News of the World

[kyonides]

USA

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Several Articles

Harvard Finds ‘Problems’ with Claudine Gay’s Work amid Plagiarism Probe

In his post, Rufo shared a report by Associated Press, revealing that Harvard has recently shed some light on its ongoing investigation into plagiarism allegations against Gay, noting that the Ivy League university admitted in a Friday letter to a congressional committee that it had learned of potential plagiarism on October 24 from a New York Post reporter.

By acknowledging that the school had known about plagiarism allegations against Gay since October, Harvard has effectively admitted that its entire defense of Gay in recent months was a sham.

Gay’s academic career fell under scrutiny in the wake of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel, after which point Harvard leadership was slammed nationwide for failing to properly address antisemitism taking place on campus.
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Amid the multiple antisemitism scandals, Gay’s own work ended up being called into question over allegations of plagiarism, which Harvard responded to in December by defending its president, saying, “we unanimously stand in support of President Gay.”

Gay resigned earlier this month. Her six month tenure marks the shortest tenure in Harvard’s history.

DHS Sends 2nd Demand Notice to Texas over Seized Park Access

Department of Homeland Security General Counsel Jonathan Meyer sent a second demand letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton demanding the state of Texas grant full, unimpeded access to a border city park and boat ramp. The Texas Military Department seized Shelby Park in early January. Tuesday’s letter sets a deadline of January 26, for the state to grant the Border Patrol full access to Shelby Park and other areas along a 2.5 mile stretch of the Rio Grande in the small Texas border town of Eagle Pass.

The letter, attached below, directly addresses Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court order freeing the Border Patrol to cut wire and fencing installed by the state to gain access to the border under their statutory authority to enter private lands without warrant within 25 miles of the border. The 5-4 decision paused a lower court’s ruling that had previously blocked such action.

The letter addresses the issue by saying, “As you are aware, yesterday, the Supreme Court vacated the injunction prohibiting the Department from cutting or moving the concertina wire that Texas had placed along the border except in case of emergency, and restored the Department’s right to cut and move the concertina wire placed by Texas in order to perform their statutory duties. The Department must also have the ability to access the border in the Shelby Park area that is currently obstructed by Texas.”

The letter demands unfettered access to several areas in and around the park...

Pentagon: ‘Would Not Be Surprised’ if Houthis Keep Attacking

Host Neil Cavuto asked, [relevant exchange begins around 1:00] “I understand, maybe from your briefing earlier, sir, that the U.S. has, at this point, destroyed or degraded more than 25 missile facilities since January 11. They’ve had follow-up attacks. So, the fear is, they’ve got other means or areas from which they can attack us. I know that’s sort of like a pin-prick strategy, you can’t get to all pin sites. But what do you say about their ability to attack, U.S. elements, shipping interests in the Red Sea now? How much has that been degraded?”

Ryder answered, “Yeah, so, as you highlight, since January 11, we assess that we have successfully destroyed or degraded over 20 missiles and 25 missile launch and deployment facilities, as well as a variety of other capabilities, to include coastal radars, unmanned aerial vehicles, aerial surveillance, and weapons storage areas. So, all of that combines to degrade and disrupt their ability to conduct these kinds of attacks going forward. Now, we do know that the Houthis maintain capabilities, additional capabilities, and would not be surprised if we see other attacks in the future. But what we’re doing here is putting a cost on those attacks and essentially making it very clear that there will be consequences.

As Impeachment Looms, Mayorkas Finally Gives Up the Ghost

During a recent interview, Mayorkas appeared to agree with an assessment that the administration is releasing more than 70 percent of illegal aliens into the country. Mayorkas also privately told Border Patrol agents that the number of illegal aliens being released into the country was above 85 percent, according to a later report from Fox News. All of this contradicts Mayorkas’s repeated assertions that the U.S has operational control over its southern border, but it’s also very revealing about the approach Mayorkas takes to border security.

As record numbers of illegal aliens have crossed the border on a yearly basis since Mayorkas took office, the secretary has been loath to take responsibility for the catastrophe that has occurred on his watch. He has repeatedly blamed Congress for the border crisis, and has claimed that he inherited a broken immigration system, essentially telling the public not to blame him for the disaster. However, the root cause of the unprecedented surge in illegal aliens at the southern border is not a “broken immigration system,” or deficiencies of U.S. asylum law. It is Mayorkas’s blatant refusal to uphold the rule of law.

