ITS TIME TO BAN ALL INDIAN VISAS FROM CANADA.NUT JOB MODI BLAMES CANADA OF HUMAN SMUGGLING WITH STUDENT VISAS. BAN ALL STUDENT VISAS IN CANADA.

 JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)

ITS TIME TO BAN ALL INDIAN VISAS FROM CANADA.NUT JOB MODI BLAMES CANADA OF HUMAN SMUGGLING WITH STUDENT VISAS. BAN ALL STUDENT VISAS IN CANADA.

STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES

LUKE 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun,(HEATING UP-SOLAR ECLIPSES) and in the moon,(MAN ON MOON-LUNAR ECLIPSES) and in the stars;(ASTEROIDS ETC) and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION) the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear,(TORNADOES,HURRICANES,STORMS) and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth:(DESTRUCTION) for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.(FROM QUAKES,NUKES ETC)

THE FIRST JUDGEMENT OF THE EARTH STARTED WITH WATER-IT ONLY MAKES SENSE THE LAST GENERATION WILL BE HAVING FLOODING (BUT WILL NOT KILL EVERY BODY WITH WATER)(BUT 50% OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE (4 BILLION PEOPLE) FROM NUCLEAR WAR)(THE BIBLE SAYS BY FIRE OR ATOMIC BOMBS THIS TIME)
GENESIS 7:6-12
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
GOD PROMISED BY A RAINBOW-THE EARTH WOULD NEVER BE DESTROYED TOTALLY WITH A FLOOD AGAIN.BUT FLOODIING IS A SIGN OF JUDGEMENT.

OZONE DEPLETION JUDGEMENT ON THE EARTH DUE TO SIN

ISAIAH 30:26-27
26 Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold,(7X OR 7-DEGREES HOTTER) as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people,(ISRAEL) and healeth the stroke of their wound.
27 Behold, the name of the LORD cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire:

MATTHEW 24:21-22,29
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened,(DAY LIGHT HOURS SHORTENED) there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake (ISRAELS SAKE) those days shall be shortened (Daylight hours shortened)(THE ASTEROID HITS EARTH HERE)
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

REVELATION 16:7-9
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

EZEKIEL 32:6-9
6  I will also water with thy blood the land wherein thou swimmest, even to the mountains; and the rivers shall be full of thee.
7  And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light.
8  All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord GOD.
9  I will also vex the hearts of many people, when I shall bring thy destruction among the nations, into the countries which thou hast not known.

REVELATION 16:3-7
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.(enviromentalists won't like this result)
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
6 For they(False World Church and Dictator and baby murderers by abortion) have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

2 Peter 3:6-7 Amplified Bible (AMP) (HOT SUN, NUKES ETC)
6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.
7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

FEARFUL SIGHTS AND GREAT SIGNS FROM HEAVEN

LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.so was not yet deemed a threat to land.The storm was located about 580 miles (930 kilometers) west-southwest of the southernmost tip of the Cabo Verde Islands and had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), the center said.The storms churned in the Atlantic as rescuers in the U.S. Southeast searched for people unaccounted for after Hurricane Helene struck last week, leaving behind a trail of death and catastrophic damage.

Coming in hot-NASA probe makes closest ever pass by sun, sustaining 1,700ºF heat-Parker Solar Probe, launched in 2018, makes history, in first of three record-breaking fly-bys in effort to tackle scientific mysteries about earth’s closest star-By AFP Today, 12:09 pm-DEC 27,24

NASA’s pioneering Parker Solar Probe made history Tuesday, flying closer to the sun than any other spacecraft, with its heat shield exposed to scorching temperatures topping 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (930 degrees Celsius).Launched in August 2018, the spaceship is on a seven-year mission to deepen scientific understanding of our star and help forecast space-weather events that can affect life on Earth.Tuesday’s historic fly-by should have occurred at precisely 6:53am (1153 GMT), although mission scientists will have to wait until Friday for confirmation as they lost contact with the craft for several days due to its proximity to the sun.“Right now, Parker Solar Probe is flying closer to a star than anything has ever done before,” at 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) away, NASA official Nicky Fox said in a video on social media Tuesday morning.“It is just a total ‘yay, we did it,’ moment.”If the distance between the Earth and the Sun is equivalent to the length of an American football field, the spacecraft should have been about four yards (meters) from the end zone at the moment of closest approach — known as perihelion.Parker Solar Probe has phoned home!After passing just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface on Dec. 24 — the closest solar flyby in history — we have received Parker Solar Probe’s beacon tone confirming the spacecraft is safe. https://t.co/zbWT7iDVtP — NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) December 27, 2024“This is one example of NASA’s bold missions, doing something that no one else has ever done before to answer long-standing questions about our universe,” Parker Solar Probe program scientist Arik Posner said in a statement on Monday.“We can’t wait to receive that first status update from the spacecraft and start receiving the science data in the coming weeks.”So effective is the heat shield that the probe’s internal instruments remain near room temperature — around 85F (29C) — as it explores the sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona.Parker will also be moving at a blistering pace of around 430,000 mph (690,000 kph), fast enough to fly from the US capital Washington to Japan’s Tokyo in under a minute.“Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory,” said Nick Pinkine, mission operations manager at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.“We’re excited to hear back from the spacecraft when it swings back around the sun.”By venturing into these extreme conditions, Parker has been helping scientists tackle some of the sun’s biggest mysteries: how solar wind originates, why the corona is hotter than the surface below, and how coronal mass ejections — massive clouds of plasma that hurl through space — are formed.The Christmas Eve fly-by is the first of three record-setting close passes, with the next two — on March 22 and June 19, 2025 — both expected to bring the probe back to a similarly close distance from the sun.

HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.(IN 1 HR THE STOCK MARKETS WORLDWIDE WILL CRASH)
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed:(CONFISCATED) their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

MARK OF THE BEAST (engraved microchip in your hand or forehead)

REVELATION 13:16-18
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, (SLAVE) to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

REVELATION 16:1-2
1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.

I KNOW THIS MARK WILL BE A MICROCHIP IMPLANT UNDER THE SKIN. LETS LOOK UP WHAT THE WORD MARK SAYS IN REVELATION 13:16-18, 14:9,11, 15:2, 16:2, 19:20, 20:4-ALL THESE VERSES FROM THE BOOK OF REVELATION SPEAK OF THIS DICTATORS MARK. NOW LETS SEE WHAT IT MEANS FROM STRONGS EXAUSTIVE CONCORDANCE OF THE BIBLE. UNDER MARK PAGE 684.MARK UNDER MARK. THE OLD TESTAMENT IS UNDER HEBREW AND THE NEW TESTAMENT IS UNDER GREEK. SO WHEN WE LOOK UNDER REVELATION 13:16-17 WE SEE IT IS UNDER GREEK, SO WE GO TO GREEK IN THE BACK SECTION AND GO TO 5480 TO SEE WHAT IT SAYS THIS MARK WOULD BE. SO LETS GET TO IT.MARK IN STRONGS GREEK 5480 XAPAYUA CHARAGMA, KHAR-AG-MAH: FROM THE SAME AS 5482: A SCRATCH OR ETCHING, I.E STAMP (AS A BADGE OF SERVITUDE), OR SCULPTURED FIGURE-(STATUE):-GRAVEN, MARK FROM 5482 XAPAE CHARAX, KHAR-AX; FROM XAPAOOW CHARASSO (TO SHARPEN TO A POINT; AKIN TO 1125 THROUGH THE IDEA OF SCRATCHING); A STAKE, I.E (BYIMPL.) A PALISADE OR RAMPART (MILITARY MOUND FOR CIRCUMVALLATION IN A SIEGE): - TRENCH FROM 1125 YPAPOE GRAPHO, GRAF-0; A PRIM. VERB; TO "GRAVE", ESPEC. TO WRITE; FIG. TO DESCRIBE:-DESCRIBE, WRITE (-ING, -TEN).G5516-GO TO G4742-666 - STRONGS NT 4742: στίγμα - στίγμα, στιγματος, τό (from στίζω to prick; (cf. Latinstimulus, etc.; German stechen, English stick, sting, etc.; Curtius, § 226)), a mark pricked in or branded upon the body. According to ancient oriental usage, slaves and soldiers bore the name or stamp of their master or commander branded or pricked (cut) into their bodies to indicate what master or general they belonged to, and there were even some devotees who stamped themselves in this way with the token of their gods (cf. Deyling, Observations, iii., p. 423ff); hence, τά στίγματα τοῦ (κυρίου so Rec.) Ἰησοῦ, the marks of (the Lord) Jesus, which Paul in Galatians 6:17 says he bears branded on his body, are the traces left there by the perils, hardships, imprisonments, scourgings, endured by him for the cause of Christ, and which mark him as Christ's faithful and approved votary, servant, soldier (see Lightfoots Commentary on Galatians, the passage cited). (Herodotus 7, 233; Aristotle, Aelian, Plutarch, Lcian, others.)

THE INVENTOR OF THE MICROCHIP IMPLANT-CARL SANDERS MICROCHIP ENGINEER LEADER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgH9D6n4ZWo

THE MICROCHIP IMPLANT IN YOUR RIGHT HAND OR FOREHEAD.

LEVETICUS 19.28
Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.

FAMINE

EZEKIEL 5:16
16  When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread:

REVELATION 6:5-6
5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.(A DAYS WAGES FOR A LOAF OF BREAD)

MATTHEW 24:7-8
7For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.

LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

DEUTORONOMY 28:24
24  The LORD shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.

LOCUSTS (DEMONIC) TORTURES SINNERS 5 MONTHS
REVELATION 9:1-6
1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
3 And there came out of the smoke (DEMONIC) locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

What we talk about when we talk about ‘humanness’AI has catalyzed proof of personhood (PoP). But do we need tech to tell us we’re people?Dec 26, 2024, 2:48 pm EST    | Joel R. McConvey

