[IsraelTimes] Germany’s cabinet has decided in principle to deploy police forces for a European Union civilian mission to monitor the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt at Rafah, a government source tells Reuters.
The exact timing as well as the size of Germany’s contribution to secure the key entry and exit point for the Palestinian territory has yet to be decided, the source adds.
The European Union last month restarted the civilian mission with personnel from Spain, Italy and France to secure the crossing, which is also the main passage for humanitarian aid.
Germany, which holds federal elections on February 23, has previously said some of its ministries had consulted on their role in the mission.
[IsraelTimes] Hamas calls for worldwide “solidarity marches” over the weekend to protest a US plan endorsed by Israel to resettle Palestinians from the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
“We… call on the masses of our people, our Arab and Islamic nation, and the free people of the world to go out in massive solidarity marches” from Friday through Sunday to denounce “the plans to displace our Palestinian people from their land,” Hamas said in a statement.
[IsraelTimes] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told yesterday’s cabinet meeting that there was no point in discussing the second phase of the hostage deal at the moment, while the fate of the first phase was still up in the air.
“There is no point in discussing the second phase because it is just a hypothetical issue at the moment,” Channel 13 quoted Netanyahu as saying in leaked remarks from the closed-door meeting.
The report says the meeting did indeed not discuss the second phase, which is expected to see Hamas release all the remaining living hostages in return for an end of hostilities.
Also, during the meeting, ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Struk from the far-right Religious Zionism party demanded that if Hamas fails to release the three hostages scheduled to go free on Saturday, Israel should round up and re-arrest the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners it has freed so far under the deal, Channel 12 reports.
The report says security officials balked at the demand, saying such a move was hasty and could endanger the lives of the hostages.
The proposal was rejected by the cabinet, the report says.
[IsraelTimes] Qatar announces it would send an additional 15 million liters of fuel to the war-battered Gaza Strip, where a fragile ceasefire has halted the Israel-Hamas war.
The small energy-rich Gulf country would be “supplying the Gaza Strip with 15 million liters of fuel, bringing total Qatari fuel support to 30 million liters,” the official Qatar News Agency says.
A truce agreement brokered by Qatari, US and Egyptian mediators came into force on January 19, pausing fighting in the 15-month war that has devastated the Palestinian territory.
[IsraelTimes] Defense Minister Israel Katz issues a warning to organizations and individuals involved in delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip against smuggling prohibited goods.
“An attempt to smuggle goods or transfer merchandise/equipment that was not pre-approved into the Gaza Strip constitutes grounds for the seizure and confiscation of the property used in the smuggling attempt, grounds for the seizure and confiscation of the truck that transported the goods, as well as grounds for imposing sanctions on the drivers,” reads a message from the Defense Ministry’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF).
The ministry says organizations or individuals found to be involved in smuggling attempts to Gaza may face financial sanctions.
“The State of Israel will continue to act with determination to prevent the financing of terror and to maintain strict oversight over the transfer of goods while ensuring the safe passage of humanitarian aid in accordance with security directives and international law,” the ministry adds.
[IsraelTimes] Iranian authorities have placed in custody two British nationals accused of unspecified security offenses, state media reports.
Official news agency IRNA says the two were being held in the central Kerman province, without sharing details of their identities or the circumstances of their arrest.
There was no immediate comment from London, but IRNA says British Ambassador Hugo Shorter “met with the two security suspects” at the Kerman prosecutor’s office.
Several other Europeans are held in custody in Iran, which has conducted multiple prisoner exchanges with Western governments in recent years.
In January 2023, Iran announced the execution of British-Iranian dual citizen Alireza Akbari, prompting outrage among Western governments, including Britain, which called it “barbaric”.
[IsraelTimes] Palestinian media reports Israel carried out a strike on a vehicle in the West Bank city of Jenin.
There is no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
The reported strike comes amid an ongoing counter-terror offensive by the IDF, dubbed Operation Iron Wall, which was launched last month. The military expects it to last several more weeks.
The operation initially primarily focused on Jenin, before it was expanded to other cities and towns in the West Bank.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF says troops of the Maglan commando unit killed a Palestinian gunman in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem in the West Bank earlier today.
The troops encountered a group of gunmen amid an ongoing counter-terrorism operation and exchanged fire with them. One of the gunmen was killed, and his weapon was seized, the military says.
One of the Maglan soldiers was moderately wounded in the incident, and he was taken to a hospital for treatment.
The major counter-terrorism offensive in the northern West Bank, dubbed Operation Iron Wall, was launched on January 21, and the military expects it to last several more weeks. Troops have been operating in the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas areas.
[IsraelTimes] Protesters calling for the completion of the full hostage release-ceasefire deal are currently blocking the southbound Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv.
Standing in the middle of the major traffic artery through the coastal city, the families and a women’s group hold up large images of the hostages who were taken captive by invading terrorists during the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught, nearly 500 days ago.
They also hold before-and-after images of the most recently released hostages to show the urgency. The three hostages freed by Hamas on Saturday, Eli Sharabi, Or Levy, and Ohad Ben Ami, returned to Israel severely malnourished and frail.
[IsraelTimes] Iran’s IRGC Quds Force has been smuggling cash to the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon via the Beirut international airport in recent weeks, the Israeli military says.
In a post on X, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee, says the cash has been smuggled to Hezbollah by the Quds Force using civilian flights. The money is being used by the terror group to rebuild itself, according to the IDF.
Adraee says the IDF is in contact with a US-led committee supervising the ceasefire and is regularly updating it with “relevant information in order to foil these transfers.”
“Despite the efforts made, we estimate that some of the money transfers were carried out successfully,” he says.
“The IDF will not allow the organization to strengthen and will use all the tools at its disposal to enforce the understandings in the ceasefire agreement, for the security of the citizens of the State of Israel,” Adraee adds.
[IsraelTimes] US intelligence warns that Israel is likely to launch a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear program by midyear, the Washington Post reports, citing multiple intelligence reports.
The Washington Post report comes hours after the Wall Street Journal reported similar findings.
Such an attack would set back Iran’s nuclear program by weeks or months while escalating tension in the region and risking a wider conflict, according to multiple intelligence reports from the end of the Biden administration and start of the Trump administration, the newspaper reports.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the report. The White House declined to comment. The Post says the Israeli government, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, tells the Post that US President Donald Trump “will not permit Iran to get a nuclear weapon.”
“While he prefers negotiating a resolution to American’s long-standing issues with the Iranian regime peacefully, he will not wait indefinitely if Iran isn’t willing to deal, and soon,” Hughes tells The Post.
The most comprehensive of the intelligence reports came in early January and was produced by the intelligence directorate of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Post says.
It warns that Israel was likely to attempt an attack on Iran’s Fordo and Natanz nuclear facilities.
Current and former US officials familiar with the intelligence said Israel has determined its bombing of Iran in October in retaliation for a ballistic missile attack, degraded Iran’s air defenses and left the country exposed to a follow-on assault, says the Post, which did not name the officials.
An intelligence analysis produced during US president Joe Biden’s final month in office concluded that Israel is weighing major strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities this year, with Jerusalem seeking to press its advantage against Tehran after the latter’s recent setbacks, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Citing officials familiar with the analysis, the newspaper says US intelligence agencies produced another report in the initial days of the Trump administration that reached the same conclusion.
Two of the US officials say that the analysis also concluded that Israel believes US President Donald Trump is more likely than Biden to join in such strikes — which according to American military officials would likely require US support and armaments — and fears it has a narrowing window to prevent Iran’s development of an atomic bomb.
#4
My spidey sense says post Trump et al, leaks may have deception content and/or markers to identify leakers. Somehow I think the entire toolbag or counter-intelligence operators has been unpacked. The Wapo, NYT, NBC, ABC, CNN all are undoubtedly pegged for leaker tripwires.
[IsraelTimes] The State Attorney’s Tel Aviv District Office files a declaration of intent to prosecute a 20-year old resident of East Jerusalem for having transported the terrorist who carried out a stabbing attack on January 18 in Tel Aviv in which he severely injured one man, the police state.
The East Jerusalem man picked up the assailant, a resident of the West Bank city of Tulkarem who was illegally residing in Israel, from the Atarot area of Jerusalem and drove him in his van to the center of Tel Aviv, “in the clear knowledge that this was an illegal resident who was likely to endanger the safety of Israeli citizens and even carry out a terrorist attack,” the police say.
The police point out that the driver had stuck the yellow ribbon symbol of solidarity with the Israeli hostages held in Gaza on his vehicle “to camouflage his illegal activities for the journey to Tel Aviv.”
The declaration of intent to prosecute was filed yesterday, and a full indictment on charges relating to the driver’s alleged involvement with terrorism will be filed in the coming days, as well as a request to keep the suspect in custody until the end of the criminal process, the police add.
The terrorist, Salah Yahye, 19, from the West Bank city of Tulkarem, was shot dead on the scene.
[IsraelTimes] A Palestinian suspect was shot by IDF troops at the entrance to the Samaria Regional Brigade’s base near Nablus in the northern West Bank.
The Palestinian arrived at the entrance to the base in a vehicle, reportedly crashed into a fence, and tried to flee before being shot by the soldiers.
The condition of the man is unclear. No soldiers are reported wounded in the incident.
[IsraelTimes] Jerusalem responsible for 85 of record-setting 124 journalists killed last year, Committee to Protect Journalists claims; IDF rejects accusation, says it doesn’t target journalists
Last year was the deadliest for journalists in recent history, with at least 124 news hounds killed — and Israel responsible for nearly 70 percent of that total, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) claimed Wednesday.
Shortly after the report was released, the Israel Defense Forces responded by insisting that it does not intentionally target journalists in 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, while noting that many on the list are members of terror groups.
The uptick in killings, which marks a 22% increase over 2023, reflects "surging levels of international conflict, political unrest and criminality worldwide," the CPJ said.
It was the deadliest year for news hounds and media workers since CPJ began keeping records more than three decades ago, with journalists murdered across 18 different countries, it said.
A total of 85 journalists died in the Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... -instigated Gaza war, "all at the hands of the Israeli military," the CPJ charged, adding that 82 of them were Paleostinians.
CPJ accused Israel of attempting to stifle investigations of incidents, shift blame onto journalists, and ignore its duty to hold people to account for the killings.
"The war in Gaza is unprecedented in its impact on journalists and demonstrates a major deterioration in global norms on protecting journalists," CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement.
THE ISRAELI MILITARY REJECTED THE REPORT.
"The IDF takes all possible measures to minimize harm to civilians, including journalists. The IDF has never, and never will, intentionally target journalists," the military said in response to a query by The Times of Israel.
"In light of the ongoing exchange of fire, being in an active combat zone carries risks. The IDF will continue to combat threats while making an ongoing effort to minimize harm to civilians. The IDF only directs its attacks toward military targets and gunnies and does not attack civilian sites or civilians, including media and journalists," the statement continued.
"Under international humanitarian law, a member of an organized gang [such as the military wing of Hamas], or a person directly participating in hostilities, is considered a lawful target. As it seems, many on the published list include members of the military wing of Hamas and are therefore lawful targets under international law," the IDF added.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas following its October 2023 onslaught in which 1,200 people were killed, most of them civilians, and 251 taken hostage. Hamas is still holding 73 of the hostages, and its leaders have vowed to repeat the October 7 slaughter and destroy Israel.
More than 48,000 Paleostinians have been killed in the ensuing war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed 21,000 Hamas fighters since the war began.
The number of journalists and media workers killed in 2024 is up sharply over recent years — 102 were killed in 2023, and 69 were killed in 2022, according to CPJ. The previous record high of deaths was in 2007, when 113 journalists bit the dust, almost half due to the Iraq War, said the committee.
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... and Pakistain recorded the second-highest number of journalists and media workers killed in 2024, with six each.
In Mexico, which has a reputation as one of the most dangerous countries for news hounds, five were killed, with CPJ reporting it had found "persistent flaws" in Mexico’s mechanisms for protecting journalists.
And in Haiti, where two news hounds were murdered, widespread violence and political instability have sown so much chaos that "gangs now openly claim responsibility for journalist killings," the report said.
Other deaths took place in countries such as Myanmar, Mozambique, India and Iraq.
"Today is the most dangerous time to be a journalist in CPJ’s history," said Ginsberg.
CPJ, which has kept records on journalist killings since 1992, said that 24 of the news hounds were deliberately killed because of their work in 2024.
Freelancers, the report said, were among the most vulnerable because of their lack of resources, and accounted for 43 of the killings in 2024.
The year 2025 is not looking more promising, with six journalists already killed in the first weeks of the year, CPJ said.
[IsraelTimes] Kamal Adwan hospital director beaten with ‘batons and electric shock sticks’ while detained at Sde Teiman, alleges Palestinian rights group; IDF doesn’t immediately respond
Lawyers for a Gazook hospital director claimed Tuesday that he was subject to repeated physical abuse during his ongoing detention in Israel.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a Paleostinian rights group representing detained doctor Hussam Abu Safiya, said that his lawyer visited him in Ofer Prison on Tuesday afternoon, for the first time since his December arrest.
The group claimed that the Israel Defense Forces held Abu Safiya at the Sde Teiman detention facility before transferring him to his current location in Ofer Prison on January 9, where he was reportedly placed in solitary confinement for 25 days.
While in Sde Teiman, Abu Safiya was subject to "severe physical abuse, including beatings with batons and electric shock sticks, as well as repeated blows to the chest," the rights group said.
He also described being "forcibly stripped, having his hands tightly shackled and being made to sit on sharp gravel for approximately five hours by Israeli forces," it added in the statement.
The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the claims.
Located near 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... border, the Sde Teiman military base has been the focus of several probes amid reports of widespread misconduct and abuse. Earlier this month, an IDF reservist who served as a guard at the facility was sentenced to seven months behind bars for abusing Paleostinian detainees.
Israel detained Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, along with nearly 240 others during a raid on the medical facility in December 2024, alleging that Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... was using it as a command center.
The military said it suspects Abu Safiya of being a Hamas member.
Israel has been at war with Hamas since October 7, 2023, when the terror group that rules Gaza led an invasion of southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to the Strip.
It has long accused Hamas of fighting from within civilian structures, including hospitals.
In January, the IDF confirmed Abu Safiya’s detention, but did not specify where he was being held. Two former Sde Teiman detainees told CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... that month that they had seen him arrive at the facility in "poor condition."
According to Al Mezan’s statement, Abu Safiya was interrogated for 10 consecutive days regarding his alleged ties to Hamas and "firmly denied" the accusations, "stressing that he is a doctor whose sole duty is to provide medical care to patients and the maimed."
There have been several probes of IDF soldiers on suspicion of abusing Paleostinian detainees, including a conviction last week.
[IsraelTimes] Families mostly get info from recently freed hostages; report says signs of life have come in for total of 12 captives, with remaining 2 families not going public
The families of three more hostages announced on Wednesday that they had received signs of life from their captive loved ones, bringing to 10 the total number of abductees for whom signs of life have been announced in recent days.
Only one of these 10 hostages is on the list of the 33 captives that Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... is supposed to release in the first phase of the ceasefire-hostage deal. Sixteen Israeli hostages have been released since the deal took effect on January 19. In all, Hamas is holding 73 of the 251 hostages it kidnapped on October 7, 2023; some 30 of them are believed to be alive.
In addition to the families who have agreed for the signs of life of their loved ones to be made public, additional such signs have been received for two captives whose families have chosen not to go public with the information, Channel 12 news said Wednesday.
The Haaretz daily reported that signs of life have been received for most of the hostages whom Israel had believed were alive, adding that some of them are recent while others are relevant for some point in the past.
Anat Angrest, mother of captive soldier Matan Angrest, 21, said Wednesday that she had received a fresh sign of life from her son.
"We received information that he is alive and held under harsh conditions," Anat told Channel 12.
"He was kidnapped from a tank, covered in burns. He underwent severe interrogations there, we saw it on his face in the video that we decided not to publish yet," she said, referring to a Hamas propaganda video released in September.
Angrest was on duty at the IDF’s Nahal Oz base on the morning of October 7, when some 3,000 holy warriors burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
"We heard that he is being held there in difficult conditions because he is a soldier, and we do not know what the long-term consequences of this injury are," his mother added.
Earlier in the day, the family of Yosef-Haim Ohana, 24, said it had received a "clear" signal that he is still alive but expressed fears for his fate following the release of three Israelis over the weekend, looking emaciated and sickly after 16 months of Hamas captivity.
