[Breitbart] President Joe Biden has 62 days left in office but it’s almost as if he has checked out already. The U.S. commander in chief was nowhere to be seen Monday as he missed the traditional gathering of world leaders at the final Group of 20 (G20) summit of his presidency, a group photo no-show officials simply attributed to timing.
The 81-year-old and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau instead wandered up after the official picture has been taken, as other world leaders milled about chatting after having smiled and warmly held hands for the picture, AP reports.
The timing left Chinese President Xi Jinping front and center among the rows of leaders posed against blue skies and blue water in Rio de Janeiro. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stood, less visible, in a back row.
Biden and Trudeau arrived together at the designated spot for the photo, standing and looking around for a time before the realisation set in they had missed their chance.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was also absent from the traditional set piece photo and the three then had their own huddle in front of the cameras.
A few days earlier Biden had drawn attention to himself when he appeared to wander off alone into an Amazon rainforest after making a speech on climate change in Brazil at the COP29 summit.
The Guardian reports U.S. officials denied Biden missed the photo – officially for the launch of the Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s alliance to curb world hunger – to avoid appearing alongside Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
President Vladimir Putin was conspicuously absent from the Rio summit. His arrest is sought by the international criminal court over the Ukraine war.
[YouTube] The brave men + women of the Third Fire Company of Ñuñoa went to work to put out the flames engulfing a burning house in Santiago, Chile. With a GoPro filming, the firefighting team arrived on scene, rolled out the hose, + sprung into action, as seen in fireman Joseth Abel Espinosa's POV. While the house was lost, thankfully nobody was injured as a result. We thank our first responders + everyday heroes for their selfless actions day in + day out.
[AbrahamLincolnOnline] "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Abraham Lincoln - November 19, 1863 From the 'Bliss Copy'
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
11/19/2024 10:44 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
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#1
Thanks Mullah
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
11/19/2024 12:27 Comments ||
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[OilPrice] With JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warning Washington that China and Russia are seeking to dismantle the Western world, and “World War III has already begun”, access to critical metals that serve as the fuel of America’s military has become the most urgent issue of our time.
Critical metals will determine superpower status and global domination.
China is winning because it controls the bulk of the world’s critical metals, from mining to refining. Washington has been slow to discover domestic or friendly resources, at a time when the U.S. Army desperately needs them.
I was under the impression that the EPA regulations made mining in the US much more expensive because it’s dangerous, dirty work. I wonder how the recent Supreme Court ruling severely restricting bureaucratic regulation creation will play out here…
So, when a North American junior miner emerges as the owner of key critical metals properties in Europe and North America that could provide a new supply of one of these critical metals, the Western world sees hope.
The critical metal that is now poised to make or break a global superpower is antimony, and the miner is Military Metals (CSE:MILI; OTC:MILIF)--a little-known company that just put itself on the critical metals map through some smart strategic acquisitions.
Antimony (Sb), a critical metalloid, is a key element of the American war machine, essential for communication equipment, night vision goggles, explosives, ammunition, nuclear weapons, submarines, warships, optics, laser sighting and more, according to U.S. Army Major General (retired) James Marks.
Not only does China control nearly half of the world’s antimony production, but it also cut off antimony exports to the U.S. beginning in September this year.
THE U.S. ARMY IS NOW DESPERATE FOR ANTIMONY
China produces an astonishing ~70% of the world’s rare earth minerals and controls nearly 50% of the global antimony supply.
While China was pushing ahead at full speed, America was napping instead of discovering and developing new critical metals reserves.
Then, at the height of the trade war, China threatened to restrict the export of some rare earth minerals. It made good on that threat this year, and last: First, with Germanium and Gallium in 2023, and then with antimony in September this year.
Now, the U.S. Army has found itself short on an essential element of its military production line, just as war beckons from Europe to the Middle East. And it will need large amounts of antimony to succeed with a new push to ramp up production of artillery shells at newly launched manufacturing facilities after years of destocking.
Meanwhile, American manufacturers use more than 50 million pounds of antimony each year for fireproofing compounds, batteries, ammunition, electronics, specialty glass, and other products, according to MetalTech.
Now, it’s past time for America to stake its claims on critical metals reserves, and Military Metals (CSE:MILI; OTC:MILIF) is helping to do just that.
