TBILISI – Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili said on Saturday that she vetoed the controversial foreign agents bill passed by the country’s parliament earlier in May.
On Tuesday, the Georgian parliament adopted a bill on foreign agents by a majority vote in the third and final reading at a plenary meeting. The bill, if adopted, would require organizations to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they get over 20% of their funding from abroad.
“I have vetoed the ‘Russian’ law. This law … represents an obstacle on the European path. The veto is legally enforceable and will be passed to the parliament today. The law cannot be amended or improved in any way. This law must be repealed,” Zourabichvili said during a briefing.
The law, which prompted a major standoff between political factions, aims to promote “transparency and accountability of relevant organizations vis-à-vis Georgian society,” according to Tbilisi while protestors and some foreign politicians argue it is restrictive.
However, such regulations exist in many nations, including the US, Canada, Australia, and across the EU – which does not stop many Western politicians from criticizing the very same bill when it comes to Georgia.
May 18, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception |
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Russia’s State Duma chairman has accused the EU of censoring alternative opinions and curtailing freedom of speech, with the goal of deceiving citizens.
Vyacheslav Vlodin was commenting on Brussels’ latest ban on Russian media outlets, which has sparked a warning of countermeasures from the Foreign Ministry in Moscow.
On Friday, the European Council announced it was suspending the broadcasting activities of four additional media organizations, claiming that they “spread and support” Russian propaganda.
The blacklist includes RIA Novosti news agency, newspapers Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta, and the Czech-based portal Voice of Europe.
Writing on Telegram on Saturday, Volodin described the move as showing the EU’s desire “to close access to objective and reliable information” for residents of member states.
According to the lawmaker, “the policy of double standards has become an integral part of European structures” as they only “talk about freedom of speech, but do not tolerate it in reality”.
Officials in Brussels have no arguments to convince EU citizens that they are right and as soon as they see any problems, they just block “any alternative point of view, destroy freedom of speech, and violate the right to freely disseminate and receive information,” Volodin stressed.
“In fact, they introduce censorship with the only purpose – to deceive their citizens and stay in power,” he argued.
The Russian Foreign Ministry, commenting on Brussels’ move, noted that Moscow has repeatedly warned the EU that “repressive measures” against Russian media will not go unanswered.
“Ignoring these warnings forces us to take countermeasures, which will follow inevitably,” the ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
According to the diplomat, Brussel’s decision is proof “of the neglect by the EU and its member states for their international obligations in the field of ensuring media pluralism and another example of the degeneration of democratic societies” in the West.
Since the Ukraine conflict escalated into open hostilities in February 2022, the EU has barred several Russia-associated media outlets from engaging with audiences in member states. Even hosting content made by the targeted organizations is illegal in the bloc.
Moscow has also taken a harsh stance on Western media. Citing anti-Russian sentiment, misinformation and censorship, the national media regulator has barred access to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the websites of the BBC, Deutsche Welle, along with other media outlets.
May 18, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | European Union, Russia |
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The West only risks further escalation by arming and encouraging Kiev to strike Russian territory, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
The warning comes as Ukrainian strikes against Russian cities intensify on the backdrop of Kiev losing ground in the Kharkov Region.
“The profile of the American and British handlers of the [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky regime is clearly visible behind these barbaric attacks,” Zakharova told reporters. “They are not only providing longer-range missiles and heavy weapons, but are giving a green light to their use against Russia.”
“Once again, we would like to unequivocally warn Washington, London, Brussels and other Western capitals, as well as Kiev, which is under their control, that they are playing with fire. Russia will not leave such encroachments on its territory unanswered,” the spokeswoman stressed.
On Thursday and Friday, the Ukrainian troops launched a combined assault on Crimea, Krasnodar and other Russian regions using UAVs and naval drones. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, more than 100 drones were intercepted mid-air, while six unmanned boats were destroyed by the Black Sea Fleet.
During its briefing on Friday, the MOD added that over the course of the week Russian troops had intercepted dozens of US-made ATACMS missiles, as well as nearly 200 rockets, including projectiles fired from US-made HIMARS and Czech-made Vampire launchers. The Hammer guided bombs delivered by France, the Storm Shadow cruise missiles made by the UK, and nearly 330 UAVs were also used in the attacks, it said.
A total of 19 civilians were killed in Russia’s Belgorod region on May 12 alone, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. On Friday, Gladkov wrote on Telegram that a Ukrainian drone hit a civilian car, killing a mother and her four-year-old daughter.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated that the shelling of residential areas is pushing Moscow to create a buffer zone along the border with Ukraine. “If this continues, we will be forced to create a security zone. This is what we are doing,” he said during his trip to China.
