Mohammad Yamout was born to a Muslim Sunni family in Lebanon in 1966. He attended an Evangelical Church and at the age of 14, God saved him through its Sunday School ministry; since that time he gave his life to Jesus. His family rejected him, he had to leave his home and spend his next years working and living in a warehouse. Two attempts to kill him were made by fundamentalist groups because of his zeal for Evangelism. His local Church discipled him and helped Mohammad with his education, he graduated from Bob Jones University with a BS in Accounting.
7 “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write,
‘These things says He who is holy, He who is true, “He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens”: 8 “I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name. 9 Indeed I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but lie—indeed I will make them come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you. 10 Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. 11 Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown. 12 He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name.” (Revelation 3:7-12)
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. 8 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So then death is working in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:7-12)
How strong are we? Can we stand in the face of the adversary and say, "I stand with and for God my Father and Him only will I serve." Are we like Peter when faced with questions about our dedication to God? Will we stand and quote the word against the one who desires to destroy us? This is what God wants from his children……. When the rulers saw the healing and acts of the powerful way Peter and John took authority, they became afraid and sought to lay hands on them and stop their actions. They asked the disciples to not speak of the miracles they had performed in the name of Jesus. Peter and John replied and said whether it seems right to you or not, we will do the will of the Father and will report this to all men. So, for a time, the rulers had no case against them and let them go.
The report further states that, since 2009, "not less than 32,000 Christians have been butchered to death by the country's main Jihadists." Earlier this year, Christian Solidarity International issued a "Genocide Warning for Christians in Nigeria," in response to the "rising tide of violence directed against Nigerian Christians and others classified as 'infidels' by Islamist militants..." More recently, in a May statement, the Christian Rights Agenda, another human rights group, expressed concern for "the seeming silence of Nigeria's President, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, who as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces has not only failed to protect the Christian communities but has remained silent over these killings. To date, no Fulani herdsmen have been arrested and prosecuted over the killings, a development that has helped to embolden them." It is worth noting that Buhari himself is a Fulani Muslim.
A change of law in Iran “will facilitate the repression and punishment of Christian converts and others belonging to unrecognised religious groups”, according to regional experts…… Amendments to article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, approved by Iran’s parliament in May, mean that anyone found guilty of using “mind control methods” or “psychological manipulation”, in the “real or virtual sphere”, for “deviant educational or propaganda activities that contradict or interfere with Islamic teachings in ways such as making false claims” can be punished with imprisonment, flogging, fines or even the death penalty.
On June 21, seven Iranian Christians converts from the southern city of Bushehr were sentenced for “propaganda against the state.” They have 20 days to file an appeal. Habib Heydari, Pooriya Peyma, and brothers Sam and Sasan Khosravi each received custodial sentences. However, the sentence for the brothers also included work restrictions and exile after release. The remaining individuals were all women. Fatemeh Talebi, and sisters Maryam and Marjan Falahi were fined, with Maryam also being banned from seeking employment at national institutions. All seven were arrested in July 2019 after Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) raids discovered Bibles and other Christian literature and iconography in their homes. Despite Iran’s assurance that it never imprisons citizens based on their beliefs, these seven Christians were sentenced solely because of their faith. Iran had paused several judicial proceedings because of COVID-19, but recent weeks have shown that we can expect the country to continue in its persecution of Christians.
Akash is facing the risk of the pandemic and the risk of persecution, but he and many other Open Doors partners are courageously going to those in need. He says these words as he’s preparing to take another delivery of food to vulnerable Christians in his region. For them, the sight of Akash and his team arriving is the difference between survival and starvation. Things really are that stark for many thousands of the poorest Christians in India. And this is on top of the persecution they already face. When India went into lockdown to combat the coronavirus, hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs overnight. Many of these Indians usually work as daily labourers and earn each day what they need to survive: without the day’s income, they have no money to buy food. There is no financial safety net or furloughing scheme, and official aid isn’t anywhere near enough for the number of people who need it. Even worse, Christians are often deliberately overlooked when this aid is distributed. As the months have passed, the situation hasn’t got any easier for many believers.
The threat of the coronavirus pandemic is beginning to recede in many regions; some drugs are proving effective, a vaccine may be found or humans may gradually build immunity to the virus. But the global impact of the Covid-19 crisis looks set to change our world forever. We explore ten significant geopolitical and social changes likely to have a major impact on the global Church and especially on persecuted Christians.
Pastor Ramesh Jebaraj says he forgives the arsonists who destroyed his church in Tamil Nadu State, southern India, in the early hours of 13 June…… “India is a secular democracy, and Christians are no threat to anyone. We represent only 2.3 per cent of the population, and declining. Despite this, radical groups continue to attack and intimidate Christians, burning their churches,” the Christian leader added. In May, the Alliance Defending Freedom India Trust (ADF) reported that at least three Christian families in India’s Chhattisgarh State had been prevented from burying their loved ones by religious extremists as persecution and mob violence against believers continued during the Covid-19 lockdown. What is it like to follow Jesus in India?
In one of the eight attacks on Christians since the COVID-19 lockdown was partially lifted in India two weeks ago, a mob of about 150 people in the southern state of Telangana dragged a pastor into the street and beat him while he was praying for a sick person. “They kicked me like they would kick a football,” Pastor Suresh Rao, a church planter, told the U.S.-based Christian persecution watchdog International Christian Concern about the attack on him in Kolonguda village last Sunday.
Sombaru Madkami, 14, was taken from his home earlier this month. He and his family had been Christians for three years….. Pastor Kosha Mosaki of Kalimela says, “Christians in Kenduguda have been facing many threats and are being continually harassed by religious fanatics. “At least 22 cases of Christian persecution, including murder, have been reported in Odisha in 2019; eight cases, including the latest incident, have been recorded between January 2020 and now. “In Malkangiri district, there have been 14 faith-based killings of Christians over a span of two to three years.”
According to local reports, Nadeem Joseph, a Christian from the TV Colony of Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s Khybar Pakhtunkhawa province, died yesterday as a result of gunshot wounds he received on June 4. Twenty-six days ago, Joseph and his family were attacked by Muslim neighbors because they purchased a home in what their neighbors’ determined to be a ‘Muslim-only’ neighborhood. On June 4, 2020, Nadeem Joseph, his mother-in-law, Elizabeth, and his brother-in-law, Babar Masih were attacked by Muslim neighbors wielding guns in front of their home in TV Colony. The attackers were Salman Khan and his sons.
A genocide expert and former Congressman Frank Wolf have warned that violence being committed against Christians in Nigeria and the U.S. government’s “failed” response to it could lead to another genocide like the ones that occurred in Rwanda and Darfur…. The conversation comes as estimates show that thousands have been killed and millions displaced since 2015 due to attacks carried out by predominantly Muslim Fulani militias against predominantly Christian farming communities in the Middle Belt of Nigeria as well as Islamic extremist attacks carried out by Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province in northeast Nigeria.
Four aid workers and a private security worker have been abducted by Islamist militants in northeast Nigeria. In a video seen on Monday by Reuters, the hostages identified themselves and said they each worked for different organizations. With just their heads and shoulders showing against leafy plants outdoors, they named large aid groups Action Against Hunger, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and REACH. One of the hostages named Luka Filibus said the following, “I am appealing to the International Rescue Committee to come and rescue me.” The incident underscores the increasing risk for aid workers in northeast Nigeria, where a decade-long conflict with Boko Haram and Islamic State’s regional ally has fueled one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The abduction is also a sign of how dangerous the region has become since Nigeria’s military withdrew into garrison towns they call “super camps”, leaving previously safe major roads, much of the countryside and smaller towns unprotected.
"On June 20, they even bombed the safe spot where the other villagers could go." — Athra Kado, Assyrian rights advocate in Alqosh, Iraq, to Gatestone. "We have been informed by the Turkish forces that 'we'll bomb whenever we want to'... But nobody seems to be concerned about our struggles or wants to help us." — Younan Youkhanna, Assyrian journalist in Challik, Iraq, which is affected by Turkish bombings……. The Yazidi and Assyrian Christian communities in the area had already been terrorized when they were targeted in a genocidal attack by the Islamic State (ISIS) beginning in 2014. The Yazidi and Assyrian natives of the area have expressed their condemnation of the bombings.
Court orders anti-missionary activists to stay 100 meters away from Messianic congregation in Ashdod. Pastor Israel Pochtar of Beit Hallel in Ashdod wrote that a court issued an order preventing activists from Yad L'Achim from coming within 100 meters of the congregation or the homes of its members. Pochtar claimed that the congregation had endured "nine years of systemic oppression" from Yad L'Achim, which held weekly demonstrations outside the congregation to protest what it views as missionary activity. "They have called time and time again for actions against us, declaring their goal is to stop our work completely and drive us out of the city,” Pochtar said.
Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, Saheb Fadaie and Yuhan Omidi were initially sentenced to 10 years in prison, but now, after an appeal, Pastor Yousef and Saheb have had their sentences reduced to six years, and Mohammadreza to two years – he will be eligible for release in July. A fourth church member, Yasser Mossayebzadeh, was arrested and convicted at the same time, but it is not yet known what decision (if any) has been taken in his case. The four men were arrested in Rasht, Iran, in 2016. They had a court hearing in June 2017, where each of the men was given a 10-year prison sentence for ‘acting against the national security’ for running and participating in house churches. Yousef and Yuhan were also sentenced to two years' internal exile in the south of the country. What’s life like for Christians in Iran?
China has imposed a new security law on Hong Kong that Cardinal Joseph Zen believes will have a deleterious effect on religious freedom…… Zen observed that on the mainland, the Chinese government appoints the Catholic bishops. The Holy See says the pope has the right to remove inappropriate candidates, but Zen said he doubted that this is the case. He also referred to the government’s attempts to make Catholicism “more Chinese” and even to rewrite the Bible, something he finds particularly inappropriate.
A Christian man was arrested and at least two women were injured in China’s Henan province after 200 communist officials stormed into Sunzhuang Church, which is part of a network of government-run churches, and brought it down using cranes and heavy-duty machinery. The officials from the Zhengzhou High-Tech District’s Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau did not show any legal documents when they demolished the church on June 12, the U.S.-based group China Aid said in a statement this week..... They threw the church’s furniture and other belongings out of the building before razing it, reported China Aid, which helps those who are persecuted by the Communist Party in China.
Chinese police were tasked to collect mandatory blood samples from up to 70 million – 10% of all men and boys – as the high-tech surveillance state builds a “DNA Skynet” of the country’s 700 million males, raising fresh persecution concerns for Christians and other marginalised groups….Government surveillance systems rolled out since 2015 use sophisticated artificial intelligence and biometric technologies to target specific groups and minorities. The advanced facial recognition system deployed on the network is believed to be capable of distinguishing between the faces of different ethnic groups to single out Uyghurs, Tibetans and other minorities. Authorities have also collected fingerprints, voiceprints and other biometric data from religious communities without their consent. Any individual who refuses to give blood samples risks their family being listed as a “black household”, according to one computer engineer from northern China. This would mean he and his relatives would be barred from benefits such as travel and hospital treatment. Silicon Valley Video Darling Zoom Caught Doing Chinese-Style Censorship
The social media platform TikTok has quickly become one of the most popular apps in the world over the past two years, but now security experts are warning that it could be a dangerous security risk. Apple’s new iOS 14 update came with a privacy transparency feature which informed users that the app was secretly reading the contents of their clipboards, something that the company promised it would stop doing last year. In light of these revelations, TikTok has once again promised to remove that function from its app, but privacy experts are skeptical. According to Ars Technica, this security flaw allows the app to access the most sensitive data on your devices including passwords and cryptocurrency wallets….. The new Apple update also identified a large number of other applications that were doing the same thing, but TikTok is under additional scrutiny because of its apparent ties to the Chinese government. TikTok’s parent company ByteDance claims that TikTok is not available in China and that its data is stored outside of China, but its privacy policy has reserved the right to share any information with Chinese authorities.
