Quote:Republicans on the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, led by Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), have introduced legislation that would give states the power to verify the American citizenship of applicants registering to vote via mail.

This week, Britt and fellow Republicans introduced the “Citizen Ballot Protection Act” which would give states the ability to more accurately verify that only American citizens are being approved for voter registrations.

Britt said the legislation is necessary as several blue states, counties, and cities pass ordinances opening voting rights to foreign nationals — at least for municipal elections.

“Voting in our country is a sacred right that must solely be limited to American citizens. To allow States to uphold this principle should be simple commonsense,” Britt said.
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The legislation would amend the National Voting Rights Act to allow states to require proof of citizenship for those applicants registering to vote in state and federal elections by mail.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as well as Sens. Deb Fischer (R-NE), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV.), Roger Wicker (R-MS.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) are co-sponsoring the bill.

Finally, there's a decent proposal being made at the Senate.

Quote:The memo, conducted in June 2017 for then-Acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, was obtained and reviewed by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) following a public records request.

According to IRLI officials, the internal memo examined 25 areas at the border and ultimately recommended the construction of a border wall in every area. Further, a border wall was found to be the most cost-effective tool for DHS to deter illegal immigration.
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The memo directly contradicts President Joe Biden’s claims that border walls are a “waste of money” and “not a serious policy solution.”

“This is vindication to those who were disparaged by this administration for their support of physical barriers at the border,” IRLI Executive Director Dale Wilcox said in a statement.

While Biden canceled all border wall construction immediately after taking office in January 2021, his administration has planned to build an additional wall in Starr County, Texas, due to waves of illegal immigration in the region.
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The memo directly contradicts President Joe Biden’s claims that border walls are a “waste of money” and “not a serious policy solution.”

“This is vindication to those who were disparaged by this administration for their support of physical barriers at the border,” IRLI Executive Director Dale Wilcox said in a statement.

While Biden canceled all border wall construction immediately after taking office in January 2021, his administration has planned to build an additional wall in Starr County, Texas, due to waves of illegal immigration in the region.

Quote:The socialist Maduro regime announced on Monday that it has begun issuing Venezuelan government documents to the inhabitants of the contested Essequibo region, which makes up most of Guyana.

Venezuela has maintained a historic dispute with Guyana over the Essequibo region since at least 1899, but Maduro escalated the feud in December with plans to annex it.

Granting Venezuelan nationality and citizenship documents to the inhabitants of Essequibo was one of the five questions “asked” on the Maduro regime’s December 3 sham referendum. Venezuelan electoral authorities claim that more than 10.5 million votes were cast in approval of Maduro’s plans to annex the Essequibo region despite extensive media footage suggesting that, in reality, the electoral event was marked by extremely low voter turnout and barren electoral centers.

Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro claimed that the results of the sham referendum were “binding” and ordered his officials to begin a list of actions to ultimately annex Essequibo, creating a new state in the territory and granting Venezuelan citizenship to the region’s roughly 125,000 inhabitants, most of whom belong to indigenous communities.

Maduro also announced plans to award oil, gas, and mining exploration licenses to companies seeking to operate in the contested territory, which is currently part of Guyana. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has stated that it has jurisdiction over the dispute and is expected to rule on which country owns the Essequibo in the future.

Guess what?  Communists don't care about what the OCJ has to say on the matter.

Quote:Dino, who was nominated by radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, marks Lula’s second appointee to the already leftist-stacked court since the start of his third presidential term this year.

During his tenure as Brazil’s justice minister, Dino made the regulation of social media a high priority of his office, stressing in March that the Brazilian government had a “dire need” to fight what he described as “hate speech” and the circulation of so-called “fake news.”

Dino, 55, will occupy the vacancy left by former STF Minister (Justice) Rosa Weber, who retired in September prior to her 75th birthday, the compulsory retirement age of all Brazilian judges as established by Brazilian law. Weber was appointed by former Brazilian socialist President Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s protege who was impeached and removed from office in 2016 over corruption allegations.

Dino’s nomination was approved by the Brazilian Senate at the end of a ten-hour debate session with 47 votes in favor and 31 votes against. Dino, a close ally to President Lula and a senator since February, was a former member of the Communist Party of Brazil until 2021, when he joined the Brazilian Socialist Party.

Quote:Minister of Economics Luis Caputo announced ten measures that he said Milei and his team believe will help begin reducing runaway federal spending and stabilize the country. While most of the measures were cuts to federal programs – such as not renewing any state worker contracts less than a year old – Caputo announced that social programs that put money directly in the hands of the needy would increase the aid offered.
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The measure that attracted the most international attention on Tuesday was the devaluation of the Argentine dollar, bringing its exchange rate with the U.S. dollar from 366 pesos per dollar down to 800. Under the previous leftist governments, Argentina maintained a confusing system of multiple exchange rates to mask the weakness of the peso, including the inflated U.S. dollar exchange rate, the more official street value of the peso (known in Argentina as “dólar blue”), and something called the “Soy Dollar,” which the socialists introduced in December 2022 for soybean growers.

“Since 2019, Argentina’s peso currency has been kept artificially strong by strict capital controls which create a wide gap between the official exchange rate of 366 per dollar and parallel rates as high as 1,000 per dollar,” Reuters explained on Tuesday.

Quote:Putin insisted that “dollarization,” as the process is called, was “the sovereign decision of each country” and he was not inclined to meddle in Argentina’s economic decisions, but appeared to disapprove of the plan.

The remarks are Putin’s first negative comments about Milei since his inauguration on Sunday. Putin issued a formal, albeit distant, congratulatory statement to Milei following the Argentine presidential election on November 19, stating in part, “We hope for the further promotion of our strategic partnership with Buenos Aires in many diverse areas and for the development of constructive dialogue on current international issues.”

Milei has made clear his distaste for Putin’s authoritarian regime for years as a television commentator and has stridently opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, currently the most important geopolitical issue for Russia.
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Milei has also referred to the Russian regime as a “murderer” and insisted he would redirect Argentine foreign policy towards America and Israel.
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“Everyone knows the idea of the newly elected President of Argentina to switch to the dollar within the country. This is the sovereign decision of each country, but in Argentina, inflation, as far as I know, is at 143%,” Putin said, according to the Russian news agency Tass. “If today’s leadership in Argentina sees no other way out of the country’s well-known financial and economic problems, that is their prerogative.”

“But this is definitely a significant loss of sovereignty,” he concluded.

Putin discussed the concept of sovereignty in detail elsewhere in the press conference, claiming that, for Russia, “the main thing is to strengthen sovereignty.”

Quote:Seven people have been arrested, security services including Mossad stated on Thursday afternoon, with three in Germany, three in Denmark, and one in the Netherlands taken into custody.

Media in Germany and Mossad treat the arrests as linked and as part of a plot to attack Jewish communities in Europe, while the Danish government is more circumspect, refusing to confirm or deny whether their arrests are definately linked to those in Germany. Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard refused to confirm or deny those arrested by Danish police were definitely linked to Hamas, speaking instead of a criminal gang and a conspiracy to attack Jewish people, reports Berlingske.

German newspaper Die Welt meanwhile reports national intelligence services believe Islamists already in Europe received orders from Hamas leaders in Lebanon to dig up an “underground cache” of weapons “the terrorist organisation had set up in the past”. According to the allegations, the would-be terrorists launched several expeditions intending to re-discover the buried weapons, intending to bring them back to Berlin ready for an operation.

It appears the weapons cache was never found, and the German police are still seeking it themselves. German authorities are reported to have said the arrested men were known longstanding Hamas members who had been under surveillance since last year, and who are thought to have participated in Hamas operations “abroad” before.
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The goal of the Hamas plot was “to kill innocent civilians on European soil… to attack Israeli, Jewish and Western targets at any price”, they said.

Deutsche Welle reports Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen spoke on the arrests from the European Council meeting in Brussels today, saying the news of the plot was “extremely serious”. She remarked: “It is of course — in relation to Israel and Gaza — completely unacceptable for someone to bring a conflict elsewhere in the world into Danish society.