One of the more curious promises of technology in the 21st century is that it can confirm someone’s humanity. It sounds counterintuitive. But as AI becomes an established feature of our daily lives, and bots, deepfakes and scams proliferate, the question of how to verify that an entity is a person and not a machine has become central to digital identity, authentication and the quest to digitize anything and everything.In a recent article for Wired, author Kate Crawford says that “in 2025, it will be commonplace to talk with a personal AI agent who knows your schedule, your circle of friends, the places you go. These anthropomorphic agents are designed to support and charm us so that we fold them into every part of our lives.”Accordingly, an industry has grown to make sure we know who’s real and who’s not. The question has been framed as “Proof of Personhood” (PoP), and biometrics is central to its operations. A key feature of biometrics (and what adds an element of additional risk if they are stolen) is their uniqueness. Your face, fingerprint or iris biometrics are like no one else’s. As such, it provides the “one and one only” element of digital personhood – which, after all, wants not only to distinguish you from a machine, but also from other identities.But the technical and technological problems of personhood come with extra baggage. In dealing with the language of fundamental rights and verified humanness, firms are treading ethical grounds that have implications beyond the digital ID industry. Firms are coming at the problem of how to preserve personhood – in data and in language – from different perspectives, but with a similar, massive goal: to service everyone on planet Earth with a unique digital identity.Civic aims to define digital identity with personality-Among those positioned to make an impact is Civic. Founded in 2015 in San Francisco, Civic uses a tokenized identity model for identity management that prioritizes privacy. Its website says its user management tools allow clients to “deploy seamless onboarding and authentication in just a few lines of code.” It prevents so-called Sybil attacks, which involve gaining an unfair advantage over a network by controlling multiple accounts.But, in a recent email interview with Biometric Update, the company says its primary objective is “to be the world’s most trusted identity solution, used by billions every day.”Civic’s website says it is “working toward a world where identity is not only defined by documents, but also personality. Where the unique expression of an individual contributes to the security of a digital identity that they own and control.”While others deal in PoP, Civic’s notion of a ‘digital personality’ shows how the language of being is fusing with the language of digitization. The company believes identity and its attached personality are “a synthesis and expression of three primary areas: who you are, what you have, and what you’ve done.” Like identity, digital personality “may be expressed in anonymous, pseudonymous or fully proven ways depending on the objective.”Who you are could be anything from a name claimed on a social media platform to verifiable third-party attested data like a government-issued passport.What you have refers to private cryptographic keys, “which can be verified on-chain can then be correlated to ongoing ownership through mechanisms like proof of wallet ownership.” Identity verification is a use case; so are NFTs.What you have done is identity attached to traceable histories – for instance, proof of “membership in organizations like decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) via voting history, trading volumes and participation in any other on-chain activity. The more demonstrable history you have, the more you build trust with potential counterparties, but without needing the middle layer of things like credit bureaus.”Civic Pass, Civic Auth offer secure blockchain gateway, SSO-Civic, which works with FaceTec biometrics, offers two main products. In the most basic terms, its Civic Pass blockchain product “provides users an entry point to the verifiable internet, enabling developers to implement user verification and access control in applications and smart contracts.”“What this means,” the company says, “is that developers can choose to leverage Civic’s identity verification offerings like Liveness, Uniqueness or Document Verification as a gating criteria, or issue on-chain passes based on their own criteria. In this way, users’ unique biometrics or verifiable data (i.e. who you are) can be tied to wallet ownership (i.e. what you know – the private key).”The Civic Auth product “further lowers the barriers to entry for developers and users to present a familiar login experience, while optionally pairing it with the power of the verifiable internet.” The provided example is a developer choosing to “simply ask their users to log in with Google or add an embedded wallet and issue an on-chain Civic Pass to gate access to any smart contract using the Civic Auth toolkit. Later, the developer could choose to add biometric checks or other authentications.”In other words, “Civic Pass provides secure, permissioned access to on-chain assets while Civic Auth offers single sign-on for identity verification.”In a recent interview with the Metaverse Post, Chief Product Officer JP Bedoya summarizes further: “we developed a proof-of-personhood solution that links one human to one wallet. Using biometrics, like a video selfie, we create a unique 3D facial map to ensure only that individual can access their account.”Digital identity and PoP will converge but won’t be synonymous-So far, so good: everyone likes secure identity verification and biometric authentication. But the picture that emerges raises questions about where “digital identity” ends and digital “proof of personhood” begins. Civic believes there will be “a convergence of these two concepts,” but doesn’t see “those terms as becoming synonymous in all cases.”One may not have to prove personhood for some uses of digital identity, while others – for example, social media companies – will require measures to ensure that accounts posting on their platforms are run by actual people.Civic says that “overall, in the next 5-10 years we expect that everyone will have variants of their digital identities that are used at various times (e.g. anonymous, pseudoanonymous, transparent), some of which will require proof of personhood and some of which will not.”The inclusion piece is key. “It is important to ensure that tools developed to establish digital personhood be widely accessible, well supported, and with outlet processes to allow for equal and fair access to economic and social products and services.” Again, we are to understand that PoP is a way for technology to enable human participation in digitized human affairs.AI agents may not be human – but we think they can have identities-Civic is confident enough in its mission to know where to draw the line between people and agglomerations of data. It says that “personhood is an inalienable human right which should not be confused with our digital shadows, which ultimately are simply tools to express that personhood.”Yet, there are obvious cognitive shifts going on in how we as humans relate to machines and their algorithms, and define ourselves against them. In giving an example of how digital identity and digital humanness diverge, Civic notes “AI agents will have a digital identity and may execute actions on behalf of their owners, but themselves may not have a proof of personhood.”The implication is startling: algorithms are now understood to have identities, or to possess the ability to have them. The linguistic framework for how we define ourselves is no longer the exclusive property of organic beings. While we have long given cute names to robot toys and recently gotten cozy with our Alexas, the notion that an AI agent can express the same degree of “identity” as a real human is a shift of a different magnitude.Some proof of personhood providers fixing a problem they caused-There is a paradox in making the simple fact of being human contingent on the very machines from which we must be differentiated. In a certain respect, asking someone to justify and prove their own fundamental understanding of reality is a kind of existential gaslighting, tugging at the basic notion that the real and the digital are separate realms.Aggravating this is that at least some of those shopping proof of humanness are also responsible for the AI threat in the first place. At present, the most notorious name in both AI and PoP is Sam Altman, who opened the AI floodgates in creating ChatGPT, and is now busy pushing his iris-scanning World ID as a way for people to prove they are not just another product of his popular large language model (LLM).Digitized identity has major material ramifications-World, Civic and many of the firms offering digital proof of personhood offer altruistic motivations and lofty ideals – most frequently, the notion that identity is a universal human right that should be universally accessible. The world is online; so must we all be, fairly and equally. Projects like the EU digital identity wallet rollout underscore this in practice.However, the wider implications of AI for the physical world are already emerging. Kate Crawford argues that “so far, generative AI is most significant from an environmental perspective: It is fundamentally reshaping Earth.” Noting that AI data centers are already using as much energy as entire nation-states, she defines AI as a “metabolic technology – burning electricity and evaporating water at an exponential rate to keep the ingestion, digestion and production of data going.”Meanwhile, World’s founders imagine a world of futuristic tupperware parties where the product is not plastic food storage but iris biometrics and identities collected with spherical, single-use scanning devices called Orbs, which seem destined for the e-waste landfill.The age of the ‘Humanness Conundrum’Nonetheless, the material concerns that come with AI may soon be dwarfed by the metaphysical ones. When we define human rights and human culture, language lays the tracks that lead to the future. To take one technological example, before Web 2.0 and the birth of social media, entertainment media was not commonly referred to as “content.” The consequences of doing so have reshaped how we think of ourselves and tell our stories.Which is to say, once the language of humanness is attached to an algorithm, there may be no getting it back. For those wishing to be human without having to prove it, there’s always life off the grid. The risk is, if a person lives in the forest and nobody’s around to verify it, it mightn’t be thought of as living at all.

