A Give-Away Of Sensitive U.S. Military Technology’: Trump Vetoes Resolutions Blocking Saudi Arms Sales

by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – A series of arms sales by the Trump administration to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia were pushed through Monday, after Republicans and Democrats failed to buoy resolutions blocking the sales against vetoes from Trump.

The initial sales, part of an agreement signed by the President during his trip to the Middle East oil juggernaut in 2017, total $8.1 billion in weapons, with an overall $350 billion in arms expected to be exported to the country over the next decade.

“From the start, this administration has failed to demonstrate what kind of national security threat or quote-unquote ‘emergency’ from Iran warranted fast-tracking the sale of these weapons to Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.,” Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey objected.

A report released the same day by House Oversight Committee Democratic Chairman Elijah Cummings revealed the potential transfer of sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to the Saudi Kingdom by private investment firm IP3 as a major lobbying point of friends within the Trump administration.

Saudi Arabia is the top customer of U.S. arms in the world, with $90 billion worth of U.S. weapons having been sold to the Middle East kingdom since 1950.

Despite historic ties between American and Saudi oil interests, with American companies like Texaco, Exxon, and Mobil having grown from the soil of a joint American-Saudi oil venture in eastern Saudi Arabia in 1933, the two countries remain ideologically split, making the weapons sales questionable.

Besides fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers being Saudi citizens, and Osama Bin Laden himself being the son of the owner of Saudi Arabia’s largest construction company, the Saudi Royal court voiced its firm displeasure when the U.S. decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2018, making opposition to Iran and the sale of oil virtually the only shared values in the partnership between the two countries.

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Leaked Report Reveals Culture of Corruption At Highest Level of UNRWA

by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – A leaked UN report details abuses at the highest level of the UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

According to the 10-page report, UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl, Deputy Commissioner-General Sandra Mitchel, Senior Advisor to Krahenbuhl Maria Mohammedi, and Chief of Staff Hakam Shahwan had created an environment of dysfunction and authoritarianism in the organization.

“Abuse of authority for personal gain, to suppress legitimate dissent and to otherwise achieve their personal objectives,” “consolidating power,” “concentrat[ing] decision-making power” and “disregard[ing] agency rules and … procedures” were among charges leveled against the top officials by the report, which was published by Al Jazeera.

The Trump administration announced in September 2018 that it would cut all funding to the UNRWA, to which the U.S. has donated $6 billion since 1950, for continuing to cross-pollinate its staff with members of Hamas and running schools where anti-Israel jihad serves as the basis of the curriculum.

The UNRWA has also been accused of paying stipends to imprisoned Hamas terrorists and their families.

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A Turning-Point in Tehran-Moscow Military Relations’: Iran and Russia Shore Up Ties in Planned Naval Exercise

(Worthy News) – Russia and Iran moved to strengthen their military ties this week, ahead of a joint Russian-Iranian naval drill slated to take place between the Indian Ocean and contested strait of Hormuz over the next year.

Iranian Navy Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi was in Moscow Monday to sign a “memorandum of understanding” with the Russian ministry of defense, an agreement he called “the first…of its kind” and “a turning point in Tehran-Moscow military relations.”

“A coordination meeting will be held between the two sides in this regard,” Khanzadi said of the drill, which will see a joint Russian-Iranian military presence in Middle East waters for the first time, precedented only by exercises between the two countries held in the past in the Caspian sea near Europe.

The seizure of a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz by Iran on July 19th yielded a call by UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt for a European-led coalition to patrol the crucial waterway that Iran controls.

The US proposed a similar maritime security force in June after Iran blew holes in the hulls of two Saudi oil tankers and endangered a Norwegian tanker, damaging a Japanese vessel weeks later in a separate incident.

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Israel said to hit Iranian sites in Iraq, expanding strikes on missile shipments

(Worthy News) – Israel has expanded its operations against Iranian targets to Iraq, where Air Force jets have struck twice in ten days, a report said Tuesday morning.

Israel commonly conducts strikes in Syrian territory, targeting Iranian missile shipments meant for Lebanese terror group Hezbollah to use against the Jewish state, but strikes in Iraq by Israel have not been reported since the 1981 bombing of a nuclear reactor.

