Over the years I’ve learnt to chew and walk at the same time. It’s taken a while, but I think I’ve mastered it. Being able and willing to condemn the actions of Hamas, and criticising Iran while also condemning the callousness of Israel’s incursions into Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon is something I think most reasonable people can and should do.

 

The slow strangulation of truth    By Richard Hil

 

NATO planning new Russia strategy – Politico
The bloc’s current policy towards Moscow was developed in a “different era” and needs to be changed, a US official has said

NATO’s defense ministers will meet in Brussels next week to start rethinking the bloc’s decades-old strategy on relations with Russia, Politico has reported

Despite ties between NATO and Russia hitting “rock bottom” after the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the ‘Founding Act’ with Moscow remains in force within the US-led alliance, the outlet noted in an article on Friday.

The 1997 document, which states that NATO and Russia share a common goal to “build a stable, peaceful and undivided Europe,” does not reflect the current situation, Politico wrote.

The Indian government on Wednesday gave long-awaited clearance for a project to build two nuclear-powered attack submarines, national media have reported, citing sources. The project cost is estimated at around 450 billion rupees ($5.4 billion).

New Delhi has also cleared a deal to acquire 31 weaponized MQ-9B Predator drones from the US for an additional $4 billion, as part of a long-term plan to counter China in the region, sources told the Times of India. The article noted that both platforms will be able to “quietly gather intelligence, track enemy targets at extended ranges, and then destroy them if required.”

A source told the paper that it will take 10 to 12 years to commission the vessel, termed an SSN – meaning ‘ship submersible, nuclear’ – which will have a 190 MW pressurized light-water reactor and displacement of almost 10,000 tons. 

Biden warns Iran against going after Trump – WaPo
Washington would consider an attack on the former US president an act of war, the outlet has reported

US president Joe Biden has told the White House National Security Council to warn Iran against trying to assassinate Donald Trump, the Washington Post has reported.

The message that the US president wanted to be relayed to Tehran was that Washington would treat any attempt on the life of his predecessor, or on that of any other former American official, as an act of war, the paper wrote on Friday.

Australia’s mainstream media continues to push the unfounded October 7 narrative of “babies beheaded” and “mass rapes” which gave rise to Israel’s extreme “collective punishment” in Gaza. Michael West reports.

As recently as last week, in the wake of the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attacks, Australia’s media persisted with its narrative of “babies beheaded” and “mass rapes”. 

In a story in Rupert Murdoch’s Herald Sun by former Australian treasurer Josh Frydenberg 5 days ago, the claims were repeated again despite a lack of evidence, in fact despite the claims being debunked by a number of independent sources and even 

On September 13, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) announced that it was appointing Victoria Nuland to its Board of Directors, effective immediately.

Covert Geopolitics has called Nuland the “queen of chicken hawks” and “Lady Macbeth of perpetual war,” as she has “promoted a foreign policy of intervention, coups, proxy wars, aggression, and occupation…in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.”

Germany's economic downturn deepens with a projected contraction in 2024, marking its second consecutive year of decline. Manufacturing struggles and global competition, especially from China, highlight structural issues. Growth is expected to return in 2025.

 

Germany's economic woes are continuing, with the country now facing the spectre of closing 2024 in recession.

On Wednesday, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced that the economy is expected to shrink by 0.2% this year, down from earlier forecasts of a 0.3% growth and marking the second consecutive year of contraction. 

While elsewhere the China discourse in the Australian media may have been on geopolitical tensions and defence and security concerns, community leaders, students and academics from seven universities in Australia and 15 universities in China and Taiwan met in Parramatta on the campus of Western Sydney University a few days ago.

 

While you weren’t looking: Meeting China in Sydney   By Jocelyn Chey

 

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded this year’s Peace Prize to a Japanese anti-nuclear-weapons organization, citing the threat of such weapons being used in current conflicts. Japan is the only country in the world that has suffered a nuclear strike.

Nihon Hidankyo, the grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, received the Peace Prize “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons,” the Committee said in a statement on Friday. Witness testimony provided by the group has demonstrated that “nuclear weapons must never be used again,” it added.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s criticism of the way CBS edited its interview with his Democratic rival Kamala Harris is a threat to free speech and democracy, the head of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has stated.

Trump had accused CBS of perpetrating “the Greatest Fraud in Broadcast History” by rearranging the ‘60 Minutes’ interview with Harris, aired earlier this week, to make her look more coherent. He called for the network to lose its license.

Doorstep statement by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte outside Number 10 Downing Street

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte: Good to see you. I had very good talks with, of course, the trilat together with President Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Starmer, and then after that, my bilat with the Prime Minister.

And can I say again that when we discuss Ukraine, we know it's tough, because Russians are more making small advances in the east, by the way, at a considerable loss of life on the Russian side. So they lose a lot of people, people dying, people getting seriously wounded. But still, the Russians are making those small advances.

News OFF the day… news you have to believe…

News without delay… news from the CIA…

On the hour or twenty-four-seven screen play

An old woman crushes Weet-Bix on TeeVee

In a bowl as she’s done for a short eternity

Morning show with a vacuous nothing to say

Cool music band Cold Chisel is turning fifty

A felon without a face is arrested

For impersonating a pseudo-celebrity

And killing his wife it was attested

A horse talks about the Melbourne Cup

with panache in tail and a betting buck

Mount panorama sacred cow for petrol heads

Readies racing for a thousand thousand metres

While Global Warming is ignored on the day

Spinning them out of gas by end of this century

And nothing changes, everything is distressed

Unimportant, lamentable, painful, gross or fake

Gaza gets more bombed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br-95JWgPkM

Howard Stern is Very Mad at SNL For Gently Making Fun of Kamala Harris, with Batya Ungar-Sargon

 

KAMALA IS KACUOUS... MEANING VACUOUS AN CAKLING LIKE A CHOOK ABOUT TO GET HER HEAD CHOPPED OFF IN AN ABBATOIR...

AS PRESIDENT, SHE WOULD DO WHAT THE DEEP STATE REQUIRES... OBEY THE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE MENU.... AND DIDI HAS BEEN A GREAT SUPPORTER OF THE DEMOCRATS — HENCE THE DEEP STATE....

 

Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico has accused journalists from major media outlets of being “possessed by the devil” and threatened to establish a national media watchdog, along with introducing professional qualification exams to rein in the “hate” they spread through their articles.

Fico made these comments during a press conference on Tuesday, where he became visibly agitated when asked about tensions within his three-party governing coalition.

 

U.S. SPECIAL OPS FLIGHTS TO ISRAEL FROM UK’S CYPRUS BASE SURGE UNDER STARMER
Secrecy surrounds unmarked American military planes going from UK territory to Israel, but new information could further implicate Labour ministers in war crimes.