GDP is forecast to expand 1.5% in 2024 against the euro area’s 0.5% © Getty Images / Andrea Nicolini

Western sanctions have so far failed to halt Russia’s economic growth, which is now projected to outpace that of the Eurozone, the Guardian reported on Thursday, citing investment firm Amundi.

According to the company’s forecast, Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 1.5% in 2024. In contrast, the Eurozone economy is set to expand by mere 0.5% next year, according to Amundi, Europe’s largest fund manager in terms of assets.

Webmaster addition: Europe, like the US, is spending vast sums of money on illegal immigrants, which means that money is not available for investing in new businesses.

Hundreds of police officers searched the properties of Hamas members and followers in Germany on Thursday morning following a formal ban on any activity by or in support of the militant group.

The German government implemented the ban on Nov. 2 and dissolved Samidoun, a group that was behind a celebration in Berlin of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service estimates that Hamas has around 450 members in the country. Their activities range from expressions of sympathy and propaganda activities to financing and fundraising activities to strengthen the organization abroad.

Hungary is set to receive 900 million euros ($981 million) in European Union money, the EU’s executive arm said Thursday, despite the Hungarian prime minister’s attempts to scupper the bloc’s support for Ukraine.

That money comes from the bloc’s REPowerEU program aimed at helping the 27 EU nations recover from the energy crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, and reduce their dependance to Russian fossil fuels.

The proposal to unlock the money in pre-financing came as Orban - a frequent critic of the EU and often at odds with European leaders over his government’s record on the rule of law - threatens to derail Ukraine’s ambition to join the bloc, and to block the disbursement of a planned 50 billion euros ($54.5 billion) in aid to Kyiv.

The Israeli state and Hamas appear to have reached a tentative hostage exchange deal.

Via NBC News:

“Israel and Hamas have agreed to a breakthrough deal to release 50 women and children who were kidnapped and held in Gaza, a potential landmark deal that will also involve a four-day pause in fighting, the delivery of hundreds of aid trucks, and the release of 150 Palestinian women and children* held in Israeli jails.”

*Note that when Israeli civilians are held in Gaza, they were “kidnapped” and are termed “hostages,” but when Israeli jails Palestinian women and children with no charges or judicial process of any kind, they do not receive the benefit of the same designation in Western corporate state media. That’s how subtle propaganda can get, and it’s easy to miss it if you’re not attuned to the pettiness with which these organizations play semantical games.

Curiously, though, Israel is not making any effort to get non-Israeli hostages released — only Israeli.

On November 16, two Palestinian human rights organizations, three Palestinians and five Palestinian Americans brought an emergency motion in United States federal court to immediately force President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to stop providing additional weapons, money, and military and diplomatic support to Israel, which is committing genocide in Gaza.

“Our Palestinian clients are asking the court to urgently order Biden, Blinken and Austin to stop supporting Israel’s genocide,” said Maria LaHood, Deputy Legal Director of Center for Constitutional Rights which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Palestinians, in an interview with Truthout. “Israeli officials stated their intent to eliminate everything in Gaza, and then proceeded to carpet-bomb it, killing more than 11,000 people, including nearly 5,000 children thus far — many more are missing, buried under rubble, crushed and suffocating before they die.”

LaHood also pointed to Israel’s ongoing siege in which Palestinians in Gaza remain cut off from food, water and electricity.

“Those still alive are starving and drinking contaminated water, fearing being bombed. Yet the U.S. continues to expedite weapons and other support, in defiance of its international law obligation to prevent genocide, not fuel it,” LaHood told Truthout. “Our clients, who have already collectively lost more than 116 of their family members, are asking the court to provide preliminary relief so they do not suffer even more irreparable harm.”

In this battle that began on 7 October, resistance groups have produced a steady stream of videos documenting the fight.

In this segment from our latest livestream, we talked about the multiple fronts of resistance beyond the battle for Gaza and the role that the media arms of these groups have played in documenting a crucial element of the fight.