Mayorkas and his supporters contend that aliens have the right to claim asylum, and the overwhelming number of fraudulent asylum claims being made are not his responsibility. These defenses fall short when one looks at the vast incentive structure Mayorkas and his cronies have set up to enable illegal immigration.

Just months after being confirmed to his role by the U.S. Senate in 2021, Mayorkas authored a memo stating that entering the country illegally was no longer sufficient cause to deport an alien. Unless illegal aliens have committed a heinous crime or is deemed a national security threat, they can stay in the U.S. as long as they want.

As a friendly reminder, I'm leaving this official press release published when Mayorkas himself was the Deputy Secretary of the same department that now is doing nothing to prevent illegal immigrants from flooding the Southern Border like crazy. I can tell you that nothing has improved ever since his days as second in command of the DHS. But wait for tomorrow's edition of NOTW to learn more on why he's destroying the US by neglecting his duties there.

CANADA

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Trudeau Admin's Setback at Court

Court Finds Justin Trudeau’s Use of Counter-Terrorism Law Against Freedom Convoy Unconstitutional

Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled that the use of the Emergencies Act by the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau to shut down a series of trucker-led protests in February of 2022 was “unreasonable”, CBC reports.

The ruling came in response to a legal case brought forward by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Constitution Foundation, and other individuals who argued that the protests did not meet the legal threshold for the government to use the powers granted under the act, which had never been used and was originally intended as a means of combatting terrorists.

The protests, which began in January of 2022, were almost entirely peaceful and featured truckers using their vehicles to block roads in Ottawa and along the U.S. border in opposition to vaccine mandates and other lockdown diktats, for which they were falsely branded as “racists” by the Trudeau government.

The triggering of the Emergencies Act by Trudeau — reportedly at the urging of the Biden administration in the United States — allowed the government to arrest the leaders of the Freedom Convoy, freeze bank accounts of protesters, and seize donations intended for the protest.

The Act states that, for the government to declare a public emergency, there must be “threats to the security of Canada that are so serious as to be a national emergency.” The law defers to the definition of a threat from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which lists espionage, serious violence, foreign interference, or intent to overthrow the government as examples that would meet the threshold.

In his ruling, Judge Mosley said:

I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility – and was not justified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that were required to be taken into consideration.

“The potential for serious violence, or being unable to say that there was no potential for serious violence was, of course, a valid reason for concern,” he added. “But in my view, it did not satisfy the test required to invoke the Act.”

LATIN AMERICA

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Maduro Never Planned to Keep His Word

Venezuela Launches ‘Bolivarian Fury’ Dissident Crackdown, Flouting Biden’s Sanctions Relief Deal

Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro ordered the activation on Tuesday of a security operation branded “Bolivarian Fury” to crack down on political dissidents, once again violating the terms of the oil and gas sanctions relief package brokered with U.S. President Joe Biden.

Biden agreed to relieve sanctions imposed during the administration of predecessor Donald Trump on the grounds that Maduro allow a “free and fair” presidential election in 2024.

Maduro claimed that the Bolivarian Fury crackdown plan seeks to “neutralize” foreign conspiracy plots allegedly attempting to generate “violent and seditious actions” against Venezuela’s socialist regime.

The announcement was made during an official event commemorating the 66th anniversary of the end of Marcos Pérez Jiménez’s dictatorship and Venezuela’s return to democracy on January 23, 1958. Maduro warned that, should something happen to him, the “Venezuelan people” would respond with the “Bolivarian Fury” plan.

“I am one of you and if someday the fascists do me any harm, any attack, I leave it in your hands to do what you have to do to restore justice and peace in Venezuela. Activate the Bolivarian Fury,” Maduro said.

MIDDLE EAST

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Things Still Look Quite Ugly in the Region

Qatar Slams Netanyahu After Israeli PM Calls It ‘Problematic’

Qatar slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, after the latter was reported to have called Qatar “problematic” because it hosts the terrorist billionaire leaders of Hamas while also mediating between Hamas and Israel.

On the one hand, Qatar is the go-between in negotiations between Hamas and Israel over the potential release of Israeli hostages, over 100 of whom remain in terrorist hands in Gaza. On the other, Qatar supports Hamas and controls Al Jazeera, a media network that pumps anti-Israel and anti-Western propaganda to viewers throughout the Middle East and around the world. Qatar was also once a major funder of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as Hamas, and Hamas leaders live in exile in the capital, Doha.