Quote:Hunter Biden reportedly threatened to take extreme action and flee the United States of America if voters reelect former President Donald Trump.

The threat represents the often neurotic nature of the president’s son, 53, who faces 42 years in prison for tax and gun charges in an ongoing investigation.

“In recent conversations with family friends, he [Hunter] has worried that he might have to flee the country if Trump were to be elected president again,” two people who spoke with Hunter told Politico’s Jonathan Lemire.
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Hunter Biden’s legal chaos could “damage” the 2024 election. “Members of the president’s inner circle have expressed frustration over how the matter was all but behind them,” Lemire reported. “Some Democrats believe that the trials could damage [Joe] Biden politically.”

“This Hunter story has the legs to ruin things for Biden,” a Democrat strategist told the Messenger.

“The controversy about Hunter Biden’s financial dealings might play the same role for Republicans that Hillary Clinton’s emails did in 2016,” a second Democrat strategist, Brad Bannon, told the Messenger.

Quote:Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has filed an ethics complaint against a federal judge who oversaw the grand jury that indicted Donald Trump over his actions on January 6, 2021.

Stefanik charges that U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, chief judge of the federal court in Washington, D.C. until March, engaged in inappropriate political speech and election interference that violates judicial ethics and “suggested reelecting President Trump will lead to fascism in America.”

Howell’s remarks in question were delivered in a speech in November to the Women’s White Collar Defense Association. The judge connected the impact of “big lies” about January 6 and said “big lies are springboards for authoritarians.”

Stefanik, the House Republican Conference Chair, tied Howell’s comments with the 2024 election.
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In addition to overseeing the Trump case, Howell, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, is overseeing a defamation case brought by two former Georgia election workers against Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former lawyer, after he accused them of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. A jury began deliberating on that case Thursday. She also has ruled in cases related to other January 6 defendants.

Quote:General Motors (GM) will lay off more than 1,300 auto workers across Michigan right after the Christmas holiday, executives announced this week. Those layoffs come even as GM raked in hundreds of millions of dollars from the state’s taxpayers through deals with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D).

In two separate state filings, GM executives said they are laying off 945 auto workers starting January 1, 2024, who are currently employed at its Orion Assembly Plant in Orion Township, Michigan.

The layoffs at the Orion plant are the result of GM’s delaying its conversion to produce Electric Vehicles (EVs) like the Chevrolet Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV.

At GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly/Stamping plant in Lansing, Michigan, executives said 369 auto workers will be laid off starting January 1, 2024, through March of next year. The layoffs come as GM ends production of the Camaro.

In January 2022, Whitmer announced a massive financial agreement with GM, which ultimately saw Michigan taxpayers footing an $824 million bill to have the automaker promise to invest billions in auto jobs across the state.

Quote:Officials with Prince George’s County, Maryland, a sanctuary jurisdiction, freed from prison an illegal alien MS-13 Gang member who had been convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

Already, former President Barack Obama’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had released the 26-year-old gang member into the United States via the southern border after he arrived as an Unaccompanied Alien Child (UAC).

According to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, the gang member arrived at the border in April 2014 as a UAC and was given a Notice to Appear (NTA) before a federal immigration judge. The gang member was quickly transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, where he was released as a UAC and sent to live with his father in Hyattsville, Maryland.

A little more than a year after arriving in Hyattsville, the gang member was arrested by the Prince George’s County Police Department for second-degree assault. The following year, a federal immigration judge closed his immigration proceedings.

In August 2016, the gang member was again arrested in Prince George’s County and charged with concealing a dangerous weapon and resisting arrest. He was convicted two months later of resisting arrest and sentenced to 30 days in prison.

Quote:Turkish lawmaker Hasan Bitmez of the hardline Islamist Saadet Party (SP) died in the hospital on Thursday, two days after he collapsed during a fiery tirade against Israel at the Turkish National Assembly.

Bitmez, 54, collapsed at the climax of a 22-minute speech on Tuesday in which he criticized the government of Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP Party for not taking a strong enough stance against Israel in the Gaza war.

He was especially critical of Erdogan for “shamelessly” maintaining trade with Israel. He reportedly suffered a heart attack.
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The parliament was reportedly debating the national budget at the time of his remarks. It is not clear from Turkish media reports if Bitmez’s anti-Israel attack was germane to the budgetary considerations at hand.

Bitmez was quickly assisted by other members of parliament, one of whom had medical training, and taken to a hospital in Ankara.

According to Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, Bitmez was treated with a prolonged heart massage and received angioplasty at the hospital, after doctors saw two of his main arteries were completely blocked. He was connected to an artificial lung and a heart device, but these methods were only able to keep him alive until 11:50 p.m. local time on Thursday.

Quote:A local government deputy set off a series of grenades at a council meeting in western Ukraine, killing at least one and leaving several in critical condition among 26 injured.

A handful of grenades were thrown into a local government meeting at Keretsky in Transcarpathia (Zakarpattia) on Friday morning, a region in the west of the nation far from the front lines. Ukrainian government media outlet Ukrinform relays that 26 people were injured, six of them “gravely”, and one person was killed.

The meeting was being recorded and video footage of the attack has been released by police, showing a man in a dark coat entering the packed council room as the meeting was ongoing and blocking the door while listening to proceedings briefly. As an animated discussion continues the man interjects, shouting at the officers sitting at the head table while pulling the grenades out of his coat pocket.

As the video shows, even as he pulls the pins and throws the grenades into the middle of the floor nobody present appears to react until after a series of blasts which tears the room apart.

Quote:The administration of Argentine President Javier Milei announced a series of security measures on Thursday meant to combat roadblocks and other disruptive measures potentially adopted by union leaders and other leftists in the country to protest the conservative government.

Patricia Bullrich – Milei’s onetime presidential rival, now serving as Argentina’s minister of security –promised in remarks to the public that law enforcement would use “force proportional to resistance” against anyone attempting to erect roadblocks or otherwise disrupt the daily lives of Argentines and ensure that any criminal actions be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

“The law cannot be abided by halfway – you either do or you don’t,” she said.

The warning to leftist opposition of the government appears to be a preemptive move in light of the recent history of Latin America, in which nearly every country surrounding Argentina has experienced deadly leftist riots in response to perceived right-wing government initiatives since at least 2019.

Quote:One week after sending a letter to President Biden, critiquing his administration’s handling of the border within her state, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs (D)announced she will send the state’s Army National Guard to the border. The soldiers will assist the Arizona Department of Public Safety and local law enforcement agencies with security operations to include fentanyl interdiction, analytical support, and to suppress human trafficking.

On Friday, Hobbs signed an Executive Order mobilizing the soldiers as part of Arizona’s Operation SECURE. Launched in December, the operation created a new Border Security Office within the State’s Department of Homeland Security. The office will be financed for the first year with $2 Million from American Rescue Plan funding. The move to mobilize the National Guard and create a new border security office comes as waves of migrants have flooded Arizona border cities in recent weeks.
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As reported by Breitbart Texas, an increase in migrant crossings near Lukeville, Arizona, led to the closure of that city’s only international port of entry on December 4. The closure resulted in financial losses on both sides of the border as commercial businesses shuttered or reduced their hours of operation due to eliminating cross-border traffic. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers assigned to staff the port of entry have been redirected to assist the Border Patrol in processing and transporting the thousands of migrants crossing into Arizona daily. According to Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent John R. Modlin of the Tucson Border Patrol Sector, more than 37,000 migrants were apprehended within the Sector during the course of the first 14 days of December.

Quote:Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) proudly posted a photo from her no-whites-allowed “Electeds of Color” holiday party amid backlash over the exclusionary event.

Wu, the city’s first Asian-American mayor, posted an image to her Instagram account Friday, showing a group of smiling colleagues at the dinner party. No white people, including Wu’s white husband, were pictured.
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The segregated party, which took place Wednesday, came under fire when emails leaked showing how white elected officials were accidentally invited, then uninvited from the “of color” only gathering.

