Following the arrest and subsequent death in prison of alleged child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a little-known Israeli tech company began to receive increased publicity, but for all the wrong reasons. Not long after Epstein's arrest, and his relationships and finances came under scrutiny, it was revealed that the Israeli company Carbyne911 had received substantial funding from Jeffrey Epstein as well as Epstein's close associate and former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist and prominent Trump backer Peter Thiel.

Carbyne911, or simply Carbyne, develops call-handling and identification capabilities for emergency response services in countries around the world, including the United States, where it has already been implemented in several U.S. counties and has partnered with major U.S. tech companies like Google. It specifically markets its product as a way of mitigating mass shootings in the United States without having to change existing U.S. gun laws.

Yet, Carbyne is no ordinary tech company, as it is deeply connected to the elite Israeli military intelligence division, Unit 8200, whose "alumni" often go on to create tech companies — Carbyne among them — that frequently maintain their ties to Israeli intelligence and, according to Israeli media reports and former employees, often "blur the line" between their service to Israel's defense/intelligence apparatus and their commercial activity. As this report will reveal, Carbyne is but one of several Israeli tech companies marketing themselves as a technological solution to mass shootings that has direct ties to Israeli intelligence agencies.

Three former U.S. envoys to Afghanistan warn that a draft U.S.-Taliban agreement on the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country is a mistake that could unleash a "more dangerous" civil war.

"It is a very dangerous and damaging agreement," Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012, said in an interview with RFE/RL on September 6.

Separately, James Cunningham, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2012 to 2014, and James Dobbins, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan from 2013 to 2014, told RFE/RL the draft deal did not create the conditions for peace and that foreign forces should remain in Afghanistan until an agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban is implemented.

Crocker, Cunningham, and Dobbins are among nine former U.S. ambassadors who penned a joint statement earlier this week in which they said that "a major troop withdrawal must be contingent on a final peace."

The blast in Kabul that killed a dozen of people, including an American soldier, shows that there is no point in negotiating with the Taliban who can't even uphold a ceasefire during important talks, President Trump has claimed.

"If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don't have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway," Trump said in a tweet, announcing his decision to call off peace negotiations and cancel the meeting with the Taliban leaders scheduled for Sunday at Camp David.

How many more decades are they willing to fight?

Massive protests which gripped Hong Kong this summer have been portrayed as leaderless. Yet, there were people who held clear sway over the crowds. But who directs them?

As 'leaderless' as the crowds of protesters clashing with police on the streets of China's Special Administrative Region may have seemed, they still were largely influenced by a whole group of public figures, politicians, parties and organizations. And it turns out that some key figures behind the unrest had longstanding ties with the global "beacon of democracy" - Washington, DC.

One of the men at the center of the protest movement is a Hong Kong tycoon, Jimmy Lai, whose company owns one of the most-read local papers, a tabloid called the Apple Daily. Another one is politician and barrister, Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the local Democratic Party. Both men visited Washington at the height of the protests to meet with some high-ranking US officials including State Secretary Mike Pompeo.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that peace negotiations with Afghanistan's Taliban are dead and that Washington will not enter any future agreement without "commitments" from the militants.

Appearing on a round of cable news shows Sunday morning, Pompeo told one of these, Fox News, that negotiations with the Taliban are dead "for the time being," adding that Washington is recalling its special envoy to Afghanistan to work out its next steps. Also appearing on CNN, Pompeo said that the US would not enter into any future agreement with the Taliban without "significant commitments" from the fighters, who now control more Afghan territory than at any point since the US invasion in 2001.

Pompeo's statements come one day after President Donald Trump canceled meetings with Taliban officials at Camp David. Trump scrapped the talks -which were planned in secret- after Taliban-claimed attacks in Kabul killed 12 people, including one American soldier, earlier in the week.

On Saturday, US National Security Advisor John Bolton posted a satellite image which he said was Iran's Adrian Darya 1 tanker loitering two nautical miles off the coast of the Tartus naval facility in Syria, and accused Tehran of "lying" about its alleged commitment not to send the tanker to Syria after its release by Gibraltar authorities last month. Tehran says it gave no such commitments.

Iran's Adrian Darya 1 tanker has made it to its destination, and sold its oil, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi has announced.

"The tanker has gone to its destination, the oil has been sold," Mousavi said, speaking to Iranian television on Sunday, his remarks quoted by Reuters.

