Headlines 11 Jan 24

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January 11, 2024

prepared on 10 Jan 24 for release on 11 Jan 24

Are You Prepared for Danger: Lessons from Proverbs 22:3

We often encounter dangers in life – sometimes unexpectedly. How we prepare for these dangers can often be the difference between a calamity and a minor inconvenience. Proverbs 22:3 states, “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.” This wisdom, applicable to all facets of life, reminds us of the importance of being informed, making appropriate plans, and taking actions to ensure our safety and well-being.

 

Yemen Announces They Attacked a U.S. Warship (HalTurner)

The group Ansar Allah, which is a Houthi organization that ostensibly runs the country of Yemen, announced today they attempted to attack a U.S. Warship with Drones and Missiles.  The US says the attack was thwarted.

A statement issued by Yemen reads as follows:

The naval forces, the missile force, and the drone force of the Yemeni armed forces carried out a joint military operation with a large number of ballistic and naval missiles and drones, targeting an American ship that was providing support to the Zionist entity.

The operation was a preliminary response to the malicious attack on our naval forces by American enemy forces on Sunday, Jumada al-Akhirah 1445 AH.

The Yemeni Armed Forces affirm that they will not hesitate to respond appropriately to all hostile threats within the right of our legitimate defense of our country, people, and nation.

The Yemeni armed forces continue to prevent Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine from navigating in the Arab and Red Seas until the aggression stops and the siege on our steadfast brothers in the Gaza Strip is lifted.

The Yemeni Armed Forces confirm their entire commitment to maintaining shipping trade in the Red and Arabian Seas to all destinations except the ports of occupied Palestine.

UK and US naval forces have repelled the largest attack yet by Yemen's Houthi rebels on Red Sea shipping, UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps says. (BBC)

Carrier-based jets and warships shot down 21 drones and missiles launched by the Iran-backed group overnight. The Houthis said they targeted a US ship in retaliation for the killing of rebels who tried to attack a container ship by using speed boats last month. Mr Shapps said he had "no doubt" that Iran was heavily behind such attacks. Asked about possible Western strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen in response, he said: "Watch this space."

The Houthis have carried out 26 attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea since 19 November, according to the US military.

What do Red Sea assaults mean for global trade? (BBC)

Global supply chains could face severe disruption as a result of the world's biggest shipping companies diverting journeys away from the Red Sea.

Attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen on commercial vessels in recent weeks have resulted in many firms deciding to avoid one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

The Houthi group has declared its support for Hamas and has said it is targeting ships travelling to Israel, though it is not clear if all the ships that have been attacked were actually heading to Israel.

 

'I cannot sleep in peace' - Israelis fearful as Hezbollah tensions soar (BBC)

Efrat Eldan Schechter is a native of the Northern Galilee and never even considered moving anywhere else to bring up her family - that is until the events of 7 October.

When she heard and watched reports of what was happening in southern Israel that morning, as heavily armed Hamas gunmen streamed out of Gaza, she was immediately taken back to stories from the "Yom Kippur" or 1973 Middle East war, when Israel was attacked simultaneously on two fronts.

"I was terrified. Everyone was sleeping in and I thought it's going to be '73 all over again and Hezbollah is coming for us too," says Efrat, as our interview in her front garden is punctuated by the regular loud thud of outgoing Israeli artillery fire.

"Immediately, I woke everyone up and very quickly got everything together and drove to a relative's house in the centre of Israel."

 

Kremlin Sounds the Alarm on Increased Attacks on Border Region (NewsWeek)

Russia vowed to do "everything" possible to protect the city of Belgorod as Ukraine ramps up its attacks on the border region in western Russia.

The promise comes a day after the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that it intercepted an attack by Ukraine on Monday. Residents of Belgorod have been advised to evacuate from the Ukrainian border in light of Kyiv's repeated assaults in recent weeks, including one late last month that Russian officials said killed dozens of citizens.

"Of course, our military will continue to do everything in order to minimize the danger at first and then eliminate it entirely," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday, as reported by Agence France-Presse.

 

Iran develops new high tech attack drone for Russia (JPost)

Iran has developed a new attack drone, the Shahed-107, for Russia in its war against Ukraine and is close to providing Moscow with surface-to-surface missiles, Sky News reported on Wednesday, citing an informed security source.

