World News

[agentf]

Paris offered Beirut a beautiful concert in the Eglise Saint-Sulpice:



www.lorientlejour.com/article/1231684/cest-encore-et-toujours-la-musique-qui-nous-console-le-mieux.html

[agentf]

A few days away from Mika's benefit YouTube concert for Beirut on the 19th, and he's surrounded by some serious "femmes": 💃💃💃💃🕺👍🏼

Louane, Fanny Ardant, Salma Hayek… De nombreux invités prestigieux partageront la scène avec le chanteur. Une personnalité exceptionnelle a également répondu présente : Kylie Minogue. "J’ai le sourire en écrivant ceci ! L’une de mes icônes pop favorites de tous les temps, Kylie Minogue, se produira lors du stream "I Love Beirut". Merci Kylie !", s'est enthousiasmé Mika sur son compte Instagram qui compte 1,3 millions d'abonnés.

www.youtube.com/user/MikaSoundsOfficial

[agentf]

A boy who wanted to become a priest, on way to becoming a saint:

www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2020-10/carlo-acutis-blessed-assisi-eucharist-patron-internet.html

Carlo Acutis is the first Millenial to whom miracles are attributed. He follows a path like Ste-Therese de Lisieux in inspiring young people by his example.

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!

[agentf]

This latest escalation in Nice, Avignon and at the French embassy serves only one thing - it provides a cover for unpopular policies being pushed through that are anti-Muslim:

The Trump administration lifted a decades-old ban on Wednesday that had prohibited US taxpayer funding for Israeli scientific research conducted in illegal settlements in the occupied territories, drawing Palestinian condemnation.

(...)

The agreement was signed at the illegal West Bank settlement of Ariel, which was built in 1978 on land stolen from the villages of Salfit, Iskaka, Marada and Kifl Haris.

Two bipartisan House legislators will introduce a bill in the US Congress this week that would require the US Department of Defence (DoD) to consider selling Israel bunker-buster bombs capable of penetrating heavily fortified underground facilities

Because who do you think Israel targets? Christians? French? Europeans? No. All its wars are against Muslims. Muslims may kill a handful of French, but you're facilitating far many more Muslim deaths. Think about it.

[agentf]

This is utterly disgusting. Dimitry Bachinsky is a trainer of beluga whales who doesn't deserve to be around any mammal 9r animal. @sshole

http://instagr.am/p/CPbFGDIBOTj

[agentf]

A beauty mogul is not forgetting Gaza who also still needs rebuilding. She chose Doctors without borders 👍

http://instagr.am/p/CQeHl0FNRG8

[agentf]

Watching all the Kabul coverage (in several languages too), it transpired that there was a cruel game in the days before, played by the military wing of the Taliban whereby SIV candidates were being sent into traps.

Knowing that the SIV system was gutted by white supremacist Stephen Miller; knowing the presence of the emmerdeur en chef and arms dealer Erik Prince, who was overtly peddling $6500 evacuations to justify his presence there; put that together and you have a whole new level of (I can't think of a polite word) (but it rhymes with fudgery).

Leaders have to vet the arms dealers that operate on their soil and muzzle/leash them up. Also, I would jam the digital components of the US arsenal that was left behind. There are too many layers to this.

[agentf]

Ok, so responsibility was asserted...

Meanwhile listening to Saleh, he makes excellent points but doesn't distinguish from one WH to another. Partly because the same militarists are in place at the Pentagon & CIA. There needs to be an overarching dialogue between Saleh, Biden and the less militarized Taliban, so they can disarm and defuse the rogue actors beneath them. I find it galling in all this that Trump claims any moral high ground. His little clique have been lighting fires everywhere be it the Haiti presidential assassination or this. Anything to derail the progress made since January with vaccinations as well as other policies.

And the Israeli visit drips of their trademark sarcasm.

