Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that Hezbollah must be pushed back from the Israeli border, and if it’s not achieved through diplomatic means, Israel will take military action.

The comments suggest Israel is considering opening a second front in Lebanon beyond the cross-border strikes Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging since October 7.

According to a recent report from Axios, some US officials are concerned that Israel might provoke Hezbollah to justify a wider war in Lebanon. The report said that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had “expressed concern” in a phone call with Gallant in November about the risk of escalation on Israel’s northern border.

Founded by a serial rapist known as the “Haredi Jeffrey Epstein,” Israeli ultra-Orthodox rescue group ZAKA is responsible for some of the most obscene post-October 7 atrocity fabrications, from beheaded babies to “mass rape” to a fetus cut from its mother.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken and President Joseph Biden have each echoed demonstrably false ZAKA testimonies about Hamas atrocities.

Marred by allegations of financial fraud, ZAKA is leveraging October 7 publicity to raise unprecedented sums of cash.

Its rival, United Hatzalah, has spun out bogus tales of babies baked in ovens as it closes in on a $50 million fundraising goal.

VIX is below 13 again. QQQ has been basically flat for nearly a month.

Israeli air strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip killed dozens of Palestinians and wounded many others overnight and on Wednesday morning.

The attack on the residential area has reduced several housing blocks to rubble, including the family home of Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Moemen al-Sharifi.

Sharifi's mother, father and siblings were killed in the attack, in addition to 21 members of his extended family, including nieces and nephews.

Sharifi told Al Jazeera that an explosive barrel had hit the house, leaving a deep hole in the structure.

As the United States Dollar collapses into worthlessness, JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon is testifying in front of Congress about how he’d ban crypto if he were in charge of the government.

Of course he would. That’s because cryptos are interfering with the banker monopoly on creating money out of thin air on computers. They don’t want the competition. It has especially become problematic as Bitcoin is being used more and more as an alternative currency system.

His claim that cryptos are only used for criminal purposes is ridiculous considering the amount of criminality that exists inside the banking system. These banks literally create money out of nothing and charge people interest on the money they created. Their entire business is literal fraud.

Israel on Wednesday announced its decision to revoke the residence visa of United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator Lynn Hastings on Wednesday.

“Someone who did not condemn Hamas for the brutal massacre of 1,200 Israelis … but instead condemns Israel, a democratic country that protects its citizens, cannot serve in the UN and cannot enter Israel!” wrote Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen on X.

But the incident is only the latest in a series of instances of Israel clashing with the UN over the war in Gaza in ways that are uncommon for member states of the global body.

Webmaster addition: Israel's membership at the UN is unique in that it had two conditions. The first was a Palestinian right of return to their homes, and second, that Israel would compensate Palestinians for their homes if they did not return. Israel has never complied with either condition, and, protected by the US, has continued to openly defy the UN ever since.

Over the weekend, border-policy negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans fell apart. The talks were meant to firm up Republican support for the president’s massive $105 billion military support proposal ahead of Wednesday’s vote by including additional funds for border security in the spending package. Now, with no imminent approval of further aid to Ukraine, hawks in government and the media are trying to stoke panic about what will happen if Kyiv is cut off from US support.

In a letter to Congress Monday, White House budget director Shalanda Young told Congress the funds will dry up by the end of the year:

I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks. There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money—and nearly out of time.

The House will consider a short-term extension of the nation’s warrantless surveillance powers as part of the defense policy bill, House intelligence leaders confirmed Wednesday.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) will include a provision to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) into mid-April — dodging its end of the year expiration as Congress battles over four competing plans to reauthorize and reform the law.

“Obviously the House has been in chaos and our legislative business has been disrupted. So I think it’s an appropriate extension that gives us the ability to address 702. By extending it, we avoid the calamity,” caused by a lapse of an important national security tool, Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) told reporters Wednesday afternoon.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was under pressure by some in the GOP to only consider Section 702 reauthorization as a standalone bill, arguing the risk to Americans who may see their communication swept up if they communicate with those being surveilled by the government requires careful vetting.

Webmaster addition:

The Israeli military has asked Palestinian residents of Gaza to evacuate to a part of the town of al-Mawasi in the south of the besieged strip, designating it as a safe space.