According to the Boston Accountability Network, Wu had even scheduled the “Electeds of Color” party for the same day as the city council’s holiday party that included all races.

While Wu apologized for the “honest mistake” of the missent emails, the mayor did not express regret for excluding white city leaders in the first place.

Quote:French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday he would still consider talking with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin if it helps creating a sustainable peace between Ukraine and Russia.

Macron and Putin enjoyed a good working relationship before Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022. In weeks preceding the start of hostilities, Macron’s diplomatic efforts failed to stop the war but he then kept open a line of communication with the Russian president for months.
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Putin was asked Thursday during his year-end news conference by a journalist from the French channel TF1 about his views on France and Macron.

Putin said: “At some point the French president stopped the relationship with us. We didn't do it, I didn't. He did. If there's interest, we're ready. If not, we'll cope.”

Speaking in Brussels at the end of a summit where EU leaders decided to open membership negotiations with war-torn Ukraine, Macron said he remained open to dialogue with Putin on finding a peaceful solution if the Russian leader reaches out to him.
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Putin said this week there would be no peace until Russia achieves its goals, which he says remain unchanged after nearly two years of fighting.

Quote:His spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on Monday that his whereabouts are still unknown.

Yarmysh posted about Navalny’s disappearance on Twitter after Navalny failed to appear in a court video conference.

“It is already the sixth straight day that we don’t know where Alexei is and what is happening to him,” she wrote.

Yarmysh said Navalny’s lawyers attempted to contact two prison colonies he might have been transferred to. Their communications were ignored for several days but on Monday both prison colonies told the lawyers that Navalny was not one of their inmates.

Officials at the jail in Melekhovo where Navalny has been held since last year told Yarmysh there were “electricity problems” at the facility which prevented Navalny from attending his scheduled video conference with the court.

European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell Fontelles said on Tuesday that Navalny’s disappearance is “highly worrying.” He stressed that the Russian government is responsible for Navalny’s “safety and health in prison.”

Quote:The defense ministers of Japan, Britain and Italy signed an agreement on Thursday to establish a joint organization to develop a new advanced jet fighter, as the countries push to strengthen their cooperation in the face of growing threats from China, Russia and North Korea.

The three countries had agreed last year to merge earlier individual plans – for Japan´s Mitsubishi F-X to succeed the retiring F-2s developed with the United States and Britain´s Tempest – to produce the new combat aircraft for deployment in 2035.

Japan, which is rapidly building up its military, hopes to have a greater capability to counter China´s rising assertiveness while welcoming Britain’s bigger presence in the Indo-Pacific region.
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Under the plan, a joint body called the GCAP International Government Organization will manage the private sector joint venture – which includes Japan´s Mitsubishi Heavy, Britain´s BAE Systems PLC and Italy´s Leonardo – to oversee the aircraft’s development. The organization, which will be staffed by several hundred people from the three countries, is tasked with distributing work in different areas, such as the engine and avionics.

The organization will be headquartered in Britain and headed by a Japanese official, and the joint venture will be led by an Italian representative, Kihara said. The top posts will rotate every few years, Japanese defense officials said.

The project, however, hinges on Japan easing its postwar ban on exporting jointly developed lethal weapons to third countries. It said before Thursday’s signing it was working to do so, but the process has been delayed.

Quote:Indian Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced on Friday that India will resume purchasing Venezuelan oil now that the Biden administration has lifted oil and gas sanctions on the rogue socialist country.

India is the world’s third-largest oil buyer, importing roughly 80 percent of its crude oil from international markets. India stopped importing Venezuelan oil in 2020 after the United States, during the administration of former President Donald Trump, imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) oil company in 2019. The sanctions were a response to years of continued human rights violations by socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and his regime against their own people.

The Biden administration granted a broad oil and gas sanctions relief package to the Maduro regime in October that allows PDVSA to once again sell Venezuelan oil in American and international markets. The relief was awarded after representatives of the socialist regime and the Venezuelan “opposition” Unitary Platform signed an agreement in Barbados with vague promises about holding a “free and fair” presidential election next year.

Over the past two months, and despite being a crucial condition of the sanctions relief package deal, Maduro and his socialist regime have shown no sign of committing to a “free and fair” presidential election in 2024.

Quote:Deputy Chief of China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Dong Jianguo said at an economic seminar on Wednesday that the government will “implement policy support” to “meet the reasonable financing demand of developers” and “support developers with short-term cash flow troubles.”

His remarks were among the first signals that China is planning a bailout for its beleaguered real estate industry.

China’s state-run Global Times carefully avoided words like “bailout” but said the regime in Beijing is paying “intense attention to defusing financial risks in the sector.”

Dong spoke of programs to keep honest real estate developers operating even after they default on their debts, which is just another way of saying “bailout”:

During the annual meeting, Dong noted that developers that have violated the law, defaulted on debt or been unable to keep operating, should be eliminated in accordance with market rules, which is the result of the survival of the fittest in the market.

“However, it was inaccurate to call debt defaults of some developers ‘collapses’ or ‘cash flow problems,'” he noted.

Quote:Japan’s Nippon Steel agreed to buy US Steel Corp for $14.1 billion, the companies announced on Monday, sparking criticism about the firm’s ownership in an industry crucial to US national security.

A major US steelworkers’ union and a top US politician came out against the Japanese conglomerate’s all-cash agreement to acquire the US firm for $55 per share.

The deal price marks a 40 percent premium on US Steel’s closing price on Friday and represents an equity value of about $14.1 billion, the companies said in a statement.

Nippon will also assume the US firm’s debt, taking the total value of the agreement to $14.9 billion.

The US company’s share price finished the trading day up more than 26 percent on Wall Street following the announcement.

Quote:According to a source within Customs and Border Protection, more than 13,000 migrants the agency considers “Special Interest Aliens” have been apprehended by the Border Patrol since October. These migrants include foreign nationals from Turkey, Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, Iran, Yemen, and Russia. According to the source, most have been released into the United States to pursue asylum claims.

The source says nearly 4,000 citizens of Turkey have been encountered as they surrendered to Border Patrol agents along the southwest border in less than the first three months of the new fiscal year.
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The source says more than 1,300 Special Interest Aliens from Afghanistan are also included in the more than 13,000 apprehended since October 1. Hamas and the Taliban in Afghanistan have a long-standing relationship rooted deeply in the mutual opposition to the United States and Israeli influence in the Middle East. In 2021, Hamas openly praised the Taliban for their victory in forcing an end to the United States occupation of Afghanistan after the Biden administration’s hasty withdrawal from the country.

More than 600 Russian nationals were also among the group of Special Interest Aliens apprehended since October 1. Like Turkey’s Erdogan, Russian President Vladimir Putin has also played host to senior Hamas leadership since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Putin likely welcomes the continued conflict in Gaza as it shifts international focus from his invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war there.

The source told Breitbart Texas more than 300 Sudanese nationals were also among the group of Special Interest Aliens apprehended along the southwest border since FY24 began in October. Just two days after the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, Sudan reinstated diplomatic ties with Iran.

Quote:Disney’s Marvel actor Jonathan Majors was found guilty by a New York jury on Monday on charges that he attacked his then-girlfriend in the back of a car.

A jury composed of three men and three women convicted the rising Hollywood star following a two-week trial in a state court in Manhattan.

Prosecutors argued that Jonathan Majors assaulted Grace Jabbari in a car in New York in March, leaving her with a broken finger and swollen arm and ear. The actor was facing charges including two assault counts and two harassment counts —  all of which were misdemeanors.

Sentencing is scheduled for February 6. Majors could be sent to jail for up to one year.

The actor has maintained his innocence throughout the ordeal, and even accused Jabbari of assaulting him. But New York prosecutors led by Soros-funded Alvin Bragg declined to file charges against her, without disclosing their reasons.

Quote:German farmers gathered in Berlin on Monday to protest against planned cuts to tax breaks for diesel used in agriculture, part of a deal reached by the government to plug a hole in the country´s budget.