Boris Johnson has raised doubts over the controversial decision to give Chinese company Huawei a stake in Britain’s 5G network, telling Beijing that the Government will “think very carefully about how to proceed now”. He suffered his biggest post-election backbench rebellion in March when 36 Tory MPs voted to ban Huawei from supplying any technology to the UK, and hostility to the planned deal has been fuelled by accusations that China was slow to raise the alarm over its coronavirus outbreak in December.
Starting in 2009, the Chinese government began testing a national reputation system based on a citizen's economic and social reputation, or "social credit." This social credit score can be used to reward or punish certain behaviors. The idea is that the state can give or takeaway points from a social credit score in order to engineer good behavior from the people. By late 2019, Chinese citizens were losing points on their score for dishonest and fraudulent financial behavior, playing loud music, eating on public transportation, jaywalking, running red lights, failing to appear at doctor appointments, missing job interviews or hotel reservations without canceling, and incorrectly sorting waste. Kaspersky surveyed more than 10,000 people from 21 countries and found that 18 percent of those polled had issues accessing financial services because of assessments of their social media data. The report notes that more than 4.5 billion people use the internet around the world, and 3.8 billion have social media accounts.
The day before a committee debate and vote on the EARN IT Act, the bill’s sponsors replaced their bill with an amended version. Here’s their new idea: instead of giving a 19-person federal commission, dominated by law enforcement, the power to regulate the Internet, the bill now effectively gives that power to state legislatures. And instead of requiring that Internet websites and platforms comply with the commission’s “best practices” in order to keep their vital legal protections under Section 230 for hosting user content, it simply blows a hole in those protections. State lawmakers will be able to create new laws allowing private lawsuits and criminal prosecutions against Internet platforms, as long as they say their purpose is to stop crimes against children. The whole idea behind Section 230 is to make sure that you are responsible for your own speech online—not someone else’s. Currently, if a state prosecutor wants to bring a criminal case related to something said or done online, or a private lawyer wants to sue, in nearly all cases, the prosecutor has to seek out the actual speaker. They can’t just haul a website owner into court because of the user’s actions. But that will change if EARN IT passes. That’s why we sent a letter [PDF] yesterday to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing the amended EARN IT bill.
Facebook, who owns Instagram, denied censoring the worship leader's videos, but many powerful voices have come out in force against the Big Tech company. An American Christian worship leader is accusing Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook of “Big Tech censorship” for allegedly preventing his street ministry videos filmed at peaceful prayer gatherings at protest sites from being shared and viewed among his followers. Sean Feucht, a California Christian worship leader and activist, took to his Twitter page last week to blast Instagram and other social media companies. He claimed they flagged his YouTube worship videos as “harmful or false information” and for “going against” their “community guidelines.”
Almost 250 companies have signed up to the #StopHateForProfit campaign that is pushing for the social media giant to tackle hate speech and misinformation on its platforms…. Since the launch of the campaign almost 250 companies have committed to pausing their advertising on Facebook, Instagram and in some case on Twitter and other social media platforms. Outdoor clothing firms Patagonia, The North Face and Arc'teryx, outdoor equipment company REI, tech companies Dashlane and Upwork were the first to say they will join the boycott. In the last week, Adidas, Starbucks, Diageo, Vans, Levi's, Ben & Jerry's, HP, Magnolia Pictures, Hershey's, Blue Bottle Coffee, Pfizer, Mozilla, Verizon, Coca-Cola, Honda and Unilever are among the big names to have joined the boycott.
Sweden has been steeped in political correctness for decades; its failed immigration policies, which have had multiple negative consequences, as reported by Gatestone Institute, have long been taboo. The idea that free speech is not a fundamental liberty that must be defended at all costs runs deep in Sweden. Radio personality and NBA announcer Grant Napear was fired from his radio show at KHTK radio and resigned as the Sacramento Kings play-by-play TV announcer after tweeting on June 1, "All Lives Matter... every single one!", in reference to protests by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. A young Democrat data scientist, David Shor, was fired by the research firm for which he was working, Civis Analytics, after tweeting about the electoral effectiveness of peaceful protest as opposed to violent protest.
BLM activist Shaun King, who ridiculously called for the removal of statues depicting a white Jesus, tweeted, "Experts have long since said this is likely the most accurate depiction of Jesus. "White Americans who bought, sold, traded, raped, and worked Africans to death, for hundreds of years in this country, simply could not have THIS man at the center of their faith." (I’m including this, not because I condone statues of Jesus, which is idolatry, but where this is heading. It is an attack on Jesus and Christians. This is not about race, is just a diversion from the real agenda).
More than a third of millennials polled approve of communism Somewhere, Bernie Sanders is smiling. A new survey released by the Washington, D.C., nonprofit Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation reflects that, if the younger generation gets out and votes in 2020, those running for office on the far left have reason to be hopeful. Dear Marxist Students, Be Careful What You Wish For - In this explainer for Reasoned UK, Lukas sets out why his family history and Lithuanian background should be a warning to all of Britain's idealistic, Black Lives Matter supporting, Marx-loving students at our universities.
Teen Vogue raised eyebrows on social media on Wednesday when it shared an article expressing praise for communist philosopher Karl Marx…… Journalist Adryan Corcione praised Marx's influence in the world, writing that "The Communist Manifesto" co-author "inspired social movements in Soviet Russia, China, Cuba, Argentina, Ghana, Burkina Faso, and more" and how historical icons like Frida Kahlo, Malcolm X, and Helen Keller "integrated Marxist theory into their work decades after his death." "So how can teens learn the legacy of Marx’s ideas and how they’re relevant to the current political climate?" Corcione asked before detailing her conversations with two educators who teach their students about Marx's philosophy. Does Teen Vogue understand what it means to be ‘literally a communist’? - ‘How does being a communist impact your view of the US presidency, whether it’s Obama or Trump?’ And then consider that this pleasant question was being asked by Teen Vogue. It was posed to a young woman called Ash Sarkar who writes for an obscure blog named Novara Media. Last week Sarkar had her 15 seconds of fame when she managed the impossible and appeared to out-arrogant Piers Morgan in a television shouting-match ostensibly about Donald Trump’s visit to the UK. The exchange finished with Sarkar telling Morgan repeatedly that she wasn’t a supporter of President Obama because she is ‘literally a communist’. The fact that she added the words ‘you idiot’ meant that sections of the internet went doolally for her. And Teen Vogue decided that she was a suitable subject for puffery, and presumably young female emulation.
Marx: “I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above”
Marx began life in a God-fearing family. It is documented that he was once a Christian. But a drastic change at some point in his life led Karl Marx to a deep personal rebellion against God and all Christian values. Eventually, he became a Satan worshipper who regularly participated in occult practices and habit. By examining Marx's poetry, plays, correspondence, and biographical account, Richard Wurmbrand builds a convincing case for Marx's undeniably Satanic preference. Marx's own statements expose him as a hater of God, and therefore, a hater of God's creatures-those who have suffered under Marxism and communism. Wurmbrand, who was imprisoned for 14 years in Europe for his outspoken views against communism, urges Christians not to be duped by Marxism's benevolent disguise as a mere political or economic theory. He reveals the true root of Marxist thinking so that Christians will recognize the evil therein and stand against it. Having been a prisoner of the Communist government in Romania, Rev. Richard Wurmbrand has thoroughly researched his subject and seen its effects firsthand. He and his wife founded Jesus to the Communist World to help Christians who suffer at the hands of communism and Marxism. Wurmbrand has over a dozen books in print here and in Europe, among them:
To cared for Chris
One Hundred Prison Meditations
Where Christ Still Suffers
Answer to the Moscow Atheists
“We are trained Marxists,” Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors said, during an interview with Real News Network, further adding to the parallels between her movement and the rise of Mao Zedong’s Marxist movement in China. Marxism is important for Christians to understand, because it is an ideology that pushes atheism and persecutes Christians. The Chinese believers understand this better than most, because they are still suffering under the banner of Marxism. Back to Jerusalem has written several books that talk extensively about the rise of Marxism in China and how the enemy used it to attack the church in one of the most systematically brutal ways ever seen. Black Lives Matter Is a Marxist Movement - Black Lives Matter is run by Marxist organizers. They have not been silent about their agenda to dismantle the nuclear family, transform gender/sexual identity, and force radical change. So why are so many eagerly following along? ? Video of unknown Black Preacher on race: “All the killings in our community ain’t coming from white people. We’re killing one another. Our old people are scared to come out at night...they’re not scared of white people, they’re scared of young black boys..”
Gopal caused controversy last week when she tweeted “white lives don’t matter,” prompting a petition demanding she be fired. However, Cambridge University responded by promoting her to a full professorship, despite the fact that the tweet was censored by Twitter for hate speech. The media’s reaction was to portray Gopal as the victim of bullying while feigning infinitely greater outrage over a “white lives matter” banner that was flown over a soccer match in Manchester…. Dominique Samuels, black commentator said: “She’s racist. I think we need to stop this dumbass spiel that minorities cannot be racist because they absolutely can. She is racist and is getting away with because she’s not white. That’s just the fact of the matter.”
An online poll of Sunday Times readers has shown overwhelming opposition to proposals to make it easier to change legal sex. In the survey 94 per cent of 12,624 people answered ‘No’ when asked “Should the law allows trans people to self-identify?”. Last week, the newspaper reported that plans to allow people to change their birth certificate without a medical diagnosis have been shelved….. It reported that details of the U-turn were contained in a leaked paper setting out the Government’s response to a public consultation on the Gender Recognition Act.
'Very many vulnerable children have been very poorly treated and will be left with, potentially, a lifetime of damage here' Staff at a UK state-funded “gender transition clinic” for children raised concerns during a review that children were quickly being set on a gender transitioning pathway only after one or two visits. Staff also raised concerns about being discouraged from reporting about children they suspected of being sexually abused…… Staff allege that they were discouraged from reporting concerns to safeguarding personnel, including in cases where they “feared a child had suffered sexual abuse or trauma.” "There was a very clear message from senior management about being really cautious about how we talk to the safeguarding team at the Tavi[stock], and specifically [the Trust's safeguarding lead],” one staff member who left GIDS last year, told the BBC."I would say that perhaps that's why more than 40 clinicians decided to leave the service within three years," they added.
Former Senior United Nations Official Facing Pedophilia Charges in Nepal One of the world’s leading experts on humanitarian work with street children and children affected by war has been arrested on pedophilia charges…… "Under the guise of community worker, claiming to educate poor kids and provide necessary support, he had been sexually exploiting these children. We have developed a sound network to track down and arrest pedophiles entering Nepal. We had been following Dalglish's activities for the last two weeks after we were tipped about his activities," he said, according to the Kathmandu Post.
It is time to admit the truth. Throughout my entire lifetime, Republican presidential candidates have promised us that if we help get them elected they will move the Supreme Court in a more conservative direction. But it hasn't happened….. Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh have both turned out to be major disasters. Earlier this week, Gorsuch actually wrote the opinion for the Supreme Court decision that ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to LGBTQ employees. And even though Kavanaugh dissented for technical reasons, he still had very high praise for the decision..."Millions of gay and lesbian Americans have worked hard for many decades to achieve equal treatment in fact and law. ... They have advanced powerful policy arguments and can take pride in today's result."
Jerusalem: Peaceful Pro-Torah Protester Put in Ambulance by Violent LGBT Mob A religious Jewish activist from the Lehava organization was violently assaulted and hospitalized by LGBT activists. “The LGBT terror has peaked and the police serve their agenda. Right wing activists that exercise their freedom of speech and protest against sacrilegious events are immediately arrested while violent LGBT activists aren’t even detained. There is no limit to the double standard.”
On June 28, 2020, Paulist priest Rick Walsh offered “a reflection” entitled “We All Belong to Each Other” at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in New York City; the parish is the motherhouse of the Paulist order. On June 25, 2020, Walsh also was the “celebrant” for the parish’s Pride Mass sponsored by the Paulist’s LGBT ministry “Out at St. Paul. (OSP)”……. OSP has a long history of gay-affirmative pastoral practices and public statements in support of same-sex marriage. On May 15, 2018, Out at St. Paul, hosted a “Rooftop Social” at gay sports bar Boxers in Hell’s Kitchen. However, this is not the first time Out at St. Paul has held meetings at gay bars. On March 22, 2017, Out at St. Paul hosted a “Spring Social” at the Hell’s Kitchen gay bar Bottoms Up. Then again, on January 31, 2018, they hosted their “Winter Social” at the Rise gay bar in Hell’s Kitchen. In the past, Out at St. Paul sponsored and promoted “your favorite queer saint,” “countertraditions” to Adam and Eve, and “Christian” theories in support of same-sex marriage.