Ohana was kidnapped from the Nova desert rave as he and a friend attempted to provide aid to injured partygoers amid the terrorist onslaught.
"We have a clear indication that he is alive," Ohana’s aunt Hana Mastronov told the Ynet news site Wednesday. "There are signs showing that he is alive."
On Wednesday evening, the family of hostage Eitan Mor, 23, said they had received a sign of life from him.
In a statement, they wrote that "we pray for the return of all the hostages including our son Eitan."
Mor was a security guard at the Nova rave music festival when he was captured.
His parents are members of the Tikva Forum of hostage families, a more hawkish group who have said that Israel should not reach an exchange deal and instead achieve freedom for the abductees via military pressure. However,
it was a brave man who first ate an oyster... they have softened their stance in recent days, particularly following the return of three hostages on Saturday in a severely emaciated state.
On Tuesday, the family of twins Gali and Ziv Berman, 27, said it had received signs of life from the brothers.
"We take a deep breath, but we know whose hands they are in and how much danger their lives are in," the family said in a message to the residents of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, from where they were taken hostage on October 7, 2023.
No further details were given.
Later Tuesday, the family of Hamas hostage Omri Miran, 46, said it received a sign of life from him, via a recently released hostage.
Brothers Boaz and Nadav Miran said that the returned hostage told them he had been held with Omri until July 2024, and at that time he seemed to be physically fine. The two noted, however, that his situation may have since deteriorated in the seven months that have passed.
Miran was taken captive from Kibbutz Nahal Oz by holy warriors who drove him across the border in his car. His wife Lishay Miran was left behind with their two daughters, Roni, then aged 2, and Alma, then aged 6 months.
On Monday, the mother of another hostage, Alon Ohel, 24, said the family had received a first sign of life from her son, revealing that he was being held in chains, starved and untreated for shrapnel in his shoulder, arm, and now partially blinded eye.
"We’ve been learning more and more details since Saturday and can no longer remain silent," Idit Ohel told Army Radio, as her hostage son marked his 24th birthday. "The prime minister can’t say he didn’t know, can’t say he didn’t hear and wasn’t notified about the state of the hostages. Every day there is hell."
The family of 20-year-old captive soldier Nimrod Cohen told The Times of Israel this week that a returning hostage had recently said they saw him alive eight months ago, though in poor physical and mental shape.
There hasn’t been a more recent sign of life from him.
On Sunday, the mother of hostage Eliya Cohen, 27, said her son had been held with returning hostages who were chained, gagged, burned with a searing hot object, hung by the feet, and starved.
Sigi Cohen said the hostages testified that her son is being held in a tunnel, has been chained for the entire length of his captivity, gets little food or daylight, and suffers from an untreated bullet wound to the leg sustained during the Hamas onslaught.
Eliya Cohen is the only captive out of the nine who is slated to go free in the current first phase of the deal.
The family of hostage Elkana Bohbot, 34, also said this week that it had recently been told by released hostage Or Levy that their loved one was alive and had been held with Levy for over a year.
Ruhama, his mother, told Israel Hayom: "We waited a long time for this sign. Right now, we know that Elkana is alive and must return. It gave us some breathing room, but we are still worried."
Hamas has so far released 21 hostages — civilians, female soldiers, and five Thai nationals — during the ceasefire.
Seventy-three hostages kidnapped on October 7 remain in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with 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... , including the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that.
Eight hostages have been rescued alive by troops, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier killed in 2014 was recovered from Gaza in January.
[IsraelTimes] Israel had reportedly asked to stay for an additional 10 days; Lebanese president insists Israel stick to existing date; IDF again warns Lebanese not to return to homes in south
The United States has reportedly authorized a "long-term" Israeli troop presence in southern Leb ...The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , as Israel is said to be seeking an extension to a February 18 deadline to withdraw its forces.
Under a truce deal brokered by Washington in November, Israeli troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon, where they had waged a ground offensive against fighters from Lebanon’s gang Hezbollah since early October.
Hezbollah operatives were to leave the zone and Lebanese troops were to deploy in the area within the same period.
The initial deadline was already extended from January 26 until February 18. A Lebanese official and a foreign diplomat in Lebanon told Rooters on Wednesday that Israel has asked to remain in five posts in the south for a further 10 days, until February 28.
The Kan public broadcaster later cited bigwigs in Israel’s security cabinet as saying that the US had granted Israeli troops permission to stay "in several locations" in Lebanon beyond February 18. It did not specify a new deadline.
Kan said that the IDF has begun establishing the five outposts where it would like to remain after receiving approval from Washington.
The request to remain in those five outposts came after the US rejected previous requests for the IDF to extend the deadline, Kan said.
While establishing the new outposts, IDF forces are withdrawing from nearby Shiite villages, including in southeast Lebanon and the Mount Dov area, according to Kan.
The withdrawals come as the Israeli security establishment has identified efforts by Hezbollah to reestablish its intelligence-gathering capabilities in southern Lebanon, the network said.
The US, Israel’s closest military ally, chairs a committee that oversees the implementation of the Lebanon ceasefire.
Later on Wednesday, Israel’s military jets broke the sound barrier over the Lebanese capital, Beirut, for the first time since the ceasefire was agreed.
There was no immediate response to a request for comment sent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, but the head of the Israeli military’s Northern Command said he believed the terms of the deal would be executed.
"I think we will indeed reposition ourselves next week, and the agreement will be implemented," Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin said during a conference in memorial of those killed in the 1997 Israeli helicopter disaster on Wednesday, according to Army Radio.
The IDF’s Arabic-language front man, Col. Avichay Adraee, said in a post on X on Wednesday that Israeli troops remained in Lebanon after the first extension and ordered Lebanese citizens not to return to their homes in the country’s south "until further notice." Adraee has published the same message every few days since the extension to the ceasefire began.
In a written statement, Lebanon’s presidency denied reports that Beirut had agreed to a second extension and said President Joseph Aoun had "repeatedly stressed Lebanon’s insistence on the complete withdrawal" of Israeli troops by February 18.
Israeli forces have remained in parts of southern Lebanon, and its air force has continued to carry out strikes across the country on what it says are Hezbollah weapons stores or attempts by the group to smuggle arms.
Hezbollah has said it does not accept Israel’s justifications for staying in Lebanon and has urged Lebanon’s government to ensure the troops leave. The group has not explicitly threatened to resume fighting.
Separately, Wednesday, the Education Ministry said it would reopen schools and educational facilities for residents of northern Israel who were evacuated amid the conflict with Hezbollah.
The ministry said in a statement that schools will be open from March 2, by a government decision to let residents return from the start of the month.
"Every student who will return to the north will be integrated into an educational framework that is suitable to them," the ministry said.
Israel asked the Trump administration on Monday for another extension to the February 18 deadline, a US official told The Times of Israel. The response from Washington was that it was planning to stick to the deadline, said the US official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity Tuesday to discuss the matter.
Channel 12 reported similar details, adding that Israel had reiterated to the US its claim that the Lebanese army was not effectively deployed in south Lebanon, as the terms of the ceasefire said it would, and was not preventing Hezbollah from reorganizing. Israel has warned that Hezbollah aims to return to the border area as soon as IDF troops depart.
US deputy Mideast envoy Morgan Ortagus traveled to Lebanon and then Israel over the weekend to survey the progress of the US-mediated ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that ended the war that spiraled from border attacks by the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group. Ortagus told news hounds that the Trump administration views February 18 as a "firm date" for the completion of Israel’s withdrawal.
Israel’s military says its forces have continued to uncover and seize Hezbollah weapons in prohibited areas and that the Lebanese army is not keeping its part of the deal.
Under the ceasefire agreement, Israel is entitled to act against immediate threats posed by Hezbollah but must forward complaints about longer-term threats to an oversight committee composed of representatives from the US, La Belle France, Lebanon, and the international observer force UNIFIL.
The November 27 deal ended two months of full-scale war that followed months of lower-intensity exchanges. Hezbollah began near-daily attacks on northern Israel one day after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by its Paleostinian ally Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... , which triggered the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with 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... . Tens of thousands of Israeli residents of the north were displaced by the attacks, with rocket fire eventually spreading to the center of the country.
[IsraelTimes] Orly Gilboa says daughter ‘pleaded for her life’ not to do it, but was forced to be covered in powder and debris to make it look like she was hit in IDF strike in propaganda video
Released soldier hostage Daniella Gilboa has said she was forced by the Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... terror group to record a video faking her death while in captivity, a propaganda clip that had indeed led to rumors that she had been killed, her mother said Wednesday.
Orly Gilboa, Daniella’s mother, told Channel 12 news that "one of the captors simply came to her with a camera and told her, ’Today we are filming you dead."
"She pleaded for her life and asked they don’t do it," she said, describing how they covered her in powder and debris to make it look like she had been hit in an Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... .
She said that after her release last month as part of a ceasefire deal with Hamas, Daniella apologized for any part she could have played in her parents thinking she was dead.
"When she saw me and my husband for the first time, she apologized for how she caused us to feel this whole time," she added.
In November, a front man for Hamas’s military wing claimed that "one of the enemy’s female prisoners was killed in an area that is under Zionist aggression in the 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... Strip."
Alongside the statement, Hamas published a blurred picture of a body it claimed belonged to the slain hostage. While it did not identify the woman, the image quickly led to speculation that it could be Daniella Gilboa since it featured a tattoo identical to one she has.
Hamas has often issued propaganda videos of hostages, in what Israel has said is deplorable psychological warfare.
Gilboa is one of the seven female troops kidnapped from the IDF surveillance unit at the Nahal Oz army base during the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023.
One of the kidnapped surveillance soldiers, Ori Megidish, was later rescued alive, and the body of a second one, Noa Marciano, was recovered after she was murdered in captivity.
Gilboa and the four remaining captive soldiers — Liri Albag, Naama Levy, Agam Berger and Karina Ariev — were freed in January during the current ceasefire-hostage deal.
[IsraelTimes] Moshe Arbel says the three East Jerusalem residents have all expressed backing for terrorism and have family members who carried out attacks
Interior Minister Moshe Arbel announced Wednesday that he intends to deport three East Jerusalem Paleostinians who are family members of gunnies and have allegedly expressed support for terrorism.
"I have decided to exercise my authority under the law and act to deport three terror supporters, who are family members of gunnies and chose to side with the enemy in time of war and support the harm to Israeli citizens," Arbel told the Israel Hayom daily.
"Anyone who incites, praises, and supports terror has no place among us. I will continue to act decisively against anyone who threatens Israeli citizens," he added.
In November 2024, the Knesset passed a law permitting the deportation of family members of gunnies and the incarceration of terror convicts under the age of 14.
The controversial law gives the interior minister the power to expel a first-degree relative of someone who carried out an attack if they had advance knowledge, and either failed to report the matter to the police or "expressed support or identification with an act of terrorism or published words of praise, sympathy or encouragement for an act of terrorism or a terrorist organization."
The three Paleostinians who Arbel intends to deport are East Jerusalem residents Muhammad Abu Halwa, Tansim Odeh, and Zina Barber, none of whom are Israeli citizens.
According to Arbel’s announcement, Abu Halwa is affiliated with Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... and was indicted last August for incitement and identifying with the terror organization. His brother carried out a stabbing attack in October 2023 against a Border Police officer in East Jerusalem.
Arbel said Odeh had expressed support for terrorism several different times the past three years, and that her father was behind a bombing in October 2022 that injured multiple soldiers.
The minister said Zina Barber was to be deported for having"directly called for terrorism, provided services to a terrorist organization, expressed identification with a terrorist organization, and incited terrorism."
"Her father is a convicted terrorist as a member of a terrorist cell who drove a boom-mobile in the early 2000s in the Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison for this," he added.
O'KEEFE INSIDE THE TREASURY: Policy Advisor at US Treasury Confesses He 'Knows a Few' Officials Who "Don't Do Their Jobs" and Are Defying @DOGE: "No One's Quitting Because Everyone's Dug in Their Feet;" Claims Layoffs Are Because "All He [Musk] Wants Is More Money" pic.twitter.com/BvHYGJpf18
#2
You did it right, dear Snowy Thing — it just wanted a moderator to open the article, then close it without changing anything whatsoever. So I did that, et voilá! :-)
Seems like he did his homework. Unless you mean an official source like CNN (bees pee upon them).
On a positive note, although a capital ship of the the US Navy has collided with a bulk carrier, at least the cargo ship was not filled with oil-soaked ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
[NY Post] The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ramped up grants for migrants from 2020 to 2024 — which included cash assistance to buy cars, homes and even build credit for startup businesses, according to a shocking watchdog report that found taxpayers were left on the hook for $22.6 billion.
HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) — which came under fire last year for having lost track of 32,000 migrant kids in the US — handed out the high sum to a host of nonprofits, effectively acting as a "giant magnet" for those crossing the US border and claiming asylum, auditors from the money monitor OpenTheBooks revealed exclusively to The Post.
Tasked with settling migrants, asylum seekers and other refugees in America, ORR drastically increased the number of noncitizens eligible to receive funding over the bulk of President Joe Biden’s term, with more than $10 billion shelled out to grant-receiving organizations just in fiscal year 2023.
That coincided with all-time records being set for southern border crossings into the US, with 2.4 million apprehensions by Customs and Border Protection over the same period.
Non-governmental groups bilked taxpayers for up to $1.7 billion in services including dollar-for-dollar matching savings plans for cars, homes, college educations or startups; small-business loans of up to $15,000; loans to repair credit history of up to $1,500; "cultural orientation," "emergency housing support," legal assistance and Medicaid care.
Some programs were only available to migrants or refugees who had been living in the US for several years, who were employed or who were making around double the federal poverty level or less, among other stipulations.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2025
13:10 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11138 views]
Top|| File under: Migrants/Illegal Immigrants
[Red State] The Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services on Thursday by a 52-48 party-line vote. As in the vote on Tulsi Gabbard, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) voted with the Democrats.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/13/2025
11:46 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11164 views]
Top|| File under:
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2025 13:42
Comments ||
Top||
#6
Perfect!
I remember back when RNC leadership was selling Mitch as the only thing standing between Obama's Agenda and you, and it turns out it was McConnell All Along.
Reuters was able to review the full database of posts and confirm the thrust of the campaign of posts, mainly originating on X, containing videos which were then shared on a wider range of social media platforms.
[DM] Incredible images captured the moments after a fishing boat crew saved two US Navy pilots when they ejected from a fighter jet over the San Diego Bay.
The Premier vessel was first on the scene when the plane nosedived on Wednesday morning, with the explosion captured on shocking surveillance video.
Brandon Diets, the captain of the fishing boat, said his first thoughts were to race over to find the survivors after seeing them parachute down and 'hit the water.'
'I just thought 'We gotta go,' and we headed straight for them' he told NBC San Diego.
'We didn't know if they were hurt... we just knew there were people in the water and we had to get them out.'
Before the crash, Diets said he noticed the plane 'seemed a little louder than normal', and by the time he turned around he could see two orange parachutes in the air.
The aircraft, a EA-18G Growler fighter jet, was flying 'super low' and stayed in the air for a couple of minutes before it dived into the water, he said.
Witness Conner Palmer said the crew was enjoying a regular day out on the water when the jet crashed nearby, and in a moment 'one of our co-workers was up on deck and started calling us up.'
'It seemed like you were watching a Star Wars movie, it crashed down straight into the water, massive explosion of water and sand, and you just honestly had no idea what you just watched,' he said.
Witness Carol Gonzales said she knew 'something was happening' when she saw two orange parachutes dip into the bay, and 'the next thing you know (the aircraft) was coming straight down into the water.'
Emergency crews including 60 personnel, two boats, five fire engines and a helicopter team were rushed to the scene around 10:15am local time, San Diego Fire and Rescue said.
Several crews with the Navy were also seen working the crash site to prevent fuel from spilling into the waters from the downed aircraft as they work to retrieve it.
The owner of the fishing boat that picked up the pilots said staff on the boat acted quickly when they saw the aviators eject from the military aircraft.
'As all of our crews are trained in lifesaving efforts, immediately came about, turned around picked up both pilots that were in the water,' general manager Frank Ursitti told NBC San Diego.
'And as they were boarding the pilots on the water, [the captain] observed the plane actually ditch into San Diego Bay.'
He said the two pilots were conscious when they were pulled from the water. Both were raced to UC San Diego Medical Center in stable condition after being rescued.
