Alice Weidel speaks at the AfD party congress in Riesa, Germany, January 11, 2025 in Riesa © Getty Images / Sean Gallup
Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel has pledged to put the sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines back into operation if her party emerges victorious in next month’s general election.
AfD members met in the town of Riesa on Saturday to formally approve Weidel as their candidate to succeed Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose coalition government collapsed late last year. Weidel’s nomination marks the right-wing AfD’s first bid for the chancellery in its 11-year history.
In a speech after the nomination vote, Weidel promised to implement harsh immigration policies – including the “remigration” of immigrants already living legally in Germany – and to scrap Scholz’s green policies in a bid to drive down energy prices. Restoring energy ties to Russia is vital to this latter goal, she explained.
“We will put Nord Stream back into operation, you can count on it,” Weidel told her party.
Germany relied on Russia for 55% of its natural gas supply before the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022. Much of this gas flowed through the Nord Stream 1 pipelines, with the parallel Nord Stream 2 lines due to come online in 2022. However, Berlin revoked the certification for Nord Stream 2 several days before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began, and both sets of lines were destroyed in an act of sabotage in September of that year.
While German investigators have reportedly settled on the theory that the pipelines were destroyed by Ukrainian saboteurs, American journalist Seymour Hersh maintains that they were blown up by the CIA and US Navy. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has blamed “professional saboteurs from the Anglo-American special services,” referring to the US and UK.
Scholz’s decision to halt Russian energy imports, coupled with his government’s green policies, has led to soaring electricity costs in Germany, forcing some of the country’s manufacturing giants – including Volkswagen and BASF – to close plants and lay off workers.
The AfD is not the only German party that wants to repair and reopen Nord Stream. The leftist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) has also demanded that they be brought back online, with BSW MP Sevim Dagdelen calling last week for the gas lines to “finally be put into operation,” and for the German government to “stop giving money to Kiev!”
Germans go to the polls to choose a new government on February 23. The AfD is currently polling at around 20%, ahead of Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) at 16%, but behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at 31%. However, even if the AfD were to emerge as the largest party next month, all of Germany’s other mainstream parties have ruled out entering a coalition with it.
January 11, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | Germany |
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When British kings wanted to dispose of troublesome enemies — real or imagined — they often had them or their colleagues arrested on pretextual charges and then brutally tortured until confessions were extracted. The confessions were then read aloud during so-called trials; and, of course, the defendant was convicted of whatever crime was the subject of the confession.
All this was done in order to satisfy the political, and in many cases the personal, desires of the monarch by creating the impression of due process.
Often the torture occurred in remote places, so remote that there was no government there, and the king and his counselors could argue that the protections of the British traditions of fair play — the British do not have a written Constitution, but rather a set of traditions — was not violated because the torture occurred in a place where the traditions did not apply.
When one of the victims of this practice was an official who had previously engaged in perpetrating it, the House of Commons, many of whose members feared becoming victims of the monarch’s desires, adopted the principle of habeas corpus. That ancient right compelled the jailer of any person anywhere to bring the jailed person before a neutral magistrate and justify the confinement.
Due process has numerous definitions and aspects, but for constitutional purposes it basically means that all charged persons are presumed innocent and entitled to a written notice of the charges, a speedy and fair hearing before a neutral fact finder, a right to appeal; and the entire process imbued with fairness and a profound recognition of personal innocence until guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Due process also explicitly prohibits the use of torture.
In order to ensure that due process and habeas corpus would trump the whims of government officials — stated differently, to ensure that the British system of torture and confession and conviction did not occur here — James Madison and the Framers crafted protections in the Constitution to which all in government needed to swear allegiance and support.
Fast forward to the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and you can see the constitutional system turned on its head.
This George W. Bush-crafted American Devil’s Island, which costs $500 million a year to operate, once held 780 prisoners, allegedly there due to their personal involvement in the war on terror against the United States. Not a single one of them has been convicted of 9/11-related crimes, and only one former detainee is currently serving time in an American federal prison.
Nearly all the prisoners were tortured, and most were captured by roving militias and sold to American forces for bounties. Last week, under cover of darkness, the Biden administration released 11 detainees, all of whom had been at Gitmo for 20-plus years and none of whom had been charged with a crime.