Last month, the New York Times cited senior Pentagon officials as saying that the US had allowed Ukraine to use ATACMS missiles against targets in Crimea. British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps confirmed to journalists on Tuesday that London allows Kiev to strike Crimea with UK-supplied weapons.
The largely Russian-speaking peninsula voted in 2014 to leave Ukraine and join Russia following the Western-backed coup in Kiev that took place earlier that year.
May 18, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, War Crimes | Russia, UK, United States |
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Around 48,000 workers at 10 universities affiliated with the University of California system and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the state of California, USA, voted to begin a strike in defense of the right to protest for Palestine.
This follows campaigns of arrests and attacks on students in tents, who are demanding an end to the Israeli aggression on Gaza, following the university administration’s failure to address complaints regarding the handling of pro-Palestinian protests.
Activists promised that the union vote on starting the strike next Monday represents a historic decision that may push unions in other universities and labor unions to strike in defense of students’ right to protest for the Palestinian cause.
The announcement of the strike comes two days after the vote of the academic workers at the University of California, where the union considered it a result of changes to the university system’s policies regarding freedom of expression and discrimination in pro-Palestinian speeches, and allowing attacks on protesters during their sit-ins.
In this context, high schools in the state of Wisconsin joined schools in the state of Illinois in student protests at American universities, by walking out of classrooms after the second or third period, and organizing marches inside schools to demand an end to the aggression on Gaza.
May 18, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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The Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs in the Gaza Strip says Israeli military forces have fully destroyed or damaged hundreds of mosques in the besieged coastal territory ever since the Tel Aviv regime started its bloody onslaught in early October last year.
The ministry announced in a statement that the total number of mosques completely destroyed in the current conflict stands at 604, while another 200 have been partially destroyed.
The statement said Israeli troops have also desecrated at least 60 cemeteries during their ground invasion of Gaza, and used bulldozers to dig up graves and steal the bodies of more than 1,000 people.
It said 15 buildings belonging to the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs were destroyed during the Israeli aggression, among them the headquarters of the ministry, the main office of the Holy Quran Radio in Gaza City, the Endowment Management office in Khan Younis, and a repository for documents and manuscripts.
The statement said that 91 employees of the ministry have been killed in the Israeli attacks.
Israel launched its onslaught against the Gaza Strip, targeting hospitals, residences, and houses of worship, after Palestinian resistance movements launched a surprise attack, dubbed Operation al-Aqsa Storm, against the usurping entity on October 7 last year.
At least 35,386 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, according to the latest health ministry update in Gaza on Saturday. More than 1.7 million people have been internally displaced during the war as well.
May 18, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Embroiled in coast to coast lawsuits from the alleged harms of their COVID vaccine, Astrazeneca is receiving massive public backlash after admitting their shot can cause blood clots in court proceedings. Jefferey Jaxen also reveals payments made by the pharma giant to doctors in the UK, including celebrity pediatrician, Dr. Ranj Singh who strongly advocated for the now pulled product.
This week, ICAN lead counsel, Aaron Siri, Esq. filed a historic lawsuit on behalf of Utah mother, Brianne Dressen, a patient who participated in the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial. The lawsuit states she was severely injured and is now suing the drug manufacturer in a lawsuit that is the first of its kind in the U.S.. Hear how the progressive neuropathy she developed from the drug trial has shattered her life, and the organization she launched to advocate for those like her.
May 18, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Video | COVID-19 Vaccine, European Union, UK, United States |
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A longtime aide to former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci allegedly boasted in emails about his ability to evade public records requests and his intention to delete any potential “smoking guns,” a congressional hearing revealed Thursday.
Former National Institutes of Health Acting Director Lawrence Tabak testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which has been investigating an American research organization at the center of suspicions that the COVID-19 pandemic may have resulted from a lab accident in Wuhan.
The hearing follows an announcement Wednesday that this organization — EcoHealth Alliance, helmed by President Peter Daszak — has had its federal funding suspended and could be on track to be debarred from federal funding for years. The enforcement action stems from EcoHealth’s failure to adequately oversee the research it subcontracted to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This research included experiments that made SARS-related coronaviruses more dangerous. Daszak testified before the committee earlier this month.
EcoHealth’s research was underwritten by NIAID — placing Fauci and his aides in the spotlight too. The scrutiny of EcoHealth and NIAID has revealed that Daszak had a close connection to Fauci’s inner circle in the senior advisor to the NIAID director, David Morens.