Palmer added that once the pilots were saved from the water, he saw them hugging each other and 'checking the other was okay' in a heartwarming moment.
The pilots were kept under 24-hour medical observation, but are both in good condition, the Navy said in a press release on Wednesday evening.
The most recent incident involving an EA-18G Growler aircraft came in October 2024, when one of the Navy fighter jets crashed near Mount Rainier in Washington State, leading to the deaths of both pilots on board.
#3
^Right. Very probably the CO, maybe the XO, Navigator can kiss their careers goodbye.
The only thing that would save them is if it can be proven that the other ship deliberately rammed them or something.
#4
Captain Dave Snowden, linked in bio
Somebody smart in Navy culture, take a look at his past assignments, and the duration of them. Seems short and a touch out of place for a naval aviator?
#5
An aircraft Carrier has two chains of commands. One chain runs the ship while the other runs the air crews. The ship’s Captain can not command the aircrews captain. How did an airman become a ships captian?
Posted by: Old Salty ||
02/13/2025 15:25
Comments ||
Top||
#6
Not a sailor, but old Army insight into sequential brevity in senior command and staff career assignments, either a really fast burner/high performer being pulled up to specific job he fits perfectly, or the ring-knocker/rabbi protection program for a less than stellar officer.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A car drove into a group of people in Munich, leaving at least 20 people injured as police launch their investigations into the incident.
There is currently a major police operation in the Dachauer Straße area. Update from German sources to follow in comments. I put it in WoT as the action seems deliberate.
Absolutely correct first assumption, my dear. Had you been wrong, that could easily have been moved later.
Update at 9:15 a.m. ET from comments: Farhad N, 24, from Kabul is the jihadi. Bavarian state premier Markus Söder says sympathy is all very well, but things must change. National politicians say the new deportations law must be enforced, even those currently not enforcing it.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2025
06:22 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11193 views]
Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists
#1
Location not far away from the venue of the Munich Security Conference (I will attend) which starts tomorrow. Vance and Hegseth will participate.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2025 6:40
Comments ||
Top||
#2
The driver is an Afghan.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2025 6:45
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Currently 27 injured, many severely. 2 critically.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2025 6:46
Comments ||
Top||
#4
24yo Afghan, known to police for theft and drug offenses. Police fired at least a shot at the driver and secured him.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2025 6:56
Comments ||
Top||
#5
The crowd was guarded by police as they were demonstrators on their way to a demonstration (labor dispute). Driver tried to circumvent police, got fired at but still managed to mow down people before he was stopped.
No doubt this was a deliberate attack.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2025 7:03
Comments ||
Top||
#6
Bavarian state premier Söder assumes this was a deliberate attack according to welt.de .
#11
Is said to have posted islamist content in social media shortly before attack. German media still refer to it as "mutmaßlich" (suspected), but that's of course nonsense. Of course we'll be told about "psychological" problems pretty soon.
It's time we repatriate all Afghans who have been refused asylum. Or... I think Marco Rubio has the number of a certain Mr. Bukele who seems to deal very well with these problems.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2025 9:13
Comments ||
Top||
#12
Will his social media post(s) include a pledge to ISIS-K or Al Qaeda, do you think? Which, I mean, not if.
Deutsche Welle is liveblogging events in English here The Zeitgeist is such that they cannot airbrush this. Latest updates:
18 minutes ago18 minutes ago
'Maximum firmness' must be shown, Interior Minister Faeser says
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser vowed "maximum firmness" following Thursday's ramming incident.
Faeser, of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), noted that the suspect was "once again a young man from Afghanistan."
She noted that laws on violent criminals' deportation have been "massively tightened" and must now be enforced.
She said that Germany is the only country in Germany returning Afghans back to Afghanistan despite Taliban rule over the country.
1 hour ago1 hour ago
Scholz says attack suspect must be punished and deported
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described Thursday's car ramming incident as "awful," adding that the suspect must be punished and deported.
"What has happened is awful," Scholz told reporters. "From my point of view it is quite clear, this attacker cannot count on any mercy, he must be punished and he must leave the country."
Scholz is the chancellor candidate for his center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the coming parliamentary elections, where migration issues have been at the forefront of debates. The opposition conservativeChristian Democratic Party (CDU), which is leading in the polls, has accused the Scholz government of being too lenient on migration issues.
#13
I haven't seen the post so I can't say. It will have an influence on the elections. The mood is indeed changing.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2025 9:28
Comments ||
Top||
#14
According to the German Press Agency (DPA), the suspect came to Germany as an unaccompanied minor at the end of 2016 and was taken into care by a youth welfare facility. He is said to have previously stayed in Italy. A few weeks later, the young person applied for asylum, which was rejected in September 2017. He appealed against this without success. He has been required to leave the country since fall 2020.
This must stop.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2025 9:47
Comments ||
Top||
[JPost] The Thai national who returned from captivity with broken teeth underwent rehabilitation at the Shamir Medical Center in Be'er Yaakov.
Hamas terrorists hit one of the Thai hostages released in the hostage-ceasefire deal in January with a weapon and broke his teeth, Channel 12 reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, the Thai national who returned from captivity with broken teeth underwent rehabilitation at the Shamir Medical Center in Be'er Yaakov.
The Israeli news outlet further added that Israel would continue to finance the Thai national's dental treatment in Thailand.
The five Thai nationals who have since returned to their country would also receive a monthly stipend amounting to NIS 9,000, Channel 12 added.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2025
05:27 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11178 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
SNIDE REMARK ON
How could such a thing happen?
Given the Pro-Palestine Protests by: Liberals, Democrats, Colleges, students and their Media, all say it's Israel's fault? 🤔
[Breitbart] A former Mexican governor sent a series of letters to U.S. President Donald J. Trump, warning him about the alleged cartel connections of Mexico’s new consul in Miami. In the letters, the politician warned Trump to have the U.S. Department of State and the National Security Council properly check the proposed diplomat due to his questionable background.
In the letters, which Breitbart News Foundation received a copy of, former Chiapas Governor Williams Oswaldo (Willy) Ochoa claimed that another former governor, now the newly appointed Mexican consul for Miami, is a danger to the citizens of Florida and Chiapas.
Ochoa, who served as state and federal congressman for the state of Chiapas in Mexico and briefly served as its governor, claimed that allowing Rutilio Escandon Cadenas to serve as a consul would grant diplomatic protection to an individual with concerning ties to organized crime.
In his letter, he claimed that during Escandon’s gubernatorial term from 2018 to 2024, “Chiapas became a lawless land where massive migration overwhelmed the state’s security, unleashing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.”
Ochoa claimed that during Escandon’s tenure, individuals with ties to the terror groups Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Colombia’s FARC guerrillas were able to transit through Chiapas on their way to the United States.
According to Ochoa, Escandon’s ties and favoritism to criminal organizations helped turn the state into a battleground between the major cartels in Mexico. The violence displaced more than 15,000 individuals who were forced to flee their homes due to the constant shootouts, murders, and kidnappings by drug cartels.
Escandon hails from Mexico’s MORENA Party, the same party as President Claudia Sheinbaum and her predecessor, former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Mexico is currently trying to avoid facing a series of tariffs from the Trump administration over their failure to stop drug cartels and human smuggling.
Earlier this year, the Trump White House accused Mexico’s government of working with cartels as they prepared to impose a 25 percent tariff. The measure was delayed after Sheinbaum promised to send 10,000 National Guardsmen to the border, Breitbart News reported.
[FoxBusiness] Investor and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale defended the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) hasty process to overhaul government spending, arguing that a few mistakes are all part of the process.
Lonsdale was interviewed on CNBC’s "Squawk Box" on Wednesday, where he touted the success of DOGE targeting wasteful or frivolous government spending, arguing that, "in 20 days, we’ve done what we couldn’t do in multiple generations."
The entrepreneur suggested that previous efforts by lawmakers in the Reagan era to curb spending failed because they were not tech experts like those at DOGE, "and so when they went to the bureaucracy, and they asked questions, there’s so many ways of obscuring and blocking and deterring, and so what Elon did is he got root access, and he went to the tech systems themselves."
CNBC co-host Rebecca Quick warned that as much as she agrees with cutting waste in theory, cancer payments and legitimate aid to those starving in Africa may be affected amid DOGE's efforts.
"I think the legitimate stuff needs to be turned back on," Lonsdale agreed, but argued, "I do think Africa can now pay for more of this themselves. South Africa is spending money suing Israel. They’re spending money supporting political parties calling for the death for White people. Maybe they should redirect that money to pay for their own clinics."
"I just think there’s a question about how careful either Elon or others need to be," co-host Andrew Sorkin said.
Another co-host of the show, Joe Kernen, replied, "Slash and burn a lot of this stuff."
Lonsdale argued, however, that changing times call for new tactics.
"Andrew, we've been careful for 50 years, right? You have a bunch of white flag Republicans, you have a bunch of people on the left making money off of it, people on the right making money off it too. Everyone wants to be careful and keep it going. You’re not going to get perfect answers in life. I think this is by far the best thing for our civilization is to very boldly confront this," he said. "And this is more, I guess, of a tech world way than a D.C. way."
#2
Everyone had an incentive to keep the system rolling other than the American taxpayer, people with morals and folks that didn’t want their countries destabilized.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/13/2025 11:58
Comments ||
Top||
#3
"An army of deer led by a lion is more to be feared than an army of lions led by a deer." -Phillip of Macedonia
That’s what the archive search below reveals, yes.
[BBC] Former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her government tried to cling on to power using systematic, deadly violence against protesters that could amount to "crimes against humanity", the UN has said.
UN human rights investigators accused the deposed government of a brutal response to mass opposition last year, in which they said up to 1,400 people had been killed, mostly by security forces.
The UN team said "an official policy to attack and violently repress anti-government protesters" had been directed by political leaders and senior security officials.
Hasina, who had been in office for 15 years, fled by helicopter to India shortly before crowds stormed her residence last August.
#1
The unrest began as student-led protests against quotas in civil service jobs and escalated into a countrywide movement to oust Hasina and her Awami League party following a deadly police crackdown.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] The court arrested a resident of Neftekumsk, accused of transferring money to an acquaintance who is fighting in Syria on the side of a terrorist organization.
A 27-year-old resident of Neftekumsk has been accused of aiding terrorist activity.
According to the FSB, in 2022, the man transferred money to an acquaintance, while the acquaintance was a member of a terrorist organization banned in Russia and took part in military operations in Syria, Interfax wrote on February 11.
A criminal case was opened against the man under Part 1.1 of Article 205.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (assistance to terrorist activity). The man was arrested.
Earlier, the "Caucasian Knot" wrote that in December 2024, a court sentenced a resident of Dagestan to 12 years in prison , finding him guilty of transferring money to terrorists located abroad.
[NYPOST] Outraged upstate New York parents took over a school board meeting this week — demanding to know why their elementary school children were exposed to an ''LGBTQIA '' book that included depictions of naked people and bondage enthusiasts.
A large and animated crowd of parents gathered in a Monroe County auditorium on Tuesday and voiced their concerns to the superintendent and Penfield school board about their young children having access to the book ''The Rainbow Parade: A Celebration of LGBTQIA Identities and Allies.''
The controversial book tells the story of a maiden of tender years and her two mothers attending an LGBT parade and follows a child who is exploring their ''gender identity.'' The book's lesson for kids is to ''break down stereotypes and embrace diversity,'' according to a description.
''The Rainbow Parade'' includes depictions of a naked person shown from behind, furries, and a gay couple outfitted in leather, BDSM (bondage/domination/sado-masochism) attire.
Students that were shown the book were in grades 1 through 5 — meaning they are roughly ages 5 through 11.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11155 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
Drag em into the streets and throw tomatoes at them. I'll be handing out big green ones.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
02/13/2025 12:12
Comments ||
Top||
#3
The Birth of DEI
From a trans Montessori, a grito.
"Your kids will sure think these are neato!"
[prints out Botticelli's Black Machiavelli; Nude Niccolo, Santi di Tito]
[BBC] A senior figure in Ukraine's intelligence service (SBU) has been arrested on suspicion of working as a Russian agent.
The service did not name the man, who it said was chief of staff of its anti-terrorism centre, but Ukrainian media quoting sources in the SBU say he is Col Dmytro Kozyura.
Local media showed him handcuffed while being arrested by SBU head Vasyl Malyuk.
A statement said there were at least 14 instances in which the suspect, who it described as a "rat", had collected and transmitted information to Russia. The SBU said the investigation involved audio and video monitoring, as well as gaining access to mobile phones and computers.
Since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has announced numerous operations to expose Russian agents on its soil.
Malyuk had been personally involved in the investigation into the suspect and headed the operation to arrest him, the SBU statement said, adding that he reported directly on its progress to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
It said Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) recruited him in Vienna in 2018. He was "mothballed" for several years and his handlers only resumed contact with him last December.
"Thanks to encrypted programme bookmarks, we got into the traitor's gadgets - mobile terminals, computers," Malyuk said in a video statement posted on the SBU website.
"We basically lived with him, conducted audio and video monitoring. In the process of all this, we managed to efficiently document the collection and transmission of relevant information by the traitor to the enemy."
Malyuk added the SBU had been feeding Moscow disinformation during the course of the investigation.
"The self-cleansing of the SBU continues. No matter how the enemy tries to penetrate our ranks... he will not be able to do it successfully. Because we detect them in a timely manner, document them and detain them."
BLUF: The BBC reporters are indignant that Elon Musk and President Trump are making a fuss about things the BBC would rather remained unmentioned. They present a series of fact checks which are notable for the fact that the BBC has actually not seen the records Mr. Musk references, and so cannot judge their validity. Key bite from the article:
[BBC] Elon Musk has made a number of exaggerated or unevidenced claims during an Oval Office event alongside President Donald Trump.
The billionaire, who was making his first major media appearance since beginning his role as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), said his team was seeking to improve transparency in government.
But he provided no evidence when making sweeping statements about corruption in government agencies and also defended false allegations he had spread about US funds being used to send condoms to Gaza.
BBC Verify has examined these claims made by Musk.
SENDING CONDOMS TO GAZA?
Musk was challenged by a reporter about a recent White House claim, which he has repeated, that it had stopped $50m (£40.2m) worth of condoms being sent to the Gaza Strip.
The reporter asked whether the condoms were actually due to be sent to Gaza Province in Mozambique.
Musk appeared to concede that could be the case, and responded: "I'm not sure we should be sending $50m dollars on condoms anywhere… if it went to Mozambique instead of Gaza, I'm like, OK that's not as bad, but still you know why are we doing that?"
Several posts on X have highlighted a US commitment to fund an HIV-prevention programme in Gaza, Mozambique.
US government records show that an American-funded scheme for Gaza, Mozambique was awarded $83.5m for "prevention, care, support and treatment interventions within HIV and TB facilities and communities" for a programme running until September 2026.
BBC Verify contacted the aid agency that granted the funding - the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) - who told us that no money has been used to procure condoms.
The US State Department told us two $50m donations due to be sent to the Gaza Strip via the International Medical Corps had been stopped, which it claimed included contraceptives such as condoms.
But responding to the claims, the charity said it wasn't aware of any future US funding for condoms or any other contraceptives for Gaza.
They also said none of the funds they'd received from the US government since October 2023 had been used to procure or distribute condoms within the Gaza Strip.
The US has, in the past, provided contraceptives to countries around the world as part of family planning programmes.
In 2023 fiscal year (1 October - 30 September) $60.8m was sent abroad for contraceptives - with about $7m of that for condoms - according to a USAID report. None of this was listed for Gaza in the Middle East. $5.4m of contraceptives were listed for Mozambique, but none of this was for condoms.
These contraceptive programmes existed under Trump's previous administration as well. During the 2019 fiscal year, for example, about $40m was spent sending contraceptives abroad, according to another USAID report.
'THE WOMAN THAT WALKED AWAY WITH $30M'?
Although he did not mention her by name, Elon Musk appeared to reference former USAID administrator Samantha Power's alleged net worth.
President Trump asked Musk to "mention some of the things that your team has found some of the crazy numbers, including the woman that walked away with about 30 million."
There have been claims on social media about Power's net worth increasing to this amount during her time at USAID.
One post claims: "Ex-USAID chief Samantha Power's net worth skyrockets - from $6.7m to $30m on a $180k salary… Where did the extra $23.3m come from? And all of this in just 3 years!"
