More damage reported at the Muslim structures on the Temple Mount
ISRAEL - For the second time in one week, structural damage as reported at a Muslim structure on the Temple Mount. Though the damage seems minor and its cause is undetermined, the Muslim structures standing on Judaism’s holiest site have a long history of collapse due to the earthquakes that are common to the region. Akiva Ariel, a spokesman for the Temple Mount activist organization, Beyadenu, told Israel365 News that it is not uncommon for the Muslim structures on the Temple Mount to experience minor structural collapses.
Constructed in 692 CE by the Umayyad Caliphate on the orders of Abd al-Malik on the site of the Jewish Temple, the Dome of the Rock is the oldest Muslim structure in existence. The building was severely damaged by earthquakes in 808 and again in 846. The dome collapsed in an earthquake in 1015 and was rebuilt in 1022–23. The mosaics on the drum were repaired in 1027–28. The earthquake of 1033 resulted in the introduction of wooden beams to enforce the dome. Parts of the Dome of the Rock collapsed during the 11 July 1927 earthquake, and the walls were left badly cracked.
Earthquakes in 2004 opened cracks in the walls of the Dome of the Rock and the Marwani Mosque. The Waqf refused to allow Israeli experts to aid in the repairs. Eilat Mazar, a noted archeologist and activist on the Committee for Preventing the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, conjectured that a major disaster at the site was imminent.
“It is falling apart,” Mazar said to Globe-News. “It is just a matter of time until some big section of the inside of the compound will fall in — from [the weight of] tens of thousands of Muslims, from trucks, from the next earthquake... It is pure stupidity to think if we do nothing that nothing will happen.”
Israel president floats plan to prevent 'constitutional collapse'
ISRAEL - Israel's president floated a compromise plan on Sunday to spare the country what he described as a "constitutional collapse" and possible violence, over a contested judicial overhaul sought by the hard-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The rare prime-time television speech by President Isaac Herzog, whose figurehead role is designed to unite an often fractious society, included an appeal to coalition lawmakers to hold off on initial legislation steps in parliament which some had planned to begin this week.
But Justice Minister Yariv Levin poured cold water on the idea of postponing, saying in a statement responding to Herzog's speech that while he did not oppose dialogue this "should not be linked to progress in the legislation proceedings".
The centre-left opposition, accusing Netanyahu of seeking greater control over the court system even as he himself is being tried on corruption charges, have mounted demonstrations and called for nationwide protest strikes at the Knesset on Monday.
Netanyahu - who denies wrongdoing in his trial - says the reforms are aimed at restoring balance between Israeli authorities. "We are on the brink of constitutional and social collapse," Herzog said. "I feel - we all feel - that we are barely a moment away from a collision - and even from a violent collision."
Unidentified object shot down over Lake Huron
USA - US fighter jets shot down an unidentified object over Lake Huron on Sunday, marking the third time such action was taken in as many days and coming on the heels of last week’s Chinese spy balloon saga. Sunday’s takedown is believed to have involved an octagonal object that was tracked by radar over Montana on Saturday, when it “flew in proximity to sensitive [Department of Defense] sites,” Pentagon Press Secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder said in a statement.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command located the object Sunday morning and tracked it visually and with radar until an F-16 fighter fired an AIM9x missile to blow it out of the sky about 20,000 feet over Lake Huron at 2:42 pm, Ryder said. “We did not assess it to be a kinetic military threat to anything on the ground, but assessed it was a safety flight hazard and a threat due to its potential surveillance capabilities,” Ryder said.
Ryder said it was shot down over water “to avoid impact to people on the ground while improving chances for debris recovery. The object looked octagonal in shape and had strings hanging off it but carried no perceptible payload, an anonymous US official told Reuters.
Baffled pilots: mystery object over Alaska say it 'interfered with sensors'
USA - “When the US first detected this object over Alaska on Thursday, they sent up F-35 jets to … see what was going on,” she explained. “And these pilots reported back very conflicting accounts”. The pilots of the cutting-edge stealth fighters said “that this object was actually interfering with the sensors of their aircraft and they couldn't figure out why, because there was no identifiable kind of surveillance equipment on the object,” she said.
