters fled to the coastal town of Baniyas when Death Eater forces first arrived, but came back a day later, after hearing from neighbors that the fighters had not harmed civilians.
"We had been given the idea that there would be slaughter and killing based on our identity, and nothing like that happened," he said. "We came back, and nobody asked to see my ID from the coast to Homs."
Before Assad’s fall, al-Bayyaa said, he spent 10 years in hiding to avoid a call-up for reserve army service and was afraid to cross a checkpoint in his own neighborhood. After the former Syrian army collapsed in the face of the HTS-led advance, residents of the neighborhood set up a fruit and vegetable stand on an abandoned tank in a gesture of mockery.
In the predominantly Christian Homs suburb of Fayrouzeh, a group of teenage girls took each other’s pictures next to a giant cutout of Santa Claus with a Christmas tree in the town square.
Residents of the area said their initial fears that the country’s new rulers would target religious minorities were quickly laid to rest. HTS was once aligned with al-Qaeda, but its leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, has cut ties with the group and since coming to power has preached religious coexistence.
"We had a very beautiful holiday even though there was some anxiety before it," said Fayrouzeh resident Sarab Kashi. "The guys from HTS volunteered and stood as guards on the door of the churches."
The city’s Sunni majority, meanwhile, welcomed the new administration. Many of the young men now guarding its streets were originally from Homs and were evacuated to opposition-held Idlib when Assad’s forces solidified control of their areas years ago.
"These guys were young boys when they took them in the green buses, and they were crying," said Wardeh Mohammed, gesturing at a group of young men manning a checkpoint in front of a grocery store on one of the city’s main streets. "Thank God, they have come back as young men, as fighters who made us proud."
The country’s new rulers have scrambled to impose order after the initial anarchic days after Assad’s fall.
The former police and security forces — widely known for corruption — were disbanded, and members of the police force in what was formerly a regional government headed by HTS in the opposition-held northwest were deployed to other areas.
Amran, the police chief, said recruitment efforts are underway to build up the forces, but he acknowledged that the current numbers are "not sufficient to control security 100%." The new security forces have also struggled to stem the proliferation of weapons in the hands of civilians or non-state groups, he said.
Al-Sharaa has said that the country’s patchwork of former rebel groups will come together in one unified national army, but it remained unclear exactly how that would happen or whether the groups can avoid infighting.
In Homs, it was clear that several different armed factions patrolled the streets, in a sometimes uneasy coordination. An HTS official hastened to explain that a handful of gunnies wearing patches with an insignia sometimes associated with the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... were not members of his group.
Many feared another flare-up of violence.
"From what happened yesterday, it’s clear that some people want to take the country backwards" to the worst days of the country’s civil war, al-Bayya said, "and no one wants to go back 14 years."
This is not a live-action, multiplayer internet game. In the real world, the fog of war is always a factor. So is institutional arrogance.
[IsraelTimes] The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet failed to investigate a testimony from a rescued hostage who said he had reason to believe a female hostage was being held nearby, just days before the murder of six hostages in a tunnel under Rafah back in August, Channel 12 reports.
The report comes days after the IDF presented the findings of its investigation into the murder of the hostages, where it said that it did not have any concrete or real-time intelligence on the hostages being held there in the weeks before they were killed, but had general indications that Israeli abductees could be in the area.
According to Channel 12, Farhan al-Qadi, who was rescued from Gaza on August 27, told both the IDF and the Shin Bet that he had heard a woman speaking Hebrew in the vicinity of the site where he was rescued several weeks before he was found.
However, despite delivering the warning twice, the defense establishment did not deem it credible, Channel 12 reports, and no steps were taken to investigate it further.
Two days later, on August 29, hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi were killed by their captors in a tunnel nearby. Their bodies were discovered by troops on August 31.
In its probe into the murder of the hostages and the events surrounding it, the IDF said it found that al-Qadi did not have any information on other hostages in the area.
[IsraelTimes] The army has vastly expanded zone it controls bisecting the Strip, from where it launches raids against Hamas; everything can be taken down quickly, but there’s no sign that will happen
Everything the Israel Defense Forces has established in the Netzarim Corridor is temporary, military officials have said. But the reality on the ground in this zone bisecting the Gaza Strip indicates that the IDF will remain here for the foreseeable future.
The army does not know when it will leave the corridor, which according to some officials is intended to serve as a bargaining chip in a hostage deal with Hamas. As the months have passed, and the prospect of an agreement with the terror group to release the remaining 100 hostages it holds grows and then recedes, the military has been steadily expanding its presence in the corridor.
The corridor — which is now known internally by the military as the Be’eri Corridor, after the Israeli border community that was attacked on October 7, rather than after the former Netzarim settlement in the Gaza Strip — is currently controlled by the 99th Division’s Harel Reserve Armored Brigade and the 551st Reserve Paratroopers Brigade. The Harel Brigade is responsible for the southern portion of the corridor and the entire road, while the 551st Brigade is tasked with the northern section.
This week, The Times of Israel was given exclusive access to the corridor during an escorted visit by the military.
At the start of Israel’s ground offensive against Hamas in late October 2023, the corridor was just the tracks left behind by IDF tanks and armored personnel carriers, as the military’s 36th Division pushed into Gaza from the east and reached the coast, south of Gaza City.
Over the following months, the IDF established a four-mile road running along the corridor, as part of efforts to block Palestinians seeking to return to northern Gaza after fleeing south.
The IDF had ordered northern Gaza residents to evacuate and head to the Strip’s south as it focused the beginning of its offensive against Hamas on the top half of the Strip. Not all of the estimated one million residents heeded the orders. Some of those who remained were Hamas fighters, some faced threats by Hamas not to evacuate, others feared the seemingly no-less-dire conditions of the coastal humanitarian zone, and some reported coming under IDF fire while trying to evacuate.
The road along the corridor was eventually paved — dubbed Route 749 after the 749th Combat Engineering Battalion that constructed it — and the surrounding area turned into a buffer zone to secure the thoroughfare from Hamas attacks.
The military has also periodically enabled humanitarian aid organizations to use the road to deliver crucial supplies to the war-torn north of Gaza.
As time went on, the IDF expanded the buffer zone, from just a few dozen meters on each side of the road to reaching as far as the outskirts of Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood to the north, and the Wadi Gaza stream to the south, encompassing around 47 square kilometers (18 square miles) of land, or around 13% of the Strip’s total territory.
Hundreds of buildings were destroyed in the process, wiping out Palestinian villages in the area. The IDF has argued that it was necessary to demolish the buildings to adequately secure the corridor, as Hamas was using the structures to launch attacks on troops.
In what is now a massive zone, the IDF has established more than a dozen small military outposts, where soldiers carry out guard duty, and at least four forward operating bases, which serve as logistics hubs and as headquarters for the units operating in Gaza.
From these bases, the IDF launches raids against Hamas in Gaza City and central Gaza. One such operation was the rescue of four hostages from Hamas captivity last summer.
Such major operations have been increasingly rare as the war enters its 15th month, but smaller raids are carried out nearly every day, according to the army.
The raids are “based on intelligence against concentrations of terrorists and terror infrastructure,” Lt. Col. Omri, one of the Harel Brigade’s deputy commanders — whose surname was withheld by the IDF for security concerns — told The Times of Israel during an interview from the corridor.
Asked why the corridor had been expanded so widely in recent months, Omri said that under the IDF’s doctrine, “you need to build security zones.”
“You can’t just live in your little square and say it’s all good. No, you need to protect the soldiers. You need to create an area from which you will have enough time to respond if [the enemy] tries to attack,” the deputy brigade commander elaborated.
While this may explain the establishment of a buffer zone around the corridor, it was not clear why expanding it to the size of 47 square kilometers was necessary for operational purposes.
“Early warning is the reason why we are doing this. Nobody is doing this for you know what,” he said, referring to claims that troops have been capriciously demolishing homes. The army has come under close scrutiny over the past year, as some undisciplined soldiers have recorded themselves celebrating the demolition of homes in clips uploaded to their social media accounts.
“We do this to create a protected area from which our soldiers can work,” he asserted.
“We aren’t coming from a place where we want to take revenge and destroy. Absolutely not. Everything has a rationale. There are orderly orders, with logic behind them,” Omri said.
TEMPORARY INFRASTRUCTURE, PERMANENT PRESENCE?
To reach the corridor, this reporter needed to go through three separate military checkpoints — one near Be’eri, another at a military position close to the border, and a third on the border fence itself — highlighting the difficulty for any unauthorized people to try and enter this part of Gaza.
The IDF’s main checkpoint to enter the corridor was initially called Gate 96. It was later renamed Control Point 3, and is now known as Terminal 3.
In a small convoy of open-top humvees, we drove from Terminal 3 into the Gaza Strip. The only threat the officer in charge of the convoy warned us about was potential mortar fire by Hamas operatives at the corridor.
After driving some three kilometers, the convoy reached a forward operating base positioned alongside the Salah a-Din road — the Gaza Strip’s main north-south highway.
The IDF considers this base to be part of the military’s rear, relatively distant from the enemy — or the opposite of the frontline — despite being inside the Gaza Strip.
The base featured everything one would expect at a well-entrenched position for troops to remain indefinitely, except that nothing seemed to be permanently attached to the ground.
All of the buildings at the base were caravans or a type of reinforced shipping container to protect against shrapnel impacts. Two antennas for cellular service were attached to large concrete foundations, rather than being dug into the ground. A fuel depot at the base for the IDF’s tanks and other vehicles was a large above-ground container.
The offices and living quarters in the base all had air conditioners.
A new water line from Israel to the IDF’s bases has allowed the soldiers in Netzarim to have functioning toilets and hot showers. Electricity lines, along with backup industrial generators, keep the base running at all times.
“We need to give the soldiers minimal facilities in which to live. We are the IDF, not some guerrilla organization. I don’t want to use equipment that belongs to Palestinians, and I don’t want to use Palestinians’ homes,” the deputy brigade commander said. Palestinians’ homes in other parts of the Strip, by contrast, are regularly used to house soldiers during military operations.
The base visited by The Times of Israel also serves as a checkpoint for Palestinians heading south from northern Gaza, though very few civilians have been doing so of late.
Palestinians are instructed to walk along the Salah a-Din road, and the IDF can single out suspected members of terror groups, pull them aside, and interrogate them inside the base.
Military officials have said that all of the IDF’s temporary infrastructure in Netzarim can be removed within a short while. There is a ready-to-go plan if the army is ordered to leave the area, but many in the IDF are skeptical that will happen in the foreseeable future.
‘NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS HERE’
At the beginning of the war, troops were not supposed to bring phones into Gaza, though many of them did. The erection of cell towers in Netzarim demonstrates that the policy has changed.
Ground troops involved in raids against Hamas are still not permitted to have phones on them during the operations for security concerns, but those hanging back at the bases in Netzarim are.
No longer needing to climb up on a hill for spotty reception, this reporter was able to send updates on Thursday to The Times of Israel’s liveblog after preparing a coffee at the base’s well-stocked lounge.
Because the vast majority of the buildings in the corridor have been flattened, and the IDF has set up advanced surveillance equipment, very rarely do Hamas operatives try to carry out raids against the army positions in Netzarim, according to soldiers.
The deputy brigade commander said there are “constant intelligence alerts” regarding potential Hamas attacks on the military’s posts in Netzarim, but few are carried out.
Since there have been no direct attacks on the corridor’s forward operating bases in months, soldiers stationed there — including those on guard duty — have long stopped wearing their helmets and protective vests.
There have been weeks at a time with no action: “Nothing really happens here,” said one soldier stationed at a post on the edge of the base.
“In the frontier posts there’s a bit more action,” he went on, referring to the army’s small positions on the edge of the corridor — at the farthest points from the road and the large bases — where at times Hamas operatives have tried to attack.
The small posts deeper in the corridor are “aimed at establishing the line of contact,” Omri said, meaning a type of demarcation or dividing line between the IDF and the rest of Gaza.
“The closer you get to the line of contact, the more you experience incidents of sniper fire or RPGs,” the deputy brigade commander said.
Palestinian civilians have also approached and crossed the “line of contact” in Netzarim. Military sources in the 99th Division said some of these incidents were cases of Hamas sending civilians to “test the army’s response.”
“They want to see how we will respond, from where do we respond, when did we identify them, how quickly,” one source said.
A report by Haaretz earlier this month compiled testimony from soldiers from another division that previously served in the corridor, who described seemingly indiscriminate and casual open-fire policies and who claimed that the IDF was tallying the deaths of civilians as slain terror group fighters.
The IDF rejected the report, and military sources in the division currently deployed in the area said that troops have been far more careful with people approaching the corridor than was described in the report.
The sources said that when possible, the IDF attempts to detain apparent Palestinian civilians who try to enter the corridor and that steps are taken before carrying out an airstrike or using other deadly fire.
With raids by Hamas on troops in the corridor becoming rare, the terror group has mostly resorted to launching mortars and short-range rockets at the IDF’s bases in Netzarim, both from south of the corridor and north of it.
Those attacks, too, have become less frequent recently, according to soldiers serving in the corridor.
SETTLEMENT DESIRES
Some Israeli government lawmakers have become increasingly vocal in recent weeks about their desire to re-establish Jewish settlements inside the Gaza Strip, especially inside the Netzarim Corridor, for the first time in almost two decades.
Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 under the Disengagement Plan, uprooting some 9,000 people and demolishing 21 settlements, including Netzarim.
With the land now cleared of Palestinian homes, and the military setting up its infrastructure here (albeit officially temporarily), some far-right activists are waiting for the moment when they can enter and revive Jewish settlement.
“I am not interested in political discourse. I have ultra-Orthodox fighters with me, leftists and right-wingers. Political discourse and political opinions have no place — none,” Omri said when asked what he thought about the potential re-establishment of settlements in Netzarim.
“We have a mission. I trust my ultra-Orthodox brother, I trust my leftist brother and I trust my right-wing brother. They will all have my back, and I will have their back, because we are here together. People’s desires are people’s desires. Everyone has their own opinion. This is their right. But it has no meaning [on the battlefield].”
“There is a political echelon that decides, a military echelon that commands, and us to carry out what is required,” he added.
[IsraelTimes] Operation follows the discovery of infection in PM’s urinary tract; cabinet meeting to be held on Sunday as planned, but some days of his testimony at trial could be put off.
#1
Prostate removal is often the treatment for prostate cancer. A few rounds off antibiotics usually is the treatment for prostate/urinary tract infections. I'm not a medical doctor but I've been thru the whole nine yards of prostate issues.
[IsraelTimes] A suicide bomber killed the head of police intelligence in Iran’s southern port city of Bandar Lengeh on Saturday, Iranian state media reports.
The unidentified bomber was also killed and another police officer was injured in the attack outside a police headquarters in the Gulf port city, the media reports say.
The attack came days ahead of the anniversary of two suicide bombings on Jan. 3 in which nearly 100 people were killed at a memorial in southeastern Iran for top commander Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in Iraq in 2020 by a US drone. Islamic State claimed those two suicide bombings.
[IsraelTimes] Wife, daughter of Duraid al-Assad, ex-president’s cousin and son of ‘Butcher of Hama’ Rifaat, said to have been smuggled into Lebanon and sought to reach Egypt with fake documents
Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... ’s cousins were arrested Friday at the Beirut airport, where they attempted to fly out with allegedly forged passports, Lebanese judicial and security officials said. Assad’s uncle departed the day before.
Rasha Khazem and her daughter, Shams, were smuggled illegally into Leb ...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. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration.... and were trying to fly to Egypt when they were arrested, according to five Lebanese officials familiar with the case. They were being detained by Lebanese General Security.
Khazem is married to Duraid al-Assad, whose father, Rifaat al-Assad, is the younger brother and former vice president of the late Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father and predecessor.
Rifaat al-Assad, 87, had flown out of Lebanon on Thursday using his real passport, and was not stopped, the Lebanese officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered... because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
Two Lebanese security officials had told Rooters on Friday that Rifaat al-Assad had fled to Dubai.
Swiss federal prosecutors had in March indicted Rifaat al-Assad on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly ordering murder and torture more than four decades ago, when he had led the artillery unit that shelled the city of Hama and killed thousands, earning him the nickname the "Butcher of Hama."
Tens of thousands of Syrians are believed to have entered Lebanon illegally on the night of December 8, when the Assads’ 50-year regime was toppled as bully boy forces entered Damascus.
Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah reportedly helped smuggle some Assad allies out of Lebanon and put them up in high-end Beirut hotels. The report, from a Lebanese newspaper opposed to Hezbollah, sparked uproar among politicians in Lebanon, which Syria had occupied for some three decades until 2005.
The Lebanese security and judicial officials said that more than 20 members of the former Syrian Army’s notorious 4th Division, military intelligence officers and others affiliated with Assad’s security forces were arrested earlier in Lebanon. Some of them were arrested when they attempted to sell their weapons.
Lebanon’s public prosecution office also received an Interpol notice requesting the arrest of Jamil al-Hassan, the former director of Syrian intelligence under Assad. Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati previously told Rooters that Lebanon would cooperate with the Interpol request to arrest al-Hassan.
It sounds like the protests are very tiny, indeed, a good sign.
[IsraelTimes] Hostage’s father urges Trump to pressure PM to sign agreement: ‘Netanyahu is trying to deceive you’; opposition figures lead rally against ‘toxic’ government.