Asharq Al-Awsat, an Arabic-language newspaper published in London, cited Western diplomatic sources as saying an Israeli F-35 plane was behind a July 19 strike on a rocket depot in a Shiite militia base north of Baghdad. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

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US formally asks Germany to ‘help secure’ Strait of Hormuz

(Worthy News) – The United States has formally asked Germany to join a European naval mission to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the US embassy in Berlin said Tuesday.

Earlier, embassy spokeswoman Tamara Sternberg-Greller told the DPA news agency about the request. The embassy confirmed the statements to DW.

“We’ve formally asked Germany to join France and the UK to help secure the Strait of Hormuz and combat Iranian aggression,” she said. [ Source: Deutche Welle (Read More…) ]

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North Korea fired ‘multiple’ projectiles off east coast, South Korea reports

(Worthy News) – North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles off its east coast Wednesday, South Korean officials said, just days after the secretive regime fired two short-range missiles from the same region.

The latest projectiles were launched from the Hodo peninsula in South Hamgyong Province, according to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, as Yonhap News reported.

“We are aware of reports of a missile launch from North Korea and we will continue to monitor the situation,” a senior administration official told Fox News on Tuesday. [ Source: Fox News (Read More…) ]

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California governor signs law demanding Trump release tax returns for spot on primary ballot

(Worthy News) – Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Tuesday that would force presidential candidates to release their tax returns in order to appear on the state’s primary ballot, a move apparently aimed at President Trump.

The bill, named the Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act, requires presidential and gubernatorial candidates to disclose the last five years of their tax returns. The measure passed the legislature with no Republican support and took effect immediately when Newsom signed it Tuesday.

“As one of the largest economies in the world and home to one in nine Americans eligible to vote, California has a special responsibility to require this information of presidential and gubernatorial candidates,” Newsom said in a statement. “These are extraordinary times and states have a legal and moral duty to do everything in their power to ensure leaders seeking the highest offices meet minimal standards, and to restore public confidence. The disclosure required by this bill will shed light on conflicts of interest, self-dealing, or influence from domestic and foreign business interest.” [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]

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Pompeo: US will maintain Strait of Hormuz, as Iran continues to reject talks

(Worthy News) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stressed on Monday that the United States will keep the Strait of Hormuz open to maritime traffic amid increasing tensions with Iran, which has repeatedly rejected U.S. overtures to come to the negotiating table.

“We are gonna keep it open,” said Pompeo at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. “We are going to build up a maritime security plan. Countries from all across the world who have a vested interest in keeping those waterways open will participate.” [ Source: JNS News (Read More…) ]

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40% of Americans Believe in Creationism

(Worthy News) – Forty percent of U.S. adults ascribe to a strictly creationist view of human origins, believing that God created them in their present form within roughly the past 10,000 years. However, more Americans continue to think that humans evolved over millions of years — either with God’s guidance (33%) or, increasingly, without God’s involvement at all (22%).

The latest findings, from a June 3-16 Gallup poll, have not changed significantly from the last reading in 2017. However, the 22% of Americans today who do not believe God had any role in human evolution marks a record high dating back to 1982. This figure has changed more than the other two have over the years and coincides with an increasing number of Americans saying they have no religious identification. [ Source: Gallup (Read More…) ]

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Celebrating New Religious Freedom Law, Bolivian Evangelicals Push for More

(Worthy News) – After 183 years as a Roman Catholic nation, Bolivia officially became a secular country in 2009, when a new constitution, promulgated by the administration of its first indigenous leader, President Evo Morales, dropped any mention of the historic faith of its Spanish colonial rulers, bolstering the position of its pre-colonial religions.

But the surprising winners in the transition to the new constitution have been the country’s long-ignored evangelical Christians.

Angered when the 2009 charter failed to recognize them, Protestant denominations have spent the past decade mobilizing their growing numbers of followers, finally forcing a religious freedom law that codifies their tax status and, perhaps more importantly, giving them standing in Bolivian society. [ Source: Christian Headlines (Read More…) ]

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