Showing posts with label Hamas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hamas. Show all posts

Saturday, January 27, 2024

"Eastern" Europe changing times

Metropolitan Ieronymos, bishop of Athens and all Greece, is claiming it remains committed to tradition, while proposing that the children in a same sex family can be baptized when they reach a certain age and express a desire for the sacrament. 

Baptism is traditionally conducted in early childhood, but the church will adapt to changing times.

Compromise🤔 Not sure it sells well.

Jan 28, 2024
Czech Republic's upper house Senate voted against the Istanbul Convention, a treaty with a long title about combatting violence against women. Opponents feel it deviates from "traditional roles" for men and women in society and has not reduced violence in countries that have ratified it. Clauses concerning LBGT rights, particular the wording on gender identity, are hot points for treaty opponents.
Feb 8, 2024
 Finnish Air Force will participate in NATO's air defense mission over Bulgaria, Romania, and the Black Sea. 
Finland's Minister of Defense, Antti Heikkinen, stated that next year, Finland will contribute to NATO's peacetime missions with a Navy ship and eight Air Force F/A-18 Hornet fighters.
Feb 10, 2024
Kosovo's President Osmani wants more NATO's Kosovo Force (KFOR) to deal with Serbia. In September 2023, Serb gunmen stormed a majority Serb village in northern Kosovo and barricaded themselves in a Serbian Orthodox monastery. It never ends. Both countries want to join the EU.
Feb 19, 2024
Margrethe1 derided as "King Breechless"for favoring Denmark too often while ruling(1397-1412) over the tenuous union of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.
March 9, 2024
March, 3,1878) result of Russo-Turkish War: Actual independence from Ottoman rule was given only to the Principality of Bulgaria (present-day northern Bulgaria and the Sofia region)
April 2, 2024
Transnistria is wedged between Moldova and Ukraine and is home to a military base with 1,500 Russian troops. It broke off from Moldova in the 1990s but isn’t recognized by any U.N. member countries and most of its residents wants to be a part of Russia.
April 4, 2024
In the middle of March 2024, contact was established between German and Bulgarian authorities who went on to discover a warehouse in Yambol region of Bulgaria, which contained a military arsenal in a car repair shop.

Pictures of guns and magazines were found on the mobile phone of one of four suspected Hamas'  members arrested in Berlin and Rotterdam in December 2023. Their alleged intention was to transport the arms to Berlin for potential attacks on Jewish institutions across Europe.
April 19, 2024
Croatia: HDZ holds on to power but will have to work with the anti-immigrant Rodina party to form a coalition. HDZ got 60 seats, Rodina 14
 pro-Russian coalition led by populist president Zoran Milanović's "Rivers of Justice," secured 42 seats.
May 11, 2024
 Polish farmers march against 'green poison', EU climate change rules. General sentiment is that these rules raise prices for everything and belong in the trash bin.
May 15, 2024
The EU migration and asylum pact was ratified despite opposition from Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia. Czech Republic, Malta, and Austria abstained during the final vote.
Countries who do not accept migrants have to choose one of three options: 
to contribute financially to their upkeep 
deploy border guards to assist with border security 
 establish reception centers.

AUR is using caravans to reach rural areas and provide medical care. Its goal is to win 10 of Romania's 33 seats in the European Parliament and to work with others to change what it views as Ursula von der Leyen's "destructive" policies on migration and green energy.
AUR has clashed with the ethnic Hungarian minority and faced allegations that its members are Holocaust deniers.
May 29, 2024
Denmark's Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen recently said the Danish government could not recognize a Palestinian state because it doesn't have a single functioning authority or control over its own territory. Yesterday, Danish Parliament rejected a proposal to recognize a Palestinian state.
June 22, 2024
Lebanon's government isn't handling the fallout from Nasrallah's (Hezbollah) suggestion of making Cyprus a target. 
How quickly some forget that Cyprus( geographically a part of West Asia) encouraged  its EU partners to offer Lebanon financial assistance. 
June 27, 2024
MK airbase,12 miles from the Black Sea coast in Romania , is stocking up and becoming NATO's biggest airbase in Europe
Sept 1, 2024
Ain't going to happen: Ukraine  urged Mongolia to arrest Putin during his visit there( based on an ICC war crimes warrant .
ICC claims Putin failed to stop the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia since the conflict began.
 Fadi el-Abdallah, a spokesperson for the ICC,  claims ICC court States Parties which includes Mongolia, "have the obligation to cooperate in accordance with the Chapter IX of the Rome Statute", the agreement which set up the court.
Oct, 13, 2024
George Simion, who's running for president on the AUR ticket in November, criticized Austria's stance, calling for the country to shed its "imperial reflexes" in delaying Romania's full accession into the Schengen Zone. 
Oct 16, 2024
Prague will ban night-time pub crawls organized by travel agencies. Is a lack of municipal police officers to keep the peace ,part of the problem?