Morens told the committee in a transcribed interview that Daszak is one of his oldest friends.
Now evidence has surfaced suggesting that Morens evaded the Freedom of Information Act — which requires that records from federal agencies be made public with limited exceptions — and that an unidentified public records official with the NIH helped him to do so.
NIH and NIAID did not immediately reply to request for comment.
Morens boasted about the ability to “make emails disappear” even after a FOIA request had been submitted, according to the committee.
The emails were revealed in questions by House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky.
“Dr. David Morens, a senior advisor to Fauci for decades, wrote in an email to Dr. Daszak, ‘I learned from our FOIA lady here how to make emails disappear after I am FOIA’d but before the search starts. So I think we are all safe. Plus I deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to Gmail,’” Comer said Thursday. “Is that consistent with NIH document retention policies?”
“It is not,” Tabak answered.
Asked if the NIH FOIA office instructs employees on how to evade FOIA, Tabak answered, “I certainly hope not.”
U.S. Right to Know is among the organizations that have submitted FOIAs to the NIH for emails from Morens about information with potential relevance to the origins of COVID-19 and is litigating against the NIH over its failure to comply with a January 2022 FOIA request for Morens’s records.
In a separate email, Morens said that he intended to delete any records or emails that might constitute a “smoking gun.”
“He also later wrote Dr. Daszak, ‘We are all smart enough to know to never have smoking guns. And if we did we wouldn’t put them in emails. And if we found them we would delete them,’” Comer said. “Is that consistent with NIH document retention policies?”
“It is not,” Tabak again replied.
According to Comer, Daszak and Morens also collaborated in crafting public messages in response to emails set to be released by NIH under FOIA.
The emails described by Comer undermine Tabak’s prepared testimony at the hearing in which he claimed the NIH is committed to transparency and following the science on the question of the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tabak’s testimony sets the stage for Morens to testify next week. Morens supplied the committee with 30,000 emails the day before Daszak testified before the committee on May 1.
Morens wrote in an email to Daszak in 2021 that he communicates on Gmail “because my NIH email is FOIA’d constantly,” The Intercept previously reported.
“Just send to any of my addresses and I will delete anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times,” Morens wrote.
Looped into this email chain were several virologists who have cast the lab origin hypothesis as a conspiracy theory in the press. These virologists included University of Sydney virologist Edward Holmes, Scripps Institute virologist Kristian Andersen, and Tulane University virologist Robert Garry, who have also been investigated by the committee for their role in an influential paper that dismissed the idea SARS-CoV-2 could have been engineered without disclosing the involvement of Fauci and former NIH Director Francis Collins.
The committee released emails earlier this month showing that Daszak informed Morens of his intention to voluntarily release only enough records to stave off a subpoena for more. The committee is now demanding more documents from Daszak, according to Subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio.
The committee’s investigation is building up to the testimony of Fauci on June 3.
Tabak confirmed Thursday that the NIAID did indeed fund gain-of-function research on coronaviruses in Wuhan through EcoHealth Alliance according to the colloquial understanding.
According to the policy in place from 2014 to 2018 — the “U.S. Government Gain-of-Function Deliberative Process and Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain-of-Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS, and SARS viruses” — the definition of gain-of-function research at the time of the experiments involving the Wuhan Institute of Virology included “research that improves the ability of a pathogen to cause disease.”
Grant reports demonstrate that “chimeric” or combined coronaviruses studied by EcoHealth and the Wuhan Institute of Virology caused more severe disease in mice engineered to express human receptors than the backbone virus.
However, Tabak downplayed the risk posed by these chimeric viruses because they were bat coronaviruses, though the public literature described one of these viruses as “poised for human emergence.”
Fauci repeatedly denied that NIAID funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan in high-profile exchanges with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in 2021.
“Sen. Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially,” Fauci said in a July 2021 hearing.
Tabak confirmed in the hearing Wednesday that in October 2021 the NIH communications office changed the definition of “gain-of-function research” on the NIH website.
Asked to identify which scientist at NIH made or vetted the decision, Tabak could not identify any particular official.
May 17, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Deception | Covid-19, EcoHealth Alliance, NIAID, NIH, United States |
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Sonoma State University’s President, Mike Lee, has been placed on administrative leave for announcing an agreement with pro-Palestinian activists to pursue an academic boycott of Israeli institutions and divestment strategies.
