Important Takeaways:
- How the US Abandoned Israel under Biden
- “Israel must again be a safe place for the Jewish people. And I promise you: We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure that it will be.” — US President Joe Biden, October 18, 2023.
- It did not take long, however, for the Biden administration to completely turn that promise on its head. The reversal began with US demands on Israel to scale down military operations, which were already scaled down….
- “Israel implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other nation in history…. Israel’s use of real phone calls to civilians in combat areas (19,734), SMS texts (64,399) and pre-recorded calls (almost 6 million) to provide instructions on evacuations is also unprecedented.” — John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute, United States Military Academy West Point, newsweek.com, January 31, 2024
- The only relevant country that has apparently not been invited to the “urgent” discussions [to reward terrorists unilaterally with a soon-to-be-militarized Palestinian State] is Israel.
- Biden, clearly, seems not that intent on making Israel or the Free World a safe place again. At least not if it might compromise his reelection.
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Important Takeaways:
- Putin hits back at ‘useless old geezer’ and ‘Hollywood Cowboy’ Biden after the President called him a ‘crazy SOB’ in latest war of words between the leaders: Russian despot’s allies pile in accusing ‘senile’ Biden of ‘ready to start a war’
- The Kremlin slammed Joe Biden’s use of ‘shameful language’ after the US president called Russian President Vladimir Putin a ‘crazy SOB’ during an event to raise awareness of climate change in San Francisco.
- ‘This is a huge shame for the country itself… for the US. If a president uses that kind of language, it’s shameful,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He remarked that Biden’s statement was a poor attempt to appear like a ‘Hollywood cowboy.’
- Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a staunch Putin ally, said that the true ‘existential threat’ in the world was ‘useless old geezers, like Biden himself.’ He went on to accuse the president of being ‘ready to start a war with Russia.’
- Biden has previously cursed ‘son of a bitch’ at others. In January 2022, he was caught on the hot mic using the same term of abuse against a Fox News White House reporter.
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Important Takeaways:
- Chicago criminals out on probation/parole/pretrial release continue violence in 2024
- January 2 – A 21-year-old man shot another man in the face while on bail for one gun case and on probation for another. According to CWB, he was the “30th person accused of shooting, killing, or trying to shoot or kill someone in Chicago in 2023 while awaiting trial for a felony.”
- January 7 – A 31-year-old man and former CVS employee robbed a CVS while on probation for robbing and burglarizing a CVS.
- January 14 – A 19-year-old gang member shot and critically injured another man in Little Village just three months after getting probation for head-butting a Chicago cop. Prosecutors also dropped a felony gun case on the day he pleaded guilty to the battery.
- January 18 – A 19-year-old man killed his girlfriend while on probation for a gun charge.
- January 27 – An 18-year-old man with gang ties gunned down an airport employee while on juvenile probation for gun possession.
- February 4 – A 56-year-old man killed ex-girlfriend while on parole for strangling his previous partner.
- February 6 – A 32-year-old man and previous 8-time felon burglarized a restaurant while on probation for burglarizing a nail salon.
- February 6 – A 16-year-old male allegedly stabbed and killed a man while on parole for attempted murder. Earlier, he was found in possession of a stolen motor vehicle while on that same parole. That case was dropped.
- February 7 – A 20-year-old man was charged with ‘brutal attack’ of a woman at Chicago Union Station after being released on similar charges under cashless bail law.
- February 12 – A 33-year-old tow truck driver with two counts of attempted murder after he opened fire on two competitors over a job, while on felony pretrial release.
- February 13 – A 19-year-old man was caught carrying three guns on CTA less than a month after being placed on “first-time weapon offender probation” for another felony gun case.
- February 14 – An 18-year-old man killed an Uber driver while on juvenile probation for robbery. He also previously served time in the juvenile justice center for carjacking in 2021.
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Important Takeaways:
- PA food supplier warns Americans getting squeezed by inflation are becoming ‘resistant’ to higher prices
- As the Keystone State saw inflation last year dig deeper into residents’ wallets than any other state, one Philly-based food supplier is warning that the fight may not be over yet.
- The Philadelphia-based produce supplier has been caught between higher input costs and consumers struggling to pay for inflationary prices. According to Consumer Affairs, Pennsylvania saw the highest grocery inflation rate of any state in 2023, at an 8.2% increase year-over-year.
- The typical U.S. household needed to pay $213 more a month in January to purchase the same goods and services it did one year ago because of still-high inflation, according to new calculations from Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi.
- Americans are paying on average $605 more each month compared with the same time two years ago and $1,019 more compared with three years ago, before the inflation crisis began.
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Important Takeaways:
- No Farmers No Food: Greek Tractor Protests Head to Parliament
- Scores of bright-colored tractors were parked outside Greece’s parliament Tuesday, horns blaring, as thousands of farmers angry at high production costs shifted their protests to Athens.
- “Without us, you don’t eat,” one banner said. Some farmers carried mock coffins and funeral garlands as symbols of their plight.
- The farmers – whose demands are similar to those at farmer protests elsewhere in Europe – have spent weeks staging sporadic blockades along highways and in rural towns. Farmers in central Greece are also still reeling from major floods last year.