The best known of the remaining 15 prisoners is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom the government claims was the mastermind of 9/11. Mohammed was scheduled for trial when the military judge in his case retired. The new judge — the fifth on the case — was confronted with the daunting task of reading 40,000 pages of transcripts and documents concerning the torture of Mohammed by U.S. personnel.
At the same time, a new team of military and civilian prosecutors was assigned to the case and the new prosecutors told their bosses in the Pentagon and the new military judge that unlike their predecessors — who sought to mitigate the 183 torture sessions U.S. personnel administered to Mohammed — they were prepared to acknowledge it and decline to use any evidence obtained from it in the courtroom.
This remarkable turnaround — one that rejected the premises upon which Gitmo came into being — resulted in the prosecutors commencing plea negotiations.
The Bush-inspired premises of Gitmo were that since it is located in Cuba, federal laws don’t apply, the Constitution doesn’t apply and federal judges can’t interfere. In five landmark decisions, the Supreme Court rejected all these premises, and the new team of prosecutors and the new judge recognized as much.
The prosecutors basically said that they cannot ethically defend torture, they will not offer evidence derived from it in the case, and the case is difficult to prove without evidence derived from torture. This is a remarkable lesson to be learned. Instead of cutting holes in the Constitution, follow it. Instead of using torture, use acceptable investigative techniques. Instead of crafting a Devil’s Island, use the systems in place that have basically worked.
The settlement negotiations produced an agreement for a guilty plea that removed the death penalty from the case, required Mohammed to answer truthfully all questions put to him under oath and in public by prosecutors, defense counsel and lawyers for 9/11 victims’ families, and life in prison at Gitmo; not America’s hellhole in Florence, Colorado.
The plea was approved in writing by all, including the retired general in the Pentagon in charge of Gitmo prosecutions — herself a former military appellate judge. When Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin learned of the plea agreement, he instructed the military prosecutors to move to vacate the agreement they had instigated. The trial judge denied this unique request. Last week, a military court of appeals upheld that denial. Mohammed’s courtroom plea will now take place before President Joe Biden leaves office.
None of this jurisprudential mess would have occurred if Bush had allowed the criminal justice structure to proceed unimpeded. The use of torture, rotating judges and prosecutors, and incarceration for 20 years without charges or trial are all hallmarks of an authoritarian government. If justice consists in convicting the guilty using established norms and fair procedures, Gitmo has been an unjust unhumanitarian disaster. But if justice consists in the king getting whatever he wants, then the Constitution is useless as a protector of freedom.
To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2025 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
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January 11, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, United States |
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The publication of a list containing the first names of 256 suspects arrested by Berlin police on New Year’s Eve has sparked an internal investigation into a security leak.
The list, published by German media outlet Nius, pertains to those apprehended after mass civil unrest in the German capital after New Year’s celebrations turned sour and migrant-fueled violence erupted with fireworks launched at police and into residential buildings.
As Remix News previously reported, the authorities’ own data showed 670 suspects in total had been arrested — 406 had a German passport and 264 were foreign nationals.
German police do not publish data identifying the nationalities of suspects, but a list of the “German” suspects, which included a plethora of foreign names including Abdul Kerim, Abdulhamid, Abdulkadir, Ali, Hassan, and Mohammed in its various spellings, managed to make headlines.
Nius, run by Bild’s former editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt, estimated that 65 percent of those in the German bracket had first names “that are clearly of non-German origin.”
The authorities are now reportedly on the warpath to track down those responsible for the leak.
The Department for Police and Corruption Crimes at the Berlin State Criminal Police Office has been tasked with identifying the source, police spokesperson Florian Nath confirmed to Tagesspiegel.
“Our Police and Corruption Crimes Department is investigating the suspect who may have illegally extracted and released lists of names from protected, internal police systems,” Nath said, adding that the authorities will always pursue “the release of personal data without any legal basis.”
The police spokesperson described the release as an unauthorized and unacceptable violation of data protection laws that promotes a “disproportionate and discriminatory approach to explaining criminal behavior.”
Berlin Police did not deny the authenticity of the list.
The response by the authorities has drawn strong criticism in some quarters with journalist Birgit Kelle writing on X: “In Berlin, people would rather investigate colleagues in their own ranks who tell the population the unvarnished truth about the cultural origins of the city’s criminals than criminals themselves.”
Prior to the leak, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) parliamentary group in Berlin had submitted a parliamentary query demanding the names of the suspects be released.
