The incoming prime minister said that he wants to build on the Abraham Accords, which his former government signed in 2020 to establish diplomatic ties with Bahrain and the UAE. Netanyahu said it’s “up to the leadership of Saudi Arabia if they want to partake in this effort.”
Saudi officials recently reaffirmed that they seek a Palestinian state as a precondition for normalizing with Israel. But in order to form a coalition government, Netanyahu gave Religious Zionism party leader Bezalel Smotrich, an ultranationalist settler, sweeping powers over the West Bank.
The Pentagon is preparing to resume full ground operations alongside Kurdish partners in northern Syria, officials said Tuesday, a move that risks further inflaming relations with NATO ally Turkey, which blames the Kurds for a deadly bombing in Istanbul last month and has threatened a ground assault in retaliation.
The Syrian Democratic Forces is an armed militia of the rebels in North and East Syria (AANES). An alliance of forces formed during the Syrian civil war composed primarily of Kurdish, Arab, and Assyrian/Syriac, as well as some smaller Armenian, Turkmen and Chechen forces. It is militarily led by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia recognized as a terrorist group by Turkey, and also includes several ethnic militias, as well as elements of the Syrian opposition’s Free Syrian Army. Founded in October 2015, the SDF states its mission as fighting to create a secular, democratic and federalised Syria. According to Turkey, the Syrian Democratic Forces has direct links to the PKK.
Remember the Cold War Space Race between the former Soviet Union and the United States in the 1950s and 1960s? During the past year, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk went ahead and turned that into a modern-day dick-measuring contest, for lack of a better phrase, to see who could get there first for the longest. Their space outfits, extensively reported on by CNN Science, received more attention than the pollution caused by this narcissistic billionaire power competition, in which one rocket launch produced an estimated 300 tons of carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere, where it can remain for years.
Well. Just after finishing that last post about Twitter banning the official Mastodon account on Twitter for tweeting about the ElonJet tracking account existing on Mastodon, it seems that whatever brakes or controls were in place at the new “free speech absolutist” Twitter have really come off. In quick succession, a whole bunch of high profile reporter accounts were suspended, including Aaron Rupar (who famously covers and quotes videos of high profile politicians), Drew Harwell from the Washington Post, Ryan Mac from the NY Times, Donie Sullivan from CNN, and Matt Binder from Mashable.
The TSA has been working towards this goal for nearly a half-decade. Its parent agency, the DHS, has already deployed facial recognition tech, most of it aimed at foreigners. The CBP uses it all the time. In 2020, the CBP’s facial recognition scanners at US borders captured 50 million facial images and less than 300 “impostors,” including (according to its press release) someone using their sister’s ID because they themselves had not received a COVID vaccination. Millions spent. Millions scanned. Barely anything useful accomplished. Par for the DHS course.
The ongoing US war against Russia has elevated American-allied Nazis to the international stage as ‘freedom fighters,’ resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians, raised the risk of nuclear war, ended any effective international cooperation on environmental issues through rekindling energy geopolitics, assured Europe of one or more Great Depression type winters with limited heating fuel, and more probably than not will soon produce the total annihilation of Ukraine as a modern state by the Russians.
Meta reported $114.93 million in ad revenue in 2021, whereas Google reported $209 billion. But determining how much of that publishers should get is difficult—and the JCPA doesn’t even try. One version of the JCPA proposed platforms and publishers negotiate an agreed-to payment, and if they couldn’t come to a consensus, they’d enter forced-arbitration with no formula for what is fair. But whether the money would end up being vast or a modest bump to the bottom line, not every publication stands to benefit if the JCPA becomes law. While the JCPA’s alliances allow for partnerships, exclusionary elements of the JCPA would encourage big brands to unite selectively at the expense of smaller ones and shut out niche independent journalistic outlets altogether.
The original text of the JCPA already authorized print media companies to form one or several cartels and collectively bargain with the largest online platforms—defined in terms that single out Facebook and Google. Although the bill hinted at these news cartels being able to demand payment for merely linking to their content, or hosting snippets like the results you get from Google News, the mechanism by which they would be paid was left vague. However, the fact that the bill allowed news companies to withhold content strongly suggested a claim to some sort of property right, or ancillary copyright, that the targeted platforms would owe for hosting links and snippets.
This would also hurt independent media and bloggers (you would have to pay a ‘link tax’ to corporate media for linking to their articles—see below image)! So far, it hasn’t passed (it was attached to the NDAA) but there’s still the omnibus spending bill and the next session of Congress!
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has emailed The Grayzone a defense of the Azov Battalion and refused to condemn the Pentagon for honoring a veteran of the group who sports Nazi-inspired tattoos.
One of the most prominent US newspapers has again called for Americans to rely on bugs as a major food source, arguing that the shift to edible insects from beef, pork, and chicken will be good for the environment.
A 10-minute miscommunication on Slack between journalists at the Associated Press resulted in an erroneous report last week that appeared momentarily to bring tensions between NATO and Russia to their highest point since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
On 5 February 2017, you participated in inappropriate and unethical activities by attempting to interview a victim of an alleged crime aboard Marine Corps base, Camp Lejeune, (MCB CAMLEJ); which is in violation of [a regulation], by gathering information/taking photographs/videotaping/exposing TV motion picture film within the Camp Lejeune area without prior approval of the Consolidated Public Affairs Office. Additionally, you violated [another regulation]; which states “Personal interviews and telephonic communications between prisoners and media representatives is not authorized, unless a determination is made that such an interview serves the legitimate public interest, or is in the best interest of the military.
Based upon the serious nature of your misconduct, you are being debarred from MCB CAMLEJ. I have determined that your presence aboard MCB CAMLEJ is detrimental to the security, good order and discipline of the Installation. Accordingly, you are hereby notified, upon the receipt of this letter, that you are ordered not to reenter, or be found within the limits of MCB CAMLEJ.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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