Thousands of people attended pro-hostage deal rallies and anti-government protests across the country Saturday night, the fourth night of Hanukkah, days after Israel and Hamas once again accused each other of derailing negotiations for a deal to release the captives held by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups in Gaza.
The families of several hostages delivered remarks at a press conference in Tel Aviv before the rallies kicked off.
Yehuda Cohen, the father of hostage Nimrod Cohen, claimed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to “deceive” US President-elect Donald Trump into believing that he was truly interested in reaching a deal with Hamas.
“Dear President Trump, Netanyahu is trying to deceive you. Ending the war and returning all the hostages is in the interest of the State of Israel,” Cohen said. “You might be the last person who is able put pressure on Netanyahu. Do not compromise on a partial deal that will become a death sentence for the remaining hostages and will not bring about an end to the war.”
“The talk from Netanyahu and the defense minister about continuing the war and maintaining military control of Gaza serves the extremists in government and is contrary to Israeli interests,” he added.
Saturday night also saw the Prime Minister’s Office deny a report by Channel 12 that Israel and Hamas could agree to a “limited” hostage deal as a gesture of goodwill ahead of the start of Trump’s second term in office. The report claimed both sides are interested in reaching a smaller deal in time for Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
In a short statement, the PMO called the report “a complete lie.” A senior Arab diplomat also denied the report to The Times of Israel.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum’s rally in Tel Aviv Saturday night was kicked off by former hostage Yocheved Lifshitz, who was released last November and whose husband Oded remains in captivity. Lifshitz lit the Hanukkah candles at the start of the rally with her son Yizhar.
The Forum has assailed Netanyahu for apparently aiming to reach a deal that would initially release only so-called humanitarian cases — female, elderly or sickly hostages.
“After 14 months, they’re all humanitarian,” the Forum said Thursday in an announcement of its weekend rallies and warning that the hostages may not survive the coming winter.
Utter nonsense and selfish besides. It should be fairly easy to prioritize those weakest and least likely to survive, and those most likely to be tormented, And so, it seems, PM Netanyahu’s team has done.
A block away from the Hostages Square rally, anti-government activists and some hostages’ families and their supporters protested in front of the Begin Road entrance to IDF Headquarters.
That protest was bolstered by demonstrators from an earlier nearby event against the return of the government’s judicial overhaul. So it's not about the hostages...
The anti-overhaul protest, organized by the Free in our Homeland movement, started with a march from Tel Aviv’s Habima Square to the junction, also known by activists as Democracy Square. At the protest, Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party, vowed to topple the government and replace it with “loyalists of Zionism and democracy.”
Golan, a former general who leads a merger of the left-wing Labor and Meretz parties, praised the audience for showing up week after week to protest against “this horrible government.”
Protesters also gathered in other cities across Israel, including Haifa, Herzliya, Rehovot, and Jerusalem.
On Saturday morning, police arrested five people who had protested for a hostage deal outside Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem, according to the Detainee Support Group, a team of lawyers who volunteer on behalf of detained anti-government protesters.
Channel 12 reported that the protesters were detained on their way back from the two-dozen-strong, 20-minute demonstration. According to the report, police followed the group and accused them of violating noise laws. The protesters were interrogated and later released.
#3
Many are dead. There are a few alive, but they have been so horrendously abused that the terrorists are likely considering whether the terrorists can afford to release them.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/29/2024 11:55
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#4
^IDF been looking in every nook & cranny in Gaza for 14 months. No. They're dead: bodies hidden in Gazan cemeteries - standard Hamas trick.
#8
One decent Hamasnik sits, coughing
And shivering, not boffing or offing
His infidel charge.
"You would now be at large,
But I cannot be witnessed to soften."
[IsraelTimes] Israel delayed op until after new president sworn-in, apparently to spare Iran from further embarrassment; IRGC initially wrongly told Khamenei that IDF missile killed Hamas leader
A broken air conditioning unit nearly scuttled Israel’s July 31 liquidation of Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... leader Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continued as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintained a separate PM in the West Bank. Zapped during the 2023-24 war, to eveyone's satisfaction... , who appeared on the verge of changing rooms before staff at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ guest house in Tehran managed to fix the cooling system, according to a Channel 12 report that aired on Saturday. "Why is the HVAC Tech wearing a yarmulke?"
The network offered new details on the operation days after Defense Minister Israel Katz became the first senior Israeli official to confirm that Jerusalem was behind it.
The Israeli decision to take out Haniyeh came shortly after October 7 when the Hamas leader was placed somewhere at the top of a list compiled by senior intelligence officials. It was only a matter of when, Channel 12 said.
Haniyeh lived in 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... , but killing him there risked torpedoing the hostage negotiations that Doha has mediated since the start of the war. Accordingly, the options for where to kill Haniyeh were The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... , Moscow and Tehran — the three countries frequented by the Hamas leader.
Israel feared a furious reaction from Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... and similarly did not want to anger Russian President Vladimir Putin ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances... , leaving Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... as the most suitable option, the network said.
The fact that Haniyeh stayed repeatedly in the same IRGC guest house in the luxurious northern Tehran neighborhood of Sa’adat Abad made the operation easier to plan.
However,
the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... he was guarded as a guest of honor by the IRGC’s top personal security team, requiring a deep level of infiltration in order to pull off the liquidation.
Israeli liquidations of top Hamas officials have gone awry over the past several decades. Accordingly, the various security bodies have worked to improve their cooperation in recent years in order to boost chances of success, Channel 12 said.
According to foreign media reports, the initial Israeli plan was to kill Haniyeh when he came to Tehran for the funeral of former Iranian president Ibrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash on May 19. However,
the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... the operation was shelved amid concerns that it would lead to the deaths of civilians.
Israel waited with the operation for more than two more months when Haniyeh returned for the inauguration of new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
There had been a proposal to move forward on the night before the inauguration, but a decision was made to wait until after the ceremony — ostensibly to avoid further embarrassing Tehran and shaking up plans for the confab.
Shortly before the ceremony, agents installed an improvised bomb in Haniyeh’s room near his bed. The IED was slightly larger than Israel had planned but still not big enough to harm those in adjacent rooms, Channel 12 said. However,
the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... there was still enough material in the bomb to ensure that Haniyeh would be killed on the spot.
Shortly before the planned detonation, the AC unit in Haniyeh’s room broke down, and the Hamas leader left his room in order to request assistance. He was gone for so long that Israel feared that Haniyeh was being moved to a different room in what would have scuttled the entire operation, Channel 12 said, citing a source familiar with its planning.
After some time, though, the AC unit was fixed and Haniyeh returned to his room. At around 1:30 a.m., the IED exploded, blowing a hole through the outer wall of Haniyeh’s guest room and rocking the entire IRGC compound.
Within seconds, an on-site IRGC first-aid team arrived at Haniyeh’s room where it was forced to declare his death shortly thereafter.
Haniyeh’s deputy Khalil al-Hayya arrived next and collapsed to his knees in tears after seeing the Hamas leader’s bloodied body, according to Channel 12.
Analysts who spoke with the network said the operation was too complex to be carried out by Israeli agents, explaining that Iranian citizens, IRGC members or Hamas officials had to have been involved. All three options have surely been probed by Hamas and Iranian authorities, Channel 12 said.
Amid the major embarrassment for Iran, panic and fear flooded the ranks of the Islamic Theocratic Republic and the head of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force Esmail Qaani went dark for several weeks as Tehran scrambled to determine how exposed it was to additional Israeli attacks.
Hours after the liquidation, Qaani himself called Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...> and told him that Haniyeh had been killed in an Israeli missile attack. Khamenei immediately ordered Iran to retaliate against Israel.
The message to the Iran supreme leader was the source of further embarrassment for the IRGC, given that it very quickly became clear to those who surveyed the guest house that a missile was not the cause of Haniyeh’s death.
The retaliatory operation was subsequently shelved, as Iran appeared to prioritize probing the extent its leadership was compromised by Israel.
Only two months later, did Iran hit back against Israel with an October 1 missile attack that was largely thwarted by the IDF along with the armies of the US and Jordan.
Haniyeh was replaced as Hamas politburo chief by Yahya Sinwar, until then the group’s 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 a rusty 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... chief. Sinwar’s reign was short-lived, however, as he was killed by IDF troops in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on October 16.
[Clarice @ AT] I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember the musical Brigadoon. It was about a Scottish village that disappears in the mists and only reappears once every hundred years. The District of Columbia and its federal components often remind me of that. On a local level (perhaps a tradition from pre-air conditioning days), the place is somnolent for all practical purposes in the summer and even through much of the spring. Then, just before Thanksgiving, the courts suddenly schedule hearings on cases that have been moldering for months in the clerks’ offices, and Congress starts to hustle to get a continuing resolution -- to cover what should have been resolved months earlier -- before the Christmas recess. Past the miasma of the damp, hot weather, the city once again is animated.
One hundred years ago, Republican Calvin Coolidge was serving out his first term in office. He was known for being anti-corruption, a proponent of small government and racial equality, and held office during the “Roaring Twenties,” a period of vast economic growth.
One hundred years later, the nation overwhelmingly elected Donald J. Trump for a second term of office -- broken only by a suspicious election of Joe Biden, who has proved a disaster in every conceivable sense. Biden’s running mate sought the presidency upon Biden’s decision (was it really his?) not to seek a second term, and she was roundly beaten at the polls.
Like Coolidge, Trump campaigned on a marked reduction of the federal government and fiscal restraint. To aid him in reducing the size of the federal government and rein in unnecessary spending, he has tapped two very successful entrepreneurs -- Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk -- to create DOGE, a panel to examine government operations and recommend changes and needed cuts. This week, the same press that has consistently lied about Trump confected a split between the DOGE team and Trump. The issue is H-1B visas, temporary visas offered to those with needed skills. Those imagining a split say that Vivek and Elon’s support for the program conflicts with Trump’s America First policies. It doesn’t. Yes, their contentions rile the fringes -- the nativists who want no immigration and the open borders types who think it is elitist to give preference to skilled immigrants.
Perhaps because we are just emerging from a deep sleep where nonsensical arguments and policies were given wide credence, the debate is sloppy and uninformed. Let me try to clarify and show why, despite abuses of the program, the H-1B visa program is perfectly consistent with Trump’s stated policies.
The very best statement of the relevant facts and the opportunities that abound to resolve any questions about the program is by Kaizen D. Asiedu, who graduated with a degree in philosophy from Harvard when that still meant something and has won an Emmy, a man of many talents. He thoughtfully explains all this in a video, captioned for those like me who prefer reading to viewing.
If you haven’t the patience to watch, here he is in short form:
55% of billion dollar+ tech companies were started by immigrants. Google + Intel + Tesla were all founded or built by immigrants. They employ 400,000+ people collectively. Percentage of workforce allowed to be H-1B is effectively capped at 15% for big tech companies. The other 85%+ is American. At Google only 5% of the workforce was H-1B renewals or petitions in 2023. The U.S. is 12/37 among first-world (OECD) nations in science. 28/37 in math. 400,000 new engineers are needed every year. A third of positions go unfilled. Short-term, we need foreign reinforcements or we will lose. Long-term, we need to improve the home team.
It’s also undeniably true that, in recent decades, the quality of education, both K-12 and collegiate, has gone downhill, and the incoming administration will need to address that. But that will take time to ameliorate, and the nation cannot afford to limp along with mediocre innovations until then.
We still have the cultural atmosphere to thrive, even if we are lagging in enough qualified candidates to perform the necessary work. I’m struck by this post by Cesar A. Hidalgo, who entered the U.S. from France, was an H-1B visa holder, and is now a citizen who has his own company. He explains why top scientists seek out work in the U.S -- it’s a culture that encourages innovative thinking:
America is a land[of] opportunity in big part because it has a fantastic work culture that values things such as relevance, communication, and simplicity. In X, international comparisons of work culture often veer into formal things like maternity leave. But as someone that has worked in a few countries, I am convinced that many subtle things, such as knowing how to take turns during a meeting, or responding to an email quickly, can go a long way. In many countries, work is an overregulated bureaucratic nightmare. American culture can be extremely refreshing for foreigners who know what it means to battle unnecessary processes and rules. But there is more. The US work culture is also open and optimistic. Most countries suffer from “well intentioned” cronyism, where people hire, associate, and promote others based on personal relationships. This certainly happens to some degree in the United States, but less than in other places. That openness, however, is key for providing opportunities for outsiders with more skills than networks. Also, many countries [have] pessimistic work cultures, where people shoot others down as a way to flex their wit. But as Nat Friedman said, “Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.” American can-do attitude is a valuable intangible that is prevalent in the US. Now, to the point of this post, these aspects of American work culture are great complements for skilled foreign workers. Complements that favor America. America’s open work culture, with its emphasis on communication skills and optimism, is amazing for organizing teams. Skilled foreigners perform better in teams with an American work culture than in teams of bureaucratized pessimists that don’t know how to take turns during a meeting. When those surviving in those more hostile work environments move to America, they can unleash their technical skills in relevant problems within optimistic organizational cultures that are rare back home. [snip] America benefits from this complement. The fact that every year we get the first pick on the draft is a key competitive advantage. Sure, we do not always know if the first pick of the draft will turn out great, but getting the first pick of the draft is not something we want to lose. We should double down on what makes America exceptional.
In the end, I think these temporary work visas for people with exceptional and needed skills will continue, abuses of the program will be investigated and addressed, and in the long term, greater progress will be made in improving the technical skills of American students. Indeed, on Saturday, Trump reiterated his support of the H-1B program, saying: “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” he said. “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’vebeen a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2024
10:52 ||
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[USA Today] SALINAS, Calif. − The oldest living survivor of the Pearl Harbor attacks died Christmas morning.
Warren "Red" Upton, of San Jose, Calif., was also the last living survivor of the USS Utah, which sank during Japanese attacks on the U.S. Naval Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941. He was 105.
Upton had a short hospital stay in Los Gatos surrounded by his family before he died Wednesday, according to Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the nonprofit Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. There are 15 living Pearl Harbor survivors, she said in a phone interview Saturday.
[Fortune] Treasury Department to take ‘extraordinary measures’ after hitting $36 trillion debt limit as soon as mid-January.
Posted by: Gloluns Turkeyneck4904 ||
12/29/2024
05:02 ||
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[11144 views]
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#1
Subpoena everything the cabinet has done in the last four years. The purpose of executive privilege is to allow for cabinet members to provide confidential advice not for them to cover up his incapacitation and operate as warlords.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/29/2024 9:20
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[ZERO] Revelations that senior US intelligence officials in the early days of the virus pandemic suppressed research indicating a Chinese lab leak as the origin of Covid-19 surfaced in a new Wall Street Journal report titled "Behind Closed Doors: The Spy-World Scientists Who Argued Covid Was a Lab Leak" late this week.
The investigation by WSJ's Michael Gordon and Warren Strobel shows the disagreements within the intelligence community over Covid origins...
But an investigation by The Wall Street Journal shows that the disagreements among intelligence experts over what should be included in the report ran deeper than is publicly known. Nor were the FBI scientists the only ones who believed that the intelligence directorate's review didn't tell the whole story.
Three scientists at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, part of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, conducted a scientific study that concluded that Covid-19 was manipulated in a laboratory in a risky research effort. But that analysis was at odds with the assessment of their parent agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and wasn't incorporated in the report presented to Biden. -WSJ
Specifically, who decided to exclude input from the Defense Department and the FBI—the only agency to conclude with "moderate confidence" that a lab leak was the likely origin—from the August 2021 briefing to President Biden and the subsequent official federal conclusion that Covid most likely originated naturally?
David Asher, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former head of State Department investigations into Covid origins, joined Vince Coglianese, host of WMAL's "The Vince Coglianese Show," on Friday evening to discuss the cover-up of Covid's origins during the Biden administration.
#1
The US funded 'off-shore' chemical and biological research theory has no basis in fact. I'm sticking with the original Chinese 'wet market' theory as promulgated by leading agencies of our government.
#2
We better learn the truth about COVID, J6 and about Epstein within the next month or so. We didn’t vote for more BS.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/29/2024 9:30
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#3
How will we be able to tell if it's the truth? I'm sure any actual incriminating records have been lost to accidents and computer glitches, and homework-eating dogs.
Essentially treating them no differently than his own troops.
[ZERO] The White House has said Moscow is treating its North Korean partner forces as "expendable" in its war against Ukraine, and following South Korean and Pentagon intelligence assessments which say North Korea has suffered at least 1,100 casualties so far
National Security communications adviser John Kirby said in a Friday press briefing, "It is clear that Russian and North Korean military leaders are treating these troops as expendable and ordering them on hopeless assaults against Ukrainian defenses."
[ZERO] Lawmakers in Georgia have been granted the authority to serve subpoenas on Fulton County DA Fani Willis as part of an inquiry into her prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump.
In a Monday ruling revealed later in the week, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shukura Ingram allowed the Georgia Senate to compel Willis's testimony - giving her until Jan. 13 to argue that the lawmakers' demands are overly broad, or seek confidential information.
Willis plans to appeal the ruling, the Epoch Times reports.
"We believe the ruling is wrong and will appeal," said Willis's attorney, former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes.
Earlier this year, a state Senate committee was formed over allegations of misconduct by Willis during her prosecution of Trump and his co-defendants (one of whom revealed that Fani hired her lover to help with her prosecution). In August, the committee subpoenaed Willis, who then skipped a September hearing, delaying the inquiry. Her attorney argued that the committee's subpoenas are overly broad and lack legitimate legislative purpose - and that they seek confidential information.
Republican state Senator Greg Dolezal applauded the ruling.
