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Syrian Government Army takes control of flashpoint Idlib village in renewed push to take back terrorist-held province


Sputnik
Sun, 22 Dec 2019 17:32 UTC
syrian army idlib
© Sputnik / Mohamad Maruf
The Syrian government has reclaimed control of Alteh, a flashpoint village in the Idlib province, according to a source in the Syrian military.

"The Syrian army has taken the strategic settlement of Alteh, in northeastern Idlib, under its control," the source said.

The village was a major stronghold of what used to be known as al-Qaeda in Syria, or the Nusra Front.

The Syrian government began a military campaign on Thursday to reclaim control of the Idlib province, the last Islamist bulwark in the war-torn country. Several more villages have recently been freed from the jihadists' grip.

The statement comes after Syrian government troops regained control over several villages in the southeastern part of the province of Idlib.

"The Syrian army regained control of the villages of Al Bustan, Al Haraqi and Abu Sharjah northwest of Tal Damm, the village of Al Burj north of Sarja Gharbiya, Harran hills west of Sarja Gharbiya and Homs west of Al Burj," according to a field commander with the Syrian military.

Earlier in the day, Maj. Gen. Yuri Burenkov, head of the Russian Defence Ministry's Syria reconciliation centre, said that about one hundred Syrian jihadists tried to storm the Idlib village of Qarratin al-Qabira over the weekend but were repelled by government forces.

Comment: Here is South Front's latest map showing the territory re-taken in the past few days:
idlib december 2019
© South Front


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Arrow Down

China will lower import tariffs on over 850 products from January 1, finance ministry says


CNBC
Sun, 22 Dec 2019 17:19 UTC
shipping containers shanghai china
© Aly Song | ReutersContainers sit at the Yangshan Port in Shanghai, China, Aug. 6, 2019.
China will lower tariffs on products ranging from frozen pork and avocado to some types of semiconductors next year as Beijing looks to boost imports amid a slowing economy and a trade war with the United States.

Next year, China will implement temporary import tariffs, which are lower than the most-favored-nation tariffs, on more than 850 products, the finance ministry said on Monday. That compared with 706 products that were taxed at temporary rates in 2019.

The tariff changes were made to "increase imports of products facing a relative domestic shortage, or foreign specialty goods for everyday consumption," the ministry said in a statement on its website.

China and the United States cooled their drawn-out trade war earlier this month, announcing a Phase 1 agreement that would reduce some U.S. tariffs in exchange for more Chinese purchases of American farm products and other goods.

The finance ministry said the tariff rate for frozen pork will be cut to 8% from the most-favored-nation duty of 12%, as China copes to plug a huge supply gap after a severe pig disease decimated its hog herd.

An outbreak of African swine fever that started in August last year has nearly halved China's pig herd, official data showed, sending pork prices soaring to record levels.

Comment: See also:

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Map

Best of the Web: All aboard the Eurasian Express! Train traffic opens on Crimea Bridge - Putin rides across it in opening ceremony


RT
Mon, 23 Dec 2019 17:08 UTC
train crimea bridge
President Putin has opened railway traffic on the 19-km-long Crimea Bridge, which connects the peninsula with mainland Russia and is the longest in Europe. He called the bridge "a beauty" as he took a ride in the driver's cabin.

The construction of the bridge kicked off in February 2016, less than two years after the Crimean people overwhelmingly voted to reunite with Russia in a referendum. The link was crucial for Crimea, which only has a land border with Ukraine, so the 15,000 builders worked hard, often in difficult stormy conditions, to make it happen.

Automobile traffic across the 19-kilometer bridge, which became the longest not only in Russia, but in the whole of Europe, was opened in May 2018.

"It's not a bridge, but a beauty," Putin exclaimed as he gazed at the engineering marvel.
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Bad Guys

An invasion of falsehoods: India's 'liberals' running propaganda war over new citizenship law

Abhijit Majumder
RT
Mon, 23 Dec 2019 17:04 UTC
Protesters India
© REUTERS TV / ANIProtesters pelt stones at police personnel during clashes over citizenship law in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India December 20, 2019
As cops are being beaten up and trains and buses burnt by communal mobs, an info war has been unleashed against Modi's government to twist the CAA and spin large-scale violence and bigotry as spontaneous, progressive resistance.

This protest movement has many fathers, the most useful being the one that should disown it the quickest: Liberals.

It is through them that a massive information war against India's new Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) -- which offers shelter to persecuted Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis from Islamic Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh -- is being carried out.
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Handcuffs

ICC Chief Prosecutor launches probe into Israeli war crimes


PressTV
Sun, 22 Dec 2019 16:03 UTC
Netanyahu Aviv Kochavi
© AFPIsraeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R), accompanied by military chief of staff Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi (L), visits a military base near Petah Tikva on January 30 2019.
A recent decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch a full investigation into war crimes in Palestinian territories has raised alarm among current and former Israeli officials and military personnel, who may face global arrest warrants as a result of the probe.

Israel's Channel 12 TV reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with ministers of military affairs, army chiefs, low-ranking soldiers and the heads of the Shin Bet security service in the past five years could all be vulnerable to international prosecution.

Israel is not expected to cooperate with the ICC's pre-trial chamber in the coming 120 days.