AfD co-leader Alice Weidel had also weighed in, sharing the leaked list on social media and stating that it “speaks for itself.” She further insisted that “foreign violent criminals” who endanger lives have “forfeited their right to hospitality and must be deported.”
Investigations into the leak have also been discussed politically at state level with left-wing politician Niklas Schrader announcing plans to address the matter in the Berlin Senate’s Interior Committee.
January 11, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance | Germany |
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Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) shifted focus to combating “misinformation” during a briefing on the devastating wildfires ravaging Los Angeles. The session included President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, with Newsom and Bass addressing concerns over their administration’s preparedness as the fires claimed at least 10 lives and destroyed countless homes.
Conducted in a hybrid format, the meeting saw Biden and Harris in the Oval Office while Newsom, Bass, and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell joined via video call. Newsom described the unprecedented destruction fueled by what he called “hurricane-force winds, the likes of which we’ve never imagined in our lifetime.” He then pivoted to warn about the spread of misinformation related to the disaster.
“We’ve got to deal with this misinformation. There were hurricane-force winds of mis- and disinformation — lies,” Newsom stated. “People want to divide this country, and we’re gonna have to address that as well. And it breaks my heart, as people are suffering and struggling that we’re up against those hurricane force forces as well.”
Expressing frustration, Newsom added, “And that’s just a point of personal privilege that I share that with you because it infects real people that are out there. People I meet every single day, people the mayor has been meeting with, and they’re having conversations that are not the typical conversations you’d have at this time be in. And you wonder where this stuff comes from, and it’s very damaging as well, but we’re here to get the job done; to be here for folks to focus.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom is facing a barrage of criticism from various quarters, highlighting several contentious issues, particularly related to a lack of preparation for combatting wildfires under his governance.
Newsom’s timing is ironic as Biden has been criticized heavily today for his previous attempts to police “misinformation” online.
On the same day Newsom appealed to Biden about online “misinformation,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed on The Joe Rogan Experience that the Biden administration pressured his company to censor COVID-19-related content, including truthful criticism of the vaccines.
Zuckerberg revealed that officials would “call up our team and scream at them and curse” over certain posts. A notable incident involved demands to remove a meme.
Zuckerberg emphasized, “Basically, it just got to this point where we were like no, we’re not going to take down things that are true. That’s ridiculous.”
This revelation, although not new, highlights a troubling pattern of government pressure on tech companies to suppress speech, raising serious concerns about censorship and the erosion of free expression. As wildfires continue to devastate communities, efforts to control narratives under the guise of combating misinformation risk silencing legitimate discourse. The public’s right to transparent and open communication remains more critical than ever in times of national emergencies.
January 11, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | California, Human rights, United States |
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This movie is free thanks to members and donors from ANC Report. If you found this informative consider sending a few shekels. This is the only way we can do films. NUMEC Map https://anti-neocon.myshopify.com/
The film exposes how terrorists took advantage of the massive weapons surplus following the end of WWII and created lucrative black-markets for illegal arms trafficking many of which went to the blood thirsty ethno-stater lunatics who created the state of Israel. The weapons theft would escalate to Highly Enriched Uranium for nuclear bombs and the assassination of a US president. The gun running routes doubled as human trafficking routes as the post war climates had created millions of refugees and nations of women with little or no opportunities who were easily exploited. This in turn gave rise to international forced prostitution and pedophile rings that targeted state figures and businessmen for blackmail. The press and policing agencies were forced to capitulate because challenging Zionist power right after the horrors of the Holocaust was political suicide. WWII’s own justification for nuking cities and murdering millions of civilians through bombing and starvation was the made for TV images of the Holocaust, even though Palestine had nothing to do with that, they paid the ultimate price. And by allowing Israeli power to grow out of control the US effectively lost its sovereignty. Especially in regards to foreign policy, Zionist partisans most recently the Neocons have thrown the US into one conflict after another against its own interests to further the personal interest of a criminal cabal. This film, like any Dawson film, names the names and gives the details and documents. The criminal networks of organized crime, sexual blackmailers, arms smugglers, financiers, and political cover up have all been mapped out, literally. Help us at the Anti-Neocon report reach our goal and once again put the establishment and donor class psychopaths under the spot light. The truth will set you free. But Freedom isn’t Free.