Anti-Israel protesters accused the New York Times of genocide as they gathered outside its offices on Thursday, just hours after pro-Palestine demonstrators crashed the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Furious demonstrators targeted the newspaper as part of a rally organizers called the 'Thankstaking for Gaza and Indigenous Resistance Everywhere.'

The protesters targeted the New York Times as they passed by its headquarters, chanting: 'Every time media lies, a neighborhood in Gaza dies' and 'New York Times, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide.'

As they passed through Times Square, they yelled at tourists: 'While you’re shopping, bombs are dropping.'

Europe pushes aside the principle of indivisible security and NATO’s expansion cannot but prompt Russia’s retaliatory measures, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

"Europe does not wish to heed our concerns and Europe pushes aside the invariable principle of indivisible security, which means that they talk about their security to the detriment of ours," the Russian presidential spokesman said, commenting on a statement by Chief of NATO’s Joint Support and Enabling Command (JSEC) Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank on the need of creating "a military Schengen," a free military passage area similar to the political Schengen zone.

"In this case, I want to stress again that it is NATO that is constantly moving its infrastructure close to our border. We are not moving towards NATO’s infrastructure. It is NATO that is moving towards us. This cannot but cause our concern and this cannot but prompt countermeasures to ensure our security," the Kremlin press secretary stressed.

 The Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is instructing Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents to ask immigrants they encounter for their “preferred pronouns” and to use gender-neutral language while on the job.

 President Joe Biden claimed during a press conference on Friday that the reason Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 Israelis on October 7 was because he was getting ready to bring peace to the Middle East.

 U.S. officials began expressing concern this week about a new outbreak in respiratory illnesses in China that have sent a surge of children to the hospital.

 A train derailment in Kentucky on Wednesday caused molten sulphur to spill out of two cars, starting a fire and leading to some residents evacuating the area. 

Webmaster addition: Full length documentary about the George Floyd hoax. I am reposting it again in light of the stabbing of Derek Chauvin by a still-unnamed fellow prisoner.

The government wants Chauvin to "go away" (like Jeff Epstein) so it doesn't have to admit they wrongfully convicted the man. Derek Chauvin has become a major embarrassment since the release of the autopsy which showed no trauma to George Floyd's neck and that he actually died of a drug overdose. The refusal of the Supreme Court to review the case just made things worse.

I don't expect Chauvin to leave the hospital alive, like Seth Rich.

Israel raging at Hamas for killing Israelis is like a man raging at his shadow for darkening his floor. It’s maddening to see grown adults acting like Hamas are these foreign invaders who attacked Israelis out of the blue because of a hatred for Jewish people, like they’re internet-radicalized neo-Nazis from eastern Europe or something.

Hamas attacked Israel because Israel is a murderous and tyrannical apartheid regime who butchers children and makes lives miserable for the Palestinian people. The violence on October 7 was the echo of the violence Israel has been inflicting on Palestinians for generations. Only a fool gets angry at his echo for talking back to him.

Israel has done more to damage Israel’s image in the last seven weeks than anti-semites did in the last seven decades.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it has requested information from China regarding the increase in cases of respiratory diseases and clusters of pneumonia among children. [Reports emerged] that an unexplained pneumonia-like sickness is reportedly swiftly spreading through schools in China, leading to a surge of hospitalizations of children. According to the WHO, the authorities of China's National Health Commission reported an increase in the incidence of respiratory diseases in the country on November 13. On Tuesday, media outlets and the Emerging Diseases Monitoring Program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases "reported clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children in northern China."

Webmaster addition: And JUST in time for election season!

The United States on Monday approved another $100 million in military aid to Ukraine as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited, despite an impasse in Congress in approving wider funding.

"I announced today another $100 million drawdown using presidential drawdown authority to provide additional artillery munitions, additional interceptors for air defense and a number of anti-tank weapons as well," Austin told reporters in Kyiv.

"So you know, our support continues," said Austin, who promised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of US support for the "long haul."

Israeli intelligence received a detailed report on an impending assault by Hamas shortly before the Palestinian militant group’s actual attack on October 7, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing persons familiar with the matter.