Leaders of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition last week agreed on measures to fill a 17 billion-euro ($18.5 billion) hole in next year’s budget, saying they would achieve that by reducing climate-damaging subsidies and slightly reducing some ministries’ spending, among other measures.

That was necessary after Germany’s highest court annulled an earlier decision to repurpose 60 billion euros originally meant to cushion the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic for measures to help combat climate change and modernize the country. The maneuver fell foul of Germany´s strict self-imposed limits on running up debt.

As more details of the deal have emerged, so has discontent, notably over a plan to cut tax breaks for agricultural diesel and scrap an exemption from car tax for farming vehicles.

Even Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir has protested. He told ARD television that farmers have “no alternative” to diesel.

Quote:The British Army is now the smallest it has been in 200 years, as more defence personnel continue to leave than join, while in Germany the military recruitment crisis is so acute the defence minister speaks of bringing back conscription.

The number of serving personnel in the British armed forces including all three services and the reserves fell by a further 3.9 per cent to just 184,865 this year. Of those, just 75,983 are regular soldiers.

Some 16,260 people left the armed forces in the past year: subtracting new recruitment the net loss of troops was 7,440 personnel.

According to an analysis by British newspaper the Daily Telegraph, this fall means the British Army is now at the smallest size in 200 years, no mean feat given the population of Britain in 1820 was only a little over 20 million souls, while it rapidly approaches 70 million today.
...
Speaking to the national newspaper of record Die Welt at the weekend, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said that while the government was working on plans to stabilise the armed forces through a series of changes, if these measures failed ultimately there are other options on the table to make sure the military doesn’t collapse for want of soldiers. When asked if one of those options is compulsory service, Pistorius said he is considering “all options”, calling the decision to suspend conscription in 2011 “a mistake”.

While conscription is still provided for in the German constitution and is legal — the system was simply put into abeyance in 2011 — Pistorius acknowledged restarting it would be politically difficult now, and that any such move couldn’t go ahead without broad political support.

Quote:Beijing hosted the deputy foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia this weekend for a meeting the Chinese Foreign Ministry described on Monday as a sign of the Communist Party’s commitment to “play[ing] a constructive role” in the Middle East.
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China has increasingly attempted to elevate its geopolitical profile in the Middle East both as an attempt to expand its economic influence in the region and to support anti-American interests in the region. The Communist Party has been a vocal supporter of the jihadist terror organization Hamas in the aftermath of the October 7 atrocities committed against Israel, which left 1,200 people dead and involved gang rape, the gruesome killing of babies, and desecrating corpses.

According to a report on Sunday by the Iranian outlet Tasnim News, Israel’s self-defense operation in Hamas-dominated Gaza was one of several topics discussed by the Iranian and Saudi officials in Beijing. China’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, hosted Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri and Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed Abdulkarim El Khereiji to reportedly discuss both cooperation among the three parties and unity on message against Israel for attempting to prevent a repeat of October 7.
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The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s description of the meeting between the three diplomats on Monday matched Tasnim’s reporting. Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin added the detail that Wang Yi presented his guests with a “three-point suggestion” plan for ensuring durable peace between the two.

“Director Wang Yi had a group meeting with the delegations from the two countries and put forward a three-point suggestion on the improvement of Saudi Arabia-Iran relations,” Wang Wenbin listed, “first, stay committed to the strategic choice of reconciliation; second, advance the process of improving relations; and third, reject external disruption.”

“The three parties also discussed the trilateral cooperation in various fields and stated their common positions on regional hotpot issues including Palestine,” he added.

Quote:The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translated remarks from a conference in Islamabad last week during which leaders of the Hamas terrorist group and Islamic scholars agreed Pakistan could end the Gaza war by threatening Israel with nuclear annihilation.

MEMRI noted that Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mash’al are frequent virtual guests at “anti-Israel” events in Pakistan. One such event was held in Islamabad on December 6, featuring a telephone address from Haniyeh as the headline speaker, plus a Hamas official named Naji Zuhair in attendance. The theme of the conference was restoring the “sanctity of Jerusalem” – by getting rid of the Jews who currently live there.

MEMRI translated several reports from Pakistani media that said the conference rejected the notion of a “two-state solution for Palestine” as “unacceptable.” Instead, the gathered Hamas leaders and Islamist clerics wanted a one-state solution achieved by ethnically cleansing the Israelis – or maybe a zero-state solution from nuking the whole country.

Hamas speakers at the conference called on Pakistan to throw its nuclear weight around to protect the “defensive jihad” waged by the Palestinian terrorist organization.

“If Pakistan Threatens Israel, Then the Gaza War Can Stop; Jews Are the Muslims’ Greatest Enemy in the World,” read one characteristic headline from Pakistani media.

“Pakistan is a strong country. If Pakistan threatens Israel, then the war can stop. We have lots of expectations from Pakistan. Pakistan can force Israel to retreat,” explained Haniyeh, who has a penchant for commanding other people to die for his causes while he lives large in Qatar on a billion-dollar pile of pilfered humanitarian aid money.

Quote:Hunter Biden will make his first appearance in California federal court early next year over felony tax charges in the state.

Next month’s court calendar states President Joe Biden’s son is scheduled to be arraigned at 1 p.m. on Jan. 11 before Judge Alka Sagar in Roybal Courtroom 640.

Biden was indicted on nine tax-related offenses earlier this month on accusations of failing to pay his taxes, failing to file his tax returns, and filing fraudulent tax returns, as Breitbart News reported.

The 56-page indictment filed in a federal court in Los Angeles alleged Biden “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle” rather than pay his taxes, per NBC News.

The indictment also alleges Hunter Biden “willfully failed to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 taxes on time, despite having access to funds to pay some or all of these taxes.”

Quote:The FBI is in possession of tapes that captured James Biden negotiating business ventures involving Joe Biden, according to a report in the Washington Post, which initially failed to authenticate the “Laptop from Hell” for 532 days.

The tapes reveal how members of the Biden family worked to rake in millions of dollars while Joe Biden, referenced as the “Big Guy” by at least five Biden associates, held federal office, according to the House Oversight Committee:

• The Biden business earned $24 million dollars between 2015 and 2019.
  
• The business used more than 20 shell companies.
  
• Associates sold the “Biden brand.”
  

James Biden, who received a subpoena to appear before a House impeachment inquiry, controls Lion Hall Group, an entity that investigators suspect of wrongdoing. According to the Post, many of James Biden’s business ventures operated via the Lion Hall Group, including some negotiations caught on tape by the FBI.

Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, a Mississippi trial attorney, tried to use James Biden’s influence with Joe Biden to close a deal that forced “tobacco companies to pay billions of dollars,” the Post reported.

The Post also told readers their story does not prove Joe Biden “knew” about the “alleged money trail” or did anything wrong.

Quote:The complaint submitted to Harvard’s research integrity officer by a professor from another university, who wished to remain anonymous, outlines at least 40 allegations of plagiarism against Claudine Gay, including some of the charges that various publications, including Breitbart News, have covered over the past few weeks. The new allegations range “from missing quotation marks around a few phrases or sentences to entire paragraphs lifted verbatim,” according to the Washington Free Beacon. Other allegations include Gay paraphrasing authors without proper attribution.

“The full list of examples spans seven of Gay’s publications—two more than previously reported—which comprise almost half of her scholarly output,” noted the outlet.

Up until now, the Harvard Corporation has stood by Gay after an independent review of her work, saying earlier this month that it found “no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct.”

The Beacon noted that the probe focused on just three of her papers. The complaint asserted that investigators have not reviewed the entirety of Gay’s work.

“[I]t is impossible that your office has already reviewed the entirety of these materials, as many … have not been previously reported or submitted,” the complaint said.

A school official guilty of plagiarism can face “suspension,” “rank reduction,” and “termination of employment.” The appropriate sanction will be considered if the misconduct is determined to be “an isolated event or part of a pattern.” Harvard has already taken heat for being noticeably lax on faculty plagiarism versus that committed by students.