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“I think I wet my pants, but I had my underwear on so I couldn’t have raped that girl” -Alan Dershowitz did not say
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“Were done for” – Israeli on Pol
January 10, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | France, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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In a Wednesday Twitter post, United States Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) expressed his confusion why “[z]ero dopes have shown up at my home or office, or blocked a road to chant and protest over an actual genocide in Sudan.” Proceeding, he questioned why “South Africa engaged the ICJ over Gaza, but not for an actual genocide on their own continent” — in Sudan.
“ICJ” in Fetterman’s tweet refers to the International Court of Justice that ruled in January of last year that the Israel government may be committing genocide in Gaza and ordered Israel to not engage in acts of genocide. Then, in November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The decisions of both courts have been disparaged and disregarded by the US and Israel governments.
It is in opposition to the US government’s extraordinary and critical support for war efforts of the Israel government in Gaza and beyond that protests have been undertaken against Fetterman. The obvious reason he has been targeted with protests is because he is among the US Congress members most vociferously supporting the US providing military, weapons, money, and intelligence support without which the Israel government could not continue to pursue its large and expanding war effort, including its devastating attack on Gaza that has produced monumental civilian suffering and death. Indeed, in Israel several months into the war and with Fetterman at his side, Netanyahu declared, “Israel has had no better friend than Senator John Fetterman” during the war.
Why no similar protests against Fetterman related to the action in Sudan to which Fetterman refers in his Twitter post? The answer is suggested by Fetterman’s own language. He calls that action in Sudan an “actual genocide.” It would be bizarre for people to protest him for supporting this “actual genocide” when he has declared his opposition. Instead, of course, they protest him for being a key supporter of the US government enabling the carnage and destruction wrought by the Israel government.
Fetterman linked in his Twitter post a Tuesday New York Times article by Declan Walsh that provides background information regarding the Sudan-related genocide claim:
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group fighting against Sudan’s military had committed acts of genocide, including a fearsome wave of ethnically targeted violence in the western region of Darfur.
The Treasury Department backed the determination of genocide with a raft of sanctions targeting the R.S.F.’s leader, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, as well as seven companies in the United Arab Emirates, the group’s main foreign sponsor, that have traded in weapons and gold on his behalf.
As with Israel’s war, Fetterman in regard to Sudan — where the US also has a long history of intervention — is fully aligned with the executive branch’s position. In both instances, the position involves pursuing foreign intervention in no way justified to protect America. As is typical, the US flings allegations against the parties it opposes abroad while deflecting accusations against the parties it supports, all the while claiming to be devoutly advancing human rights and a “rules-based international order.” The message is again and again self-serving hooey.
Who again are the dupes?
January 10, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
4 Comments
A new study published in the UK’s Lancet medical journal estimates that Gaza’s death toll during the first nine months of the war was about 40 percent higher than figures reported by the Palestinian health ministry.
Research published in The Lancet medical journal on Friday suggests that around 2.9 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population or approximately one in 35 inhabitants died in Israeli attacks until late July 2024.
Up to June 30 last year, the health ministry in Gaza reported a death toll of 37,877 in the war.
The study suggests the total death toll was actually at around 64,260, which would mean the health ministry had under-reported the number of deaths by 41 percent.
The new study used data from the ministry, an online survey and social media obituaries to estimate that there were between 55,298 and 78,525 deaths from traumatic injuries in Gaza by that time.
However, the toll did not count the deaths from a lack of health care or food, or the thousands of missing believed to be buried under rubble.
Earlier a UN report had indicated that around 10,000 missing Gazans are probably buried under rubble.
The number of dead in Gaza has been a matter of bitter debate since Israel launched its genocidal campaign against the blockaded territory back on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
On Thursday, Gaza’s health ministry said that 46,006 people had died over the full 15 months of war.
January 10, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
1 Comment
As Israel accuses Egypt of military buildup in the Sinai Peninsula, tensions between the two states – bound by their 1979 normalization treaty – are reaching a boiling point. Israeli officials and allied neoconservative think tanks are now actively escalating rhetoric alleging Cairo’s breach of the peace treaty while hinting at Tel Aviv’s ambitions to expand into Egyptian territory.
In September 2024, the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) published a report accusing Egypt of allegedly aiding Hamas through tunnels leading into Gaza to enable the Palestinian resistance movement to build its military capabilities. The charges are a stretch, given Cairo’s long-held acrimony toward Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations.
