Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown has expressed concern that Israel's killing of Palestinian civilians will help Hamas recruit more militants and cautioned against a long war in Gaza.

Asked by reporters if the high civilian casualty rate will create more Hamas fighters, Brown said:

"Yes, very much so. And I think that's something we have to pay attention to. That's why when we talk about time — the faster you can get to a point where you stop the hostilities, you have less strife for the civilian population that turns into someone who now wants to be the next member of Hamas."

Brown, who replaced Gen. Mark Milley as the top US military officer last month, said Israel's stated goal of eliminating Hamas is a "large order" but did not call for a ceasefire. He also claimed Israel was following the laws of war despite the massive child casualty rate.

Socialist party wins separatist support with offer that has provoked furious opposition, protests and questions from Brussels...

Spain's acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is on the verge of securing another term in office after his socialist party won the support of Catalan separatists by offering a deeply controversial amnesty for those who took part in the illegal and failed push for regional independence six years ago.

The deal between the Spanish Socialist Workers' party (PSOE) and the centre-right Junts (Together) comes after a week of tense negotiations and amid widespread concerns over the amnesty, which have led to street protests, dire warnings from conservative judges and questions from Brussels.

Speaking shortly after the agreement was announced on Thursday, the PSOE's organisational secretary, Santos Cerdán, said the negotiations had yielded "a historic opportunity to resolve a conflict that could - and should - only be resolved politically". He said the proposed amnesty bill would now be put before parliament, adding that a new, socialist-led government would offer a progressive alternative to an alliance between the conservative People's party (PP) and the far-right Vox party.

"Our aim is to open the way for a legislature that will allow us to progress and to build an open and modern society and a better country. [We want to] consolidate the gains we have made and not let the past determine the future."

Former President Donald Trump's trial over his alleged mishandling of classified documents will not be bumped past the 2024 presidential election, according to a new ruling from Judge Aileen Cannon.

Trump previously requested that the trial be moved past November 5, 2024, Election Day, in order to give his lawyers more time to review evidence. Trump, the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination, has climbed in front of President Joe Biden in several recent polls in key swing states.

The trial of Trump, who is accused of mishandling sensitive classified documents, is set to begin on May 20, 2024. A scheduling hearing is set for March 1, and Cannon could move the start of the trial then.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung, in a statement in response to Cannon's decision:

"President Trump is fighting Crooked Joe Biden, Deranged Jack Smith, and radical Democrats as a whole on multiple fronts. We look forward to the conference set by Judge Cannon for next March, where future scheduling matters, including a potential trial date will be discussed. The concerted effort by the Biden Administration to deny President Trump's constitutional rights to prepare for trial reveal their corrupt motives. It is clearly in the best interest of Justice for President Trump to have adequate time to prepare and file motions, as he works to defeat these hoaxes and marches back to the White House."

Lawyers for Trump previously made the case that his team had not been given sufficient access to review evidence in a filing made in early October asking to postpone the trial start date. The trial will take place in Fort Pierce, Florida.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) declined a request by Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss for additional charging authority for the Hunter Biden case in spring 2022, prior to his special counsel appointment.

Weiss, the lead prosecutor in the Hunter Biden investigation, testified Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee and described a call with two DOJ officials who turned down his request for special attorney authority under section 515, according to a transcript of his testimony reviewed by the Daily Caller.

Weiss spoke on the phone with Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer, his main point of contact, and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General (PADAG) John Carlin after he reached out about extending the investigation into D.C. and California.

"I initiated email contact with Mr.Carlin, and I subsequently had a conversation with John Carlin, and I believe Brad Weinsheimer was on the call," Weiss testified.

Weiss described how the DOJ officials told him to follow the normal charging process instead of giving him the extra authority.

But Declassified discovers 33 UK military transport flights to Tel Aviv in the last month, including every day for two weeks after the Gaza bombing began.

Flight logs tracking aircraft from RAF Akrotiri, the UK's vast air base in Cyprus, show the RAF flew military transport aircraft to Tel Aviv, Israel's capital, every day from 13 to 26 October.

Declassified has counted 33 RAF flights from Cyprus to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport since Israel began bombing Gaza. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) told Declassified it had sent 17 flights into Israel's capital but the time period for this number is unclear.

Flight records going back to 6 August show no UK military flights from RAF Akrotiri to Israel before the bombing of Gaza began.

The first flight went on 11 October from Brize Norton, the RAF's major base in Oxfordshire. This was four days after the start of Israel's brutal bombing campaign in Gaza, which has included flagrant war crimes, including targeting hospitals and ambulances, and the killing of over 10,000 Palestinians.

The exact nature of UK military aid to Israel remains unclear. The discovery of a large number of transport flights could make defence secretary Grant Shapps, who is in charge of the UK military, vulnerable to questioning by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Western leaders and institutions have brought themselves into unprecedented disrepute over their complicity in the genocide against the Palestinian people. This is all the more amplified by the NATO proxy war in Ukraine.

Not only is Western complicity in war crimes exposed but also what is on display to the whole world is the shocking double standards and hypocrisy of the Western leaders. These people are liars, psychopaths and criminals.

