NATO has expressed its 'regret' that Kosovo has decided to upgrade its Security Force into an army, but the move is just the next, logical step on the road to full statehood, which western powers have encouraged.

It's got a flag. It's got its own FIFI-recognized football team. It's in negotiations to join the Eurovision Song Contest. And now Kosovo has set out plans to have its own army. This week, the parliament in Pristina voted to transform the light-armed, crisis-responsive 'Kosovo Security Force' (FSK), into a proper army, with 5,000 active soldiers and 3,000 reservists.

As you might have expected, the development has been met with an angry response from neighboring Serbia, which still regards Kosovo as its own territory and is concerned that the new army, despite Pristina's assurances it would be multi-ethnic, might be used against the Serbian minority living there.

Syria will adopt a new rule of engagement with Israel now that Russia has taken a tougher and clearer stance on the conflict between Israel and the "Axis of the Resistance". Henceforth, Damascus will be responding to any Israeli strike. If it damages a specific military target it will reply with a strike against a similar objective in Israel. Decision makers in Damascus said "Syria will not hesitate to hit an Israeli airport if Damascus airport is targeted and hit by Israel. This will be with the consent of the Russian military based in the Levant".

This Syrian political decision is based on a clear position taken by Russia in Syria following the downing of its aircraft on September 18 this year. In 2015 when the Russian military landed in Syria, it informed the parties concerned (i.e. Syria, Iran and Israel) that it had no intention to interfere in the conflict between them and Hezbollah and that it would not stand in the way of Tel Aviv's planes bombing Hezbollah military convoys on their way to Lebanon or Iranian military warehouses not allocated to the war in Syria. This was a commitment to remain an onlooker if Israel hit Iranian military objectives or Hezbollah convoys transporting arms to Hezbollah from Syria to Lebanon, within Syrian territory. It also informed Israel that it would not accept any attacks on its allies (Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and their allies) engaged in fighting ISIS, al-Qaeda and its allies.

Israel respected the will of Moscow until the beginning of 2018, when it started to attack Iranian bases and Syrian military warehouses, though it never attacked a Hezbollah military position. Israel justified its attack against the Iranian base, a military facility called T4, by claiming it had sent drones over Israel. Tel Aviv considered violation of its neighbours' sovereignty as its exclusive prerogative. Damascus and Iran have responded with at least one confirmed shooting down of an Israeli F-16. Israel started to attack Syrian warehouses, mainly where Iranian missiles were stored. Iran has replaced every single destroyed warehouse with other more sophisticated precision missiles, capable of hitting any objective in Israel.

The oil industry engaged in a secret public relations campaign to undermine U.S. fuel economy standards, according to a new investigation from the New York Times.

One of the main actors was the largest oil refiner in the country, Marathon Petroleum. Marathon, along with others, ran a "stealth campaign to roll back car emissions standards," the NYT reported. The campaign argued that the U.S. no longer needs fuel economy standards because it is now such a massive producer of oil.

"With oil scarcity no longer a concern," Americans should be given a "choice in vehicles that best fit their needs," a draft letter that was sent to members of Congress said. The Trump administration took up the talking points in its official justification for the proposed watering down of fuel economy standards.

Police have deployed water cannon during a rally against the controversial UN migration pact in Brussels. Officers were seen scuffling with protesters, who threw firecrackers before facing off with law-enforcement.

The rally was dubbed the 'March against Marrakech' in reference to the city where the pact was signed earlier in December. It was organized by the right-wing Vlaams Belang party which has long been a vocal opponent of the agreement.


While having initially kicked off peacefully, the demonstration started to heat up with some of the participants burning firecrackers and hurling bottles as they marched down the street.

The US may have used months of solitary confinement to "pressure" jailed Russian gun activist Maria Butina into pleading guilty, international law attorney and former Pennsylvania State Senator Bruce Marks told RT.

Butina likely pleaded guilty to "very technical charges" as she expected not to "serve prison time" and hoped that she would be "returned to Russia," Marks said.

The woman, living in the US on a student visa, was detained in July and accused of working for the Kremlin. Officials in Moscow deny the allegations.

As part of the plea deal, struck this week, Butina admitted to a conspiracy to act as "an agent of a foreign government" without required registration, as she was attending the National Rifle Association (NRA) events and working to establish ties with Americans.

U.S. President Donald Trump told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that Washington was working on extraditing Fethullah Gülen, the U.S.-based leader of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Sunday.