Quote:Campbell, executive director of The LeBron James Family Foundation, railed at the school board for “breaking trust” with the foundation and unfairly accusing I Promise of failing students. She also blasted Akron Board of Education President Derrick Hall for refusing to answer an email she sent to him.

“My email received no response. We all know what happened next,” Campbell said during the meeting.
...
In his reply during the meeting, Hall pointed out that he had a private conversation with Campbell about the email and thought that they had reached an understanding on the matter. But Campbell wanted to make an issue about the situation.
...
The conflict began in July when news broke that James’ famed school had not succeeded in doing much actual educating of its students since launching in 2018.

The shocking report sent the Akron School Board to make plans to put James’ school under closer scrutiny. The board also made plans to spend more state and district money to improve the school’s proficiency rate throughout the curriculum.

In July, Yahoo News reported that “Two of I Promise’s biggest subgroups of students, Black students and those with disabilities, are now testing in the bottom 5% in the state, landing the school on the Ohio Department of Education’s list of those requiring targeted intervention.”

Board President Hall said he was “disappointed” by the school’s serious deficits.

 What can I say now? They think they will solve the issue by spending a whole bunch of money, only to find out later on that nothing has ever changed there.

Quote:China’s state-owned Sinochem Corporation purchased a million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil for delivery in December — an unusual buy made possible when the Biden administration suspended human rights sanctions on Venezuelan oil in October.

Three traders familiar with the deal told Reuters on Tuesday that Sinochem received a discount of $11 per barrel for the Venezuelan heavy crude oil, which will be delivered to the Changyi refinery in Shandong province.

One of the traders noted that Sinochem “barely touched Venezuelan oil before,” even though it has plants that can refine that grade of crude oil. Sinochem, evidently, avoided Venezuelan products because the huge state-controlled company was worried about triggering secondary U.S. sanctions.

Independent Chinese refiners were more willing to take that risk and have been buying Venezuelan oil at discounts of up to $20 per barrel. They hedged their bets by claiming the Venezuelan crude was coming from Malaysia.

In an interesting demonstration of unpredictable consequences, the U.S. lifting sanctions on Venezuelan oil made it possible for Sinochem to buy its million barrels, but it also caused much of the supply of phony “Malaysian” oil to independent Chinese refineries to dry up because Venezuela was suddenly able to sell its oil elsewhere at higher prices. One of the most eager customers is energy-hungry India.

None of you truly expected China to stay away from Venezuela after the sactions were lifted, right?
Poor Malaysia!  Now it won't export any oil to China any longer...  What a terrible disguise that was!

Quote:U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, on a visit to Israel, announced “a multinational maritime taskforce” Monday to deal with the threat of Houthi rebels in Yemen to global shipping in the Red Sea, which must pass through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.
...
Fully 10% of the world’s oil traffic must travel through the strait, which means that Iran, via the Houthis, is threatening the world economy.

President Joe Biden had allowed the Houthis free rein after reversing the policies of President Donald Trump, who had contained the Houthis, within days of taking office in 2021.

The problem began in 2015, in the lame-duck years of President Barack Obama’s presidency, when Iran helped the Houthis knock over the existing, pro-American government of Yemen, a poor and underdeveloped country in which most adults are drug addicts.
...
Iran, not Saudi Arabia, is primarily responsible for the civil war in Yemen, arming the Houthis to wrest control of the country away from the Yemeni government. The new Houthi regime has attacked Saudi Arabia directly. Iran reportedly sees the conflict as a relatively inexpensive way to threaten its Saudi rivals and force the Saudis to spend billions of dollars on defense in a conflict that has dented the Saudis’ image.
...
Two years later, the Houthis are firing missiles and drones in the hope of murdering Israeli civilians, thousands of miles away, joining the Iranian-backed terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in doing so. Meanwhile, the Houthis have — as of today — launched nearly 20 attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, threatening trade and oil deliveries.

Quote:KAITLAN COLLINS: Ambassador Bolton, when you look at this, this measure that was put in place to to keep former confederates from returning to power, I mean, what do you make of it being used here?

BOLTON: I think it’s completely misplaced. I think this this Colorado Supreme Court decision is badly wrong for multiple reasons. Number one, the 14th Amendment provides that Congress can pass legislation to carry its provisions into effect, which Congress has done on many aspects. It has not put anything with respect to Section Three on the books since just after the Civil War.

Second, the idea that 50 different state courts can can decide a question involving the highest elective office in the executive branch, interpreting the federal Constitution as to what constitutes an insurrection against the federal government is, is incoherent. And I think undoubtedly the Supreme Court is going to have to clear that up.

In terms of what the framers of the 14th Amendment meant. I think I think it’s quite clear that the radical Republicans in Congress who wanted to suppress the secessionist advocates and governments of the Southern states had seceded, would not provide on this critical question of the offices that that are going to be denied to people who broke their oath to the United States, that you’re going to put decision making authority on that in the hands of the states, including the former secessionist states. That, if that was their intention, they were delusional when they did it.

So I’d be willing to bet a small amount of money here that the Supreme Court, if it gets to the merits of this, if it has to, will reverse. There’s there’s no other logical way you can apply this. And it would sow chaos in elections as far as the eye could see.

Quote:President Joe Biden greenlit the release of Colombian businessman Alex Saab, accused of acting as Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro’s top money launderer, on Wednesday.

Saab’s release is allegedly the result of a prisoner swap with the rogue socialist regime that will also allow for the release of unjustly detained Americans in Venezuela, the Associated Press reported.

Saab, 51, is a close personal ally of Maduro and is widely considered the socialist dictator’s financial brain. American law enforcement authorities arrested Saab in Cape Verde in 2020 after the Department of Justice indicted him in 2019 on charges of laundering $350 million from Venezuela’s state coffers through a bribery scheme that involved shady affordable housing construction contracts. Saab was on trial in America at the time of his announced release.

According to an anonymous source cited by the Associated Press, in exchange, the Maduro regime will release “some, if not all” of the roughly 12 U.S. citizens who remain imprisoned in Venezuela.

Another report published by Reuters on Wednesday claimed that the Maduro regime will release 36 people, including 12 American citizens and four citizens arrested this month as part of a crackdown on dissidents of the socialist regime.

And the Biden administration still expects Maduro to keep such promises after the sham elections that were held earlier this month?

Quote:14 Russian spies including alleged ‘Ukrainian refugees’ have been sentenced in Poland over a plot to spy on and sabotage infrastructure carrying weapons and aid to Ukraine including an airport, railway, and sea port.

Poland has dismantled a Russian spy ring which the court found received instructions from its handlers in Russia through an encrypted messaging app and was paid on a per-job basis by cryptocurrency transfer. National newspaper Rzeczpospolita reports from the Lublin court that payments ranged from $5 for posting a propaganda leaflet, to $400 for installing a surveillance camera, and up to $10,000 for derailing a train.

Other tasks are reported to have included setting fires in Poland and subjecting targeted individuals with “beatings”. Prosecutor Piotr Łopatyński told Onet of the sophistication of the ring: “We were dealing with a modern, previously unknown way of running and organizing a spy network, not only in Poland, but also in the entire European Union.”

The sentences for espionage handed to those found guilty ranged from six months for ‘Artem’ to 13 months for Belarussian student ‘Maria’. Among those convicted were Ukrainian ‘refugees’ who travelled to Europe after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, two Belarussian students, and a Russian hockey player playing for a Polish team.

The court heard how the cell planned to sabotage military equipment and aid travelling from the European Union to embattled Ukraine, much of which travels through Poland. At least six “very high resolution wireless” battery-powered cameras were installed which, the paper states, were used to “constantly” monitor the naval base in Gdynia, Jasionka International Airport, and the railway at Rzeszów, intending to plant GPS trackers on equipment.

Ultimately the cell intended to derail trains transporting military equipment, echoing tactics already seen widely within Ukraine and Russia itself in recent months, as both sides in the stalled conflict attempt to inflict damage on their opponent’s supply lines. Rzeszów is one of the main hubs in Europe for the shipment of aid to Ukraine by rail.

