Re: #21 - Main news thread - conflicts, terrorism, crisis from around the globe

[KneelB4Zod!]

Al-Masdar News
@TheArabSource
4 min.
State Department calls for repatriation and prosecution of #ISIS members (video) https://aml.ink/8LhgI #Syria

[KneelB4Zod!]

Ali Özkök
@Ozkok_
7 min.
White House staff members are reportedly fast-tracking “the transfer of highly sensitive US nuclear technology” to Saudi Arabia without the necessary congressional review, possibly running afoul of the Atomic Energy Act and potentially allowing the Saudis to build a nuclear bomb.

[Humanity Blows]

Ali Özkök
@Ozkok_
7 min.
White House staff members are reportedly fast-tracking “the transfer of highly sensitive US nuclear technology” to Saudi Arabia without the necessary congressional review, possibly running afoul of the Atomic Energy Act and potentially allowing the Saudis to build a nuclear bomb.

[KneelB4Zod!]

#SDF troops advance on last remaining IS enclave in Deir ez-Zor (video) https://t.co/Lzx6Ctdtax #ISIS #Syria

— Al-Masdar News (@TheArabSource) February 20, 2019

[KneelB4Zod!]

Guy Elster
@guyelster
·
1 m
#BREAKING US ambassador to #Poland says #Israel's acting foreign minister should apologise to #Poland for his comments

[KneelB4Zod!]

Guy Elster
Guy Elster
@guyelster
·
16 m
#BREAKING #Israel PM Netanyahu and #Russia's Putin delay their meeting that was scheduled for tomorrow

[Slovák]

Russia should speak with NATO from position of strong army, alliance understands no other language - Ryabkov
Interfax

[Zambeezi]

Trump administration launches global effort to end criminalization of homosexuality
(this is aimed at Iran)

Feb. 19, 2019, 12:00 PM EST
By Josh Lederman
BERLIN — The Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it's still illegal to be gay, U.S. officials tell NBC News, a bid aimed in part at denouncing Iran over its human rights record.
U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump administration, is leading the effort, which kicks off Tuesday evening in Berlin. The U.S. embassy is flying in LGBT activists from across Europe for a strategy dinner to plan to push for decriminalization in places that still outlaw homosexuality — mostly concentrated in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.
“It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have laws that criminalize LGBTI status or conduct,” said a U.S. official involved in organizing the event.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-administration-launches-global-effort-end-criminalization-homosexuality-n973081

===========

Trump Signs Law Renewing Global AIDS Funding for PEPFAR

Trump administration launches campaign to end HIV-AIDS in the U.S. by 2030

Feb 6, 2019 WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is launching a campaign to end the HIV epidemic in the United States by 2030, targeting areas where new infections happen and getting highly effective drugs to people at risk.
His move is being greeted with a mix of skepticism and cautious optimism by anti-AIDS activists. State and local health officials are warning the administration not to take money from other programs to finance the initiative, whose budget has not been revealed.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/trump-administration-launches-campaign-to-end-hiv-aids-in-the-u-s-by-2030

==========



Trump administration launches global effort to fight anti-semitism

   Mutiple promising global initiatives are being rolled by MAGA as tedious Wall funding issue is being relegated to courts for some time to come:


   Trump's Names Special Envoy to Fight Global Anti-Semitism
   02-06-2019
   Emily Jones
   Courtesy: United States Army
   JERUSALEM, Israel – Elan Carr, the United States' newly-appointed special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, will take his first trip to Belgium and Slovakia this week.
   Related

   Trump calls on Ilhan Omar to resign from Congress for ‘anti-Semitism’
   February 12, 2019
   WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump called on Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., to resign from Congress for what he said was her anti-Semitism.
   “It’s terrible what she said and I think she should either resign from Congress, or she should certainly resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “What she said is so deep-seated in her heart that her lame apology, and that’s what it was, it was lame and she didn’t mean a word of it, was just not appropriate. I think she should resign from Congress.”
   Omar, in her first term in the Congress, said Sunday on Twitter that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee pays lawmakers to be pro-Israel. After condemnations from Republicans and Democrats, including the Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives, she said she “unequivocally” apologized after speaking with “Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes.”

