Newsletter 6 Jan 24

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Kommunity Koin
January 06, 2024

Iran arrests 11 suspects over bomb blasts, mourners demand revenge - state TV (Reuters)

DUBAI, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Iranian authorities said on Friday that security forces had arrested 11 people suspected of involvement in two bomb blasts that killed nearly 100 people at a memorial service for a slain military commander.

The Islamic State militant group has claimed responsibilty for the attacks in Kerman, southeastern Iran, on Wednesday.

Iran's intelligence ministry said in a statement security forces detained two people for providing support to the two suicide bombers in Kerman and nine others based in other parts of Iran who were suspected of links to the incident.

 

U.S. Steps Up Diplomatic Push to Avert Broader Middle East War (WSJ)

ISTANBUL—America’s top diplomats are converging on the Middle East as they make a full-court press to prevent the war in the Gaza Strip from sparking a broader, more destabilizing regional conflict.

 

Maersk warns of major disruption as it diverts ships away from Red Sea (Reuters)

COPENHAGEN, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Maersk is diverting all container vessels from Red Sea routes around Africa's Cape of Good Hope for the foreseeable future, warning customers to prepare for significant disruption, while Hapag Lloyd tallied a big increase in costs of diverting ships.

Shippers across the world are switching away from the Red Sea - and so the shortest route from Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal - after Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen stepped up attacks on vessels in the Gulf region to show their support for Palestinian Islamist group Hamas fighting Israel in Gaza.

 

Global Maritime Trade Sails Into Geopolitical Storm (Barron’s)

International maritime trade has hit stormy waters as attacks by Yemen's Huthi rebels on ships in the Red Sea has reduced the availability of ships, causing freight rates to surge.

Most large international shipping companies have decided to reroute trading to avoid the Red Sea and Suez Canal through which 12 percent of world trade usually passes.

The Huthis say the strikes are in solidarity with Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza, which Israel has bombarded relentlessly for three months, in what it says is a campaign to destroy militant group Hamas.

 

N. Korea fires rounds at sea border with S. Korea (Reuters)

North Korea fired more than 200 artillery rounds on Friday near a disputed maritime border with South Korea in another escalation of tension between the rivals, prompting the South to take "corresponding" action with live fire drills. Rachel Graham reports.

 

Russia fires North Korean missiles at Ukraine for first time - Kyiv official (Reuters)

Jan 5 (Reuters) - Russia has hit Ukraine with missiles supplied by North Korea for the first time during its invasion, a senior Kyiv official said on Friday, corroborating an earlier assertion by the U.S. White House.

The statement on social media platform X came after the governor of the northeastern region of Kharkiv said that his region had been struck by missiles fired by Russia that were not Russian-made.

"There is no longer any disguise ... as part of its outright genocidal war, the Russian Federation for the first time struck at the territory of Ukraine with missiles received from ... North Korea," the senior Kyiv official, Mykhailo Podolyak, said.

 

In threatening shift, North Korea moves to redefine relations with South (Reuters)

SEOUL, Jan 4 (Reuters) - North Korea is shaking up the way it handles relations with South Korea, enacting changes to policy and government organisations that would effectively treat the South as a separate, enemy state.

The moves, which break with decades of policy, could have North Korea's foreign ministry taking over relations with the South, and potentially help justify the use of nuclear weapons against Seoul in a future war, analysts said.

 

Houthi drone boat detonates in Red Sea a day after US warning (Reuters)

WASHINGTON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - A Houthi drone boat packed with explosives detonated in the Red Sea on Thursday but failed to cause any damage or casualties, the U.S. Navy said, as the Yemen-based group continued its attacks in defiance of international calls to stop.

The latest attack came one day after 12 countries including the U.S, Britain and Japan issued a joint statement cautioning the Houthis of unspecified "consequences" unless it halts its attacks, in what one U.S. official on Wednesday suggested was a final warning.

 

Hezbollah head says Lebanon could be 'exposed' to more Israeli attacks (Reuters)

BEIRUT, Jan 5 (Reuters) - The head of Hezbollah said on Friday Lebanon would be "exposed" to more Israeli operations if his powerful Lebanese armed group did not respond to the killing of the deputy chief of Hamas on the outskirts of Beirut.

Saleh al-Arouri was killed in a drone strike on a southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, in what some analysts said could also be seen as a message to Hezbollah that its strongholds were vulnerable to attack.

Delivering a televised address for the second time in less than a week after nearly two months without doing so, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the group "cannot be silent about a violation of this level."

 

Geopolitics: "US involvement in this [Gaza] crisis is a disaster"- John Mearsheimer (ZeroHedge)

On 30 November 2023, John Mearsheimer did an interview with “Dialogue,” a popular show on CGTN. They just posted it as part of their end-of-the-year review of the geopolitical landscape. Mearsheimer comes down on the ”side” of Israel overstepping their bounds in Gaza. He has been proven mostly correct on his previous handicapping of the Russians would win the Ukraine war.

 

China-U.S. cooperation 'no longer an option ... but an imperative' - Wang Yi (Reuters)

BEIJING, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday the most urgent task for Sino-U.S. relations is to establish a correct understanding and cooperation between the two sides, stressing it is "no longer an option ... but an imperative" for the world.

Cooperation is the "most correct choice for China and the United States to get along", Wang said in a keynote speech at an event to mark the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the U.S.

 

The Supreme Court will decide if Donald Trump can be kept off 2024 presidential ballots (AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Friday it will decide whether former President Donald Trump can be kept off the ballot because of his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, inserting the court squarely in the 2024 presidential campaign.

