In February of this year, 44 Democrats, including Senator Schumer voted for a bill that had $25 billion for a wall. .... They want Trump to lose more than they want the country to win.

Since the exposure of Israeli undercover forces by Hamas fighters in the occupied Gaza Strip on November 11, an incident that triggered the most intense round of escalation since 2014, a number of reports have emerged about the circumstances surrounding Israel's thwarted raid.

On November 22, Hamas published photos of individuals it said were involved, images that Israel's military censor immediately subjected to a publication ban.

Since then, a number of articles in Israeli and international media have claimed the Israeli forces impersonated humanitarian workers, used fake ID cards of real Palestinian residents, and operated inside Gaza for weeks with a cover story of distributing medical equipment and wheelchairs.

As peace talks to end war in Yemen continue, three local aid workers from the Norwegian Refugee Council describe its devastating impact

A four-year-old Palestinian boy has died after being injured during clashes between the Israeli army and protesters along the Gaza border, the health ministry in Gaza said.

"Ahmed Abu Abed, aged four years and eight months, died as a result of the wounds he received last Friday east of Khan Yunis," health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said in a statement late Tuesday.

Protected by the Israeli occupation forces, a group of Israeli Jewish settlers yesterday stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque and performed religious rituals in its courtyards, Ma’an News Agency reported.

Firas Al-Debbis, the coordinator of public relations at Al-Aqsa Mosque, said that 45 settlers stormed the Mosque through Al-Mughrabi Gate.

He said that the settlers were escorted by a large number of the Israeli occupation forces.

Meanwhile, another group of settlers organised a night demonstration in Jerusalem’s Old City to mark the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

The settlers chanted anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian slogans and called for the demolition of Al-Aqsa Mosque and for more settlers to be allowed in to Islam’s third holiest site.

Five Palestinians were wounded yesterday morning after Israeli occupation forces stormed Al-Bireh and confiscated surveillance cameras in the area, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

More than 40 armoured military vehicles stormed the occupied West Bank cities of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, raiding a number of shops around the headquarters of the Palestinian financial ministry and confiscating CCTV footage from the area.

Local sources said that the Israeli occupation forces set up flying checkpoints in Al-Masayif neighbourhood and checked the IDs of Palestinian passersby.

The commander of the Israeli forces told journalists that they had not planned to storm the financial ministry but wanted to confiscate CCTV recordings from the area.

Israel is to build an embassy complex in occupied Jerusalem, a year after US President Donald Trump announced his plans to relocate the American Embassy to the city. Israel’s Construction and Housing Ministry announced today that it plans to build a complex with space for nine separate embassies in occupied East Jerusalem, in the belief that more countries will follow the US lead and move their diplomatic missions from Tel Aviv, Arutz Sheva reported.

The complex is to be built on a 25-acre plot of land in East Talpiot, a southern neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Following the Nakba of 1948, East Talpiot became part of no man’s land, next to the 1949 Armistice Line – sometimes known as the Green Line – observed by Israel and Jordan. During the Six Day War of 1967 Israel occupied the neighbourhood, establishing an illegal settlement there in 1973.

There has been a sharp decline in the number of American Jews participating in the “Birthright” trips to Israel this winter, reported Haaretz, describing “a downturn of this magnitude, unrelated to the security situation” as “unprecedented”.

Since its establishment in 1999, the Birthright organisation has brought some 500,000 young Jews from around the world on free trips to Israel.

According to the paper, citing some of Birthright’s key trip providers, the drop ranges from 20 per cent to 50 per cent – depending on the provider – in comparison with the last winter season (which extends from December through March).

One explanation for the downturn suggested by the trip providers is that the numbers “could reflect the well-documented fact that young American Jews are growing increasingly disengaged from Israel, and have less and less interest in visiting the country – even when the trips are free”.

Israeli minister Ophir Akunis toured Israeli settlements yesterday and “declared his support” for the annexation of the so-called Gush Etzion settlement “bloc” and “Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] in general”, reported right-wing news outlet Arutz Sheva.

The Minister of Science and Technology, part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, visited the Gush Etzion settlements with local settler council leader Shlomo Ne’eman.

Akunis described the Gush Etzion settlement bloc as “one of the foundations of our people dating back thousands of years, and anyone who disputes this right is wrong”.

As we have been forced to leave here in the past, we are here to win, and here thousands of families will raise their children for generations to come

he declared.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday promised that he would never evict illegal settlers from the occupied Palestinian territories as long as he is in office, local media reported.

