According to the Turkish president's office, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi discussed approaches toward a durable ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and agreed to sustain coordinating efforts on the topic.

According to a statement by the office, the two leaders spoke via phone and discussed the "illegal attacks by Israel against the Gaza Strip, efforts to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians and steps that could be taken to ensure a permanent ceasefire in the region."

Erdogan and Raisi decided to continue working together to achieve long-term stability in the area, the statement also disclosed.

Iranian news agency Mehr cited the Iranian President as saying that the people of Gaza are the decision-makers to determine the future of the Strip, through the Hamas administration, which represents the legitimate government in Gaza, as it assumed authority through a legitimate process and with the votes of Gazans.

With Kim Jong Un escalating nuclear threats from the North, South Korea has found a cost-effective solution: its homegrown fighter jets.

The country unveiled its first domestically-produced supersonic fighter jet, the KF-21, also known as the Boramae, to the public at the Seoul Airbase, joining an elite group of nations to demonstrate such technology. The KF-21 could boost the allies’ deterrence capability against the likes of North Korea.

The aircraft, introduced at the Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition (ADEX) 2023, was developed by Korea Aerospace Industries, and set for mass production in 2026. The homegrown project is a part of a broader plan to strengthen South Korea’s resilience in the face of increasingly intrusive neighbors that include North Korea and China. 

The evil, stupid doctrine of ”disparate impact” is once again eating its corrosive way through job requirements.

The jobs here are for social workers in Washington, D.C. You have to be licensed to do social work in the capital, and to get a license you have to pass an exam. It’s not a severely academic exam, only a series of ”multiple choice tests, which ask social workers what they’d do in hypothetical scenarios.”

As with well-nigh any kind of written test there are, nonetheless, different pass rates by race.

A severe storm on the Black Sea hit parts of Ukraine and southern Russia on Sunday night, killing at least four people and knocking out power to nearly 2 million, with strong winds continuing into Monday. 

"About 1.9 million people remained without power supply as of 10:00 Moscow time due to unfavorable weather conditions," Moscow's energy ministry said, listing the Russian regions of Dagestan, Krasnodar and Rostov, as well as the occupied Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

The storm peaked on Sunday evening, with some parts of Russian-annexed Crimea receiving 33 millimeters of precipitation and winds reaching speeds of 144 kilometers per hour. 

A deadly storm wreaks havoc in the Black Sea region, leaving nearly half a million without power, claiming one life, and causing widespread destruction in Crimea and southern Russia. 

After the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989 and the death of the Soviet Union was confirmed two years later as Boris Yeltsin courageously stood down the Red Army tanks in front of Moscow’s White House, a dark era in human history came to an abrupt end.

The world had descended into a “77-Years War”. It had incepted with the mobilization of the armies of old Europe in August 1914. If you want to count bodies, 150 million were killed by all the depredations that germinated in the Great War, its foolish aftermath at Versailles, and the march of history into World War II and the Cold War that followed inexorably thereupon.

Upwards of 8% of the human race was wiped out during that span. The toll encompassed the madness of trench warfare during 1914-1918; the murderous regimes of Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism that rose from the ashes of the Great War and the follies of Versailles; and then the carnage of WWII and all the lesser (unnecessary) wars and invasions of the Cold War including Korea and Vietnam.

Andy Stone, spokesman for the Meta tech conglomerate, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been placed on a wanted list in Russia, according to the database of the country’s Interior Ministry.

Izvestia, Ria-Novosti and other Russian media outlets reported on Sunday that Stone’s name can now be found on the database. His file reads that the US citizen is sought over a criminal case, but reveals no further details.

Meta was branded an extremist organization in Russia shortly after the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022. Its apps, Facebook and Instagram, were blocked in the country for allowing hate speech against Russian nationals and for distributing what had been deemed false content about Moscow’s military. WhatsApp avoided restrictions due to being classed as solely a communication tool.

Ukraine's military leadership has no strategic plan for the year ahead in its ongoing conflict with Russia, Mariana Bezuglaya, the deputy head of the country's parliament’s security, defense and intelligence committee, admitted on Sunday. The top brass want to mobilize tens of thousands of people every month, but has no clear understanding of what should be done with them, she added.

“The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been unable to provide a [strategic] plan for 2024,” Bezuglaya wrote in a post on her Facebook page, referring to Ukraine’s top military commander, General Valery Zaluzhny. The general has absolutely no concept of further conflict, she claimed, adding that he has no plan for any type of warfare, “either large or small… asymmetrical or symmetrical.”

The position of military leadership representes a major issue for the lawmakers planning the nation’s budget for the next year, the senior MP said. Problems had been growing both in parliament and at the military leadership’s HQ, at least since the summer, Bezuglaya revealed.