Sinai standoff intensifies
These claims were further contradicted by recently leaked documents showing Egypt’s aggressive measures to destroy over 2,000 tunnels between 2011 and 2015. Senior Egyptian military officials even explored the construction of a canal to obliterate these underground networks.
Also in September, Israeli military analyst Alon Ben-David admitted on Channel 13 News that “no single open tunnel has been found in the Egyptian territory. No single usable tunnel has been discovered under the Philadelphi Corridor.”
However, Tel Aviv’s allegations did not end there. Israel’s former ambassador to Egypt, David Govrin, has now accused Cairo of violating the normalization treaty by strengthening its military presence in the Sinai. He was quoted by Yedioth Aharonoth as saying, “after all these years, and even after 7 October 2023, questions remain about Egypt’s genuine recognition of Israel within its 1948 borders.”
On 7 January, the occupation state formally demanded explanations from Egypt regarding its military activities in Sinai, citing treaty violations related to demilitarization. The US, which brokered the 1979 treaty, joined the chorus, withholding $95 million in military aid to Egypt – a recurring tactic used to exert pressure on Cairo.
Washington then redirected those funds to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), echoing similar cuts in 2023 when Egypt-bound aid was diverted to Taiwan. The move ties with intensified pressure on Beirut, aiming to coerce and incentivize compliance with US influence over its internal affairs, especially with newly-elected President Joseph Aoun.
While Egypt’s human rights violations have been copiously documented, this is a card that the US government will routinely roll out when they want to see their North African ally play ball. It is worth noting that Egypt has historically been the second-largest US foreign aid recipient after Israel.
Stand-off in the Sinai
In 2005, following Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip to its periphery, an agreement was reached allowing 750 Egyptian security personnel to enter the Sinai Peninsula.
At the time, Yuval Steinitz, then chairman of Israel’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, vehemently opposed the deal, calling it a “black day” and cautioning:
“We are inviting the cat to keep the cream. This is a solar eclipse that has befallen the government, which is giving up on demilitarizing Sinai in exchange for a lentil stew of compliments and gestures.”
Since then, Cairo has submitted hundreds of requests to deploy additional forces and equipment into Sinai, most of which were approved by Tel Aviv, especially after the rise of a takfiri insurgency in 2013. In 2018, the New York Times revealed that Israel had conducted airstrikes inside Sinai at the request of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to counter the insurgent activity.
In the aftermath of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, relations between Cairo and Tel Aviv began to sour significantly. The occupation state initially proposed that Egypt facilitate ethnic cleansing via a mass expulsion of Gaza’s population into Sinai, creating a buffer zone between Gaza and occupied Palestine. President Sisi outright rejected the plan, sparking further tensions.
By early 2024, the occupation military had intensified its invasion of Gaza, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaling an assault on Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. Egypt swiftly issued warnings against any attempt to reclaim the Philadelphi Corridor, a border area that separates Egypt and Gaza, arguing that such actions would breach the 1979 normalization treaty.
In a dramatic escalation on 6 May, Israel launched its Rafah offensive on the same day Hamas agreed to a ceasefire proposal. This offensive, which included the seizure of the Rafah Crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor, drew condemnation even from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who described it as “a blatant violation of the peace agreement with Egypt.” Despite threats from Cairo to annul the treaty, Sisi’s primary response was to join South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
When Israeli tanks first entered the Rafah Crossing, they desecrated the area and taunted the Egyptian guards stationed there. Later that same month, a clash broke out, and Israeli soldiers killed an Egyptian soldier. Israel then launched a series of airstrikes in June against targets in the Sinai Peninsula.
The Zionist vision for expansion into Egypt
Last year, uncovered documents in the British National Archives shed light on Israel’s historical campaign to legitimize its claim over the Sinai Peninsula. During Israel’s occupation of Sinai following the 1967 war, pro-Israel lobbyists and think tanks in the west disseminated narratives to delegitimize Egyptian sovereignty over the strategic region.
Only two years after the occupation of the Sinai, which had come as a result of Israel’s war of aggression in June of 1967, the Jewish Observer and Middle East Review published an article that featured a provocative front cover, “Sinai without the Egyptians — a new look at the past, present and future.”
The Zionist Federation of Britain even argued that since Sinai had been under Turkiye’s control until 1923, it should have been incorporated into the British Mandate for Palestine, laying the groundwork for Israel’s claims to the territory.
