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January 2024

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Biden Administration and the Iranian Regime’s Nuclear Weapons by Majid Rafizadeh

By on January 27th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20341/iran-nuclear-weapons

In a noteworthy development, for the first time, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued a warning, signaling that Iran now holds a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium capable of producing multiple nuclear warheads.

The regime has been actively supporting Hamas against Israel, providing assistance to Yemen’s Houthi terror group to attack ships in the Red Sea, escalating tensions with Pakistan, and providing weaponry to Russia for use against Ukraine. These multifaceted engagements in regional and global conflicts indicate the regime’s likely view of nuclear weapons as a means to further its strategic objectives.

In the midst of these ongoing conflicts, the last thing we need is an aggressive regime, with terrorist inclinations — and clearly no intention, despite every opportunity the West has given it, of “coming in from the cold” — possessing nuclear weapons.

The Biden administration’s nuclear policy concerning Iran’s nuclear program and its ability to acquire nuclear weapons is a complete disaster. Under the Biden administration’s leadership, Iran has made significant advances in its nuclear program that surpass the progress achieved under any previous administrations.

In a noteworthy development, for the first time, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has issued a warning, signaling that Iran now holds a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium capable of producing multiple nuclear warheads. This development, reported by Bloomberg on January 18, prompted IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to denounce Iran’s actions. Grossi also told The National newspaper, “Iran is the only non-nuclear weapon state which is enriching uranium at this very, very high level”.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The China Audit – Now Mandated Through The National Defense Authorization Act

By on January 27th, 2024

In April 2023, my organization at OpenTheBooks.com partnered with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) to quantify $1.3 billion in taxpayer funds flowing into the adversarial nations of Russia and China.

Now, the research has informed a new law. Senator Ernst inserted language into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which was signed by President Joe Biden on December 22, 2023.

The new law mandates an audit of China, its virology labs, and other dangerous labs from around the world. The study and report to Congress must be completed within 180 days.

The law now directs the Pentagon to go back ten years and count all taxpayer money that flowed into the People’s Republic of China, the Communist Party of China (CCP), EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, any labs similar to Wuhan that are run by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and any other entities owned or controlled – officially or unofficially – by these groups.

Then, the law goes a step further. 

The NDAA directs the Pentagon to quantify the dollars spent doing research on other dangerous viruses that have pandemic potential – not only in China, but also around the world. The result should be a list of viruses – think Ebola, Nipah, or influenza – and the countries we’re paying for dangerous research.

Victory

Following the endless controversy over the origins of the Covid pandemic, the new law is a dramatic victory.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A hollow Holocaust Remembrance Day January 27. 2024 Jonathan Tobin

By on January 27th, 2024

https://www.jns.org/a-hollow-holocaust-remembrance-day/?_se=

Those who support a ceasefire to allow a genocidal antisemitic movement like Hamas to commit more slaughters of Jews shouldn’t pretend to mourn the Six Million.

It’s an important date on the international community’s calendar. Every year, the United Nations and many other institutions and organizations hold ceremonies on Jan. 27 commemorating the Holocaust. It’s long been clear that much of the world did so without actually thinking seriously about what allowed the Nazis’ campaign of extermination of European Jewry to succeed as well as it did. Nor do most of those going through the motions of mourning the systematic murder of 6 million Jews or making empty promises about “never again” think much about how a supposedly civilized people like the Germans, with the help of various collaborators from other nations, convinced themselves that it was not only acceptable to kill that many people but justified to do so.

But this year, perhaps they shouldn’t bother to pretend to care about the subject. After the Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7 and, even more importantly, the reaction of much of the civilized world to what happened, the meaninglessness of most of what passes for the commemoration of the Shoah by the international community and the West has become painfully obvious.

It goes beyond hypocrisy

To describe those who are indifferent to the mass slaughter of Jews today but still prepared to mouth words of indignation about those killed by the Nazis in the 1930s and ’40s as merely hypocritical is insufficient.

The willingness of the world, including many of the educated elites in the West to dismiss the importance of the crimes perpetrated in southern Israel three months ago, to be effectively neutral about the murders, rapes, torture and kidnapping committed by Hamas and the Palestinians—or actually to take the side of the murderers, rapists, torturers and kidnappers—isn’t just shocking. It’s a seminal moment in modern history that not only illustrates the moral bankruptcy of a significant segment of contemporary opinion but also provides an explanation for how the Holocaust happened. As hard as it may be for us to accept, this demonstrates that Holocaust commemorations or even education programs about the destruction of European Jewry in the mid-20th century either don’t make people less likely to support more Holocausts; even worse, all this might be counterproductive.

The surge in antisemitism throughout the West in the aftermath of Oct. 7—with mobs marching in the streets of major cities and on college campuses proclaiming their support for the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet (“from the river to the sea”) and for terrorism against Jews in Israel and everywhere else (“globalize the intifada”)—and the support such positions have received in much of the corporate media was surprising to those Jews who thought such sentiments were only held by marginal extremists. Nor can they be explained as an understandable reaction to a supposedly disproportionate Israeli response to terrorism or as sympathy for Palestinians caught up in a war that Hamas started.

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