The pilots were also mystified as to what kind of aircraft they were actually dealing with. According to Bertrand, the pilots “were saying that they did not see anything on the object that appeared able to propel it, that it seemed like there was no way that this was actually able to stay in the air”.
Scholz seeks to prove Germany’s serious on defense
GERMANY - While Germany is on track to miss NATO’s 2 percent defense spending goal, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is planning two dedicated speeches to mark the first anniversary of the so-called Zeitenwende sea change in German foreign policy… Officials are preparing a potential meeting of the Franco-German-Polish “Weimar Triangle” coalition on the sidelines of the Munich conference, which would bring together Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish President Andrzej Duda to discuss European security challenges, although the meeting has not been finally confirmed, according to two further officials in Berlin and Paris.
One controversial issue revolving around the Zeitenwende, however, is defense spending: Germany is currently on track to miss NATO’s 2 percent defense spending goal this year and likely also in 2024, despite the massive €100 billion special fund. Berlin’s new Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is pushing behind the scenes to increase defense spending by €10 billion to around €60 billion as of next year in order to finance new investments such as ammunition purchases, and to adhere to the 2 percent spending goal, one official said.
The chancellor is expected to highlight the achievements of the first year of his foreign policy shift and claim a new German leadership role as a security provider in Europe.
German politicians and military chiefs suggest return of conscription
GERMANY - Political and military figures in Germany have suggested a return of compulsory military service after the new defence minister described the 2011 phase-out of general conscription as a “mistake” that had contributed to alienating the general public from civic institutions.
The German parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, Eva Högl of the centre-left SPD, on Wednesday urged the government to ask itself whether some form of obligatory civic service was required to address staff shortages in the German army’s ranks. “We definitely need more personnel in the Bundeswehr,” Högl told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.
The chief of the German navy, Jan Christian Kaack, also recently proposed a return of mandatory military service along the Norwegian model, whereby men and women are called in for an examination upon turning 19, but only a small, motivated percentage of each year group is drafted into the army. “I believe that a nation that needs to become more resilient in times like these will have a higher level of awareness if it is mixed through with soldiers,” said Kaack.
UK has secret plans for EU
UK - London is quietly planning to boost cooperation with Brussels on issues of defense, migration and the economy, officials told the agency. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has privately asked members of his cabinet to work out ways of rebuilding connections with the EU that had been severed after Brexit in 2020, government sources have told Bloomberg.
According to British ministers, diplomats and officials, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, the rapprochement is being prepared in order to compensate for the fallout of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, in which London positions itself among the prime backers of the Kiev authorities.
Bloomberg pointed out that the PM risks angering anti-EU lawmakers from his ruling Conservative Party. He also faces an uphill battle to overcome skepticism in Brussels, where leaders resent British politicians who used the bloc as a "punch bag for their domestic audience" since the Brexit vote in 2016, it added. One of the sources assured Bloomberg that the alleged turn towards Europe didn’t mean that Brexit was a mistake but was merely a reflection of the changing geopolitical situation.
Achieving this would require Britain to give up on its "madman strategy" of resisting the EU, in favor of a stable relationship with the bloc as critical friends, he said. By standing together, London and Brussels would be able to withstand economic turbulence and threats posed by Russia and China more effectively, the source explained.
The Biggest Lies People Believed About Covid?
USA - Right now, we're seeing people across the country waking up to the notion that perhaps they were lied to about Covid-19 from the beginning, that there may be an agenda at play that has nothing to do with saving lives. From the very beginning certain narratives being promoted in the mainstream did not meet logical or scientific standards. It became obvious that fear was the goal, rather than safety. But in order to create fear, establishment elites and governments had to LIE BIG.
What Can We Learn? The hailstorm of lies surrounding the covid pandemic teach us a number of things – We now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that future crisis events will be used as an excuse for the erasure of our freedoms. We have seen it first hand. The insidious measures we witnessed in western countries in response to people who refused to comply with mandates or vaccination on scientific and moral grounds showed us how precarious our civil stability truly is.