===========


Biometric ID


"Providing legal identity for all (including birth registration) by 2030 is a target shared by the international community as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. The World Bank Group (WBG) has launched the Identification for Development (ID4D) cross-practice initiative, with the participation of seven GP/CCSAs sharing the same vision and strategic objectives, to help our client countries achieve this goal and with the vision of making everyone count: ensure a unique legal identity and enable digital ID-based services to all."

https://amredeemed.com/end-times-news/the-un-plans-to-implant-everyone-with-a-biometric-id-tag-by-2030/?fb_comment_id=3025751274117502_3033657883326841








These are ALL 'Global Initiatives' being funded. Not 'America First'.... but GLOBAL.

[Slovák]

RYABKOV: U.S. IS NOT OUR PARTNER, 'STRATEGIC PATIENCE' TERM WOULD DESCRIBE OUR RELATIONS
Interfax

[Zambeezi]

Israeli Elections: A Choice Between Maniacs

Israel Resilience party leader Benny Gantz on Tuesday launched a scathing personal attack on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, depicting him as an American-trained fake who spent years enjoying the high-life in the United States while he, Gantz, was risking his life in the trenches with Israel’s soldiers.
Gantz played on his own long military career, which culminated in his tenure as IDF chief of staff, while castigating Netanyahu for spending years in America — where the prime minister studied at university, worked, and later represented Israel diplomatically — portraying the prime minister as only partly Israeli.

“When I lay in the muddy trenches with my soldiers on frozen winter nights, you left Israel to learn English and practice it at fancy cocktail parties,” Gantz said.


Netanyahu immediately condemned Gantz’s comments as shameful, noting that as a soldier and officer in the IDF’s most elite unit, “I risked my life time after time for the country.”
“I appreciate your contribution to the State of Israel, but I know your weaknesses well,” Gantz said, looking directly into the camera as though addressing the prime minister. “In the days when I commanded the [elite commando] Shaldag unit on dangerous operations in enemy countries, you, Benjamin Netanyahu, bravely and determinedly made your way through the make up rooms of television studios.


“At a time when I trained generations of commanders and fighters, you were taking acting lessons in a New York studio,” Gantz added bitterly.
“In another month and a half we will all go and choose between a ruler who has English from Boston, heavy makeup and expensive suits, and a real, caring Israeli leader, who is not fake, and not kingly,” Gantz declared, in a speech that contrasted sharply with the milder comments he made last month at the launch of his election campaign.
“In the past decade, Israel has been ruled by one ruling party. In the ruling party, a single ruler was in charge,” Gantz said. “He had no internal opposition and no external opposition. For a decade, the citizens of Israel were forced to choose between one ruling party and one ruler and a series of niche parties that did not threaten him. He ruled the country through incitement, deception and fear. No more. This time it’s different. The single ruler is currently stressed, afraid, sweating. His jesters are no longer laughing and his party is frightened.”
As he spoke, several supporters in the crowd chanted, “Bibi go home,” using the prime minister’s nickname.
“For the first time in ten years,” Gantz asserted, “both the ruler and his henchmen understand that this time a new ruling party is facing them.”
“For ten years there was a patronizing and divisive government here that did not feel the need to make an effort for the citizens of the country in general, and specifically for those who did not choose,” Gantz went on. “It indulged in the pleasures of power, corruption and hedonism. The concern for citizens was replaced by an agenda of hatred. While the people showed loyalty to it, it showed no loyalty to the people.”


Gantz claimed that the Netanyahu-led coalition “has forgotten the people. It forgot that in the wars of Israel there is no right and no left, and that the military cemeteries are not divided into left and right. It has forgotten the real point: a true government loves its citizens and is not in love with itself.”
Gantz then went on to slam Netanyahu’s assaults on the press, the attorney general, and the police, all of whom the prime minister has accused of being behind three graft investigations against him, which are reportedly expected to lead to some indictments.
“In order to destroy any chance of replacing the regime, a dangerous discourse of labeling people based on their loyalty to the individual ruler has developed,” charged Gantz. “Those who did not kneel were marked as traitors. Any right-winger who dared to criticize was immediately labeled as a dangerous leftist. A legal adviser appointed by the ruler became a traitor and a leftist when he did not do what the ruler expected him to do. The police commissioner appointed by the ruler was called a leftist and traitor because he dared to be loyal to the laws of the state and not to the demands of the ruler.”