The directive comes at a time when Israel has stepped up its bombing of southern Gaza, especially around the city of Khan Younis, which the Israeli military claims is sheltering leaders of Hamas.

But can the space declared “safe” by Israeli authorities actually accommodate the more than 1.8 million Palestinians who have been forced to evacuate their homes since the outbreak of violence on October 7?

In late October, the liberal anti-establishment investigative site Consortium News filed a historic suit against the United States of America and Newsguard Industries, describing a state-funded effort to label, defame, and stigmatize “media organizations that oppose or dissent from American foreign and defense policy.”

Now, a pair of conservative media outlets, The Federalist and The Daily Wire, have filed a bookend suit to match the Consortium News action. This time the defendant is the Global Engagement Center, the State Department organization ostensibly dedicated to countering “foreign state and non-state propaganda.” Much as Consortium News alleged the Pentagon funded Newsguard to censor its critics, the Federalist/Daily Wire action alleges the State Department sponsored Newsguard and the U.K.-based Global Disinformation Index as “censorship enterprises” targeting domestic speech, in direct violation of its charter.

Although the 1947 Smith-Mundt Act barring agencies like the State Department from engaging in propaganda at home was “modernized” through legislation passed in 2012, the broad ban on intelligence or diplomatic services meddling in the domestic news landscapes remains. Even the “modernized” Smith-Mundt Act declares bluntly that no State Department funds shall be “used to influence public opinion in the United States.” Additionally, as the Federalist/Daily Wire action cites, the law governing State Department conduct, 22 U.S. Code § 2656, says unequivocally that its mandate is limited to “matters respecting foreign affairs.” For the State Department to fund organizations that up and down-rank domestic media organizations is a ludicrously obvious no-no.

As many as 883 Russians out of about 1,100 who applied for help in evacuating from the Gaza Strip have already arrived in Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing.

"After the resumption of the gradual exit of foreign nationals through the Rafah border crossing in Egypt on December 2, we managed to get 135 Russian and Palestinian citizens out," Zakharova said. "This information is as of late yesterday, so please understand that these figures can fluctuate literally within a few hours. On December 5, another group of 120 people arrived at Domodedovo airport on a Russian Emergencies Ministry special flight from Cairo," Zakharova said.

The Palestinian Authority‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called for international pressure to halt a planned march by far-right Israeli groups and extremist settlers on al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds. 

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates called for international intervention to stop the controversial parade by extremist Israeli settlers against al-Aqsa Mosque.

The organizers of the planned march say they reached an agreement with Israeli police to let the show roll in al-Quds' Old City on Thursday evening.

The march's exact route is unclear, but the Israeli police reportedly said they would not allow the participants to come near the al-Aqsa Mosque. 

A new Defense Department watchdog report raises troubling red flags about the state of military health care for the 9.6 million uniformed and civilian employees, contractors, veterans and family members who depend on the system.

Beneficiaries around the globe are grappling with provider shortages, subpar network options and long wait times, the Pentagon inspector general said in the Nov. 29 report. The publication compiled trends that watchdogs in each military branch have uncovered in recent years.

Chief among the issues is the challenges troops and their families face when trying to access health care at military treatment facilities in the United States and overseas.

Pakistan's major religiopolitical parties have designated December 8 as the "National Day of Protection of Al-Aqsa Mosque." On this day, they plan to stage rallies across the country to condemn atrocities committed by Israel against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Israel of a “heavy price” if the Tel Aviv regime carries out its alleged plot to target members of the Palestinian Hamas resistance group on Turkish soil.

The Turkish leader made the warning as he was speaking with journalists on his return flight from a two-day Qatar trip on Tuesday, just a day after the Shin Bet chief revealed that Tel Aviv intends to assassinate Hamas members living outside Palestine.

“If they dare to take such a step against Turkey, they will pay a price which they cannot recover from,” Erdogan said, stressing, “Those who attempt such a thing should not forget that the consequences can be extremely serious. No one is unaware of Turkey’s progress in both intelligence and security fields worldwide. Additionally, we are not a newly established state.”

His warning came just two days after Israel's Kan news network aired a recording in which Ronen Bar, the head of Israel's internal spy agency – known as Shin Bet - said Tel Aviv was determined to kill Hamas leaders “in every location” around the world.