[agentf]

Bravo to Macron, for the success of a UN safe zone. Looking at the images of the "Peace Studio", and the gratuitous murder of a folk singer, I'd have this to say to the Taliban. Show us where and how an Islamic state works, using historic references and comparative analysis based in facts. Don't hesitate to critique the West but do try to make valid arguments for the silent majority among us whom you have not met in your dealings with Westerners. I challenge you. Go back to the Ottomans, research what did and did not work, as the last great Muslim empire. Because after the fighting, that dusty cavernous resolve of yours will still have to live in the light of day. Teach us where in Islam it says that women should be second class, when the Prophet(*pbuh) himself valued and was married to an independent, businesswoman and older widow. Why then should prepubescent girls be catapulted into early adulthood or promiscuity because of men's appetites among which the meekness or submission of their womanfolk. Universally, a woman will submit willingly to superior motives or ideas. Women don't quit on their families either unlike men who change families at will rather than face hard truth sometimes, by marrying repeatedly. I personally would like to know why education is the enemy when it was used in the first period of Islamization to undermine the Christian West by translating and propagating science such as the Greek classics, and also medecine, astronomy, geography etc the West owes to the Muslim world. Islam secularized our World, in a way. The argument here is that since Muslims educated the world, why set your own people backwards rather than take credit? It's an asset, not a flaw, in your arsenal. Unless of course, you're afraid of its secularization effect back onto you. But I think it's less that than about power, of course. All that science gave industrialization which gave the West those weapons. That layer of society however is in the hands of the 1%. You simply can't be angry towards the 99% who are kept as much in the dark as you. Ultimately, some ownership is necessary and some meditation over the origins of our differences have to be examined in all candour. Lying to ourselves and each other will simply produce setbacks, misunderstandings and failure.

[agentf]

It looks like Luxleaks and Panama Papers had only effect on French banks. This top 5, including Trump's favourite, actually were even more active in tax havens since. I hope countries having to face Covid economic recoveries will go after collecting their taxes with gusto - not from already impoverished citizens but from the evaders causing internal havoc in their countries.

Parmi les grandes banques, ils identifient HSBC comme la championne de ces pratiques. Plus de 62% de ses bénéfices avant impôt ont été comptabilisés dans des paradis fiscaux entre 2018 et 2020, contre 49,8% pour l'italienne Monte dei Paschi (BMPS) qui arrive en deuxième position. Standard Chartered (29,8%) complète le podium. Les allemandes Deutsche Bank et NordLB arrivent en 4e et 5e position.

www.france24.com/fr/info-en-continu/20210906-les-banques-europ%C3%A9ennes-toujours-aussi-actives-dans-les-paradis-fiscaux

[agentf]

The best portrait I could find of who leaves a great void. His movies were events at our house. He was pretty much how you wanted to think of a Frenchman.

http://instagr.am/p/CTe-lPTsv60

R.I.P.

[agentf]

I wish someone would explain to me why Florida is always somehow smack in the middle of evil events? The Haitian presidential assassination was hatched there. The highest rate of Covid mortality. Trump, Epstein. The hiding place of arms dealers and fraudsters.

What is it about Florida?!

nypost.com/2021/09/10/inside-the-9-11-terrorists-upscale-florida-hangout-house/

[agentf]

While not far from the topic of ships today (the QE2), and to reprise the one about the bombing of Beirut, new information has surfaced about the ownership of the explosive shipment:

According to OCCRP, Ukrainian businessman Volodymyr Verbonol owns the estimated 2,750-ton chemicals, only 20% of which blew up in Beirut last year. The ammonium nitrate shipment was chartered by a London-registered company called Savaro Ltd and was delivered to the Lebanese port aboard MV Rhosus.

www.albawaba.com/node/owner-ammonium-nitrate-blasted-beirut-1446868

The Mysterious Manoli
Charalambos Manoli was born in 1960 in Famagusta, a coastal city in what is now the Turkish-controlled part of Cyprus. After studying shipbuilding in Scotland, he returned to Cyprus to work as a ship inspector, and went on to found multiple shipping companies.

Manoli is best known in Cyprus for his role in local football. From 2014 to 2017, he headed Anorthosis Famagusta FC, one of the country’s most popular teams. In 2015, he unsuccessfully ran for the leadership of the Cyprus Football Association.

In 2002, Manoli established Acheon Akti Navigations Limited, a Limassol-based ship management company. In 2007, he established another firm, Interfleet Shipmanagement Limited.

www.occrp.org/en/investigations/a-hidden-tycoon-african-explosives-and-a-loan-from-a-notorious-bank-questionable-connections-surround-beirut-explosion-shipment

[agentf]

Au revoir Mme Merkel! See you again. I hope she gets scooped up to a higher international governing body. For many years, she has been the single most stable figure in politics and a soft feminist icon with a firm grip. Were I an aspiring politician, I would look to her and I'm sure many women have.

