US Government Behind Campaign Violating North Korean Airspace
By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – October 23, 2024
North Korea has recently warned against the use of drones over its sovereign airspace to spread subversive propaganda.
CNN in its October 11, 2024 article, “North Korea accuses South of flying drones over Pyongyang,” reported, “North Korea accused South Korea of flying propaganda-filled drones over Pyongyang and threatened “retaliation,” state media reported.”
The same article admits that “South Korean activists and North Korean defectors have sent balloons to the North, loaded with propaganda material criticizing leader Kim Jong Un, along with USB sticks filled with K-pop songs and South Korean television shows.”
What the article omitted is that this campaign is not an organic activity carried out by independent activists, but a campaign of subversion organized and funded by the US government.
A US State Department Provocation…
As early as 2014, the Western media promoted what was called, “Thumb Drives for Democracy,” a campaign organized by the New York-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF).
The Atlantic published an article in early 2014 titled, “We Hacked North Korea With Balloons and USB Drives,” by HRF founder Thor Halvorssen, which admits its balloons carry “subversive information” meant to undermine the North Korean government. It also admits that before HRF began its campaign, “the U.S. government provided support for these groups through the National Endowment for Democracy* and the State Department’s DRL [The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs] programs.”
The balloons were just one part of a much wider campaign of subversion and ultimately regime change.
HRF also organizes the annual “Oslo Freedom Forum” (OFF) funded in part by the Freedom Fund, which includes the US State Department as a “key investor.” The OFF is a continuation of US State Department-funded training programs gathering agitators from around the globe, training, funding, and equipping them to then return to their respective nations and attempt to overthrow them.
The New York Times in its 2011 article, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” admits the US government prepared years ahead of the so-called “Arab Spring,” backing the core organizations that ultimately carried it out across the Middle East and North Africa. The article explicitly states:
A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington, according to interviews in recent weeks and American diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.
Clearly, HRF serves as an intermediary continuing US government-funded sedition around the globe in a way more difficult to trace directly back to the US government itself. Its objectives nonetheless remain to undermine, divide, destabilize, and overthrow nations targeted by the US State Department for regime change, including North Korea.
More Than Just Balloons…
Considering the aftermath of the admittedly US-engineered “Arab Spring” which included the full-scale destruction of Libya, a deeply divided Egypt, and a nearly destroyed Syria, North Korea’s concerns regarding similar US government-sponsored activities being aimed at it falls far short of an overreaction.
The CNN article reporting on North Korea’s recent warning notes that previous South Korean governments prohibited the use of balloons to spread subversive information across North Korea, recognizing the role it plays in damaging relations and raising tensions. This decision has since been reversed by a client regime more obedient to Washington.
This years-long campaign of subversion aimed at North Korea eventually prompted North Korea itself to respond with its own balloons laden with garbage. The collective Western media depicted this action out of context, omitting the US government-sponsored program targeting North Korea for over a decade, or that the ultimate goal of the campaign is “Arab Spring-style” regime change.
In 2023, when a Chinese weather balloon flew off course across the continental United States, headlines were undulated with hysteria and hostility toward China. The US Department of Defense, without providing evidence, identified it as a “high-altitude surveillance balloon,” implying it was spying on American territory. F-22 fighter jets were eventually deployed, launching air-to-air missiles at the balloon, destroying it off the eastern US coast.
Clearly, the US government itself desires other nations to respect its airspace, considering the unauthorized flight of any object, including balloons, as a potential danger to both national security and public safety. Yet, it is funding a program admittedly designed to subvert the government of a sovereign nation by flying balloons and now most likely drones into its airspace, obviously endangering both national security and public safety.
South Koreans may be convinced that the greatest obstacle to peace on the Korean Peninsula lies across the northern border, but the US has repeatedly demonstrated that it itself obstructs peace for the Korean people, and deliberately so. Continued tensions allows the US to perpetually justify the presence of its military on the Peninsula – not to defend South Korea from North Korea – but to encircle and threaten South Korea’s largest trade partner – China.
While Washington has appointed itself underwriter of stability on the Korean Peninsula, peace cannot be achieved as long as this deliberate obstruction to it remains stubbornly entrenched upon it.