China began military exercises along its border with Myanmar on Saturday and urged its citizens to leave the north of that country, which has been beset by fighting since last month.

Clashes have intensified in large areas of Myanmar‘s northern Shan state, close to the Chinese border, forcing more than 80,000 people to leave their homes, according to the United Nations.

An armed alliance of ethnic minority groups in October launched a major offensive against the army in regions close to the Chinese border, displacing more than 332,000 people, the United Nations has said.

The ongoing Israel-Palestine war has raised serious questions about the future of the Middle East and how it interacts with global powers.

With the US and a number of western states throwing their unconditional support behind Israel, some Arab countries have found themselves trying to safeguard their interests while appeasing public anger.

On Saturday, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan announced that a delegation from the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit, which took place in Riyadh earlier this month, will be going to several world capitals to promote an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

China called the US the “biggest disrupter of peace” in the South China Sea after a US warship sailed near Chinese-controlled islands in the disputed waters.

The US Navy’s Seventh Fleet said Saturday that the guided-missile destroyer USS Hopper sailed near the Paracel Islands, known as the Xisha Islands in China, in an operation known as a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP). The US began regularly conducting FONOPs to challenge China’s claims in the South China Sea in 2015.

The area where the USS Hopper conducted the FONOP is also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam. According to The South China Morning Post, the Chinese military said it “warned off” the US warship after it entered the Xisha Islands’ territorial waters, which extend 12 nautical miles from a coastline.

Lebanese farmer and minibus driver Abdallah Abdallah went back to his village near the Israeli border on Saturday to find that weeks of bombing had badly damaged his house and destroyed his tractor.

"What can I say? Israel has always been criminal, it has always targeted our houses," said Abdallah, 50, his face weary as he pointed to gaping holes in the walls of his two-storey home in Aitarun, just across from an Israeli military position.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, the frontier between Lebanon and Israel has seen intensifying exchanges of fire, mainly between Israel and Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah, but also Palestinian groups, raising fears of a broader conflagration.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his cabinet have led Germany into a “serious national crisis,” Markus Soeder, the prime minister of the nation’s most populous state, Bavaria, told journalists on Saturday. Berlin can now hardly find a way out of this predicament, the politician warned, adding that the government’s “budget emergency” would likely turn into another burden for ordinary Germans.

His words came as the federal government announced the lifting of energy-price controls by the end of the year. Limits on electricity and gas prices were introduced in 2022 to protect households and businesses from soaring prices of gas and electricity as Germany was actively slashing energy imports from Russia, along with many other EU nations. The measure was introduced in response to the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine.

1. Are there any sanctions against ISRAEL for the murder and destruction of innocent Palestinian women and children?

2. Are there any sanctions against AMERICA for killing and destroying the lives of innocent women and children in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Cuba, and Vietnam, and even stealing their diamonds and gold?

3. Were there any sanctions against AMERICA/FRANCE over the killing of Muammar Ghaddafi and the destruction of Libya?

4. Has there ever been an American/NATO soldier ever been punished for raping and torturing innocent women/children of all the aforementioned countries?

5. Are there sanctions against FRANCE for causing crisis and unrest in several African countries? These are very war crimes America and NATO should be punished.

According to Google, an "Equity Swap is:

An equity swap is an exchange of future cash flows between two parties that allows each party to diversify its income for a specified period of time while still holding its original assets.

According to the Wikipedia, an Equity Swap is:

An equity swap is a financial derivative contract (a swap) where a set of future cash flows are agreed to be exchanged between two counterparties at set dates in the future. The two cash flows are usually referred to as "legs" of the swap; one of these "legs" is usually pegged to a floating rate such as LIBOR. This leg is also commonly referred to as the "floating leg". The other leg of the swap is based on the performance of either a share of stock or a stock market index. This leg is commonly referred to as the "equity leg". Most equity swaps involve a floating leg vs. an equity leg, although some exist with two equity legs.

Webmaster addition: Derivatives are economic weapons of mass destruction.

Thousands of Pro-Palestine Protestors are Occupying the Manhattan Bridge, bringing Traffic to a halt and forcing shutdown.

1000 or more Pro Palestine protesters and activists are occupying and shutting down the Manhattan Bridge in New York City, bringing traffic to a halt as they are blocking cars and other vehicles from entering or leaving.

Protesters are demanding a permanent end to all US military aid to Israel, chanting "US out of the Middle East! End the war on Gaza."

The New York City Police Department is advising everyone to avoid the area, with mass arrests expected.