Hundreds of thousands of people aren't fans of Paris Jackson playing Jesus. More than 280,000 people have signed a Change.org petition to prevent the distribution of the indie film "Habit," which critics say is "Christianophobic garbage." "A new blasphemous Hollywood film is predicted to come out soon depicting Jesus as a lesbian woman," reads the petition, which was created one week ago.
Occult members of every variety within every country, including Israel, are being contacted and mobilized through social media … and called upon to participate in this global Summer Solstice declaration. The invitations give location information by city. Times are set to each local time between 2 pm and 11 pm, again each in their own time zone, this Sunday, June 21st..….. Breaking Israel News reporter was on-site to report on the event. He saw a group of fewer than ten people wearing black t-shirts with satanic symbols. The Luciferians did not enter the Western Wall Plaza and it is unclear whether they held their event. ‘Hail Satan’ prayer at local US government meeting sparks uproar (21 Jun 2019) - A Satanic Temple member who won the right to give the opening prayer at a government meeting in Alaska has prompted a protest from officials after declaring “Hail Satan”. Iris Fontana’s invocation triggered a walkout by the mayor of Kenai Peninsula Borough, several members of the regional assembly and people in the audience. The rise of the Satanic Temple in Canada (Jul 2019) - As the national co-ordinator for the Satanic Temple in Canada, Marc has overseen the group’s latest developments and events since he started the chapter here in 2016. He says he got involved shortly after retiring from a decade in the Canadian military, searching for a new purpose in life, and new regimens.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo closed a recent program by saying we didn’t need help from the almighty, instead we just need to “believe in one another” and “do the right thing for yourself and your community” and that would make things better for the country….. This is just the latest incident in which prayer and God are mocked as solutions to issues. Cuomo’s advice to “do the right thing for yourself” actually runs counter to what the Gospel preaches, which is to sacrifice your own wants and desires in order to help others. Followers of Christ are to be outward seeking, looking to offer assistance to the needy rather than serving our own selfishness.
6,666 unborn children were killed in the Republic of Ireland in 2019. These are the first official abortion figures published in the Republic of Ireland since the Eighth Amendment was repealed in 2018. Liam Gibson, SPUC Political Officer said: "These are truly shocking statistics. It would be easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of abortions or to be horrified by what the killing of children on this scale tells us about Irish society. However, we must never lose sight of the fact that each one of these 6666 abortions was a deliberate act of lethal violence directed at an entirely innocent and unique human being. "No government, no state, regardless of a referendum can abrogate the God-given right to life of even one member of the human family. Abortion is never justified, every child has the right to be born regardless of their stage of development, their disabilities or the circumstances of their conception. Britain's Ungodly Laws - At Prophecy Today UK, we believe that the nation of Britain, formerly a God-fearing nation, is now a nation under God's judgment. From 1951 to 2019: The Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) was passed in Westminster in the absence of a functioning devolved government, taking advantage of Northern Ireland’s political weakness to impose abortion and same-sex marriage on a province that historically has held to biblical values more faithfully than the rest of the UK.
On June 25, for example, Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood posted a video to Twitter of one of their protests. Governor Bill Lee recently signed a ban on abortion after the fetal heartbeat can be detected, and naturally abortion activists are outraged by this. Thus, presided over by a woman dressed up as the Statue of Liberty (but serving, in this context, as American Moloch) and attended by a handful of protestors, some featuring the red dress uniform of the Radical Handmaids, the abortion activists burned an upside-down American flag and lowered the burning Stars and Stripes into a trash can. The activist doing the ceremonial flag-burning was dressed as Governor Lee. “Gov. Bill Lee has disrespected our constitution and practically lit the flag on fire by banning abortion,” Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood tweeted. “But we won’t stop until we live in a new America that respects the rights of pregnant people. Full stop.” Pro-abortion org’s founder grateful for 911 attacks for ‘saving’ abortion pill
The pro-life investigators of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released a new video Tuesday containing footage from the sworn testimony of abortion industry officials admitting that they are aware of babies having been born alive, and suggesting that they are murdered soon after….. In the new video, Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR) procurement manager Perrin Larton, one of the figures featured in CMP’s very first undercover videos, says that “intact” fetuses are delivered after attempted abortions “once every couple months,” which is a far cry from the prevailaing abortion industry narrative that such cases are extraordinarily rare…… Also testifying under oath was Dr. Deborah Nucatola, former Senior Director of Medical Services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), who was also seen in the original CMP videos. Nucatola became infamous for admitting that Planned Parenthood is “making money off of this” despite laws against profiting from human tissue, and that abortionists know how to get around the ban on partial-birth abortion. Clarence Thomas: Roe v. Wade Was 'Grievously Wrong' and 'Should Be Overruled'
USA Today has taken a sudden interest in a series of articles related to former Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton. USA Today has taken a sudden interest in a series of articles originally published at www.OperationRescue.org and reprinted by www.LifeNews.com related to former Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton, who resigned on June 11, 2020.
Forbes Censors Award-Winning Environmentalist’s Apology Over Three-Decade ‘Climate Scare’ – So Here It Is On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years. Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem. I may seem like a strange person to be saying all of this. I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30. But as an energy expert asked by Congress to provide objective expert testimony, and invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to serve as Expert Reviewer of its next Assessment Report, I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public. I know that the … facts will sound like “climate denialism” to many people. But that just shows the power of climate alarmism.
"This issue has lacked attention from senior leaders," the Senate Intelligence Committee says. The Senate Intelligence Committee has voted to require U.S. intelligence agencies and the Defense Department to compile a detailed public analysis of all data collected on "unidentified aerial phenomenon," including intrusions recorded by Navy pilots in recent years. The provision contained in the annual intelligence authorization bill, which still needs to be adopted by the full Senate, sets up an unusually public debate on Capitol Hill about how extensively the government has been tracking high performance aircraft of unknown origin, or UFOs. Ripe for deception?
New Trafficking Report: From China to Ireland, Human Slavery Is Still a Big Global Problem The latest report on human trafficking around the world is out, and it’s not good news. The State Department released its annual Trafficking in Persons or “TIP” report Thursday. Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, who helped form some of the nation’s human trafficking laws roughly 20 years ago, says it’s a tough but fair report.
The outbreak is evolving quickly. As of mid-April 2020, 23 countries have been affected: 9 in the wider East Africa region, 11 in North Africa & the Middle East, and 3 in South Asia. A recent joint impact assessment report by the Government of Ethiopia and FAO estimates that the desert locust outbreak in Ethiopia alone has caused 356,286 metric tons of cereal loss, along with destruction of 197,163 ha of cropland and 1,350,000 ha of pasturelands, with more than 1 million Ethiopians in need of food assistance as result.
The insects, which can cover a distance of 150km (93 miles) in a day, have already travelled from Paraguay to Argentina and it is feared Brazil and Uruguay could be next.
‘There’s nothing left’ – Sardinian farmland stripped by locust swarms These insects have destroyed fields, pastures, grasslands, and invaded houses and gardens. Swarms of the same species had already caused damage in summer 2019 in an area of about 2,000 hectares. “The locusts feed on the most protein-rich part of the plants, so once the swarm enters the hayfield, there is nothing left for the flock,” says Alessandro, a young local shepherd.
The FBI has arrested Jeffrey Epstein's long-time companion Ghislaine Maxwell "on charges related to a probe by New York federal prosecutors into Epstein’s alleged rampant serial sexual abuse of young girls and women," according to NBC News. Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire and is scheduled to appear in court on July 2. Ghislaine Maxwell abruptly torpedoed her oceanic non-profit in the wake of the scandal surrounding her associate Jeffrey Epstein - Ghislaine Maxwell jettisoned her environmental nonprofit just days after her longtime associate Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges. She had founded the TerraMar Project in 2012, to encourage the conservancy of the high seas. She also proved to be a central figure in drumming up support for the TerraMar Project, lending her voice to an environmental controversy involving a poisoned Canadian river in 2016, speaking at The University of Texas at Dallas in 2014, and, that same year, giving a TED talk about how her experience of finding a plastic hanger at the bottom of the ocean on a deep sea submersible dive sparked her quest for conservancy. She even presented before the United Nations on the invitation of the late UN diplomat for the Pacific nation of Palau, Stuart Beck. Maxwell told the gathered diplomats that she'd been "mesmerized by the oceans" since childhood.
Ever since Epstein’s untimely death in August last year, she has maintained a low public profile, effectively living ‘on the road’, jet-setting between properties in multiple countries in an effort to avoid the media and law enforcement. The question remains why Maxwell would have suddenly handed herself over to US authorities now. The answer to that question may very well have something to do with her friend Prince Andrew, who has been in a six-month standoff with the FBI who have wanted to interview him over his relations with Epstein and to answer to victims’ accusations of under-age sexual abuse. Could Maxwell have been summoned by the powers that be in order to provide a buffer against any further overtures by authorities towards the British Royal Family? ….. Her move seems counter intuitive. Was she offered some kind of immunity deal through back channels? Will the media’s legal spectacle create a sufficient distraction to protect some of Epstein’s high-profile friends, including the likes of Bill Gates? ……. Are there legal backroom maneuvers afoot? One possible clue is here, also reported today: Attorneys for alleged Jeffrey Epstein “sex slave” Virginia Roberts Giuffre were ordered Wednesday to destroy evidence from her case against Ghislaine Maxwell — as lawyer Alan Dershowitz was also denied access to the potentially explosive information. Manhattan federal Judge Loretta Preska said she was “troubled” to learn during oral arguments last week that Giuffre’s lawyers, from the firm of Cooper & Kirk, had been given sealed records from her since-settled suit against Maxwell, who Giuffre claims recruited her to have sex with Epstein and his pals while she was underage. This means that some potentially incriminating evidence against Maxwell may now be removed from the picture, something that could strengthen her own defense and give her lawyers a stronger hand to play in their client denying any wrongdoing in the Epstein case.
Have you ever clicked on a link after googling something, only to find that Google didn’t take you to the actual webpage but to some weird Google-fied version of it? Instead of the web address being the source of the article, it still says “google” in the address bar on your phone? That’s what’s known as Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), and now Google has announced that AMP has graduated from the OpenJS Foundation Incubation Program.
Coronavirus Pandemic
Communist-minded community organizer Saul Alinsky, in his prologue to “Rules for Radicals,” explained that the most effective activists were those who worked within the established “system,” not against it, so as to stir the revolutionary pots of change through fear.
From COVID-19 to climate disruption, from racial injustice to rising inequalities, we are a world in turmoil…..the only way to address global fragilities is through much more robust mechanisms of global governance with international cooperation…..we cannot simply return to the systems that gave rise to the current crisis… build back better with more sustainable, inclusive, gender-equal societies and economies. In doing so, we must reimagine the way nations cooperate…..We need a networked multilateralism, in which the United Nations and its agencies, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, regional organizations such as the African Union and European Union, trade organizations and others work together more closely and effectively. We also need a more inclusive multilateralism. Governments today are far from the only players in terms of politics and power. Civil society, the business community, local authorities, cities and regional governments are assuming more and more leadership roles in today’s world. Political leaders around the world need to heed this wake-up call… strengthen our capacity for global governance, give teeth to multilateral institutions, and draw from the power of unity and solidarity to overcome the biggest test of our times. UN expert report demands ‘conversion therapy’ bans worldwide - Last month the United Nations LGBT expert published a report demanding that countries across the world should enact laws and policies to ban so-called ‘conversion therapy’ both for same-sex attraction and transgender confusion. His report is a response to his call for evidence, issued in November 2019. It is due to be discussed at the upcoming 44th meeting of the UN Human Rights Council. The meeting was due to have started last week but has been postponed due to the coronavirus crisis. In light of this, the UK government’s leaked proposals to ban ‘conversion therapy’, reported on by The Sunday Times two weeks ago, may not be a coincidence….. This is the official description of his mandate: “The mandate holder has been invited to assess the implementation of existing international human rights instruments with regard to ways to overcome violence and discrimination against persons on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and to identify and address the root causes of violence and discrimination.” UN skewered for tweet telling people to ditch words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ - “What you say matters,” tweeted the person running the UN’s Twitter account, surely aware that he was about to be ratioed by a tsunami. “Help create a more equal world by using gender-neutral language if you’re unsure about someone’s gender or are referring to a group,” the tweet continued. This was followed by a handy graphic illustrating the sort of words we should avoid under the neon highlighted warning: “If you don’t know someone’s gender or when talking about a group use gender-neutral language.” For example, “mankind” should be “humankind,” “landlord” should be “owner,” “boyfriend/girlfriend” should be “partner,” “manpower” should be “workforce,” and so on.