Musk responded to another post on X about Power's work at USAID, asking "how did she accumulate wealth that is 100 times her after tax salary?"
Lots of details at the link, at the end of which the BBC team concludes Ms Powers was rich before and she is rich now, so why are people fussing? Other points of contention:
SOCIAL SECURITY PAYMENTS FOR 150-YEAR-OLDS?
Social security provides a base income for people in the US who are either retired or can't work because of a disability. It covers about 67 million Americans.
Regarding the programme, Musk said: "There's crazy things… cross re-examination of Social Security, and we've got people in there that are 150 years old." He did not provide evidence of this.
BBC Verify has been unable to find specific evidence for the claim - although we don't have access to all the US social security data that Musk has been granted.
"I think they're probably dead… and then there's a whole bunch of social security payments where there's no identifying information," Musk added. …
PAPERWORK STORED DOWN AN OLD MINE SHAFT?
Speaking about government inefficiencies Musk claimed only 10,000 federal employees could retire per month because the paperwork is written down manually and kept in a mine.
He said: "The limiting factor is the speed at which the mine shaft elevator can move determines how many people can retire from the federal government, and the elevator breaks down sometimes, and then nobody can retire."
That same day, Musk's department posted about the mine on X.
"Federal employee retirements are processed using paper, by hand, in an old limestone mine in Pennsylvania. 700+ mine workers operate 230 feet underground to process ~10,000 applications per month, which are stored in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes. The retirement process takes multiple months."
Musk is referring to Iron Mountain, a high security storage facility in Pennsylvania which holds government documents in a former limestone mine.
A 2014 article by The Washington Post reported that the retirement paperwork at the facility was processed "entirely by hand, and almost entirely on paper".
Courtesy of NoMoreBS:
[X]
NEW: Elon Musk says the maximum amount of people who can retire from the federal government in a month is 10,000 because the paperwork is done manually at an old limestone mine in Pennsylvania.
… the mine shaft elevator can move determines how many people can retire from the federal government."
Iron Mountain is a 330,000-square-foot data center more than 200 feet deep. It uses a 35-acre underground reservoir to create a geothermal cooling system.
A report from 2021 reveals how the government tried (and failed) to digitize the process for decades. $106 million later, and failing to do so, the government decided to keep the old process.
"$106 million later, the OPM facility resumed functioning with the processes established back in 1977," STWserve dot com reported.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin:
[ColonelCassad] The main points from the telephone conversation between V. Putin and D. Trump:
- Putin and Trump's conversation lasted almost an hour and a half;
- The parties discussed the Middle East settlement and bilateral relations between Russia and the United States;
- Putin invited Trump to Moscow;
- Putin and Trump agreed in a telephone conversation to organize a personal meeting;
- The Russian leader supported Trump's thesis that the time has come to work together;
- Putin told Trump about the need to eliminate the root causes of the Ukrainian conflict;
- The Russian President agreed with Trump that a long-term settlement in Ukraine can be achieved through negotiations;
- Trump said that he had a "productive conversation" with Putin;
- The American president said that he discussed with Putin, among other things, Ukraine and the Middle East;
- The Middle East and the Iranian nuclear program were discussed in the conversation between Putin and Trump;
- Trump spoke in favor of an early end to hostilities in Ukraine in a conversation with Putin;
- The US President said that he and Putin agreed in a telephone conversation, among other things, to exchange visits;
- Putin and Trump touched upon bilateral relations between the Russian Federation and the United States in the economic sphere;
- Putin and Trump discussed the exchange of Russian and US citizens, Washington guaranteed the fulfillment of the agreements reached;
- The Russian President told Trump about his readiness to receive American officials in the Russian Federation, including on the topic of Ukraine.
In addition:
US Defense Secretary Hesget said that reaching the 2014 borders is unrealistic for Ukraine, as is the issue of Ukraine joining NATO as part of the settlement negotiations.
In fact, this is a move towards the issue of "recognizing the realities on the ground" and the demands of the Russian Federation to stop drawing Ukraine into NATO in principle. This requirement is among the official goals of the CBO.
Hesget also said that the US is not going to deploy any peacekeeping forces in Ukraine and that Europe should do this, while Kiev is screaming that without the US all this is pointless.
But again, these are just words, although the change in rhetoric compared to the Pentagon during Austin's time is obvious.
And one more thing.
The Trump administration is already working on the issue of formalizing in the Ukrainian Constitution the renunciation of the territories that Ukraine will lose as a result of the war. Not only is the actual renunciation of the territories being worked on, but also the formalization of this renunciation in the Ukrainian Constitution. The adoption of these changes is impossible without holding elections in Ukraine. The US is also working on this
US President Donald Trump has announced his intention to hold a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia. This was reported by the CBS News channel.
Trump announced his desire to meet with Putin in Saudi Arabia in a speech in the Oval Office at the White House on February 12.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, the Kremlin's official representative Dmitry Peskov informed about the telephone conversation between Putin and Trump. The parties spoke for about an hour and a half. The presidents agreed to organize a personal meeting.
At the same time, the US authorities are not yet ready to discuss the possibilities and conditions of Trump's visit to Russia. This was stated by White House press secretary Caroline Levitt.
Earlier, Dmitry Peskov reported that the Russian President invited his American counterpart to Moscow.
[JustTheNews] Jury deadlocked on many other charges.
Michael Madigan, the long-serving Illinois House Speaker who in his hey-day rubbed elbows with elites like Barack Obama, was convicted Wednesday on 10 federal charges after a long-running influence peddling trial that exposed corruption and greed inside the state's Democrat establishment.
Madigan stood stoic as the jury rendered a mixed verdict, which included deadlocking on an overarching racketeering conspiracy as well as six counts that Madigan's codefendant, Michael McClain, was jointly charged with. The jury also acquitted the former speaker on seven counts.
Madigan, 82, who also served for years as Illinois Democratic Party chairman, faces years in prison after the conviction, which is likely to be appealed.
He was charged in March 2022 with 23 counts of bribery, racketeering and official misconduct in connection with a scheme involving an electric utility that federal prosecutors dubbed "Madigan enterprise."
Prosecutors alleged in a trial that stretched months that the utility ComEd and AT&T Illinois doled out no-work or little-work jobs and contracts to Madigan loyalists to ensure the passage of beneficial legislation.
Four executives and lobbyists were convicted after a separate trial and Four ComEd itself agreed to pay $200 million in fines as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with prosecutors.
The trial exposed a dark, seedy and corrupt pay-to-play culture inside Illinois' statehouse, which has long been dominated by Democrats and gave rise to national luminaries like Obama.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin.
[ColonelCassad] Against the background of positive news about the likely preservation of Russian military bases in Latakia and Tartus, positive news is coming from Sudan, where the topic of a Russian naval base in Port Sudan has again come to life.
The Sudanese Foreign Ministry reported that Russia and Sudan have agreed on all the parameters of the agreement on the creation of a Russian naval base in Port Sudan. The topic has been discussed for several years, even preliminary agreements were concluded, but then, under pressure from the West, everything fell through and the negotiations continued.
Now, according to statements, the courts have again been able to renegotiate and if there are no breakdowns, then the base in Port Sudan will be. In the long term, this will seriously expand the capabilities of the Russian Federation on the African continent, and also ensure a permanent presence in the area where key trade flows pass.
Sudan and Russia have reached a mutual understanding on an agreement to establish a Russian naval base in the country. This was announced on February 12 following talks in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by the country's Foreign Minister Ali Yousef Sharif.
"The question is quite simple. I have nothing to add. We agreed, we agreed on everything," the head of the foreign policy department noted.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, in November 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the government's proposal to sign an agreement with Sudan to create a logistics support point for the Russian Navy. It is assumed that Russian sailors will use this point to repair ships, replenish supplies and rest.
On April 28, 2021, Al Arabiya reported that Sudan's military leadership had allegedly suspended the agreement with Russia on a naval base in Port Sudan. The Russian embassy in Khartoum called this information unreliable.
In early June 2021, Sudan announced its intention to review the agreement with Russia to establish a military base in the Red Sea. As Sudan's Chief of General Staff Mohammed Usman al-Hussein explained, this agreement was signed under the previous regime of Omar al-Bashir, but it was not ratified by the legislature, as required by the procedure for approving international treaties.
In July 2021, the Sudanese authorities informed the Russian side about the start of the ratification process of the relevant agreement with Moscow.
In February 2023, the Sudanese authorities completed the process of revising this document. According to one of the Sudanese officials, the Russian government "dispelled all the fears" of the republic. However, due to the dissolution of parliament and the internal political crisis in the country, this process was delayed.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] The first Arab leader to meet Donald Trump at the White House since the start of the US president's second term was Jordan's King Abdullah II. The meeting was a major test for the Jordanian monarch.
Trump continued to pressure Abdullah and his government to accept displaced Palestinians from Gaza, take control of the Strip and begin rebuilding it to become a “Middle Eastern Riviera.”
The king was forced to defend the position of his country and even the entire Arab world, to prevent the expulsion of the Palestinians, but at the same time not to spoil relations with the American president. And it seems he succeeded.
At the meeting, Trump confirmed that the US would “take over” and “own” Gaza, and that the Palestinians living there would be relocated elsewhere without the right to return. Arab countries and others have already compared this proposal to ethnic cleansing.
"It's not a difficult task," Trump said on Tuesday. "Because the United States will control this piece of land — this fairly large piece of land — the Middle East will have stability for the first time," the American president noted.
Abdullah II complimented the American president during the talks. For example, he emphasized that a just peace requires US leadership, and President Trump is a man of peace who played a key role in achieving a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Nevertheless, the king made it clear to the American administration that Amman was against the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. He stressed that there was a unified Arab position against displacement and made it clear that the reconstruction of Gaza without displacing its residents should be “a priority for everyone.”
In addition, Abdullah II noted that Jordan does not intend to back down from its demands for the creation of a Palestinian state, and a fair peace based on a two-state solution is the only way to achieve stability in the region. Thus, he disavowed Trump's assertion that the transfer of Gaza under American control would allegedly solve all the problems of the Middle East.
According to Abdullah, Jordan's interests, its stability and the protection of Jordanians are above all else for him. And this statement, which seems trivial for any head of state, is especially important in the context of Trump's plans.
In Jordan, Palestinian refugees make up a quarter of the country's population, but overall, Jordanians of Palestinian descent make up more than half of the kingdom's residents. For example, Queen Rania is also a Jordanian Palestinian.
At one time, the Palestinians even tried to overthrow the current king's father during the events known as "Black September." Then the army and the only legal political party in the country at that time, the Muslim Brotherhood*, were able to save King Hussein by joining forces with the military.
In September 1970, at a critical time during the Palestinian PLO uprising in Amman, when the survival of the Jordanian state was at stake, the Muslim Brotherhood* took up arms in support of the ruling house and managed to bring its supporters onto the streets.
But now the conditions have changed: instead of the secular Palestinian organizations that the Muslim Brotherhood opposed, the most influential Palestinian organization is the Muslim Brotherhood's* ally, the Islamic movement Hamas.
Against the backdrop of events in Gaza and the growing popularity of Hamas, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood* has already won the parliamentary elections in September 2024. Therefore, Abdullah II’s agreement with Trump’s plan now will look like complicity in a “second Nakba.” And this means raising almost the entire Jordanian street against the king and provoking a new “Arab Spring.”
In recent days, Jordan has seen constant demonstrations against the "displacement", and Muslim Brotherhood* members of parliament are already proposing to pass the "Bill for the Prevention of Displacement of Palestinians".
“I think we have to remember that Egypt and the Arab countries have a plan,” Abdullah said when President Trump asked him to speak. “[Crown Prince] Mohammed bin Salman is inviting us to talks in Riyadh. I think the point is how do we make this work in a way that is good for everyone,” the Jordanian king continued.
Indeed, Saudi Arabia is keen to have such an exchange, as Trump's plan already threatens to make relations between Riyadh and Washington even more difficult than they were under Biden, which was then thought to be at its lowest point since the 1970s.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may already be regretting his bet on Trump's return, refusing to deal with the previous administration in the hope of constructive dialogue with the new American leadership.
When Trump revealed his plan to “own and control Gaza” after expelling the Palestinians, he went further and made it clear that the bill for the “cleanup” operation would not be paid by the Americans, but by the Gulf states, by which he meant primarily Saudi Arabia.
This finally threw Riyadh off its emotional balance, as the Saudis had previously tried not to take Trump's statements to heart that the kingdom "must" invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US to maintain good relations. And this figure was brought up to 1 trillion in the American leader's subsequent statements.
Trump, however, boasted on February 5 that Saudi Arabia would normalize relations with Israel without a Palestinian state, presenting it as his own victory in changing the kingdom's viewpoint. And that was Riyadh's main condition.
It took the Saudis just 45 minutes to respond with what they called a “morning statement” that left little room for maneuver. Specifically, it noted that Saudi Arabia would continue its efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem and would not establish relations with Israel unless that demand was met.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added fuel to the fire when he told Channel 14 that the Saudis could create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia: “They have a lot of land there.” This sparked a fresh wave of condemnation of both Israel and Trump’s plans from the Arab world, including Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait and even the UAE.
The UAE Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it "categorically rejects any attacks on the inalienable rights of Palestinians and any attempts to transfer them" to other countries.
Saudi Arabia responded even more harshly, calling the Israeli leadership’s mentality “extremist and occupational,” and the connection of the “brotherly Palestinian people to the Palestinian land” as undeniable. It emphasized that Palestinians have a right to their land and “are not criminals or immigrants who can be expelled whenever the brutal Israeli occupation so desires.”
The meeting between Abdullah and Trump comes as the recent ceasefire in Gaza is in danger of collapsing. Israel has already threatened to resume bombing and attacks on Gaza on Saturday unless Hamas releases all prisoners.
Trump also threatened Hamas leaders that if they did not release the remaining Israeli prisoners held in the enclave by Saturday, he would support a new Israeli operation.
"I personally don't think they're going to make it on time," Trump said. " They want to play tough guys. We'll see how tough they are." He added that he would not accept a slower prisoner exchange: "Either they release them by 12 o'clock Saturday or all bets are off."
As Igor Subbotin, an international observer and Middle East specialist, told Regnum, Washington has begun to advance its plans for the future of Gaza without due consideration and in extreme haste, doing nothing to begin the second stage of the humanitarian deal between Israel and Hamas. The need for appropriate negotiations on this issue has remained somewhere on the periphery of general discussions.
According to the analyst, the US essentially demonstrated that the extradition of the remaining prisoners to Israel should happen on its own, while the problem of extending the ceasefire in Gaza lies precisely in Trump's plans to evict the Palestinians from the sector, which convinced Hamas that they simply wanted to raze them to the ground after the deal was implemented. In turn, as the expert notes, there were also enough reasons for Hamas to refuse to resume the prisoner exchange process.
Subbotin believes that by demanding that Israel fulfill the terms of the deal in exchange for continued prisoner transfers, Hamas decided to retain its levers of control over the political process.
Recall that Hamas accused Israel of continuing shelling and preventing the return of refugees to the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Also, according to the movement, the delivery of agreed humanitarian aid is being blocked. In connection with this, Hamas decided to postpone the transfer of prisoners who were supposed to be released on Saturday, February 15, until the Israelis fulfill their obligations.
Thus, the Arab summit on Gaza, scheduled for February 27, which was initiated by Egypt in response to Trump's proposals and at which an alternative plan for the reconstruction of Gaza is to be announced, is in question. Now everything depends on whether the ceasefire in Gaza can be maintained or whether the parties will again enter into armed confrontation, worsening the humanitarian crisis.
***
It is clear that Trump’s hasty and premature steps were poorly thought out and could lead the Middle East into a new crisis. The US President has returned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the center of international discourse, and now, in the event of a renewed war in Gaza, Hamas will have a serious psychological advantage and support from Arab countries.
Other narratives will prevail, centered not on the humanitarian catastrophe, but on the resilience of the Palestinians, who in the latest round of confrontation are fighting not only Israel, but also the United States. Trump has done everything to ensure that no one has any doubts that Washington is complicit in the actions of the Israeli army against the Palestinians.
And, as Israeli experts themselves note, Trump has already contributed to the formation of a new sense of Arab unity – not only to protect the Palestinians, but also, first and foremost, to protect Arab states from the conflict spilling over into their territory.