Speaking at an inaugural ceremony for an interchange outside the illegal settlement of Adam, which is located in the centre of the occupied West Bank, Netanyahu said: “Our enemies want to uproot us from here, but… as long as I am the prime minister of Israel, not a single Jew will be uprooted from his home.”

He pledged to build more and more settlements and settlement units. “Not only will Jews not be uprooted from their homes, but we will build and add to them,” he said.

Netanyahu said that Israel would prove that the desire of anyone to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories “will be met by an impenetrable wall. That is why we are here today.”

The pro-Israel lobby’s ongoing efforts to weaponise anti-Semitism has been dealt a major blow after a prestigious American university refused to sack one of its professors for showing solidarity with Palestine. Lobbyists inflicted a lot of pressure on the university after Marc Lamont Hill outraged Israel’s supporters and was accused of anti-Semitism when he talked of a free Palestine “from the river to the sea” in a robust speech at the United Nations during a session on the organisation’s International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. As a result of lobbyists’ complaints he was fired as a commentator on CNN before his detractors moved to exert pressure on Temple University in Philadelphia where Lamont Hill is professor of media studies.

While Al Jazeera’s undercover investigation into Israeli influence in the United States, “The Lobby – USA,” was completed in October 2017, it never aired. Though the network’s director-general attributed the problem to outstanding legal issues, many, including journalists involved in the making of the documentary, suggested Qatari censorship of the film – likely resulting from US pressure and Qatar’s desire to curry favor with Washington. (Another Al Jazeera film on Israeli influence in the UK – “The Lobby” – aired in January 2017.)

Now, the US version is no longer under wraps: Last month, the Electronic Intifada, in tandem with France’s Orient XXI and Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar, which provided subtitles in French and Arabic, respectively, released the leaked film. (Click to access.)

Marc Lamont Hill, Tim Anderson, Steven Salaita, Rabab Abdulhadi, Hatem Bazian, Ahlam Muhtasib, Norman Finkelstein and other academics have all been targets of the movement to silence their criticisms of Israel and their defense of Palestinians. This includes threats and legal actions to try to deny them employment, in violation of their free speech rights, one of the most hallowed and ancient principles of academia. Salaita and Finkelstein were, in fact, denied employment, to the great detriment of their entire career. Hill and Anderson are currently defending themselves from this threat.

Israel is facing a fierce campaign over existing settlements because of efforts against it at the International Criminal Court, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Likud politicians on Monday, in response to criticism for not doing enough to advance settler activity in the West Bank.

The hubris and arrogance of Washington have been at work since the Clinton regime to destroy the power and relevance of the United States.

This website has an international audience. The most asked question from this audience is the world order. There is a realization that Washington’s control might weaken, a development people abroad see as hopeful. They ask me for verification of their hope.

Here is my answer:

The world order has already changed. China has a larger and more powerful industrial and manufacturing based economy than the US, and China’s potential domestic consumer market is four times larger than that of the US. As economies are consumer based, China’s potential is an economy four times larger than that of the US.

Theresa May tried to quell the Tory revolt today by delivering a broad hint that she won't be in charge at the next general election. Acknowledging widespread unhappiness among MPs, the Prime Minister (pictured in Downing Street today) insisted the no confidence vote tonight is 'not about who leads the party into the next election'. The signal from Mrs May that she is ready to step down once Brexit is delivered came after she vowed to fight with 'everything I've got' to beat the Eurosceptic coup bid.

General Sir Nick Carter warned Russia, China, Iran and sadistic terrorist organisations like ISIS are a colossal threat towards the UK. He said Britain’s security, stability and prosperity are being challenged by the “ambitious” superstates. He admitted, “the multilateral system that has assured our stability since 1945 is threatened” and mass migration was “arguably an existential threat to Europe”.

Mr Carter said, in his first lecture as Chief of the Defence Staff at the Royal United Services Institute, that Russia and China had “studied our strengths and invested carefully in new methods and capabilities that are designed to exploit weaknesses”.

These included ballistic and cruise missiles, low-yield nuclear weapons, cyberweapons, space and counter space weapons, and electronic warfare.

EMBATTLED Emmanuel Macron is to be slapped with a no confidence vote as Europe is ripped apart by political crises that could topple two world leaders in two days.

The motion has been filed by left-wing groups, in the wake of the yellow vest riots rocking France, says a report.

An Israeli military delegation will state at the upcoming consultations in Moscow that the Jewish state has a "right and obligation" to oppose the presence of Iranian forces and Hezbollah in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.