It is clear to me as a physician-lawyer that the disinformation about both Covid-19 and the Constitution has caused us to turn a medical issue into a legal crisis. The scientific usefulness of a mask has been so aggressively overstated, and the foundational importance of the Constitution has been so aggressively understated, that we have normalized people screaming obscenities at each other while hiking. New Study Show Wearing Face Masks May Not Prevent Spread of COVID-19
New York COVID Compliance Authority Issue Subpoenas Requiring Forced Depositions With Contact Tracers… Comrades, the ministry of COVID compliance in New York has now been given permission to issue subpoenas requiring the general public to comply with COVID compliance contact tracers. Any New Yorker who refuses to answer the interrogation questions by the COVID compliance police is now subject to arrest.
More than 150,000 people have had their personal information handled by England’s Test and Trace scheme since it was hurriedly launched on May 28 – 36 days ago…..Test and Trace has been criticised for failing to reach a quarter of people who tested positive for Covid-19, a lack of staff training as thousands of people were initially employed, and the collapse of the NHS-developed contact tracing app. Similarly to Test and Trace, no DPIA was available before the app’s trial on the Isle of Wight started…… The mask has become the most visible symbol of #socialconditioning to Americans determined to preserve individual freedom. Thus far most Americans have continued to give their consent to be governed. But you are trying our patience.
Now in its fourth month of Lockdown, the UK government seems to be caught between a rock and hard place. They are so deeply invested in their initial Coronavirus narrative and reactionary policy measures, to pull back now would mean admitting they were wrong to begin with. For today’s new breed of self-inflated, social media-obsessed narcissistic political operatives, admitting that you were partly responsibly for cratering your country’s economy and ruining tens of millions of lives (all based on a wild guess), is a fate worse than mortality itself. Statistician: ‘U.S. Officials Exaggerated Their COVID Death Toll’
How mainstream media outlets report on things like studies and other "pop-science" research that always seems to confirm progressive narratives - or at least that's how it might appear to any reader who doesn't read past the 3rd paragraph (many don't), or doesn't take a closer look at the research themselves. Such is the case with a recent report published by Time Magazine proclaiming that the protests aren't to blame for the recent resurgence in coronavirus cases in most parts of the country. Of course, a closer look shows that a more appropriate title might be "Nationwide COVID-19 Spike Caused By Protests Not As Bad As Feared".
The latest – and biggest – lockdown easing for England is one of several announcements that Downing Street hopes will show Johnson reasserting his grip on the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic after a series of missteps in recent weeks that polling suggested has dented the public’s confidence. Amid fears of a catastrophic wave of layoffs over the summer if lockdown rules were left unchanged, Johnson said he wanted to see the return of “bustle” and was looking forward to visiting a pub – but did not want to see “great, writhing scenes in the beer gardens”
Permission to re-open on 4 July is a welcome start but not enough, say 25 pastors and bishops, as they ask the High Court to protect ancient liberties of the Church. After the courts in Germany, France and the United States overturned the wholesale lockdown of places of worship, the UK government sought to prevent a similar legal challenge in the UK by negotiating with various groups of religious leaders in June. Those efforts culminated in a surprise announcement on 23 June – just before the expiry of the 3-month time limit for applications for judicial review of the lockdown regulations – that churches may ‘re-open’ for services from 4 July. The Guidance for the safe use of places of worship, published by the Government this week, makes recommendations on how to minimise the risk of Covid-19 transmission at places of worship. Most of the recommendations, such as avoiding singing in choirs, are worded at present as advice rather than binding rules, as Tim Dieppe points out.
Previously, the state "merely said these institutions should 'strongly consider discontinuing singing, group recitation, and other practices and performances,'" the report said. The order apparently is based on concerns from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who have concluded "singing can spread the coronavirus just as easily as coughing or sneezing." Newsom's order said, "Activities such as singing and chanting negate the risk reduction achieved through six feet of physical distancing."
'The U.S. Navy has threatened to court-martial service members if they go to church.'
The U.S. Navy is facing backlash after issuing a directive banning personnel from attending off-base religious services due to a recent uptick in COVID-19 cases while greenlighting participation in protests and parties. “In open defiance of the Commander in Chief, who recently declared churches as essential to America, the U.S. Navy has threatened to court-martial service members if they go to church,” said Mike Berry, First Liberty Institute general counsel.
Rev. Matt Timms, a pastor of a Newquay church, was granted permission by the local council to hold England’s first drive-in church during lockdown. Matt speaks to Premier Radio about how the vision to take church outside came about, saying that he felt called by God to bring people together again to worship outside during the lockdown. With help from the Christian Legal Centre, three local churches were able to come together on Sunday 21 June to hold the first drive-in church in England. “We have a message that is so good, that it has to get outside the four walls of the church building,” says Matt. “My prayer is that from this, it will inspire other churches to think creatively about how to bring the gospel of Jesus outside.”
We've all come across online fact checkers that purport to warn us away from independent media sites under the guise of protecting us from fake news. But who is behind these fact check sites? How do they operate? And if these ham-fisted attempts at soft censorship aren't the solution to online misinformation, what is? Join James for this week's important edition of The Corbett Report podcast, where we explore the murky world of information gatekeeping and ask "Who will fact check the fact checkers?" Fact Check: Polio Vaccines, Tetanus Vaccines, and the Gates Foundation - A listener writes in to lament that The Corbett Report is spreading false facts about Bill Gates in the Who Is Bill Gates? documentary . . . at least, according to the fact checkers. But are they right? Don't miss today's important edition of the Fact Check series where James teaches a master class in how to examine a "fact check" and how to tell whether a claim is supported by the evidence or not.
We’ve known for weeks that hospitals get payments for diagnosing Covid19, and even using ventilators. That should worry everyone. Early on in the launch of the Sars-Cov-2/Covid19 “pandemic”, it was revealed by Dr Scott Jensen that hospitals in the US were getting paid bonuses for diagnosing Covid19 in their patients, and then larger bonuses again if those patients were put on ventilators. We’re not fact-checking that. We don’t need to. It’s already been done. As soon as his words were aired, the “independent fact checkers” descended upon them in an effort to prove him wrong. They could not. Resorting instead to weasel words and obfuscations. Snopes found his assertions “plausible”, Politifact called it “half true”, and FactCheck said it was true….. We do know that the NHS has received over £14 billion in extra funds since the crisis erupted. Which doesn’t include all the money saved from running the NHS at well under capacity for over three months…..Wasting millions of pounds “bulk buying” bed space in private hospitals and contracting emergency “Nightingale” hospitals to do nothing but stand empty
The controversy has become so heated that it is difficult to assess what it is all about. However, Dr Hsu has worked with BGI, a Chinese genome-sequencing company which is trying to market genome-sequencing for parents who want babies with high IQs….. In 2017, he co-founded a company called Genomic Prediction, which provides advanced genetic testing for IVF. According to its website its technology identifies “candidate embryos for implantation which are genetically normal” – screening for Down syndrome, for instance, which no one at MSU objected to. What was controversial was Hsu’s suggestion that his company might be able to spot embryos with genes that make a high IQ more likely. He has also defended the notion that people with higher intelligence are more useful to society. "If you study the history of science or technology, you're going to inevitably come to the conclusion that it's people who are of above average ability who make these breakthroughs and generate a disproportionate amount of value for humanity," he told the Lansing State Journal in 2012.
any nursing home residents with breathing difficulties were given morphine instead of oxygen. Disturbing figures are coming from Sweden about the number of Covid-19 deaths amongst the elderly. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, half of the people who died in Sweden were residents of nursing homes. Sweden’s approach to the pandemic was different. It relied upon voluntary social distancing and closing the borders rather than quarantines. But it is still the fifth country in a world ranking of deaths per million of population – and half of those were residents of nursing homes….. “People suffocated, it was horrible to watch. One patient asked me what I was giving him when I gave him the morphine injection, and I lied to him,” said Latifa Löfvenberg, a nurse. “Many died before their time. It was very, very difficult.” The issue has even generated an internet petition, “Everyone has a right to oxygen!” which contends that “this discrimination is unacceptable and illegal as well.” Questions raised about Sweden’s Covid-19 policy on nursing homes
Canada has done a far worse job of protecting nursing-home residents from the coronavirus than other wealthy countries, according to a new analysis that shows the places that fared best made sweeping changes at seniors’ facilities as soon as they shut their societies down.Just over 80 per cent of Canada’s known COVID-19 deaths were in residents of nursing or retirement homes as of May 25, nearly double the average for countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, says a new report from Canada’s health care statistics agency…..On March 10, the board of the Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA) changed its position on euthanasia from negative to being supportive of MAiD (Link). The change in position happened without consulting the members of the CPA and without doing a review of the literature. The ‘silent massacre’ in Italy’s nursing homes - Care homes for the elderly have become hotbeds of the coronavirus epidemic…… A report by academics based at the London School of Economics found that in Italy, France, Ireland, Spain and Belgium between 42 percent and 57 percent of deaths from the virus have taken place in nursing homes. In the U.K., care homes have warned that the virus is likely already running rampant in more than half of the country’s facilities and that government figures likely vastly underestimate the number of fatalities. Half of all European COVID-19-related deaths have occurred among residents in nursing homes, according the WHO's regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge.
Coronavirus fatalities in long-term care facilities have surpassed a grim threshold in much of the country, accounting for at least a third of the deaths in 26 states and more than half in 14 of those…..the total deaths behind those ratios vary widely from state to state. In the case of New Hampshire, 66 of 114 total deaths occurred in long-term care facilities. Whereas, in Pennsylvania the slightly lower percentage represents a much greater death toll — 2,355 of 3,364 deaths. Nursing Homes Shocked at 'Insanely Wrong' CMS Data on COVID-19 - When the administrator of the Saugus Rehab and Nursing Center in Saugus, Massachusetts, heard that a new Medicare website reported her facility had 794 confirmed cases of COVID-19 -- the second highest in the country -- and 281 cases among staff, she gasped. "Oh my God. Where are they getting those numbers from?" said Josephine Ajayi. "That doesn't make any sense." Those weren't the numbers that her facility reported to the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network, under new rules from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), she said.
83 Tons Of Fake Gold Bars: Gold Market Rocked By Massive China Counterfeiting Scandal … the discovery of what may be one of the biggest gold counterfeiting scandal in recent history. And yes, not only does it involve China, but it emerges from a city that has become synonymous for all that is scandalous about China: Wuhan itself. …more than a dozen Chinese financial institutions, mainly trust companies (i.e., shadow banks) loaned 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) over the past five years to Wuhan Kingold Jewelry with pure gold as collateral and insurance policies to cover any losses. There was just one problem: the “gold” turned out to be gold-plated copper.