Central Africa needs traction on financial inclusion to advance economic growth-Dec 26, 2024, 1:53 pm EST    | Ayang Macdonald

Financial inclusion is increasingly being considered one of the major drivers of digital transformation in Africa and other parts of the world. This is partly because it has the power to change lives and communities, allowing them the opportunity to access different services and contribute to the growth of their economies.There is thus no gainsaying the importance of tools like digital identity that enable financial inclusion to the overall digital transformation agenda of many African countries, including those of the Central Africa subregion, grouped under the umbrella of the Central Africa Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). These countries include Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon and have a combined population of more than 60 million people.The region has an ambitious plan to achieve a 75 percent financial inclusion rate by 2030 through an initiative by the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) to ensure the establishment of one million cash payment points across the six countries in the next five years. The mid-term plan is to have 350,000 such payment points by 2027. It’s worthy of note that this part of the continent faces considerable economic inequalities that seriously threaten the realisation of this ambition.ID4Africa Executive Chairman, Dr. Joseph Atick, and Cameroonian tech startup consultant, Ayuk Etta, share their expert views on how the CEMAC subregion can lay the foundation for a stronger financial inclusion push in order to advance economic growth and development.CEMAC is considered the least developed and least tech-driven subregion in Africa, despite its huge economic growth potential and strategic geographical location of its member states. A large segment of the population here remains either unbanked or underbanked, which hinders both development and economic freedom especially among vulnerable groups of persons such as women and adults with lower-incomes.According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank’s Global Findex Database, the number of adults in this region who are unbanked is below the global average. It is the same case with Cameroon which is considered the region’s biggest economy, as well as all the other five countries.In the Republic of Congo, just around 18 percent of adults were said to have a formal relation with banking institutions as of 2021.The situation is even worse of in the Central African Republic where less that 15 percent of the population is said to have a bank account, while just around 14 percent of adults are able to participate in any form of financial transaction such as mobile money services. At least 74 percent of women across the subregion are estimated to be financially excluded.In its 2021 annual report, BEAC noted that the overall rate of financial inclusion in the subregion stood at 32 percent as of that year. What this means, experts say, is that innovative tech solutions as well as the right digital infrastructure and policies could possibly offer a window to effectively address major loopholes in financial accessibility in the region.Uphill task takes digital identity, infrastructure upgrades-The low level of financial inclusion within CEMAC, just like in other regions of Africa, is blamed on a litany of factors which include a paucity of digital public infrastructure, high cost, a weak and unaligned regulatory environment, and other socio-economic factors such as a high rate of poverty among countries of the subregion.To enable wider participation in the financial ecosystem of CEMAC, it is vital to consider changes to a number of things, including enhancing efforts in financial literacy.It also requires starting from the basics such as building the appropriate digital public infrastructure (DPI), says digital ID expert and ID4Africa Executive Chairman, Dr Joseph Atick.“I think the very first thing, of course, is getting people into the national population registers. If they are not registered, then there is nothing you can do to enable them to participate. It is clear from the standards and best practices within the financial sector that identity is a pillar upon which you have to build financial services,” he tells Biometric Update in an interview.“You cannot do anonymous if you are to protect the financial ecosystem from being hijacked from fraud, from criminal activity, from money laundering, from the criminal networks that will exploit it. You must have a reliable, robust identity system that has maximum coverage of the population. That is the prerequisite for financial inclusion. You can’t talk about financial inclusion without talking about identity.”Further stressing the place of digital identity in financial inclusion, Atick avers: “Financial inclusion is highly correlated and related to digital identity. And our statistics show that the penetration of digital identity is very low in the Central Africa region, which is actually among the regions that are hardest hit by certain economic conditions.  This can have a corresponding [negative] impact on financial inclusion. I expect that financial inclusion has a long way to go in many areas in Africa.”Ayuk Etta, a Cameroonian tech startup architect agrees with Atick on the need for robust digital infrastructure such as digital identity, which for now, is almost entirely inexistent in CEMAC countries. At the moment, only Gabon is rolling out a national digital ID system as part of its DPI journey.“To do this, I think it’s important to implement strategies, set up the right infrastructures, get the appropriate policies and innovative methods to be able to push the agenda of financial inclusion,” Etta notes.“I believe the infrastructure needs to be extended to be able to get to those people down there. That would also mean building more digital infrastructure generally speaking, like digital identity systems. We understand this is an important aspect of driving financial inclusion. We also need interoperable data exchange platforms.”“If we don’t build this infrastructure, which I believe is the driving force of digital transformation, we will not go far. It will always be at a level where we are trying, or not getting it done. If digital identity is not properly implemented, there are many things that cannot happen. Financial inclusion is also about how people access loans easily. If you cannot properly identify somebody digitally, for instance, you cannot give them a digital loan,” Etta, who’s also CEO of Mountain Hub, a tech and innovation company in Cameroon, argues.Beyond the infrastructure, financial inclusion would see a leap forward in CEMAC if the right policies and platforms exist.“The number two thing is that you have to have the right policies in place which are going to establish what would constitute acceptable identity authentication for identity transactions. So, be it for onboarding or identity transactions, you have to have a policy. Saying that we’re going to do biometric authentication for every transaction, no matter what value it is and what context it is, doesn’t make any sense,” Atick holds.“You have to have a policy that is basically a risk-based policy. And we have lots of experience in that. Some countries started with their own policies, and over time, they started to understand it. Luckily, there is a lot of knowledge now that we can share on this point. This is why we’re doing the Financial Inclusion Symposium at the ID4Africa Annual General Meeting next year [in Addis Ababa], because these countries are going to share their knowledge and experiences.”“The symposium at the AGM will basically be on digital identity and finance. It’s going to focus on the stages of financial inclusion, and what are the risk-based policies countries must put in place to achieve the desired outcome, which is a low-cost, high-robustness and trustworthy ecosystem that enables anybody to enter the system and to conduct transactions securely.”Talking about another important aspect, which is having the financial platform, Atick explains: “Even if people are known to you in the Civil Register or the National Population Register; if you do not have the financial platforms and access to these financial platforms, then you cannot participate. So, you need a mobile phone, for instance. Digital identities are now issuing credentials which have QR codes.”“It could be a mobile phone, either smart, which is a problem in many countries, or a feature phone. But apart from that, you should also be able to give people paper-based IDs with digital seals that are able to link the physical world to the digital world upon which the financial ecosystem runs. You have to make sure that there is a financially suitable credential, and that’s easily presentable so that people can use it and can link to it.”To Atick, the other important thing to do is to encourage the people to accept and use the issued identity credential for the purpose of payment.