Quote:Chief of Poland’s National Broadcasting Council has criticised Communist-era style practices as Eurocrat globalist Donald Tusk returns to power and immediately starts purging the national media landscape.

Donald Tusk, the two-time Polish Prime Minister and Brussels Eurocrat has heralded his return to power in the country after this year’s elections by steps to break up media organisations that some see as holding views contrary to his own. The Civic Platform leader accused several broadcasters including the state broadcaster TVP as being propagandists and said he would defending the “legal order” and “independence” by taking them down.

British state broadcaster the BBC has dutifully toed the Tusk line, uncritically reported claims as fact that TVP “became a propaganda machine for the [Law and Justice (PiS)] government”. ABC News reported Tusk was seeking to “reestablish independent media in Poland in a legally binding and lasting way”. Meanwhile, Politico stated “Poland’s revolution gets real as government reclaims control of public media”

The new Polish culture ministry announced Wednesday it had fired the heads of several broadcasters. The management and supervisory boards of Televison Poland, Polish Radio, and the Polish Press Agency were all dismissed.

Quote:Germany´s Federal Constitutional Court on Tuesday ordered the 2021 national election to be partially repeated in the German capital because of severe glitches at many polling stations.

The court ruled that the election must be repeated in 455 of 2,256 constituencies in the state of Berlin, which is one of three German cities that is also a state.

A state election that was held the same day was completely rerun in February. The ruling is not expected to change the current national government´s majority.
...
Berlin held four votes on Sept. 26, 2021: the state election, a vote for the city´s 12 district assemblies, the German national election and a local referendum.

The Berlin Marathon, also held the same day, added to logistical difficulties. Long lines had formed outside many polling stations as voters struggled with extra ballot papers.

Some polling stations ran out of ballot papers during the day and others received ones for the wrong district, leading to a large number of invalidated ballots.

Quote:The bill passed the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, with a 349-186 vote late Tuesday. It had previously been voted by the Senate.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the text of the bill includes “useful, efficient provisions that were expected by our citizens.”

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who championed the bill, said the government wants “greater firmness against foreign offenders.”

“Who here can say that we must allow criminals, people on our land, who attacks us, attack our professors and who attack our police forces and who attack the youth on the cafe terraces, without reacting?” he said in a speech at the National Assembly.

The bill still needs to be officially enacted into law.
...
The conservatives, who pushed for a hard-line approach, said the compromise text features provisions to reduce the number of migrants coming to France, notably by limiting foreigners´ access to social benefits.

Many saw the negotiations as a sign of a shift to the right by Macron´s government.

Leftist politicians accused the centrists of pushing the law through with the support of the far-right.

Quote:The Chinese government was quick to cheer Australia’s rejection of a United States’ call to send a warship to help police vital Red Sea trade routes, gushing Wednesday that Canberra was finally stepping out of America’s “shadow.”

In an opinion piece published by China’s tame state-run media – the Global Times newspaper – author Jerry Grey celebrated the left-wing Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reported refusal to send a warship to the Middle East, and Australia’s recent U.N. vote for a ceasefire in contrast to that of the U.S..

He said the moves proved Australia was “distancing itself from the US.”

“(Australia) has finally stepped out of the US’ shadow to call for a ceasefire and could potentially act as a mediator in the conflict if needed. That opportunity will be lost if it has a military presence in the region. It is sensible for Australia to continue distancing itself from the US,” the paper said.

The article, titled “Sensible for Australia to refuse US Red Sea Warship” came with a cartoon of a kangaroo standing at the edge of a hole with a U.S.-branded shovel nearby.

Quote:The Chinese state-run propaganda outlet Global Times published a commentary on Tuesday urging the United States to cede to the demands of Yemen’s Houthi terrorist organization – which include pressuring Israel to allow fellow jihadists Hamas to thrive in Gaza – as a way of stopping Houthi attacks on international shipping.

The Houthis, an Iran-backed Shiite jihadist terror organization, announced a war against Israel in late October in support of Hamas, a Sunni organization that also enjoys financial support from the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism, Iran. Hamas orchestrated an unprecedented terrorist assault on Israel on October 7 that resulted in 1,200 deaths and an estimated 250 abductions and featured a wide range of atrocities against civilians, including the murder and torture of children, gang rape, and desecration of corpses. The Houthis extended their full support to the atrocities and, in December, announced that in solidarity with Hamas they would begin attacking commercial ships attempting to access the Red Sea.

Houthi leaders claim, falsely, to be the legitimate government of Yemen and Iranian state propaganda outlets indulge this claim.

While Houthi leaders insist that they will only target Israeli and Israeli-bound ships, multiple targets of Houthi attacks have been ships whose operators claimed no ties to the country. As a result, at least 12 major international shipping companies – including BP, Maersk, and Evergreen – announced they would divert ships away from the Red Sea and towards the longer and more expensive route around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. About 12 percent of international shipping normally passes through the Red Sea.

Houthi leaders threatened to turn the entire Red Sea into a “graveyard” on Monday and said they would only end their piracy if “crimes in Gaza stop and food, medicines and fuel are allowed to reach its besieged population.” The “crimes in Gaza” they referred to are self-defense operations by the Israeli military intended to dismantle Hamas and prevent a second October 7-style attack. Contrary to the implication in the Houthi statement, Israel is allowing humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and expanding access as it moves its operations deeper into Hamas territory. According to the White House, 200 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza on Sunday.

 That's precisely the same as telling the whole world community that they just need to accept Iran's demands just because. Without any complains.
One of the Houthis' demands is non sensical by definition, neither they nor Hamas ever cared about the impoverished Gazan people. All aid gets stolen by Hamas to support their terrorist network, people has to attack their trucks to get something to eat as it happened a few days ago.

Quote:Communist dictator of North Korea Kim Jong-un declared through state media on Wednesday that the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was necessary to “clearly show what action the DPRK [North Korea] has been prepared and what option the DPRK would take when Washington makes a wrong decision against it.”

Kim’s remarks were paraphrased in an article by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the flagship propaganda outlet of the North Korean regime. News outlets and media not controlled by the state are illegal in North Korea.

In the article, KCNA confirmed that the launch of a long-range missile into the East Sea (or Sea of Japan) on Monday was an ICBM test, naming the missile in question as the “Hwasong-18,” North Korea’s latest publicly known model. Pyongyang debuted the Hwasong-18 in July and claimed that it could accurately hit a target anywhere in the continental United States with a nuclear payload.

North Korea launched the ICBM on the same day that it boasted of a visit by Deputy Foreign Minister Pak Myong Ho to Beijing, where Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi allegedly greeted him warmly and vowed that the Chinese Communist Party would continue to back the neighboring rogue regime.

Quote:After U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced a ten-member coalition for “Operation Prosperity Guardian,” the Houthis vowed to continue attacking “even if America succeeds in mobilizing the entire world.”

Austin’s announcement came after a weekend when oil giant BP and shipping heavyweight Evergreen Line said they were suspending traffic through the Red Sea.

The two massive corporations joined a growing list of shippers who said it was no longer safe to use the Red Sea, Bab El Mandeb Strait, and Suez Canal due to Houthi attacks. Avoiding that route would increase shipping time between Asia and northern Europe by about 30 percent, with a commensurate increase in costs. About 12 percent of the world’s shipping traffic passes through the area threatened by the Houthis.
...
According to Austin, Operation Prosperity Guardian will include vessels from the United States, United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, and Spain.

The U.K. said its warship HMS Diamond, which has already shot down Houthi drones over the Red Sea, and the frigate HMS Lancaster will be part of the effort.

Quote:Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh left his luxury accommodations in Qatar on Wednesday to visit Egypt, ostensibly to bring his personal authority to negotiations with Israel.

Haniyeh’s presence apparently did not count for much, because Hamas reportedly went on to reject Israel’s offer of a one-week pause in fighting in exchange for 40 hostages, including all of the women and children still held by the Palestinian terrorist organization.