How the World’s top medical journals were cynically exploited by Big Pharma
After the article had spent 13 days in the headlines, dogged by scientific objections, three of the authors retracted it on June 5. Meanwhile, during an expert closed-door meeting leaked May 24 in France, The Lancet and NEJM editors explained how financially powerful pharmaceutical players were “criminally” corrupting medical science to advance their interests. On May 22, 2020, the time-honoured Lancet – one of the world’s two top medical journals – published the stunning claim that 671 hospitals on six continents were reporting life-threatening heart rhythms in patients taking hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for Covid-19….. On May 28, an open letter from 200 scientists to the authors and The Lancet requested details of the data and an independent audit. The letter was “signed by clinicians, medical researchers, statisticians, and ethicists from across the world.” (full text here.) The authors declined to supply the data, or even the hospital names. Meanwhile, investigative analysis was showing the statistics to be deeply flawed. If this were not enough, the lead author was found to be in a conflict of interest with HCQ’s rival drug, Remdesivir….
The vast majority of patients were given the drug within 48 hours of admission.
“Our analysis shows that using hydroxychloroquine helped saves lives,” neurosurgeon Dr. Steven Kalkanis, senior vice president and chief academic officer of the health system, said in a statement. “As doctors and scientists, we look to the data for insight. And the data here is clear that there was benefit to using the drug as a treatment for sick, hospitalized patients.” At a March 19 White House briefing, Trump had remarked: "Now, a drug called chloroquine, and some people would add to it, hydroxychloroquine, so chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine ... [has] shown very encouraging, very, very encouraging early results." The president acknowledged that the drug may not "go as planned" and that more testing was needed, but that "we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately." The Federalist's Sean Davis added: "Media and incompetent corrupt government officials lied to you about social distancing. They lied to you about hydroxychloroquine. They lied to you about risks to children and the general population. They lied not to help you, but to control you, and they’re not going to stop." In the UK Hydroxychloroquine 200mg, 60 tablets cost £7.39 or £9.00 on the NHS.
From the outset of the Coronavirus pandemic, and the lockdown regimes that followed, we have been repeatedly told, by all the usual suspects, institutions and the mainstream media, that the only way to get back to normal is with a vaccine; precisely echoing the calls of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Certainly, the UK government was quick to invest in vaccine development. In their Coronavirus Action Plan, published on 3 March, the focus was overwhelmingly on vaccines. The Action Plan noted that a vaccine may not prevent infection from SARS-Cov-2 but could rather manage symptoms of the potentially resultant syndrome, COVID-19:….
Authorities have put almost half a million people in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, under lockdown as a fresh outbreak in the capital continues to fan fears of a second wave of the coronavirus. Anxin county, about 145km (90 miles) from Beijing, has “sealed off” residential areas and restricted people from leaving their homes. Only one person from each household can leave once a day with a special pass to get necessities such as food or medicine, according to the measures announced and put into immediate effect on Sunday. All other residents, aside from those who need medical help, are to stay at home until further notice, said local authorities. “Every village, neighbourhood and building must mobilise party members, volunteers, and staff” to join the “fight” against the outbreak, the notice said
As the push for some to head back to the office continues… a focus has shifted to what kinds of technologies are going to be used in order to make sure that public areas, like office environments and airports, are virus-free. Aside from the usual hand sanitizers and face masks, FT published a report this week highlighting some of the other technologies that businesses are choosing to employ in order to surfaces and spaces clean.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Monday confirmed lockdown measures will be extended across Leicester. Officials have issued a map detailing exactly which areas in Leicestershire will fall under new restrictions. Neighbours in Scraptoft have said they were 'totally confused' by boundaries which cut across their street. Kathleen McDonagh, 77, will remain in lockdown while her close neighbour Veronica Cayless, 77, will not. COVID Coercion: Boris Johnson's Psychological Attack on the UK Public - During the 2009/10 ‘swine flu’ pandemic, SAGE received advice from a subgroup called the Scientific Pandemic Influenza group on Behaviour and Communications (SPI-B&C). That group was reconvened on 13 February this year. This time, its remit was limited to behaviour and it was renamed the Scientific Pandemic Influenza group on Behaviour, or SPI-B…..The advice given by SPI-B is immediately aggressive. “A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened,” they write. “The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.”…. “Social disapproval from one’s community,” they write, “can play an important role in preventing anti-social behaviour or discouraging failure to enact pro-social behaviour. However, this needs to be carefully managed to avoid victimisation, scapegoating and misdirected criticism. It needs to be accompanied by clear messaging and promotion of strong collective identity. Consideration should be given to use of social disapproval but with a strong caveat around unwanted negative consequences.”… Articles from the BBC, such as To snitch or not to snitch …..This type of cynical breaking-up of communities is not a new technique to the UK government. During the Foot and Mouth Disease ‘epidemic’ in 2001, when the UK government slaughtered millions of farm animals unnecessarily, it made sure to minimise any organised community opposition to the “slaughtered on suspicion” policy by only compensating some of the farmers in any community. This resulted in bitterness and envy within communities, and did permanent damage.
A meat-processing plant in Germany. A church in Seoul. A squat and a hospital in Italy. A wholesale market in Beijing. All of them have experienced clusters of infections after national authorities declared the disease suppressed in their country and launched a slow return towards normal life. Months into the pandemic, fear of a second wave of infections now hangs over countries that have managed to stamp out the disease, mostly through economically and socially painful lockdowns….. “In the absence of a vaccine or effective medication, it’s all about the data. We need to know where the cases are,” said Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh. “Identifying who has the disease: testing, tracing and isolating.”
Hundreds of workers have tested positive for coronavirus at meat processing plants and abattoirs. They include a chicken processing site in Anglesey, where more than 150 workers have become infected with Covid-19, and plants in Wrexham and West Yorkshire. There have also been major outbreaks in Germany, France, Spain and the US. Bev Clarkson from the union Unite, says: "Unite has warned time and again that coronavirus outbreaks at meat processing factories throughout the UK were likely".
Dr Justine Butler, senior researcher at Viva! Health, said: “The link between intensive animal farming and disease outbreak is clear. The Covid-19 pandemic is just one in a long line of zoonotic diseases which have been caused by the consumption and exploitation of animals, including SARS, MERS, HIV and Ebola – to name just a few. "Now, meat processing plants are directly increasing the number of coronavirus cases and putting the wider population at risk….. The sad truth is that this pandemic could have been avoided. If government supported plant-based food initiatives and encouraged a transition from animal to arable farming, we could dramatically decrease disease outbreak. Tyson Foods chairman warns ‘food supply chain is breaking’ as coronavirus forces plant closures (Apr 27 2020) - Meat processors, including Tyson, Smithfield and JBS, are closing U.S. facilities after workers test positive for Covid-19. “The food supply chain is breaking,” Tyson Foods Chairman John Tyson wrote in a full-page newspaper ad that ran on Sunday. More than a dozen packing and food processing workers have died after contracting Covid-19, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Bill Gates and Richard Branson are betting lab-grown meat might be the food of the future (CNBC 23 March 2018) - Investors like Tyson and Cargill could put ‘clean meat’ on grocery shelves within three years. Traditional meat production is ecologically devastating, and a growing world population could make farm-raised animal meat unfeasible by 2050. Billionaires, including Bill Gates, say there is no way to produce enough meat traditionally to feed the world population of the future. For lab-grown meat start-ups, going after $50-per-pound foie gras makes as much sense as grocery-store staples like burgers and chicken nuggets. Bill Gates funds (£1.2billion) - (22 Apr 2019) a major initiative to produce lab grown meat….. The company caught the eye of Tyson Foods, one of the largest livestock producers in the US, who invested in Beyond Meat in 2016. Bill Gates Backed Startup Is Using Crispr To Grow Lab Meat (09 Mar 2019) - Silicon Valley startups backed by celebrities like Bill Gates are using gene-editing tool Crispr to make meat without farms — and to disrupt a $200 billion industry - You already knew about lab-grown meats, which are grown from animal cells instead of in a whole animal. And you probably know about CRISPR, the technology that lets scientists edit DNA with relative ease. Now, Business Insider reports, at least two startups are trying to combine lab grown meats and CRISPR to invent the next generation of lab-grown meat — and it could lead to futuristic new frontiers in sustainable eating. Bill Gates and Richard Branson are betting lab-grown meat might be the food of the future
House Democrats blocked a resolution Tuesday that would have made it the official position of the Houses of Representatives that the lower chamber condemns cyberattacks by the Chinese and other rogue nations on American researchers in the race for a coronavirus vaccine……. The resolution condemning China however, who has acted in bad faith throughout the entire global pandemic while ramping up its cyberattacks targeting vaccine data, failed in the House 230-180 with not a single Democratic vote. “At a time when scientists around the world are working together in an epic race against time to develop a life-saving vaccine to rescue the world from the grips of the coronavirus, the [Chinese Communist Party] is trying to steal that research for their own selfish purposes,” said Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul who serves as the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “And now that millions of people around the world have been infected and more than a half a million people have died, we learn the CCP isn’t helping to fix the pandemic they are responsible for creating.”
— 300 million doses by early 2021 is what we're shooting for, Francis Collins says……the Trump Administration's Operation Warp Speed project to jump-start vaccine and therapeutic candidates. "There are over 100 vaccines in development worldwide and Operation Warp Speed, I believe, is beginning to focus in on about seven, that we would encourage the advancement of in clinical trials and for further development," he said. "Importantly, as NIH [the National Institutes of Health] and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority [BARDA] continue to oversee the development of these vaccines, we'll also be talking today about how manufacturing -- for maybe the first time ever -- would begin while the vaccine is going through the other process" of a clinical trial….. from when scientists were given the virus's DNA sequence to the injection of a vaccine candidate into a volunteer as part of a Phase I trial being conducted by Moderna. Phase II of that trial started May 29th, and Phase III is expected to begin this month. "We need to enroll 30,000 volunteers," which will take some months, and "we are all optimistic that the goal we've set is to have a vaccine that's safe and that works by the end of 2020, will be met by one of the vaccines, and we would then have, by early 2021, 300 million doses of a vaccine that would be safe and effective," he said. "That's really a stretch goal, but it's the right goal for the American people."
Scientists are optimistic they'll find a coronavirus vaccine. The bad news? They might need to vaccinate the entire globe every year. With most countries banking on a vaccine as their exit strategy, the ideal scenario is finding a single shot that inoculates people against the deadly virus for the rest of their lives. In reality, regular immunizations could be just as likely based on experiences with the flu, measles and other infectious diseases….. One of the leading vaccine candidates is from the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, which could be deployed as early as October. However, the head of the pharma company estimated that it'll provide immunity against COVID-19 for only up to a year. If that's the case, the world might be banking on a coronavirus vaccine that requires billions of doses to be doled out annually. “Until we know what level of immune response is needed for protection, we don’t [know] whether the immunity we see at one year will be sufficient,” said Sarah Gilbert, leader of the University of Oxford team.
Only a few weeks after announcing it had received a greenlight from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin its 30,000-patient Phase III clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine, Moderna indicates it has pushed back the start date. The trial was expected to begin next week, with an ambitious target to have key data by Thanksgiving. It’s not clear how long the trial will be delayed, but according to a report by STAT, it may still begin in July….. Moderna has the backing and blessing of the U.S. National Institutes of Allergy & Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Anthony Fauci, who heads NIAID, has said he is “really optimistic” about the vaccine. The U.S. government has invested almost $500 million to speed up testing and manufacturing of hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine…. The company’s stock rocketed, hitting a stock valuation of $29 billion. Several vaccine experts, however, expressed criticism of the data, or lack of it…. Two days ago, FDA issued guidelines for where it will set the bar for approval of a vaccine. First, the agency indicated that it will require the vaccine be at least 50% more effective than a placebo in preventing COVID-19. The FDA guidelines also indicated a vaccine would not be approved unless it had “clearly demonstrated” proof of the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness in a clinical trial.
The US is buying nearly all the next three months' projected production of Covid-19 treatment remdesivir from US manufacturer Gilead. The US health department announced on Tuesday it had agreed to buy 500,000 doses for use in American hospitals. Tests suggest remdesivir cuts recovery times, though it is not yet clear if it improves survival rates…… Some in the US have criticised the purchase price, as taxpayer money had helped fund remdesivir's development.