There has been much talk about what happens after Hamas is eliminated as a military and political force in Gaza.  Some speak of the urgency of a two-state solution. Others scoff at the very idea. The hatreds unleashed by the fighting, they argue, would make it impossible to reach such a settlement. Yet, we suggest, once Hamas is neutralized, Gaza could play a key role in finally resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Right now, there is no mood in Israel nor the Palestinian Territories for any talk about what happens next. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have been traumatized by events.  In Israel, some brave souls continue to advance a two-state solution. But the Hamas outrages of October 7 have turned many doves into hawks. Israel’s rightward drift prior to the bloodletting has accelerated. The Palestinians’ view of Israel as a cruel and heartless occupier will now only be more pronounced. A recent poll indicates a majority of them see the conflict as targeting all Palestinians, only a minority view it as a war between Israel and Hamas.

So, the two sides have never been more at odds. Any pursuit of a post-Hamas resolution to this unending human tragedy would be something of a fool’s errand. However, that does not mean that a start can’t be made to develop the contours of a future Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. The process would have to begin in Gaza because the West Bank remains contested and hugely volatile, with Jewish extremists abusing Palestinians and Hamas and Islamic Jihad cells wreaking mayhem in the territory and, occasionally, in Israel proper.

Six months after Nevada’s congressional delegation called for a better plan for fighting “superbug” Candida auris, the number of new cases in the southern part of the state has risen to record levels.

In October, there were 57 new clinical cases of the drug-resistant, potentially lethal fungus that can invade a person’s bloodstream, brain, heart or other organs, according to Nevada Division of Behavioral Health data. In the same month, 123 cases of colonization were reported in which individuals typically have the fungus in the folds of their skin, invisible to the eye, yet are not sick. Those people can still transmit the pathogen.

As the holiday season unfolds, a grim reality casts a shadow over American households – mounting food insecurity exacerbated by surging inflation and escalating grocery prices. Recent data from consumer surveys and analyses on food insecurity and grocery shopping behavior, as reported by Axios, paints a stark picture of the challenges faced by both citizens and food banks alike.

Big banks such as PNC Bank and JPMorgan Chase have filed to close several branch offices in multiple states amid a troubling pattern of rising branch shutdowns in recent years.

Between Nov. 12 and 18, several banks filed to close branch locations, with PNC Bank with the most filings, according to data from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank filed for 19 branch closures—five in Pennsylvania, four in Illinois, three in Texas, two each in Alabama and New Jersey, and one each in Indiana, Ohio, and Florida.

JPMorgan Chase followed closely with 18 filings—three in Ohio, two each in Connecticut and South Carolina, and one each in 11 states, including New York, Illinois, Florida, and Massachusetts.

Citizens Bank came in third with eight branch closure filings—six in New York, and one each in Massachusetts and Delaware. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank filed for seven closures—three in Tennessee and one each in Missouri, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Illinois.

Bank of America made five filings—two in New York and one each in Texas, Massachusetts, and California.

When the Siege of Avdiivka started, I wrote that, according to what we learned about the similar sieges of Mariupol and Bakhmut, we could expect three things:

First of all – advances will probably be slow.

The second important lesson from past sieges in this war has to do with the coverage by the MSM.

Ukrainians always win – in the MSM headlines.

All the time, it is stressed in their how horribly failing the Russians are, how they don’t have a chance, while papers sing praises for the impenetrable Ukrainian defenses.

Meanwhile, the Russians will be losing the war in the headlines but winning in the ground, until they finally take the city.

The 3rd feature is: when Russians do, a key defensive bastion like Avdiivka will be rebranded as a minor non-strategic place.

But if we dig a bit, it’s easy to find good information.

US actions have destroyed actually an entire array of international arms control agreements, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

"I do not know how historians will call this period but US actions have destroyed actually an entire array of arms control agreements, which is a fact. Hundreds and hundreds of pages have already been written about that," Russia’s top diplomat said at the Primakov Readings international forum.

The Russian foreign minister said that "the current period in world history should be treated as responsibly as possible."

US President Joe Biden reportedly rejected the advice of staff to refrain from repeating unverified reports that Hamas had beheaded babies during its attack on Israel on October 7.

Some White House advisors appealed to the president to “cut a line about Hamas beheading babies because those reports were unverified”, according to a report by The Washington Post.

As President Joe Biden faces criticism and declining poll numbers, some within the Democratic Party, like Rep. Dean Phillips, openly express doubts about his ability to defeat Donald Trump. 

The Irish government’s swift push for anti-speech regulations, aimed at stifling criticism of their policies, raises serious concerns about the state of democratic discourse. As they tread further down the authoritarian path, they risk amplifying the very problem they seek to suppress.