 

Germany Discovers New Energy Pipelines to Replace Russian Gas Have Been Sabotaged (Breitbart)

Germany believes a number of one-centimetre (approximately half, or 13/32ths of an inch) holes have been “drilled” into a new gas delivery pipeline delivering the energy source to Germany’s national grid, an act of what is believed to be sabotage discovered in November but made public now. The exact cause of the damage or motivation behind an attempt to sabotage Germany’s energy imports is not known, but the Schleswig-Holsteinische Zeitungsverlag reports Dutch-German energy company Gasunie has now confirmed the damage took place, and that they believe it was caused by “third-party intervention”.

 

Inside The Catastrophic Jobs Report: Record 1.5 Million Crash In Full-Time Jobs, Multiple Jobholders Soar To Record, Native Born Workers Plunge And Much More (ZeroHedge)

While the prevailing post-payrolls narrative has focused on the surprisingly strong headline payrolls number (at 216K, this not only came above most estimates but was the highest in 4 months, denting the Fed's case for a March rate cut) and the far stronger than expected hourly earnings (which rose to 4.1%, but only because hours worked dropped again to 34.3, a level last seen in the pre-covid days from 34.4) and unchanged unemployment rate, which at 3.7% further makes the case for rate cuts quite challenging, a closer look at the details of today's jobs report reveals just how ugly the reality behind the the Budget-Busting Bidenomics truly is.

 

Florida Surgeon General Warns Against Using mRNA COVID Vaccines Over Possible Cancer Risk (ZeroHedge)

Dr. Ladapo says a Canadian study found “billions to hundreds of billions” of DNA molecules per dose, exceeding guidelines set forth by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

He sent a letter on Dec. 6, to the FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Mandy Cohen outlining his concerns about the high presence of DNA molecules in the mRNA vaccines alongside lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) used to deliver medicine into human cells.

If You're Dealing With That Cough Right Now That Everyone Else Seems To Have, Here's What It Might Be (Yahoo)

’Tis the season of respiratory illnesses. As we spend more time indoors and gather with friends and family to celebrate the holidays, cases of flu, COVID and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are steadily increasing around the country.

There’s also been an uptick in anecdotal reports of a brutal, long-lasting cough going around. As one TikTok user put it: everyone seems to have “a hacking cough that’s been going on for weeks.”

Doctors around the country have noticed it, too. “We have been seeing an unusually large number of patients who had typical viral upper respiratory infections, but have had a lingering cough that has lasted weeks to months,” Dr. Scott Braunstein, a double-board certified internal medicine and emergency medicine physician and the national medical director of Sollis Health, told HuffPost.

US faces ‘tragic’ rise in syphilis cases with life-saving drug in short supply (Guardian)

Record-high rates of syphilis and an accompanying shortage of the preferred antibiotic to treat the disease will make it one of the most pressing public health concerns in 2024, an association of public health leaders said.

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection that was once rare, but has made a “tragic” return in an era of reduced funding for public health. The 27-year high in cases has also strained manufacturing of the preferred antibiotic to treat syphilis, a penicillin formulation called Bicillin L-A.

Florida Is First State Allowed to Import Drugs From Canada in Bid to Reduce Costs (WSJ)

FDA’s decision could change the way Americans obtain prescription medicines. The Food and Drug Administration has decided to allow the first state to import drugs from Canada, a milestone in efforts to reduce the cost of medicines that could change the way Americans fill prescriptions. The agency said Friday it would allow Florida to import prescription drugs from Canada. Several other states have filed similar requests with the agency. 

‘Sanctuary' City New York Sues Texas Charter Bus Companies For $700 Million Over Migrant Dropoffs (ZeroHedge)

New York City is suing more than a dozen charter bus and transportation companies involved in busing migrants to the self-proclaimed 'sanctuary' for migrants that now wants nothing to do with them.

"New York City has and will always do our part to manage this humanitarian crisis, but we cannot bear the costs of reckless political ploys from the state of Texas alone," said NYC Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday. "Today, we are taking legal action against 17 companies that have taken part in Texas Governor Abbott’s scheme to transport tens of thousands of migrants to New York City in an attempt to overwhelm our social services system."

Chicago Alderman: Chicago Has to Try ‘to Close Its Own Borders’ Because Feds Didn’t Secure Border (Breitbart)

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” Chicago Alderman Brian Hopkins stated that the federal government has failed to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and now Chicago is “attempting to close its own borders to the constant flow of migrant buses and now private charter planes that are landing.”

 

'Severe revenue decline': California faces a record $68B deficit — here's what is eating away at the Golden State's coffers (Yahoo)

California lawmakers convened for the first session of 2024 on Wednesday and are tasked with tackling the state's record $68 billion budget deficit.

The enormous shortfall is largely attributed to a “severe revenue decline,” the California Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) reported last month.

 

Secret UFO meeting prompts speculation over what government is hiding (metro.co.uk)

A secret meeting to discuss UFOs is taking place in the heart of the US government next week – raising questions about what intelligence officials are keeping from the public.

Members of the House Oversight Committee will be given a classified briefing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), the new name for UFOs, in the Office of House Security on Friday, January 12.

 

The End Is Here: Are We Living in the “Days of Noah” (TheKoinBlog.com)

The story of Noah and the great flood is one of the most well-known and talked about events in the Bible. But aside from being a dramatic tale of destruction and redemption, it also holds significant prophetic meaning for the end times. In fact, Jesus himself spoke about the days of Noah and how they would be reflected in the time before the coming of the Son of Man. With the state of the world today, many are asking the question: Are we living in the days that are like the days of Noah as described in the Bible? Let’s take a closer look at what this means and how it relates to our current times.