#4
Her testimony will be very short, but she will still have to dig a couple of Gs from under her mattress to cover the cost. Maybe her county will foot the bill. Maybe she will charge back the DOJ. My quest remains: will the Trump DOJ follow the Biden precedent and negate any Biden claims of Executive Privilege?
In reality nobody was advising or counseling Biden of anything other than when to sit down and how to get off the podium without wandering into a jungle or a closet. Merrick Garland gets no protection for his scam to coordinate all this Lawfare.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/29/2024 8:56
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#5
I suspect the directives from the White House will remain undisclosed.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2024 11:09
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#7
The argument for the concept of executive privilege is made based on the idea of a sole executive needing high quality advice. It makes sense with regard to Donald Trump, who makes good decisions based on debate among subordinates. Ironically, Trump was routinely given knowingly false and misleading information by various people and departments.
Currently, no argument can be made that the DOJ has executive privilege itself separate from the AG providing advice to Biden. We are in an interesting reality where no rational person would believe that the DOJ was providing Biden privileged advice on their Lawfare campaign against DJT. The DOJ would claim that no such initiative ever existed. Biden wasn’t taking advice on complex topics to begin with. He had four staged cabinet meetings and needs a teleprompter to order ice cream.
Uniquely, the DOJ has negated the idea of executive privilege with regard to the Fulton County case anyway. They negated it for Trump. Why should they enjoy protection?
The table is set to use this case to clean out a large rotting chunk of DOJ. Will Bondi and Patel go after this? Conventional thinking says no. We will see.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/29/2024 11:53
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#8
"Fani to be slapped"...heh...i see what you did there
[ZERO] "I know most about Gates, you know, because I’ve written a book about him," says Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - President-elect Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services - recollecting his 2021 book, "The Real Anthony Fauci', where RFK Jr exposes Gates' so-called "philanthro-capitalism", which, he explains is "using philanthropy to make yourself rich and you use it strategically and that’s what he’s done again and again."
"He’s gotten control of the World Health Organization so that they mandate vaccines all over the world and the companies that make those vaccines are, Gates’ and many of them the major shareholder. And so and he did the same thing with the green revolution."
RFK Jr. - full of facts and not conspiracies (for, if they were, where are the defamation suits) - then unraveled one of Gates' greatest disasters:
[GEO.TV] Pakistain is facing a troubling increase in the cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), with officials from the Ministry of National Health Services reporting 1,079 new infections each month. Important safety tip: If you go to Pakistain, keep your pants on. Even better, don't go to Pakistain.
According to the ministry on Friday, in the first nine months of 2024 alone, 9,713 individuals tested positive for the deadly virus.
If this trend continues, the total number of HIV cases for this year could surpass 12,950, a stark rise from the 12,731 cases recorded in all of 2023, The News reported.
The statistics reveal alarming demographic trends, with men accounting for 69.4% of new cases, women for 20.5%, transgender individuals for 4.1%, and children for 6%.
Punjab ...1. Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2. A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3. A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots
.... recorded the highest number of new infections, with 5,691 cases detected between January and September 2024, averaging 632 new cases each month.
Sindh followed with 2,383 new cases, averaging 265 monthly, while Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) reported 926 cases, translating to an average of 103 cases per month.
Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... recorded 329 new cases, while Islamabad and Azad Jammu and Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... (AJK) reported 378 and 10 cases respectively.
Comparatively, the figures for 2023 were even higher, with 12,731 new infections reported nationwide, but the consistent rise in monthly averages for 2024 reflects the worsening nature of the epidemic.
Alarmingly, experts have noted a significant spillover of HIV infections from high-risk populations to the general population.
This is attributed to factors such as poor Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) at healthcare facilities, unsafe sexual practices, low awareness, stigma and other risky behaviors.
"Despite collective efforts, the HIV epidemic is increasing in Pakistain. This demands innovative and sustainable interventions," said Trouble Chikoko, the UNAIDS Country Director for Pakistain, during a recent meeting with the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
Chikoko emphasised the pivotal role that religious scholars and institutions could play in raising awareness about HIV prevention and reducing stigma.
"Collaboration with UN agencies and partners is essential to address this crisis comprehensively," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2024
00:00 ||
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#1
Maybe they should reconsider their traditional practice of gay sex.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/29/2024 9:41
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#2
Could be worse, could be polio.
...
Well, maybe not worse.
[NewsMax] As Mexico braces for the return of President-elect Donald Trump, Mexican officials wonder if Trump's threats of military action against the drug cartels will become a reality, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
According to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper's memoir, Trump had floated the idea of using the military to get rid of drug labs owned by cartels during his first administration but was ultimately talked out of it. This time, Mexican officials are cautious of Trump’s plans resurfacing.
Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, quickly shot down the idea of U.S. military assault.“There won’t be an invasion,” Sheinbaum said at a recent news conference. “It’s not going to happen.”
Yet Trump’s pick to be the ambassador to Mexico, former Green Beret Ronald D. Johnson, had supported the president-elect’s aggressive policies in the past. Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Rep Mike Waltz. R-Fla., has suggested military action to tackle the cartels. In 2023, Waltz introduced legislation for an Authorization for Use of Military Force against Mexican cartels for trafficking lethal fentanyl.
Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister in Mexico, wrote regarding the Johnson pick that “his resume is the message” regarding Trump’s intentions. “Johnson has no experience in economic, commercial or financial matters. He is not coming to Mexico for that.”
Trump made similar overtures during his campaign, floating the idea of a naval embargo to prevent drugs from crossing the border and designate cartels and their leaders as foreign terrorists. In his campaign platform, Trump said he would order the Pentagon to use “special forces, cyberwarfare, and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations.”
“Unlike the sitting president, Joe Biden, President-elect Trump believes his utmost priority is the safety and security of American citizens, and he will, in fact, take the necessary actions to uphold this responsibility,” said Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.
In November, Trump announced his administration's intention to roll out a massive campaign to inform Americans of the dangers of fentanyl. He followed with a warning to noncompliant nations of his border crackdown that he would impose on his first day in office a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico.
#2
Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, quickly shot down the idea of U.S. military assault.“There won’t be an invasion,” Sheinbaum said at a recent news conference. “It’s not going to happen.”
"Invasion?" No Claudia, a few devestating nightime raids should do the trick.
#5
Let’s not invade and topple another government.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/29/2024 15:19
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#6
The Hague Convention of 1907 - "a neutral country has the obligation not to allow its territory to be used by a belligerent. If the neutral country is unwilling or unable to prevent this, the other belligerent has the right to take appropriate counteraction."
Note we had several expeditions into Mexico in the 19th century in dealing with the Apaches who raided our southwest.
Text taken from the Telegram account of belarusian_silovik
[ColonelCassad] In Kamchatka, an unemployed resident received a call from scammers promising 200,000 rubles for setting fire to a police car.
Citing a long-standing dislike for the security forces, he agreed and, as proof of his serious intentions, asked for an advance payment of 50,000 rubles.
He used the transferred amount to buy alcohol at a nearby store and, in a state of alcoholic intoxication, demanded that the advance payment be doubled. The scammers refused to pay this amount a second time, but agreed to pay another 20,000 rubles, with which this character again bought alcohol and stopped answering calls.
The most successful counterintelligence radio game since SMERSH.
[FoxNews] Jeffrey Want Some Candy, Little Girl? Epstein ...A high class pimp financier who was alleged to maintain a stable of underage whoressex slaves who were paid big bucks to entertain the rich and/or famous. He was really surprised when he commited suiciede in jail... , who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, returned to national infamy this year after a federal judge ordered the unsealing of hundreds of documents about allegations against him in a civil lawsuit.
While Epstein's brother, Mark, is not alone in questioning the government's conclusion that he died of suicide in federal custody, there is also great public interest in the disgraced financier's associates, clients and potential accomplices.
Nearly 200 names that had previously been redacted from court documents in a lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein's former lover and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell were made public on orders of a federal judge in New York. Hundreds of documents were released in multiple waves in January.
Epstein had many high-profile connections, including former U.S. presidents, foreign prime ministers and Britannia's Prince Andrew, as well as Hollywood stars, leading academics, people in the modeling and fashion industries and other public figures. Some of the names were previously known through other means despite having been withheld from the public's eye in the lawsuit.
Many of the names belong to people who have not been accused of wrongdoing, like former President Bill Clinton ...former Democratic president of the U.S. Bill was the second U.S. president to be impeached, the first to deny that oral sex was sex, the first to have difficulty with the definition of the word is... , who could have asked the court to have his name remain sealed but declined. A spokesperson for Clinton also denied claims in one of the documents that alleged the former president and Epstein had a "close personal relationship."
Other names unsealed included billionaire Glenn Dubin and his former private chef, Rinaldo Rizzo, the magician David Copperfield, Tony Figueroa, Limited Brands founder and former Victoria's Secret CEO Les Wexner, and Epstein accusers such as Johanna Sjoberg and Annie Farmer.
Former President Clinton, who had a brief business relationship with Epstein, wrote in his new memoir that he wishes he "had never met him."
Clinton took flights on Epstein's private jet on trips for the Clinton Foundation. He wrote that they only discussed "politics and economics" and that he never traveled to Epstein's infamous Little St. James Island.
"Traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward," he wrote in "Citizen," a new book about his life after leaving the White House.
In a deposition from Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg, which was unsealed during the January document dump, she said Epstein bragged about knowing the former president.
"I knew he had dealings with Bill Clinton," she said. "I did not know they were friends until I read the Vanity Fair article about them going to Africa together."
Under questioning, she later added, "He said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls."
Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and spokesperson Angel Urena has denied claims in the documents that Clinton and Epstein had any kind of personal relationship.
"I had always thought Epstein was odd but had no inkling of the crimes he was committing," the former president wrote in his book.
[DefenceBlog] A Chinese drone manufacturer has disclosed a massive government order for almost a million lightweight kamikaze drones, to be delivered by 2026.
As the Russians say, quantity has a quality al its own. Still, how many of the Chinese-made things will actually be able to fly, and of those that can, how many will last very long?
The revelation, shared during a conversation with Defence Blog, highlights China’s rapidly expanding investment in unmanned aerial systems and their integration into modern warfare strategies.
According to the representative of Poly Technologies, this unprecedented contract has effectively monopolized their production capacity. “We already have an order for almost a million drones for our government, and we’re forced to turn down other clients to meet the demand,” the representative stated.
Details about the specific type or technical specifications of the drones remain undisclosed.
China’s focus on kamikaze drones, also known as loitering munitions, aligns with lessons drawn from recent global conflicts, particularly the extensive use of drones in Ukraine. The devastating effectiveness of Ukrainian military tactics employing light kamikaze and FPV drones has reportedly influenced Chinese military doctrine.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has already begun incorporating drone warfare into its training programs. Footage and reports suggest the use of FPV drones and kamikaze drones in simulated combat scenarios to enhance the readiness of PLA forces.
The scale of the order raises questions about its intended purpose. While Beijing has not provided explicit details, many defense analysts believe this could signal preparations for a potential conflict involving Taiwan.
The drone manufacturer’s remarks also shed light on broader industry dynamics. When asked about potential exports to Russia, the manufacturer indicated that meeting domestic demand is currently a top priority. This statement underscores the prioritization of China’s defense capabilities over international sales, despite increasing global interest in Chinese drone technology.
China’s military-industrial complex has been rapidly advancing in the realm of unmanned systems. The PLA has placed significant emphasis on drones as force multipliers, particularly in areas like reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and precision strikes. The integration of kamikaze drones provides a cost-effective and scalable solution for saturating enemy defenses, a tactic that has proven effective in various modern conflicts.
While it remains unclear whether other Chinese manufacturers have received similar orders, this development reflects a broader trend in China’s military build-up. Analysts note that such an extensive procurement aligns with the PLA’s objectives of modernizing and expanding its capabilities to prepare for potential large-scale engagements.
[NEWARAB] Syrian forces loyal to the country's new administration intensified their combing operations in the country's coastal region on Saturday, as a deadline for officers and soldiers from the former Assad regime to hand in their weapons passed.
Syria's al-Watan newspaper, which is now close to the Syrian authorities, reported security sources as saying, ''The deadline given to remnants of the regime to surrender their weapons ended on Saturday. Anyone who keeps their weapon after today is breaking the law.''
The sources added that the new Syrian authorities' military operations administration had begun ''a wide-ranging security operation against remnants of the ousted throughout Syrian territory''.
Operations however seem to be concentrated on the Syrian coast, a stronghold of the former regime.
A Syrian security source told al-Jazeera that the military operations administration had set up checkpoints surrounding the Russian Hemeimim military base
..also spelt Khmeimim and Hmeimim
in Tartous province. Russia was a key backer of the deposed Assad regime.
An al-Jazeera correspondent said that the purpose of the checkpoints was to search cars entering and leaving the base, after reports that officers of the former regime had fled to the Russian base.
Russia has withdrawn some of its troops in northern Syria but says that the fate of the Hemeimim air and naval bases is still ''under discussion''.
The Syrian official SANA news agency reported that some regime officers were tossed into the calaboose near the coastal city of Latakia.
''Some remants of Assad's militias and a group of suspects were arrested in the Satmarkhu area near Latakia,'' it said, adding that weapons and ammunition were seized and the operation was still in progress.
Troops from the Interior Ministry were also deployed heavily in the coastal town of Banias on Saturday, in order to capture elements associated with the Assad regime.
[Western Journal] Former Rep. Matt Gaetz is just that — a former representative.
That made the release of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee into his professional and private life — begun during former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 117th Congress — highly unusual. The interest of the House Ethics Committee is generally into the ethics of sitting members.
Moreover, the position that Gaetz resigned to pursue — attorney general of the United States — is one he’s no longer pursuing due to the fact that some of the contents of that report had already been revealed long ago and he didn’t have the votes to get confirmed by the Senate, report or no report.
Gaetz has now moved into the land of cable news punditry, with a new show on One America News television network. If he’s likely to pursue any sort of career in politics in the future, it seems unlikely he’d re-transition into the world of elected or confirmed public officialdom. As the old "Simpsons" meme goes, "Stop! Stop! He’s already dead!"
That being said, it’s worth examining the Gaetz ethics report — something the media is loath to do, inasmuch as they’ve reported on the findings as if the former Florida representative’s resignation and attorney general recusal is a prima facie admission that everything in it is true.
Skipping down:
One of the few people who’s been following this story — and not taking everything in the report at face value — is Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist, who’s noted several issues with the report.
The latest? At least one of the people mentioned in the report, a friend of Gaetz’s, has demanded corrections from the House Ethics Committee for mentions of him in the report which he says are erroneous.
The letter was first reported by Marc Caputo of NeverTrump outlet The Bulwark, but Hemingway noted how it dovetailed with numerous other issues with the report.
“At the outset, I’ll note the release of your committee’s report is bizarre, Congressman Gaetz is no longer subject to your jurisdiction, and the precedential effect of the release of this report cannot be overstated,” a lawyer for Chris Dorworth, the man mentioned, wrote in a letter to House Ethics Committee chair Rep. Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican.
The letter went on to list “three demonstrably false statements within your report” regarding Dorworth.
The first involved a mention that “Mr. Dorworth believed that Representative Gaetz invited people to his home on the evening of July 15, 2017.” This evening was critical, inasmuch as the most problematic allegation in the report — that Gaetz paid to have sex with a minor — happened on that night at Dorworth’s home.
“No, Mr. Dorworth did not and has never believed that Representative Gaetz invited people to his house on July 15, 2017,” the letter stated.
“To support your claim that Gaetz ‘invited’ people to my client’s home, you cite, in footnote 97, a gate log that doesn’t include Gaetz’s name on it and reference an affidavit and deposition transcripts that say nothing about Gaetz inviting anyone to my client’s home.” [Emphasis theirs.]
Furthermore, the letter stated, “Mr. Dorworth’s deposition transcript does not support this statement in your report, and it should be retracted immediately.”
Again, this basically undermines the most serious allegation completely, inasmuch as the Ethics Committee’s report relies upon Dorworth’s memories of that evening and the fact that he lived in a complex where “non-residents are required to present a driver’s license before entering, and entry records are maintained.”
If those entry records don’t have Gaetz’s name on them, they were either 1) tampered with, or 2) the preponderance of the evidence regarding the allegation shifts radically.
The second discrepancy also involves that allegation, noting that “Mr. Dorworth was deposed and confronted with cell phone records showing that he was in fact at his residence during the party.”
“As an attendee at Mr. Dorworth’s deposition, I can assure you he was never ‘confronted with any cell phone records,” adding that the records “were deemed ‘Attorneys Eyes Only’ at the time of Mr. Dorworth’s deposition” and that he was “mortified that the Committee on Ethics would include such a ridiculous conclusion” in its report.
The third alleged discrepancy, later in the same paragraph: “The Committee requested, through counsel, that Mr. Dorworth clarify his testimony regarding his whereabouts on the evening of July 15, 2017; his counsel did not respond.”
His counsel, being the author of this letter, noted that he did, saying he emailed the staff on Sept. 6 of this year.
“Interesting. The House ‘Ethics’ Committee is caught here just flat out lying about three things in its report on Matt Gaetz. (In addition to all the other alleged falsehoods),” Hemingway noted in an X repost of the letter:
Again, it’s difficult to overstate how damning serious mistakes in this part of the report would be, particularly given the decision to release it absent any real reason to do so; without substantial evidence that Gaetz paid to have sex with a minor, what you have is essentially a log of someone’s alleged substance use disorder and/or dysfunctional sex life the better part of a decade ago.