“We have several countries which have now achieved total coverage of the population for their ID program but there is still limited use of the ID in the financial sector. Therefore, I would not say that they are financially included because people got IDs. It’s like I have a bank account, but I cannot use it. Don’t mistake that for financial inclusion. Financial inclusion has to be real, practical, accessible,” Atick insists.While countries in the CEMAC region and the continent at large look to build their infrastructure to propel financial inclusion, they must have issues like fraud and scale in mind. They must build systems that are scalable and have strong security measures around them to prevent financial fraud and other forms of criminal intrusion.“There are countries that are scaling up their systems so that everyone can use them, but these countries are struggling with fraud which is at all levels of society. We have seen even in the developed world where financially included people are targeted. Fraudsters use social engineering by targeting the weakest link in the digital chain which is the human.”“Financial inclusion is a very, very complex ecosystem. It’s not just about giving excluded people or the poor access to bank accounts. It is about enabling a robust and highly fraud-resistant ecosystem that allows transactions for service delivery.”The role of fintechs, mobile money, innovation-As part of the push, fintechs, mobile money services, and other instant payment systems are also playing a major role in opening up the financial space for millions of citizens of the subregion, even if such instant payment infrastructures are limited and not inclusive.According to a SIIPS report released last month, the CEMAC subregion has the lowest number of live and operating instant payment systems (IPS). Although it has one regional IPS dubbed GIMACPAY, the efforts remain slow and the system has its limitations as it is linked to a bank card, meaning you must have a bank account to be able to use the service. In a report on financial services within CEMAC in 2022, BEAC said just two percent of all transactions involved traditional bank transfers or cards.In the subregion, there are two major multinational companies, namely MTN and Orange, which offer mobile money banking services. There are many other existing and emerging fintech startups which also facilitate instant payments in the form of mobile money.“The instant payment system is one of the use cases of digital ID that allows the financial identifier to be useful and meaningful. So yes, instant payment is very, very important. But let’s not get hung up on terms: whether it’s digital public infrastructure or not, countries don’t think that way. Countries think of problems and what the practical solutions are. They think of how to deploy the necessary tools and infrastructure,” Atick opines.He notes that for the case of Africa, instant payment services like mobile money helped the continent leapfrog the rest of the world in the last 20 years, despite the interoperability issues the service has suffered. BEAC reported in 2022 that over 96 percent of all transactions within CEMAC that year were completed through mobile money channels.“For many, many years, mobile money was just not interoperable, but it’s still heavily used in East Africa. But I think the time has come for a general interoperable instant money similar to mobile money that used to be there, and that actually connects you to the bank account, so that you have a whole list of services, not just holding your money in a mobile credit with a telephone company,” Atick suggests.“While mobile money was very practical and pragmatic and useful for people as one of the alternative mechanisms that was used to bypass this question of people being bankable or people entering the banking system, it has not led to the reform that we had hoped for, which is that you create an ecosystem with many financial services available to an individual with a bank account that they can use and control with their own consent and with their own mechanisms.”Etta concurs with Atick’s view about having a general interoperable instant payment system similar to mobile money, but notes that innovation is what is likely to play the magic. He also believes there’s need to create the enabling regulatory and policy environment for innovative ventures to germinate and thrive.“Innovation is at the center of this transformation. It’s not going to happen if we don’t adopt innovation. Innovation is simply a new way of doing things or better ways of doing things and solving the problems that we face in a country or in a region like CEMAC. A lot of new technology is coming. Today, there’s generative artificial intelligence. To encourage innovation, the most important thing is to create the right environment,” he holds.“This subregion, like the rest of Africa, has a youthful population and these are people who can drive innovation. One thing that has to be done is to create the right framework. In Cameroon, as an example, we have started a Hackathon which is something that brings together young people to build tech solutions to specific societal problems. That’s our own way of trying to push the spirit of innovation. If that gets done multiple times, I think that there’s a lot that can happen in terms of designing new solutions.”In terms of fintechs development and their contribution to financial inclusion, Etta says Cameroon is on the right path with some industry-led initiatives.“In Cameroon today, there’s a lot that’s being done in terms of fintech development and how the ecosystem is evolving. One major milestone that we have achieved today is the creation of a fintech alliance called the Cameroon Fintech Association, and that is led by some of the really big fintechs in Cameroon,” he says.“One of the things we are doing is having a discussion on how the governments or the Central Bank of the subregion can better understand what fintechs are, what they are doing, and what the different avenues of collaboration are, because we really think it’s important to have a vital and strong fintech ecosystem to push financial inclusion.”It’s not all bleak-Although the current realities reflect a not-to-good image and a long path still to be covered, there is some hope that things will improve, provided countries fully understand where exactly to hit the nail and act accordingly, going forward.“It’s not a technical problem, the infrastructure that is needed for that is known. It’s a matter of policy. And it’s also a matter of motivation. We should ask ourselves what the barriers are that we are trying to remove to advance financial inclusion,” Atick says.“I think the level of awareness is accelerating very, very quickly, and that is good news because awareness means informed policies and informed policies will lead to products and solutions that will be accessible by the populations. And when there’s a feedback cycle, the population adopts. A good policy will reinforce the sustainability of these systems.”Atick adds that the future is bright: “Africa will get a sustainable financial inclusion system because all of the economies that are being built in Africa, whether it’s regional or whether it is continental, all rely on one critical assumption. If that assumption fails, then all these, such as the intercontinental free trade agreement, are going to fail.”“Financial inclusion is not just about allowing the poor to get access to financial services. Financial inclusion is about allowing everybody to participate in a usable digital economy,” Atick mentions.To Etta, this is possible in an atmosphere in which governments stay alert and move along with the changing realities of technology. “Another thing is for the governments to be proactive. I don’t think governments should design policies that stay ten years before they are reviewed, because technology is going so fast. And because technology is going so fast, our policies also need to go so fast, to catch up with the growth of technological solutions.”One such new technologies is generative AI, which Etta strongly believes, is useful to drive financial inclusion and digital transformation, generally speaking.“AI is a super powerful tool that we have to make use of to be able to accelerate some of the decisions and projects we want to execute. We just need to understand how it works and how to use it. But more importantly, how to adapt it to our local context in order to get things better done.“So, I will say three things here: one, we need to understand the power of AI. Two, we need to understand that AI is a tool that we can use to accelerate progress and three, we need to adapt it to our context to understand what some of our nuances are.”“I will add that we also need to have really strong AI policies. At one point, AI is really great, and at the other, AI could be very dangerous. So, we need to have policies that guide its implementation and use, but also those policies should not stifle innovation.”