Fast forward to today, similar arguments have resurfaced to justify Israel’s expansionist ambitions. On 6 January, Israeli-Arabic social media accounts published a map showcasing the supposed territories of the ancient kingdoms of Judah and Israel, sparking condemnation from Jordan and the Persian Gulf states. While these claims overtly target Jordanian, Lebanese, and Syrian lands, they also subtly include parts of modern Egypt, particularly Sinai.
In July of last year, Israel’s Heritage Minister, Amichai Eliyahu, retweeted a post made on X that called for the occupation army to occupy the Sinai Peninsula, along with southern Lebanon, southern Syria, and eventually part of Jordan.
Back in September, as Israel was launching its assault on Lebanon, the Jerusalem Post ran an article entitled ‘Is Lebanon part of Israel’s promised territory?’ that was later removed after considerable backlash.
An existential threat for the WANA region
At this current moment, Israel is openly talking about remaining in southern Lebanon even after the 60-day ceasefire implementation period, as it currently expands its occupation further into Syrian territory by the day. It also seeks an imminent annexation of the occupied West Bank. All of these moves are indicative of Israel’s seriousness in expanding its undeclared borders.
In March 2023, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich openly displayed a “Greater Israel” map, fueling speculation about the Zionist leadership’s long-term goals. The “Greater Israel” vision encompasses parts of Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.
Israeli leaders employ fluid justifications – historical, religious, and political – to advance these claims, a strategy the late Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah warned would continue unabated unless confronted by a unified Arab resistance.
January 10, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Egypt, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Israeli media says the regime’s ministers have met to discuss a classified plot to promote the division of Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government.
The news outlet Israel Hayom reported that Israel’s minister of military affairs Israel Katz chaired a small ministerial meeting on Tuesday that discussed an Israeli plan under which Syria would be divided into provincial regions, or cantons.
The report sells the plot as a way to “safeguard the security and rights of all Syrian ethnic groups,” including the Druze and Kurdish populations.
The meeting also reportedly discussed the Turkish involvement in the Arab country and alleged concerns about the intentions of Syria’s de-facto leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who has said that Damascus “will not engage” in a conflict with Tel Aviv.
The meeting was held before an upcoming discussion with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The plan of Israel, which was a main supporter of the anti-Assad militancy that erupted in the country in 2011, was already existing before the fall of the government, the report said.
Last month, regional security sources briefed on the plot were quoted as saying that before Assad’s fall, Israel planned to divide Syria into three blocks and to establish military and strategic ties with the Kurds in Syria’s northeast and the Druze in the south, leaving Assad in power in Damascus.
The plot, which appears the same as the one discussed on Tuesday, was alluded to in a speech by Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar last November.
Saar said Israel needed to reach out to the Kurds and the Druze in Syria and Lebanon. “We must look at developments in this context and understand that in a region where we will always be a minority we can have natural alliances with other minorities.”
Foreign-backed militants, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), took control of Damascus on December 8 and declared an end to President Assad’s rule in a surprise offensive that was launched from their stronghold in northwestern Syria, reaching the capital in less than two weeks.
Following the fall of President Assad’s government, Israel invaded Syria from the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. The Israeli forces have invaded a UN-patrolled buffer zone in southwestern Syria, taking over the Syrian side of Mount Hermon as well as a number of Syrian towns and villages.
The Israeli army also launched massive airstrikes against Syrian military installations in recent weeks, drawing widespread condemnation for violating Syria’s sovereignty.
January 10, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | Israel, Middle East, Syria, Zionism |
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Whether it’s Greenland, Ukraine, West Africa or East Asia, rare earths are an element of the global geopolitical competition hiding just below the surface. What are the rare earth elements, where are they concentrated, and what are their major uses? Check out our explainer for a detailed breakdown.
Basic Facts
Rare earth minerals are a group of 17 silvery-white soft heavy metals, mostly consisting of the lanthanides, a family of 15 elements grouped together in the Periodic Table, plus scandium and yttrium, which have similar chemical properties and are often found in deposits alongside the others.
Despite their name, rare earths aren’t especially rare, with one of the rarest – lutetium, some 200 times more common than gold. Rather, what makes the resources rare is finding them in large, easy to find and mine clusters.
Rare Earths and Their Uses
Lanthanum (La): Used in nickel-metal hydride batteries for hybrid vehicles, lighting, camera lenses and other special glass, and as a catalyst for petroleum refining.