A meeting of representatives of the Russian and Israeli General Staffs will take place Wednesday in the Russian capital within the framework of Netanyahu’s agreements with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Following the recent call for a vote of confidence for UK Prime Minister Theresa May in her leadership of the Conservative Party, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he would call for a vote of confidence in the Law and Justice (PiS) government to ensure it has a mandate for its reforms ahead of this week's summit of EU leaders.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has addressed the parliament requesting a vote of confidence amid a slight fall in the party's ratings following a corruption scandal regarding a financial regulator.

"I appeal to the marshal (chairman) of the Sejm with a proposal for a vote of confidence in the government so that the upper house can express an opinion about the need to continue the reform programme", Polish radio quoted the prime minister as saying.

Canadian citizen Michael Kovrig from the International Crisis Group was detained by state security officials in Beijing on the night of 10 December.

If International Crisis Group (ICG) employee Michael Kovrig was performing "relevant activities" for the group in China without it being listed, then he may have broken China's foreign NGO law, China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The US Programme Director of the Crisis Group Stephen Pomper has called for the immediate release of the company's senior adviser.

Eleven people, including one policeman, have been injured as a result of unrest in a so-called anchor centre for migrants in the southern Germany. Several Eritrean nationals are said to have attacked security staffers and policemen with stones and metal bars, as well as set the building on fire. A police raid later revealed drugs and stolen goods.

Several people were detained following a violent outburst in the Upper Franconian Anchor Centre for migrants in the northern Bavarian town of Bamberg. Police were called to the site after a disturbance was reported on Tuesday night. The patrol that first arrived on the scene was attacked with paving stones and other objects. Therefore, reinforcements were deployed, who surrounded the building.

A revealing and in-depth look at how right wing nationalists around the world are increasingly interacting with Ukrainian right, which envisions taking their movement global, and reconquering the world.

They call it the ‘Reconquista’.

Iran has been under severe US-imposed economic sanctions for 40 years. The US has been threatening Iran with war and “all options are on the table” for decades. The US has also instigated instability inside Iran and supported external attacks by terrorist groups such as Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK. [*]

The US project to destroy Iran’s economy has had a devastating impact. The husky Secretary of Defense Mike Pompeo said that it is up to Iranian’s leadership “if they want their people to eat”.[*] Because of the US, Iran lacks sufficient funds that it would like to invest in human resources and social programs. Iran’s constitution guarantees healthcare and free education for all, as well as protections of civil rights. As reflected in the drafting of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, the vision of the economic order was:

Following a Board of Trustees meeting this afternoon, Temple University President Richard Englert released a statement on behalf of the board, announcing that professor Marc Lamont Hill will not be punished or investigated for his Nov. 28 speech during an event organized with the United Nations. In that speech, Hill called for “a free Palestine from the river to the sea.” Englert, in delivering the statement, affirmed that Hill “spoke as a private citizen and his right to do so is protected by the constitution.”

The announcement finds Temple returning to its initial statement, which recognized that Hill’s speech was protected by the First Amendment.

The European Commission decided on Tuesday to offer Switzerland six additional months to agree on a new treaty that will govern the country’s future relations with the EU, Reuters reported, citing two EU sources. The political decision is to be formalized after talks with EU leaders in Brussels this week.

An image shows Nancy Pelosi's mansion in San Francisco and the large wall that protects the estate.

Greek lawmakers are debating legislation canceling a major round of pension cuts which were to take effect on January 1. Athens earlier secured the agreement of bailout lenders that the cuts were no longer necessary for a balanced budget. Parliament is to vote on Tuesday on whether to cancel articles in a law passed last year that would impose cuts worth 1 percent of GDP, AP reported.

The Federal Constitutional Court in Germany has thrown out a string of complaints by people asking it to prevent the government from joining a UN pact on migration. The highest court made its ruling Friday on the cases filed by 13 separate plaintiffs. It was published on Tuesday, a day after the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was approved at a conference in Morocco. German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended the meeting.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert has been chosen as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, President Donald Trump confirmed Friday following multiple reports.

The former Fox News host had been Trump’s top pick for the spot since mid-October, shortly after Nikki Haley surprised the White House by announcing her departure by the end of the year. Trump was reportedly looking for a loyal candidate who had a willingness to defend him, according to CNN.

Trump called his U.N. pick “very talented, very smart and very quick” as he spoke to reporters in front of the White House, praising her work at the State Department.