NEW ANTIMONY RESOURCES FOR THE COMING CRITICAL DEMAND SURGE
Military Metals is on an antimony acquisition binge that’s taken it as far away as EU-member Slovakia and Nova Scotia in Canada.
It’s planning to help retell the American antimony story by exploring new and re-developing historical venues that could chip away at China’s control over what is essentially a “military metal”.
Military Metals recently announced that it has purchased one of Europe’s largest antimony deposits in Slovakia. In the heart of Central Europe, it’s a promising Soviet-era resource with an initial discovery from the 1950s and prior development in the ‘80s and ‘90s. It’s already seen two phases of exploration, including drilling and Adit excavation.
At the Trojarova Antimony Project, which could turn Slovakia into a European critical minerals hub, Military Metals says that underground development of this historical resource, funded by the Slovakian government, was shuttered in the 90s “prior to reaching the richest part of the deposit”.
Back then, with the Cold War winding down, and antimony already having served its purpose as the hero of World War II, the motivation just wasn’t there.
Today, the situation is very different, and EU’S Trojarova project--with a historical resource of over 61,000 tons of antimony worth around $ 2 billion in situ value at today’s spot prices—could now become a military kingmaker.
But Military Metals isn’t concentrating all of its effects on a single continent: it’s also making huge moves back in North America, in Canada’s famous WWI antimony mine in Nova Scotia.
Military Metals is sitting on a recently acquired historical antimony/gold play, the West Gore Antimony Project—Canada’s biggest past producing antimony mine and a key supplier to the Allied Forces in WWI.
It's an impressive historical resource, with historical drilling results demonstrating over 7 meters of 10.6 gpt gold and 3.4% antimony.
[CNN] Two undersea internet cables in the Baltic Sea have been suddenly disrupted, according to local telecommunications companies, amid fresh warnings of possible Russian interference with global undersea infrastructure.
A communications cable between Lithuania and Sweden was cut on Sunday morning around 10:00 a.m. local time, a spokesperson from telecommunications company Telia Lithuania confirmed to CNN.
The company’s monitoring systems could tell there was a cut due to the traffic disruption, and that the cause was likely physical damage to the cable itself, Telia Lithuania spokesperson Audrius Stasiulaitis told CNN. “We can confirm that the internet traffic disruption was not caused by equipment failure but by physical damage to the fiber optic cable.”
Another cable linking Finland and Germany was also disrupted, according to Cinia, the state-controlled Finnish company that runs the link. The C-Lion cable – the only direct connection of its kind between Finland and Central Europe – spans nearly 1,200 kilometers (730 miles), alongside other key pieces of infrastructure, including gas pipelines and power cables.
The area that was disrupted along the Finnish-German cable is roughly 60 to 65 miles away from the Lithuanian-Swedish cable that was cut, a CNN analysis of the undersea routes shows.
It is unclear what exactly caused the fault in the C-Lion cable – Cinia said in a statement that it is still investigating the issue. A physical inspection has not yet been conducted, Reuters reported citing the company’s chief executive Ari-Jussi Knaapila, who told a press conference on Monday that the sudden outage implied that the cable was cut by an outside force.
The foreign ministers of Finland and Germany said in a joint statement on Monday evening that they were “deeply concerned” about the severed C-Lion cable, and raised the possibility of “hybrid warfare.”
“The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times. A thorough investigation is underway,” the statement said. “Our European security is not only under threat from Russia‘s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors.”
FEARS OF UNDERSEA SABOTAGE
The incidents come just weeks after the United States warned that it had detected increased Russian military activity around key undersea cables. Two US officials told CNN in September that the US believed Russia was now more likely to carry out potential sabotage operations on these critical pieces of infrastructure.
The warning came after a joint investigation by the public broadcasters of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, which reported in April 2023 that Russia had a fleet of suspected spy ships operating in Nordic waters as part of a program of potential sabotage of underwater cables and wind farms in the region.
The extent of the disruption caused by Cinia’s C-Lion fault revealed Monday is unclear. The most important data flows are usually routed through several different cables, to avoid overreliance on a single link.
A repair vessel is ready to go to the site of the fault, Cinia said in a statement Monday evening. It said it did not know how long repairs would take, but added it typically takes between five and 15 days for submarine cables.