And again, this isn’t the only issue with the report. As Hemingway noted in a November article, “the same two central witnesses the House Ethics Committee has relied on for its critical report of Gaetz” are the two witnesses whose credibility issues led the Department of Justice to drop its investigation of Gaetz in 2022.
One is a former tax assessor who agreed to plead guilty to charges that included “sex trafficking of a child, aggravated identity theft and wire fraud,” according to The Washington Post, in exchange for “substantial assistance” in building cases against other people.
He’s currently in prison for those charges. The other is the woman who was allegedly the minor Gaetz paid for sex; the Post said her “testimony has issues that veteran prosecutors feel would not pass muster with a jury.”
Let me reiterate: Joe Biden’s Department of Justice thought this case wouldn’t fly based on the believability of the witnesses central to the House Ethics Committee’s report. If the Biden DOJ wouldn’t go ahead with the public crucifixion of a Trump ally, it generally has to be really bad.
#2
The Ethics Committee has been a scam for a long time.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/29/2024 9:07
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#3
The same "ethics" committee that allows Congressthings and their astute Jesse Livermore-like spouses to engage in insider trading on MNPI (material non-public information).
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] The corpse count from the Zionist aggression on the 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 a rusty 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... Strip has risen to 45,484, with 108,090 injured, since October 7, 2023.
The Paleostinian Health Ministry explained on Saturday that the Israeli occupation committed two massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, which left 48 deaders and 52 maimed during the past 24 hours.
The ministry added ambulance and civil defense crews are unable to reach the victims who are under the rubble and on the roads.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2024
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Top|| File under: Hamas
[GEO.TV] Israeli forces detained more than 240 Paleostinians including dozens of medical staff and the director of a north 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 a rusty 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... hospital they raided on Friday, according to the Health Ministry in the enclave and Israel's military.
The Health Ministry said it was concerned about the well-being of Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, as some staff freed by the Israeli military late on Friday said he was beaten up by soldiers.
The Israeli military said the hospital was being used as a command centre for Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... military operations and those arrested were suspected turbans. It said Abu Safiya was taken for questioning as he was suspected of being a Hamas operative.
On Friday, Hamas dismissed as lies Israel's assertion that its fighters had operated from the hospital throughout the 15-month-old Gaza war, saying no fighters were in the hospital. The group had not yet commented on the 240 arrests.
Compare and contrast with this report on the story from Israel:
[IsraelTimes] Military says facility was a ‘key stronghold’ for Hamas, detains hospital’s director, Oct. 7 terrorists; also says it evacuated hundreds of patients to other hospitals
The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had completed an operation against Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... at northern 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 a rusty 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... ’s Kamal Adwan Hospital and the surrounding area.
Some 240 suspected terror operatives were detained, including the medical center’s director and 15 bandidosfaceless myrmidons who participated in the October 7, 2023, onslaught on southern Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces, which last operated against Hamas at Kamal Adwan in October, said the operation was launched because the hospital had "once again become a key stronghold for terrorist organizations and continues to be used as a hideout for terrorist operatives."
The army said the hospital was still used by Hamas "despite repeated calls to refrain from allowing [terror operatives] to exploit hospitals for military activities."
The operation was led by the IDF’s 162nd Division. At the start of the raid, the IDF said troops of the 401st Armored Brigade surrounded the hospital, detained several terror operatives, and killed additional button men.
Members of the Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit then carried out "precise activities" inside the hospital, during which they located and captured weapons, including grenades, handguns, ammunition, and other military equipment, according to the IDF.
Over 240 members of Hamas, Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... and others suspected of being members of terror groups were detained amid the operation, the military said.
The IDF said some of the terror operatives "tried to impersonate patients and medical staff, and some tried to escape in ambulances."
Among those detained was the director of Kamal Adwan, Hussam Abu Safiya, who the IDF said is suspected of being a Hamas operative.
The Hamas-run health ministry also said Abu Safiya was detained, but a statement posted to his Instagram account said, "All that is being circulated about Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya being arrested is false news," adding, "thank God he is fine, but the communications and network are very bad."
At least 15 of those arrested at the hospital and the surrounding area participated in the October 7 onslaught, according to the military. Several members of Hamas’s engineering and anti-tank forces were also arrested in the operation.
The suspects were questioned by field interrogators from the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504 and the Shin Bet security agency. The IDF said many admitted to interrogators that they had participated in "terror activity" in the hospital area.
During the operation, the military said operatives launched RPGs and anti-tank projectiles at troops from an area near the hospital, and attempted other attacks.
There were no injuries among the Israeli forces, and the operatives behind the attacks were killed, the IDF said. It added that a dronezap eliminated a cell of button men whose members tried to flee the area.
Before launching the operation, the IDF said it enabled the evacuation of 350 patients, caregivers, and medical personnel to other hospitals, in an effort coordinated by the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
In the weeks prior to the operation, "tens of thousands of liters of fuel, food, and medical supplies for the essential functioning of the hospital" were delivered to Kamal Adwan.
During the raid itself, the IDF said another 95 patients, caregivers, and medical personnel were evacuated from Kamal Adwan to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, where 5,000 liters of fuel, two generators, and medical equipment were delivered "to maintain and operate essential systems in the hospital."
Hundreds of Paleostinian civilians also left the hospital area "via defined evacuation routes," the military added.
The IDF denied that Israeli troops had set fire to the hospital as claimed by Hamas.
IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani pushed back on Hamas’s account. "While IDF troops were not in the hospital, a small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that is under control," he said, adding that a preliminary investigation had found "no connection" between military activity and the fire.
"Running with unsubstantiated reports on the cause of this fire shows nothing but questionable journalistic integrity," said Shoshani.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry had accused Israeli troops of setting fires in several parts of Kamal Adwan, including the lab and surgery department, and said that 25 patients and 60 health workers remained in the hospital.
The ministry also said Israeli troops had entered the hospital, taken staff and patients outside and forced them to strip in winter weather.
Unverified video circulating on social media purported to show patients and staff being marched outside in front of IDF tanks.
The IDF last operated at the Kamal Adwan facility in late October, detaining dozens of terror operatives and locating and destroying weapons and terror infrastructure.
At the time, the military released footage from the interrogation of a detained individual, who identified himself as a driver and paramedic for Kamal Adwan Hospital and al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City.
He alleged in the footage that Hamas was using ambulances at the hospital to move operatives around.
"Hamas military operatives are present. They are in the courtyards, at the gates of the buildings, in the offices," he said when asked about the terror group’s operations around Kamal Adwan.
"They operate ambulances to transport their maimed military operatives and to transport them for their missions," he went on. "This is instead of using the ambulances for the benefit of civilians."
"We, the public in the northern Gaza Strip, are sick of this situation," he said when asked if he had anything more to add. "We have had enough; they [Hamas] are stationed in the hospitals, stationed in the schools."
Hamas has fought from within hospitals throughout the war and even periodically hid some of the Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7 inside them. International law generally prohibits targeting hospitals during wartime, but hospitals can lose this protection if used for military purposes.
Since October, Israel has intensified its land and air offensive in northern Gaza, stating its goal is to prevent Hamas from regrouping in the area.
Text taken from the Telegram accouint of iamsniper
[ColonelCassad] Excerpts from the book "Aida" (commander of the Special Forces "Akhmat") - "The Cursed Forest".
One of the reconnaissance snipers from the battalion next to us opened his account.
It was his first shot, first kill and first body inspection.
By the way, for the next two days he withdrew into himself, practically did not eat and did not leave the room.
- Can you talk to him? - his commander asked me.
- No problem, - I answered.
I went up the stairs and knocked on the door. Silence.
After knocking a few more times, I opened it.
A young sniper, naked to the waist, was picking at his hand with a knife. There were already several dozen wounds.
He was taking out something that only he could see.
Confused, similar images that I had seen many years ago surfaced in my eyes.
The sniper, who had retired, realizing the burden of his responsibility, rubbed his hands to the flesh with pumice.
I closed the door and silently walked back.
Having met his commander in the common room, I said:
- I'm afraid that talking won't help him anymore... call the medics and take him to the evacuation.
Almost all the fighters ran up the stairs.
* * *
- Did you choose the call sign yourself? - Akim asked.
- No, I inherited it.
- What was it before?
- Sinner.
- Did the mentor pass it on?
- Yes. Before him, there was Hades.
- Are you going to pass it on to someone else too?
I thought for a moment:
- No. I think I'll be the last Hades.
- What's wrong?
- The call sign is cursed, I think. Everyone ended up the same way, plus or minus. I don't want to pass on a curse.
* * *
I woke up from a nightmare that had been haunting me for the past few days. The gray swamp of the cursed forest called me through my dreams.
Peering into the muddy waters of the swamp in my sleep, I clearly saw hundreds of eyes looking at me from there.
How many souls this swamp has taken since WWII, I don't know, but the place really was nasty.
I went down to the first floor of our farm to make some tea. The clock showed 4 am.
Half an hour later, alarm clocks started ringing en masse, and the soldiers started getting up for a combat mission.
- You're early. Didn't go to bed? - asked Kostyl.
- A difficult question, - I muttered under my breath.
- Are you with us? To the BZ?
- Yes, why not. Where are you going?
- To the swamp.
I felt the unpleasant aftertaste of sleep.
* * *
We passed the hotel, in the direction of the "horseshoe", to make our way through the minefields, to set up an observation post. The bank on the other side of the horseshoe was packed with the enemy.
Having removed a couple of inept infantry tripwires, which were already asking for a bullet, because of their idiotic habit of wrapping tripwires around themselves in circles and resting, we moved on.
The enemy also entered the horseshoe and it was necessary to move vigilantly so as not to fall into an ambush.
We had several combat encounters on the horseshoe.
As well as getting into enemy secrets.
It was also dangerous to get into the swamp. The armor will pull you to the bottom and you won’t be able to get out.
Seeing fresh tracks on our territory, we carefully followed them.
Two people. The tracks split. In one area there were fragments of an exploded tripwire. Apparently, the enemy was blown up and wounded.
Carefully following the route, we reached the swamp.
From under the water, a dead soldier of the Ukrainian Armed Forces looked at me with open eyes and an open mouth. Swollen, wounded in the leg, he fell into the swamp and drowned.
For a few seconds, I carefully looked at these eyes under the water and was silent.
- What is it? - the soldier distracted me.
- Well, just like that... I’m starting to believe in prophetic dreams. We get him. Four are looking for the second one.
- Why get him? - my scout was perplexed.
- Let’s check the pockets. Let's take the documents, the mobile phone, if you have one. And those eyes underwater irritate me.
- What?
- They call me. In my sleep.
* * *
Dreams have always been an unpleasant part of me. That's why I was grateful for my insomnia.
On those few days when I got enough sleep, dreams fell on me like an avalanche.
Sometimes, the dreams were so beautiful that I regretted waking up.
More often, I would like my day to be a dream that I forgot about.
Sometimes, through dreams, I communicated with those who should not be around.
On the eve of my next duel, I fell asleep.
I dreamed of a park, which I had definitely visited at some point in my past life on the other side of the war. I don't remember where it is. I don't even remember the circumstances under which I was there.
It was raining lightly, it was deserted. Dreams are generally deserted. Most often.
I sat down under a tree, clearly aware that I had fallen asleep.
- What are you worried about? - a familiar voice rang out.
- You shouldn't be here, old man. - I answered Hades without turning around.
- Why?
- I know I fell asleep. And I know that when I wake up, I'll be disappointed. Don't start.
- Aren't you happy to see me? - He sat down next to me.
- Not on the eve of a hard day.
- Worried that you'll lose?
- You lost. Right in front of me.
He laughed:
- And you won. After me. You still have a long way to go. A hard one. Don't worry. You're destined to go through it.
I opened my eyes from the alarm clock.
Remembering that a duel awaited me on some God-knows-how-many terms, with any outcome, I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
Smiling wryly at the words of my mentor, I stood up.
"This is the way, old man." - a thought that became the final thread with my dream.
[GEO.TV] Security forces successfully thwarted an attempted infiltration and retaliated decisively against a cross-border attack by snuffies in the Kurram and North Wazoo regions, security sources told Geo News on Saturday.
According to security sources, a group of 20 to 25 khawarij,
…khawarij (Kharijites ) are heretics, often used to describe Wahhabis and hence Al Qaeda and ISIS-linked jihadis…
in coordination with the Afghan Taliban ...the once and current oppressors of Afghanistan... , launched an unprovoked attack on Pak posts using heavy weaponry this morning.
In a swift and effective response, Pak forces not only neutralised the infiltration attempt but also delivered a strong counterattack.
Reports claim that over 15 holy warriors, including Afghan Taliban members, were killed, with many others injured. The operation forced the Afghan Taliban to abandon six posts along the border, incurring heavy losses on their side.
Initial reports suggest significant damage on the Afghan side, with further casualties likely. Despite the intensity of the exchange, Pakistain's security forces reported no fatalities and only three injuries.
The development comes against the backdrop of increased terrorist attacks inside Pakistain since the interim Afghan Taliban-led administration came to the helm in Kabul.
Terrorist attacks have been rampant in the provinces of KP and Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... — which abut Afghanistan — targeting especially the law enforcers and security forces.
Islamabad has time again urged Kabul to not allow its territory to be used by terrorist groups to carry out attacks against Pakistain.
"We desire good ties with them (Kabul) but TTP should be stopped from killing our innocent people [....] This is our red line," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a cabinet address on Friday.
The diplomatic effort is coupled with ongoing kinetic action against hard boyz by security forces who eliminated 13 hard boyz in three KP operations earlier this week.
A day before that, forces had bumped off 13 hard boyz during an intelligence-based operation in South Waziristan.
The third quarter of 2024 (July-September) witnessed a sharp uptick in fatalities in terrorist violence and counter-terrorism campaigns with a 90% surge in violence, according to a report issued by the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS).
A total of 722 people were killed, including civilians, security personnel, and outlaws, while 615 others were maimed in as many as 328 incidents recorded during the period under review.
Nearly 97% of these fatalities occurred in KP and Balochistan — marking the highest percentage in a decade, and over 92% of these incidents of terror attacks and security forces' operations were recorded in the same provinces.
In 2024 alone, the military has reported 383 soldiers and 925 snuffies killed in various festivities.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] The Ukrainian Armed Forces are waging fierce battles in the east and south of Ukraine.
Most of the battles took place in the Pokrovsk direction. There, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have already repelled 25 assaults in the areas of 11 populated areas.
Since the beginning of the current day, 82 combat clashes have occurred on the front. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in a summary as of 16:00 on Saturday, December 28.
Thus, in the Kharkov direction, the Russians stormed once in the area of Volchansk. This battle is still ongoing.
In the Kupyansk direction, the enemy attacked once in the Glushkovka area, the clash continues.
In the Liman direction, the invaders carried out 13 attacks near Grekovka, Pervomayskoye, Kopanki, Novogorovka, Novoplatonovka and Makeyevka. Seven battles are still ongoing.
In the Kramatorsk direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are repelling seven enemy attacks in the direction of Stupochki and Chasovoy Yar. Five attacks have already ended unsuccessfully for the occupiers.
In the Pokrovsk direction, Russian invaders made 33 attempts to push the Ukrainian Armed Forces from their positions in the areas of the settlements of Zelenoe Pole, Vozdvizhenka, Mirolyubovka, Luch, Lisovka, Dachenskoye, Zelenoe, Pokrovsk, Novy Trud, Pervoe Maya and Shevchenko. The defense forces repelled 25 enemy attacks, eight clashes are still ongoing. The enemy is most active in the Dachenskoye area, where seven clashes occurred.
In the Kurakhovsky direction, the enemy attacked 13 times near Petropavlovka, Ukrainka, Kurakhovo and Dachnoye. Seven assaults have already been repelled.
In the Vremovsky direction, nine battles took place near the settlements of Konstantinopolskoye, Bolshaya Novosyolka and Vremovka. Four clashes are still ongoing.
In the Kursk region, our defenders are repelling five enemy attacks.
Let us recall that in one day on December 27, the Ukrainian Armed Forces "minus" about 1,700 Russians . The total losses of the aggressor country Russia are rapidly approaching 800 thousand killed and wounded.
It also became known how many fighters Russia lost in 2024.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 19:19 Calculation of the FPV drone of the North group of forces destroyed an armored combat vehicle of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the border area of the Kursk region. 19:08 The settlement of Terny has almost completely come under the control of the Russian Armed Forces –map.
18:20 Russian troops have advanced a kilometer in Kurakhovo in a week, said the deputy commander for political affairs of the 1st rifle battalion of the 110th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 51st army, call sign "Yaryy" -video.
17:50 From 15:45 to 16:30 Moscow time, three Ukrainian drones were destroyed.
One UAV was shot down over the territory of the Kursk region, two over the territory of the Republic of Crimea, the Ministry of Defense reported.
17:45 Front Bird reports from Kursk Region:
"Over the past 24 hours, our naval infantry and airborne forces units have carried out several successful attacks in the area of the settlement of Nikolayevo-Daryino. Several infantry fighting vehicles were destroyed, including a Bradley. I am also informed that today at noon, a 122mm 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled gun of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was destroyed. I would like to separately note the increasing frequency of violent assaults by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Often, recruits are thrown blindly into our machine guns."
17:12 UAV operators of the 57th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 5th Army of the Vostok group “worked” by dropping missiles on enemy infantry in the Vremevsky direction –video.