#6
Qatar is the sponsor of Hamas. Relocate the Gazans to Qatar. You can't blame Jordan for not wanting them. They already caused trouble for Jordan the last time they were there.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Sergey Adamov
[REGNUM] Governments of several European countries have announced the start of a program to re-equip their armed forces with modern technology. After decades of gradual demilitarization, European states are once again investing in the development of the military industry and allocating budgets for the purchase of weapons in third countries.
Poland was the first to take the course of rearmament. In 2023, Warsaw launched a large-scale program of purchases for the army, designed for ten years. By the end of 2024, Poland's defense spending amounted to $40 billion, and the cost of the entire rearmament program grew to $110 billion.
The increase in military spending in the country is predictably explained by the “threat from the East” and the growing tension in the region due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
At the same time, the “rearmama race” is affecting more and more European countries, which, it would seem, have no reason to worry about their own security.
Thus, the Italian government followed in Poland's footsteps by launching a program to re-equip its ground forces. The Italian armed forces will receive 380 German KF51 Panther tanks, more than 1,050 KF41 Lynx infantry fighting vehicles and AW249 attack helicopters.
The “strongest land army of the EU” is also keeping up with the trends: the French government has announced the launch of a program to equip the army with highly mobile military equipment. As part of the SCORPION program, the French army will receive 100 Leclerc tanks, upgraded to the Leclerc XLR level, and 530 Serval armored vehicles. The contract is valued at more than a billion euros. The delivery of the vehicles is planned for 2025–2030.
THERE IS NO HOPE FOR THE USA
The reasons why Europe began to spend more on the "military" are easy to explain. The EU countries were unable to support the conflict in Ukraine without the participation of the United States, even straining all available capacities.
Therefore, investments in the military-industrial complex and the modernization of the armed forces are intended primarily to increase the defense capability of the countries of the continent, military expert Konstantin Romanenko noted in a conversation with the Regnum news agency.
“In recent decades, European countries have been cutting their military budgets, and Cold War-era divisions are being cut down to the size of brigades or even regiments, and even then, at an incomplete strength.
The armies of a number of countries have completely abandoned armored vehicles and heavy artillery, and the entire European military-industrial complex has proven incapable of producing 100,000 artillery shells per year. Therefore, Europe is now revising its priorities," the expert says.
Previously, European countries were confident that they did not need to strengthen their own armed forces, since there was the United States, which would come to the rescue if necessary. Now, however, it seems that the EU has lost faith in its overseas partner and can only rely on its own forces.
BETWEEN TWO FIRES
The return to power of the Donald Trump administration in the United States has stirred up Europe. Before he had even had time to settle into the Oval Office, the new-old president made claims against Denmark, demanding that the territory of Greenland be “given to the United States.”
At the same time, Trump did not rule out a military solution to the situation. In turn, Denmark discussed the possibility of sending a contingent of the French Armed Forces to Greenland.
And while it is unlikely that the US will actually decide on a direct military confrontation with its European partners, it is clear that relations between Washington and the EU will continue to change in the coming years.
In particular, the new American administration demands that Europeans increase their spending on NATO financing to 5% of GDP. Trump threatens to impose penalties on countries that fail to reach this figure: in the event of a military conflict, Article 5 of the collective defense treaty will not apply to them.
At the same time, according to Reuters, NATO countries will not support Trump's proposal to increase military spending. Instead, EU countries plan to increase spending on maintaining their own security. In particular, France - from 2 to 5% of GDP by 2030, said President Emmanuel Macron.
Europe is now effectively caught between two fires: the growing military power of Russia and the desire of the United States to dictate terms to partners from a position of strength. In the current circumstances, the countries of the continent increasingly need a developed military-industrial complex and strong armed forces.
"Of course, there is no talk of dismantling NATO. But in recent years, differences between Washington and Brussels on key issues have become increasingly apparent. As an example, the recent meeting in the Rammstein format, where Great Britain took over the presidency instead of the United States. Europe does not plan to fight with the United States, but is preparing for confrontation," expert Romanenko is sure.
It can be said that Europe is returning to the situation of the "pre-war era" (before World War II), when the US army was not yet the dominant force on the continent. The new "Entente" is uniting under the slogan of fighting the conventional "East" in the person of Russia, but at the same time it is looking warily at the West, from which anything can be expected.
"UNITED FRONT IN A POTENTIAL WAR"
Military expert Alexander Artamonov holds a different opinion. According to him, despite the concerns of Europeans, it seems unlikely that the US would completely abandon its obligations to its NATO partners, since this could lead to negative consequences for Washington.
If the US refuses to honour its obligations under the collective defence treaty, the EU will ask itself: why tolerate an American military presence at all? In many ways, it is the presence of military bases in Europe that makes America a world-class power. There are a total of about a hundred American bases on EU territory, playing a key role in the American concept of global security.
Therefore, the Trump administration’s threats against Europe should be viewed more as an attempt to put pressure on “respected partners” and force them to follow Washington’s policies, Artamonov believes.
"It is important for Trump to turn the Europeans from some kind of amphora structure into a military instrument of the United States. This is not connected with the US leaving - on the contrary. In 2025, the Pentagon budget will be about a trillion dollars: they are increasing defense spending and demanding the same from the Europeans. So the rearmament of Europe is a sign that the Western world is preparing for war," says the interlocutor of IA Regnum.
In a potential war, the EU countries will have to act as a united front, which is why the European military-industrial complex is being integrated into a single whole, the expert adds.
He also cites examples of joint military activity on the continent. This includes the development of the Franco-German Tiger attack helicopter, the rearmament of the French Armed Forces with small arms from the German concern Heckler & Koch HK416, and a number of other programs.
At the same time, the US is not leaving the European defense industry. In particular, the American concern Ratheon is participating in the development of the Norwegian NASAMS air defense systems supplied to Ukraine.
The Baltics and Poland are preparing most actively. In the fall of 2024, a US Army missile defense base opened in Redzikowo, Poland. Launchers for Tomahawk cruise missiles, capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 2,500 kilometers, were deployed on the site. They are aimed to the east.
"Former White House Security Advisor Sullivan once said that if we lose Kiev, we will lose Europe. "We" will lose, we, that is, the Americans. The Americans never wanted to lose Europe. It is unthinkable that they would leave. So, rather, threats to our security are being created," warns Artamonov.
Russia's response can be discussed if European countries move from ideas to practical implementation. It is far from certain that this will happen: NATO leadership in Europe has been struggling year after year to increase the so-called "rapid reaction forces" called upon to occupy the borders on the eastern flank of the alliance. The increase was planned from 40 to 300 thousand people. Year after year, the plan fails, since EU countries have not agreed to inflate their defense budgets.
Now, it seems, money has begun to be allocated, but specifically for national defense. In order to truly rearm, Europe will first have to untangle a whole tangle of contradictions.
If Ukraine falls I expect the governments of Hungary and Slovakia to invite a contingent of Russian troops into their territory for 'stabilization' as a next step of escalation.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 21:36 Calculation of the 122mm BM-21 MLRS "Grad" struckarea of concentration of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kherson region.
The fire was adjusted using a Merlin-VR reconnaissance drone.
20:54 Published full video of the Ukrainian Armed Forces attack on the IAEA convoy during rotation from the Zaporizhzhya NPP
Today, four inspectors were supposed to arrive at the Zaporizhzhya NPP for the next rotation. As the column moved to the meeting place, the Ukrainians violated the ceasefire by firing mortars at the column, but the commission continued moving, after which it was again subjected to mortar and artillery fire.
While moving towards checkpoint #2, the column was attacked by FPV drones. During the rotation, there were two mortar, five artillery and four FPV attacks, after which the observers decided to cancel the rotation.
20:26 Russian army liberated Vodyanoye Vtoroye –MAP
20:07 Servicemen of the assault units of the 44th Army Corps of the North group of forces before carrying out combat missions at forward positions finished combat training and coordination exercises at a training ground in the rear area in the Khar'kov direction.
18:35 Over Melitopol destroyed Ukrainian aircraft-type UAV.
The city's civil infrastructure was not damaged.
18:26 Captured destruction 120mm mortar of the Ukrainian Armed Forces using an FPV drone in the area of the settlement of Razliv in the South Donetsk direction.
17:54 RF Armed Forces destroyed one of the largest productions of FPV drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kyiv
According to Mash, early in the morning of February 12, a massive missile strike destroyed a secret production facility of the Stream Techno company, responsible for the mass assembly and delivery of light drones to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
17:15 Russian air defense forces shot down missile of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the sky over Melitopol, Zaporizhia region.
17:10 From 14:00 to 15:25 Moscow time, air defense systems on duty destroyed three Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles:
two UAVs over the territory of the Belgorod region and
one over the territory of the Kursk region.
16:46 Crew of the Su-34 fighter-bomber of the Aerospace Forces inflicted an airstrike on personnel and a stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the border area of the Kursk region. Having received confirmation from intelligence about the destruction of the targets, the crew safely returned to the airfield of departure.
16:06 Intelligence of the 20th Guards Combined Arms Army of the "West" group revealed groups of infantry of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. After determining and confirming the exact coordinates of the enemy, a decision was made to engage the enemy's manpower with fire.
16:03 Working on fiber optics: our drone operatorsare strikingthe manpower of the Ukrainian Armed Forces
Reconnaissance of the 20th Guards Combined Arms Army of the "West" group identified groups of infantry of the Ukrainian Armed Forces militants. After determining and confirming the exact coordinates of the enemy, a decision was made to fire on the enemy's manpower.
The detected targets were quickly destroyed by FPV drone crews.
15:23 Andreevka on the Kurakhovsky direction liberated
It is reported that cleanup and consolidation is already underway.
14:59 From 12:40 to 13:15 Moscow time by air defense systems on duty destroyed two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the territory of the Belgorod region.
14:47 Our units control most of Sverdlikovo (Kursk region) –MAP
14:29 In the Kursk border area, an FPV operator of the "Alabai" detachment of the "Sever" group discovered moving armored vehicles with Ukrainian fascists. The target was quickly hit by a kamikaze drone.
As a result of the detonation of ammunition in the armored car, all the occupiers were burned alive.
14:28 The Ukrainian Armed Forces drone carried outhitby car in the village of Mokraya Orlovka in the Belgorod region, - Governor Gladkov.
A woman died as a result of the impact.
14:08 Crews of 152mm 2S19self-propelled howitzers "Msta-S" of the combined arms army of the "West" group of forces destroyed M-777 howitzer, radar station, armored vehicles and Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel in the special military operation zone.
14:06 Russian Armed Forces drone operators continue to hit enemy positions and manpower in the Zaporizhzhya direction
13:31 Around 12:10 Moscow time by air defense systems on duty destroyed Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle over the territory of the Belgorod region.
12:58 Most of Sverdlikovo in the Kursk region is under our control.
12:47 In Chernigov region after the strike of the Russian Armed Forces a critical infrastructure facility is on fire.
12:04 This morning the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation inflicted group missile strike on workshops of Ukrainian military-industrial complex enterprises producing unmanned aerial vehicles and FPV drones. The strike targets were achieved, all planned objects were hit.
12:03 Rocket hit in the area of concentration of manpower of the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the settlement of Nikolsky in the Kursk direction.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces units are located on the territory of the Miratorg pig farm.
11:36 Around 10:10 Moscow time by air defense systems on duty destroyed two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the territory of the Belgorod region.
11:32 Pokrovskoe (Krasnoarmeyskoe) direction. Left flank
Units of the Group of Forces "Center" endured attempts by the enemy to break through in the direction of the southern outskirts of Kotlino, in Zverevo and Peschanoye.
Attempts to break through in Peschanoye have been thwarted, equipment has been destroyed.
In the area of the south-eastern outskirts of Kotlino, our units are attacking, restoring the situation.
In Udachny, the eastern part is behind us, the fighting is going on in the area of ??the center and the station. Attacks are being made on the enemy reserves at Mine No. 1 and Molodetsky.
The offensive continues in the eastern part of Novosergeevka.
11:36 At about 10:10 Moscow time, air defense systems on duty destroyed two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the territory of the Belgorod region.
11:09 The Russian Armed Forces continue to actively attack to the west of Velikaya Novoselka
In Andreyevka, in the Kurakhovsky direction, Russian troops occupied the street leading to the western outskirts. They also advanced in neighboring Shevchenko and Dachnoye.
Near Pokrovsk, the Russian army advanced to Kotlino.
11:07 FPV drone calculations at Rubicon Center destroyed Ukrainian Armed Forces communication station in the Pokrovsk direction.
10:34 In the Obukhov district near Kyiv, a large-scale fire after arrival
According to local authorities, “non-residential premises” are on fire.
10:06 122mm BM-21 Grad MLRS crew of the Center group of forces hit at the Ukrainian Armed Forces stronghold.
"Our birds saw a cluster of personnel there. We had to work on them within two minutes before they boarded the equipment and made a rotation. We worked quickly and hit the target," said combat vehicle commander Pavel Panov.
09:56 Russian Armed Forces doubled increased intensity of strikes on Ukrainian Armed Forces stationed near Lisichansk in the LPR
On average, Russian military personnel carry out about 300 fire missions in this section of the front.
09:54 In the Khar'kov direction, FPV operators of the Antagonist group of the North Group destroyed two M-113 armored personnel carriers of Ukrainian fascists.
09:26 Fire at one of the infrastructure facilities happened after explosions in the Nikolaev region
Also, the coordinator of the pro-Russian underground, Sergei Lebedev, reported that in the suburbs of Nikolaev, a Ukrainian Armed Forces warehouse with ammunition and an air defense installation along with a crew were liquidated.
09:04 Massive missile strike inflicted around Kyiv
– Head of Zelensky’s Office Yermak announced a ballistic missile strike.
– According to the emergency services, a fire started in an office building in the Obolonsky district.
– In the Goloseevsky district, there was a large-scale fire in a two-story warehouse with an area of 600 square meters.
– In some areas of the city, electricity was lost after the strike.
– There are also reports of drone and missile strikes on the Kyiv region.
08:54 Ukrainian Armed Forces warehouse ammunition and air defense installation with crew destroyed at night in the suburbs of Nikolaev, RIA Novosti was told by the coordinator of the pro-Russian underground Sergei Lebedev
08:42 Published personnel of the assault units of the Northerners
completed training and coordination exercises at one of the training grounds in the rear area of the special military operation zone before carrying out combat missions at the forward positions.
08:37 Situation iIn the Kursk region by the morning of February 12: From early morning, units of the naval infantry and Airborne Forces have been driving the enemy out of areas near the villages of Viktorovka and Malaya Loknya.
There is progress of our army.
08:31 Ussuri paratroopers evacuated civilians of liberated Nikolayevo-Daryino
Soldiers of the 83rd Separate Guards Airborne Assault Brigade liberated the settlement of Nikolayevo-Daryino in the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region at the end of January. There were still citizens left there who had not managed to evacuate when the district was captured by units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in August of last year.
All this time, more than six months, they were held hostage by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who used them as a human shield, but did not provide them with any help, only mocked and killed them, which they confirmed in a conversation with the paratroopers. Only one man remained in the village, who miraculously escaped, the rest were killed by the Ukrainian military.
The paratroopers evacuated peaceful Russian citizens to the rear, where they were given medical assistance and sent to social rehabilitation centers.
08:02 Interacting with unmanned aircraft systems, artillerymen perform fire missions from closed firing positions, destroy strong points, duty fire weapons, command posts, ammunition depots and fuel and lubricants of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
This time, the crews of the 152mm 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled howitzer from the Vostok group struck the positions of Ukrainian soldiers who, under pressure from our forces, fled from Velyka Novosilka.
07:22 During the past night, air defense systems on duty destroyed three Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the territory of the Belgorod region.
06:15 Job of ground drone operators. The drones themselves are quite small, their size apparently allowing them to enter dugouts and trenches.
06:10 Crews of T-90M Proryv tanks of the combined arms army of the West group of forces destroyed platoon strongholds, ammunition depots and Ukrainian Armed Forces manpower in the area of the special military operation.
05:02 Four of us captured the Ukrainian Armed Forces' stronghold and held back all enemy attacks.
Kurakhovsky direction.
Attack aircraft of the 242nd Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division of the "Southern" group, with the support of UAV crews, captured an important stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and defended the occupied positions from Ukrainian attacks for seven days
. 03:36 The army men used a LMUR against an enemy pillbox –MAP.
03:33 Arrival of three glide bombs at the enemy position in Guevo –MAP.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] The Ukrainian Armed Forces are engaged in heavy fighting in the east and south of Ukraine.