Reuters noted on Wednesday that Haniyeh supposedly stays out of public “diplomacy” unless “progress seems likely.” The only ceasefire in the Gaza war to date began after Haniyeh made his previous trip to Egypt in November. In that deal, Israel paused operations for a week, while Hamas released 110 hostages.

Hamas still holds an estimated 108 living hostages. Israel reportedly offered another one-week pause, plus more Palestinian prisoners released and more humanitarian aid for Gaza, if Hamas would release 40 of them. Hamas envoys were reportedly discussing which hostages they might be willing to free when Haniyeh traveled to Cairo to join them.

The Biden administration sent its usual mixed signals while Haniyeh huddled with his representatives in Egypt. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said another ceasefire-for-hostages agreement was “something we’d very much like to see happen,” while President Joe Biden said he did not think such a deal was likely.

Quote:On September 26, 2023, Breitbart News reported Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a “sensitive places” bill into law, expanding the number of gun-free zones in which licensed concealed carriers could not carry firearms for self-defense.

A lawsuit was filed against the new law. Plaintiffs in the case included a number of California concealed carry permit holders, the Second Amendment Foundation, and Gun Owners of America.

The plaintiffs sought “a preliminary injunction enjoining California from enforcing the challenged sensitive-place provisions, asserting that many of those restrictions violate their Second Amendment rights and deprive them of their ability to defend themselves and their loved ones in public.”

Judge Carney weighed the “sensitive places” law in light of Bruen’s (2022) demand that contemporary gun controls demonstrate historical precedent in America’s firearm tradition and found it lacking. He noted that California lawmakers relied on eccentric, exceptional laws to bolster their “sensitive places” ban instead of common tradition.
...
But Carney pointed out, “The Virginia ‘terror’ law and the nineteenth-century New Mexico and New Orleans laws do not reflect a well-established, representative historical tradition of preventing vetted and trained permitholders from carrying firearms for self-defense in casinos, stadiums, arenas, amusement parks, or similar locations.”

Quote:A SFGATE report detailed multiple local restaurant owners who suffered so much financial loss that they had to shut down, with fine dining establishments and mom-and-pop shops suffering alike.

Chefs Walter and Margarita Manzke, owners of several popular high-end eateries, have had to close multiple restaurants in the last year. Among the failed ventures are Petty Cash Taqueria, which had been in the downtown L.A. area since 2013, and a casual Filipino concept called Sari Sari Store at Grand Central Market.

“I don’t know if we’ve seen the end of how the pandemic has affected restaurants,” Walter told the outlet. “People are being more careful about where they’re spending their money.”

The longtime restaurateur explained that he doesn’t plan to open another restaurant soon.

“We’re not looking to open a new restaurant in the next few months. Even chefs who’ve been in the business a long time and have helped to shape LA dining are struggling. It’s tough to get buzz for a new spot.”

Quote:At least 15 people were shot dead by a gunman from a balcony on the faculty of arts at the University of Prague on Thursday, with the gunman reported by local media to have fallen from the roof.

A mass shooter has been “eliminated” and “here are several dead and dozens of injured” around the faculty of arts building at the University of Prague, Czech police said on Thursday. Czech newspaper Lidové Noviny reports the mayor of Prague Bohuslav Svoboda told their publication that the presumed shooter had fallen from the building and was now dead. Images circulated on social media show a man identified as the attacker holding a long fire arm with scope at the balcony rail near the roof of the building.

A police press conference reveals some developments, and tragically among them is a revised death toll of 15, up from 10 cited earlier. 24 people are said to be receiving medical treatment. Not all of those killed died of gunshot wounds, and some of the dead fell from the university building while trying to escape the gunman.

Police also say they were hunting for the gunman before the shooting, but were looking in the wrong university building, believing he was about to attack the philosophy department. The attack was instead launched at the arts building of Prague’s Charles University. The gunman is reported to have already shot his father earlier in the day in the village of Kladensko, and as police attempted to find the 24-year-old, discovered he was scheduled to give a lecture at the university on Thursday afternoon.
...
The minister also spoke of another attack which took place in Klánovice, a leafy suburb of Prague last week in which a 32-year-old man and a two-month-old girl — still strapped into her stroller — were shot dead. “At the moment, there is no way to confirm the connection with the investigated case in Klánovice”, Rakušan said.

Quote:Macron’s comments in a television interview on Wednesday night were a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse into the deep layers of planning for the July 26 ceremony. Many details about the show remain shrouded in secrecy to preserve its hoped-for wow factor. The security, with tens of thousands of police and soldiers deployed, will be intense.

The athletes will be paraded through the heart of the French capital on boats on the Seine – for the first Summer Games opening ceremony held outside of a usual stadium setting. Both banks of the river will be lined by hundreds of thousands of spectators, behind multiple security cordons.
...
But he said plans could be revisited for security reasons. He cited deadly extremist attacks that hit Paris in 2015 as an example of the type of severe crisis that could force a rethink.

“You´re 15 days from the Olympic Games. You have a series of terrorist attacks. What do you do? Well you don´t organize (a ceremony) on the Seine,” Macron said.
...
Paris Games organizers say the ceremony along the Seine is their plan A. Prize-winning French theater director Thomas Jolly is overseeing its artistic content and the closing ceremony at the Stade de France on Aug. 11.

Quote:The government of Qatar announced on Thursday that it successfully acted as a mediator in the latest prisoner swap between the United States and Venezuela’s socialist regime that resulted in the release of Alex Saab, allegedly dictator Nicolás Maduro’s top money launderer.

Saab, a 51-year-old Colombian businessman with deep ties to the Maduro regime, was arrested in 2020 by U.S. law enforcement authorities in Cape Verde after he was indicted in 2019 on charges of laundering $350 million for Venezuela’s state coffers. Saab is also known as Maduro’s “financial brain,” with deep knowledge of the dictator’s shady financial movements and gross misuse of Venezuelan public funding to further the socialist regime’s agenda.
...
The Biden administration released Saab on Wednesday, sending him back to Caracas in exchange for roughly ten unjustly arrested Americans and fugitive Leonard Francis, commonly referred to as “Fat Leonard,” who was at the center of a massive corruption scandal in the U.S. Navy.

In a statement given to Qatar News Agency (QNA) on Thursday, Qatar announced its mediator role in the prisoner swap. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, on behalf of Qatar, thanked both the United States and Venezuela for their “cooperation in making the prisoner swap a success and for their response to the Qatari mediation efforts.”

Sheikh Mohammed also emphasized that the prisioner swap is part of a “broader mediation effort aimed at addressing outstanding issues between the two countries.”

In another statement published to QNA, the Secretary-General of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Jasem Mohamed Al Budaiwi said that the “success” of Qatar’s mediation between the United States and Venezuela is a “confirmation of its great and prominent diplomatic role and the confidence of the international community in it,” adding that the outcome of the prisoner swap between both countries will be included to Qatar’s “track record of diplomatic successes.”

 Please keep in mind that Qatar is the same country that has always served as an undisputable safe haven for Hamas top leaders.

Quote:Sources in the shipping industry told Reuters on Thursday they are “in the dark” about the Biden administration’s new Operation Prosperity Garden, a multinational effort to protect Red Sea shipping from terrorist attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen.

Most cargo operations are still suspending operations in the Red Sea or routing their ships around the Cape of Good Hope, adding ten days of sailing time and huge additional costs to their shipments.

“There are still a number of unknowns with the coalition. We don’t know exactly how many warships will be involved, how long it will take those vessels to get to the region, or their rules of engagement and the actual protection scheme that will be put in place,” said Corey Ranslem, CEO of Dryad Global, a British maritime consultant.

“Globally this is a fairly small area, however providing protection to commercial vessels in this region could be a major undertaking depending on the number of vessels along with any changes to the Houthi tactics,” he said.

Ranselm said he expected even more shipping companies to begin “diverting around Africa or completely pausing operations” if they are not reassured the new security coalition can guarantee their safety.

