News of the World

[kyonides]

US NEWS

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John Kirby Struggles to Name Biden Foreign Policy Achievement in 2023

During a briefing with reporters — the last of the year — Ed O’Keefe of CBS News asked Kirby to look back over the year and name the most important success.

Kirby waffled for a moment, saying that he was running out of time, and suggesting that Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wanted him to go.

“There’s a lot we’ve achieved in foreign policy … ” he began.

“You know, we’re running late, and I don’t want to belabor this,” he continued, saying that the answer would take 20 minutes.

Kirby eventually listed the “Quad” alliance in the Indo-Pacific, the Australian nuclear submarine deal, helping Ukraine hold Russia back, and helping Israel “put pressure on Hamas.”

(Former President Donald Trump actually formed the Quad alliance in 2017.)

Ultimately, he said that the top achievement was “shoring up alliances.”

Other News

Federal Judge: California’s ‘Sensitive Places’ Limits on Concealed Carry Unconstitutional

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.
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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.”

Restaurant Owners Ditching Los Angeles over High Costs, Coronavirus Lockdown Impact

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.”

EUROPEAN NEWS

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About Terrorism

At Least 15 Dead, Several More Injured in Prague University Shooting

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.
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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.

France Has ‘Plan B’ For 2024 Paris Olympics in Case of Terrorist Attacks, Says Macron

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.
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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.
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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.

MIDDLE EASTERN NEWS

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2 Articles

Qatar Brags It Helped Convince Biden to Free Venezuela’s Top Money Man Alex Saab

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.
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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.

Shipping Industry Shows Little Faith in Biden’s Red Sea Security Coalition

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.