The price Gilead are preparing to charge is almost ten times higher than the recommended price for a drug that doesn't save patients’ lives, based on a pricing benchmark study by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review. The CEO of Gilead claims that their price is actually a bargain, that it’s a lot less than what it would charge during normal times but this is small comfort especially as Gilead has a track record of charging extortionate prices for life-saving drugs. Instead, their claims only expose their naked profiteering from a global pandemic on a drug that has been developed with substantial public investment. And it's not the first time that Gilead has been trying to profiteer from this drug. Earlier this year, Gilead applied for the drug to be designated as a drug for a rare disease so that it could benefit from additional monopoly protections that come with this classification - in other words to profit exclusively from this drug for longer. After public outrage over this crude attempt to profiteer from a global pandemic, the company rescinded this classification. Potential Coronavirus Drugs May Cost as Little as $1, Study Says according to Bloomberg dated April 10, 2020 - If their promise is confirmed in ongoing studies, medicines for Covid-19, including hydroxychloroquine, which President Donald Trump touted as a treatment, and Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir could be manufactured from $1 to $29 a course, a study published Friday in the Journal of Virus Eradication found.
Wall Street is moving some bets on COVID-19 vaccines to large pharmaceutical companies with robust manufacturing capabilities, signaling that a love affair with small biotech firms might be ending after the sector’s best quarter in almost 20 years…… “I would certainly say success by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, or Johnson & Johnson could make it more challenging for smaller companies, given size and scale and manufacturing capability,” said Vamil Divan, a biotechnology analyst at Mizuho. A coronavirus vaccine rooted in a government partnership is fueling financial rewards for company executives
Groups in more than 90 countries warn ISDS system could be used to claim billions from governments over pandemic protections. Countries could be facing a wave of cases from transnational corporations suing governments over actions taken to respond to the Covid pandemic using a system known as investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS. 630 organisations from across the world, representing hundreds of millions of people, are calling on governments in an open letter [1] to urgently take action to shut down this threat. ISDS is written into many trade and investment agreements. It allows foreign investors to sue governments in secretive tribunals outside of the national legal system for amounts far higher than are likely to be available to them in domestic courts.
Health care workers should get access to a coronavirus vaccine first, Melinda Gates said last week during a virtual appearance at the Forbes philanthropy summit with husband Bill Gates. "One of the reasons we are so involved in this is that you don't want the first vaccines to go to the highest-bidding countries," Melinda Gates said. "There are 60 million healthcare workers [around the world]. They deserve to get the vaccine first, they're the ones dealing with this on the front lines, trying to keep us all safe." "Then you have to start to tier from there, based on the countries and the populations," Melinda Gates continued. "Here in the United States, it's going to be black people who really should get it first and many indigenous people, as well as people with underlying symptoms, and then elderly people." How Bill Gates Monopolized Global Health - Who is Bill Gates? A software developer? A businessman? A philanthropist? A global health expert? This question, once merely academic, is becoming a very real question for those who are beginning to realize that Gates' unimaginable wealth has been used to gain control over every corner of the fields of public health, medical research and vaccine development. And now that we are presented with the very problem that Gates has been talking about for years, we will soon find that this software developer with no medical training is going to leverage that wealth into control over the fates of billions of people. Exposing the Gates Agenda in Africa
Protesters rallying against Africa's first coronavirus vaccine have accused researchers of 'manipulating the vulnerable' into volunteering for testing of Oxford University's coronavirus vaccine. Around 2,000 people in South Africa are expected to take part in the Johannesburg trial, which began last week. The vaccine is also being tested in the UK, Brazil and researchers say that it needs to be tested in Africa to ensure it is not affected by local conditions in the country.
A panel of experts at the National Academy of Medicine may decide who is first in line in the U.S. to receive Covid-19 vaccines, public health officials told a Senate hearing on Thursday.
Federal officials are in early conversations with the academy and may defer to the nongovernmental group, which customarily provides medical advice and recommendations, NIH Director Francis Collins told Senate appropriators reviewing vaccine development. The CDC would oversee the actual vaccine distribution.
Musk Urges COVID-19 Retests Due to ‘Ridiculous Number’ of False Positives lon Musk is urging anyone who has tested positive for COVID-19 to undergo another examination due to a “ridiculous number” of false positives….. Testing for COVID-19, for which there is no known vaccine or cure, can return both false positives and false negatives, each with the potential to skew official data. The New York Times reported in April, citing the Mayo Clinic, that false negatives, when a person who is positive returns an opposite result, were a major concern.
CDC acknowledges mixing up coronavirus testing data The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledged Thursday that it is combining the results from viral and antibody COVID-19 tests when reporting the country’s testing totals, despite marked differences between the tests. First reported by NPR's WLRN station in Miaimi, the practice has drawn ire from U.S. health experts who say combining the tests inhibits the agency's ability to discern the country's actual testing capacity. "You've got to be kidding me," Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told The Atlantic. "How could the CDC make that mistake? This is a mess."
Another Chinese Virus that can also be a Worldwide Pandemic has been Discovered The surveillance of the pig population carried out from 2011 to 2018 in China is essential for early warning and preparedness for the next potential pandemics. From these samples, researchers identified 179 swine influenza viruses. When multiple strains of influenza viruses infect the same pig, they can easily swap genes, a process known as “reassortment.” The new study claims that the new virus, identified as EA H1N1 and dubbed G4, is a unique blend of three virus strains including an avian virus and the virus responsible for the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic has caused a nationwide coin shortage, according to the Federal Reserve. Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday the shutdowns caused by the pandemic have raised concerns about circulation of coins, which the Fed's 12 regional banks are in charge of supplying to commercial banks.
The corona crisis has already taken a very high toll and caused deep damage in our societies and our economies, the extent of which is yet to become apparent. We have seen its impact on productivity, on unemployment, on social cohesion and on political division. However, there is another very worrying trend that has been accelerated under the veil of fear and confusion that the pandemic has spread. The war on cash, that was already underway for almost a decade, has been drastically intensified over the last few months. The war on cash, covid edition - Part II - It doesn’t require too dark an imagination to realize the gravity of the concerns over the digital yuan. China is a true pioneer when it comes surveillance, censorship and political oppression and the digital age has given an incredibly efficient and effective arsenal to the state. Adding money to that toolkit was a move that was planned for many years and it is abundantly clear how useful a tool it can be for any totalitarian regime. The ability to track citizens’ transactions, access their financial data, control and freeze the account of anyone that presents a potential threat, it all opens the door to the ultimate oppression: total control over private resources, over people’s livelihoods and their capacity to cover their basic needs.
James joins Dave Cullen of the Computing Forever channel to discuss the coronavirus crisis, the great reset, the Gates-sponsored vaccines, and all of the other chaos that is sweeping the globe in 2020.
I remember back in 2014 when Christine Lagarde first began talking about the reset. That same year she also made a very strange speech to the National Press Club in which she started rambling gleefully about numerology and the "magic number 7". Many within the club laughed, as there was apparently an inside joke that the rest of us were not privy to. Well, I would point out that the World Economic Forum meeting on the global reset in 2021 will be held exactly 7 years after Lagarde gave that speech. Just another interesting coincidence I suppose... The new world order, the global reset, is a long running scheme to centralize power, but in a way that is meant to be sustained for centuries to come. The elites know that it is not enough to achieve global governance by force alone; such an attempt would only lead to resistance and eternal rebellion.
The unveiling on June 3rd by the World Economic Forum of ‘The Great Reset‘ agenda appears on the surface to be a newly devised concept created directly in response to Covid-19. As it turns out the first soundings of a ‘reset‘ were actually made as far back as 2014.
With phase one completed, the BIS have now moved into the second phase which they warned was going to happen when the Hub first launched. Accompanying the release of this year’s Annual Economic Report, the institution announced that the Hub is expanding to new locations in both Europe and North America. Over the next two years, the Bank of England will be opening a centre, along with the Bank of Canada, the European Central Bank and four Nordic central banks (Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland). A ‘strategic partnership‘ will also be formed with the Federal Reserve System. East and West may appear divided in the geopolitical sphere, but in the world of central banking they are very much united behind the common goal of the Hub.
On CBDC, I think it's fair to say that we've seen an acceleration of the momentum toward CBDC and a stepped-up interest by central banks around the world. It started some years ago with China and Sweden starting looking into it. Libra was, as we often say, was the wake-up call for the global community and also an acceleration. We are now seeing an increasing number of central banks in advanced economies looking into CBDC while the initial focus was more by central banks in emerging markets and developing economies. The virus, COVID, has certainly caused further acceleration in terms of digitalisation. When are we going to see CBDC? I can't answer that question because that's for each and every central bank to decide on how fast they want to go. I can tell you that first we are seeing the regulatory ascent and acceleration, and second, we are seeing lots of commitment to go down this journey together, that is to explore the challenges and opportunities and maybe study some of the technical aspects jointly in the central banks community and the BIS, of course, will be there for support. Bank of Canada: CBDC Should be as Accessible as Cash
Retailers and banks have been pushing us to use contactless payments and online services for hygiene reasons. But many older, abused and unbanked people still depend on cash. What will happen to them?
Geopolitics
A West London mother who converted to Islam has been jailed for life for plotting to blow up St Paul's Cathedral during Easter celebrations. Safiyya Shaikh, 36, also planned to plant a bomb in a nearby hotel and then blow herself up in a suicide attack on the London Underground……. As she was taken to the cells wearing a black hijab, she smiled and raised her finger in a salute associated with ISIS……Shaikh told the officer she was "inspired" by the attacks on churches in Sri Lanka the previous Easter, in which 250 people were killed.
Police have declared a knife rampage that killed three in Reading as a terror incident. The man arrested at the scene yesterday is Khairi Saadallah, a 25-year-old refugee from Libya, The Telegraph can reveal. Mr Saadallah was detained by police in Forbury Gardens on Saturday evening. Witnesses claimed he approached a group of middle aged men who had been sat drinking in the park and suddenly began stabbing at them.
A man has been shot dead by police after multiple stabbings at a hotel in Glasgow city centre.
Police Scotland said six victims were being treated for injuries in hospital, including a police officer left in a critical condition. The attack, which police are not treating as terrorism, started at the Park Inn hotel on West George Street shortly before 1pm on Friday. Police were on the scene within two minutes and armed officers shot the suspect dead. Pregnant and disabled people among hundreds of asylum seekers placed in hotels for months during lockdown - The Home Office admitted on Wednesday that there may be problems around leaving people without financial support for three months, with the second permanent secretary telling MPs that the immigration minister was “looking at” the issue. All three contractors, Mears, Serco and Clearsprings, have raised concern about the cuts to asylum support.
Chicago recorded 102 shooting victims over the weekend, the highest number for a single weekend in 2020. The rash of shootings is part of a spate of violence that began after George Floyd demonstrations in late May descended into widespread looting and rioting that began after George Floyd was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer….“We’ve never seen anything like it at all,” Max Kapustin, senior research director at the University of Chicago Crime Lab, told the Sun-Times. “I don’t even know how to put it into context. It’s beyond anything that we’ve ever seen before.”
Lebanon's economic crisis, coupled with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic that shut the country down, could lead to a famine. The price of food has gone up significantly, as the value of the Lebanese pound goes down drastically. Food prices have gone up by 56% since October. There are estimates from the World Bank that 75 % of the country's population could end up living in poverty, France24 reported.
A Saudi-led coalition has started a military operation against Yemen’s Houthi movement after it stepped up cross-border missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, Saudi state television reported on Wednesday…… The Western-backed coalition with Saudi Arabia and UAE as the main partners has been battling the Iran-aligned Houthi movement for five years. The coalition said earlier that there would be a news conference on the operation that aims to neutralise the Houthis military capabilities, Al-Ekhbariya channel and Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV said.
The FBI believes the Saudi Arabian government “almost certainly” helps its citizens flee the country after they are accused of serious crimes, “undermining the US judicial process,” according to a newly declassified document obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive. The surreptitious action is done, in part, to spare the wealthy Persian Gulf kingdom embarrassment, the FBI said. Intelligence officials believe the flights from justice will continue without intervention by the American authorities.