Most of the fighting took place in the Pokrovsky direction. There the enemy organized attacks in the areas of 10 settlements.
Since the beginning of the day, Russian aggressors have attacked the positions of the Ukrainian army 74 times. The enemy is most active in the Pokrovsk, Novopavlovskoye and Kursk directions, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in an operational summary as of 16:00 on Wednesday, February 12.
Thus, in the Kupyansk direction, the enemy carried out five assaults near the settlements of Kondrashovka, Petrovpavlovka, Novosyolka, Peschanoye and Zagryzovo. Three combat clashes are still ongoing.
In the Liman direction, enemy units attacked in the areas of Kopanka, Novomikhaylovka, Novolyubovka, Yampolovka and Kolodezi. Our soldiers have already repelled four enemy attacks. Another clash is currently ongoing.
In the Seversky direction, two armed clashes were recorded in the Belogorovka area. One battle is still ongoing.
In the Kramatorsk direction, three armed clashes continue in the areas of Chasovy Yar and Vasyukovka.
There were eight enemy attacks in the Toretsk direction . The enemy was active in the areas of Toretsk and Shcherbinovka. Three combat clashes are ongoing.
The hottest part is in the Pokrovsky direction : 22 attacks in the areas of the settlements of Vodyanoye Vtoroye, Elizavetovka, Promin, Zverevo, Nadievka, Uspenovka, Andreyevka, Aleksandrovka, Dachnoye and Shevchenko. The defense forces repelled 17 assaults. Five clashes are still ongoing.
In the Novopavlovsk direction, the invaders launched an offensive 11 times near the settlements of Konstantinopol, Burlatskoe and Rivnepol. Four clashes are still ongoing.
In the Gulyai-Polye direction, one enemy attack was repelled in the Kamenskoye area.
In Kursk region our defenders repelled six attacks, and five more clashes are still ongoing.
Let us recall that in the course of 24 hours on February 11, Russia lost more than 1,100 soldiers at the front . The total losses of the aggressor country are approaching 860 thousand people.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 21:40 Today's meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine's Defense in the Rammstein format was successful and confirmed the partners' readiness to continue supporting Ukraine. This was reported by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Rustem Umerov.
"Security assistance will continue. Air defense, interceptors, artillery, ammunition, armored vehicles were a priority, they received very strong assistance packages. We heard from everyone present that they will continue this assistance - this year and in the coming years," he said.
19.55 Ten Patriot missiles worth $30 million were used to shoot down six Russian ballistic missiles at night, President Volodymyr Zelensky reported.
"We used six ballistic missiles each, 10 Patriots worth 30 million dollars," said the head of the Ukrainian state.
18.52 In 2024, Ukraine mobilized 30,000 people into the army every month, and this was the largest mobilization. This was stated by President Volodymyr Zelensky in an interview with The Economist .
18.13 Western allies have exceeded the decision of the NATO summit in Washington to provide Ukraine with military aid worth 40 billion euros in 2024. This was stated by the Secretary General of the Alliance Mark Rutte at a press conference in Brussels.
17:40 The Federal Supreme Court of Germany has for the first time approved the extradition of a Ukrainian citizen who tried to avoid it because of his unwillingness to serve in the Ukrainian Armed Forces due to his personal convictions.
The man said he did not want to kill people and refused conscription on grounds of conscience. The judges noted that conscientious objection does not prevent extradition in the event of an attack on a state in violation of international law.
17:18 The UK has announced the provision of another package of defence aid to Ukraine, which will include tanks, artillery, missiles and other types of weapons, as well as contracts for the maintenance of previously transferred equipment. This was reported by British Defence Secretary John Gilli in his opening remarks at the 26th meeting of the Contact Group.
16.03 Ukrainian teenagers have become targets for Russian propaganda, which is actively trying to "suck" them into a hostile culture through media products such as TV series and songs. This was stated by the head of the Center for Countering Propaganda under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Andriy Kovalenko, in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
15.39 A volunteer from Switzerland has died in the war in Ukraine for the first time since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Swiss Info reports , citing the country's Foreign Ministry.
"At the beginning of the year, the Swiss embassy in Kyiv received information from the Ukrainian army that a Swiss citizen had apparently died during the fighting," the department said.
Details of the Swiss man's death have not been disclosed. It is not known in which unit the soldier served and where he fought.
15:33 The Security Service of Ukraine has exposed a traitor in its ranks who worked for the FSB and has stopped the activities of the Russian special services' agent network. It turned out to be one of the officials of the SBU Anti-Terrorist Center - the head of the ATC Headquarters. This was reported by the SBU press service on Tuesday, February 12.
14.37 As a result of a Russian missile strike on the morning of February 12, the offices of the Ukrainian foreign broadcasting channels FreeDom and Dom were damaged in Kiev. This was reported by Detector Media with reference to the press service of the Multimedia Platform for Foreign Broadcasting. Dozens of windows were knocked out by the shock wave in the FreeDom office, and the company's production facilities and cars were damaged. The offices of the international editorial office of foreign broadcasting - UATV English, The Gaze, UATV Español, UATVArabic and the digital editorial office were also damaged.
14.14 Russia will not exchange territories with Ukraine. This was stated by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, commenting on yesterday's statement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about his readiness to discuss the exchange of Ukrainian Armed Forces-controlled territory in the Kursk region for occupied Ukrainian territories.
13:57 In Zhitomir, law enforcement officers detained an 18-year-old student who set fire to a serviceman's car for a fee. This was reported by the Main Directorate of the National Police in Zhitomir Oblast.
13:54 In Kharkiv, a man attacked a TCC employee, wounding him with a knife. This was reported by the Kharkiv Regional TCC and SP. Additional police crews and ambulances arrived at the scene. The attacker was detained.
12:58 Cyber specialists of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense attacked the infrastructure of the main contractor of the Russian Gazprom, the Gazstroyprom company, which is involved in supporting Russian aggression against Ukraine. This was reported by RBC-Ukraine with reference to a source. The work of all systems and services has been stopped . The damage caused to companies fueling the genocidal war against Ukraine could amount to tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.
12:29 The SBU has exposed a spy who was adjusting the strikes of Russian troops on the defenders of Pokrovsk. The agent turned out to be a repeat offender recruited in a penal colony. This was reported by the SBU press service on Wednesday, February 12.
12:19 In the updated version of the Reserve+ application, you can apply for a voluntary annual contract Contract 18-24. This was reported by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. The update is already available for iOS and Android. You can apply for Contract 18-24 in one click. Also in the updated application, you can find vacancies, read the terms of service and the list of brigades to choose for signing Contract 18-24.
11:41 The Verkhovna Rada supported in principle and in general draft law No. 12457 on extending the period for passing the military medical commission for citizens with limited fitness for service by four months - until June 5 of this year.
11:23 In the Russian Federation, the absolute majority of residents support the war against Ukraine and believe in victory. At the same time, more than half want peace talks with the participation of mediators. Such data follow from the results of a survey by the independent Levada Center. It is noted that in January 2025, 78% of Russian residents approve of the invasion. 15% of respondents do not support the war. Also in January 2025, the maximum share of respondents was recorded who believe that peace talks should be started now - 61%, while 31% of respondents spoke of the need to continue military action (the lowest figures for the entire observation period).
9:50 Russian troops launched a missile attack on Krivoy Rog late in the evening of February 11. The attack damaged buildings, gas stations and cars. This was reported by the head of the Dnipropetrovsk OVA Serhiy Lysak.
9:22 Ukrainian Defense Forces shot down six Russian Iskander-M ballistic missiles and 71 drones. This was reported by the Ukrainian Air Force. 40 enemy drone imitators were lost (without negative consequences). The attack affected Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk (Krivoy Rog), Sumy, Poltava and Chernihiv regions.
8:47 Over the past 24 hours, aviation, missile forces and artillery of the Defense Forces hit 10 areas of concentration of personnel, weapons and military equipment, six artillery systems, two air defense systems, one radar station and three UAV control points of the Russian invaders. This was reported on February 12 by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
8:34 On the night of February 12, air defense forces destroyed two Shahed 131/136 UAVs in the Mykolaiv region. A fire broke out at one of the infrastructure facilities as a result of falling debris from downed Russian drones. This was reported by the regional state administration. It is noted that the blast wave damaged warehouses. There were no casualties. The fire was extinguished.
8:06 In the Obolonsky district of Kyiv, as a result of a Russian missile strike on the morning of February 12, one person was killed and four were injured, including a child. This was reported by the State Emergency Service. Rescuers have extinguished a fire in a partially destroyed office building.
7:40 Over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian troops have destroyed 1,150 Russian occupiers and more than 370 units of Russian weapons and military equipment. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported this on February 12 .
05:59 At least one person was killed in a Russian missile strike on Kiev on the night of February 12. In addition, two more were injured, including a child. This was reported by Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko
4:34 A series of explosions were heard in Kiev on the night of Wednesday, February 12. The military simultaneously announced the threat of using ballistic weapons. This was reported by the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on its Telegram channel.
03:58 The Russian ruling regime is trying to limit information about the situation in the Kursk region in order to avoid an exchange of territories during potential peace talks. This was stated by analysts at the Institute for the Study of War.
00:31 Representatives of the ruling regime of the Russian Federation responded to the words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about a possible exchange of Russian territories for Ukrainian ones during the negotiations. In particular, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova made a statement on her Telegram channel.
[Turley.org] Kill it. Kill it now.
Despite a plethora of challenges, the Trump Administration is pushing ahead with its top-to-bottom review of government spending. It has already halted billions in what it views as wasteful spending. It now looks like one of the most wasteful, runaway public works projects in the country could be on the chopping block: California’s high-speed rail project. The project to build a bullet train from Los Angeles to Sacramento is an outrageous example of a public work that lacked any fiscal responsibility or oversight from the state government. Nevertheless, Democrats continue to push for billions more from the federal government as well as California taxpayers.
There is currently $4.3 billion in unspent federal funds for California’s high-speed rail project, and Trump should seek to claw back the money in light of the gross negligence shown by the California authorities.
The project was initially approved in 2008 with the support of Gov. Jerry Brown (D) as an environmental and technological advance for the state. It proved a costly bait-and-switch.
Voters approved a $9.95 billion bond issue in 2008 after absurdly low estimates of the projected cost. Influential figures and companies stood to make a fortune, and the key was to get a "buy-in" worth billions so that it would be more and more difficult to abandon the project as overruns and delays sent the costs soaring.
Now the official estimate of future ridership has dropped by 25% and it demands billions more to complete a project that would be delayed by decades to complete. Remember that this entire project was meant to create a rail line of only 171 miles. It is projected at over $128 billion and could ultimately come in a billion dollars a mile. There are still uncompleted environmental assessments and challenging rail lines through the mountains.
In his first term, Trump criticized the project and withheld a billion dollars in federal aid. However, when President Joe Biden came into office, he opened the federal coffers and approved billions more despite well-documented mismanagement and dubious spending.
Trump is now pledging an investigation, which is long overdue. There is ample reason to suspect fraud and other possible violations in this multi-billion dollar boondoggle.
Indeed, this week, the inspector general, Benjamin Belnap, issued a scathing report on the first phase of still uncompleted project. That is only the stretch from Merced to Bakersfield which was supposed to be completed by 2033. Belnap wrote:
"With a smaller remaining schedule envelope and the potential for significant uncertainty and risk during subsequent phases of the project, staying within the 2033 schedule envelope is unlikely. In fact, uncertainty about some parts of the project has increased as the authority has recently made decisions that deviated from the procurement and funding strategies that were part of its plans for staying on schedule."
The Merced-Bakersfield line alone would now cost $35.3 billion, more than the 2008 projection for a complete system.
California Democrats have continued to throw money at the project without making meaningful changes on the overruns and delays. There is currently only $28.7 billion in state bonds left.
The inefficiency of the project has been raised for years. Even if completed, the system would reduce auto travel by 10 million miles a day in a state where citizens drive a billion miles a day. As noted by Cal Matters, "A 10 million-mile reduction would ostensibly cut emissions by scarcely 1%." It added:
Logically, spending emission auction money on more direct carbon reduction programs, such as reducing emission-spewing wildfires, would make more sense.
The current estimate for linking San Francisco with Southern California is $107 billion. Officials don’t even know how to fully finance Merced-Bakersfield, much less raise the other $72.4 billion they would need.
Both a federal investigation and a cessation of funding are long overdue. It is time to bite the bullet. California has every right to spend over $100 billion during budget deficits, but the rest of the country should not subsidize it
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11156 views]
Top|| File under: Commies
#1
I lived in California when the project was proposed. I voted against it because I thought that it would not achieve much, cost way more than estimated and be unsafe. The actual execution of the project was much worse than what I anticipated.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/13/2025 12:19
Comments ||
Top||
#2
scam /skăm/
noun
A fraudulent business scheme; a swindle.
Fraudulent deal.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/13/2025 12:22
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Good for you, Super Hose. I voted for it. Civilized nations with honest governments have trains. They are the ideal alternative to putting all that wear and tear on your own car. But Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom and all their friends are crooks. I got scammed. I got swindled. I should have known better.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/13/2025 12:27
Comments ||
Top||
#4
Engineering Firms and Contractors/Unions that got work on it were all for it for obvious reasons. I knew the promises (costs, private funding, ridership) were all Bullshit. Voted against it
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2025 12:36
Comments ||
Top||
#5
That's what I get for trusting Democrats. Never again.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/13/2025 13:18
Comments ||
Top||
#6
We voted against it, and knew it would be the stinking boondoggle it turned out to be, just like the Water Projects. CA is a paradise ruled/ruined by scheming kleptocrats and race-baiting morons.
[NEWARAB] 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.... gang attacked military bases in Somalia's northeastern Puntland ...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion... state overnight with suicide car and cycle of violence bombs, but government forces repelled the assault, and Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s killed 70, a military official said on Tuesday.
Puntland announced a major offensive against Islamic State and a rival Islamist group, the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab ... the personification of Somali state failure... , in December and claims to have since killed dozens of imported muscle, captured several IS bases, and forced a senior commander to surrender.
"Puntland's anti-terrorist forces knew the information and so foiled and rubbed out the jacket wallahs who were on foot, on bikes and cars," Mohamud Fadhigo, a Puntland military spokesperson, told Rooters.
The United Arab Emirates and other Gulf nations have been supporting the training of Somalia's armed forces in recent years.
"With the help of UAE air strikes, we also defeated the IS infantry. We killed about 70 Death Eaters," Fadhigo said.
He said Puntland forces had also suffered casualties in the overnight attack but declined to give a figure.
The Islamic State faction in Somalia has become an increasingly important part of its parent organization's worldwide network in recent years and was the target of US airstrikes earlier this month.
Somalia's state news agency reported on Tuesday that security forces had repelled attacks on military positions in the Hagaaro and Togo-Jecel areas of Puntland's Cal Miskaad mountains.
With an estimated 700 to 1,500 fighters, Islamic State's Somalia wing has grown in recent years thanks to an influx of imported muscle and increasing revenues.
But it is still much smaller than al-Shabaab, which controls large parts of southern and central Somalia.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11143 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[NEWARAB] Syria's new government plans to put on trial hundreds of pro-Assad Algerian soldiers and Polisario Front fighters captured in Aleppo, rebuffing Algeria's calls for their release, French media outlet Monte Carlo Doualiya (MCD) reported.
When Algeria's Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf landed in Damascus last week, he carried an urgent request: the release of Algerian military personnel and Algeria-backed Polisario fighters captured in northern Syria during the final days of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... 's totalitarian rule.
Syria's interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa's response was "no," wrote MCD quoting its Damascus news hound.
Among the detainees are around 500 Algerian soldiers and fighters of the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, seized by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State... (HTS) during its November offensive in Aleppo, a battle that delivered the final blow to Assad's forces.
These claims have long been propagated by Moroccan media outlets, but were confirmed on 11 February by the French media outlet MCD.
For years, Algeria had been one of al-Assad's most steadfast supporters, opposing his expulsion from the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... in 2011 and resisting Western calls for regime change.
MCD cited intelligence documents uncovered in Damascus suggest that Algerian and Polisario fighters—trained and backed by Algiers—joined Syrian government forces as early as 2011, their deployment allegedly coordinated through Algeria's Ministry of Defence
Unlike Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... and Hezbollah, which managed to evacuate many of their fighters before Assad's fall, Algeria was apparently caught off guard. The regime's collapse left its troops stranded, forcing Algiers into damage control.