The Shahed-107 is an “explosive and reconnaissance” UAV with the technology to seek out high-value battlefield targets, such as British and American multiple-launch rocket systems used by Ukrainian forces.

Iran has reportedly sold “a few units” to Russia in a deal that is estimated to be worth more than $2 million. 

 

Ukraine’s War Effort Is Stuck. This Heroic Battlefield Failure Shows Why. (WSJ)

The planners of Ukraine’s counteroffensive against the country’s Russian invaders last year envisioned that elite forces, like the unit led by Capt. Anatoliy Kharchenko, would sweep in to deliver the final blows of a D-Day-like triumph. 

But by the time paratroopers in Kharchenko’s company entered the battle on a moonless night last August, the counteroffensive was already skidding toward failure—and his men were about to learn all of the deadly reasons why. 

As the company crept along the edge of a field in southeastern Ukraine, the operation’s objectives had already been severely downsized. Because the West had dithered for months over the provision of tanks and other armored vehicles, the Russians were ready. They had dug in on the flat farmland of southeastern Ukraine, laying hundreds of thousands of mines and setting up firing positions for machine guns and antitank missiles.

 

White House Throws Support Behind Seizing Frozen Russian Assets (Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden’s administration is backing legislation that would let it seize some of $300 billion in frozen Russian assets to help pay for reconstruction of Ukraine, a shift as the White House seeks to rally support in Congress to further fund the war against Vladimir Putin’s forces.

The administration welcomes “in principle” a bill that would allow it to confiscate the funds, according to a November memo from the National Security Council to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“The bill would provide the authority needed for the executive branch to seize Russian sovereign assets for the benefit of Ukraine,” the NSC said in the memo, one of three such communications seen by Bloomberg News. 

 

Ecuador: Gunmen storm television studio live on air (BBC)

Masked gunmen have broken into a live television studio in Ecuador and threatened terrified staff.

Employees were forced on to the floor during the broadcast by the public television channel TC in the city of Guayaquil before the live feed cut out. Police say they later freed all the staff and made 13 arrests, showing off weapons recovered. At least 10 people have been killed since a 60-day state of emergency began in Ecuador on Monday.

The emergency was declared after a notorious gangster vanished from his prison cell. It is unclear whether the incident at the TV studio in Guayaquil was related to the disappearance from a prison in the same city of the boss of the Choneros gang, Adolfo Macías Villamar, or Fito as he is better known.

 

Ecuador president says country is at war as gangs hold prison staff hostage (Reuters)

GUAYAQUIL/QUITO, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Ecuador President Daniel Noboa said on Wednesday that his country was "at war" with drug gangs who are holding more than 130 prison guards and other staff hostage and who briefly captured a TV station live on air and set off explosions in a surge of violence that has left city streets deserted.

Noboa on Tuesday named 22 gangs as terrorist organizations, making them official military targets. The president took power in November pledging to tackle a growing security problem caused by a rise in drug-trafficking gangs transporting cocaine through Ecuador.

 

Streets empty as Ecuador reels from violence (BBC)

Soldiers are on the streets in several cities in Ecuador as the country reels from an unprecedented day of violence.

Masked gunmen stormed a public TV studio during a live broadcast in the city of Guayaquil and bombs were detonated across Ecuador on Tuesday. More than 130 prison staff are being held hostage by inmates in five jails. A 60-day state of emergency began on Monday after a notorious gangster vanished from his prison cell. It is unclear whether the attack on the TV studio in Ecuador's largest city was related to the disappearance of the boss of the Choneros gang, Adolfo Macías Villamar, or Fito, as he is better known. President Daniel Noboa declared the state of emergency in response to a wave of recent jail riots and escapes from prisons and other acts of violence blamed by authorities on criminal gangs.

 

China makes preparations for a war that the Pentagon says is not inevitable (WashTimes)

China is preparing for a conflict with the United States by taking steps that include military reforms and drills, a stockpiling of oil and food, increased spying and military appointments. Despite what critics say are the mounting danger signs, the Pentagon insists that conflict with China is neither imminent nor inevitable.

The Defense Department’s assurances are increasingly tough to sell to many in Congress. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, Alabama Republican, said U.S. military commanders and intelligence officials warn that Chinese military forces are getting ready for military action as soon as 2027.

