After media reports, months ago, on Pegasus' usage in various spyware attacks on heads of states, journalists, political activists, and human rights activists, the United States decided to blacklist NSO, Pegasus' parent company.

The United States placed "Israel's" spyware maker NSO Group, the corporation behind the notorious Pegasus, on its list of restricted companies. NSO Group's Pegasus was exposed as having been used by oppressive regimes to spy on journalists, human rights activists, dissidents, and even heads of state.

According to an investigation led by The Washington Post and 16 media partners, Pegasus is military-grade spyware leased by the Israeli firm to governments who used it in attempted and successful hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, and business executives.

Israel is on an attacking spree in Syria. Surface to surface missiles were launched from inside the Palestinian occupied territories twice in the space of four days. Israel is violating international law with criminal regularity.

On Saturday, October 30, Israel changed strategy and attacked Syria in broad daylight. The attacks usually come in the early hours of the morning under cover of darkness, but this time Israel launched at 11.15am. The target was the Syrian air defense base to the West of Damascus. The base is shared with a racehorse training facility and racetrack. If Israel had attacked an hour earlier, there would have been horses on the track with their jockeys, trainers watching from the side lines, and people in the seats having a traditional breakfast picnic. There would have been chaos and, possibly, carnage.

That morning there was a meeting of over one hundred civilians in the seating area next to the track. I was also in the area walking my dogs, never thinking that Israel would break its MO and attack at this time. It was a beautiful sunny autumn day. I heard what I thought were jets in the skies above but later I realised it was the sound of incoming winged missiles finding their target. Suddenly, about one hundred meters from me, the first missile hit. The sound was ear shattering. Plumes of smoke rose above the impact. Molten shrapnel was propelled into the air behind the gathering of civilians. They couldn't see the explosion, but the sound must have been deafening.

The US failed to ensure stability in Afghanistan from 2001 through 2014. Instead, it promulgated policies that not only strengthened the Taliban, but also created pockets of ungovernable space that were then taken over by ISIS-K.

A recent spate of suicide attacks, including Tuesday's brazen daytime assault on a military hospital in downtown Kabul that left at least 25 people dead, has underscored the reality that Afghanistan today has an Islamist terrorist problem. The irony is that, while the US has long labeled the current rulers of Afghanistan, the Taliban, as a terrorist organization, the latest acts of terror are being perpetrated by a group, Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K), that has been fighting both the US and Taliban for the better part of seven years.

The failure to defeat ISIS-K, an affiliate of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), in the years since it was founded in 2014 can be laid squarely at the feet of the US, which had overwhelming military capabilities assembled in the region, yet lacked a coherent strategy for Afghanistan around which to build an effective plan for using this power. Moreover, the US continues to demonstrate an abject lack of understanding about current realities in Afghanistan, eschewing support to the Taliban out of spite and, in the process, further empowering the forces of ISIS-K.

Whether ISIS-K will be able to replicate the successes of IS in Syria and Iraq of 2014-15 in either Afghanistan or Pakistan is yet to be seen. The original focus of effort for ISIS-K was Pakistan. Indeed, the first emir of ISIS-K was a Pakistani national named Hafiz Saeed Khan. Khan was a veteran commander of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an alliance of Islamic militant groups formed in 2007 to oppose the Pakistani military in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. In October 2014, Khan was joined by other TTP leaders when he pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of IS until his death in 2019.

Human civilization is being engineered in myriad ways by an unfathomably wealthy class who are so emotionally and psychologically stunted that they refuse to end world hunger despite having the ability to easily do so.

The United Nations has estimated that world hunger could be ended for an additional expenditure of $30 billion a year, with other estimates considerably lower. The other day Elon Musk became the first person ever to attain a net worth of over $300 billion. A year ago his net worth was $115 billion. According to Inequality.org, America's billionaires have a combined net worth of $5.1 trillion, which is a 70 percent increase from their combined net worth of under $3 trillion at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

So we're talking about a class which could easily put a complete halt to human beings dying of starvation on this planet by simply putting some of their vast fortunes toward making sure everyone gets enough to eat. But they don't. This same class influences the policies, laws, and large-scale behavior of our species more than any other.