However,
some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... al-Sharaa, Syria's newly installed leader, appears unwilling to accommodate Algeria's plea. Instead, he has signalled that the detainees will stand trial alongside Assad's captured forces, according to MCD.
For Algiers, the crisis is a d j vu of the aftermath of Muammar Qadaffy ...a proud Arab institution for 42 years, now among the dear departed, though not the dearest...> 's downfall in 2011. When Libya's new leadership took power, one of its first acts was distancing itself from the Polisario Front, furious that the group was allegedly fighting alongside Qadaffy's forces.
The Polisario Front is a separatist movement fighting against Morocco over the illusory sovereignty of Western Sahara. It's strongly backed by Algeria, where its self-proclaimed government in exile is based. It also maintained strong ties with Qadaffy and al-Assad regimes.
Since 1980, Syria has officially recognised "the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)," the state proclaimed by the Polisario Front, establishing formal diplomatic ties with the separatist movement. Though the revelation of Polisario fighters in Assad's ranks could put this relationship at risk under al-Sharaa.
If Syria's new rulers tilt toward regional players hostile to Algiers—particularly Morocco, which has long lobbied against Algerian influence in the region—Algeria could find itself losing another key ally.
Algerian and Polisario officials have so far remained silent on the diplomatic rebuke. However,
some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... Attaf's press statements following his Damascus visit were noticeably vague, a shift from Algeria's usual confidence in its relations with Syria.
Meanwhile,
...back at the cheese factory, all the pieces finally fell together in Fluffy's mind... Morocco has wasted no time in courting Damascus.
King Mohammed VI was the first leader in the Maghreb to congratulate Syria's new government, reaffirming his longstanding support for "the aspirations of the Syrian people"—a gesture that could signal the beginning of a new diplomatic chapter between Rabat and Damascus.
This is where DOGE announcements and information are made available to anyone interested. Also pages with interesting statistics and a page to apply to work there, dear Reader, should you be interested.
Linked article is available only through a VPN
[EngMilRu] The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Kharkov direction, the Sever Group of Forces hit the personnel and hardware of an infantry brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and three territorial defence brigades close to Veterinarnoye, Zolochev (Kharkov region), and Yamnoye (Sumy region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 35 troops, two armoured fighting vehicles, eight motor vehicles, two artillery guns, and an signal intelligence station.
Units of the Zapad Group of Forces improved the tactical situation. Russian troops hit manpower and hardware of three mechanised brigades, a tank brigade, a jaeger brigade, an airborne brigade, a mountain assault brigade of the AFU, and two territorial defence brigades near Zeleny Gai, Dvurechnaya, Lozovaya, Kamenka, Petropavlovka, Kutkovka (Kharkov region), Sverdlovka (Lugansk People's Republic), Torskoye and Yampol (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to more than 210 troops, two U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carriers, and five pickup trucks.
Five field artillery guns were eliminated including three foreign-made artillery guns, three ammunition depots, two Kvertus electronic warfare stations, and an Zakhist-AF radio electronic warfare station.
The Yug Group of Forces units improved the situation along the forward edge, defeated formations of five AFU mechanised brigades and an assault brigade near Ivanopolye, Aleksandro-Shultino, Druzhkovka, Konstantinovka, Chasov Yar, and Predtechino (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 215 troops, a U.S.-made MaxxPro armoured vehicle, three motor vehicles, and five artillery guns. Two ammunition and materiel depots were neutralised.
The Tsentr Group of Forces continued advancing into the depths of the enemy's defence, inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of seven mechanised brigades, an infantry brigade, an airmobile brigade, a jaeger brigade, an assault brigade, an assault regiment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and a national guard brigade near Grishino, Kotlino, Krasnoarmeysk, Shcherbinovka, Andreyevka, Baranovka, Uspenovka, Ulyanovka, Zverevo, Udachnoye, Novoandreyevka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to more than 510 troops, four Kazak armoured fighting vehicles, five motor vehicles, and five artillery guns.
The Vostok Group of Forces improved the situation along the front line, inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades, a tank brigade, an air assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and three territorial defence brigades close to Konstantinopol, Komar, Burlatskoye, Vremevka, Novopol, Novoocheretovatoye, and Gulyaypole (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 150 troops, seven motor vehicles, and four field artillery guns. An Israeli-made RADA RPS-42 multi-role radar station was neutralised.
The Dnepr Group of Forces engaged the units of three mechanised brigades, an infantry brigade, a mountain assault brigade, three coastal defence brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and a territorial defence brigade near Malaya Tokmachka, Orekhov, Kamenskoye, Pyatikhatki, Shcherbaki (Zaporozhye region), and Pridnepropevskoye (Kherson region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 60 troops, a tank, five motor vehicles, and an artillery gun. Five ammunition depots and an electronic warfare station were neutralised.
This morning, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out a group missile strike against the workshops of the Ukrainian defence enterprises manufacturing unmanned aerial vehicles and FPV drones. The goal of the strike has been achieved, all the planned targets have been engaged.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack drones, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have also hit the infrastructure of military airfields, fuel and POL storage facilities, a temporary deployment area of foreign mercenaries as well as clusters of AFU manpower and hardware in 139 areas.
Air defence units shot down 12 U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles, two French-made Hammer guided aerial bombs, and 66 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 653 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 43,045 unmanned aerial vehicles, 592 anti-aircraft missile systems, 21,299 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,514 MLRS combat vehicles, 21,567 field artillery guns and mortars, and 31,492 units of support military vehicles have been neutralised.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the operation to neutralise AFU formations on the territory of Kursk region.
In the course of offensive actions, the Sever Group of Forces inflicted fire damage on formations of two tank brigades, a heavy mechanised brigade, five mechanised brigades, three air assault brigades, a naval infantry brigade, an assault brigade, a territorial defence brigade, and three assault regiments of the AFU near Gogolevka, Guyevo, Zaoleshenka, Kazachya Loknya, Kositsa, Kurilovka, Lebedevka, Makhnovka, Nikolsky, Oleshnya, Rubanshchina, Sverdlikovo, and Sudzha. Three enemy counter-attacks were repelled.
Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, artillery inflicted fire damage on AFU manpower and hardware close to Viktorovka, Goncharovka, Pervy Knyazhy, Kolmakov, Krugleknoye, Loknya, Malaya Loknya, Martynovka, Makhnovka, Mirny, Melovoy, Nikolskiy, Nikolayevka, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye as well as Basovka, Belovody, Vodolagi, Zhuravka, Miropolye, and Yunakovka in Sumy region.
Within the past 24 hours, the AFU losses amounted to more than 390 troops, two tanks including a German-made Leopard tank, two infantry fighting vehicles including a U.S.-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, three armoured personnel carriers, ten armoured fighting vehicles, 20 motor vehicles, a U.S.-made M-109 Paladin self-propelled artillery system, five artillery guns, four mortars, a Strela-10 anti-aircraft missile system, an electronic warfare station, a German-made Biber bridge launcher, an engineering reconnaissance vehicle, an armoured repair and evacuation vehicle as well as two UAV command posts, and an ammunition depot. One AFU serviceman surrendered.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk direction, the AFU losses amounted to more than 59,940 troops, 361 tanks, 262 infantry fighting vehicles, 211 armoured personnel carriers, 1,854 armoured fighting vehicles, 1,944 motor vehicles, 430 artillery guns, 48 MLRS launchers, including 13 of HIMARS and six of MLRS made by the USA, 19 anti-aircraft missile launchers, eight transport-loading vehicles, 107 EW stations, 15 counter-battery warfare radars, six air defence radars, 41 units of engineering and other materiel, including 18 counterobstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, two bridge launchers as well as ten armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
[NYPOST] A federal judge on Wednesday declined to pause the Trump administration's buyout program for government workers, giving President Trump a key win in his push to shrink the size of the federal government.
US District Judge George A. O'Toole ruled that the union groups suing to block the so-called ''Deferred Resignation'' program lacked standing and that his Massachusetts-based court lacked the jurisdiction to proceed with the lawsuit.
O'Toole, an appointee of 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... , temporarily blocked the Office of Personnel Management from moving ahead with the program earlier this week, after unions representing more than 800,000 federal workers charged that that the buyout offers were unlawful.
''The plaintiffs here are not directly impacted by the directive,'' the judge ruled. ''Instead, they allege that the directive subjects them to upstream effects including a diversion of resources to answer members' questions about the directive, a potential loss of membership, and possible reputational harm.''
''The unions do not have the required direct stake in the Fork Directive, but are challenging a policy that affects others, specifically executive branch employees,'' O'Toole continued. ''This is not sufficient.''
You KNOW this hurt to print
In a Wednesday ruling, a judge dissolved an existing temporary restraining order against the buyouts and declined to enact a preliminary injunction that would have paused the process.
That’s the so-called “Fork in the Road" or “Fork Directive” TRO ….
A federal judge has ruled the Trump administration's buyout of federal workers can proceed.
In a Wednesday ruling, Judge George A. O'Toole dissolved an existing temporary restraining order against the buyouts and declined to enact a preliminary injunction that would have paused the process.
It was his own TRO that he dissolved upon mature reflection. Annoying, but good for him, and no real harm done. In fact, he established a useful precedent for all the other judicial nonsense going on around the President Trump EOs.
The judge ruled that the worker unions that brought the suit did not have standing to sue, and argued that they should have gone through the administrative process of appealing to managers and other officials within their organizations before seeking a legal remedy.
Wait — does that mean the unions have another chance at the thing? It’s a good thing I am not a lawyer, because I confuse much too easily.
The ruling could have implications for whether and how other lawsuits can be brought against the buyout program.
#3
I thought the judicial standard was that no one has standing regarding anything.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/13/2025 13:54
Comments ||
Top||
#4
Saint Yogi teaches us that if you come to a fork in the road, you should take it.
In other news, a judge comes to his senses and rules that Donald Trump, having been elected President of the United States, is entitled to do president stuff.
I do like that part where the judge dissolved his own TRO. "Shit fire! What was I thinking?"
[NEWARAB] At the western gate of Tulkarm refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Fatima Dar Saeed and Muhammad Farhana stand in silence, their eyes fixed on the ruins of what was once their home.
The familiar streets have been reduced to rubble, in the wake of the Israeli military's recent deadly invasion of multiple camps in the occupied West Bank.
"We had to leave on foot after the camp was invaded by the Israeli army and my heart medicine ran out," said Saeed, who suffers from a heart condition.
"There is nothing left in the camp," she said. "They destroyed everything—no one wants to return."
The Israeli invasions mark a dangerous escalation against Paleostinians in the occupied West Bank.
Two days after the initial phase of 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... ceasefire commenced, Israel launched "Operation Iron Wall"—destroying several buildings in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin and causing its residents to flee. According to UN figures, at least 40,000 Paleostinians have been forcibly displaced.
The assault has since extended to Tulkarm camp, forcing 85 percent of its almost 13,000 residents to seek refuge in nearby neighbourhoods. Along with most residents, Saeed and her husband believe the ongoing military operation is part of an Israeli strategy to make the camp uninhabitable. By destroying homes and infrastructure, the military is making it impossible for the camp to recover or rebuild.
"We are living through a new Nakba," Farhana told The New Arab, referring to the 1948 expulsion of thousands of Paleostinians from their ancestral land with the creation of Israel, pushing Paleostinians into refugee camps, or outside the country. "The Zionist gangs expelled us from our country in 1948, and today the army is returning and repeating the same thing."
[NYPost] Apparently they were insufficiently "enthusiastic"
Two Immigration and Customs Enforcement bigwigs have been demoted for reportedly failing to keep up with President Trump’s migrant deportation crackdown demands — with an official who has previously called for the long-shuttered ICE office at Rikers Island to reopen tapped to lead the enforcement division.
The officials, Russell Hott and Peter Berg, were recently cut from ICE’s enforcement division amid increasing pressure from the Trump administration to ramp up the number of illegal migrant arrests and deportations, the Washington Post reported, citing sources.
“ICE needs a culture of accountability that it has been starved of for the past four years,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement in the wake of the demotions.
To be fair, they were held accountable by the Biden-[Harris] administration. Just for very, very different, very objectionable standards.
“We have a president, DHS secretary, and American people who rightfully demand results, and our ICE leadership will ensure the agency delivers.”
Hott and Berg, who had held top posts in the Enforcement and Removal Operations division, are being forced to return to local field offices in Washington and Minnesota, respectively, the sources said.
Todd Lyons, the leading official at ICE’s Boston office, is slated to take over the division, the sources added.
In December, Lyons called for the ICE office at the Rikers Island jail complex to reopen to detain migrant criminals.
“Re-establishing the [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] unit at Rikers would allow [Enforcement and Removal Operations] NYC officers to take direct custody of foreign-born criminal offenders without the need to re-apprehend these criminals at large in the community,” argued Lyons, who was then assistant director of field operations.
The demotions come as officers scramble to keep pace with Trump’s goal to boot millions of violent migrants and gangbangers from the country.
News of the ICE shakeup came as Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said he wasn’t satisfied with the speed of raids, arrests and deportations.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11177 views]
Top|| File under: Migrants/Illegal Immigrants
#1
The headcount metric will drive the ICE officials to deprioritize the violent offenders which take more assets and time to capture. It won’t take much effort to drag grandma out of the Bingo hall with her walker. I would give them credit for documented self-deportations.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/13/2025 13:52
Comments ||
Top||
[RT] What if the American president’s seemingly outlandish claims on serve a higher purpose?
In a world caught between ecological limits and technological ambition, the revival of the long-dormant vision of the Technate suggests that America’s future may be shaped not by traditional geopolitics but by the pursuit of industrial autarky, resource control, and the promise of a self-sustaining technocratic order.
It was an unexpected move, bewildering analysts across the globe. After securing victory in the election, Donald Trump did not immediately focus on perceived strategic rivals like China, Russia, or Iran, as the geopolitical forecasters had so confidently predicted. Instead, his gaze settled on Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal – territories that, at first glance, seemed disconnected from the expected choreography of American foreign policy ambitions. This pivot raised a chorus of speculation and debate. Many theories were put forward. Yet, among the multitude of explanations, only one has managed to weave together the strands of Trump’s apparent unpredictability into a coherent narrative. This theory traces the logic of these moves back to a long-forgotten vision of a technocratic society that emerged in the early 20th century within the United States.
The roots of this idea, known as the “Technate,” lie in a vision of a society governed not by politicians or financiers but by scientists and engineers, guided by the principles of efficiency, technological mastery, and resource optimization. In the worldview of early technocrats, economic systems based on arbitrary currencies and speculative markets were seen as chaotic relics of the past. Instead, they proposed that energy itself – measurable and quantifiable – should serve as the basis for all economic transactions. The Technate would thus become a self-contained and self-sustaining entity, where wealth is defined by the availability of natural resources, the expertise of its inhabitants, and the seamless integration of technology with governance.
However, the Technate was never envisioned as something that could be established in just any location. It required a very particular environment – one with abundant natural resources, advanced industrial infrastructure, and a population trained to navigate the demands of a highly mechanized society. The ideal setting, according to early technocratic theorists, was North America, with its vast mineral wealth, fertile lands, and unmatched potential for hydroelectric and industrial power. Canada, with its rich deposits of metals and minerals, and Greenland, with its untapped reserves of rare earth elements, were integral to this vision. The Panama Canal, as the lifeline connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, would further ensure the region’s strategic autonomy from global supply chains.
#2
Greenland would be a great source for raw materials for Europe instead of competing with China for what Russia provides. What prevents this from happening? European control of Greenland is the hindrance.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/13/2025 12:12
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Its really to remove poutine from the continent.
[Townhall] Since their influence has declined exponentially over the last four years, Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... are seeking to hamper President Donald Trump ...The man who was so stupid he beat fourteen professional politicians, a former tech CEO, and a brain surgeon for the Republican nomination in 2016, then beat The Smartest Woman in the World in the general election. Then he beat Kamala while dodging bullets... ’s agenda through lawfare using the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).
Shortly after taking office, the president issued a flurry of executive orders related to eliminating "wokeness" in the federal government, cutting regulations and wasteful spending, and addressing illegal immigration.
Many of these orders are currently being challenged in court under the APA, which governs how federal agencies develop and implement regulations. Enacted in 1946, the legislation establishes procedures for rulemaking and judicial review. It was intended to ensure that federal agencies are transparent in how new regulations are created.