Lithuanian state media was first to report the cut between Lithuania and Sweden, and quoted Telia Lithuania’s chief technology officer Andrius Šemeškevičius saying that the cable handled roughly a third of Lithuania’s internet capacity. Capacity has been restored since the disruption.
The cable is operated by Arelion, a Swedish telecommunications company. Martin Sjögren, a spokesperson for the company, confirmed the damage to the BCS East-West link and said that the company is in contact with Sweden’s military and civil authorities about the incident. The cable had connected Gotland, Sweden and Šventoji, Lithuania, he said.
Direct translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Igor Ivanenko
[REGNUM] Next Sunday, Romanians will vote for the president of the republic. A week later, elections will be held for the country's bicameral parliament. And then, a week later, there will be an almost inevitable second round of voting for the head of state.
Among the candidates for the presidential post, the highest rating is given to the Prime Minister and leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) Marcel Ciolacu. His political force is also likely to receive the largest parliamentary faction.
However, these starting positions do not guarantee victory for the Social Democrats.
For example, in 2004 and 2014, the SDP candidates won the first round of the presidential elections by a significant margin. However, in both cases, they failed to take the post of head of state, since other political forces consolidated around their opponents.
The reason for this is the perception of the PSD as the successor of the Romanian Communist Party and the corresponding attitude towards it on the part of liberal and national-conservative forces. Of great importance was also the opposition from foreign centers of influence, which feared the victory in Bucharest of too independent politicians capable of reviving the multi-vector diplomacy of Nicolae Ceausescu.
For Colaku to win the current elections, it is very important that a competitor who cannot unite the diverse protest electorate against the Social Democrat makes it to the second round.
The leader of the nationalist Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR), Gheorghe Simion, fits this parameter best. By Romanian standards, AUR is a “Eurosceptic” party, which, on the one hand, takes it outside the mainstream, and on the other, makes it very popular among voters.
Simion's political force declares the restoration of Romania's state sovereignty, which was effectively lost in the EU, traditional values, support for Romanians living abroad, and, conversely, curtailment of support for Ukraine. The party leader himself has a rating that allows him to get to the second round.
By the way, according to a recent poll commissioned by Newsweek-Romania, only 35% of the country's citizens support the current policy of official Bucharest towards Russia, while 34% condemn it.
The very likely fact that Simion will make it to the finals of the presidential race will largely mean that Çolak will be able to lift the long-standing curse on the left, whose representatives have been unable to occupy the Cotroceni Palace, where the residence of the heads of state is located, for two decades. Because it is difficult to imagine that Simion will be supported by liberal circles or the European bureaucracy, even in defiance of Çolak.
The opponents of the SDP understand this very well. That is why several days ago, Simion was accused, with reference to the Ukrainian special services, of alleged contacts with a Russian GRU agent. The accusation was voiced by the head of the joint commission of the chambers of the Romanian parliament for the control of the special services, Ioan Kirteș. At the same time, he is a member of the National Liberal Party (NLP), whose leader also has a high chance of making it to the second round of the presidential elections.
The current leader of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, by the way, comes from the NLP and during the last two election campaigns brilliantly played out a strategy of mobilizing the liberal and conservative electorate against the “heirs” of Ceausescu.
Is it any wonder that Social Democrat Ciolacu has come out strongly in defense of nationalist Simion and demanded the senator's resignation for spreading false information? Moreover, the Prime Minister has stated that there is no evidence of Russian interference in the Romanian elections.
On November 16, Cholaku published a letter from the Security Service of Ukraine on the reasons for denying entry to the AUR leader into the territory of this state. It says nothing about his connections with the GRU.
By and large, he is only charged with “discrediting Ukraine in the international arena and promoting unionist ideas.” The latter refers to Simion’s statements about the revival of Greater Romania, including Northern Bukovina with its center in the now Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi.
For Simion, this scandal became an excellent PR campaign in the run-up to the upcoming elections, especially since about a quarter of voters have not yet decided who to vote for in the first round.