Overall traffic through the Red Sea is already down by about 14 percent.

Quote:California’s population dipped by about 75,000 from 2022 to 2023, estimates released Tuesday by the Census Bureau shows, with about 38,965,000 million people in the state this year. The state’s population has fallen since its 2019 peak of 39.5 million, though the annual loss has also slowed each year.
Between 2021 and 2022, California lost a net of about 104,000 people, or 0.3%, higher than the dip of 0.2% between 2022 and 2023.
...
California’s Department of Finance, whose estimates use different data sources than the Census, suggested the state’s population [drop] could be … less severe. By its measure, the state’s 2023 population is about 39.1 million, falling by just 37,000 people from the year prior. The department, which also said San Francisco’s population has grown slightly in the past two years, told the Chronicle they believe their data tracked in-migration slightly better than the Census Bureau.

California’s population losses through domestic migration were partially offset by international immigration and in-state births.

Prior to the fiscal year from July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2021, California had never seen even one year of population decline since 1900, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

The numbers suggest California’s latest exodus is slowing as the pandemic eases, but it still remains a concern.

Only New York, Louisiana, Hawaii, Illinois and West Virginia lost a larger share of their population over the year.

The result could be that California could continue to lose seats in the House of Representatives; it lost one in the 2020 Census.

Quote:The Dukes of Hazzard star John Schneider is under investigation from the Secret Service after statements he made online Thursday against President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

The federal agency charged with protecting POTUS, the Vice President and their immediate families, as well as major political candidates and high level government officials, have opened the probe, according to Deadline.

As Breitbart News reported, Schneider called for the public execution of Biden, saying the commander in chief should to be “publicly hung” for treason. The actor also called for Hunter Biden to be executed.

John Schneider posted the X message in reply to Biden’s recent post in which he called former President Donald Trump a “threat” to democracy.

“Mr. President, I believe you are guilty of treason and should be publicly hung. Your son too.  Your response is…?” the actor wrote.

Quote:Canada is throwing open the migration door to all extended families of Canadians in war-torn Gaza Strip for up to three years, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced Thursday.

The move is due to take effect on January 9. It will expand a broad range of categories with which to bring Gazans into the country to claim sanctuary as temporary residents as well as offers of financial support.

These include options to reunite with spouses or common-law partners, children and grandchildren regardless of age, siblings and their immediate families, as well as parents and grandparents, the government confirmed in a statement addressing the changes.

Ottawa’s generosity to the Palestinian arrivals comes as none of the Arab countries that claim to love them as brothers are willing to accept them as refugees, as Breitbart News reported.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller said more people will now be able to escape Gaza for the three-year respite.

Quote:Writing at Canada’s National Post on Tuesday, columnist Rex Murphy noted that disruptive and violent pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protesters are treated with far more indulgence by Canadian officials than the Freedom Convoy protesters who peacefully stood against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pandemic policies in 2022.

The Freedom Convoy was cracked down upon with such force that a First Nations elder went down under the hooves of a police horse, which is far more aggressive policing than the ugly pro-Hamas demonstrations have been given so far.

Murphy zeroed in on Tamara Lich, the Freedom Convoy organizer who was arrested, slapped with heavy charges, and denied bail in October 2022. Lich was accused of offenses such as “counseling to commit mischief” for organizing truckers to blockade roads.

Lich wound up spending 18 days in jail in Ottawa before bail was finally granted, on conditions such as refraining from social media, expressing public support for the Freedom Convoy protests, or communicating with other protesters. She was arrested again for violating one of her bail conditions by appearing at an awards dinner with another Freedom Convoy organizer, but those charges were dropped.
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Murphy contrasted the rough treatment given to Lich, and the utter contempt displayed for the Freedom Convoy protesters by Trudeau and his officials, with the kid gloves worn for pro-terrorist demonstrators who threaten violence and commit vandalism while expressing their support for rape, murder, and genocide.
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Murphy was referring to a pro-Palestinian rally outside a Zara clothing store at Eaton Center on Sunday, during which a masked terrorism supporter did indeed offer to plant a police officer on the wrong side of the grass.

“If you’re a man, come touch me,” the demonstrator yelled at the Toronto cop. Hamas supporters also threatened to kill shoppers outside the store.

Quote:The Dutch government announced Friday it is preparing to give 18 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, in a boost for the embattled nation that is growing increasingly anxious about aid from its Western allies.

The Dutch defense minister, Kajsa Ollongren, sent a letter to parliament outlining the plan to donate the sophisticated jets that was first unveiled in the summer.

Friday´s decision is a significant step toward sending the planes into the skies over Ukraine, but did not say when they will be delivered.

The government said the move “allows personnel and budget to be allocated to prepare the devices” to be sent to Ukraine.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited a military airbase in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven in August to inspect two of the jets on the day that the Netherland and Denmark said they would donate planes to boost the Ukrainian war effort.

Last month, Romania inaugurated an international training hub for F-16 jet pilots from allied countries and other partners, including Ukraine. The training facility at an air base in southeast Romania will aim to increase interoperability between NATO allies, and better position the military alliance “to face the complex challenges” in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region, Romania´s defense ministry said.

Quote:Ukraine has been producing increasing numbers of drones since the start of Russia’s renewed invasion in 2022, and also imports considerable numbers from around the world. Following Zelensky’s remarks Ukraine’s Minister of Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshin — widely feted in Western media as the head of Ukraine’s railways in the early days of the war — boasted the nation would produce “more than 50,000 FPV drones” in December of this year alone. If true, the claim suggests Ukraine is indeed well on its way to producing a million of the ‘kamikaze’ type drones in 2024.

Kamyshin said in addition to the large numbers of these small, single-use killers, Ukraine would also produce over the course of 2024: “more than 10,000 medium-range (hundreds of kilometres) attack drones and 1,000+ drones with a range of over 1,000 kilometres”.

The First Person View (FPV) drones of which Zelensky and Kamyshin speak have become an integral, conflict-defining weapon, with social media flooded with hundreds of videos of successful attacks by the agile flying bombs deployed by both sides.
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Ukrainian statements about the drones frequently emphasise how cheap the drones are — a few thousand dollars each — versus the cost of the weapon systems and armoured vehicles they take out, in the many millions of dollars, underlining the asymmetric nature of the development.

Quote:Europe must race to ensure it can better defend itself as new military threats could emerge by the end of the decade even as the focus of security ally the U.S. shifts towards the Indo-Pacific, Germany’s defense minister has already warned.

Russia was hiking its weapons production considerably to sustain its invasion of Ukraine, while also threatening the Baltic states, Georgia and Moldova, Boris Pistorius was quoted as saying in an interview with Welt am Sonntag last week.
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Since then Czech Defence Minister Jana Černochová confirmed the course and speed which Europe is moving when she announced Thursday her country is advancing negotiations with Germany to carry out a joint acquisition of up to 77 new Leopard 2A8 main battlefield tanks.

The NATO member is also nearing the completion of talks to buy C-390 Millennium transport aircraft and F-35 Lightning II fighter jets.
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Meanwhile, Defense News reports Spain has ordered 16 Airbus C295 aircraft in maritime patrol and surveillance configurations for €1.7 billion (U.S. $1.9 billion), Airbus announced Wednesday.

Six maritime patrol variants will come equipped for anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare missions, replacing the Spanish P-3 Orion fleet that retired at the end of 2022, Airbus said.
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The German Defence Ministry has also signed a contract with Airbus for 62 H145M light attack helicopters, with a portion of the fleet equipped to fight tanks from afar — a direct lesson from the fighting in Ukraine.

Under the order, 57 of the aircraft will go to the Army and five to Air Force special operations forces.

Twenty more are envisioned under a future option, Airbus Helicopters said in a Dec. 14 statement. Deliveries will begin in 2024, according to the vendor.
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There was a 13 percent rise in Europe, the steepest in at least 30 years, coming on the back of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and broader insecurity around the world.