The warning, compiled by border sentries, – “many of them female soldiers,” the FT was told– arrived through secure communication lines to the highest-ranking intelligence officer in the southern command a few weeks before the attack, sources said, without identifying the senior security official.

The report contained “specific warnings” on the looming assault, namely Hamas’ plans to breach the border at multiple points, enter Israeli territory and seize local settlements, a person with direct knowledge of its contents told FT.

Join us on a breathtaking exploration of China's monumental mega-projects that redefine innovation and push the boundaries of what's possible! From towering dams taller than skyscrapers to colossal railway bridges spanning thousands of kilometers, these feats of engineering and architecture will leave you in awe. Discover the awe-inspiring Bahen Hydropower Plant, the world's largest Viaduct, architectural wonders like the Guangzhou Opera House, and the transformative Three Gorges Hydroelectric Power Station. Witness China's groundbreaking landscape-altering venture, reshaping mountains to create new cities! Don't miss this eye-opening journey through China's most daring projects, redefining the future with every colossal endeavor.

The US and its allies will continue backing Israel's war on Gaza after a brief truce. But as the case for 'genocide' grows stronger, the new multipolar powers will have to confront the old hegemons and their Rules-Based Chaos.

While the world cries “Israeli genocide,” the Biden White House is gushing over the upcoming Gaza truce it helped broker, as though it's actually “on the verge” of its “biggest diplomatic victory.” 

Behind the self-congratulatory narratives, the US administration is not remotely “wary about Netanyahu’s endgame,” it fully endorses it - genocide included - as agreed at the White House less than three weeks before Al-Aqsa Flood, in a 20 September meeting between Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe “The Mummy” Biden’s handlers.

With an eye on the Ukraine war, Dmitry Medvedev, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation’s Security Council, held a meeting at the Federal Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the “Rudnevo” industrial park to discuss the increase in production of drones that could be used in the so-called ‘special military operation zone.’

The high priests of academic and “official” history love a good villain for two reasons:  First, because good official villains make the struggles and accomplishments of good official heroes even more awe-inspiring.  And, second, because nothing teaches (or propagandizes) the masses more thoroughly than the social or political lessons inherent in the documented rise and fall of the world’s most despicable inhabitants.

We get shivers of fear and excitement when we discuss the evils and the follies of ancient monsters like Nero, Attila the Hun, Caligula, etc, or more modern monsters, like Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Goebbels, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and so on.  We take solace in the idea that “we are nothing like them”, and our nation has “moved beyond” such animalistic behavior.

But even more fascinating popcorn-style history is found not in the destruction of tyrants, but the destruction of empires.

Former harbormaster of Oakland Brock De Lappe doesn't like to use the word "piracy" to describe waterborne crime on the Oakland/Alameda Estuary.

"People have this romantic view of pirates—Johnny Depp; Pirates of the Caribbean—argh! Avast ye, matey!" said Mr. De Lappe, a marine consultant who was also Alameda's harbormaster before his retirement.

The reality is anything but romantic. The so-called pirates are nothing like the "Real Oakland Raiders," as one newspaper headline put it.

"These people are just common criminals," living on illegal "anchor-off" vessels committing robberies within the San Francisco Bay, he said. Anchor-offs, or anchor outs, are boats that are illegally anchored without a permit.

This past summer, a spree of robberies plagued the 800-foot-wide estuary involving stolen motor boats that were used to prey on larger vessels and marinas.

"We’re here to stab white people," attackers who killed a 16 year-old boy at a village party in France last weekend were heard to say. Why did international media fail to report on the racist terror incident?

All 44,000 hours of footage from January 6th has been publicly released by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

In the raw data, regular mask-wearers had a 74-75% higher risk of testing positive for Covid.

While White Americans are only 54% of their nation’s population, Whites constitute 80% (nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/clr/public-school-teachers) of all qualified teachers.

Hundreds of thousands of American teachers have resigned since 2020.
As of 2023 44% of American school districts lack sufficient numbers of teachers (www.lawdistrict.com/articles/teacher-resignation-crisis), and this trend only continues to worsen.