ECHR orders Russia to compensate ‘foreign agents’
RT | October 23, 2024
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered Russia to pay out hundreds of thousands of euros in compensation to 107 organizations and individuals it has designated as ‘foreign agents’. Russia rejected the court’s jurisdiction after leaving the Council of Europe in 2022.
Russia’s foreign agent law, similar to the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938, was first adopted in 2012 and expanded in 2022. It requires anyone who receives support from abroad or is under the influence of entities from outside the country to register and be labeled as such. The designation does not ban persons or entities from operating in Russia, but introduces a range of restrictions. Those in violation of the law face fines of up to 5 million rubles and up to six years in prison.
Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin has explained that the law is necessary in order to protect the country’s sovereignty and “prevent outside interference in internal affairs.”
A number of these individuals and organizations have since filed a joint complaint with the ECHR, including Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, the International Memorial and the Memorial Human Rights Center, journalist Yuri Dud, opposition activist Lyubov Sobol, who is also designated as an extremist, and political scientist Ekaterina Shulman.
In a ruling published on Tuesday, the ECHR claimed that the law violates the rights of NGOs, media organizations, and individuals by introducing “restrictions on their freedom of expression and association” and infringing on the individual applicants’ “right to respect for private life.” The court also claimed that those who received the designation have been “discriminated against and subjected to restrictions” that are not in line with the ECHR’s conventions.
“The Court held that Russia was to pay the applicants amounts ranging from 5,500 euros (EUR) to EUR 10,000 [$5,900-$10,700] in respect of non-pecuniary damage, and various other amounts in respect of pecuniary damage and costs and expenses, indicated in the appendix to the judgment,” the ECHR said in a press release outlining the ruling.
While Russia has yet to comment on the ECHR’s decision, the court’s jurisdiction was earlier rejected, with President Vladimir Putin signing a law nullifying all ECHR verdicts after March 15. The move came after Russia left the Council of Europe (COE) in 2022, accusing the body of taking a blatantly anti-Russian stance and turning into an “obedient instrument” of the West, while becoming immersed in “double standards.”
Last year, in light of the ECHR accepting complaints from individuals and entities declared ‘foreign agents’ by Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin described the court as a “mad printer rubber-stamping politically charged complaints against Russia,” while “censoring” any cases considered to be linked to Russian interests.
The real victim of genocide is the man who crushed people with bulldozers
Thank you to CNN for explaining
Laura and Normal Island News | October 22, 2024
The genocide in Gaza has posed a moral dilemma for people like myself: the sensibles. As Israel carpet-bombed Gaza into oblivion, our problem was how the hell do we convince the public to support this bloodshed? Well, all I can say is thank god for CNN!
For the benefit of those who think Normal Island News is the only news outlet in existence (an easy mistake), let me explain CNN is considered one of the more sensible American news outlets because it’s not Fox News. Therefore, CNN was the perfect platform to divert your sympathies towards the only people who matter: Zionists.
CNN published one of the most moving pieces of journalism I’ve ever read, a report that will truly echo through the ages. It told the harrowing story of a brave Israeli soldier whose job it was to… crush Palestinians to death with a bulldozer. Heartbreakingly, crushing people to death later made the soldier feel sad. This proves he is the real victim of the genocide. What do you mean, I’m “doing the meme”?
While Eliran Mizrahi was on active duty, he always maintained a brave face, which included smiling on camera as he drove a gigantic child crusher. He explained he destroyed more than 5,000 homes and ran people over in their hundreds, whether they were dead or alive, but it was okay because “there are no civilians in Gaza”. He sensitively referred to the “terrorists” he crushed to death as “meat” and later told the Israeli knesset “everything squirts out”.
Mizrahi appeared in videos on social media, gloating about his war crimes, but his family would like you to know it’s unfair to talk about the incriminating evidence. It was clearly the fault of Iranian troll farms that Mizrahi posted this stuff to TikTok for clicks.
Do-gooders might argue Mizrahi was insensitive and the best approach is to pretend to care about Palestinians. Thankfully, Mizrahi softened his approach and claimed he was nice to the civilians he previously said don’t exist. He even claimed he shared food and water with them because he’s that nice. He explained he did everything he could to minimise civilians. I, for one, totally believe this story.
Ironically, referring to Palestinian civilians as “meat” must have had an impact on Mizrahi, because he later found it hard to eat meat and became a vegetarian. A starving toddler drinking from puddles in Jabalia has no idea of his torment. This is why it’s so important we show you real suffering.