"There will be no cooperation with the court... certainly not if it will eventually be decided to open an official probe," Channel 12 cited diplomatic sources as saying.
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Snakes in Suits

'This IS the scandal': Dan Bongino explains how John Brennan's office became ground zero in the Russian collusion scandal

Elizabeth Vaughn
RedState
Sat, 21 Dec 2019 16:00 UTC
John Brennan
© Caricature by DonkeyHotey flic.kr/p/Ct4G4K https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
On Thursday night, just as Fox News was airing Martha MacCallum's interview with Attorney General William Barr, the New York Times reported that U.S. Attorney John Durham had requested former CIA Director John Brennan's communications records. This included all emails, texts and call logs from his time at the CIA. The Times' sources also told them that Durham's team was said to be "scrutininizing" Brennan's Congressional testimony. Many believe he's perjured himself. This is a major development and it hasn't received the attention it deserves.

Durham's probe, as we all know, shifted into a criminal investigation in October. In a special counsel or an independent counsel investigation, when the work is done, the team prepares a report of their findings. In a criminal investigation, when the team accumulates sufficient and convincing evidence of a crime, an indictment is made. Former assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy told Fox on Friday that we should be waiting for indictments from the Durham team, rather than a report. He said that "in a criminal investigation, you don't get a report unless there are no indictments."

Washington attorney Sidney Powell, who is currently representing General Michael Flynn, said the same thing recently in an appearance on Lou Dobb's show.
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Snakes in Suits

Macron visits French troops in Ivory Coast on visit to 'boost fight against Islamists'


France 24
Fri, 20 Dec 2019 14:29 UTC
Macron
© Luc Gnago, ReutersScreenshot: French President Emmanuel Macron and Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara pictured at the airport in Abidjan on December 20, 2019.
French President Emmanuel Macron is on a visit to Ivory Coast where he visited French troops and held talks with President Alassane Ouattara aimed at strengthening cooperation against Islamist militants in the region.

Macron arrived in Ivory Coast on Friday to celebrate an early Christmas with French troops, saying Paris would work to give "new force" to the regional fight against Islamist militants. Macron and his wife Brigitte were met at the airport by his Ivorian counterpart, Alassane Ouattara.

The jihadist insurgency in several poor Sahel nations is a top item on Macron's agenda in 48-hour stay in the region where attacks have spread since the Islamist militancy began seven years ago in Mali.

Comment: It's likely no coincidence that terrorism rears its ugly head where the Western powers (and their allies) are looking to do 'business':

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Bizarro Earth

FISA court refuses review of FBI deception

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sun, 22 Dec 2019 11:30 UTC
Submitted by anonymous attorney and journalist Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog), emphasis ours
This week, Presiding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) Judge Rosemary Collyer, released two stern Orders taking the FBI to task for its repeated failures, omissions, and misrepresentations in its application and subsequent renewals to surveil Carter Page.
FBI employee
And while one FBI employee has received a criminal referral for doctoring evidence in the scheme to defraud the court, key players with oversight responsibilities - under penalty of perjury - have been given a pass.

Judge Collyer's December 17, 2019 Order, written after the publication of Inspector General Michael Horowitz's long-awaited report on FISA abuse, emphasized the role the FBI plays when it makes its assessment on whether probable cause exists to a warrant. In particular, FISC requires the FBI agent swearing to the application fully and accurately provide "information in its possession that is material to whether probable cause exists."

Comment: See also: British spy Chris Steele to meet with US officials regarding dodgy dossier

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Yoda

Muslim unrest in India: Modi defends his controversial citizenship changes

Sukirti Dwivedi,
NDTV
Sun, 22 Dec 2019 00:00 UTC
The National Register of Citizens (NRC) - meant to weed out illegal migrants from the country - was rolled out in Assam earlier this year
Narendra Modi
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act makes religion the test of citizenship in India for the first time
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today denied that there were any detention centres in India, and implied that the nationwide rollout of citizens' list -- a matter referred to repeatedly by his home minister Amit Shah -- may not be happening. The Congress and the "urban Naxals", he said, were spreading rumours and brainwashing anyone unclear about it.

"The Congress and its allies - some urban Naxals -- are spreading rumors that all Muslims will be sent to detention centers... Neither is anybody sending the country's Muslims to detention centres nor are there any detention centres in India... The Muslims of India don't need to worry at all. The CAB and the NRC will not apply to the Muslims of the country," PM Modi said at a mega rally at Ramlila Maidan, meant to launch the BJP's campaign for the assembly elections in Delhi.

"I want to tell the 130 crore citizens of India that since my government has come to power, since 2014, there has been no discussion on NRC anywhere. Only after the Supreme Court's order, this exercise was done for Assam," he said in his 97-minute speech, most of it devoted to the NRC and the new citizenship law, protests against which are being held across the country.

Comment: This is a crisis manufactured by opposition parties including Congress, who lost the May 2019 parliamentary elections.



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Blackbox

Congress leaves impeachment up in the air until January

Susan Ferrechio
Washington Examiner
Sat, 21 Dec 2019 05:01 UTC
US Congress building
© Eric Thayer / Reuters
Lawyers for President Trump on Friday quietly scoped out the Senate, seeking possible locations for the trial that will weigh two articles impeaching the president for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

But the timing of the trial, or whether one will take place, has been left in limbo for the next several weeks because of partisan fighting over witnesses.

Republicans and Democrats aren't going to resolve immediately when, or if, the Senate will hold a trial to consider the articles, which leaves the president's fate dangling until at least early January.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday he doesn't have immediate plans to meet with his Democratic counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, to try to reach a compromise on major differences in how each party wants to set the terms governing a trial.

The Senate and House are not scheduled to return for votes until Jan. 6 and 7, respectively, so any resolution will likely have to wait until well after the holidays.

Comment: See also:

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