Netanyahu’s remarks were reported Wednesday after he met with the families of Israeli hostages and commented that the United States had wasted an opportunity for leverage by renewing its ten-year contract with Qatar to host U.S. military bases there.

I think you need to speak to the hearts of the international community to pressure anyone who can pressure [Hamas]. First of all is Qatar. Now, when I talk about Qatar, you don’t hear me thank Qatar…Why? Because Qatar, as far as I’m concerned, is not significantly different from the UN, is not significantly different from the Red Cross, and to some extent it’s even more problematic. But I can use any factor for now that will help me bring them home. I have no illusions about them. I was very angry recently and didn’t hide it from the Americans that they renewed their contract for a military base in Qatar. Why didn’t you say ‘I ask you to bring back our hostages.’ That’s pressure!…Qatar has leverage on Hamas. First of all, pressure Qatar.

Honestly, the US lax attitude towards Qatar also  baffles me as well. Anyway, there's another reason why you can't trust the Qatari just like that.

Qatari Ambassador Involved in Spying on Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton

Leaked documents have implicated Qatari Ambassador Meshal bin Hamad al-Thani — currently his country’s representative to the U.S. and formerly its ambassador to France — in alleged efforts to bribe a French minister and spy on U.S. lawmakers.

Al-Thani’s name came up in documents exposed by Project Raven, itself an international scandal that involved more than a dozen former U.S. intelligence operatives going to work for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as electronic surveillance specialists.

Project Raven began during the Obama administration with a certain degree of officially approved cooperation between the U.S. and UAE intelligence services, which led to Qatar aggressively hiring U.S. intelligence veterans with advanced electronic surveillance skills. The project was seen by U.S. officials as a useful tool against international terrorist groups — such as al-Qaeda — in its early days.

The UAE began using its American hires to collect intelligence on a growing constellation of security threats, including Qatar, which has often been at odds with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and other member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). These tensions led to a GCC boycott and a partial blockade of Qatar between 2017 and 2021.

When Reuters exposed Project Raven in a series of 2019 reports, some of the American intelligence officers the UAE hired said they felt the program started going off the rails around 2016, with surveillance extending to human rights activists, journalists, political dissidents, and Western targets, including Americans.

In 2016, the UAE told its cyberintelligence contractors they could either begin working for an Emirati firm called DarkMatter or quit the program and go home. Soon afterward, the UAE cyberwar unit began hacking into the smartphones of targets that included numerous Qatari officials, all the way up to the Emir of Qatar himself.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported in November that some of the Qatari documents exposed by Project Raven implicated al-Thani, who was then assigned to France, in a 2016 effort to bribe French Secretary of State for Relations with Parliament Jena-Marie Le Guen.
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The Qataris took no action against French media outlets that ran the Le Guen story in late 2021, which MEMRI took as a tacit admission the leaked documents were genuine. The revelations contributed to a rolling scandal in France and the European Union that some observers labeled “Qatargate,” involving hundreds of efforts by Qatar to manipulate EU politics. The scandal took down several EU lawmakers, including former European Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili.

MEMRI reported on Monday that, in addition to the Le Guen bribery allegations, al-Thani was allegedly involved in a Qatari intelligence initiative called “Project ENDGAME,” which involved hiring a company called Global Research Associates (GRA), headed by a former CIA official named Kevin Chalker, to spy on U.S. lawmakers.

Targets of Project ENDGAME included Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Tom Cotton (R-AR), plus Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and former Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), who was chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2019.

Israel: Hamas Broke Agreement on Transfer of Medicine to Hostages

Ilana Stein, spokesperson of The National Public Diplomacy Directorate, said there would be no ceasefire after Hamas had violated past agreements, including the agreement earlier this month to transfer medicines to Israeli hostages.

Israel had “not received promised evidence that the medicine was received,” Stein told the international press. She added that Israel would not give up on its stated goals of destroying Hamas, freeing all of the hostages, and preventing Gaza from threatening Israel ever again.

The media — Israeli and otherwise — have been filled with speculation this week about the possible terms for a hostage deal between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, as 136 Israeli captives remain in Gaza, some of them already known to be dead.

As Breitbart News reported, the Biden administration has reportedly suggested, via Egypt and Qatar, that Israel and Hamas agree to a three-stage deal in which Israel would end the war in return for a gradual release of all of the hostages.