We in the mainstream media don’t bother to name Palestinian victims of bombs that mysteriously fall from the sky, but we will fucking well give you the life story of any IDF soldier who feels self-pity.
Israeli soldiers are feeling so confused, some of them don’t want to be drafted for a second round of genocide. That little orphan girl who carried her injured sister for two kilometres cannot comprehend what the poor things are dealing with.
Mizrahi heartbreakingly explained only the soldiers with him in Gaza could understand what he was going through. Not the largest cohort of child amputees in human history. Not the fathers who watched their wives and children be melted in their hospital beds. Not the civilians without food, water or medicine. There are no cvilians in Gaza, remember, just meat…
No wonder this war is taking a toll on Israeli society. Israelis have been so impacted by genocide that a whopping 6% think it should stop due to “the great cost in human life.”
Poor Zionists are cowering in their warm beds in their intact houses, worried the world might be upset with them for destroying an entire country and planning to colonise it. Not even the iron dome can protect them from this level of pain.
It is at this point I must bring you to the most agonising part of this story, so please take a moment to brace yourself…
Haunted by the screams of children from the rubble of the buildings he bulldozed, Mizrahi tragically took his life. I understand he’d posted so much evidence of his war crimes on TikTok that an ICC arrest warrant was inevitable.
I’m sure you will agree this one life is worth so much more than the 42,000 Palestinians Israel has blown up and the countless more they’ve indirectly exterminated.
What makes us westerners better than Middle Eastern savages is that we respect the human lives that matter. As Sir Keir Starmer so eloquently explained, it’s wrong to mourn men like Sinwar because they kill civilians, but it’s right to mourn men like Mizrahi because they kill civilians.
We should now spend weeks focusing on this tragedy and overlook that Israel has started doing the same shit in Lebanon that it’s done in Gaza. We must, as a matter of urgency, address PTSD in the genocidal military, and we must remember that Palestinians are not entitled to PTSD. Thankfully, an IDF psychologist is on the case.
The psychologist explained he tries to “normalise” genocide by reminding Israeli soldiers about October 7th and telling them to “remember their values”. This way they feel less guilty about turning civilians into tomato puree. As you can see, Israel is learning all the right lessons here. No wonder they’ve already started doing this all over again in Lebanon.
Who Is GOP Mega-Donor Miriam Adelson & What Does She Want?
Glenn Greenwald | October 17, 2024
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Germany Is the EU’s Censorship Champion
By Robert Kogon | Brownstone Institute | October 22, 2024
Note that X, rebranded as a “free speech platform,” provides information on platform users to the governments of EU member states in connection with not just illegal speech — and, yes, national legislation in EU countries includes many “speech crimes” — but also legal speech that is deemed “harmful.”
This is the real innovation involved in the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA): It creates an obligation for platforms to take action in the form of “content moderation” against not just illegal content, but also ostensibly harmful content such as “disinformation.” Note that in the period covered in X’s latest “Transparency Report” to the EU on its “content moderation” efforts, nearly 90% of such requests for information on the purveyors of ostensibly “illegal or harmful speech” came from just one country: Germany. See the below chart.
Note that X also takes action against posts or accounts for “illegal or harmful speech” that is reported to it by EU member states or the European Commission. Such action may involve deletion or geo-blocking (“withholding”) of content. But, as the “enforcement options” linked in the report make clear, it can also involve various forms of “visibility filtering” or restricting engagement — “in accordance with our Freedom of Speech, Not Reach enforcement philosophy,” as the report puts it.
Here again, Germany is top of the table, having submitted 42% of all the reports to X on “illegal or harmful speech” and nearly 50% of the reports from member states. See the chart below. Germany submitted nearly twice as many reports as any other member state — France finished a distant second — and over ten times more reports than comparably-sized Italy. The European Commission submitted around 15% of the reports.
It is also notable that Germany submitted by far the most reports on content entailing “negative effects on civic discourse or elections,” yet another category of speech that is clearly not illegal per se but that is deemed “harmful” enough under the DSA regime to require suppression. (Hence, while the content is not per se illegal, it would be illegal for platforms under the DSA not to suppress it. This ambiguity is at the very heart of the DSA censorship regime.) Germany submitted well over half of all such reports and over 60% of the reports from member states.