Los Angeles Emergencies and Threats
USA - Los Angeles is prone to many natural and man-made threats. Los Angeles is particularly vulnerable to the destructive affects of wildfires, flooding, mudslides, earthquakes, and extreme heat. Because of the many threats faced, the importance of readiness as a City and for residents cannot be overstated. Part of disaster preparedness is being aware of the kinds of hazards and disasters you might be subject to living in as a Los Angeles resident.
Here is, at least, a partial list:
Earthquakes, Fire, Tsunami, Severe Weather and Flooding, Extreme Heat, Extreme Cold, Landslides, Hurricane, Tornado, Terrorism, Cybercrime, Public health threats, Chemical Emergencies and Air Quality.
Catholic Bishop: Pope Francis ‘Using His Platform to Embolden Sinners’
USA - Bishop Joseph Strickland of the Catholic diocese of Tyler, Texas tweeted out a video on Friday that featured Father Jason Charron delivering a video message that criticized Pope Francis for his recent remarks on homosexuals and said that the pope was “using his platform to embolden sinners.” “This priest speaks truth that needs to be shared,” said Bishop Strickland in his tweet.
On the video, Father Charron says: “I am sure you heard today, as many people have, that Pope Francis again has called for the decriminalizing of homosexual acts among other things on his return flight from his African visit home to the Vatican.”
“And it struck me that a lot of the Pope’s public comments, you know, revolve around this issue of homosexuality as though that were the center piece of his ministry,” said Father Charron. “You don’t hear a whole lot of comments from him calling for the defense of persecuted Christians in places like, oh, I don’t know, China.”
“This is the great shame - that he has abandoned his first love and instead of preaching the Gospel, emboldening the saints and calling sinners to repentance, he’s using his platform to embolden sinners and to shame the saints into silence in conformity with the world.”
More than 1,000 children were given puberty blockers
UK - More than 1,000 children at the NHS's controversial child transgender clinic were handed prescriptions for puberty blockers, a new book has claimed, as former staff compare it to the 'doping of East German athletes'. The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in London will close later this year after being slammed in a report amid accusations it was rushing children onto puberty blocking drugs.
Now former clinicians at the service have revealed how 'incredibly complex' children were handed the life-altering drugs after just one assessment - despite having a multitude of mental health or background issues. GIDS was formerly the sole provider of gender dysphoria and gender identity services for children and young people across the whole of the UK.
The controversial clinic treated at least 9,000 children for gender dysphoria from when it opened in 1989, but a review led by senior paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass warned that 'it has become increasingly clear that a single specialist provider model is not a safe or viable long-term option'. It came amid reports the service had become overwhelmed with a waiting list of up to two years. It came despite concerns there was 'scarce and inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision making'.
The confirmed closure of the service for young people at Tavistock later his year has been hailed as a victory by campaigners. The NHS has confirmed that the clinic will be replaced by local hubs at existing children's hospitals, which will provide more holistic care with 'strong links to mental health services'.
The Worst January Job Cuts ‘Since The Great Recession’
USA - It appears that the tsunami of layoffs that started late last year is starting to accelerate. January was a horrible month for job losses, and major layoff announcements are coming fast and furious here in February. Challenger, Gray & Christmas just issued a report that concluded that last month “was the worst January for job cuts since the Great Recession in 2009”…
- Disney has decided to tell approximately 7,000 employees to hit the bricks
- Yahoo has announced that it will be laying off “more than 20% of its workforce”
- Ebay was doing quite well, but now they have decided that 4 percent of their workers are no longer needed
- Affirm announced it’s cutting 19% of its workforce
- As the US housing crash deepens, JPMorgan Chase has concluded that now is the time to “cut hundreds of mortgage employees”
- GoDaddy just let their workers know that they plan to “reduce the size of our global team by about 8%”
- Micron is one of the biggest private employers in Idaho, but now it intends to “reduce its global headcount by about 10% over the next year”
- GitHub has become yet another victim of the downsizing trend in the tech industry
- Nomad Health just laid off approximately 20 percent of their entire corporate workforce
- Zoom is giving the axe to approximately 1,300 workers
- Boeing was supposedly going to be hiring more workers, but instead the company just announced that thousands of positions in finance and human resources will be eliminated - “We expect about 2,000 reductions this year”
- Do you remember when Dell computers were still popular? Unfortunately, the tide has turned and now Dell has been forced to get rid of 6,650 workers
I could go on and on if you would like. There are countless other firms that have also just announced significant layoffs. We truly have not faced economic conditions like this since the Great Recession… Unfortunately, we are still only in the very early chapters of this new crisis. As I have been warning for years, things will eventually get much worse.