Hezbollah launched a new wave of attacks against the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on December 6, ignoring threats of an Israeli threat to invade southern Lebanon.

In eight separate statements, Hezbollah said that its fighters attacked the military sites of Radar, Ruwaisat al-Qarn, al-Dhahira, Hadab al-Bustan, al-Malikiyah, al-Raheb as well as Ramim Barracks and the Naqoura naval site.

The group announced in two other statements that it had targeted three gatherings of Israeli troops in the border areas of Jal al-Alam, Karm al-Tuffah and Tal al-Shair.

The attacks were carried out “to support the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in support of their brave and honorable resistance,” Hezbollah noted in its statements.

As usual, the IDF responded by carrying out a series of air and artillery strikes on alleged targets of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Lebanese media didn’t report any civilian casualties. From its side, Hezbollah said that one of its fighters was killed “on the road to Jerusalem.”

The largest Jewish Groups are forming what they call the Oct 7 ‘Disinfo’ Organization, to spin the events of that day, and shape the narrative. Even casual observers are calling this a full scale propaganda effort.

The most powerful Jewish interest groups in the US have gotten together to form the 10/7 Project - an effort to combat “Jewish hate in America and the world” and to dispel “myths” about the day’s events.

The organization will fund a centralized communications operation to feed mainstream newsrooms with ‘fact-based information’ about the war, and will also release a daily newsletter to inform news outlets what is being ‘underreported.’

Austria is “overflowing” with Russian natural gas, which allows long-time customers of Russian state corporation Gazprom to increase sales to its neighbours, Bloomberg reported. The outlet added that the flow from Russia represents more than half of Austria’s demand, which is only taking timid steps to diversify its gas sources. It appears that despite the harsh rhetoric against Russia, Austria will not allow itself to suffer like neighbouring Germany.

As a hub for Russian flows for over half a century, the country has storage depots and pipelines historically set up to route fuel to Germany, Slovenia, Hungary and Italy, and Austrian state-owned company OMV AG has a contract with Gazprom until 2040. The Central European country has said it wants to diversify away from Russia, but trade data shows a steady flow through a pipeline from Ukraine that meets more than half of the economy’s demand.

However, Walter Boltz, a former Austrian regulator and current senior energy consultant at Baker & Mckenzie LLP, said he is increasingly alarmed by this so-called failure to diversify as Ukraine’s gas transport contract with Russia expires in December 2024, and Kiev has committed not to negotiate a new agreement with Russia.

Ireland’s “Hate Speech Bill” or The Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 is a radical update to Irish hate crime law. It is a blueprint for authoritarianism, threatening jail time for the possession of memes and even reversing Ireland’s constitutionally guaranteed presumption of innocence – you are presumed guilty until you can prove yourself innocent.

Despite the efforts of military commissars to hunt for new soldiers on the streets, the mobilization efforts in Ukraine have failed. The Ukrainian army is suffering from a shortage of personnel. The number mobilized no longer covers the losses at the front.

While the number of women in Ukrainian trenches has already decreased, Kiev sends children to the battlefield.

The head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service already warned that London and Washington had ‘recommended’ Ukrainian authorities to reduce the conscription age to 17 and raise it to 70 year olds.

Kiev is already changing legislation according to its orders from the West.

Draft law on raising the military age up to 70 years has already been registered in the Ukrainian parliament.

In May, the conscription age was lowered to 25; but this was not enough to continue fighting for the interests of the West.

The new Minister of Defense of Ukraine proposed to further lower the military age. Educational institutions were obliged to transfer lists of students aged 16 and over.

Webmaster addition: When Germany realized they were losing the war, they conscripted children as well.

Less than a month before Russia takes over the chairmanship of BRICS-11 where both UAE and Saudi Arabia will be full members, Russia makes a big move to bring cooperation with UAE and Saudi Arabia to an unprecedented level.

Russia ties everything together in this meeting: Head of States relations, Foreign Policy, Non-Dollar currency and Financial Policy, Industrial Policy, Nuclear Cooperation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Space Development, International Direct Investments – and the whole private Business sector. Note also that Putin travels safely in person to both the UAE and Saudi Arabia. 