Finally, it is worth noting that the overwhelming majority of these reports and the related “enforcement actions” undoubtedly involve English-language content. This can be gleaned from the fact that nearly 90% of X’s “content moderation team” consists of English speakers. The “primary language” of 1,535 of the team’s 1,726 members is English, as can be seen in the below chart.
But why should Germany or the EU be accorded any jurisdiction over English-language discourse? Needless to say, Germans are not as a rule native English speakers and only 1.5% of the total EU population has English as their mother tongue.
In any case, two things are very clear from X’s “Transparency Report.” One is that Elon Musk’s “free speech platform” is not that and is in fact devoting enormous resources, both in terms of “trained” human censors and programming, to complying with the EU’s censorship regime. And the other is that Germany is the EU’s — and hence undoubtedly the world’s — undisputed, online censorship champion.
There were 226,350 “enforcement actions” taken by X in response to reports from EU member states or the EU Commission in the reporting period covering barely more than three months. This is to say nothing of the “enforcement actions” taken proactively by X in accordance with its own DSA-compatible terms of service and rules.
Lest readers have trouble reconciling the foregoing with the viral kerfuffle between Elon Musk and Thierry Breton and the famous “proceedings” against X that were initiated under Breton’s leadership, please see Jordi Calvet-Bademunt’s helpful account of the “preliminary findings” of the EU Commission’s investigation here.
According to a new Bloomberg report, EU officials are even contemplating taking into account the revenues of some of Musk’s other companies in calculating a potential fine against him. Needless to say, despite the fact that the sources are unnamed, this has been widely construed as a further escalation in a mammoth free speech struggle between Musk and the EU.
But as Calvet-Bademunt’s analysis shows, the EU’s case against X, as it now stands, has nothing to do with insufficient “content moderation” — or, in other words, censorship — but merely concerns other, more arcane, aspects of the DSA.
Interestingly, the original proceedings opened against X did indeed involve “content moderation” and — believe it or not – could even have had a positive impact on freedom of speech, since X was ostensibly being investigated not for failing to remove or suppress user content, but rather for failing to inform users about such “content moderation decisions” or, in other words, shadowbanning. But, as Calvet-Bademunt shows, this aspect has been dropped from the investigation.
The fact of the matter, in any case, is that no online platform of any size can remain on the EU market and be a “free speech platform.” The DSA makes this impossible.
Robert Kogon is the pen name of a widely-published journalist covering European affairs.
Trump alleges UK ‘interference’ in US election
RT | October 22, 2024
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign has filed a complaint over alleged election meddling in the upcoming US election by the ruling party in the UK.
Labour Party officials have reportedly advised US Democrats about strategies, while activists have worked in battleground states, but insist that this is all perfectly legal because they haven’t technically donated any money to the party.
In a complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Trump campaign alleged “blatant foreign interference” by Labour in the US election, in the form of “apparent illegal foreign national contributions” accepted by the Democrats and their nominee, current Vice President Kamala Harris.
Foreign nationals are prohibited from making “a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation,” in support of an American candidate, “directly or indirectly,” the complaint said, citing US law.
Among the evidence cited by the campaign is a Washington Post report that “strategists linked to Britain’s Labour Party have been offering advice to Kamala Harris about how to earn back disaffected voters and run a winning campaign from the center-left.”
Likewise, the UK outlet Telegraph has reported that Morgan McSweeney, chief of staff to British PM Keir Starmer, as well as Starmer’s chief of communications Matthew Doyle, attended the Democrats’ convention in Chicago and met with Harris’s campaign team.
Last week, Labour’s head of operations, Sofia Patel, posted on LinkedIn that she had “nearly 100 Labour party staff, current and former, going to the US in the next few weeks, heading to North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia,” advertising ten openings in North Carolina. Patel told potential applicants that “we will sort your housing.”
Trump supporters, including Elon Musk, have pointed to Patel’s post as a clear violation of campaign laws. The post has since been deleted. Democrats, however, insist that none of this is illegal because it doesn’t involve financial contributions.
“This is a normal thing that happens in elections,” British Employment Minister Alison McGovern told Sky News last week, noting that Labour activists have campaigned for Democrats many times before.