16:24 The number of victims as a result of the artillery attack of Gorlovka by Ukrainian troops has increased to six people, the city's mayor Ivan Prikhodko reported on his Telegram channel.
Earlier, the mayor stated that five people were injured as a result of the artillery attack of Gorlovka. According to the mayor, a Ukrainian shell hit an apartment in one of the houses in the settlement of the Y. A. Gagarin mine.
"As a result of artillery attack of the settlement of the Yuri Gagarin mine by armed formations of Ukraine, a civilian resident of Gorlovka was wounded," the report says.
16:17 Su-35S fighters of the Russian Aerospace Forces provided cover for the Russian Aerospace Forces in the border area of Kursk Oblast. This was reported by the Russian Defense Ministry.
15:56 Crimean paratroopers took possession of a stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the border region of the Kursk region. Some of the militants laid down their arms and surrendered, and those who resisted were destroyed.
15:35 The Russian Armed Forces entered the territory of the Kurakhovskaya TPP.
The enemy command continues to withdraw units from the Kurakhovsky direction, NGP raZVedka reported. Thus, units of the 119th territorial defense brigade, previously transferred to Kurakhovo from the "Kyiv defense" group for reinforcement, are being withdrawn to the rear units of the Kiev region in order to restore combat capability.
The Russian Armed Forces have thoroughly reinforced them, and now with the remaining 30% of the regular parameter, they are returning to the rear. Thus, this week, forces numbering up to 4 battalions left the Kurakhovsky sector due to loss of combat capability.
15:20 The Russian Armed Forces advanced into Chasov Yar in the Severny microdistrict, Russian Patriot reported.
15:12 Ukrainian militants killed pensioner in the village of Plekhovo in the Kursk region, and then set his house on fire, where a disabled woman burned alive, a local resident told military investigators of the Investigative Committee during questioning.
14:40 Russian military from the North group of troops in the Kursk region destroyed BBM of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This was reported by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
14:15 Five foreign mercenaries liquidated by the Russian army.
The militants killed were Colombian Sneijder Zamudio, Breiner David Colorado Sanchez, Marco Antonio Ramirez Leon and Francisco Antonio Gomez Diaz, and Venezuelan Diego Alejandro Goncalves.
At least 146 mercenaries from Colombia have already been eliminated during the SVO.
14:10 From 11:00 to 13:00 Moscow time, three Ukrainian drones were destroyed
One UAV was shot down over the territory of the Kursk region, two over the territory of the Republic of Crimea, the Ministry of Defense reported.
13:44 The enemy, having made up for its losses, launched a counterattack south of Makeyevka.
The movement of equipment was discovered in a timely manner, after which artillery and strike UAVs destroyed up to 10 personnel and one armored fighting vehicle.
13:37 The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk direction in one day amounted to more than 250 people, the Ministry of Defense reported.
13:00 Enemy reports: “in the Vrem'yevsk direction, the situation for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Velyka Novosyolka is deteriorating.
The Russian Armed Forces reached the Gulyaipole-Velikaya Novosyolka highway and were able to capture several Ukrainian Armed Forces tanks north of the highway.
In addition, further south, the Russian army is trying to take control of all the heights above Neskuchny and Vrem'eyevka.”
12:28 The main points from the new briefing of the Russian Ministry of Defense:
– Russian air defense systems shot down three HIMARS projectiles and 104 Ukrainian UAVs in one day;
– The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost two tanks, including one Leopard, three infantry fighting vehicles and up to 450 soldiers in the “Center” group zone in one day;
– Kyiv lost more than 440 soldiers in the area of ??responsibility of the West military group in one day;
– As a result of the actions of the “Sever” and “Dnepr” groups, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost more than 160 fighters in one day;
– The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 160 people in one day as a result of the actions of the Vostok group;
– the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in one day amounted to 260 soldiers in the area ofresponsibility of the “South” group.
12:25 In Kurakhovo, the Russian Armed Forces advanced into the industrial zone of the city and consolidated their positions. The advance is one km deep.
11:59 FPV operators of the 27th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 1st Tank Army destroy enemy manpower –video.
11:37 Naval infantry UAV calculation discovered and destroyed a heavy UAV of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kakhovka direction.
During reconnaissance, a UAV operator of the Northern Fleet naval infantry spotted an enemy heavy drone of the Baba Yaga type. Having assessed the situation, the drone operator decided to attack the enemy unmanned aerial vehicle, entered a convenient trajectory and rammed the enemy drone.
11:22 The Zapad group's ZALA UAV crew helped artillery unit servicemen destroy self-propelled gun "Krab" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The operators of the ZALA UAV discovered a Ukrainian Armed Forces position from which fire was being conducted towards Russian units. The servicemen transmitted the target coordinates to long-range artillery crews, who promptly struck and destroyed a Polish-made 155mm self-propelled artillery unit, Krab.
10:16 Group "Vostok" in the South Donetsk direction opened fire on the enemy's 152mm 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled gun position, after which the artillerymen destroyed it with counter-battery fire.
10:02 The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of responsibility of the Russian group of forces "East" in one day amounted to 150 soldiers. This was reported by the head of the group's press center, Alexander Gordeyev.
09:37 The criminal Kiev regime continues to shell the civilian infrastructure of the settlements of the left bank of the Kherson region, yesterday during the day the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired from barrel artillery:
– Six rounds in the village of Novaya Kakhovka;
- Two rounds to the village of Aleshki;
– Three rounds in the village of Staraya Zburyevka;
– Four rounds to the settlement of Tavriysk;
- Two rounds in the village of Golaya Pristan.
As a result of artillery attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a construction store on Lenin Street caught fire in Novaya Kakhovka and a home appliance store was damaged. In addition, as a result of an attack by enemy drones on Novaya Kakhovka, a window was knocked out in one of the city's cafes.
During the night, the Kiev regime continued to shell civilian infrastructure in the villages of Kazachi Lageri, Golaya Pristan, Lyubimovka, and Korsunka, firing a total of 18 rounds from barrel artillery. Civilian casualties and infrastructure destruction are being clarified.
09:11 A peaceful resident of Kursk Sudzha Irina told how the drones of the Ukrainian Armed Forces they didn't give people a chance to leave the city when Ukrainian troops attacked the region.
09:05 The Russian National Guard destroyed a UAV crew of the Ukrainian Armed Forces militants in the Chernihiv region, the press service of the agency’s central district reported.
The press service noted that in the shortest possible time, Rosgvardia UAV operators, using FPV drones, carried out a targeted strike on the Ukrainian Armed Forces crew and the dugout where the enemy was hiding.
08:57 The Armed Forces of Ukraine attacked a passenger car in Nova Kakhovka, Kherson region, using a drone; four people were injured, said the head of the city district, Vitaliy Gura.
08:42 Combat job of Russian paratroopers in the border area of Kursk Oblast. The fighters stormed the Ukrainian Armed Forces stronghold. Before that, the enemy was demoralized by artillery - it also suppressed the firepower.
08:14 Training grounds of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are releasing untrained soldiers, the Ukrainian prisoner said.
08:10 The Ukrainian Armed Forces have practically left the village of Zeleny Gai in the Khar'kov region. The settlement has turned into a "gray zone", Andriy Marochko reported.
08:07 The attack of a Ukrainian UAV on the Makeyevka Machine-Building Plant in the DPR was prevented by the Kupol Donbassa air defense system, the DPR Defense Headquarters Telegram channel reports.
08:04 Ukrainian troops carried out four attacks on DPR settlements in one day, firing six units of various ammunition. There are dead and wounded, the military investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the region reported.
08:01 Air defense forces destroyed 56 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions overnight, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.
08:00 Destruction of an enemy UAV control point by drone operators of the 36th Army of the Vostok group in the area of Velikaya Novosyolka –video.
[NYPOST] The Biden administration has agreed to a court order preventing it from selling off rusting pieces of border wall material that the outgoing president has refused to install, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton revealed Friday. Idiot Journolists. It's Corten steel, made to rust so you don't have to maintain it once the surface oxidizes
''We have successfully blocked the Biden Administration from disposing of any further border wall materials before President Trump takes office,'' Paxton said in a statement.
''This follows our major victory forcing Biden to build the wall, and we will hold his Administration accountable for illegally subverting our Nation's border security until their very last day in power, especially where their actions are clearly motivated by a desire to thwart President-elect Trump's immigration agenda,'' he added.
Construction crews install panels of the border wall in La Casita-Garciasville, Texas on Nov. 26, 2024.
[GEO.TV] Qatar's prime minister met a Hamas delegation in Doha on Saturday to discuss a "clear and comprehensive" ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza, a statement said.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani held talks with a Hamas team led by senior official Khalil al-Hayya, the foreign ministry statement said.
Palestinians search for casualties at the site of an Israeli airstrike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, December 27, 2024. — Reuters
It is unusual for Sheikh Mohammed, who is also Qatar's foreign minister, to be publicly involved in the mediation process that has appeared deadlocked for months.
"During the meeting, the latest developments in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations were reviewed, and ways to advance the process were discussed to ensure a clear and comprehensive agreement that brings an end to the ongoing war in the region," the statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2024
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[FoxNews] Correctional officers at a New York prison repeatedly punched a handcuffed inmate, hit him with a shoe, lifted him by the neck and dropped him before he later died, newly released video shows.
New York Attorney General Letitia James released body camera footage on Friday of the Dec. 9 assault on Robert Brooks, 43, who died the morning after the incident.
The attorney general's office is investigating the officers' use of force that led to Brooks' death.
Brooks was pronounced dead at a hospital the day after the assault at the Marcy Correctional Facility, a state prison in Oneida County.
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] The Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... i Armed Forces in Sana'a announced the downing of an American ''MQ-9'' aircraft while conducting hostile missions in the airspace of al-Bayda province .
The Yemeni Armed Forces said in a statement that this is the thirteenth plane of its type that the Yemeni Armed Forces have succeeded in shooting down during the Battle of the Promised Victory and the Holy Jihad in support of 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 a rusty 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... The aircraft was shot down with a locally-made surface-to-air missile, according to the statement.
The Yemeni Armed Forces confirm their continuation in confronting all attempts by the enemies to undermine the illusory sovereignty of our country and that they are continuing their operations in support of Gaza, and that these operations will not stop until the aggression on Gaza stops and the siege is lifted, the statement stressed.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2024
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[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] A civilian was killed and another was maimed Saturday as a result of Saudi army shelling on border areas of Saada province, northern Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... Security sources in Saada reported that the shelling targeted Munabbih and Baqim districts.
Yemen's border areas are subjected to continuous Saudi army attacks. The escalation of Saudi attacks without justification has resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and property destruction.
[GEO.TV] About 1,329 pea sized critically endangered snails bred in a zoo have been set free on a remote Atlantic island to roam as they please. "Where are they? I don't see no daggone snails!"
"They bolted, soon as we opened the cage!"
The release of the snails brings back two species of Desertas Island land to the wild. Before this, these kinds of snails were thought to be extinct — neither of the species were spotted for a century, as per BBC.
It all changed when a team of conservationists found a small population of the snails living on the rocky cliffs of Deserta Grande Island, near Madeira and prepared for a rescue effort.
A home was created for them in a converted shipping container after the snails were brought to the zoos of the UK, France as well as the Chester Zoo.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2024
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#1
"Unfortunately, the island is covered in salt..."
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2024 7:40
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#2
What do they taste like?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/29/2024 9:40
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#3
Attack of the pea sized snails.
next month on Netflix
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/29/2024 20:47
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The team of US President-elect Donald Trump is likely aware of the enormous scale of corruption and money laundering in Ukraine. This was stated on December 28 by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.
According to her information, a corruption link has emerged in Ukraine between the current US President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden and the head of the Kiev regime Volodymyr Zelensky and his predecessors. This, among other things, became part of the manipulations during the recent elections of the American leader.
"This is a specific story about the corruption of clans in the United States of America, for whom Ukraine has become a way to launder billions of dollars and obtain super profits. I think Trump's team understands this," Zakharova told KP.RU.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, American entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk, nominated by Trump to head the Department of Government Efficiency, said in November that he supported the idea of conducting an audit of funds allocated for aid to Ukraine. He also agreed that the elected president could resolve the Ukrainian conflict, on which billions of dollars were spent from the American budget.
The American television channel CNBC, citing the opinion of a number of analysts, came to the conclusion that Trump is presumably considering stopping the allocation of funds to support the Kiev regime in order to thereby achieve an end to the conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously stressed that no assistance from Western countries could change the course of the special operation, and that arms deliveries to Ukraine merely confirm NATO's participation in the conflict. The Russian leader's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, warned that arms deliveries to the Kiev regime only drain the resources of the countries that have decided to do so.
[GEO.TV] The corpse count of the plane crash mounted to 47 after the airliner careened off the runway and erupted into a fireball as it ran into a wall at South Korea's Muan International Airport on Sunday, according to Yonhap news agency.
The crash occurred as Jeju Air flight 7C2216, carrying 175 passengers and six crew on a flight from the Thai capital Bangkok, was landing shortly after 9am (0000 GMT) at the airport in the south of the country, South Korea's transport ministry said.
At least 33 bodies have been recovered but that number is not final, a fire official told Rooters.
Two people were found alive and rescue operations were still under way, a Muan fire official said. The official and the transport ministry could not confirm the reports of 28 dead. Yonhap said three people had been rescued.
Authorities were working to rescue people in the tail section, an airport official told Rooters.
Video shared by local media showed the twin-engine aircraft skidding down the runway with no apparent landing gear before slamming into a wall in a kaboom of flame and debris. Other photos showed smoke and fire engulfing parts of the plane.
The passengers included two Thai nationals, and the rest are believed to be South Koreans, according to the transportation ministry.
The plane was a Boeing 737-800 jet operated by Jeju Air, was seeking details of the accident, including its casualties and cause, an airline spokesperson said.
Boeing and the US Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2024
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[NEWARAB] At least 112,414 individuals who were forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime are most likely dead, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR).
The rights group says that despite the thousands of detainees being released following the fall of the regime, many are still missing and were probably killed by the regime.
The group said that of the 136,614 individuals it recorded as detained or forcibly disappeared in its database, only 24,000 have been released.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Fadel Abdul Ghany, chairman of the SNHR, said the individuals unaccounted for "were most likely killed".
He says that the people are still classified as ''forcibly disappeared'' since their bodies have not been returned to their families, and their fates are unknown.
SNHR says that an overwhelming majority of forcibly disappeared people either died from torture or brutal detention or were executed.
The group said that thousands of the disappeared were registered as dead from 2018 onwards without returning their bodies or properly informing their families of the details of their deaths.
Many of the victims were killed and buried in mass graves, some of which were uncovered following Assad's fall, without their families being informed.
''Only a few mass graves have been uncovered, and there are rumours of many more,'' Abdul Ghany said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2024
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[PopulistTimes] U.S.-born citizens accounted for just 16% of the overall population growth in 2024, according to data from the Census Bureau. Between 2023 and 2024, the U.S. population grew by 1.0% to reach 340.1 million, the highest growth rate since 2000.
However,
if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... international migration accounted for 2.8 million of the 3.3 million net increase in population, or 84%. Between 2022 and 2023, it accounted for 1.7 million of the 2.3 million increase, or 73.9%.
"An annual growth rate of 1.0% is higher than what we’ve seen over recent years but well within historical norms," said Kristie Wilder, a demographer in the Census Bureau’s Population Division. "What stands out is the diminishing role of natural increase over the last five years, as net international migration has become the primary driver of the nation’s growth."
The country recorded the lowest population growth (0.16%) rate during the pandemic when international travel was banned, and thus less migrations. Ironically, the number of births also increased during the same period, but as deaths surged, the net natural increase was just 146,000.
"There was a brief uptick in births from 2021 to 2022, but rates returned to their downward trend in 2023," the Census Bureau reported.
#2
I would like to see a forensic audit of government agencies to see which ones were funding the invasion and how much of those expenditures were authorized by Congress. Start with FEMA that seems to have mysteriously misplaced all the funding for hurricane relief.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/29/2024 9:46
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Will It Expand The Entitlement State?
Silly question, check the UK.
What is frightening is that the question was asked.
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] The American and British aggression warplanes have launched on Saturday new Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... Security sources said that the aggression aircraft waged two airstrikes on the Baha's area in the Midi district, in Hajjah province, northwest of Yemen.
Earlier on Friday, The US and British aircraft conducted new airstrikes on the Yemeni capital.
The strikes on Friday focused on the Ma'een District in Sana'a, with no casualties reported.
On Thursday, the Zionist enemy launched a series of airstrikes on Sana'a International Airport and the Hizziz power station in Sana'a.
Additionally, airstrikes targeted the Ras Khatib power station, Hodeidah Port, and the Ras Isa oil terminal in Hodeidah Governorate.
The Zionist enemy's airstrikes on Sana'a International Airport led to the martyrdom of three and the injury of 30 others, while the airstrikes on Hodeidah province also resulted in the martyrdom of three and the injury of 10 others.
The US-British coalition continues its aggression on Yemen in support of the Israeli occupation, attempting to deter Yemen from supporting the Paleostinian people, who have been facing a Zionist genocidal war for over a year.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2024
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[NYPOST] The daughter of former Rep. Carolyn Maloney is riding her mother's coattails in a ''shameless'' bid to reclaim the 78-year-old Democrat's old City Council seat, insiders told The Post.