This would amount to a defeat for Israel in the war, since the Israeli government would not be able to complete its mission of destroying Hamas’s terror capabilities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the deal and vowed that Israeli soldiers would not have died in vain.

Saudis, China Announce Joint Petrochemical Project

The Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) on Sunday announced an investment plan to build a petrochemical complex in China’s Fujian province, in cooperation with the Fujian Fuhua Gulei Petrochemical company.

Chinese state media celebrated the announcement as evidence that China and Saudi Arabia are growing closer, both economically and politically.

China’s state-run Global Times hailed the SABIC Fujian Petrochemicals Company created by Sunday’s announcement as an example of “the fruitful industrial cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia.”

The Global Times looked at Saudi Arabia’s $6.4 billion investment in the Fujian project as the petrochemical engagement ring for a geopolitical romance built upon the Saudis feeding China’s voracious appetite for fossil fuels.

Analysts quoted by the Chinese paper pointed to other agreements between big Chinese corporations and Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, as other signs of the increasing harmony between Beijing and Riyadh.

Iran’s President Heads to Turkey to Discuss ‘Annihilation’ of Israel

President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran departed for Turkey on Wednesday, expected to hold in-person meetings with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on how best to support the jihadist terror group Hamas in its campaign of human rights atrocities against Israel.
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Both Iran and Turkey celebrated the October 7 attacks, Tehran with a massive street party featuring chants of “death to America” and Ankara with a “Great Palestine Rally” reportedly featuring over 1 million people.

Shortly before taking off to Ankara on Wednesday, Raisi reportedly commended “Iran and Turkey’s common position” on Hamas and emphasized that his meetings with Erdogan would focus on opposing Israeli self-defense operations against the terrorists in Gaza.

...Raisi reportedly added, “But we are sure that the victory belongs to Palestine. And it will be annihilation of the Zionist regime [Israel].”

The Islamist dictatorship of Iran opposes the existence of a Jewish state on the land of Israel. It openly rejects the idea of a “two-state solution,” with Israel and a hypothetical “Palestine” co-existing.
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To further the “annihilation” of Israel, Raisi reportedly told PressTV that he would discuss with Erdogan “cutting off the vital arteries of the Zionist regime.” PressTV did not clarify what kind of action – military, economic boycotts, etc. – that would entail. The most prominent campaign to “cut off the vital arteries” of Israel currently in vigor is the series of operations by the Houthi Shiite terrorist organization of Yemen to attack commercial ships transiting through the Red Sea. The Houthis claim that they are only attacking ships with ties to Israel, but have shot missiles and conducted drone attacks against seemingly random ships, triggering a mass chilling effect on ship traffic in the region and forcing companies to divert their ships around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

The Turkish Communications Directorate confirmed Raisi’s visit on Wednesday with significantly less belligerent language than Raisi’s.

AFRICA

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South Africa Turned Into a Terrorist Sponsor

South African Banks Provide Funding for Hamas

Research conducted by The Jerusalem Post staff and several sources uncovered what appears to be a network of several South African organizations and straw man companies deeply involved with funding Hamas activities through the Al-Quds Foundation, an international group sanctioned by the US and outlawed by Israel, using accounts registered in major local South African banks: Standard Bank, Nedbank, and Absa.
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Sanctioning by the US and Israel notwithstanding, the foundation continues its operations across the globe, featuring roughly thirteen branches in different countries, sometimes holding different names. In South Africa, a registered organization named “Al-Quds Foundation SA” also exists which openly admits on their new website that they are “a branch of Al-Quds foundation with headquarters in Lebanon.”

The organization itself boasts about its fundraising activities, claiming funds would be transferred to the needy in Gaza. The foundation’s website lists Sheikh Ebrahim Gabriels as its director, leading the South African branch since 2019.

Gabriels was once the head of the Muslim Judicial Council, the umbrella body for Muslims in South Africa, with authority over religious matters as well as communal affairs. The Post describes Gabriels as closely connected to leading Hamas officials.

Nedbank, the one bank that replied to the Post‘s queries, would not confirm the identity or existence of the Hamas accounts, while maintaining that it complies with international sanctions. South Africa’s banking sector is viewed as one of the few remaining repositories of expertise and competence in a country plagued by corruption, crime, and an ongoing brain drain.