Networks aim to make digital identity truly reusable in 2025-CEOs of Yoti, Trinsic, Select ID explain how-Dec 24, 2024, 12:49 pm EST    | Chris Burt

Reusable digital identity emerged as one of the most prominent trends of the year in identification and fraud prevention. But the CEOs of three of the leading players in the nascent reusable ID market suggest in conversation with Biometric Update that 2024 was more of a precursor than the technology’s break-out year.Select ID Chief Executive Officer Nick Mothershaw tells Biometric Update in an interview that a similar conversation at the beginning of the year would likely not even have used the term “reusable identity.”Trinsic refers to its value proposition as “identity acceptance,” and Liminal has forecast a major market opportunity for “identity acceptance networks,” which support the extension of digital IDs along different axes.“There are lots of different words to describe what we’re doing at the moment,” Mothershaw observes. “I guess we’ll all settle on one consistent one in the end.”Trinsic Co-founder and CEO Riley Hughes says he was not that optimistic about his company’s prospects for meeting its short-term revenue goals when we spoke at Identity Week, but “we’re in a different world now.”A conversation that has been confined to identity industry insiders for some time has finally gone beyond them in the past 12 to 18 months, Yoti CEO Robin Tombs tells Biometric Update.Goode Intelligence identified the trend towards reusable identity in an October 2023 report, citing the influence of COVID on how people access services. Tombs echoes this point at the close of 2024.Regulations that required right-to-work and other identity checks were amended to enable remote processes out of practical necessity. They also had to provide some degree of confidence in the authenticity of the identity provided. That meant adopting an approach that aligns neatly with trends in digital ID standardization and storage on mobile devices to unlock a concept which had long been considered an ideal to aspire to.“There was lots of logic that one day users would be keen to have reusable ID just as you have one passport to get into 200 countries ideally, rather than maybe apply for 200 visas every few years,” he says, but the same insiders who saw the concept’s value were acutely aware of the inherent challenge of a two-sided market.The volume of both consumer users and relying parties must be sufficient to provide value.Hughes is unable to pinpoint the exact cause or causes for his company’s sudden change in fortunes, suggesting perhaps it reached “enough features or enough users that it crossed some threshold.” Whatever changed, it reversed his concerns about hitting the startups 3 and 6-month revenue goals.“It’s been a kind of a crazy last few months trying to make sense of all this,” he says.Earlier in the year, Hughes says he had a lot of conversations that concluded with “’call me later’ type stuff.”How many is enough? The need for scale is what motivates Trinsic’s network model and Select ID’s market model, which Mothershaw says could be described as a network. Yoti provides its own digital ID, which is part of Trinsic’s network, and is also part of the UK Post Office’s Easy ID and Lloyds Bank’s Smart ID. Each is certified to the UK government’s Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF).Select ID is launching with three digital identity providers, who are currently going through testing. It is also currently in talks to add others, Mothershaw says.The first use case is UK financial services, and the service will launch with a single relying party in production. Select ID’s backers include Visa, Northern Trust and Barclays, however, it is in talks with a couple of “fast followers,” and has a list of around 30 qualified prospects, according to Mothershaw.Select ID is looking at addressing other use cases in the future, “having built for the gold standard of financial services both in terms of identity proofing, authentication and data delivery, it’s now easy for us to dial that down, and say, ‘well actually now, we just want to do age.’”The urgency with which it does so will depend somewhat on the outcome of regulatory decisions currently being made, such as whether to bring the PASS scheme into the scope of the DIATF. Similarly for online accounts, the whole UK is waiting on Ofcom.Like Select ID, Trinsic is currently focused on a single use case, in its case replacing identity verification with ID document scans and selfie biometrics.“If they do, it will be faster and more secure. If they don’t, no worries, just fall back and just use the existing doc scanning thing that you were already doing. You could imagine using eIDs and mDLs for a thousand use cases,” like log-ins, but cost is too high for that right now.New regulatory requirements, such as for age checks, and business models are continuing to alter the market, however.Governments around the world are split on how to best establish digital identity ecosystems, but have mostly been won over to the importance of having one, in one way or another.“There’s lots of governments now thinking either we need to do this as a state solution or a choice between a state solution and private sector, potentially frameworks,” Tombs says.Businesses may have been more aware of the looming shift, as they are more likely to read trade publications. With digital identity crossing over into the mainstream consumer press, public awareness and understanding are increasing, and could finally lead to sufficient demand on both sides of the market.Trinsic targets financial services companies that can integrate its network to be among its early customers, but it’s customer base differs from Select ID’s in that it targets the digital service providers that serve the whole user lifecycle with holistic solutions, like Mitek, which Trinsic partnered with for the California DMV use case hackathon.Some American relying parties have told Trinsic: “call me when you get to 150 million in the U.S. market.”Relying parties can provide a fast and convenient user experience through digital identity even on the way to those kinds of numbers, though.