Democrats have made unsubstantiated allegations that Russia somehow “meddled” in the US elections and that Trump was “colluding” with the Kremlin, after his surprise victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Claims of “Russian collusion” were used to oust and even imprison several Trump advisers and campaign aides, while hobbling his presidency and driving US-Russia relations to their worst point since the Cold War.
Pro-censorship NGO working with White House to ‘kill Musk’s Twitter’ – report
RT | October 22, 2024
The Center for Countering Digital Hate, a UK-based nonprofit tied to the Labour Party, aims to “kill” Elon Musk’s X platform with help from top Democrats in Washington, according to internal documents leaked by a whistleblower. Musk has declared “war” on the organization in response.
In several monthly planners distributed to staffers this year, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) lists “Kill Musk’s Twitter” as its top annual priority, according to files leaked to journalists Matt Taibbi and Paul Thacker and published on Tuesday. In furtherance of this goal, CCDH staffers are told that they will “focus” on advertising, “trigger EU and UK regulatory action,” and “progress towards change in USA and support for STAR.”
An acronym for ‘Safety, Transparency, Accountability and Responsibility’, STAR is a proposed censorship bill that would create an “independent digital regulator” in the US who could “impose consequences for harmful content.”
In its efforts to build support for these goals, the CCDH contacted Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) in May, and organized an invitation-only conference in Washington the following month, which whistleblowers claimed was attended by a senior adviser at the White House, a Democratic Party staffer in the office of Representative Adam Schiff (D-California), US State Department officials, and the vice president of Media Matters for America, a Democrat-aligned ‘watchdog’ group.
Musk sued Media Matters earlier this year after the organization released a report claiming that advertisements could be seen alongside pro-Nazi posts on X. Musk called the report “manufactured,” and his lawsuit alleges that its sole purpose was to “drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.”
Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, rebranding the platform as X and rolling back most of its censorship policies. Within days of Musk’s purchase, the White House announced the creation of the now-defunct ‘Disinformation Governance Board,’ ridiculed by conservatives and free speech advocates as an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.” A week later, the CCDH joined two dozen other liberal NGOs in calling for an advertiser boycott of X.
The CCDH was founded by Morgan McSweeney, chief of staff to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and former director of Labour Together, a think tank closely associated with Starmer’s Labour Party. Labour Together has been advising US Vice President Kamala Harris’ election campaign, and more than 100 Labour Party activists are currently campaigning for Harris in the US.
CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed, who worked with McSweeney at Labour Together, aided Starmer’s rise to power by leading advertiser boycotts against his left-wing opponents. Among these opponents was ‘The Canary’, a leftist news site driven out of business over accusations of anti-Semitism from the CCDH and its subsidiary, ‘Stop Funding Fake News’.
In the US, the CCDH has lobbied the White House to censor Covid-19-related “disinformation,” unsuccessfully tried to get similar content banned from Substack, and led multiple campaigns against Musk.
According to internal documents, Ahmed is aware that the CCDH’s activities risk crossing a line between advocacy and lobbying, which is illegal for nonprofits. Before scheduling meetings with lawmakers earlier this year, someone in the organization advised staff to “understand our limitations” as a nonprofit organization, but still to “inch towards our goal of regulatory action.”
In a series of posts on X on Tuesday, Musk pronounced the CCDH “a criminal organization,” and declared that “this is war.”
Mercenary firm to force Palestinians into biometric screenings in Gaza control zones, in potential US, Israel plan
MEMO | October 22, 2024
Israel and the United States are reportedly considering a joint plan to deploy a private American-Israeli security firm to administer Gaza by subjecting Palestinians to biometric screenings with the threat of withholding humanitarian aid.
According to media reports, based on an initial report by Israeli journalist, Shlomi Eldar, on Monday this week, the US and Israel are planning to run a pilot programme – starting with the Al-Atatra village in north-western Gaza – involving 1,000 private mercenaries who would create “gated communities” within the Strip where they will control the inhabitants and their movements through the use of biometrics.
The plan would reportedly see Israeli Occupation Forces clear Palestinian Resistance fighters and Hamas operatives out of areas, with the mercenaries then erecting separation walls around the neighbourhood 48 hours later, forcing only its residents to enter and exit through the use of biometric identification.
Compliance with the forced system would also entirely determine the provision of humanitarian aid, with any who refuse to accept the biometric methods reportedly being cut off from receiving the vital aid.