 

China’s shadowy information-manipulation tactics seen targeting Taiwan vote (WashTimes)

TAIPEI, Taiwan — As Taiwan prepares to vote in a new president and a new parliament Saturday, the democratic island may be the fiercest battleground in an information/disinformation war being waged worldwide. The so-called “Infodemic” infecting Taiwan reflects global tech trends and mainline China’s deliberate strategy to amplify its message and expand its influence online.

In political and military hot spots as far-flung as the high Himalayas and the South China Sea, Beijing is increasingly deploying “grey-zone” tactics that include gradual expansionism, military intimidation, diplomatic muscle-flexing, economic pressure and cognitive warfare.

 

Here’s how Taiwan’s election could upend US-China relations (Politico)

Taiwan goes to the polls on Saturday for a presidential election that will determine how it navigates its increasingly volatile relationship with Beijing. And Washington is caught in the middle — with already fraught U.S.-China ties on the line.

The two main parties offer starkly different approaches to managing the longrunning threat from China to the self-governing island.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party — whose candidate Lai Ching-te is widely favored to win — has long called for independence from China and has pledged to increase the island’s military capabilities to fend off any potential attack from Beijing. The opposition Kuomintang, or KMT, party opposes any moves toward independence and says friendlier relations with China will lower the chance of war.

 

Covid-19 – Mass Formation or Mass Atrocity? (UnlimitedHangout)

With the declaration of the pandemic that changed the world in March 2020, an army of thought police descended upon populations worldwide. Overnight, the public face of science was transformed from a civil and civilian endeavor into a matter of law and order. In place of what had formerly emanated from research communities came edicts from government officials, bolstered by celebrity bureaucrats, enforced by censorship, smearing, and coercion, and backed up by riot squads (e.g. here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). In the process, science as previously known, a careful product of time, hypothesis-testing, collective critique, and pertinent subject matter expertise, gave way to The Science™, a kaleidoscopic, ever-changing and capricious set of pseudo-medical justifications for government overreach and violations of citizens’ rights, riding on rolling waves of public messaging and manufactured fear, in keeping with a totalitarian model.

 

Latest IgG4 publication and the Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche connection (YouTube)

 

Sustainable Debt Slavery (UnlimitedHangout)

The UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is pitched as a “shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” At the heart of this agenda are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. 

Many of these goals sound nice in theory and paint a picture of an emergent global utopia – such as no poverty, no world hunger and reduced inequality. Yet, as is true with so much, the reality behind most – if not all – of the SDGs are policies cloaked in the language of utopia that – in practice – will only benefit the economic elite and entrench their power. 

This can clearly be seen in fine print of the SDGs, as there is considerable emphasis on debt and on entrapping nation states (especially developing states) in debt as a means of forcing adoption of SDG-related policies. It is then little coincidence that many of the driving forces behind SDG-related policies, at the UN and elsewhere, are career bankers. Former executives at some of the most predatory financial institutions in the history of the world, from Goldman Sachs to Bank of America to Deutsche Bank, are among the top proponents and developers of SDG-related policies. 

 

NYC students forced out of school building after officials move in nearly 2,000 migrants (WashTimes)

New York City high school students’ classes went remote Wednesday after nearly 2,000 migrants moved into their school building in Brooklyn following an evacuation from a tent shelter Tuesday to avoid a massive rainstorm.

The City of New York took the action, saying the tent complex constructed for migrants at Floyd Bennett Field would crumple from torrential rains and high winds, so the migrants were transferred to the gym at James Madison High School five miles away, The New York Post reported.

Residents and school staff were not pleased by the decision, and held a rally for the displaced students.

 

Davos 2024: Extreme weather and misinformation top global risks (Reuters)

Jan 10 (Reuters) - Risk specialists see extreme weather and misinformation as most likely to trigger a global crisis in the next couple of years, a World Economic Forum (WEF) survey released on Wednesday said.

While extreme weather was identified as the bigger risk in 2024, misinformation and disinformation came second and were found to be the most severe global risk over the next two years. This could pose a particular threat as billions of people head to the polls in the biggest election year in history.

Major economies from the United States to India and Mexico will hold elections this year, leaving industry and political leaders reliant on polls and forecasts to assess what the policy environment will look like by 2025.

"The widespread use of misinformation and disinformation, and tools to disseminate it, may undermine the legitimacy of newly elected governments," the report warned.

 

Are They Preparing Us for Grid Down? (YouTube)

 

Wednesday LIVE: Putin LAUNCHING massive attacks on Poland and Sweden? Illegals invade U.S. schools (Redacted)