To get a sense of how insane this is, imagine if you had seen a video clip of me calmly watching a child drown to death in a swimming pool and doing nothing to help. After watching such footage, would it ever in a million years occur to you that I am someone who should be in charge of the entire world?

Poland is set to build a new border wall on its eastern flank in an effort to end a sharp spike in asylum seekers attempting to cross over from neighboring Belarus, after Warsaw declared a state of emergency over the situation.

On Wednesday, the country's president, Andrzej Duda, signed into force new legislation for the construction of the barrier, after it was backed by the national parliament. Expected to cost more than $400 million, work on the new wall will likely be completed next summer. Running close to half the length of the 400-kilometer border, it will be kitted out with both motion sensors and surveillance systems.

Warsaw has warned that around 500 people a day are attempting to cross into the country illegally, with a sharp spike in recent months. The EU has accused Belarus of laying on flights from troubled destinations like Iraq and Iran, and of encouraging would-be migrants to make the border crossing.

A secret document distributed by Israel to justify its terrorist designations of six prominent Palestinian human rights groups shows no concrete evidence of involvement in violent activities by any of the groups.

The designation of the Palestinians groups, which was met by international outrage from defenders of human rights, was announced on October 22 by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz. Gantz cited alleged links between the groups and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, a left-wing Palestinian political party with its own military wing.

Despite the severity of the declaration, Israel has yet to publicly present any documents directly or indirectly linking the six groups to the PFLP or to any violent activity.

For years, the White Coat Waste Project was heralded by The Post as what they are: an activist success story uniting right and left. But now its work imperils a liberal icon.

Anger over the U.S. Government's gruesome, medically worthless experimentation on adult dogs and puppies has grown rapidly over the last two months. A truly bipartisan coalition in Congress has emerged to demand more information about these experiments and denounce the use of taxpayer funds to enable them. On October 24, twenty-four House members — nine Democrats and fifteen Republicans, led by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) — wrote a scathing letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci expressing "grave concerns about reports of costly, cruel, and unnecessary taxpayer-funded experiments on dogs commissioned by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases." Similar protests came in the Senate from a group led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

The campaign to end these indescribably cruel, taxpayer-funded experiments on dogs has been underway for years, long before Dr. Facui became a political lightning rod. In 2018, I reported on these experiments under the headline "BRED TO SUFFER: Inside the Barbaric U.S. Industry of Dog Experimentation." That article described "a largely hidden, poorly regulated, and highly profitable industry in the United States that has a gruesome function: breeding dogs for the sole purpose of often torturous experimentation, after which the dogs are killed because they are no longer of use."

Ethiopia has declared a state of emergency after forces from the northern region of Tigray said they were gaining territory and considering marching on the capital Addis Ababa.

The declaration came as Joe Biden accused the government of "gross violations of internationally recognised human rights" and said he that he was removing Ethiopia from a key US trade program, clearing the way for further economic sanctions over its failure to end the nearly year-long conflict.


Jeffrey Feltman, the US special envoy for the Horn of Africa, warned that the US would take further measures against the Abiy government within days rather than weeks if it does not end the conflict.

In an unprecedented response to the "grave threat" facing all peoples worldwide from climate change, Pope Francis and some 40 faith leaders representing the world's major religions have joined in an appeal for urgent action. Signed today, Oct. 4, in the Vatican and addressed to all governments participating in the 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland from Oct. 31 through Nov. 12, the appeal calls for decisive international political action to combat climate change and "to safeguard, restore and heal our wounded humanity and the home entrusted to our stewardship."

The Glasgow summit aims to accelerate progress toward the goals of the Paris Agreement and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"Future generations will never forgive us if we miss the opportunity to protect our common home. We have inherited a garden, we must not leave a desert to our children."

US agents have arrested the Russian analyst who served as the primary source for Christopher Steele's dossier of salacious gossip about Donald Trump. The dossier was used to justify FBI wiretapping on Trump's campaign.

Igor Danchenko was arrested on Thursday at the behest of Special Counsel John Durham, the New York Times first reported. The Department of Justice later confirmed the arrest and said Danchenko is scheduled to appear before a US magistrate judge.

Durham had been assigned by former President Donald Trump to investigate allegations of wrongdoing in the FBI's so-called 'Russiagate' probe, which examined supposed links between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.