The plan will reportedly allocate $90 million for the areas’ residents to rebuild their homes, with a “local sheikh” appointed to the position of “head of the council” in the particular zone.
The private security firm at the forefront of the reported plan is Global Development Company (GDC), which brands itself as an “Uber for war zones”. Owned by Israeli-American businessman, Mordechai Kahana, the firm’s operatives include former high-ranking Israeli military officers and former American military and intelligence operatives.
In a press release on Monday, GDC stated that it has “developed a strategy to securely deliver humanitarian relief to civilians in Gaza. Security for the humanitarian convoys will be provided by a US security company acting as a subcontractor”, which GDC claimed has “extensive experience in operating overseas with the highest standards of integrity, respect for human rights, and cultural sensitivities.”
Revealing that the firm and its subcontractor “have had extensive discussions with the Israeli government including the Ministry of Defence, the Israeli Defence Forces, and the Prime Minister’s Office on the modalities for this initiative”, it stated that the goal of the proposal “is to enable humanitarian organisations to deliver large amounts of humanitarian assistance to needy Gazans without the threat of having Hamas, or others divert or steal the assistance and sell it for profit on the black market”.
Although it has reportedly been approved by the Biden administration and White House National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, the plan requires official authorisation by the US and Israeli governments in order for its implementation. As a US private security firm, GDC would also apparently need approval from the US Senate to offer armed services to the Israeli government.
Israel looks set to also approve the plan, however, with its war cabinet having discussed the proposals on Sunday, resulting in its reported readiness to authorise such a pilot programme within the next two months.
Media tour of Beirut hospital disproves Israeli claim of ‘Hezbollah bunker’
The Cradle | October 22, 2024
Journalists toured the Sahel Hospital in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of Beirut’s southern suburbs on 22 October, disproving claims made by the Israeli military that Hezbollah was storing hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold in a bunker below the hospital.
Independent journalist Steve Sweeney was among those visiting the hospital. He wrote on social media that he “had unrestricted access to all areas, including the basement, and all I found were the normal things found in any hospital, in any country across the world.”
“The hospital director believes it will be bombed by Israel, repeating a pattern seen in Gaza, with attempts to link the hospital to Hezbollah a smokescreen to justify an attack. We had to leave the hospital with drones flying overhead with the potential for Israel to strike at any moment,” he added.
L’Orient Today reported that the hospital was evacuated on Monday evening after the Israeli army said it was conducting “a reconnaissance of the complex” beneath which it said “hundreds of millions of dollars” belonging to Hezbollah were hidden.
Hezbollah has “hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold under the Sahel Hospital in Haret Hreik to fund its terrorist activities,” Israeli army Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on social media.
“The Israeli allegations about the Sahel hospital are false, but we were forced to evacuate,” said the director of the health facility, Fadi Alameh, in an interview with Al Jadeed TV.
He also said that “the Sahel Hospital has nothing to do with the parties” and called on the army command to inspect it and confirm that no tunnels were under the building.
Later on Tuesday afternoon, an Israeli airstrike completely destroyed a high-rise building in the Ghobeiry region in the Beirut southern suburbs as Hezbollah’s Media Relations Officer, Mohammad Afif, was giving a press conference in the area, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.
At the press conference, Afif discussed Israel’s bombing on Sunday of multiple offices of the Al-Qard al-Hassan Association, which provides financial services to Lebanese civilians.
Afif said the bombing had “no justification at all. It is a licensed civil institution, and Hezbollah does not receive its allocations from this institution.”
“Al-Qard al-Hassan Association was prepared for the aggression, took all necessary precautions, and will meet its commitments.”
He also stated that despite recent Israeli bombings and the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, “Hezbollah’s military and logistical support lines have returned to what they were, and the enemy has suffered heavy losses in lives and tanks.”
“The resistance and the chain of command are in good health,” he added.
Late Monday, Israel also bombed residential buildings in the Jnah area of Beirut near the Rafic Harir Hospital, killing 13, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.