"In Argentina, Trump told Erdogan they were working on extraditing Gülen and other people," Çavuşoğlu said at conference in 18th Doha Forum in the Qatari capital Doha, referring to the G20 summit in Argentina from Nov. 30 to Dec. 1.

FETÖ staged the July 15, 2016 coup attempt to overthrow the democratically elected Turkish government, in which 251 people were killed and more than 2,200 people were injured. The terrorist group is also accused of using its members in the police and the judiciary to launch two other coup attempts on Dec. 17 and 25, 2013, under the guise of graft probes, in addition to sham trials launched against its adversaries using illegal or fake evidence and trumped-up charges


The U.S. remains the main hub of FETÖ, where the shadowy group operates hundreds of charter schools and affiliated companies, providing visa and employment opportunities for thousands of its followers. Gülen has lived in a self-imposed exile in a secluded compound in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999.

You do have to wonder about the political savvy of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government. The furious fallout from China over the arrest of a senior telecoms executive is going to do severe damage to Canadian national interests.

Trudeau's fawning over American demands is already rebounding very badly for Canada's economy and its international image.

The Canadian arrest - on behalf of Washington - of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, seems a blatant case of the Americans acting politically and vindictively. If the Americans are seen to be acting like bandits, then the Canadians are their flunkies.

Wanzhou was detained on December 1 by Canadian federal police as she was boarding a commercial airliner in Vancouver. She was reportedly handcuffed and led away in a humiliating manner which has shocked the Chinese government, media and public.

The business executive has since been released on a $7.4 million bail bond, pending further legal proceedings. She is effectively being kept under house arrest in Canada with electronic ankle tagging.

To add insult to injury, it is not even clear what Wanzhou is being prosecuted for. The US authorities have claimed that she is guilty of breaching American sanctions against Iran by conducting telecoms business with Tehran. It is presumed that the Canadians arrested Wanzhou at the request of the Americans. But so far a US extradition warrant has not been filed. That could take months. In the meantime, the Chinese businesswoman will be living under curfew, her freedom denied.

Germany's cyber security authority says claims that Huawei is spying on customers are not backed up by evidence and has urged caution before boycotting the Chinese telecommunications giant.

"For such serious decisions like a ban, you need proof," head of Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) Arne Schoenbohm told Spiegel.


Huawei is accused of having ties to Chinese intelligence, and countries like the US, Australia and New Zealand have recently blocked it from being part of building their 5G internet networks.

According to Der Spiegel, the US is pressuring other countries like Germany to do the same.

In March, Schoenbohm told telecommunications company Telekom there were "currently no reliable findings" to back up US security agencies' warnings about Huawei. Germany's main mobile network operators, Vodafone, Telekom and Telefónica all use Huawei infrastructure technology.

BSI has examined Huawei products and visited its safety lab in Bonn, and Schoenbohm says there is no evidence that the firm uses its equipment to spy.

Huawei also denies the accusation. "We've never been asked to install a backdoor for espionage anywhere, there's no law that forces us to do it, we never did it, and we never will," a company spokesperson for said.

Has the United Nations played its 'trump' hand in the finalization of their geopolitical card game for "global citizenship"?

Here's what went on regarding the U.N. global migration pact December 10-11, 2018:

"Governments urged to put first ever UN global migration pact in motion, post-Marrakech." That marked the occasion of the 70^th anniversary of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Apparently, it's a pact that takes away national sovereignty from every country - 164 in all - that signed it!

Yes, everyone has human rights, but no person has the right to take away from another person their rights, dignity, sovereignty, while seeking to impose foreign mores and new cultures upon either a country or an individual, as is being done in former sovereign European countries, in my opinion.

Ukraine has created an Orthodox church of its own, proclaiming "independence from Moscow." While the majority of its hierarchs represented schismatic "churches," Kiev authorities have hailed a supposed "unity" they have achieved.

The so-called "unity council" took place on Saturday in Kiev, with the country's president Petro Poroshenko and other top officials in attendance. The overwhelming majority of participants represented two non-canonical entities - the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the self-styled 'Kiev Patriarchy' and the so-called Ukrainian autocephalous Orthodox Church. The two unrecognized entities have announced voluntary dissolution ahead of the event.

Just two hierarchs from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchy participated in event, metropolitan bishops Simeon and Aleksandr. The Church as a whole refused to partake in the gathering, denouncing it as schismatic.