By helping the Eurosceptic nationalists, the PSD is also trying to expand its room for manoeuvre when creating a government coalition in the new parliament. Although the most likely outcome is the re-establishment of an alliance between the PSD and the PNL, the representative AUR faction could allow the Social Democrats to retain control of the executive branch even without the Liberals. This means that the positions of Ciolaku’s allies in the negotiations for ministerial portfolios will be strengthened.
However, this same strategy also poses a hidden threat to the SDP.
The fact is that the positions of Eurosceptics are especially strong in the east of Romania, in the region of historical Moldova with its center in Iasi.
This same region, along with historical Wallachia, is also an electoral "fiefdom" for the Social Democrats. In this regard, there is a danger that the SDP, having helped the AUR in achieving tactical goals in the presidential elections, may lose parliamentary mandates, which will go to the nationalists who are gaining popularity.
The nearest future will show who will become the new head of Romania and how the seats in its parliament will be distributed. The success of AUR, and especially its entry into the government coalition, may become an unpleasant surprise for Kyiv politicians.
However, in any case, it is unlikely that a game involving Ukrainian special services against the leader of Romanian Eurosceptics will add popularity to official Kyiv among Romanians. In terms of support for their eastern neighbor, they are already the most skeptical nation in the EU.
One would think the US Secret Service vetted its people better?
But then a person could also ask:
Are we looking at a governmental process for cultivating new shooter types, or drawing out and identifying future violent radicals for use? (eg. Thomas Matthew Crooks)
Either way, it makes a person wonder IF there is a hidden 5th Column already close to Trump, Vance, other MAGA officials, and their families?
[JusticeReport] The agent—previously identified as 30-year-old [X *] —is attempting to leverage his position as a federal employee to remove evidence of his activities by falsely accusing the Justice Report of leaking privileged “medical information” and details about his significant other to the public.
* Name deleted here to protect the agent until the official arrest report is published, on the assumption that there will be an arrest after January 20th.
#1
There was a time when this type of stuff would show up in the background check process and be handled. Perhaps that process should be examined. I think it went bad when Brennen didn’t get filtered out.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
11/19/2024 7:58 Comments ||
Top||
#2
TW - I put his name there so it would go into Rantburg's "THUG DATABASE" with the "Highlighting Type" I used.
So deleting it was okay as he's in the Thug Database now.
[JustTheNews] The request, which Biden sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson, includes $40 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster relief fund, and billions more for other federal agencies, including the Small Business Administration.
President Joe Biden on Monday asked Congress for an additional $100 billion in disaster relief aid, in order to help Americans recover from multiple fires and hurricanes that have plagued the country in recent months.
The southeast has been struggling with the aftermaths of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, while communities on the West Coast have struggled with a heavy fire season.
The request, which Biden sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson, includes $40 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster relief fund, and billions more for other federal agencies, including the Small Business Administration, which is reportedly out of cash amid a surge in disaster loan requests, per Politico.
“From rebuilding homes and reopening critical infrastructure, such as schools and roads — to supporting the Nation’s farmers and ranchers and ensuring access to healthcare services — impacted communities await your response. There can be no delay,” Biden wrote in a letter to Johnson.
“I urge the Congress to act quickly to pass a supplemental funding package to assist communities impacted by these hurricanes — and every other disaster since the Congress last passed a comprehensive disaster package in 2022 — so that the people, families, businesses, and communities affected have the support they need to respond, recover, and rebuild responsibly," he added.
The request also includes funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Agriculture.
Johnson said on Monday that lawmakers will “go to work” on evaluating the aid requests. Congress is also working to avoid a government shutdown by Dec. 20.
"We’re going to make sure we deliver for the hurricane victims and the people that have suffered from that,” Johnson promised.
What guarantee is there that FEMA will go back and succor all the Trump supporters who were deliberately skipped on the first pass? It seems to me that this can wait a few more weeks until the next Congressional session and the next president can weigh in.
#2
Augusta Ga./ Richmond Co. just passed the
1 MILLION Cubic/Ft. of fallen trees and stumps collected, They have filled up several Baseball or Soccer fields already.
After 45+ days cleanup is only maybe 15% done.
OBTW: the $750 FEMA check won't even pay to have 1 tree to be cut up and removed from a private yard.
The starting rate is $800 a tree, and $300 a stump.
The storm even took out some gigantic Pre-Civil War Oaks.