What we are witnessing is something profoundly historic: the seminal collapse of Western images of presumed democratic and moral authority.

All across the globe, huge public protests are mounting against the appalling slaughter of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank by Israeli state forces. European and North American cities, including Washington DC, London, Berlin and Paris, are seeing millions of citizens marching in protest, not only against the Israeli state crimes but also - equally important - the depraved culpability of their own governments in facilitating the genocidal destruction underway of the Palestinian people.

The popular outrage is even being expressed by ordinary staffers, diplomats and other workers within governments and parliaments. Protests by workers have blocked ports from shipping Western weapons to Israel. Journalists within Western media corporations are also denouncing the bias of their organizations, complaining - rightly - that the compromised news coverage is aiding and abetting the genocide.

U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders are being heckled in public for their complicity in genocide. Among the protesters are Jewish organizations and individuals who survived the Nazi holocaust.

Adding to the groundswell of public anger is the reactionary response of Western institutions claiming that protests are illegitimate. The authorities have tried - and failed - to ban marches based on the reprehensible claim that the protesters are terrorist sympathizers and anti-semitic. Such smearing of millions of ordinary citizens who have mobilized to condemn genocide is only further incensing contempt towards Western governments and media.

A revolt is brewing within the Biden administration over how the White House is handling the Israel-Gaza war, as the civilian death toll and mass Palestinian displacement soars, and as Biden's top officials continue to say "no conditions" have been placed on how Israel uses US-supplied weapons. Pressure from the press pool is also piling on, with near daily spats and antagonistic back-and-forth exchanges on display in the State Department and White House briefing rooms.

This week there have emerged reports of scathing 'dissent memos' criticizing White House Israel policy being circulated, collecting many hundreds of signatures chiefly from among State Department and USAID staff. A primary theme of the pushback and pressure is that President Biden must change course on the Gaza crisis.

First, on Monday Politico obtained and published portions of a memo issued by State Department personnel giving a blistering critique which according to the publication argued that "among other things, the U.S. should be willing to publicly criticize the Israelis."

The next act in the sad trilogy of global wars will be a scattered but long conflict...

The journalistic cliché that World War Three is already underway has often circulated from one publication or another for decades. Indeed, since the beginning of the 21st century, when the US was attacked on 11 September 2001, people have been talking about a clash of civilizations as a new form of global conflict. Then, Washington's declared "war on terror" got bogged down in the Middle East before disappearing from the agenda altogether. Instead, the "good old" rivalry between the major countries was gradually revived, first in the political, propaganda and economic spheres, but with an increasingly pronounced military and force element. This was accompanied by warnings of the risk of a World War III in the classic sense of the last century. Such considerations, however, remained notional.

Today, the idea of a "World War III " is fathomable. Nevertheless, a similar situation to World Wars I and II seems inadmissible at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, although some commentators see similar features in the armed conflict in Ukraine. Structurally, however, the state of affairs is very different.

The presence of nuclear weapons in the hands of the world's major players and a very complex range of significant and diverse players in international politics rule out (and make highly unlikely) a head-on collision between the major powers or their blocs, as was the case in the last century. However, the changes taking place on the world stage and in the balance of power are so serious that they are "worthy" of a confrontation on the scale of a world war.

Israel has, however, agreed to daily "four-hour pauses" in fighting, the White House says...

US President Joe Biden has ruled out any hope of achieving a lasting ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

"None. No possibility," Biden told reporters outside the White House on Thursday when asked about the chances of a firm cessation in hostilities.

Speaking to reporters separately later in the day as he was boarding Air Force One, the president revealed he had been pushing for a "pause" in fighting "for a lot more than three days."

The US, however, has not managed to secure any significant pause from Israel, which is reportedly determined to continue its war on Hamas until the militant group is completely destroyed.

Thus far, Israel has only agreed to implement daily humanitarian breaks, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby revealed during a press conference, hailing this development as "significant steps forward."

Kirby told reporters on Thursday:

"Israel will begin to implement four-hour pauses in areas of northern Gaza each day, with an announcement to be made three hours beforehand. We've been told by the Israelis that there will be no military operations in these areas over the duration of the pause (and) that this process is starting today."

Two US F-15 fighter jets conducted an airstrike on a weapons storage facility in eastern Syria used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups, the Pentagon announced Wednesday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement:

"This precision self-defense strike is a response to a series of attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by IRGC-Quds Force affiliates. The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed today's action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.

"The United States is fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities. We urge against any escalation."

A senior military official said Wednesday evening:

"The facility, located in Maysalun in Deir Ezzor, Syria, is believed to have housed weapons used in many of the airstrikes that have taken place against our forces here in the region.

"We've been watching it for a bit to ensure that when we struck the target, we would strike it at a time that we would be able to eliminate the use of the facility to the IRGC. ... I watched the engagement, I can tell you that we're pretty certain there were some secondary explosions that indicated that the facility was housing weapons that we believe are likely used in many of the strikes that have taken place against our forces here in the region.

"We are very certain Wednesday's strike did not involve civilian loss."

The US, the official said, "did use the deconfliction line" with Russia. The US speaks with Russia regularly over a deconfliction line regarding military operations in Syria.