Netanyahu quickly responded to Gantz’s blistering attack against him, saying in a statement “Benny Gantz, shame on you.”
“As a soldier and officer in [elite unit] Sayeret Matkal I risked my life time after time for the country,” the prime minister said. “I was wounded in battle with terrorists. I almost lost my life in a shootout in the Suez Canal for the security of the state you want to endanger with unilateral withdrawals and support for the dangerous Iran nuclear deal.”
“The citizens of Israel will choose between a strong right-wing government headed by me and a weak left-wing government headed by you,” Netanyahu concluded.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-makes-scathing-personal-attack-on-netanyahu-paints-him-as-us-trained-fake/

[Humanity Blows]

Trump administration launches global effort to end criminalization of homosexuality
(this is aimed at Iran)

Feb. 19, 2019, 12:00 PM EST
By Josh Lederman
BERLIN — The Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it's still illegal to be gay, U.S. officials tell NBC News, a bid aimed in part at denouncing Iran over its human rights record.
U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump administration, is leading the effort, which kicks off Tuesday evening in Berlin. The U.S. embassy is flying in LGBT activists from across Europe for a strategy dinner to plan to push for decriminalization in places that still outlaw homosexuality — mostly concentrated in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.
“It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have laws that criminalize LGBTI status or conduct,” said a U.S. official involved in organizing the event.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-administration-launches-global-effort-end-criminalization-homosexuality-n973081

===========

Trump Signs Law Renewing Global AIDS Funding for PEPFAR

Trump administration launches campaign to end HIV-AIDS in the U.S. by 2030

Feb 6, 2019 WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is launching a campaign to end the HIV epidemic in the United States by 2030, targeting areas where new infections happen and getting highly effective drugs to people at risk.
His move is being greeted with a mix of skepticism and cautious optimism by anti-AIDS activists. State and local health officials are warning the administration not to take money from other programs to finance the initiative, whose budget has not been revealed.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/trump-administration-launches-campaign-to-end-hiv-aids-in-the-u-s-by-2030

==========



Trump administration launches global effort to fight anti-semitism

   Mutiple promising global initiatives are being rolled by MAGA as tedious Wall funding issue is being relegated to courts for some time to come:


   Trump's Names Special Envoy to Fight Global Anti-Semitism
   02-06-2019
   Emily Jones
   Courtesy: United States Army
   JERUSALEM, Israel – Elan Carr, the United States' newly-appointed special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, will take his first trip to Belgium and Slovakia this week.
   Related

   Trump calls on Ilhan Omar to resign from Congress for ‘anti-Semitism’
   February 12, 2019
   WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump called on Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., to resign from Congress for what he said was her anti-Semitism.
   “It’s terrible what she said and I think she should either resign from Congress, or she should certainly resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “What she said is so deep-seated in her heart that her lame apology, and that’s what it was, it was lame and she didn’t mean a word of it, was just not appropriate. I think she should resign from Congress.”
   Omar, in her first term in the Congress, said Sunday on Twitter that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee pays lawmakers to be pro-Israel. After condemnations from Republicans and Democrats, including the Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives, she said she “unequivocally” apologized after speaking with “Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes.”

===========


Biometric ID


"Providing legal identity for all (including birth registration) by 2030 is a target shared by the international community as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. The World Bank Group (WBG) has launched the Identification for Development (ID4D) cross-practice initiative, with the participation of seven GP/CCSAs sharing the same vision and strategic objectives, to help our client countries achieve this goal and with the vision of making everyone count: ensure a unique legal identity and enable digital ID-based services to all."

https://amredeemed.com/end-times-news/the-un-plans-to-implant-everyone-with-a-biometric-id-tag-by-2030/?fb_comment_id=3025751274117502_3033657883326841








These are ALL 'Global Initiatives' being funded. Not 'America First'.... but GLOBAL.

[Humanity Blows]

RYABKOV: U.S. IS NOT OUR PARTNER, 'STRATEGIC PATIENCE' TERM WOULD DESCRIBE OUR RELATIONS
Interfax

At some point, we're going to end up leaving Russia no choice but to nuke us back into the stone age. It's just a matter of time.

[Zambeezi]

President Vladimir Putin warns new Russian weapons will target US if it deploys missiles to Europe
https://news.yahoo.com/president-vladimir-putin-warns-russian-weapons-target-us-103849893.html

#UPDATE: President Vladimir Putin says Russia will have to deploy missiles targeting "decision-making centres" if Washington sends missiles to Europe https://t.co/7mjJCCOKTU

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 20, 2019

[Zambeezi]

UK: Germany's Saudi arms export ban jeopardizes European defense
https://www.dw.com/en/uk-germanys-saudi-arms-export-ban-jeopardizes-european-defense/a-47596782

British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt warned in a February 7 letter to his German counterpart Heiko Maas, Der Spiegel reported on Tuesday, that British defense firms would not be able to fulfill several contracts with Riyadh, including the delivery of Eurofighter Typhoon and the Tornado fighter jet. Both are made with parts produced by Germany's arms industry.