The spokesman did not clarify whether the ship's crude oil cargo has been delivered, and did not specify the destination country, but did say the ship had docked on the Mediterranean coast.

The Islamic Palestinian movement, Hamas, hailed on Friday a European court decision to remove it from the world's terrorist list, a statement confirms. Hamas spokesman, Hazim Qassim, declared in the statement that the decision:

"is positive and a right step in the right direction. We hope that this decision will lead to completely remove the name of the movement from any unjust list. Resisting the Israeli occupation is legal according to the international conventions and laws. Classifying Hamas or any of the Palestinian resistance factions as terrorist organisations is completely unjust and not fair for the legal struggle of the Palestinian people against the occupation."

The Hamas official reiterated that this movement "will continue practicing its right to defend the Palestinian people and protect them until the achievement of their freedom and the right to establish an independent Palestinian state."

Hamas's statement came following a press release made by Hamas lawyer, Khalid Al-Showly, in which he announced:

"the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg decided on Thursday to remove the Hamas movement, and its armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades, from the world's list of terrorism."

A secret deal has been set up between the US and Iran, through a third party, to enable the Iranian super tanker Adrian Darya 1 (formerly Grace 1) to deliver its 2.1 million barrels of oil to the Syrian government. Smaller tankers worked for five days unloading the oil to be delivered to the Syrian port of Tartous from offshore.

Sources closed to the negotiation team said the US "was determined to stop the Iranian supertanker from reaching Syria due to the US-EU strategy to economically sanction the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and turn Syrians against their leader." These countries, responsible for the 2011-2019 war, failed to achieve a regime change and a failed state militarily. Now they are trying to reach their goal by surrounding the country and preventing its return to normality. The US stopped the Gulf countries from returning to Damascus and imposed on Jordan to restrict the flow of goods to and from Syria. It has closed the al-Tanaf crossing with Iraq and is occupying the north-east (oil-rich!) area for no strategic purpose for the United States. Notwithstanding these drastic measures, Iran is determined to support its allies.

According to sources, Adrian Darya 1 remained for several days in the Mediterranean without a final destination, waiting for the end of the negotiations. Steps were agreed to begin releasing the "Stena Impero" British-flagged 7 crew members. Once Adrian Darya 1 has ended its delivery, more crew members are expected to be released. "Stena Impero" will be set free without further demand for financial compensation once "Adrian Darya 1" reaches a point of safety.

Iran said it has a buyer for the 2.1 million barrels of oil carried by the supertanker. According to informed sources, the client is Rami Makhlouf, President Assad's cousin who bought the 130 million dollars-worth cargo (in the open market). Iran offers hundreds of thousands of barrels monthly free to Syria and has done since the beginning of the 2011 war. Damascus pays the rest - at a much reduced price - to Iran or to whomsoever Tehran decides, said the sources.

The Israeli military has launched a series of attacks against multiple Hamas targets in Gaza, accusing militants of sending an armed drone against an IDF vehicle earlier in the day.

"We just struck a number of Hamas targets, including offensive naval equipment and 2 military compounds in Gaza," the IDF said in a tweet, as usual, emphasizing that Israel holds Hamas responsible for anything that happens in the enclave it governs.


The overnight raid comes after PM Benjamin Netanyahu - who is aggressively campaigning for re-election after his failure to secure a coalition government - vowed a "vigorous response" to Hamas. On the previous night, Israeli tanks shelled an observation post in Gaza, in response to a barrage of rockets hitting Israeli soil.

The deadline is now scheduled for October 31 but has been further clouded by the political turmoil in London.

"In the current circumstances, it's no! ... We are not going to go through this every three months," Le Drian said on Le Grand Rendez-vous Europe1/CNEWS/Les Echos programme.

"The (British) say that they want to put forward other solutions, alternative arrangements so that they can leave," he said, referring to Prime Minister Boris Johnson's efforts to find a way out of the backstop mechanism for Northern Ireland, the main sticking point.

"But we have not seen them and so it is 'no'... let the British authorities tell us the way forward," he said.

"Let them take responsibility for their situation. It's very worrying. They have to tell us what they want."

Britain was originally meant to leave the European Union on March 29 but with parliament deadlocked the British government ended up negotiating two delays, the latest to October 31.