Virginia Maloney, a product manager at Meta, has flaunted her political pedigree in campaign material to potential voters since announcing her bid last month to replace term-limited Democratic Councilman Keith Powers, whose district comprises much of the Upper East Side and Midtown.
On her campaign website, the 37-year-old UES native lays out her concerns about the need for more affordable housing, combating extremism and improving healthcare access — but also leans into family lore of her mother going into labor with her while debating legislation on the City Council floor.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, right, is joined by her daughter Virginia while campaigning on the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2024
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[11150 views]
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#1
Would you like a helping of more of the same? The political equivalent of pulling up to the drive thru and ordering a number 1 with a medium Coke. A vote for generational hegemony expecting improvement seems overly optimistic.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/29/2024 9:03
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#2
The words 'shameless' and 'Democrat' in the same sentence? Seems redundant.
#1
Trump's meet and greet will test his skills. We can do this, no. We can do that, no. Trump's current neocon advisers only want a Russian defeat—the same advisors as in past administrations. I hope Trump charts his path, or he will become the fall guy. Ukraine will be his fault.
[WAPO] A bipartisan Senate report released Friday faulted the CIA’s response to the mysterious ailment known as "Havana syndrome," saying many employees "faced obstacles to timely and sufficient care" after experiencing symptoms. Determined by many here, to be self-inflicted years ago.
The report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence did not shed new light on what may be behind the mysterious ailment — formally known as Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs) — which was first reported by CIA employees in late 2016. But it did say the lack of a clear definition of this affliction, its cause and the "CIA’s evolving organizational position have greatly complicated CIA’s ability to consistently and transparently facilitate medical care, provide compensation and other benefits" to those affected.
The committee staff reviewed the CIA’s response to employees, contractors and dependents who reported symptoms. The panel said it will issue a classified report in early 2025. The 18-page report released Friday was an unclassified summary of the findings.
Health-care providers may be able to treat patients experiencing dizziness, nausea, headaches, balance issues and cognitive challenges without fully knowing its true cause or origin, but for the CIA, "the question is weightier," the report said. The federal government is mandated to treat people who are "injured in the line of duty rather than by naturally occurring medical conditions that should be addressed through private health care channels."
In response to the Senate report, the CIA said in a statement that "during the critical periods covered by this report, CIA had to design a response to a vexing problem as both our understanding of the problem and the problem itself evolved — including in the midst of the unprecedented global health pandemic that profoundly disrupted individuals’ access to standard health care, medical evaluations, and treatment."
The agency added: "Whether, in hindsight, we could have done better is for others to evaluate, but our commitment to ensuring that our officers and their families had access to the care they needed has never wavered."
Havana syndrome has been a global medical mystery since U.S. officials in Havana reported symptoms in 2016. It has triggered several inconclusive investigations and increased tensions between the United States and Cuba.
In March, the National Institutes of Health said its ongoing investigation found no significant evidence of brain injury after repeated scans of patients suffering from the mysterious ailment.
And in March 2023, the intelligence community concluded that a foreign adversary was not responsible for the ailments associated with Havana syndrome after many of the personnel had said they were victims of a deliberate attack. The intelligence community also said AHIs were not caused by an energy weapon or as the by-product of some other activity, including electronic surveillance that could have made people sick unintentionally.
The Senate report said some "AHI reporters experienced delayed, denied, or preconditioned care." Some experienced "long wait times" to access treatment, were denied treatment altogether or "felt that CIA tried to discourage them from seeking facilitated care, particularly as CIA’s organizational position on AHIs evolved."
The report also noted the CIA has stopped collecting clinical data about AHIs, and access to benefits for some "has been inconsistent."
"Distrust of CIA has been a common theme among AHI reporters the Committee interviewed," the report said. Some of them "perceived that their career was negatively impacted for reporting an AHI or seeking support related to their AHI."
The report went on to say the CIA "could benefit from an examination of how its response to AHIs has impacted its workforce, to include issues of morale and trust."
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] Lieutenant Colonel Andrey Borisovich Panferov, veteran of the GRU special forces. He was one of the participants in the operation "Storm-333" as a conscript in the 154th separate special forces GRU.
In 1979, he was called up for military service in the 15th Separate Special Forces GRU brigade (Chirchik, TurkVO). In 1980, he entered the Novovoronezh Higher Military Command School, which he graduated from in 1984 and returned to the special forces units. From 1987 to 1988, he was again in Afghanistan. Andrey Borisovich was awarded three Orders of the Red Star for Afghanistan.
From 1988 to 1991, he served in the Transcaucasian Military District in the 22nd Special Purpose Brigade of the GRU as a company commander and deputy battalion commander. He carried out combat missions in Nagorno-Karabakh.
From 1993, in the 67th Special Purpose Brigade of the GRU in Berdsk. He served as deputy battalion commander and later became a battalion commander. He participated in the first campaign in Chechnya.
While holding command positions in the detachment, Panferov never sat in a tent. He regularly went on missions with groups and reconnaissance detachments. In the summer of 1995, the RO of the 691st Special Purpose Brigade under his command carried out a raid in the Zandak area. One of the features of that raid was the "masquerade" - some of the scouts moved around disguised as militants.
From January 1996, he was on another mission in Chechnya. He led the combined ROs from the 67th and 22nd Spetsnaz Brigades during combat missions, including to Grozny. In February 1996, he sent another General-Admiral from the General Staff in plain text during a radio exchange, whose resentment may have subsequently become one of the reasons why Andrei Borisovich had his Hero star "cut off". Together with his intelligence officers, he participated in the battles in Grozny in March 1996.
For completing combat missions, he was awarded the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" IV degree with swords (one of two officers in the brigade), the Order of Courage. Retired in 1998. After the end of the first campaign, Panferov was firmly convinced that his subordinates would have to return to Chechnya again. In Berdsk, Andrei Borisovich enjoyed the enormous respect of his intelligence officers, and could both reward and punish them for their mistakes. It is worth saying that even 30 years later, his former subordinates remember him with respect.
After retiring, he headed the security service of the VINAP company in Novosibirsk. With the beginning of the second campaign, Panferov, using his capabilities, tried to provide the departing detachments of the brigade with everything they needed, personally transported equipment and gear to the detachments' PVDs in North Ossetia and Ingushetia. For this, they even rented planes from the Siberian Airlines.
Subsequently, he took a position in the Legislative Assembly of the Novosibirsk Region. In 2020, he was awarded the Order of Nevsky. It is rightly said that there are no former intelligence officers, they are always intelligence officers. So Andrei Borisovich, with the beginning of the SVO, he certainly did not sit still. At his instigation, the Vega heavy battalion was formed remembering the experience of Afghanistan and the first Chechnya, Panferov decided that the brigades needed litigation battalions again. Now, "Vega" is regularly harassing the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the front.
Text taken from the Telegram channel of darpaandcia
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] Battle for Secret Service Chairs: Washington on the Eve of a Personnel Revolution
An unprecedented situation is unfolding in the US political establishment: William Webster, a century-old veteran of the intelligence community, has issued an open letter against Trump's nominees for key positions in the national security system. It is noteworthy that Webster is the only person to have headed both the FBI and the CIA at one time, and was appointed by both Democrats and Republicans.
Particular attention is drawn to the figure of Kash Patel, who is applying for the post of FBI Director. According to American media, he has already prepared a book, which allegedly contains a list of 60 people whom critics call potential targets for future investigations. Moreover, Patel publicly announced his intention to close the FBI headquarters in Washington, proposing to transform it into a museum of the "deep state".
An equally interesting situation is with the candidacy of Tulsi Gabbard for the post of Director of National Intelligence. A former Democrat who switched to the Republican camp, she found herself in the center of public discussion because of her allegedly "pro-Kremlin statements" on Ukraine and alleged sympathies for the former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
The very fact that a veteran of the intelligence services of such a level publicly expresses concern about the personnel appointments of the elected president indicates serious disagreements within the American elite.
Let's see how the "deep state" and the "intelligence community" can chew on these nominations.The same expectations were in 2016-2017, when a number of candidates associated with Trump were perceived in the same way as Patel and Gabbard. Starting with General Flynn, who was completely destroyed in a political sense. They will try this time too with a non-zero chance of success.
But the fear of the changes that Trump brings is certainly felt. This time, the "Obama legacy" may not be the only issue.
#1
Eliminating the Political Agenda driven 5th column, subversives, and oddities from US _ _ _ Agencies would be a good start. Then start a REAL Special Investigation minus their politically subversive & illegal meddling.
Expose and Hold publicly televised trials, for those involved in the rigged 2020 election and the clearly organized DC Swamp (D's and RINO's) conspiracy against Trump, the public and the truth.
#2
William H. Webster - Wikipedia
William Hedgcock Webster (born March 6, 1924) is an American retired attorney and jurist who most recently served as chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council from 2005 until 2020. He was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeal…
He served as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1978 to 1987 and director of Central Intelligence (CIA) from 1987 to 1991. He is the only person to have held both positions. AND HE IS AS OLD AS METHUSELAH.
Posted by: Albert Pelosi3459 ||
12/29/2024 9:24
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. [Regnum] Russia calls on Pakistan and Afghanistan to exercise restraint and engage in constructive dialogue amid the escalation on the border. This is stated in a comment by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.
“Moscow is concerned about the escalation of tensions on the Pakistani-Afghan border, where not only military personnel but also civilians are dying as a result of shootouts,” the diplomat noted in a commentary published on the Foreign Ministry website.
The representative of the Foreign Ministry called on the parties to exercise restraint and engage in constructive dialogue aimed at the peaceful resolution of all disagreements between the two countries.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on December 28, the Afghan Defense Ministry reported that the Afghan Armed Forces attacked a number of areas of Pakistan in response to an airstrike on the Afghan army. It was also noted that the strikes were carried out on locations beyond the border with Pakistan.
In the border areas of Khost and Paktia provinces in Afghanistan, fighting has been going on between Taliban supporters (the Taliban is a movement under UN sanctions for terrorist activities) and Pakistani military since December 27, as reported by Iranian media.
On December 11, the Taliban-led Afghan government's Minister of Refugees, Khalil Haqqani, was killed in an explosion at his office in Kabul.
[Regnum] The Afghan military attacked a number of areas of Pakistan in response to an airstrike on the Afghan army. This was reported on Saturday, December 28, by the Afghan Defense Ministry.
"The Afghan military attacked the centers and shelters of hostile forces and their supporters," the department said in a statement on the X social network.
It is also noted that the strikes were carried out at locations beyond the border with Pakistan.
In the border areas of Khost and Paktia provinces in Afghanistan, fighting has been going on between Taliban supporters (the Taliban is a movement under UN sanctions for terrorist activities) and Pakistani military since December 27, as reported by Iranian media.
As reported by Regnum news agency on December 11, the Minister of Refugees in the Taliban-formed government of Afghanistan, Khalil Haqqani, was killed in an explosion in the building of the department he heads in Kabul.
In April 2023, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that Afghan authorities were pursuing a policy that would strengthen security not only in the country but also in the region. According to him, there were no threats to Central Asian countries from Afghanistan.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/29/2024
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[11144 views]
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#1
If regional history is any indicator, "dialogue" will get you nowhere. Please continue the fighting.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The official ceremony of raising the national flag took place on the universal nuclear icebreaker Yakutia at the Baltic Shipyard of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) in Saint Petersburg. This was reported on December 28 by the press service of USC.
"Today, thanks to the efforts of our shipbuilders, the world's largest Russian icebreaker fleet will be replenished with another nuclear-powered vessel, the Yakutia. It will be a continuation of the series of new-generation icebreakers that have been launched from the Baltic Shipyard since 2016," said Anton Alikhanov, head of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, during the ceremony.
He noted that the shipyard team is constantly increasing the lead time for each new vessel, since it took seven and a half years to build the lead icebreaker Arktika, a year less for the first two serial ones, and only four years to build the icebreaker Yakutia.
“All this is due to the fact that the enterprise successfully optimizes production processes, increases the level of automation and the speed of deliveries along cooperative chains,” explained the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
The icebreaker is the fourth and third serial vessel of Project 22 220, created at the Baltic Shipyard, and differs from its predecessors by large-scale import substitution during construction. The equipment and components of the icebreaker were quickly replaced with domestic ones, and thanks to new elements of the production system introduced at the enterprise, the construction time of the icebreaker was significantly reduced.
The vessel's hull is made of durable, corrosion-resistant steel, protected from ice formation and ice adhesion, and is capable of breaking through ice up to 3 m thick. The icebreaker's nuclear power plant consists of two RITM-200 water-cooled nuclear reactors developed in the Russian Federation. The thermal capacity of each reactor is 175 MW, and the service life is 40 years.
Icebreakers of project 22 220 are the largest and most powerful in the world. They are designed to ensure year-round navigation in the western Arctic. Three icebreakers built at the Baltic Shipyard are currently in successful operation: Arktika, Sibir and Ural.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, a ceremonial launch of the nuclear icebreaker Chukotka took place at the Baltic Shipyard on November 6. The Governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, was present, and a live broadcast with Russian President Vladimir Putin took place.
On December 4, at the plenary session of the VTB investment forum "Russia Calling!" Putin said that the volume of transportation along the North-South transport corridor will increase. The head of state emphasized that Russia has a whole program for the construction of ice-class vessels and icebreakers.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Ukraine has opened a second front in Africa, unable to defeat Russia on the battlefield. This was reported by the Russian Ambassador to Mali and Niger Igor Gromyko on December 28.
The Russian ambassador said that the head of the Kiev regime, Volodymyr Zelensky, also condones illegal armed groups that attack Moscow-friendly African countries.
"We understand the motives that prompted the Malians to end relations with Kiev. The fact of his cooperation with terrorists is not surprising at all. On the territory of our country, he continues to use prohibited methods - sabotage, political assassinations, regular shelling of civilian infrastructure facilities," Gromyko noted in a conversation with TASS.
He also recalled that in August, the transitional government of Mali broke off diplomatic relations with the Ukrainian side. The reason for this was the words of the press secretary of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense Andrey Yusov that the militants who attacked Malian servicemen on July 25-27 in the north of the country "were given the necessary information."
As reported by Regnum News Agency, in early August, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Senegal, Yuriy Pivovarov, published a video supporting Malian terrorists, after which he was summoned to the Senegalese Foreign Ministry, and the authorities of Mali and Niger broke off diplomatic relations with Ukraine.
On August 9, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated that the decision of African countries to sever diplomatic relations with Ukraine indicates a growing understanding by African countries of the terrorist nature of the Kiev regime.
On November 9, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Russia would combat Ukrainian support for terrorists in Africa. According to Georgy Mikhno, Acting Director of the Department for New Challenges and Threats at the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Kiev regime actively and openly supports terrorist groups on the continent.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Following the change of power in Syria, the US and UK authorities intend to prevent the situation in that country from stabilizing and are going to maintain chaos throughout the Middle East. This was reported on December 27 by the press bureau of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of Russia.
"In a broader sense, they (the US and Britain. - Ed.) set the task of maintaining a state of chaos in the Middle East. Washington and London proceed from the fact that in such conditions they will be able to more quickly achieve their own geopolitical goal - to ensure their long-term dominance in the region based on the odious concept of a 'rules-based' order," the report says.
It is specified that these plans are hampered by the presence of Russian military forces on the Mediterranean coast of Syria, which continues to be a significant factor in stability in the region. Apparently this was written before they were kicked out
“In order to eliminate this ‘interference’, British intelligence services are developing plans to organize a series of terrorist attacks on Russian military facilities in Syria,” the report notes.
The press bureau added that these terrorist attacks are to be carried out by ISIS militants (a terrorist organization whose activities are banned in the Russian Federation), whom the "new authorities" of Syria have recently released from prison and who have received virtually uncontrolled access to the remaining arsenals of the country's former army. The terrorists have also received attack drones for attacks on Russian military bases, the SVR clarified.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on December 8, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Bashar al-Assad had resigned as president of Syria and left the country, ordering a peaceful transfer of power. After that, he and his family arrived in Russia, where they were granted asylum.
Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Bogdanov said on December 12 that Russia expects to maintain military bases in Syria because they play an important role in the fight against international terrorism. The diplomat said that Moscow has established contacts in Syria with the political committee of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (a terrorist organization whose activities are banned in the Russian Federation).
The leader of the armed Syrian opposition, Ahmed al-Sharaa (known by the nickname Abu Muhammad al-Julani ), said that the country's new authorities "give Russia the opportunity" to reconsider relations with the people of Syria. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan noted on December 21 that the fate of Russian army bases in Syria should be decided by the people of the republic.
#1
“In order to eliminate this ‘interference’, British intelligence services are developing plans to organize a series of terrorist attacks on Russian military facilities in Syria,” the report notes.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] The fall of the Assad regime in Syria and the rise to power of the armed opposition has undoubtedly become the main sensation of the year, leaving many other significant episodes in its shadow. This event has already shaken the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), but it is likely that we are only hearing distant rumblings so far, and the main waves of this tsunami may follow later and spill out beyond the region.
The conquest of Damascus after a ten-day campaign by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allied forces led by Ahmad al-Sharaa (as Abu Muhammad al-Jolani is now known by his real name) could lead to a new awakening of the Middle East. The "Arab winter" could be replaced by a new "Arab spring". But for now, the Russian Federation is concerned with more pressing issues.
TWO MAIN QUESTIONS FOR RUSSIA
The issue of the presence of foreign, primarily Russian-speaking, jihadists in Syria will obviously require prompt intervention from the new authorities.