California State University Chancellor Mildred Garcia said yesterday that Mike Lee was put on leave for accepting the demands of protesting students without obtaining “proper approvals.”
She added in a statement published on the website of the University of California, to which Sonoma University is affiliated: “For now, because of this insubordination and consequences it has brought upon the system, President Lee has been placed on administrative leave.”
This decision is considered the harshest disciplinary action imposed on the president of any of the US universities that have witnessed anti-war protests.
Since April, US, Canadian, British, French and Indian universities have witnessed protests rejecting the Israeli war on Gaza and demanding university administrations stop their academic cooperation with Israeli academic institutions.
Protesters also demand that their universities withdraw their investments from companies that support the occupation of Palestinian territories and arm the Israeli army.
In New York riot police were sent into campuses to disperse protesters and remove encampments set up in support of Palestinians in Gaza.
May 17, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Belgium’s University of Ghent (UGent) is severing ties with three Israeli educational or research institutions which it says no longer align with UGent’s human rights policy, Reuters reports its rector saying.
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Ghent have been demonstrating against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and have been occupying parts of the university since early this month.
The university’s rector, Rik Van de Walle, said in a statement that ties were being cut with Holon Institute of Technology, MIGAL Galilee Research Institute and the Volcani Centre, which carries out agricultural research.
“We currently assess these three partners as (very) problematic according to the Ghent University human rights test, in contrast to the positive evaluation we gave these partners at the start of our collaboration,” Van de Walle said.
Partnerships with MIGAL Galilee Research Institute and the Volcani Centre “were no longer desirable” due to their affiliation with Israeli ministries, an investigation by the University of Ghent found, and collaboration with the Holon Institute “was problematic” because it provided material support to the army for actions in Gaza.
A spokesperson for the university said the move would affect four projects.
The three Israeli institutions did not immediately comment.
The protesters told Belgian broadcaster VRT they welcomed the decision but regarded it as only a first step. They said they would continue their occupation of parts of the university “until UGent breaks its ties with all Israeli institutions”.
The actions mirror those of students in the United States and elsewhere in Europe, calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire and for schools to cut financial ties with companies they say are profiting from what they regard as the oppression of Palestinians.
May 17, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Multiple Israeli media outlets are reporting on Hezbollah’s military capabilities, following a series of top-tier attacks that targeted highly-prized Israeli surveillance and radar systems, while introducing new methods of engagement.
The Ynet news website said that Israeli officers serving on the northern front have issued a warning regarding the fact that Hezbollah can launch an attack on Israeli soldiers near the Palestinian-Lebanese border 30 seconds after locating them. The capability has been showcased in several videos published by the group’s Military Media unit, where Hezbollah utilized either suicide drones, anti-tank guided missiles, or artillery weapons of various types to target Israeli groupings and individual soldiers.
Moreover, the military correspondent for the Israeli Army Radio said that Hezbollah has carried out a number of “high-quality attacks on more distant targets, using more advanced military weapons.”
Hezbollah’s ‘amazing capabilities’ showcased in first-ever airstrike
On Thursday, Hezbollah launched an airstrike via an Ababil-T drone armed with two Soviet-era S-5 rockets on a grouping of Israeli soldiers in Metulla. The attack marked the first-ever aerial strike launched on Israeli positions by a Lebanese entity and the first Arab strike on Israeli positions since 1973.
The Israeli Army Radio‘s correspondent said that Hezbollah has made it “a normal” occurrence to launch dozens of rockets and missiles toward the Meron Air Traffic Control military base, one of the occupation’s strategic military sites, used to both coordinate offensive operations and track and discover aerial threats.
As for today’s attacks, the correspondent pointed to an attack conducted via several suicide drones that targeted Israeli officers and soldiers’ accommodation camps in Ga’aton. On this particular incident, the Israeli broadcaster Channel 14‘s correspondent said that the drone attack placed hundreds of thousands of Israelis in shelters and bunkers after sirens went off in Ben Ami, Gesher HaZiv, Evron, Nahariya, Sa’ar, Shlomi, Metzuba, Betzet, Achziv Miluot Industrial Zone, Liman, Rosh HaNikra, Avdon, Neveh Ziv, Manot, Ga’aton, Yechiam, Cabri, and Ein Yacov over 14 minutes.
Channel 14 also reported that Israeli officials have always “estimated that Hezbollah had amazing capabilities that would surprise everyone.”