Cerium (Ce): Added to an array of alloys for increased strength and corrosion protection, magnets, for burn treatments, glass polishing agents, lightbulbs and household wares including ceramics.
Praseodymium (Pr): Key component for aircraft engine-grade high-strength alloys, powerful magnets (including for use in wind turbines), tough didymium glass, and fiberoptic cables.
USGC data-based map of global rare earth element mines and known strategic reserves by country. © Photo : Stratfor
Neodymium (Nd): Used for everything from magnetotherapy to magnetic motors, microwave communications, microphones, headphones, loudspeakers, hard drives, automotive electronics, fluorescent and energy-saving lamps and lasers.
Promethium (Pm): Key component for luminous paint, portable X-rays, and atomic batteries for critical electronics, from the military and aerospace to pacemakers.
Samarium (Sm): Active ingredient in a popular cancer-cell killing agent; used in combination with other elements in magnets, lasers and nuclear reactor control rods for neutron absorption.
Europium (Eu): Another excellent neutron absorber, as well as red phosphor for TVs, blue color in LEDs, and therapeutics tool.
Gadolinium (Gd): Active ingredient for MRI drugs. Also used in nuclear propulsion systems, metallurgy, microwave and magnetic refrigeration.
Terbium (Tb): Key tool for chemical screening; green phosphor for TVs and monitors, used in lighting, military grade sonar and other sensors.
Dysprosium (Dy): Used to make powerful permanent magnets, lasers and lighting, electric drive motors for EVs and wind turbines, transducers, resonators, and dosimeters for measuring ionizing radiation.
Holmium (Ho): Another neutron-absorber useful for radioimmunotherapy, magnets, as well as optics, microwave, medical, dental and laser surgery equipment.
Erbium (Er): Added to lasers and optics used in medicine, as well as optical communications, with strong neutron-absorbing qualities. Also useful for chemical analysis and crystal growth.
Thulium (Tm): Used in military and industrial-grade lasers, as a source of radiation for portable X-rays, for meteorology and high-temperature superconducting tools, and popular anti-counterfeiting agent.
Ytterbium (Yb): Key element in X-ray components, memory devices, tunable lasers, amps and displays; metal-strengthening component and burnable poison for controlling nuclear reactions.
Lutetium (Lu): Used in petroleum refining, polymerization, lithography, tomography, as a phosphor for some light bulbs. Also used for tumor treatment, and to build the world’s most accurate atomic clocks.
Scandium (Sc): Key ingredient for high-grade lightweight alloys for everything from military and commercial aircraft to sporting equipment, small arms, high intensity discharge lamps, dentistry, and as an oil refinery tracing agent.
Yttrium (Y): Another metal-strengthening alloy. Also used for high-temperature superconducting, a surprising array of medical applications (from drug labeling and cancer treatment to surgical needles) as deoxidizer and nodulizer, the red color in cathode ray tubes, radar and synthetic gems.
January 10, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Timeless or most popular | Africa, China, Greenland, Ukraine, United States |
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By Patrick Poppel | January 10, 2025
The EU member state Austria is struggling with a weakening economy and a high government deficit. In the parliamentary elections at the end of September, the Freedom Party FPÖ became the strongest force in parliament for the first time with 28.85 percent of the vote. The conservative ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party) gained 26.3 percent, followed by the social democratic SPÖ with 21.1 percent.
It has been a few months since elections took place in Austria, but the country still has no government. After the NEOS(New Austria and Liberal Forum) withdrew from the talks in Austria, the negotiations between the ÖVP and SPÖ also failed.
Chancellor Nehammer announced his resignation. In Austria, negotiations between the Chancellor’s party ÖVP and the social democratic SPÖ have been broken off. A spokesman for ÖVP leader explained in a written statement to the newspaper Die Presse: “We have tried everything up to this point. An agreement is not possible on essential key points, so there is no point in a positive future for Austria.”
Nehammer stated in a video message that he wants to resign as the head of government and as the head of the conservative ÖVP. He said he would retire from the post in the coming days. Nehammer made it clear that he was still not prepared to hold coalition talks with the right-wing FPÖ under Herbert Kickl.
The conservative ÖVP had been in talks about a coalition with the SPÖ and the liberal NEOS since mid-November. It is normal for the Federal President to appoint the party that has the most votes from voters to form the government.