"It is imperative that you immediately remove major European defense projects such as the Eurofighter and the Tornado from the arms embargo," Hunt wrote. Otherwise, Berlin risked "a loss of confidence in the credibility of Germany as a partner."

Arms industry lobbyists

Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders said in an interview at the weekend that Germany's unilateral arms export policy was damaging plans for a common European defense policy and undermining the arms industries of NATO allies.

"It has been driving us crazy at Airbus for years that when there is even just a tiny German part involved in, for example, helicopters, the German side gives itself the right to, for example, block the sale of a French helicopter," said Enders.

Enders said there was increasing impatience among Germany's Airbus partners Britain, France and Spain.

He warned that the company might need to develop "German-free products" in the future.

In the letter to Maas, the British foreign minister said that German arms manufacturers could lose €2.3 billion ($2.6 billion) in revenue by 2026 due to the export ban on Saudi Arabia.

British defense firms may also face breach of contract fines, Hunt said.

"This letter shows how Germany's arms export practices are costing it the ability to partner with its closest European allies," Hans Christoph Altzpodien, head of Germany's defense industry association BDSV, told Reuters.

[Zambeezi]

Ali Özkök
@Ozkok_
7 min.
White House staff members are reportedly fast-tracking “the transfer of highly sensitive US nuclear technology” to Saudi Arabia without the necessary congressional review, possibly running afoul of the Atomic Energy Act and potentially allowing the Saudis to build a nuclear bomb.

House launches probe of US nuclear plan in Saudi Arabia
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47296641

[Humanity Blows]

President Vladimir Putin warns new Russian weapons will target US if it deploys missiles to Europe
https://news.yahoo.com/president-vladimir-putin-warns-russian-weapons-target-us-103849893.html

^ Case in point.

[Zambeezi]

President Vladimir Putin warns new Russian weapons will target US if it deploys missiles to Europe
https://news.yahoo.com/president-vladimir-putin-warns-russian-weapons-target-us-103849893.html

^ Case in point.

I saw the headline about 5 seconds after your comment....

[Zambeezi]

VIDEO: Myanmar is the second-biggest producer of opium in the world after Afghanistan and is now believed to be the largest source of methamphetamine. In Shan state, heroin and meth use here are rampant and the region lies at the epicentre of Myanmar's drug crisis pic.twitter.com/27SqnQtyM1

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 20, 2019

[Slovák]

IF INTERMEDIATE-, SHORTER-RANGE MISSILES ARE DEPLOYED IN EUROPE, RUSSIA TO DEPLOY WEAPONS CAPABLE OF DESTROYING CENTERS MAKING DECISIONS ON USING MISSILES AGAINST RUSSIA - PUTIN
http://www.interfax.com/news.asp?y=2019&m=2&d=20&pg=3

[Humanity Blows]

President Vladimir Putin warns new Russian weapons will target US if it deploys missiles to Europe
https://news.yahoo.com/president-vladimir-putin-warns-russian-weapons-target-us-103849893.html

^ Case in point.

 I saw the headline about 5 seconds after your comment....

Indeed, everyone on this site knows the conclusion that current events are leading us towards. It's like watching the moments before a trainwreck in slow motion, we can easily see the outcome, and only a literal miracle from Heaven can prevent it at this point.

[Anon]

Breaking: Swiss bank UBS found guilty of money laundering and aggravated tax fraud by a Paris court, raising the prospect of $6 billion of fines.

https://twitter.com/BreakingF24/status/1098203756712275969

[Zambeezi]

"They told me I looked radiant after taking the tour."    


For nearly two decades at the Grand Canyon, tourists, employees, and children on tours passed by three paint buckets stored in the National Park's museum collection building, unaware that they were being exposed to radiation.
Grand Canyon Museum Tourists Exposed For Years To Dangerous Radiation, Whistleblower Admits
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-19/grand-canyon-museum-tourists-exposed-years-dangerous-radiation-whistleblower-admits


Federal officials learned last year that three five-gallon buckets stored in the Grand Canyon’s museum building were literally overflowing with highly-radioactive uranium ore. The buckets were moved to the museum building when it opened in 2000 and were so full of the ore one literally wouldn’t close.