President Bill Clinton’s favorite freedom fighter just got indicted for mass murder, torture, kidnapping, and other crimes against humanity. In 1999, the Clinton administration launched a 78-day bombing campaign that killed up to 1500 civilians in Serbia and Kosovo in what the American media proudly portrayed as a crusade against ethnic bias. That war, like most of the pretenses of U.S. foreign policy, was always a sham.Kosovo President Hashim Thaci was charged with ten counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity by an international tribunal in The Hague in the Netherlands. It charged Thaci and nine other men with “war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearance of persons, persecution, and torture.” Thaci and the other charged suspects were accused of being “criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders” and the indictment involved “hundreds of known victims of Kosovo Albanian, Serb, Roma, and other ethnicities and include political opponents.”
HUGE shortfalls in humanitarian aid funding could push millions of children in Yemen to the “brink of starvation”, a UNICEF report, Yemen Five Years On: Children, conflict and Covid-19, has said. “The already dire situation for children is likely to deteriorate considerably,” the report says. An additional 30,000 young people could develop “life-threatening severe acute malnutrition over the next six months” as the spread of Covid-19 places more pressure on a health system that is “teetering closer to collapse”. About 9.6 million children have poor access to water and sanitation — a factor that is “stoking the spread of Covid-19” (News, 29 May). The extent of the funding crisis was exposed at an international pledging conference for humanitarian aid to Yemen, held in Saudi Arabia last month. Barely half of the targeted £2 billion was pledged. The largest pledge came from the Saudi hosts (followed by the UK, the United States, and Germany), but this was less than half the amount that the Saudi kingdom promised last year, reflecting the negative economic impact of low oil prices and Covid-19, along with loss of income from cancelled pilgrimages.
his time last year, many were hailing the Syrian conflict as entering “the end game.” Since then, the country has been ripped apart by the brutal Idlib campaign which killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands more, an economic crisis which has seen the Syrian lira lose 60 per cent of its value in the past month and, like the rest of us, they are also battling the coronavirus pandemic. Not only is the conflict not "nearly over", the suffering for the Syrian people has no end in sight. Covid-19 is just another problem for Syrians to try and survive though. Whilst the pandemic presents a natural disaster for Syrians, the roots of their problems are man-made – and they require political solutions.
China's artificial islands in the South China Sea -- equipped with military bases, naval ports and airfields -- pose a strategic threat to neighboring countries. In 2018, China landed nuclear strike-capable bombers on these artificial islands, sending an alarming message to the U.S. and regional powers. Some commentators ascribe China's stepped-up predations -- on Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia -- to a hope that the world is too distracted by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic devastation it unleashed to bother confronting China, let alone stop it. While the U.S. has decreased its nuclear stockpile, China is boosting its arsenal, according to a report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute on June 15. The Free World, if it wishes to remain free, seriously needs to stand with the world's largest democracy. If China is allowed to succeed in its aggression, it will only embolden the Communists in Beijing to redraw borders, dictate terms to other countries in the region, and press on with its plan to dominate the world.
A flood alert has been raised near Three Gorges Dam in China-- the largest hydropower project in the world-- as the country grapples with its worst flooding in 70 years. Torrential rains have been causing havoc throughout the southwest and central region this month, with many rivers bursting their banks, prompting mass evacuations. As many as 400 million people may be at risk, however, local media Global Times said experts have dismissed reports that the dam is at a brink of collapse. Heavy rains over the past weeks have led to natural disasters being declared in 24 provinces and municipalities in the southwest and central China, especially areas near the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges Dam. According to Asia Times Financial, this is the largest flooding since 1949, and it has caused major problems to the dam, which is located in Sandouping Town, near Yichang in Hubei Province.
Turkish bad loan plan raises concerns among some banks: sources Some Turkish banks are concerned that a “bad bank” plan to house billions of dollars of non-performing loans could require them to book large losses, and they want foreign stakeholders involved, seven industry sources told Reuters. Ernst & Young handed its blueprint for creating an asset management company (AMC) to Turkish bankers last week, three of the sources said, prompting a mixed reaction….. Signs reading “contactless payment only” became common at tills and petrol stations. “What covid did was push anyone who could go digital to go digital,” says Natalie Ceeney of the Access to Cash Review, an independent body assessing the future of Britain’s cash needs. The UK has been moving towards a cashless economy for some time, with ATM usage declining at about 6% to 10% a year. But Covid-19 supercharged this transition. “During lockdown, cash withdrawals from ATMs were down about 60%,” she says. “That’s a huge drop.”
A shambolic day at sea, culminating in an encounter that led France on Tuesday to suspend its role in a NATO mission in the Mediterranean, has laid bare tensions at the heart of the military alliance….. The Greek vessel spotted a Tanzanian-flagged cargo ship, Cirkin, a squat white-and-blue boat, suspected of being used by Turkey — a NATO ally and still officially an EU membership candidate — to transport tanks and weapons to Libya's U.N.-recognized government. The Spetsai dispatched its helicopter, a Sikorsky S-70B Aegean Hawk, to take a closer look. But the helicopter and the Spetsai were tersely warned off by three Turkish naval ships, which said the cargo boat was carrying medical supplies, and under their protection….. What seems clear is that Turkey did not want its own allies to see whatever the Cirkin was carrying. And its cargo was delivered without being inspected, despite orders from commanders leading the different EU and NATO maritime missions.
Erdogan’s agenda: Neo-Ottoman ambition or pan-Islamist zeal? It is noteworthy to those of us who focus on international religious freedom that whenever Turkey moves in, religious freedom moves out. Turkish aggression in at least five countries has been headlined in international news reports just this month, June 2020. These accounts focus on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest intrusions into Israel, Libya, Iraq, Syria and Greece.
Turkey's greatest monument, the Hagia Sophia, has spent the past eight decades as a museum, its secular status serving as a compromise between Muslims and Christians who have both worshipped beneath its vast dome over the centuries. Now, however, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants the UNESCO World Heritage site to become a mosque again to fulfill a dream nurtured by his conservative supporters. It's a move that risks roiling relations with Turkey’s neighbor Greece and other Western countries, who argue the 6th-century architectural marvel belongs to all humanity….. A top Turkish court will soon rule on a petition to cancel a 1934 decision by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of Turkey's secular republic, that converted the Hagia Sophia — known as Ayasofya in Turkish — from a mosque to a museum. On Thursday, the judges heard testimony for a mere 17 minutes before announcing that a ruling would be issued within 15 days.
Will Britain stand with Israel in the end times? We appear to be approaching yet more choppy waters in Israel’s turbulent history. The Jewish state’s proposed ‘annexation’ of the Jordan Valley, along with parts of Judea and Samaria – otherwise known as the West Bank despite being the heart of ancient Israel – is causing hackles to rise once again among the nations. This includes Britain who insist on sticking to their longstanding Foreign Office mantra of pushing for a ‘two-state solution’ – even though there is no evidence whatsoever that it will work, or indeed that it is justifiable. The popular myth that Israel is occupying stolen land is blown apart by a little-known treaty signed 100 years ago this weekend that politicians and media prefer to ignore: The spiritual and prophetic significance of San Remo, the centenary of the San Remo Resolution The fallout from British betrayal of the Mandate, The Balfour Declaration, Obligations of the Mandate for Palestine, The San Remo Conference of April 1920….
Writing in an op-ed in Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Johnson said he was sad to learn about the “proposals to annex Palestinian territory.” Johnson, whose great-grandfather was Jewish, reflected on his time at an Israeli kibbutz as a teenager and called himself a “life-long friend, admirer and supporter of Israel.” However, he felt fear that Israel’s West Bank plans will “fail in their objective of securing Israel’s borders and will be contrary to Israel’s own long-term interests.”
When I served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, I made it clear that the American people expect the institution to uphold its founding ideals, and to hold irresponsible regimes accountable for their actions. That was badly needed in the cases of Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela, among others. The same is true with the rest of the multilateral system. Our country helped establish that system after the Second World War, and we remain by far the world’s largest funder of it today. We need to examine closely whether we are getting a decent return on our investment. The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare that many international bodies are still willing to do the bidding of some of the world’s most dangerous nations — including Iran. This is unacceptable, and it demands a swift and strong response from the United States. The International Monetary Fund, a U.N. subsidiary and the world’s premier global financial body, has been quietly looking for ways to undermine U.S. sanctions against Iran. It is even mulling a multibillion-dollar loan to the regime. Such a move would prop up the world’s largest sponsor of terror and provide it with billions of dollars that it would use to oppress its people and threaten the U.S. and our allies across the Middle East. The Trump administration must stop an IMF loan — period. While Iran and its enablers will claim that it needs the money to recover from the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus, the fact is the regime is already capable of providing for its citizens. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could easily tap into the funds under his control worth more than $200 billion, as well as Iran’s sovereign-wealth fund. Similarly, if the regime ended its support for Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the barbaric Assad regime in Syria, billions more would be freed up.
The Islamist Quartet consists of Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan, and Malaysia. The seeds of its agenda were planted by Qatari Emir Hamad’s and Libyan dictator Muammar Qhaddafi’s plot to take down the Saudi royal family and divide the Kingdom. Qatari lobbyists have since managed to bury the long history and strategic depth of these relationships by reshaping the narrative with a focus on the 2017 Gulf Crisis. A recent episode involving Malaysia giving cover to a fugitive radical Salafist preacher from India wanted on money laundering charges, per request by Pakistan, sheds some light on the seemingly new Islamist alliance between Islamist Sunni countries largely in opposition to Saudi Arabia’s traditional influence in the Muslim world: Turkey, Qatar, Malaysia, and Pakistan. The joint activity of this emergent Islamist Quartet, perhaps deliberately structured in opposition to the Anti-Terrorism Quartet or ATQ (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain), has thus far focused most of its activities on Kashmir, but also on populist anti-Israel rhetoric.
Russia, Turkey and Iran held a virtual meeting on Wednesday to coordinate efforts in Syria. They have been holding similar meetings since 2017 as part of what is called the Astana process. Their goals have increasingly converged and their statement this week appeared aimed at undermining the US role in eastern Syria and isolating US partner forces. The statement also condemned Israel for actions in Syria. They called Israel’s actions “destabilizing” but did not pinpoint which exact Israeli actions they meant…… The countries also said they would coordinate efforts against Al Qaeda and ISIS and reduce tensions in Idlib where the Syrian regime has clashed with Turkey. They also sought to address the Covid-19 Pandemic in Syria and demanded more support for refugees. They slammed Israel for the “occupation of the Golan” and also attacked Israel’s actions in Syria. “The presidents described the Israeli military offensive in Syria as destabilizing and undermining the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and exacerbating tensions in the region.”
The recent news about the involvement of Iranian diplomats in the murder of an Iranian dissident in Turkey sparked a flare of international interest from within the all-encompassing coronavirus pandemic coverage, largely thanks to unflattering comparisons with coverage of the Jamal Khashoggi murder in 2018 (which the Iranian press promoted with gusto). The relative lack of interest in the crime from within Turkey itself reflects Ankara’s willingness to consort with Shiite Islamists to its own advantage.
During his nearly 20 years in power, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has violated human rights in his own country of Turkey and destabilized and exploited others in order to promote his nationalist agenda abroad. He violated US sanctions against Iran by laundering up to $20 billion in an oil-for-gold scheme from 2012-2018, and continues to cooperate and trade with Tehran in defiance of Western interests. He made a deal with Putin in late 2019 to patrol northern Syria while working closely with Moscow and Tehran to delineate their spheres of influence in the country—thus leaving Syria de facto a divided state under their control, while significantly diminishing what’s left of Western influence. He sent troops to support Libya’s Government of National Accord in an effort to establish a strong foothold in the country, exploiting its oil and gas and threatening the free flow of energy from the Eastern Mediterranean…… He blocked a NATO defense plan for the Baltics and Poland and regularly intimidates Greece, a NATO member state, violating the country’s airspace by flying Turkish military jets. He drilled for gas in the territorial waters of Cyprus and has begun plans to expand drilling off the coast of the Greek island of Crete. He remains at odds with Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, and Israel over ownership of natural resources, threatening to use force to secure ‘his share’ which could burgeon into a violent conflict.