Our leaders have been making incredibly bad decisions for decades, and now we are going to get to suffer the consequences of those bad decisions. This generation was handed the keys to the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen, but we wrecked it. Now the chickens are coming home to roost, and most Americans are completely unprepared for what is coming next.
I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids - Now I’m Blowing the Whistle
USA - There are more than 100 pediatric gender clinics across the US. I worked at one. What’s happening to children is morally and medically appalling. I am a 42-year-old St Louis native, a queer woman, and politically to the left of Bernie Sanders. My worldview has deeply shaped my career. I have spent my professional life providing counseling to vulnerable populations: children in foster care, sexual minorities, the poor.
For almost four years, I worked at The Washington University School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases with teens and young adults who were HIV positive. Many of them were trans or otherwise gender nonconforming, and I could relate: Through childhood and adolescence, I did a lot of gender questioning myself. I’m now married to a transman, and together we are raising my two biological children from a previous marriage and three foster children we hope to adopt.
I left the clinic in November of last year because I could no longer participate in what was happening there. By the time I departed, I was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to “do no harm.” Instead, we are permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care.
All that led me to a job in 2018 as a case manager at The Washington University Transgender Center at St Louis Children's Hospital, which had been established a year earlier. Today I am speaking out. I am doing so knowing how toxic the public conversation is around this highly contentious issue — and the ways that my testimony might be misused. I am doing so knowing that I am putting myself at serious personal and professional risk.
Almost everyone in my life advised me to keep my head down. But I cannot in good conscience do so. Because what is happening to scores of children is far more important than my comfort. And what is happening to them is morally and medically appalling.
Sea Level Is Stable Around the World…
USA - The Good News the Media Don’t Want Us to Hear. We have been studying climate change and potentially associated sea level changes resulting from melting ice and warming oceans for a half century. In the 1970s our primary concern was global cooling and an advancing new ice age. Many believe that increasing quantities of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere could result in rising levels of the sea in general. The record does not show this to be true. There is no evidence whatever to support impending sea-level-rise catastrophe or the unnecessary expenditure of state or federal tax monies to solve a problem that does not exist.
Tucker Carlson: The Climate Change “Religion”
USA - When the late author and political philosopher Michael Crichton discussed climate change activism two decades ago, he made a compelling case for why it should be considered a religion. As Fox News host Tucker Carlson said, his statements were among the rare ones that have aged perfectly well on the subject.
Climate change cultists have their version of the Garden of Eden as the planet before humans invaded it and turned it into something dirty. They also have their “original sin,” in their case the Industrial Revolution. Their “end times” event is climate catastrophe. Yes, it is a religion and the cultists are as fervent as the most extreme members of any other faith-based group.
“Nobody cares about data anymore; we saw that with COVID as well. Wear a cloth mask, said Fauci even as he privately admitted that cloth masks are useless to prevent the transmission of COVID,” Carlson said. “Take the COVID shot, Kathy Hochul told us, standing at a pulpit, because, and were quoting, ‘That’s what god wants.’ So once again, whatever this is, it is not science by definition, it’s religion. But despite the fact the Constitution prohibits the US government from having a state religion, that now is our state religion.”The climate change cult has more cheerleaders in media than even the Democrat Party.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this section are not our own, unless specifically stated, but are provided to highlight what may prove to be prophetically relevant material appearing in the media.