Saturday, November 19, 2022

Hitch 24: I Ran so far______

 A large anti-government protest erupted in  Izeh, Iran on Friday Nov 18 at the funeral for 9-year-old Kian who was killed in a shooting that his mother blamed on security forces. These demonstrations have staying power despite the brutal clampdown by the Theocracy. Maybe the Mullahs should text Putin for military help? More to come, previous blog linked below.

Nov 20, 2022
Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, is trying to distance his group from Iran, but the Gulf states who have given millions to Lebanon in financial support; and received little in return are not buying it.
Dec 12, 2022
The European Parliament suspended the powers and duties of one of its vice presidents, Greek socialist, Eva Kaili, in light of a Belgian investigation of a Gulf state's purchasing influence on decisions in the European Parliament.  Furthermore, it may delay a proposal to extend visa-free travel to the EU for Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Ecuador.
Jan 5, 2023
Iran is whining about France again! This time it's alleging cartoons in a contest ran by the Charlie Hebdo magazine are insulting. One of the entries depicts a turbaned cleric reaching for a hangman’s noose as he drowns in blood.
Feb 7, 2023
Perhaps Iran's cops were too busy killing unarmed protestors around the country to stop an attacker who broke through the Azerbaijan's embassy guard post in Tehran, killing the head of Azeri security with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
Feb 25, 2023
From Michigan to eastern Europe to Iran: Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi, 58, a Lebanese and Belgian citizen who is considered a key financier of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, was arrested Friday in Bucharest, Romania.

It's alleged that Bazzi convinced some folks to liquidate their interests in real estate assets in Michigan and covertly transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars in proceeds from the USA to accounts in Lebanon.
May 19,2023
Iran warns Afghanistan's Taliban rulers not to violate what it claims is it water rights on the Helmand River. This tiff could be noteworthy.
May 30, 2023
Iran may want to be buddies with Egypt, but let's look back.
Anwar Sadat cut ties to Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Sadat welcomed Reza Pahlavi,  to Egypt just before his death and hosted his state funeral in 1980. Also, the shah's remains are entombed at Cairo's Al-Rifai Mosque.
Aug 22, 2023
Folks in southern Syria protesting against Assad chant: we only kneel to God.  Is Putin taking Assad's calls?
Aug 28, 2023
Iran claims Iraq has agreed to disarm and relocate Kurdistan "militants" in the autonomous northern Kurdish region. Easier said than done!
Nov 11, 2023
Palestine/Israel war, and Syria remains the world's proxy playground. Assad 😵
Dec 13, 2023
Arab energy leaders-oil here to stay so will COP28 fossil fuel reduction be effective?
They also stressed developing countries should be allowed to exploit their fossil fuel reserves.
Dec 18, 2023
We consider any armed action originating from Lebanese territory as an attack on national sovereignty,” Gebran Bassil, the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, a predominantly Christian party, said, rejecting the creation of what he called a “Hamas-land”.
Dec 18, 2023
 “Fatahland” returning? Hamas recruits in Lebanon.
  (PLO) under Arafat operated as a state within a state in southern Lebanon from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. The PLO used southern Lebanon to launch attacks against Israel and became an active in Lebanon’s civil war in 1975.
Jan 4, 2023
84 people killed and 284 injured after explosions occurred near the grave of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani yesterday, the anniversary of his killing, 

Source of the explosions: two bags carrying bombs that were likely set off by remote control.  No one has claimed responsibility, so far.
Jan 16, 2023
Iran extends Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi prison sentence. Memo to all the pro Hamas/Palestine protesters.
Feb 3, 2024
Syria's 1-0 win against India and sealed its first ever spot in the knockout rounds of the Asian Cup(Soccer). Maybe the players want more time away from the endless strife at home.
April 23, 2024
Same day Iran struck Israel:  Clerical rulers in Iran cranked up arrests of women accused of flouting its strict Islamic dress code.
May 1, 2024
MSC Orion, a Portuguese flagged ship, sustained minor damage from a Houthis' drone hit far into the reaches of the Arabian Sea. Iran!
May 26, 2024
 Lebanese MPs threaten to reject the EU bloc’s 1B euro package which it views as a “bribe” to keep Syrian refugees in limbo in Lebanon. So it expects Europe to keep them or send them back home to Syria?
May 27, 2024
Cheers  to the British  government for saying the ICJ(UN) ruling over Israel's actions in Rafah will strengthen Hamas.
July 13, 2024
 Hague district court rejects a claim  to order the Netherlands to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts which could end up in Israel. It says the NGO claim is too broad.



Hitch 23



Two Irelands - more coming

John Connolly, who was jailed for 14 years by a Belfast(NI) court in 2000 after being caught with a Real IRA mortar bomb on his way to blow ...