- Protesters say that’s not enough. They want tax-free fuel, debt forgiveness, measures against foreign competition and speedier compensation for damage from natural disasters. Farmers also criticize the substantial markup in shelf prices compared to what wholesalers pay them for their produce.
- Manolis Liakis, a farmer from the southern island of Crete, singled out fuel costs. He said farmers pay more than three times as much for petrol as shipping companies due to tax disparities.
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Important Takeaways:
- UN Report: Global hunger numbers rose to as many as 828 million in 2021
- According to a United Nations report that provides fresh evidence that the world is moving further away from its goal of ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030.
- The numbers paint a grim picture:
- As many as 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021 – 46 million people more from a year earlier and 150 million more from 2019.
- Around 2.3 billion people in the world (29.3%) were moderately or severely food insecure in 2021 – 350 million more compared to before the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic. Nearly 924 million people (11.7% of the global population) faced food insecurity at severe levels, an increase of 207 million in two years.
- Looking forward, projections are that nearly 670 million people (8% of the world population) will still be facing hunger in 2030 – even if a global economic recovery is taken into consideration
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Important Takeaways:
- UK Warns It Could Restrict Arms Sales To Israel If Rafah Offensive Proceeds
- Fresh headlines Wednesday say the United Kingdom is mulling restricting arms sales to Israel if it goes ahead with its planned major offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which is packed with over a million Palestinian refugees who’ve been forcibly relocated from other parts of the Strip.
- “Further escalation of Israel’s military action in Gaza without more effort to protect civilians could put it in breach of international humanitarian law, depending on how it conducts the operation, UK officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity about internal assessments,” Bloomberg reports.
- Not only has London’s High Court recently dealt with petitions from legal advocacy groups alleging British arms sent to Israel are being used to commit war crimes (petitions which thus far have been rejected), but the UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has just issued a letter to Netanyahu’s office calling for Israel to “stop and think seriously about the repercussions of a military offensive” on Rafah.
- The Foreign Secretary’s office wrote that “we continue to urge Israel to ensure that it limits its operations to military targets and take all possible steps to avoid harming civilians and destroying homes.” Importantly that’s when the letter emphasized that in the case of a military assault on Rafah “it is difficult to see how this could be achieved.”
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Important Takeaways:
- NATO Must ‘Wake Up’ to Putin’s Trap, Russia’s Neighbor Warns
- Gathered at the Munich Security Conference in southern Germany this weekend, the mood among Western leaders was notably subdued. The elation of Ukraine’s survival and subsequent battlefield victories of 2022 are now distant in the rearview mirror. Ahead lies an open-ended bloody conflict, in which a Ukrainian victory—as set out by Kyiv—appears increasingly ambitious.
- Lativa, like its fellow Baltic neighbors, has been in the vanguard of pushing for greater aid for Ukraine and harsher measures on Russia. Latvia has donated more than 1 percent of its GDP to assist Ukraine’s defense, and Riga is also among the top NATO military spending in GDP terms.
- Latvia’s Prime Minister Evika Silina said “Such a regime as Putin’s regime, he is using our own values against us, our own tools against us, our own international treaties against us,” she said. “They know it’s our weakness.”
- “We have to remember that we are policy makers, we can change our rules, but still remain true to the same values. It is very important to remember that.”
- “We are the front runners, we are at the front line,” Silina said. Other NATO allies are warning that the alliance faces a resurgent Russian military threat within less than a decade, despite Moscow’s mauling in Ukraine.
- “I cannot say there is a three- or five-year timeline for the threat, but we understand,” Silina said to those warnings. “We see Ukraine winning. But yes, after this, Russia will again gain capabilities to attack someone else. And it could be five years, it could be three years, it depends which tools they will decide to use.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Houthi rebels release video of $30 million US drone shot down in Yemen – the second they’ve destroyed in months – as Red Sea tensions escalate
- Houthi rebels released footage of what they claim is a $30 million US drone they shot down in Yemen – the second they’ve destroyed since late last year- as Red Sea tensions escalate.
- The Houthis released video Tuesday of a surface-to-air missile bringing down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone off the coast of Hodeida, a Yemeni port city they hold on the Red Sea.
- The footage included a video of men dragging pieces of debris from the water onto a beach.
- Meanwhile, the Houthis claimed an attack on the Sea Champion, a Greek-flagged, U.S.-owned bulk carrier full of grain bound for Aden, Yemen, carrying grain from Argentina.
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Important Takeaways:
- Food supply chain thefts rise in 2023, as price increases and inflation continue to have significant effect
- Food continues to be the commodity most at risk of theft in the global supply chain and now accounts for a third of all hijacking incidents – up 29% on 2022. Amidst the ongoing impact of inflation globally, these data suggest thieves are increasingly targeting basic goods that have experienced significant price increases.
- Theft of agricultural food products has also risen to 10% and now accounts for one in ten hijacking incidents.
- Notable incidents from 2023 include one involving the theft of more than 52 tons of olive oil in Greece.
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