But Austrian Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen supported negotiations between the other parties in order to keep the FPÖ from participating in a government. But his plan totally failed.
The ÖVP repeatedly emphasized during the election campaign: there will be no coalition with the Kickl-FPÖ. But after the negotiations between ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS failed, there should now be talks between ÖVP and FPÖ.
The parties are not strangers to each other on all points – even if it often seemed so in the heat of the election campaign. The ÖVP described Kickl as a right-wing extremist, conspiracy supporter and security risk for Austria. The new acting ÖVP boss, Christian Stocker, who was ÖVP general secretary during the election campaign, spoke particularly harshly against Kickl in parliament.
Now things look different, however. Stocker is supposed to lead the negotiations with Kickl for the ÖVP. And Stocker assumes that both sides will ignore everything that was said during the election campaign.
Many experts in Austria now assume that the FPÖ and ÖVP will have a much easier time with each other in the negotiations than the ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS in the negotiations of the last three months. Because when it comes to financial policy, which caused the first coalition attempt to collapse, the ÖVP and FPÖ are much closer together.
Both parties are economically liberal and do not want to place additional burdens on large businesses and owners. ÖVP and FPÖ want to scale back climate policy and there are also similarities when it comes to asylum and migration as both want a restrictive policy.
The biggest differences are likely to be in foreign policy. The FPÖ repeatedly showed an understanding for Russia. Kickl calls for an end to military support for Ukraine and is skeptical about the European Union. The ÖVP, on the other hand, is a pro-EU party.
An exciting time is now beginning for Austria. Nehammer is still chancellor. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg will now officially take over the office on an interim basis, as Federal President Van der Bellen’s office explained. However, Schallenberg does not want to take part in a possible FPÖ-led government.
Protests from the liberal and left-wing spectrum can now be expected. A call to participate in a planned “human chain to defend democracy” demonstration in front of the Federal Chancellery in Vienna comes from, among others, the Catholic Action Austria (KAÖ).
The protests are directed against a possible blue-black government led by the FPÖ. Behind the event are social and church organizations, as well as groups that support environmental issues and refugees. In this spirit, a new government must now be put together.
This political chaos is the result of the Federal President’s actions. Austria has not had a new government for over 100 days, the political mood on the streets is tense and the society is divided. It now remains to be seen how the new government will be put together.
Patrick Poppel is an expert at the Center for Geostrategic Studies in Belgrade.
January 10, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Austria, European Union |
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In the TVP Info program, journalist Dorota Wysocka-Schnepf, who hosts major television shows on the state-run network, suggested that the authorities should completely shutdown the X portal during the presidential election campaign, which would amount to a form of mass censorship not seen in Poland since communist times.
“We live in a situation where disinformation can come to us not only from the East, but the West can also poison us with content that will have nothing to do with the truth,” said Dorota Wysocka-Schnepf.
The shocking suggestion was made on the “Dangerous Liaisons” program, which is broadcast by state-run TVP Info. Dorota Wysocka-Schnepf’s guests were Prof. Anna Siewierska-Chmaj from the University of Rzeszów and Dr. Katarzyna Bąkowicz from SWPS, according to Polish outlet Do Rzeczy.
In response, Dr. Katarzyna Bąkowicz said: “We know that there are organized criminal groups that spread disinformation. It’s not just Russia or China. We have to remember that disinformation has become an element of political struggle. What Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, who joined in, are doing is opening Pandora’s box.”
Prof. Anna Siewierska-Chmaj responded with what appeared to be supportive statements, saying that Elon Musk does not hide the fact that he is fascinated by European politics and wants to change it, with Musk’s comments about Great Britain the latest example.
“What shocks me the most is Germany and its support for the post-fascist AfD, and we should be afraid of that,” said Wysocka-Schnepf.
“Of course, the AfD’s victory fuels the Polish right, so it is de facto influencing the Polish elections,” replied Prof. Siewierska-Chmaj.
Then, the journalist’s shocking words about the need to consider closing Musk’s portal for the duration of the election campaign were uttered.
“We are in such a situation, more and more countries are announcing the closure of TikTok for fear of Chinese propaganda, so should we seriously consider that maybe X should be closed for the duration of the election campaign,” said Dorota Wysocka-Schnepf.
“This would be a very radical solution… but we need to think about regulating this area,” replied Dr. Bąkowicz.
January 10, 2025
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | Poland |
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