Most of the violence and extrajudicial killings, including against members of minorities, which have already sparked mass protests among Alawites, are linked to them. The same applies to attacks on religious sites of Alawites and Christians.
Obviously, these people did not come to Syria to watch Jolani destroy their dream of “Sharia rule and the spread of jihad,” but instead to implement his “Ikhwan” project, based on the work of the “Muslim Brotherhood”.
However, there is already a well-trodden path for such jihadists.
Jolani "expelled" his most radical supporters from Idlib towards Ukraine back in 2022-23. This concerns, for example, part of the "Ajnad al-Kavkaz" and "Albanian Jamaat" groups, which joined the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
This summer, the Kiev regime already expressed its readiness to take the most radical jihadist groups into its fold. At that time, Jolani apparently had his own plans for them. But now, after the end of military operations, it is obviously more profitable for him to get rid of them as soon as possible rather than keep them, and they can go not only to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but also to Russia.
And this is one of the threats to Russia emanating from the “new Syria”.
The second factor that directly affects Moscow’s interests is the fate of Russian military bases.
As it became known after the direct line with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the country's leadership has not yet made a final decision on them, if we are talking about the long term. However, at present and probably in the coming months, their functioning will continue.
The new Syrian authorities, at least at this stage, also do not object to the preservation of Russian military facilities. This, in particular, was stated by Jolani in an interview with a British media outlet.
At least at this stage — words to be concerned by.
According to him, Syria and Russia have long-standing strategic relations that cannot be broken off overnight in a hurry, so the new Syrian authorities are in no hurry to demand the withdrawal of Russian bases, as some wish or imagine. To a clarifying question from a journalist whether this means that the Russians, with the right approach, can stay, he answered that in principle, yes, they can stay.
However, it is obvious that under any scenario Russia will no longer be able to use its military facilities in Syria in the same way as before.
"Since the start of the Syrian campaign, Syria, as a zone within the interests of the Southern Military District of the Russian Armed Forces, has been fully used by Moscow to demonstrate a threat on NATO's southern flank. Now, even if we manage to reach an agreement on bases with the new Syrian authorities, no general will risk deploying Tu-95MS strategic missile carriers or MiG-31 high-speed interceptors with long-range missiles, given that the planes could be fired upon, allegedly by accident, by "certain cells" with small arms from commanding heights," Anton Mardasov, an analyst in the field of Middle East security, told Regnum.
According to him, there remains the possibility of using bases in Syria as a logistics hub to support Russian operations in Africa.
At the same time, as Mardasov notes, it will be quite difficult for Russia to strengthen ties with current Damascus, given that Moscow’s opponents, such as Ukraine and Poland, are rushing to establish cooperation with it, not to mention Britain, France and the United States.
Moscow will most likely continue to expand its activity in regions with crisis situations. However, given the limitations of economic resources and the ability to project power through, for example, reliance on the Navy, it will be possible to fully move to this only with the solution of problems in Ukraine, which will be able to provide Russia with a positive result and add weight in the international arena.
At the same time, as the analyst emphasized, Sudan or Libya, even with successful agreements, are too temporary options for official facilities, given the specifics of power in these countries, and are unlikely to be able to replace Russian bases in Syria.
TRIANGLE RUSSIA, IRAN, TÜRKIYE
Another open question at the end of the year: was Iran really so weakened and frightened by Israel’s actions that it did not intervene in the final, fleeting phase of the Syrian conflict, or did Tehran have other, much more pragmatic motives for “giving up the game”?
A good question.
Perhaps the Iranian leadership has begun to rethink its role and real possibilities in Middle Eastern affairs. In the face of the threat of a social explosion due to the growth of internal contradictions, the baggage called the "Assad regime" has become an increasingly heavy burden for Iran.
On the horizon is January 20, 2025, and Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office, along with the tightening of sanctions pressure on the Islamic Republic and the closing of all loopholes for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to receive income from Iranian oil exports and the subsequent deprivation of the ability to finance the “Axis of Resistance.” This will lead to a sharp deterioration in the lives of most Iranians and an even greater increase in protest sentiment.
Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that Iran wants to open a new page in relations with the United States. Moving away from financing and supporting its proxies to solving exclusively internal pressing problems could allow, if not to reduce Washington's pressure, then to minimize the prospects for introducing new restrictions.
Deploying regular IRGC units and tens of thousands of Shiite militias to Syria to save Assad would be perceived by Israel and the US as a direct threat and would lead to their intervention in the conflict. And Iran does not need the inevitable new sanctions that would accompany it, given its already exorbitant costs.
Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that Tehran chose not to intervene in order not to worsen its own situation.
As Nikolai Sukhov, a leading research fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and a professor at the Institute of Oriental and African Studies at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, told Regnum, “the loss of Syria as an ally weakens Iran’s strategic position, especially its ability to support Hezbollah, in connection with which Tehran may increase investments in proxy groups in Lebanon and Iraq to compensate for the loss of influence in Syria. Or, on the contrary, it may focus resources on mitigating internal economic and social problems, thereby reducing the pressure of the Axis of Resistance on Israel and the United States.”
According to the orientalist, increased pressure from Israel and the US “is forcing Iran to adapt its foreign policy, and the scenario its leadership will choose will be shown in the near future.”
Good.
In this context, it is important for Moscow to understand whether Tehran is aiming to further expand its partnership with Russia, which should soon become “strategic” (tentatively, after February 2025, when the corresponding memorandum is planned to be signed). And whether Iran will abandon deepening ties with Russia in favor of normalizing relations with the United States and the West.
The Great Satan? Not likely, so long as the Mad Mullahs are in charge.
Events in Syria have shown that such a scenario is quite realistic.
In turn, Iran itself is showing similar concerns.
Tehran is concerned about the prospect of a quick end to the NWO and a deal between Moscow and Washington in which the Islamic Republic could become a bargaining chip.
The fall of the Assad regime has already generated a certain amount of mistrust on this issue. In Iran, there are behind-the-scenes opinions that Turkey and Russia could have agreed behind Tehran's back on the fate of the former Syrian regime.
"Iran, of course, is also offended by Ankara, but, in fact, only because it itself missed the opportunity to save the regime that it subsidized for so many years. In the new reality, Tehran will one way or another face a serious revision of its "Axis of Resistance", the capabilities of which have changed significantly. And in this regard, expanding ties with Turkey may be a completely viable option, especially since, contrary to idle talk, Turkish actions in the South Caucasus after the end of the Karabakh story are not as dangerous for Iran as Iranian ones are for the Turks," says Mardasov.
One way or another, Assad’s fall had a negative impact on the background of both Iranian-Turkish and Russian-Iranian interactions.
Although, indeed, if we talk about relations between Moscow and Ankara, there is now one less conflict point in Russian-Turkish relations, even though in Russia itself Turkey’s actions in supporting the armed opposition can be seen as another stab in the back.
Türkiye is trying to try on the laurel crown of the winner in the Syrian war, but it will itself face many new challenges.
Good.
It is obvious that Ankara will help Syria to carry out reforms, including constitutional and military ones, including the creation of a new army.
I must have missed a step. How is it obvious?
Turkey emphasizes the need to take into account the rights of all religious and ethnic minorities. Also, the new Syrian authorities will receive support in the fight against terrorism, hoping first of all to solve the problem of Kurdish groups from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The United States generally welcomes Turkey's increased role in Syrian affairs and is likely to be willing to compromise its support for the SDF. The same applies to its position on protecting ethnic and religious minorities. Now this is also a headache for Turkey.
Washington does not understand the true nature of HTS and does not trust Jolani, so they want to shift all responsibility to Turkey. And Washington will redirect the claims for failures both in the fight against ISIS terrorism and for violence against minorities to Ankara.
There is another weak link in Turkey’s consolidation of its role in Syria: it cannot fully control Jolani, who has always been inclined to play his own game and “screw” his former patrons. In Idlib, the Turks had much more leverage over HTS than they do now.
SYRIA AND THE NEW "ARAB SPRING"
The fall of the Assad regime demonstrated that the Islamic factor in the Middle East continues to play a role and is capable of serving as a basis for consolidation.
If it takes the form of “moderate Islamism” instead of “Salafi jihadism,” it can be accepted by the wider Sunni society, not just its religious part. In this case, the majority refuses to support and defend with arms the rule of secular autocrats. As happened in Syria.
Therefore, political Islam was written off too early. In this regard, we can expect an awakening of Islamic forces in other countries where the "Arab Spring" has passed into "autumn" and finally, it would seem, ended in a "long winter".
Moreover, in most countries affected by the events of the "Arab Spring", the reform processes have not been completed or, more precisely, have not even begun. And all those factors that forced the people to take to the streets in 2011 demanding the departure of the previous governments are still relevant.
The main lesson from the events in Syria is that all attempts to preserve the situation in one country or another and to do without deep transformations, even in the event of a military victory by one of the parties in an internal conflict, promise only a new collapse, social explosion or revolution.
In Syria, the Assad regime refused to engage in substantive dialogue with the opposition, labeling all of its opponents as terrorists, did not take into account the objective factors that caused the civil war in the country, and was intent on returning to the situation of 2011 without any significant changes to the state structure and the system of relations between the government and society.
The fall of the Assad regime also demonstrated that it is not enough to win the war to retain power; to do so, it is also necessary to win the peace.
It is necessary to carry out reforms, and not limit ourselves to demonstrative half-measures. It is necessary to conduct a dialogue with the real opposition, including the armed one, to be able to attract it to the side of the authorities, and not to replace the search for compromises with opponents by creating "tame oppositionists". It is also very important to be able to find the strength to share part of the power in time, so as not to lose everything.
Thus, according to Nikolai Sukhov, "the fall of the Assad regime and the rise to power of HTS underscore the importance of understanding the internal political dynamics and supporting local elites. Despite significant military and diplomatic assistance from Russia, Assad was unable to maintain control over the entire country in the long term. Russia must take into account that supporting authoritarian regimes without taking into account the interests of different ethnic and political groups, as well as without adequate and long-term, rather than one-time, intervention in the process of internal reconciliation, can lead to the collapse of the state."
In this regard, according to the orientalist, Russia’s intervention in the Syrian crisis, despite achieving short-term military goals, did not ensure long-term stability.
“In the future, Russia must be prepared to pay more attention to social, political and economic processes in the countries it supports, ensuring a comprehensive solution to problems, and not just military intervention,” Sukhov notes.
All the same problems that led to the fall of the Assad regime are, in one form or another, inherent in those states where it would seem that the "Arab Spring" was reversed. Be it Egypt or Tunisia. The only difference is the absence of an armed opposition.
But in addition to this, there is a threat of revolutionary changes in the states that are neighboring Syria and closely connected to it, which at the same time find themselves, to one degree or another, drawn into the conflict around Palestine, and the events in this country have a direct and negative impact on their internal political dynamics.
According to Sukhov, the threat of radicalization in Syria and instability in the south of that country will prompt Amman to strengthen security on its northern border, and “in Jordan’s domestic politics, one can predict the strengthening of the influence of local branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, up to and including an attempt at a coup and seizure of power by Islamists.”
According to the orientalist, this will also affect Lebanon.
"The loss of support for the Assad regime weakens Hezbollah, which has already changed the Lebanese political dynamics, and forces hostile to Hezbollah are trying to minimize its role in the country's economic and social life, thereby reducing the population's support for the military-political course of this organization. At the same time, the Lebanese economic crisis could be aggravated by new migration flows from Syria and an increased threat of local interfaith conflicts," Sukhov said.
SYRIAN LESSONS
Summing up the events in Syria, it is important for Russia to work on its mistakes in order to avoid them in Africa and other regions of its military presence.
During the Syrian campaign, its initial goals - the fight against ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists - were absolutely correct and understandable. But it soon became clear that the Russian Armed Forces in Syria would support Assad against all his opponents, including the moderate opposition, which, in order not to go beyond the initial objectives, was informally called "moderate terrorists."
This led to Assad, having achieved his goals in the civil war with the help of Russian weapons, becoming increasingly less receptive to signals from Moscow. The Russian side could not encourage the Syrian leadership to reform and properly influence decision-making. And most of the decisions made by Damascus were wrong.
Russia became the victor over ISIS in Syria, but it was unable to simultaneously become the country that put an end to the civil war, launched a full-fledged peace process, and began restoring the economy and returning refugees. To do this, it was necessary to act in defiance of Assad and force his regime to change, rather than follow his wishes.
Thus, by strengthening Assad and doing his job of clearing out any armed opposition, Moscow deprived itself of leverage over Damascus, which became less and less with each successful operation against the opposition.
Conversely, maintaining the situation of at least 2017, with a strong opposition and a process of reconciliation with Assad under Russian auspices, would strengthen Russia's position, turning it into a real guarantor of the implementation of agreements for both Assad and the opposition. And involving the opposition in the work of the government would allow it to begin to climb out of the quagmire of corruption into which the Syrian authorities have driven themselves.
Therefore, in Africa, we should also avoid Russia becoming simply a participant in a civil war instead of fighting terrorist groups, supporting one of the parties that has come to power in much the same way that the Tuaregs want to create their own state, in the same Mali.
In order to strengthen one's influence abroad, it is necessary to create a multi-layered presence, which should not be limited to supporting the government. And when destroying terrorists, it is necessary not to cleanse the armed opposition and rebels, but, on the contrary, to negotiate with them, turning them into one's own proxy forces and allies, and through them to influence the government, including introducing them into its composition.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Kirill Novikov
[REGNUM] The outgoing year was marked by another round of US-Chinese tariff confrontation, and by the end of 2024 it reached a new level.
On December 3, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce imposed a ban on the export of gallium, germanium, antimony, and several other superhard materials (it is not specified which ones) to the United States. And just a day later, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced sanctions against a number of American companies: Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc, BRINC Drones Inc, and Shield AI Inc.
The sanctions were imposed after the Pentagon gave its prior consent to supply Taiwan with spare parts for F-16 fighters and radars. China views this as an attack on its own territorial integrity.
As for materials prohibited for export, antimony is widely used in the defense industry. It is found in explosive caps used in firearms cartridges, grenade fuses, and artillery shells. In 2018, the U.S. Department of the Interior added antimony to the list of metals of critical importance to national security, but America has not mined it since 2001, when the Sunshine mine in Idaho closed.
The largest suppliers of antimony are China and Russia, with the former accounting for 54.5% of global production in 2022. The US risks losing a resource that is fundamentally important for its defense industry.
Gallium is actively used in the production of radio frequency chips for mobile and satellite communications, display LEDs, as well as in aviation and space technology. It is used to create microcircuits capable of supporting stable operation of 4th and 5th generation wireless networks (4G and 5G), which play a decisive role in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
Germanium is needed for the defense industry, in particular for the production of night vision devices, as well as for the manufacture of solar panels.
Both elements play a huge role in areas such as high-speed communications and renewable energy production, and there is nothing to replace them with today; there are no analogues.
The main supplier of gallium and germanium is China. It produces 80% of gallium-containing products and accounts for 60 % of the world's germanium production.
By imposing sanctions, China seeks to weaken the US position and deprive it of the resources necessary for the development of information technology and AI.
The current situation is a new round of the tariff war between China and the United States, which began back in 2016, when Donald Trump first took the presidential seat in the White House.
His rise to political prominence began with a sharp criticism of the trade deficit and deep interdependence of the Chinese and American economies, which led to a serious loss of jobs in America (2.7 million between 2001 and 2011). That is why Trump won broad support among workers in the 2016 election, promising to bring manufacturing back to America.
But he also accused China of manipulating its own currency and stealing American technology, expressing concern about China's advances in high technology. From the US perspective, the authoritarian state's leadership in this area is an existential threat.
It may seem paradoxical, but the Democratic Party of the United States, which is fundamentally hostile to Trump, has continued his line of economic struggle with China.
Although Joe Biden has avoided criticizing China purely rhetorically, and even before the elections, he accused Republicans of speculating on the Chinese issue (in response, Trump has repeatedly stated that he was “bribed” by China), however, already as US President, he has in fact renounced these words.
Yes, his administration has emphasized that the confrontation between the countries is “competition,” not “rivalry” (a position that Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended in his article ), but even in the latest US National Security Strategy (October 2022), it is China that is designated as the “main competitor” capable of revising the world order.
Trump's tariff policy was continued by Biden without any significant changes, most of the previous duties were retained, and some were even increased.
The Democratic administration has focused on fighting China in the high-tech sector. For example, in 2023, the sale of Huawei equipment and technology was banned in America, and in April of this year, the US threatened to ban the TikTok social network if it was not sold to the US within nine months — the “Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act.” The title of the document speaks for itself.
In early December 2024, America imposed sanctions on 140 Chinese chip companies (which triggered the Chinese restrictions mentioned at the beginning), including Naura Technology Group, AMC Research, Skyverse Technology, Empyrean Technology. At the same time, the US imposed export controls on high-bandwidth memory chips, which are important components for AI applications.
The Democratic Party's interest in high technology is due to the fact that it receives significant support from information and telecommunications companies.
The history of tariff wars between China and the United States clearly shows that neoliberal globalization is currently experiencing its own crisis.
This has affected even its most consistent apologists, the US Democratic Party, which rhetorically defends the old values of free trade, but in fact moves away from them, adopting elements of the policies of its main opponent.
Of course, the economic interdependence between China and the United States cannot be broken overnight without damage to both sides, but the opponents do not intend to retreat and are still set on further escalation of the tariff war.
