News of the World

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US NEWS

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Biden Administration Officials Tried to Hide Chinese Spy Balloon Incident

The Biden administration hoped to keep the Chinese spy balloon incident a secret and let the device move along without alerting anyone, NBC News revealed Friday.

On January 27, a phone call happened between Gen. Mark Milley and NORAD chief Gen. Glen VanHerck, Fox News reported Saturday.

The outlet cited the NBC News report that said the administration initially wanted to hide the device from Congress and the public.

“Before it was spotted publicly, there was the intention to study it and let it pass over and not ever tell anyone about it,” a former official explained to NBC News.

A senior Biden administration denied that there was an attempt to keep the balloon secret. “To the extent any of this was kept quiet at all, that was in large part to protect intel equities related to finding and tracking” the official said, referring to intelligence gathering on the balloon. “There was no intention to keep this from Congress at any point.”

Soon after VanHerck’s phone call with Milley, U.S. military jets dispatched from Alaska used their targeting pods to determine what was on board the object. They confirmed that it was a Chinese spy balloon that was not carrying offensive weapons but was outfitted with a large payload of surveillance equipment.

President Joe Biden (D) eventually had the balloon, which traveled across the continental United States, shot down after it reportedly collected intelligence from sensitive military sites, Breitbart News reported.

“The balloon was not shot down until February 4 — after it had made a several day journey across the states and potentially over other sensitive military sites and exited over South Carolina to the Atlantic Ocean,” the outlet stated in April.

In June, Biden reportedly revealed “sensitive” U.S. intelligence regarding China during an event with American donors.

 Like who with a sharp mind would ever do something like that!?

Newsom Rejects Proposal to Keep Trump Off California Ballot

Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he will reject any proposals to follow Colorado and keep former President Donald Trump off the state’s primary ballot.

In a statement on Friday afternoon, Newsom said even though he vehemently opposes Donald Trump, he will let the voters decide.

“There is no doubt that Donald Trump is a threat to our liberties and even to our democracy, but in California, we defeat candidates at the polls. Everything else is a political distraction,” Newsom said.
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On Wednesday, California Lieutenant Gov. Eleni Kounalakis sent a letter to Secretary of State Shirley Weber to explore options on taking the former president’s name off the ballot. Kounalakis cited the Colorado ruling, saying it “is about honoring the rule of law in our country and protecting the fundamental pillars of our democracy.” She added that the court’s decision “can be the basis for a similar decision here in our state. The constitution is clear: you must be 35 years old and not be an insurrectionist.”

Also on Wednesday, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows was reported to be seeking options on whether or not to exclude Trump from the state’s primary ballot in March. Last week, for instance, attorneys seeking to bar Trump from the ballot argued with Trump’s legal team at the State House hearing.

Joe Biden Begs, Threatens Mexico to Reduce Migrant Flood Before 2024 Election

The diplomatic switch comes as Biden’s flood of several million illegal migrants is further damaging his 2024 poll ratings, and as GOP leaders are using their Senate clout to demand real border reforms.

“Everything revolves around getting the Mexican government to do targeted operations” against the cartels’ migration business, one U.S. official told the Washington Post.

Biden’s problem is that he “is refusing to enforce immigration law,” Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, noted, adding, “The [migration] numbers are unprecedented. The legacy media is starting to notice. … [So Biden] is begging Mexico for help to fix the problem instead of just using the [legal] tools he has to fix the problem right now.”

The president’s outreach to Mexico is also complicating the high-profile U.S. negotiations between the White House and GOP senators. Democrats had included Biden’s pro-migration border chief — Alejandro Mayorkas — in the Senate talks.
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But Biden has diverted Mayorkas to the Mexico talks with Obrador.

MIDDLE EASTERN NEWS

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IDF Points to Indonesian Hospital in Gaza as Terror Base
Recovers Arab Israeli’s Car

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealed Monday that the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza, where Hamas links had previously been found, was a terrorist base, where a car belonging to the late Arab Israeli hostage Samer Talalka had been found.

The IDF has long alleged that Hamas has used hospitals as shields for its terrorist activities, which is a war crime.

In November, the IDF published a recorded phone call between the director of the Indonesian Hospital and a Hamas commander, in which the topic of Hamas taking fuel from the hospital was discussed.
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During operational activity, IDF soldiers found evidence connecting Hamas’ terrorist activities to the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.

In the inner compound of the hospital, a white Toyota truck of the same type used by Hamas terrorists during the October 7th massacre was located, along with additional weapons.

Furthermore, in the same inner compound and demarcated area, a Toyota Corolla vehicle with an Israeli license plate was found that belonged to the family of the late Samer Talalka. RPG remnants and bloodstains were found in the vehicle, which were identified as belonging to another hostage. The finding of the vehicle directly links the hospital to the brutal events of October 7th.