Hezbollah’s Tel Shamayim operation dropped the jaws of Israeli officials
The broadcaster also said that Hezbollah’s attack on the “highly sensitive” Tel Shamayim facility “dropped the jaws” of Israeli security officers, the military’s Northern Command, and the Israeli political leadership. The site, located 35 km away from the border, was attacked by two suicide drones, escaping a complex and layered anti-air defense system before impacting its target.
It is worth noting that the Sky Dew High Availability Aerostat System (HAAS) in question hosts high-tech surveillance equipment, early detection systems, and an AESA radar. Hezbollah has slowly dismantled Israeli surveillance and radar systems across occupied territories, by targeting spyware installed on frontline sites, attacking the Meron Air Traffic Control Base, surgically striking radars, downing a surveillance balloon, and taking down the Sky Dew HAAS.
Hezbollah’s ATGMs, drones evade Israeli anti-air, electronic warfare systems
The UK-based The Independent noted Hezbollah has adapted its attacks in recent weeks, managing to reduce the number of fighters lost in confrontations.
At the same time, Hezbollah has introduced new methods to its attacks, maintaining a high output of operations, including complex and composite attacks.
The Israeli news website, Intelli Times, said that “Hezbollah succeeds in utilizing suicide drones and precision television-guided weapons,” while Israeli forces do not have “the ability to intercept them.”
According to the website, this occurrence is “astonishing” and raises questions about Hezbollah’s electronic warfare capabilities and its possible use of the Russian satellite navigation system. The outlet called the aforementioned operations “worrying”, stressing that Hezbollah “will do anything to disable as many [Israeli] systems as possible,” in preparation for an Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
“[Israel] fired 5 Iron Dome missiles at 3 drones [and perhaps more] and shot down only one. What do we do when a swarm of 100 or 200 arrives?”
Intelli Times claims that Hezbollah is not launching its drones to attack “Israel” but to survey and scan the preparedness of Israeli anti-air systems and search for blind spots.
“This is what the public needs to know. This may be a scary outlook but it will become true,” the website added.
Settlers fail to cope with Hezbollah’s operations
On his part, the head of the Merom HaGalil settlement council, Amit Sofer, said in an interview for Channel 12, “We stand here in front of residents and people who do not know to what extent they can remain strong and steadfast,” adding that such feelings are “being crushed day after day.”
Sofer noted that every Israeli assassination of a Hezbollah officer has led to large-scale attacks on Meron.
“After every response, we experience unending tension, and we must completely and definitely stop,” he added.
Sofer called on Israeli authorities to strive for a resolution to the confrontations, saying that ongoing engagement is an economic threat “which is increasing month after month.” Fed up with the current state of affairs, Sofer called on the Israeli military to “show [Hezbollah] for once that the owner of the house has gone crazy.”
“The situation here, in the end, is unbearable. People here are collapsing day after day,” Sofer emphasized.
May 17, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Hezbollah, Israel |
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The Yemeni militia has turned the destruction of General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drones into an art form, using homegrown variants of the Soviet Kub surface-to-air missile system to shoot the $32 million apiece attack UAVs out of the skies. The Pentagon has used Reapers extensively over Yemen amid the Houthi’ partial blockade of the Red Sea.
Yemen’s Houthi militia have reported the destruction of another MQ-9 Reaper using a “a locally-made” SAM.
In a statement published Friday and reported by Yemen’s SABA News Agency, the militia said their air defense forces took down the American drone over Marib, western Yemen, where it “was carrying out hostile acts,” on Thursday night.
The US military has yet to acknowledge the loss of the advanced drone. However, footage circulating online showed wreckage of a drone matching the Reaper’s dimensions and appearance, lying seemingly almost completely intact in a desert area at night. The Houthis don’t have a reputation for reporting on the destruction of enemy equipment unless they’ve actually done so, and previous attacks targeting Reapers have subsequently been begrudgingly confirmed by the Pentagon.
The downed drone is at least the fifth destroyed over Yemen since October 2023.
American forces have deployed Reapers en masse in the region to assist in their campaign of strikes on Yemen aimed at weakening the missile and drone capabilities the Houthis have deployed to try to enforce a partial blockade of the Red Sea targeting Israeli, US and UK-linked commercial vessels and warships.
Introduced into service with the US Air Force in 2008, Reapers have a 27-hour endurance time and a 50,000-foot flight ceiling, and have been heavily used in US operations over Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria for over 15 years, with over 300 built. The 11-meter long armed UAVs have a 20-meter wingspan, can carry up to 1,700 kg of ordinance on seven external hardpoints, and can travel at speeds of nearly 500 km per hour, with a cruising speed of over 300 km per hour.