As AZCentral.com reports, in a rogue email sent to all Park Service employees on Feb. 4, Elston "Swede" Stephenson - the safety, health and wellness manager - described the alleged cover-up as "a top management failure" and warned of possible health consequences.

   "If you were in the Museum Collections Building (2C) between the year 2000 and June 18, 2018, you were 'exposed' to uranium by OSHA's definition," Stephenson wrote.

    "The radiation readings, at first blush, exceeds (sic) the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's safe limits. ... Identifying who was exposed, and your exposure level, gets tricky and is our next important task."

Stephenson says he tried to convince Parks executives to warn the public that anyone visiting the site after 2000 could have been exposed to radiation he calculated at levels potentially over 4,000 times the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s “safe” level for children and 400 times the level for adults, but was “stonewalled” by management. He believes the Park Service violated the law by not informing the public of the danger.

   “Respectfully, it was not only immoral not to let Our People know, but I could not longer risk my (health and safety) certification by letting this go any longer,”

https://www.rt.com/usa/451785-grand-canyon-uranium-coverup/ As RT reports, the radioactive hoard was discovered by a teenager with a Geiger counter during a museum tour and promptly swept under the rug, Stephenson says, adding that technicians dumped the ore into an old mine near Grand Canyon Village, concealing their meter readings from him the entire time they were cleaning up the radioactive mess.

Stephenson released a 45-page report detailing the allegations.

[KneelB4Zod!]

New Satellite Images Show Syria's S-300 System Ready For Use https://t.co/skDqC2MYBA

— Yusha Yuseef (@MIG29_) 20. února 2019

[KneelB4Zod!]

Al-Julani possbily dead. Yesterday Turkish sources confirmed that he was injured recently. Now this is circulating:

Waiting for confirmation. pic.twitter.com/RnAhq149yk

— Syrian Military Capabilities (@Syrian_MC) 20. února 2019

[KneelB4Zod!]

View of the "Islamic State" tent camp near the Euphrates River in Deir ez-Zor province. #Syria #ISIS pic.twitter.com/s8X8UDvjgK

— Ali Özkök (@Ozkok_) 20. února 2019

[KneelB4Zod!]

SouthFront‏ @southfronteng · 4 min.
First Ever Video Of Nuclear-Capable Poseidon Underwater Drone Released Online

https://southfront.org/first-ever-video-of-nuclear-capable-poseidon-underwater-drone-released-online/

[Zambeezi]

#US #Navy's first stealth destroyer #USSZumwalt equipped with an electromagnetic railgun pic.twitter.com/GV6z5AE2Ge

— Compact News (@NewsCompact) February 20, 2019

[Zambeezi]

Russian Medical Supplies Arrive in Caracas - Source
https://sputniknews.com/latam/201902201072591187-russia-venezuela-aid/


Lavrov: "Washington's threats to Venezuela's military violated the United Nations Charter, and are representative of direct interference in the state's internal affairs."
https://sputniknews.com/latam/201902201072594304-us-threats-us-military/

[Zambeezi]

#France #Beynost: members of the #GiletsJaunes controlled yesterday evening the toll station for the operation "toll free"#YellowVests #Resistance #GJ #GiletsJaune #19February #PowerToThePeople pic.twitter.com/gP1atp9CF3

— Compact News  (@NewsCompact) February 20, 2019

=====

The #GiletsJaunes planning a nationwide mobilization for a massive meeting in #Paris

#YellowVests meet at the Place "Esplanade des #Invalides" in Paris Saturday, #23February for #ActXV #YellowVests #GJ #Resistance #PowerToThePeople #Solidarity
https://t.co/JgilWLynLC pic.twitter.com/CgbFbmhouR

— Compact News (@NewsCompact) February 19, 2019

[KneelB4Zod!]

H.K@Ibra_Joudeh · 19. 2.
Breaking:

A deal has been reached between #US coalition and #ISIS in East Deir Ez-Zor CS,

Tens of trucks start entering the area where 800 ISIS fighters are stationed in preparation to evacuate them to unknown location.

Details about the deal to surface soon.

Video 1 of trucks convoy leaving #ISIS camp near #Baghuz toward unknown destination pic.twitter.com/gqddS9r4IM

— H.K (@Ibra_Joudeh) 20. února 2019