Dennis Nathan Cain, a former FBI contractor turned Clinton-Uranium One court-recognized whistleblower, says the FBI raid on his home despite this status reveals that the “deep state” is real. “So I blow the whistle on the FBI, get raided by the same FBI, and now they want to keep the FBI’s reasons secret? Do we now live in a secret police state? Feels a little like 1984,” Cain tweeted. Suspiciously, the raid happened just before former FBI Director James Comey, who oversaw this investigation, was slated to appear before closed-door meetings with Congress on this very topic. There’s still much more than meets the eye here, but we should assume precisely zero will be done about it in the new House of Representatives, which will be controlled by the Democrats.

The Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) said on Friday that it has fined US high-tech giant Facebook 10 million euros ($11.4 million) for illegally harvesting its users' data for commercial purposes.

"The authority has found that Facebook, in violation of articles 21 and 22 of the Code of Consumer Rights, fraudulently encouraged consumers to register on its platform, without informing them immediately and properly during the activation of their accounts of its data collection activities for commercial purposes," AGCM said in a statement, announcing a hefty fine for Facebook.

Earlier in the day, US President Donald Trump held a meeting in the White House with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, the respective Democratic minority leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives, as they seek to secure a spending deal ahead of the December 21 government shutdown deadline.

Nancy Pelosi, the California congresswoman and House Minority leader, reportedly questioned the 'manhood' of the US President, according to the Washington Post.

"It's like a manhood thing for him. As if manhood could ever be associated with him. This wall thing," said Pelosi.

Trafficking guns and explosives to the Irish Republican Army, running a massive criminal enterprise for years in Boston, extorting drug dealers so that they could do business on his turf, acting as an FBI informant and oh, so many murders: James “Whitey” Bulger's life was both colorful and poisonous, to say the least.

His long career as a professional criminal came to an end in 2011. After over a decade on the FBI's Most Wanted Fugitives list, Bulger was located and charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, narcotics distribution and money-laundering. He was convicted and thrown in the clink in 2012. This past October, Bugler, 89 years old and confined to a wheelchair, was stabbed and beaten to death by his fellow inmates at the United States Penitentiary, Hazelton, in West Virginia.

British Prime Minister Theresa May called off Tuesday's parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal after a conference call with cabinet ministers, an indication that she believes she would have faced a crushing defeat.

Spain’s central government has warned it will send in national police to ensure security in Catalonia if regional authorities fail to stop recent disruptions to major highways by pro-independence protesters.

This is majority opinion.

There is no majority of citizens in the world that supports increasing immigration levels to their home nation, a Pew Research Center study reveals.

The research found that of the 27 nations surveyed, not a single one supported increasing immigration by a majority. In fact, less than 15 percent of the median total of the 27 nations’ citizens supported plans to increase immigration.

“This question was put to me by Mohammed Kassim, a young Afghan: Why world leaders are closing their doors to immigration?

“I don’t want to go very deep into this issue. Every country has the right to protect its people and their interests and should respect human rights, but in a framework that allows it to preserve its national interests.

“Instead of asking why these countries are closing their doors [to immigration, you should be asking yourself] why Afghans in Afghanistan don’t care about the fate of their country.

“Why, for the last 40 years, have they been killing each other and self-destructing? This situation also applies to other countries like Pakistan and Egypt, too – and Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia. Why are they doing this?

“The security forces have to be right 100 percent of the time and, remember, in France at the moment they are distracted with the Yellow Vest protests that are going on,” Philip Ingram, a former senior UK military intelligence officer, told RT.

As everybody knows, what set off the protest movement was yet another rise in gasoline taxes. But it was immediately clear that much more was involved. The gasoline tax was the last straw in a long series of measures favoring the rich at the expense of the majority of the population. That is why the movement achieved almost instant popularity and support.

The rapidly exploding U.S. national debt is about to cross another critical threshold. According to the U.S. Treasury, the debt of the federal government is currently sitting at $21,854,296,172,540.94, and at our current pace we will likely hit the $22 trillion mark next month.

This is a horrifying national crisis, and yet nothing is being done about it. When Barack Obama entered the White House in January 2008, the U.S. was $10.6 trillion in debt, and so that means that we have added 11.2 trillion dollars of new debt to that total in less than 11 years. Needless to say, it doesn’t take a math genius to figure out that we have been adding an average of more than a trillion dollars a year to the national debt for more than a decade. But instead of getting our insatiable appetite for debt under control, Congress is actually accelerating our spending. At this point, there is no possible scenario in which this story ends well.

The story of “McNamara’s Folly”, also known as “Project 100,000.”

During the Vietnam War, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara lowered mental standards to induct 354,000 low-IQ men.

The death toll was appalling.

The Trump administration slapped sanctions on three North Koreans Monday in response to Pyongyang's ongoing human rights abuses and censorship.