The Indonesian Hospital was opened in 2015 near Jabalya and is the largest hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. It is one of the hospitals that the Hamas terrorist organization uses in order to hide behind sick civilians, and from which it operates terrorist infrastructure. The Indonesian Hospital serves as a meeting place to conduct fighting and a base for senior officials and operatives of the Hamas terrorist organization. The hospital has extensive terrorist infrastructure and near it there are tunnel shafts leading to a tunnel route in the hospital area.

Iran Threatens to Close Mediterranean Sea Alleging U.S. Gaza ‘Crimes’

The Mediterranean Sea could be “closed” indefinitely by Iran if the U.S. and Israel continued “crimes” in Gaza, an Iranian state report Saturday warned.

According to Reuters, no exact disclosure was made of exactly how Tehran would seal off the expansive waterway.

In the past Iran has sent armed ski boats out on patrol into contested waters, however the results have been mixed with the U.S. Navy in particular simply ignoring its Iranian counterparts and their threats of impending doom.

“They shall soon await the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, (the Strait of) Gibraltar and other waterways,” the Tasnim outlet quoted Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, coordinating commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as saying.

The practise known as “swarming” depends upon multiple Iran speedboats attacking a single target in the hope of overwhelming the defenses and is commonly used as a threat against commercial shipping.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group has over the past month attacked merchant vessels sailing through the Red Sea in retaliation for Israel’s assault on Gaza.

The aggressive assault on international trade is leading some shipping companies to switch routes.

ASIAN NEWS

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In Communist China, Celebrating Christmas Could Hurt Your Social Credit Score

The sizable Christian population of China — including members of both “legal” Communist Party-controlled churches and illicit “house churches” seeking a private prayer space — faces significant persecution if found to be “too enthusiastic” in celebrating Christmas, David Curry, the president and CEO of Global Christian Relief, told Breitbart News in a recent conversation.

All Chinese citizens are forced to participate in what the Communist Party refers to as the “social credit system,” in which the Party scores each individual based on revolutionary fervor and loyalty to genocidal communist dictator Xi Jinping. Faith generally, Curry explained, indicates to the government a loyalty to a higher power than Xi and can thus hurt a person’s social credit score. As a result, most Chinese Christians will likely quietly observe the Christmas holiday at home, fearing retribution from their regime.

“The government will tell you that people are free to practice their religion and to celebrate Christmas, but they’re also scored on their social system as radical,” he noted. “It’s a negative to be too enthusiastic about your faith because the preeminence for them is the Communist Party.”

“So if people are celebrating quietly, there’s very little chance they’re going to be harassed, but any public demonstrations around Christmas, and large church movements to celebrate Christmas, will certainly be monitored,” he continued, “and potentially hurt the social score of those people who are involved.”

So when Chinese officials tell you that they protect people's rights, remind them of how religious liberties don't even exist in China.

LATIN AMERICAN NEWS

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Communist Nicaragua Launches Mass Arrests of Evangelicals Before Christmas

And I gotta add here that even a Catholic bishop was arrested as well.

The 11 people detained are reportedly Nicaraguan leaders with Mountain Gateway Ministry, an Evangelical organization founded by Americans Britt and Audrey Hancock that, before the arrests, claimed to be attracting hundreds of thousands of people — possibly up to one million — to its events. The Hancocks also operate a coffee farm in Nicaragua that sells its product in America under the brand Rootline. Some reports prior to the arrests indicated that the Ortega regime was tolerant of Mountain Gateway, and some communist officials even attended the group’s events.

In remarks published by CBN in November, Britt Hancock said that God called him to bring Evangelical services to Nicaragua and confirmed ambitious plans for expansion in the country.
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Nicaragua is already evangelized. It is a majority Christian nation — about 85 percent of Nicaraguans identify as Christian, and about 50 percent of the total population is Catholic.

Mountain Gateway did not explicitly promote the Ortega regime’s agenda, but it had not faced any known prior repression and appeared to have the approval of the communist regime, as several high-ranking regime officials attended a massive event by the group in November, according to the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa. The newspaper also reported the not-uncommon presence of repressive police forces praying alongside leaders of Mountain Gateway.
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Evangelical news outlets in the region reported on Wednesday that Nicaraguan police had detained 11 people associated with Mountain Gateway, believed to be imprisoned in Tipitapa, Managua, the central metropolitan area. In addition to the Hancocks, the Nicaraguan government is reportedly opening an investigation into a third American, Bruce Wagner, the owner of the Christian organization Shaking the Nations.

The Argentine outlet Infobae reported on Thursday that the crackdown on Mountain Gateway was one of several police actions on Wednesday. The Ortega regime also reportedly dissolved the corporate existence of ten NGOs operating in the country, including Mountain Gateway. Nicaraguan police also abducted Monsignor Isidro del Carmen Mora Ortega, the second bishop arrested, following his delivery of a homily in which he prayed for Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, the first Catholic bishop arrested by the Sandinista regime.