They are not ready to give up the benefits acquired in the conditions of globalization, but they put their own national interests first. The outgoing year demonstrated this with complete clarity, and 2025 will certainly provide many more clear confirmations of this conclusion.
Linked article is available only through a VPN
[EngMilRu] The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Kharkov direction, units of the Sever Group of Forces inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of one mechanised brigade, one motorised infantry brigade of the AFU, one territorial defence brigade, and formations of foreign mercenaries near Volchansk, Liptsy, Slatino, and Neskuchnoye (Kharkov region).
The AFU losses amounted to more than 80 troops, one motor vehicle, and two 122mm D-30 howitzers. Two electronic warfare stations and one field ammunition depot were destroyed.
Units of the Zapad Group of Forces improved the tactical situation along the front line and inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of one mechanised brigade of the AFU and two territorial defence brigades near Zapadnoye, Dvurechnaya, Ivanovka (Kharkov region), Torskoye, Yampol (Donetsk People's Republic), and Makeyevka (Lugansk People's Republic).
Two counterattacks launched by AFU armed formations were repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to more than 440 troops, two Butsefal and U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carriers, one Italian-made Iveco armoured fighting vehicle, one Italian-made 105mm Melara howitzer, eight motor vehicles, one U.S.-made 155mm M-198 howitzer, one 152mm D-20 gun, and two 122mm D-30 howitzers. Two Zakhist and Anklav electronic warfare stations and two field ammunition depots were destroyed.
Units of the Yug Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and inflicted losses on formations of one mechanised brigade, one airmobile brigade of the AFU, and two territorial defence brigades near Belogorovka, Uspenovka, Chasov Yar, and Kurakhovo (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 260 troops, one U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carrier, and one electronic warfare station.
Units of the Tsentr Group of Forces continued advancing to the depth of the enemy's defences and inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of three mechanised brigades, one jaeger brigade of the AFU, one naval infantry brigade, one territorial defence brigade, one national guard brigade, and one assault brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine near Krasnoarmeysk, Petrovka, Shcherbinovka, Dzerzhinsk, Shevchenko, Novoolenovka, and Novotroitskoye (Donetsk People's Republic).
Twelve counter-attacks launched by AFU armed formations were repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 450 troops, two tanks, including one German-made Leopard tank, three infantry fighting vehicles, including one U.S.-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, four armoured personnel carriers, including two U.S.-made M-113 and one UK-made Spartan armoured personnel carriers, two armoured fighting vehicles, four motor vehicles, one 203mm Pion self-propelled artillery system, one 152mm D-20 gun, and one U.S.-made 105mm M-101 howitzer.
Units of the Vostok Group of Forces improved the tactical situation and inflicted losses on formations of two mechanised brigades, one motorised infantry brigade of the AFU, and one territorial defence brigade near Konstantinopol, Perebudovo, and Zelenoye Pole (Donetsk People's Republic).
One counter-attack launched by an AFU assault detachment was repelled.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 160 troops, four motor vehicles, one 155mm Bogdana self-propelled artillery system, one 122mm 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system, one 122mm D-30 howitzer, and one UK-made 105mm L-119 howitzer.
Units of the Dnepr Group of Forces inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of one mechanised brigade of the AFU and two territorial defence brigades near Antonovka, Pridneprovskoye, Nikolskoye, and Veletenskoye (Kherson region).
The AFU losses amounted to more than 80 troops, two motor vehicles, one 152mm D-20 gun, and one electronic warfare station.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces struck infrastructure of a military airfield, one AFU POL depot, as well as engaged manpower and hardware clusters of the enemy in 148 areas.
Air defence units shot down three U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles and 104 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles, including 57 outside the special military operation zone.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 650 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 38,752 unmanned aerial vehicles, 590 anti-aircraft missile systems, 20,072 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,504 MLRS combat vehicles, 20,058 field artillery guns and mortars, and 29,603 units of support military vehicles have been neutralised.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the operation to neutralise an enemy group, which broke into the territory of Kursk region.
Units of the Sever Group of Forces inflicted losses on formations of four mechanised brigades, one heavy mechanised brigade, one tank brigade, three air assault brigades, one naval infantry brigade, and four territorial defence brigades of the AFU near Aleksandriya, Viktorovka, Daryino, Kurilovka, Lebedevka, Leonidovka, Martynovka, Nizhny Klin, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Nikolsky, Novoivanovka, Plyokhovo, and Sverdlikovo.
Operational-Tactical and Army aviation and artillery inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the enemy near Ivashkovsky, Pervy Knyazhy, Kruglenkoye, Kurilovka, Lebedevka, Leonidovo, Malaya Loknya, Martynovka, Makhnovka, Nizhny Klin, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Nikolsky, Novoivanovka, Novaya Sorochina, Plyokhovo, Sverdlikovo, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye as well as Basovka, Belovody, Vorozhba, Zhuravka, Malaya Rybitsa, and Pavlovka in Sumy region.
Over the past 24 hours, the AFU losses amounted to more than 250 troops, one infantry fighting vehicle, one armoured fighting vehicle, six motor vehicles, and five mortars. One AFU serviceman surrendered.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk region, the AFU losses amounted to more than 44,820 troops, 259 tanks, 200 infantry fighting vehicles, 141 armoured personnel carriers, 1,346 armoured fighting vehicles, 1,217 motor vehicles, 332 artillery guns, 42 MLRS launchers, including 11 of HIMARS and six of MLRS made by the USA, 13 anti-aircraft missile launchers, seven transport-loading vehicles, 82 EW stations, 13 counter-battery warfare radars, four air defence radars, 28 units of engineering and other materiel, including 13 counterobstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, seven armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 17.04 Since the beginning of the current day, 82 combat clashes have occurred on the front. More than a third of all battles are in the Pokrovsk direction, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in a report as of 16:00.
16.00 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a telephone conversation with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and expressed condolences to him and the Azerbaijani people in connection with the crash of flight J2-8243 of Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL). Russia must give a clear explanation and stop spreading disinformation, the Ukrainian leader noted.
15.25 Russian aggressors shelled the village of Belozerka in the Kherson region with artillery. So far, eight people are known to have been wounded, including two teenagers. All victims have been hospitalized.
14.58 Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has apologised to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev over the crash of a plane in Kazakhstan. According to the Kremlin, the plane repeatedly attempted to land at Grozny airport, which at the time was "under attack by Ukrainian drones", and Russian air defence systems "repelled the attack".
14.41 Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has instructed Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico to open a "second energy front against Ukraine." This was stated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
13:45 An explosion at a railway station occurred in the Moscow region on December 27. As a result, carriages of a train used by the Russian army were destroyed. The GUR added that the scale of the damage inflicted on the aggressor is being determined.
12:59 Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky named Russia's losses in the war in 2024. They exceeded 421 thousand military personnel.
12.46 The supply of drones to the Defense Forces increased to a record high in 2024 - 19 times. This was stated by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky.
11.26 The city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast is completely without power due to an emergency. This was reported by the Pokrovsk city military administration.
10:48 Defense forces hit a storage depot for "shahids" in the Oryol region. There are casualties among the occupiers.
9:56 The largest number of attacks over the past day, more than 50, occurred in the Pokrovsky direction. A total of 162 combat clashes were recorded on the front.
8.57 Partisans have reconnoitred the Kremniy EL plant in Bryansk, which supplies electronics for Russian missiles and fighters, which has already been attacked by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
7.54 Two cases of fire were recorded in Nikolaev on the night of December 28 as a result of a Russian strike using drones. The fire occurred at night in the Ingulsky district of the city. There were no casualties as a result of the drone strike.
7.25 Russia continues to scale up production of "shaheeds" ahead of the "winter campaign" against Ukraine in 2024-2025, despite sanctions and technical limitations. This is evidenced by a report by the Institute for the Study of War.
04.00 In the Voronezh region of the Russian Federation, a UAV attack caused a breakdown in the contact network on the railway. Local authorities announced train delays.
01.50 In Nikolaev, the roof of a multi-story building caught fire after an attack by enemy UAVs. The fire was soon extinguished. There were no reports of casualties.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Forces of the Shiite movement Ansar Allah (Houthis), which rules northern Yemen, attacked the Nevatim air base in the Negev Desert in southern Israel with a Palestine-2 hypersonic missile. This was reported on Saturday, December 28, by representatives of the organization.
"We attacked the Israeli enemy's Nevatim air force base in the Negev region in the south of the occupied Palestinian territories. In our operation, we used a Palestine-2 hypersonic ballistic missile. The missile successfully hit its target," the movement's spokesman said, as broadcast by the Houthi-controlled Al Masirah TV channel.
As reported by Regnum news agency, the Houthis attacked Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv with a hypersonic ballistic missile on December 27. According to them, the missile strike achieved its target, and the work of the Israeli airport was suspended.
Earlier on December 27, the SABA news agency, citing the Houthi Ministry of Health, reported that at least six people were killed and another 40 were injured as a result of Israeli military strikes on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.
The Israeli Air Force attacked Sanaa during a speech by Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. According to Al Mayadeen TV channel, the head of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was at the airport in the Yemeni capital at that moment.
[IsraelTimes] Latest Houthi attack sends large numbers of Israelis running for shelter in the middle of night again; IDF says missile intercepted before entering Israeli airspace
Air defenses intercepted a missile fired from Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... that triggered sirens in the Jerusalem, southern West Bank and Dead Sea areas early Saturday morning, the military said, in the sixth such overnight attack on the center of the country in less than two weeks.
The missile was intercepted outside Israeli airspace and the sirens were activated according to protocol for fear of falling debris, the military added, without specifying whether it was an Israeli or American system that intercepted the missile.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service said there were no reports of injuries in the latest attack from Yemen, apart from one person suffering from acute anxiety.
Sirens blared in dozens of towns and cities in the Jerusalem area, the southern West Bank and parts of the Negev amid the incident, including Jerusalem, Latrun, Arad and the Dead Sea area, sending large numbers of people dashing for bomb shelters and protected rooms.
The Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s in Yemen later took responsibility for the attack, claiming to have targeted the Nevatim Airbase in southern Israel. The Iran-backed group claimed that the "missile successfully hit its target."
[NYPOST] Russian President Vladimir Putin ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances... on Saturday apologized to Azerbaijan's president for the ''tragic incident'' in Russian airspace where an Azerbaijani plane crashed in Kazakhstan and killed 38 people — but did not admit Moscow was responsible for the deaths.
The doomed Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 was heading on Wednesday from Azerbaijan's capital of Baku to Grozny, the regional capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, when it turned toward Kazakhstan.
The jet crashed and went kaboom! in a fireball while trying to land at an airport near Aktau.
There were 29 survivors.
Azerbaijan held a national day of mourning on Thursday.
''Vladimir Putin apologized for the tragic incident that occurred in Russian airspace and once again expressed his deep and sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the injured,'' the Kremlin said in a statement, adding that the call between the two leads took place at Putin's request.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2024
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
Yes, Vlad is once again very sorry.
Vlad is the product of the FSU (Former Soviet Union) intelligence apparatus. The loss of civilians and military personnel is of no concern to this community. Let's just call it a cost of doing business.
BTW, any similarity to our own intelligence apparatus and their thought processes, is likely not coincidental.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Hertz's decision to buy 100,000 Teslas has backfired badly - but it does mean cheap EVs are up for grabs.
The car rental giant began to sell off its stock of Teslas a year ago - due to a lack of demand from customers who prefer gas models. Bosses also said they wanted to offload the cars due to high repair costs.
With slow demand, Hertz is being forced to sell the electric vehicles at steep discounts.
In the past week, a Hertz customer shared a jaw-dropping deal on Reddit: a 2023 Tesla Model 3 for just $17,913 - less than half its retail price of $38,990.
In January the company said that the proceeds from the sales would go to funding more gas powered cars.
It is a departure from its previous target that 25 percent of its overall fleet would be electric by the end of 2024.
In 2022, it said it would buy up to 65,000 EVs over five years from Polestar. That was just months after it ordered 100,000 cars from Tesla.
The selling of the EV fleet aligns with a broader trend in the US auto market in which demand for electric cars appears to have fallen.
The cut prices comes after a rocky financial year for Hertz who reported a wider-than-expected third-quarter loss and missed revenue estimates last month.
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... official, Osama Hamdan, stressed that Kamal Adwan Hospital has been exposed to a massacre since 75 days, confirming that there are no fighters inside the medical center.
In a TV interview, Hamdan added that the Israeli plots to end all manifestations of civilian steadfastness in northern 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 a rusty 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... On the 449th day of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the Paleostinian resistance has struck back against the Israeli occupation forces, even as the latter continue their brutal attacks on hospitals and civilians in the besieged territory. Hamdan noted that Hamas had proposed a deal which stipulates a complete ceasefire, gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and a full prisoner swap.
''However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese... Netanyahu's government rejected the proposal.''
The Paleostinian resistance continued on Friday attacking the Zionist occupation forces in Gaza. A Qassam fighter managed to blow himself up with an boom belt in a Zionist force of 5 soldiers, killing and wounding them. As soon as the rescue forces arrived at the scene, al-Qassam Brigades fighters sniped two of them and showered them with a number of Zionist-made hand grenades in the Tel al-Zaatar area, east of the Jabalia camp, north of the Strip. al-Quds Brigades fighters, for their part, targeted the Israeli occupation forces in Jabalia camp with artillery shells.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2024
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[GEO.TV] The Israeli military said it intercepted two projectiles fired from northern Gaza toward Israel on Saturday, as the army continued its sweeping offensive in the north of the Palestinian territory.
"Following the sirens that sounded at 16:14 (14:14 GMT) in the areas of Jerusalem, Negev, and HaShfela, two projectiles that crossed into Israeli territory from northern Gaza were intercepted by the IAF (air force), the military said in a statement.
[IsraelTimes] No injuries in attack, the second time this weekend that the capital was targeted, following an overnight missile from Yemen
Israeli air defenses on Saturday intercepted two rockets fired from 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 a rusty 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... ’s Beit Hanoun toward the Jerusalem area, an increasingly rare occurrence after nearly 15 months of war.
The Israel Defense Forces said both rockets were successfully intercepted, with no injuries or damage reported. Amid the attack, sirens sounded in Beit Shemesh and numerous surrounding towns, as well as in several communities near Gaza.
Long-range rocket fire from Gaza has become increasingly rare as the war has progressed, with Hamas ..always the voice of sweet reason... ’s launching capabilities severely hindered by the IDF’s ground offensive. Hamas last carried out a long-range rocket attack on Tel Aviv in August. The terror group has not fired at the Jerusalem area in over a year.
After the rockets were fired, the IDF issued evacuation warnings to civilians in the Beit Hanoun area.
The IDF’s Gaza Division and the Nahal Brigade began a new operation against Hamas in Beit Hanoun on Friday. Hamas has previously fired rockets from areas where the IDF advances in order to prevent the military from capturing them.
The IDF said the operation was initiated "following intelligence information about the presence of forces of Evil and terror infrastructure in the area, and as part of the effort to ensure the security of the residents of the border communities."
Before troops entered Beit Hanoun, Israeli fighter jets and artillery forces carried out numerous strikes in the area, targeting groups of Hamas operatives and sites used by the terror group, according to the military.
The IDF said it is enabling civilians who have not yet evacuated the area to do so.
The army has operated in Beit Hanoun several times since the beginning of the war, though it has not managed to reach every last rocket in Hamas’s possession.
The rocket fire from Beit Hanoun marked the second time on Saturday that the Jerusalem area was targeted. Overnight, a ballistic missile fired from Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... triggered sirens in the capital as well as the southern West Bank and Dead Sea areas.
[GEO.TV] According to Al Jazeera, six Palestinians have been killed and several wounded in Israeli raids on Beit Hanoon in the besieged north of the Gaza Strip.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[NEWARAB] Civilians in a besieged area south of Sudan ...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans... 's war-torn capital received their first aid convoy this week since the war began 20 months ago, local volunteers said.
A total of 28 trucks arrived in the Jebel Awliya area, just south of Khartoum, the state's emergency response room (ERR), part of a volunteer network coordinating frontline aid across Sudan, said Friday.
The convoy included 22 trucks carrying food from the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), one truck from Doctors Without Borders and Care, and five trucks loaded with medicine from the UN children's agency, UNICEF.
The local group and UNICEF said the supplies would help meet the "urgent health and nutrition needs of an estimated 200,000 children and families".
Jebel Awliya is one of many areas across Sudan facing mass starvation after warring parties cut off access.
Since the war began in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, nothing has gone in or out without both parties' approval.
ERR volunteers endured months of negotiations, constant suspicion and threats of violence to secure even limited access.
"Access to the area has been essentially cut off due to the conflict dynamics," UNICEF's Sudan representative Sheldon Yett said, adding it took three months of talks to get the convoy through.
"The trucks were detained on more than one occasion, and drivers were understandably reluctant given the risks involved," he told AFP.
Posted by: Fred ||
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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.
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
...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. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration....
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,....jpg "Kashmir")
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it 
[NewsMax] As 
...former Democratic president of the U.S. Bill was the second U.S. president to be impeached, the first to deny that oral sex was sex, the first to have difficulty with the definition of the word 
[Western Journal] Former Rep. 
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
...the once and current oppressors of Afghanistan...
[NYPOST] The Biden administration has agreed to a court order preventing it from selling off rusting pieces of .jpg)
...
[Regnum] Russia calls on Pakistan and Afghanistan to exercise restraint and engage in constructive dialogue amid the escalation on the border. This is stated in a comment by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans...