The sanctions announcement comes as President Donald Trump floats the idea of a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. And it immediately follows a failed US attempt to hold a UN meeting on Pyongyang's human rights record, a setback that illustrates the Trump administration's struggle to maintain international support for its maximum pressure campaign to push North Korea toward denuclearization.

The Treasury Department marked Human Rights Day by sanctioning senior officials in previously targeted government entities of the North Korean regime and the Workers' Party of Korea, including the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Public Security.

The United States is resisting calls from the United Nations to provide humanitarian aid to North Korea, citing Pyongyang's continuing expansion of its nuclear and ballistic missile arsenal.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report released last week that $111 million is needed to fund humanitarian efforts in North Korea next year.

In "Global Humanitarian Overview 2019," the OCHA said the money could provide aid to 6 million of 10.3 million North Koreans who will need humanitarian support in 2019.

In response, a State Department spokesperson said while the U.S. is concerned, North Korea has the means to meet its own humanitarian needs.

The timing of this incident is so favourable to the Macron government. It's just a fact can't be missed or brushed away:

Takes the focus of attention away from the grievances of the people (Yellow Vests)

Takes the focus of attention away from the arrogant King Jupiter Macron

Makes public gatherings restricted in that part of France.

Play’s the identity politics card which benefits the rulers.

Who benefits from this shooting?

1,411 residential areas have been liberated from ISIS terrorists since the start of the Russian military operation in Syria, Head of the Russian National Defense Management Center Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev said on December 11, during a joint meeting of the interdepartmental coordination of the Russian and Syrian headquarters for the return of refugees.

He noted that the Russian Armed Forces successfully completed their operation of mopping up terror groups in Syria, including thousands of ISIS fighters. According to Mizintsev, only a few ragtag US-backed groups survived in the Trans-Euphrates region and near Al-Tanf. The remaining members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Jabhat al-Nusra) were blocked in the Idlib de-escalation zone.

The colonel general also commented on the situation in the US-occupied area of at-Tanf where, he said, 6,000 militants are staying and the US-led coalition is preventing delivery of humanitarian aid to refugees in Rubkan camp.

Poor Jeremy Corbyn. He’s in hot water again. His latest offense? Ignoring an invitation from the leader of the Israeli Labor Party to journey to Israel to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.

And the Israeli Laborites are incensed at the absence of a reply, while the Blairite centrists in Corbyn’s own party are reportedly in “shock” at the news.

“You’re a lying racist,” shouted Labour MP John Mann at former London Mayor Ken Livingstone last month after the latter pointed out–accurately, by the way–that Hitler had supported Zionist goals of having Jews immigrate to Palestine. But it seems the philo-semitic witch hunters out for Corbyn’s blood can’t be bothered with historical facts.

Pope Francis, showing once again his willingness to turn over liturgical tables, is expected to approve a change in the translation of the Lord’s Prayer, the famous biblical petition recited by Christians billions of times a day.

The Italian Episcopal Conference [CEI] has submitted the proposed change to the Vatican for approval, changing the line “lead us not into temptation” to “abandon us not when in temptation,” reported the Italian newswire service Ansa and the [U.K.] Express.

A year ago, the pope brought the issue to the forefront when he described the petition widely used for centuries in many languages, including English and Italian, as “not a good translation.”

A roaring fire burst through the roof and caused mass evacuations at Google’s office in Beijing’s Zhongguancun tech district – known as China’s Silicon Valley.
The fire, which broke out at 11 am local time, burned through the roof of Google’s glass-fronted office building, sending a plume of thick, black smoke into the air.

Huge fire this morning on top of the building in Beijing’s Zhongguancun tech district that houses Google’s office. Employee tells me that everyone was evacuated for 20 mins but are now being let back in. Cause still not known. pic.twitter.com/Gvh6DejlLU

— Raymond Zhong (@zhonggg) December 12, 2018
Employees inside were evacuated from the building, but allowed to return later on, tech journalist Raymond Zhong reported. The cause of the fire is still unknown.

Tensions were high at the Oval Office as Donald Trump and top Democratic lawmakers, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, clashed over funding for his border wall and the government shutdown in front of the cameras.
The officials raised their voices, pointed fingers and kept interrupting each other during a rare public spat that went on in front of the amazed journalists for more than 16 minutes.

Trump repeatedly warned that he was going to shut down the government if his project of a wall on the US-Mexico border doesn’t get $5 billion in funding next year. The Democrats have so far been only willing to allocate $1.3 billion so that president could fulfill his campaign promise.