[ZeroHedge] Hundreds of millions of people globally have become diabetic over the past 30 years, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to call for “urgent action” to deal with the health crisis.
The number of adults living with diabetes worldwide has more than quadrupled since 1990, the WHO said in a Nov. 13 statement citing the results of a recent study it supported. An estimated 828 million adults were living with the condition worldwide in 2022, an increase of 630 million from 1990.
The lowest prevalence of diabetes was in “Western Europe and East Africa for both sexes, and in Japan and Canada for women.” The highest prevalence was in Polynesia and Micronesia, certain nations in the Caribbean, North Africa, and the Middle East, as well as Pakistan and Malaysia.
In total, 14 percent of the world’s adults had diabetes in 2022, double the seven percent 30 years back.
“We have seen an alarming rise in diabetes over the past three decades, which reflects the increase in obesity, compounded by the impacts of the marketing of unhealthy food, a lack of physical activity, and economic hardship,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“To bring the global diabetes epidemic under control, countries must urgently take action. This starts with enacting policies that support healthy diets and physical activity, and, most importantly, health systems that provide prevention, early detection, and treatment.”
Nearly 450 million adults aged 30 and above with diabetes remained untreated in 2022. This represented 59 percent of all adults who have the condition, a 3.5-fold jump. Ninety percent of untreated adults were living in low- and middle-income countries.
According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 38 million Americans were living with diabetes in 2021, which was roughly one in 10 individuals. One in five didn’t know they had the condition. Nearly 100 million, or more than one in three Americans, suffered from pre-diabetes.
A bipartisan group of senators in June announced legislation aimed at improving the early detection and screening of type 1 diabetes, titled “Strengthening Collective Resources for Encouraging Education Needed (SCREEN) for Type 1 Diabetes Act.”
Early identification “can prevent life-threatening conditions like diabetic ketoacidosis and potentially allow for the use of therapeutics to delay the clinical onset of the condition, helping to improve patients’ quality of life and reliance on insulin,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
DIABETES BURDEN IN AMERICA
A report from the American Diabetes Association last year found that the country’s annual cost of the illness was nearly $413 billion in 2022, which included more than $306 billion in direct medical costs.
Out of every $4 in health care spending in the United States, $1 was used for people diagnosed with diabetes, it said.
“In addition to its enormous physical and health burden, diabetes also carries an untenable cost burden that is often disproportionately borne by vulnerable and underserved communities,” said Charles Henderson, CEO of the organization.
He pointed out that the medical costs for such people have risen by 35 percent over the previous decade. “Reducing the cost of diabetes is essential to improving the lives of all people with diabetes.”
Several studies have shown that certain lifestyle adjustments can go a long way in managing the condition. For instance, a large-scale study involving around 103,000 adults who were followed up for over a seven-year period found that the time of eating breakfast could influence diabetes risk.
Individuals who ate their breakfast after 9 a.m. were found to have a 59 percent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those who regularly ate breakfast before 8 a.m.
Another study found that intermittent fasting may help control blood sugar better than popular diabetes medications.
This month, a group of senators wrote a letter to senate leaders, seeking reauthorization for the Special Diabetes Program (SDP). Funding for the nearly three-decade-old program is set to expire by the end of the year.
SDP funds research on the prevention and cure of type 1 diabetes. “Research funded by the SDP is leading directly to the development of new insights and therapies that are improving the lives of those with diabetes and accelerating progress toward curing and preventing the disease,” the lawmakers wrote.
#2
RFK Jr did state that he wants "Corn Syrup" taken out of COKE and replaced with "Cane Sugar".
One should note that "Corn Syrup" is a by product of processing corn to make Gasohol.
Gasohol is that stupid EPA demanded diluent of US cars fuel that ADMs (that big company based in Illinois) lobbies for with so many $ over the past 4 decades or more.
[NASASPACEFLIGHT] After an almost perfect Flight 5 only one month ago, SpaceX is poised to set a turnaround record for Starship and fly Flight 6 no earlier than Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 4 p.m. CST. For Flight 6, SpaceX aims to conduct an in-space relight objective to Ship 31’s flight, with a landing in daylight. Booster 13 will also attempt a return to launch site catch to follow up on the milestone achieved during Flight 5.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