Both UAE and Saudi Arabia are visited by President Putin, Foreign Minister Lavrov, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation  Andrei Belousov, head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade  Denis Manturov, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, head of the Central Bank  Elvira Nabiullina, head of Roscosmos Yuri Borisov, head Rosatom Alexey Likhachev, and head of Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev. The RDIF recently published a Russian international platform for AI services. The delegation also includes representatives of the business community. See this.

In cooperation with Russia and China, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are becoming not only oil powers, but powers in the modern AI, hi-tech knowledge and Space economy – and military powers.

The two remaining members of West Africa’s G5 Sahel alliance on Wednesday said they were paving the way to dissolving the anti-rebel grouping after the other three founding countries left.

In a joint statement, Chad and Mauritania said they “take note and respect the sovereign decision” of Burkina Faso and Niger to leave the alliance, following in the footsteps of Mali, which quit in 2022.

They “will implement all necessary measures in accordance with the G5 founding convention, notably Article 20,” the statement added. The article says the alliance can be dissolved at the request of at least three member states.

The United States has determined that warring factions in Sudan have committed war crimes, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said, as Washington increases pressure on the army (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to end fighting that has caused a humanitarian crisis.

The US also found that the RSF and their allied militias committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, Blinken said in a statement on Wednesday.

Webmaster addition: Talk about a double standard!!!

The United States and Ukraine signed a statement on intent for military co-production and technical data exchange, the White House said in a press release.

Earlier in the day, the United States hosted the first day of the US-Ukraine Defense Industrial Base Conference in Washington.

"The Department of Defense, Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, and Ministry for Strategic Industries of Ukraine signed a Statement of Intent on Co-production and Technical Data Exchange, which will work to address the urgent operational needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including in the areas of air defense systems, repair and sustainment, and production of critical munitions," the release said on Wednesday.

Essential to science, whether basic or applied, is the freedom of open discussion and debate. When varying interpretations exist, no opinion should be purged. Any entity, individual or collective, claiming authority to impose its determination of what is truth and what is “misinformation” is totalitarian and anti-science by definition. So it is the height of irony that the nation’s agency representing science, the National Science Foundation, has become a primary instrument for the protection of official governmental narrative and the attack on opposing views. But there you are.

That both the universities of Washington and Wisconsin are being funded by NSF through its Convergence Accelerator program was detailed on Global Research in August. To these NSF-funded projects must be added Stanford University, which is working in close association with U of WA. In all cases, the search is for detecting and countering “misinformation” on social media. Special emphasis is on Covid-19, vaccination hesitancy and the growing conviction that elections have been, and continue to be, stolen.

Stanford, through the Stanford Internet Observatory, and U of WA, through its Center For An Informed Public, joined with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab and Graphika, a company using AI to study the internet, to create the Election Integrity Partnership. A reading of the one page Executive Summary of EIP’s final report, which begins with “On January 6, 2021, an armed mob stormed the US Capitol…..”, and ends with “All stakeholders must focus on predicting and pre-bunking false narratives …..”, is an enlightening glimpse into the thinking and strategy permeating the Censorship Industrial Complex.

Chinese authorities have officially given the green light to commission a working thorium-based molten salt nuclear reactor. Currently under construction since 2018, the reactor in question, "Thorium Molten Salt Reactor - Liquid Fuel 1" (TMSR-LF1), is being built at the Hongshagang Industrial Cluster, Wuwei City, Gansu Province.

If successful, the TMSR-LF1 has the potential to open doors for developing and constructing a more extensive demonstration facility by 2030. Additionally, it could lead to constructing a TMSR fuel salt batch pyro-process demonstration facility, which would enable the utilization of the thorium-uranium cycle by the early 2040s.

Webmaster addition: Thorium reactors have been in development for a while. They are far safer than Uranium reactors and produce far less toxic waste. The reason the US has favored Uranium reactors is that you get bomb stuff out of them (plutonium) which is something a Thorium reactor cannot do.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) allegedly lost his temper on Tuesday because Republican senators insisted top government officials discuss the border crisis.

According to reports, a classified briefing about Ukraine funding — led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Charles Brown Jr. — became heated when Republican lawmakers began asking the officials direct questions about border security.

Schumer, however, immediately tried to stop such inquiries, demanding lawmakers speak only about Ukraine funding.