“You can get really, really good user experiences even if only 5 percent of people have a thing, as long as you try to only show the option to the 5 percent who have it,” Hughes points out.In some cases, reusable identity does not require a network at all. Tombs gives the example of a company granting a contractor access to a secure building or area in the form of a digital ID.“You don’t need a network. You do need a business that recognizes its more efficient to do that then you know have a piece of paper at the door and check their ID each time they turn up,” he says.Delivering on promises of improved user experience will generate positive reviews and the sort of organic adoption that scales the user base.How soon is now?User experience is largely a matter of speed.Trinsic says it enables identity verification ten times faster than the document scan and face biometrics process. Mothershaw expresses Select ID’s benefit in the context of the regulations and policy elements, the contracts and due diligence that must be in place, along with the technology.“We’re looking at dealing with those layers of complexity on behalf of our relying parties, so that they don’t have to worry about that,” he says.And while the enterprise relying party use case for reusable digital identity noted above may yet be a significant market opportunity, the largest potential for transaction volumes and revenue appears to be on the consumer side. Changes in regulations, standards, and other factors have already opened up use cases that did not exist a few years ago.About one-third of the 100,000 people per month who complete UK right-to-work checks with Yoti already do so with a reusable ID, according to Tombs. But “as is often the case in business ecosystems,” he adds, relying parties will expect to implement multiple providers, not just for reach but to give their users choice.“Reusable IDs absolutely need to join networks,” Tombs says. “Even the most popular ones will see the logic.”There are other potential benefits for relying parties adopting reusable digital ID as well. “It’s not just about ID verification,” Tombs explains; “some of the value is, if you’re spending a couple of hundred pounds acquiring a customer, if you can get that customer to not fill in the registration form, and instead, touch the button and fill in 80 percent of that form with verified, correctly spelled information, directly into the back server, that is a super-valuable thing.”And speed and simplification are also associated with higher conversions, he notes.Yoti has long seen age as a “key initiator” for reusable ID, Tombs says, although it may be proven through a different provider for in-person retail checks, “where there’s no money to be earned,” than online interactions.“It doesn’t sound the most important thing in the world in terms of how you can cleverly do reusable,” he says, “but actually if it’s going to be the thing you need to do every week as a young person, or even as my age, if I’m going to the supermarket, I don’t want to be the older person waiting still whilst the light is on, somebody has to come over and check me out. I’d rather get a reusable ID and whip through.”This is where the value proposition for lower-assurance use cases for reusable digital ID is found, in accelerating interactions which are carried out repeatedly.The volume of users is also different at lower levels of assurance.Hughes points out that of the total number of digital identities in Trinsic’s network that are verified to identity assurance level 2 (IAL2), where the company’s current value proposition lies, is approaching 100 million. But one of the ways that number could grow is by increasing the assurance level of those who already have an ID that can be reused. Hughes estimates over a hundred million people have Aadhaar and DigiLocker, but no mobile driver’s licenses that would raise their digital ID to IAL2, for example.Getting any kind of reusable ID into people’s digital wallets may be the busiest onramp for consumers, therefore.“That will be the initial way that lots and lots of young people will end up getting reusable IDs,” Tombs says, “and because businesses will then want to benefit from those people proving age over ID, they’ll accept reusable IDs.”Cross-border interoperability is a challenge for regulated markets, because even as digital wallets and the credentials that they store are standardized, policy differences remain.Bilateral agreements between trust schemes in neighboring jurisdictions like the UK and EU may be feasible, but Mothershaw cautions they do not represent a path to global interoperability. Trust frameworks and regulations will have to “align, accept, or adapt” to each other. Adapt is most likely, Mothershaw believes, with service providers like Select ID facilitating the process.“The identity providers who in the end prevail, and are able to work in different geographies, will be pretty sophisticated,” he predicts.As mDLs become useful for more different types of interactions with more relying parties, and the ecosystem matures, Hughes sees the potential market for reusable digital IDs continuing to expand. “When its ten times easier to prove your identity,” he says, “it’s going to happen ten times more.”While Select ID is taking its time to get its demanding first use case right, there is a sense of urgency to be ready for the expanded adoption of reusable ID.  Looking ahead to 2025 and 2026, Mothershaw says “there’s a number of waves in different sectors that will break at slightly different times. It’s likely we’ll get a whole cascade of them, so we want make sure we can serve as many of them as possible.”Tombs similarly sees policy and popular opinion catching up to technology.“Over the next 2-3 years, as long as governments begin to actually introduce these regulatory changes so that compliance offices in certain sectors and businesses in other sectors can both benefit from reusable IDs, and that the industry increasingly makes it easier for them to do so, and makes it more networked for the consumer, I think it’s a foregone conclusion,” he says.Those who do not execute on their strategy for fitting into the reusable identity ecosystem within that time frame, he warns, may find they are too late.