Thanks for putting up with so much. Job well done 👍🏼

graphics.france24.com/les-annees-merkel/

[agentf]

Speaking of another Afrikaner, Times' "Man of the Year" 2021:

For a more grounded view of reality, consider the words of Max Ajl, author of the acclaimed book, A People’s Green New Deal, who remarked in an email to me that: “if capitalist destruction of the ecology were to take on human form, it would look like the Afrikaner aspiring cosmonaut Elon Musk”.

Ajl went on to observe, “In true apartheid form, spaceship rides envisioned by the Tesla tycoon will emit more CO2 in a few minutes than poor people emit in their entire lives”.

www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/12/27/elon-musk-and-all-that-was-wrong-with-2021

[agentf]

Happy 2022 🎉🎊🎈 Bonne Année 2022!

My resolutions 🤔: be healthier; cut ties with non-transparent people; move away; try writing again; win my court case; meet new friends.

🙏🏼

[agentf]

The Houthi drone attack albeit avoiding landmarks in Abu Dhabi, to me is a symptom of the lack of imposition of restraints on Israelis whose military presence now in Socotra is inflaming matters, as other regional actors are moving in the opposite direction towards putting their differences aside and patching up relations among them to have a peaceful future where sanctions can be lifted.

Someone must be firm in harnessing Israeli agression and lawlessness. This situation to me is a matter of coexistence between republicanism and monarchy. Surely talented diplomats can bring about a better outcome. But again, giving carte blanche to Israelis not only allows them to run ramshod but also forces them down the throats of Muslim countries. They need to be reigned back in and act in a more civilized way. This favouritism is causing humanitarian crises in every surrounding country be it Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Yémen etc, some for decades. Why should millions starve, to prop up a belligerent minority? Does it even make any common sense??

[agentf]

While on the topic of NFTs, a worthwhile one by the first master on blockchain, Picasso:

apnews.com/article/picasso-art-nfts-00fa0152fd6157061c74bab53c055cd7

I find the news to be a divine wink in a way, as I prepare to draft a 2nd novella after the one on the Picasso family politics that I wrote a few years back. In it I went back to Picasso's great granddad who'd supported Napoleon, like many, and lived to regret it; his son/Pablo's granddad, the London-educated republican British collaborator in Cuba murdered on his return to Spain, who left a mulatto chapter of the Picasso family in Cuba Wilfredo Lam knew about; ... revolutions, restorations, anarchists and communists later; the Russian protection via Olga; Gilot & Malraux's treachery, DDD and the persecution of Picasso's natural heirs... I had been bit by the Picasso bug while researching provenance on an uncatalogued Picasso out of South America with the name Guevara on restoration papers. What an adventure my research was! I was always discovering new facets. This time I'm writing something more tame and biographical 😄 I have a picture still of the gorgeous, mysterious Picasso. It likely came from the paintings Loeb took to Cuba in WW2 or when Pablo visited. I had romanticized an encounter with Celia Sanchez, "La Paloma", after who Pablo would name his daughter. Sigh. I remember Pablo and Jacqueline peacefully waving at me in a dream, wearing white, with a small dog at their feet. At least he liked my attempt at cubist literature. 😉 Now I'm looking at the loneliest place in Ireland to maybe try to write the next one, where I might be able to hear my thoughts. Viva Picasso ❤️

[agentf]

I may not be an expert tactician, but regarding Ukraine, I'd beef up my presence in Georgia and Alaska and attack from behind after jamming Russia's signals. What's more, I'd focus on regaining Crimea which was unlawfully annexed. Of course, there's always a good chance Putin and cohorts are doing this to hinder the US midterms and try to help Trump's return who was midway towards giving Putin a political BJ, pardon my French. I would also supply Germany in natural gas via Qatar, from its shared reserves with Iran. There.

[agentf]

If, as Lavrov or whoever says, Russia doesn't want war, why not send home the troups amassed and building camps at the Ukraine border? 🤷🏻‍♀️ Why the double-talk?