NATO Shreds German Reunification Pact With Moscow With New Baltic Naval HQ
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 22.10.2024
The Western alliance spurned Russian aspirations for improved relations and the creation of a Europe-wide security architecture after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, swallowing up all of Moscow’s former Warsaw Pact allies and seven former Soviet and Yugoslav republics, and sparking a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
German defense chief Boris Pistorius presided over the unveiling a new NATO naval HQ in Rostock, northeastern Germany on Monday, with the facility not only threatening to exacerbate tensions with Russia, but violating a key deal on the non-deployment of alliance forces in the territory of the former East Germany.
The Commander Task Force Baltic HQ “will play a crucial role in the preparation of military situation reports and in responding to regional challenges, including the protection of NATO member states’ interests against aggressive actions, particularly given the proximity of Russia,” Pistorius said.
“The Baltic Sea has always been at the crossroads of Europe’s history and it is much more than just a waterway. It is a vital corridor for trade, military mobility, and energy security. It is a strategic area of great geopolitical importance and a frontline in our collective defense against evolving threats,” Pistorius said, going on to accuse Russia of “challenging” regional security “on almost a daily basis.”
The HQ will be commanded by a German, with Polish and Swedish officers serving as deputies. Formal goals of the base, manned by 60 personnel (expandable to 240 in a pinch), include improving interoperability, planning joint drills and overseeing regional military deployments.
The facility also happens to be illegal. In 1990, during talks on German reunification, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev approved Bonn’s annexation of East Germany on the condition that NATO troops not be stationed in the Federal Republic’s new territories.
Article 5, Paragraph 3 of the pact, formally called the Two-Plus-Four Treaty, states that “Foreign armed forces and nuclear weapons or their carriers shall not be stationed in or transferred to this part of Germany.”
On Tuesday, Germany’s ambassador to Russia was summoned and slapped with a protest in connection with the Rostock HQ, with the Foreign Ministry emphasizing that the hostile move will not be left without a response.
“The ambassador was informed that this step by Germany’s ruling circles constituted a continuation of the creeping revision of the results of the Second World War, and the militarization of Germany. It was also a gross violation of the spirit and letter of the Two-Plus-Four Treaty… We demanded immediate and comprehensive explanations from Berlin,” the Ministry said in a statement.
“Washington, Brussels and Berlin must be aware that the expansion of NATO’s military infrastructure into the territory of the former GDR will have the most negative consequences, and will not remain without an appropriate response from the Russian side,” the Ministry added.
G7 Not Planning to Unfreeze Russian Assets After End of Ukraine Conflict – Reports
Sputnik – 22.10.2024
The Group of Seven nations will announce later this month that they will keep Russian assets frozen in their jurisdictions even after the end of hostilities in Ukraine, media reported on Tuesday, citing an Italy-led draft statement.
“We … reaffirm that Russia’s sovereign assets in our jurisdictions will remain immobilized until Russia ends its aggression and pays for the damage it has caused to Ukraine,” the draft of the leaders’ statement, quoted by Nikkei, read.
The G7 intends to guarantee a $50 billion loan for Ukraine, to be repaid by windfall profits from the frozen Russian assets, the news agency said, citing multiple G7 and EU sources.
Last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recommended EU member states to consider loaning Ukraine 35 billion euros ($38 billion) that will be repaid with windfall profits earned by Russia’s frozen assets. The proposal was endorsed by the European Parliament earlier on Tuesday. European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders said that the G7 would announce their contributions to Kiev’s $50 billion loan secured by Russian assets in Washington on October 25.
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70 Neocons Petition Congress To Effectively Allow Israel To Say When The US Should Attack Iran
By Damian Lataan | January 10, 2014
Seventy senior Israeli-centric neoconservatives have written an open letter to Congress imploring them to do more to ensure Iran complies with the conditions of any agreement finally reached with the P5+1 over Iran’s nuclear program.
While the neocons are ostensibly asking Congress to ensure compliance, it is clear that their real aim is to convince members of Congress to support the bill currently passing through the Senate which calls for tighter sanctions against Iran in the event of any waywardness on Iran’s part.
The neocons are eager to see the bill currently passing through the Senate with enough support to make it veto-proof, not so much because they are concerned about Iran’s so-called nuclear weapons program – there’s still not a skerrick of hard evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program – but, rather, because embedded within the bill is this clause:
… if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide, in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence…
Essentially, the clause is an automatic trigger for the US to attack Iran at any time the Israelis choose to launch a first strike – regardless of whether President Obama is in favour or not.
Partial list… continue
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