The Houthis have vowed to continue their partial blockade until Israel stops its assault on Gaza, and have rejected all attempts to date by the US and its allies to get them to halt their missile and drone attacks – either by force or through quiet attempts to bribe them.
The Reaper shootdown came hours after the militia reiterated its threats to target Israeli-bound ships in the Mediterranean.
“We will target any ship heading to Israel that comes within range of our weapons,” Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said in a speech Thursday. “There is no red line for us. We are gradually hitting sensitive strategic targets that affect the enemy and we will reach them by God’s grace,” he said.
Al-Houthi reiterated that the militia sees the US as “complicit with the Zionist regime in the genocide against the Palestinian people,” and accused Washington of tacitly approving Tel Aviv’s attack on Rafah.
“We will strive to strengthen the fourth phase of escalation in terms of momentum and the power of strikes,” al-Houthi said, referencing the militia’s waves of escalatory actions, including attempts to strike Israel directly, and expanding the scope of operations from the Red and Arabian Seas to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
Al-Houthi said Houthi missiles and drones have targeted US ships operating the region more than a hundred times since the start of the year, and that Israeli ships and port infrastructure had been targeted 40 times using 211 missiles.
The “fourth phase” of the campaign promises to target “all ships that breach the Israeli navigation ban and head to the ports of occupied Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea in any area within the reach of Houthi forces,” al-Houthi said.
The Houthi campaign has shed far less blood than the crisis in Gaza which sparked it, where nearly 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, and over 79,000 wounded, in Israeli attacks, the majority of them civilians. Houthi missile and drone strikes have killed three merchant ship sailors and injured five others, damaging at least 20 commercial vessels and sinking one. American and British strikes on Yemen have killed at least 50 Yemenis and injured 35 others to date.
What the campaign ‘lacks’ in carnage it makes up for in economic and psychological impact, with the Houthis humbling the US military – which has proven unable to stop the militia – hailing from one of the poorest, and most conflict-torn countries in the world. The campaign has also caused tens of billions of dollars in losses to economies around the world, including Israel, with major merchant fleets forced to avoid the Red Sea region to escape being targeted.
May 17, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Israel, Palestine, UK, United States, Yemen, Zionism |
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A coalition of billionaires and influential business figures, aiming to influence American public opinion regarding the Israeli war on Gaza, urged New York City’s Mayor in private last month to deploy police to quell pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University, The Washington Post reported, citing communications obtained and individuals familiar with the group.
Business leaders, including Daniel Lubetzky, founder of Kind Snack company, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik, and real estate investor Joseph Sitt, convened for a Zoom video conference with Mayor Eric Adams on April 26. This meeting took place about a week following the Mayor’s initial dispatch of New York police to Columbia’s campus, as indicated in a log of chat messages.
During the call, some participants discussed the possibility of making political contributions to Adams, as well as strategies for exerting pressure on Columbia’s President and trustees to authorize the Mayor’s deployment of police to address protesters on campus, according to summaries of the chat messages as reported by The Post.
A member of the WhatsApp chat group said, as quoted by The Post, that he “contributed” $2,100, the maximum allowable amount, to Adams during that month.
Additionally, some members expressed willingness to fund private investigators to aid the New York police in managing the protests, as indicated in the chat log. A member reported in the chat that Adams accepted this offer. However, a spokesperson for City Hall claimed that the New York Police Department has not utilized private investigators for managing protests.
Business leaders, Mayor Adams navigate crackdown on US students
The messages detailing the conversation with Adams were part of a vast collection of WhatsApp exchanges involving several prominent business leaders and financiers across the US. This group includes individuals such as former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, and Joshua Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital and brother of Jared Kushner, who is the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump.
Individuals with direct access to the chat log provided its contents to The Post under the condition of anonymity, as the chat was intended to remain private. Members of the group confirmed the existence of the chat and their contributions.
The chat was initiated by an associate of billionaire and real estate magnate Barry Sternlicht, who opted not to directly participate but communicated through the associate, as indicated in the chat messages and confirmed by a person familiar with Sternlicht, as per the report.
In an October 12 message, one of the initial messages in the group, the associate, posting on behalf of Sternlicht, informed others that the group’s objective was to “change the narrative” in support of “Israel”.
Stretching beyond New York
Formed shortly after October 7, the chat group’s influence has extended far beyond New York, reaching the highest echelons of the Israeli government, the American business sphere, and prestigious universities, The Washington Post reported.
May 17, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Wars for Israel | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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