Federal agencies are required to go through a process to implement new regulations, including a notice-and-comment period allowing individuals and businesses to give their perspectives on the proposed rules. It empowers courts to review new rules to ensure that they do not violate constitutional rights or exceed executive authority.
Democrats have used this legislation to challenge several of Trump’s executive orders. For starters, 22 Democratic state governments are currently suing the administration over an executive order issued in January to end birthright citizenship. They argue that it also violates the 14th Amendment. A federal judge blocked the order, characterizing it as "blatantly unconstitutional."
President Trump’s executive order putting a freeze on federal spending also met with legal challenges under the APA. Democratic leaders filed a lawsuit arguing that it violated the legislation because it was capricious and arbitrary. They contended that the administration failed to go through the proper procedures for implementing the rule.
Democrats used the same strategy when challenging Trump’s executive order prohibiting biological males from competing in women’s and girl’s sports. Democratic attorneys general filed a legal challenge to the executive order, arguing that the administration has not sufficiently justified the order.
The APA has also been used against the Biden administration on several occasions.
Trump is by no means the only president to have fallen afoul of the APA, which judges routinely cite in striking down federal agency actions on a wide variety of issues, including environmental and consumer regulations that agencies sometimes spend years reviewing.
In a high-profile case during the Biden administration, a federal judge in Texas threw out an immigration enforcement policy that would have prioritized deporting violent mostly peaceful criminals.
Among other things, District Judge Drew Tipton found that the administration had failed to take into account evidence about the dangers of recidivism and abscondment among immigrants colonists with criminal records that undermined its policy conclusions.
The government, he added, was required "to show its work. It either failed or refused to do so. This was arbitrary and capricious."
Proponents of the APA might argue that it ensures that decisions are based on sound reasoning and compelling evidence. They would also assert that allowing public comment on each rule allows the people to have more of a say in regulations that might affect them.
On the other hand, the APA defines an "agency" in a way that does not explicitly include the sitting president. This could suggest that executive orders are not subject to the same provisions in the APA as rules and regulations issued by federal agencies like the ATF or USDA.
However,
alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... for each of these executive orders, the administration has laid out its arguments in favor of these actions even if they did not go through a public comment period. The reality is that even if they had, it is unlikely that the order would not still go into effect regardless. President Trump was elected in a landslide, which suggests that those who voted for him knew what actions he would take once he took office. Indeed, each of these executive orders are aimed at fulfilling promises he made on the campaign trail.
Do you agree that there was deliberate insult by the senior American officers in Germany, dear Reader? I am not qualified to judge. Skipping all the fun stuff when Secretary Hegseth worked out with the troops, which we’ve seen and discussed already, and going straight to the reception:
[RedState] Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth began a tour of Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... Tuesday, starting at the headquarters of US European Command at Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany. The newly minted SecDef has a heavy schedule in front of him, inspecting US forces in Europe and dealing with his first meeting with NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... . He is obviously trying to move beyond the controversies associated with his confirmation. He is also trying to lead by example and reverse the cultural rot in the US military by force of will.
He traveled to Europe by way of a C-17 cargo plane with a command pod rather than in a Gulfstream executive jet.
He traveled with his wife and child. This has become something of a standard image of all Trump Cabinet secretaries. Trump has had his grandchild at his desk. Sean Duffy's family is prominent in events. JD Vance's wife and kids travel with him. Musk's kid was at the presser he held yesterday.
Musk Junior’s mother is reportedly not happy that Dad is taking him to work, but that’s not our problem…
The image of family as a central point in life rather than an adjunct to your job is striking when compared to previous administrations, including Trump 1.0. See my colleague Brandon Morse's post on the subject: Elon Musk Is Demonstrating the Best Pro-Life Strategy Right Now and It's Heartwarming to See — RedState.
While the informal side went well, the official visit was, in my view, a lot more problematic.
These images are from the official reception.
[X]
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth visited US European Command (EUCOM) headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany yesterday. He is on his first trip to Europe since taking office. pic.twitter.com/JoIbjC8rcD
I'm old school on uniforms. I think the custom of wearing BDUs (utilities, fatigues, whatever you want to call the field uniform) all the time is horrendous. When I was a young officer, you weren't allowed to wear BDUs off-post. Period. You couldn't go to a fast food place or run an errand on the way home or at lunch wearing BDUs. In my view, if you can't break out the Class A uniform to welcome the SecDef and note the color guard is in dress uniform, then there is no possible occasion that calls for them. But, if you do wear BDUs to greet the SecDef, show him the respect of wearing a fresh set. Meeting the head of the Department of Defense in wrinkled BDUs is a calculated insult because I really don't believe this three-star or his aide are that stupid.
More evidence to back up my contention that the greeting was intended to show Hegseth how little the commanding general thought of him, perhaps for the first time in the history of the Defense Department, the Secretary of Defense was heckled by military wives.
At the same time, middle school, I say again, middle school students walked out to protest the end of DEI programs. This was absolutely organic to the middle school and had no helping hand from the command structure in Stuttgart because if there is one thing that really sets off 6th graders, it is losing their DEI classes.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you're willing to greet your boss in wrinkled clothes and allow him to be heckled by dependent wives, you can imagine what else is going on out of sight.
Those assignments can become "unaccompanied tours" at the stroke of a pen. Please get a handle on your dependents or send them home. Out-o-pocket off post housing in the vicinity of Stuttgart could get to be a bit pricey.
Gotta wonder if it was actually German Nationals in the crowd. Solutions abound for that issue as well.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2025 6:35
Comments ||
Top||
#9
The emergency services confirmed that at least 20 people were injured, including two seriously. One person was resuscitated on site, apparently a child. Munich's Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter also confirmed that children were among the injured. “I am deeply shocked”, said Reiter.
Gerhard Peschke, spokesman for the Munich fire department, explained that it was not possible to give an exact number of casualties as some of the injured had taken shelter in the surrounding buildings. The group of people were participants in a strike called by the Verdi trade union. The exact location of the incident is Munich's Stiglmaierplatz.
The exact circumstances are still under investigation. However, as BR learned from police sources, the police do not believe that the incident was an accident. The identity of the driver is still unclear.
#12
Local and theater commanders can terminate 'accompanied' status effecting dependents. It's an administrative action.
DoD schools need a hard and fast notice of unacceptable practices with a follow up.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2025 8:59
Comments ||
Top||
#15
In the 90's I was stationed in Germany. We stopped wearing Class A's for event and wore what we called the war fighters uniform. A's were only worn for formal occasions, and monthly uniform inspections associated with payday activities. With the new BDU, around 9/11 starching and pressing the BDU was stopped. I think the official guideline said the constant starch and press affected the IR capability. This was for the Army, not sure about the other branches. I would like to hear the video of the wives. They were probably laughing at how fat the general looked in comparison to his new boss...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/13/2025 10:46
Comments ||
Top||
#16
49 Pan, wouldn't a visit from the SecDef be considered a "formal occasion", at least for the general?
#17
Something else, Hegseth wasn't dressed formally. He's not wearing a tie, and I get the feeling he has no more love for the monkey suits than the rank and file. He seems to be the very hands on, "Let's get to work" type, not one demanding pomp and ceremony so he can appear fancy and 'special'.
The first part of a much longer article with all sorts of details at the link.
[JustTheNews] The local charities received a substantial influx of taxpayer cash to provide services to immigrants, including shelter, food and travel.
President Joe Biden’s border policies were a boon for private religious charities associated with the Catholic Church, which collectively received billions in grant money while helping house and resettle migrants, while a federal watchdog warned about mismanaged funds and a potential for fraud.
The funding for these humanitarian programs that came through the Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency has come under renewed scrutiny by President Trump and his administration, who seek to reverse years of financial incentives for the crisis of border crossings under their predecessor.
Catholic Charities USA, comprised of 168 local member agencies across the United States, is one of the largest private recipients of government funding under several immigration-related programs that critics have said allowed the Biden administration to relocate and shelter migrants in the United States.
According to data from USAspending.gov, Catholic Charities branches across the United States collected over $2 billion in federal grants over the last four years of the Biden administration, primarily through the Department of Health and Human Services which granted about $1.93 billion for programs. Other agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security and Housing and Urban Development also doled out significant—if smaller—sums, about $156 million and $138 million, respectively.
Catholic Charities USA did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.
They collectively received billions of dollars in grant money while helping house and resettle migrants, while a federal watchdog warned about mismanaged funds and a potential for fraud.
#3
If you want to voluntarily contribute your own money to an organization that you believe is doing good, charitable work that's fine.
When the government imposes a tax on you and gives your money to so-called charitable organizations about which you know nothing, for reasons that you do not approve, that's armed robbery.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/13/2025 12:00
Comments ||
Top||
#4
...pans to a clip of the Sheriff of Nottingham's men collecting 'taxes'.
[NYPOST] The Justice Department announced Wednesday it was suing New York state over its policy of limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, with Gov. Kathy Hochul, state AG Letitia James and DMV chief Mark Schroeder in AG Pam Bondi's crosshairs.
''This is a new DOJ,'' Bondi announced. ''New York has chosen to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens. It stops. It stops today.''
''As you know, we sued Illinois,'' Bondi added. ''New York didn't listen. So now, you're next.''
''Gov. Hochul has been clear from day one: she supports deporting violent mostly peaceful criminals who break our laws, believes that law-abiding families should not be targets, and will coordinate with federal authorities who have a judicial warrant,'' her press secretary Avi Small said in a statement.
''We can't comment further on a presser announcing a potential lawsuit that has not yet been filed in any court.''
James also fired back in a statement hours later.
''Our state laws, including the Green Light law, protect the rights of all New Yorkers and keep our communities safe. I am prepared to defend our laws, just as I always have.''
A source familiar told The Post that Hochul and Trump had ''tentatively agreed'' to meet next week when she is in Washington, DC, for the National Governors Association meeting.
Last week, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to immediately strike down sanctuary policies in Illinois and reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ...home of Al Capone, the Chicago Black Sox, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel... , arguing state and local officials ''are an obstacle to the Federal Government's enforcement of the immigration laws and discriminate against federal immigration enforcement.''
Tammy Nobles, an angel mom whose 20-year-old daughter, Kayla Hamilton, was brutally murdered by an MS-13 gang member, spoke after Bondi and recounted the horrific 2022 death of her child. On July 27, 2022, Hamilton was viciously strangled to death with a cord, sexually assaulted, and robbed of $6.00. "He left her on the floor like trash," Nobles said.
"She was raped and murdered by someone who should not have been in our country," Bondi added. "Yet he was released [and] flown to Maryland where he committed this violent mostly peaceful murder."
Bondi said Nobles represents many other angel parents across America "who have suffered because of what the Biden administration did."
"This should not have ever happened to Kayla, and this shouldn't be happening to other families being hurt by the border [crisis]," Nobles said. "Homeland Security didn't do their job."
Ever since, Nobles has been sharing Hamilton's story to "help save others and bring awareness of what was happening under the Biden-Harris administration." Nobles then thanked President Donald Trump ...Never got invited to a P.Diddy party... for providing her a platform to speak out about Hamilton's case. "No other parent should suffer by having their child murdered by somebody who shouldn't be here."
Bondi noted that Hamilton's killer also admitted to committing multiple murders and other rapes. "That's who we were letting walk into our country," Bondi remarked.
"And if you don't comply with federal law, we will hold you accountable. We did it to Illinois. Strike one. Strike two is New York. If you are a state not complying with federal law, you're next," Bondi warned other Democrat-led "sanctuary" jurisdictions. "Get ready."
New York has a "green light" law that allows illegal aliens in the state to evade ID checks if law enforcement pulls them over, Bondi said. It prohibits police and other agencies like the DMV from sharing data with federal authorities for purposes of immigration enforcement.
"They have a 'tip-off' provision that requires New York's DMV commissioner to promptly inform any illegal alien when a federal immigration agency has requested their information," Bondi further explained. "It's tipping off an illegal alien. And it's unconstitutional, and that's why we filed this lawsuit."
#2
Hillary Clinton is from Chicago too. And Bill Clinton moved to long-time mob resort of Hot Springs, AR at seven years old, where Al Capone is said to have had permanent rights to suite 443 of the Arlington Hotel.
Posted by: Black Charlie Glorong8489 ||
02/13/2025 18:33
Comments ||
Top||
[NEWARAB] The United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... World Food Programme said Tuesday that an aid worker has died in a 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 prison three weeks after his detention by 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... rebels.
The announcement came a day after the UN suspended its operations in the rebel's stronghold in northern Yemen.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement that one of its staff members died while in detention in northern Yemen. He was one of seven WFP staffers detained by the Houthi rebels on 23 January. No cause of death was given.
''Heartbroken and outraged by the tragic loss of WFP team member, Ahmed, who lost his life while arbitrarily detained in Yemen,'' WFP executive director Cindy McCain wrote on the X social media platform.
She said the worker, who is survived by his wife and two children, ''played a crucial role in our mission to deliver lifesaving food assistance.''
A Houthi front man didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
The 40-year-old worker, who joined the UN food agency in 2017, died Monday in a prison in the northern province of Saada, and that the circumstances of his death weren't immediately known, said a WFP official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/13/2025
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11149 views]
Top|| File under: Houthis
[NYPOST] President Trump said Wednesday he wants to shut down the Department of Education as soon as possible.
''I'd like it to be closed immediately,'' he told news hounds in the Oval Office, describing the agency as ''a big con job.''
He blasted the US education system for being ranked 40th in the world, but being ranked No. 1 for ''cost per pupil.''
''Send it back to Iowa, to Idaho, Colorado,'' Trump went on, keeping to his pledge to put education back to the states.
The 78-year-old president is reportedly considering issuing an executive order that would move many DOE functions to other agencies, only keeping those functions that are explicitly written in statute, The Wall Street Journal reported.
#9
Aggregate the amount spent per pupil by the five highest funded states. Then distribute the federal funds proportional to the difference of the remaining 45. It's for "equity" (make them choke on their own language). Then tie it to progress in testing of reading, writing and arithmetic (yeah, watch them rig and fix the testing).
#13
One of the most sad things I've seen recently is watching a senior try to sign his name, the poor kid struggling like a 2nd grader writing block letters off-handed.
Transitioning from books to computers, and Common Core opening the door for teachers to just turn on a video instead of teaching ruined that generation, then Covid protocols retarded them again.
Want to get pissed, here's DOE 2021 Covid Policy Official Guidelines here
Yes, that's them saying mask anyone 2 years old and up. And funny, the promoting vax's to children link goes to nowhere now.
[GEO.TV] Tulsi Gabbard has been sworn in as the Director of National Intelligence inside the Oval Office with President Trump in attendance following the confirmation by US Senate.
The Senate voted 52 to 48, mostly along party lines, to confirm Gabbard to the position overseeing the 18-agency intelligence community and acting as Trump's top adviser on intelligence issues.
The vote was another victory for Trump as he pushes to secure quick Senate approval for all of his nominees for administration positions.
The Senate's Republican majority leader, John Thune, scheduled a procedural vote on Robert F Kennedy Jr, who also faced fierce opposition to his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services, immediately after the Gabbard confirmation vote.
Gabbard, a 43-year-old former Democrat, had faced bipartisan questions about past statements seen as supporting US adversaries, and lack of experience.
She neither worked at a spy agency nor served on an intelligence committee during her four House of Representatives terms.
Gabbard will now oversee an agency created by Congress in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks to coordinate the country's sprawling intelligence apparatus, one of the most important national security positions in the US government.
"The selection of a DNI is a very big deal," said Emily Harding, director of the Intelligence, National Security and Technology Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, noting the DNI's broad access to classified material and role as the president's main intelligence adviser.
"In calculating what reciprocal tariff rate to levy on other nations, he said his administration will be also be taking into account nations with value-added taxes, which he labeled “far more punitive than a tariff.”
Please. VAT is not a tariff, and it isn't pun itive. It's levied on everything a consumer purchases.
Example: If I buy a German car, I pay 19% VAT. If I import a car from the U.S., I also pay 19% VAT (called import tax in that case).
There's nothing "punitive" about it.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
02/13/2025 16:42
Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
[JustTheNews] Jury deadlocked on many other charges.
...
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
...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 
...every time you hear the phrase 
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
Last week, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to immediately strike down sanctuary policies in Illinois and 
...Never got invited to a P.Diddy party...
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