The intelligence service of the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg on Monday accused Iran, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Russia and China of espionage activities. The Jerusalem Post’s review of the 181-page intelligence document authored by German officials shows that Syria’s regime is believed to have exploited migration waves to maximize its covert activities in Germany. Jordan, which has previously not appeared in prior intelligence documents, engaged in espionage in the federal republic…..The intelligence report stated that, “States such as India or Jordan, which previously had little or no focus on security agencies in Germany, also developed intelligence activities. In Russia and China in particular, the intelligence services are now increasingly turning their attention to people who are there for a long time, professionally or privately. These include, in particular, family members of diplomatic missions and government officials, company representatives, academics or students.” The report did not outline the nature of the Jordanian state espionage activities.
As US-China Competition Unfolds, Russia Watches Closely
Russia’s position is crucial in the unfolding US-China competition. There are two likely scenarios. In one, Russia is able to maneuver between the powers and score geopolitical goals in its neighborhood and in the Middle East. In the other, Russia is cast by the West as an outright enemy, leaving little room for compromise and allowing the country to fall further under Chinese influence. Russia’s relations with the West are at their lowest point in two decades. Similar patterns of warming and cooling have taken place intermittently ever since Russia emerged as a major Eurasian power in the early 18th century. Each crisis with the West alternated with rapprochement and at times full military and security cooperation.
For many years, Palestinians have received unconditional funding from Western donors.
Here is how it worked: Palestinian organizations would submit an application for funding, and the donors would automatically sign the check or approve the wire transfer of millions of dollars or euros to the Palestinians' bank accounts. In a nutshell, the Palestinian attitude regarding Western funding has always been along the following lines: "You Westerners owe us this money because you contributed to the establishment of Israel after World War II. Thus, you have no right to set any conditions for the funding. Just give us the money and shut up. Any refusal to comply with our demands will result in our rage, and possibly terrorism and other forms of violence, not only against Israel, but also against you [non-Muslim] 'infidels' in the West."
Stormy meeting of Israel's 'Coronavirus Cabinet' as Gantz demands Netanyahu turn over management of coronavirus crisis to Defense Ministry. A meeting of the Israeli government’s Coronavirus Cabinet revealed possible cracks forming within the unity government, amid threats to dissolve the government and force the country back to new elections…. “I understand exactly what is going on here,” Netanyahu said, while banging the gavel. “People are playing politics. If this continues, it can only lead to one thing,” continued Netanyahu, threatening new elections. After Gantz says annexation can wait, Netanyahu snipes: ‘It’s not up to him’ - The prime minister was responding to Blue and White chief Benny Gantz, the defense minister, who said fighting the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout should take precedence over any political decisions regarding the West Bank. “We are in talks with the US team here in Israel,” Netanyahu said at a Likud faction meeting in the Knesset. “We are doing it discreetly. The matter is not up to Blue and White, they are not a factor either way.” After dissing Gantz, Netanyahu meets with US envoys a day before annexation date
20 MPs from Europe, Latin America, Africa sign pro-annexation letter Parliamentarians from 20 different countries in Europe, Africa and Latin America signed a letter on Wednesday supporting Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank. The signatories, who are all leaders of the Israel Allies Caucuses in their respective countries, signed the letter on the date when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is first allowed to bring up the subject of annexation to the Knesset for a vote …
Protesters at an anti-annexation rally in the Belgian capital of Brussels on Sunday were heard shouting anti-Semitic chants including calling for a “war against the Jews in the streets” and warning Jews the “the army of Muhammad will return.” According to Pakistani broadsheet The News International, 400 protesters came to the rally which was organized by the Association Belgo-Palestinienne. Many of them were young people, Jewish youth, and were carrying “Palestinian flags and anti-Israel placards,” the report said.
Palestinian factions call for ‘day of rage’ to foil annexation Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip have called for a “day of popular rage” on Wednesday to protest Israel’s plan to apply its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank. The call was issued after a meeting of several Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip on Sunday. The factions called for the formation of “popular protection committees” in the West Bank to confront the annexation plan.
‘Israel the only enemy’: Rivals Hamas, Fatah unite over annexation The leaders of Hamas and Fatah…held a press conference…slamming Israel’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank. “We are now talking about a joint struggle, a campaign on the ground,” said senior Fatah official… “We call on all Palestinian factions to see cooperation between Hamas and Fatah as a historic opportunity for a joint fight to establish a Palestinian state and oppose the Israeli occupation,” he added.
BDS groups plan anti-annexation ‘Day of Rage’ across the US The demonstrations are set to take place in Chicago, San Diego, Brooklyn, Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as in Toronto, Madrid and Valencia. Among the groups organizing the events are Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and American Muslims for Palestine.
Vatican summons US, Israeli envoys over annexation moves The Vatican, in a highly unusual move, summoned both the US and Israeli ambassadors to express the Holy See’s concern about Israel’s moves to extend its sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank.
Court Rules: Israelis Defeat Vatican-Affiliated Patriarch in Vital Jerusalem Property Dispute The Jerusalem District Court rejected a final request on Wednesday by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to block the transfer of church property in Jerusalem to Jewish real estate consultants Ateret Cohanim. The ruling drew controversy following a dispute over the contract for the sale of the property was originally signed in 2004.
Chen was one of the operators of “You Win USA Vacation Resort,” which ran a thriving business at the Carlysle Apartments in Irvine. The company’s primary customers were well-to-do pregnant women, mostly from China, who were sold travel packages that included a place to stay in the United States and people to take care of them before and after they delivered babies who, by law, were American citizens…… In the early morning of March 3, 2015, Chao’s “You Win” operation was one of three birth tourism companies raided by some 200 federal agents who knocked on doors in Irvine, Mission Viejo, Rancho Cucamonga, Rowland Heights and Walnut. While it is not illegal to run such a business, it is illegal to commit immigration and visa fraud in the process — crimes which the birth tourism operators later were accused of committing. This year, the U.S. Department of State issued a new rule that makes it difficult to get a U.S. travel visa for the purpose of giving birth.
More than 75 U.S. senators and House members on Thursday urged the Trump administration to take a tougher stance on China over its crackdown in that country’s Xinjiang province and make a formal determination whether its treatment of Muslim Uighurs and other groups constitutes an atrocity, including genocide.
Pompeo announces visa restrictions on Chinese Communist Party officials over Hong Kong takeover U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced visa restrictions against Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials in response to China’s moves to impose control over the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong. “Today, I am announcing visa restrictions on current and former CCP officials who are believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy, as guaranteed in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, or undermining human rights and fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong,”.
Eric Schmidt, the longtime Google CEO who now runs two Pentagon advisory boards, says current legislative efforts to bar Chinese students from studying in the United States could be “against our own self-interest.” In May, the Trump administration declared that Chinese students studying in the United States who have ties to certain Chinese institutions may try to steal intellectual property. The proclamation does not name those institutions. Chinese “authorities use some Chinese students, mostly post-graduate students and post-doctorate researchers, to operate as non-traditional collectors of intellectual property,” it reads.
Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen…. "I feel extremely disappointed [over the law's passage], which means China did not keep its promise to Hong Kong," Tsai told journalists as the law was added to Hong Kong's statute book, bypassing the city's Legislative Council (LegCo). Tsai said the law had put an end to Beijing's "one country, two systems" model, under which it saw the return of Hong Kong and Macau to Chinese rule in 1997 and 1999 respectively. Chinese president Xi Jinping has called on Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, nor formed part of the People's Republic, to "unify" with China under the same plan as Hong Kong and Macau.
U.S. warplanes intercepted four Russian reconnaissance aircraft near Alaska, marking the sixth such incident this month, U.S. commanders said. The Russian Tu-142's came within 65 nautical miles south of Alaska's Aleutian island chain and "loitered" in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) for eight hours on Saturday. But they stayed in international airspace and did not enter U.S. or Canadian airspace, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said on Twitter. NORAD posted video of the Russian aircraft, which were intercepted by F-22s.
Despite that Gen. Khalifa Haftar's year-long offensive to take the capital was recently was defeated and ultimately pushed back, his Libyan National Army (LNA) still controls most of the country's major oil fields. The Benghazi-based commander has for years secured all oil fields especially in the eastern half of the country, even as Libya's official National Oil Corporation (NOC) is based in Tripoli and operates under the aegis of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA).….With his dream of seizing Tripoli dashed, thanks in no small part to Turkey's providing significant military support to the GNA, the oil blockade appears to in force more severely than ever, but this time reportedly with Russian help. Since last year it's been widely reported that Russian mercenary firm, the Kremlin-based Wagner Group, is embedded with pro-Haftar forces. But this latest development via Reuters on Friday will certainly raise eyebrows in Europe and Washington. The NOC is now charging that Russia is meddling in its domestic production: Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Friday Russian and other foreign mercenaries had entered the Sharara oilfield on Thursday to block the resumption of energy exports after a months-long blockade by eastern-based forces. Most of Libya’s main oilfields are under the control of the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA), which has fought alongside Russian mercenaries according to the United Nations.
A former US Navy SEAL says Donald Trump is either a "coward" or "complicit" for not acting on allegations that Russia has been paying bounties to militants who kill US soldiers. In a new attack ad released by a Republican political group, Dr Dan Barkhuff chastises the president for his response to reports that Russia has allegedly paid bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill US troops. "Months ago, Donald Trump learned that the Russians were paying bounties for dead American soldiers in Afghanistan. He chose to do nothing about it," Mr Barkhuff says in the ad from the Lincoln Project. Opinion | We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated ... 17 Dec 2019 - The president and his enablers have replaced conservatism with an empty faith led by a bogus prophet.
Lincoln Project: Meet the Republicans campaigning to defeat Donald Trump: "Over these next 11 months, our efforts will be dedicated to defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will hold the line. We do not undertake this task lightly, nor from ideological preference. We have been, and remain, broadly conservative (or classically liberal) in our politics and outlooks. Our many policy differences with national Democrats remain, but our shared fidelity to the Constitution dictates a common effort. The 2020 general election, by every indication, will be about persuasion, with turnout expected to be at record highs. Our efforts are aimed at persuading enough disaffected conservatives, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in swing states and districts to help ensure a victory in the Electoral College and majorities that don’t enable and abet Trump’s violations of the constitution; even if that means Democrat control of the Senate and expansion of the Democratic majority in the House."
President Trump’s alleged unwillingness to hear intelligence warnings related to Russia led his national security team to brief him less on the threats verbally, according to a new report……. "The president has created an environment that dissuades, if not prohibits, the mentioning of any intelligence that isn't favorable to Russia," a former senior member of Trump's national security staff said. That led the briefers to reduce the amount of Russia-related intelligence mentioned during the oral briefings. Instead, it was usually included in the presidential daily brief, a document compiled every day by the intelligence community that explains the most pressing issues around the world. The president and other senior administration officials receive the top-secret document each day, and a briefer then sits down with the president to go over the information.
O’Brien provided a few specifics, saying Trump was not verbally briefed by his CIA briefer, and he defended that decision as “the right call.” The briefer, a senior career civil servant, “didn’t have confidence in the intelligence,” O’Brien said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the situation was handled “incredibly well” to ensure the safety of U.S. troops. “We took this seriously, we handled it appropriately,” Pompeo said at a briefing. He said the administration receives intelligence about threats to Americans every day and each is addressed. Pompeo added that Russian activity in Afghanistan is nothing new and when there is credible information suggesting Russians are putting American lives at risk, the United States responds “in a way that is serious.”
In any case, there is a Russian clandestine military intelligence unit known as the 29155, and it is believed to behind a string of scandals – most recently, a reported scheme to pay bounties to Afghan insurgents to kill U.S. troops. So what exactly is the shadowy assemblage? "There's no real U.S. analog. It's like a mix of CIA and special forces," Matthew Schmidt, associate professor of national security at the University of New Haven, told Fox News. "It's trained to make mayhem. The overall goal is to destabilize targeted political systems, including in Europe, to attack the political will to maintain NATO, with other missions as opportunity allows, including the killing of traitors."
The Kremlin said Russians had shown how much they trusted President Vladimir Putin with a nationwide vote that gave him the right to run for two more terms, while people wondered on Thursday whether he really would stay on another 16 years.
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