Biometrics and digital identity M&A in 2024-Dec 24, 2024, 12:30 pm EST    | Alan Goode-By Alan Goode, CEO and Chief Analyst at Goode Intelligence

As we approach the end of yet another year – a particularly turbulent year for the world – it is an obvious time to reflect on what 2024 has meant from an M&A and investment perspective for the biometrics and identity industries and take a peek in what 2025 has in store.It’s been a very busy year for us at Goode Intelligence and we have spent a significant amount of this time involved assisting companies in M&A activities. Much of this work remains under the covers and tightly bound by NDAs but what it does do is to provide us with insight into the health of the industry. I am sharing this insight with you.2024 has been more about consolidation then investment with a significant increase in M&A activity.A lot of this activity has been about leveraging biometric and digital identity technology to support real business needs and to reflect digital transformation strategies. In particular, supporting composable platforms with flexible workflow solutions that align with business requirements and process – meeting the need for agile digital solutions to support modern digital life.For instance, our work in the travel industry has identified the need for end-to-end passenger services that support couch-to-gate solutions that the industry demands. The ability to book and manage travel tickets from home, present, and authenticate, your travel documents before you travel, and then seamlessly navigate the airport, train station, or port using enrolled biometrics where the security risk allows it. Travel digital identity has shown other industries that portable, standard-based, high security biometric-powered digital identity can be delivered at scale.In the Goode Intelligence market analyst report, “Travel Digital Identity – Seamless Travel Powered by Digital Identity” we forecast that the market will grow to $4.6 billion by 2029 with a CAGR of 22 percent. It is no surprise that suppliers of biometric and digital identity technology are aware of this opportunity and are growing their business and product portfolio through acquisition.To meet this opportunity, we have seen some notable M&A activity. Notably, Amadeus’s acquisition of Vision-Box, a leading supplier of biometric solutions for airports, airlines, and border control customers in April 2024.Entrust’s acquisition of WorldReach in 2021, leading IDV supplier Onfido’s of Airside Mobile in 2023, and then Entrust adding Onfido in 2024, has turned the North American security company into a real contender for delivering biometric digital identity to the travel industry, albeit at a significant cost to the privately controlled group.It has been no secret that Advent International has been looking to break up and sell Idemia’s business units and in September 2024 Idemia announced that French-based identity specialist IN Groupe had begun exclusive talks to acquire the Smart Identity business unit to enable them to expand their capabilities, on both a product and a regional-reach basis. Like Entrust, IN Groupe has been busy with M&A and also announced in November 2024 the acquisition of Denmark’s digital identity service, MitID. Not only is this a recurring business line for In Groupe but also a great opportunity for knowledge transfer, to exchange capabilities from MitID to other business lines within the IN Groupe. This could be a very timely acquisition in the context of a ramp up of activity in digital identity within the EU with its digital identity initiatives including the EU Digital Identity Wallet and eIDAS 2. Through acquisition, IN Groupe is quickly becoming a major player in the European identity sector and potentially beyond.There is no doubt that we are well down the path to migrating government-issued physical identity documents to digital identity solutions. This journey will include both physical identity documents and digital identity solutions coexisting. Identity suppliers, especially in the government sector, need to be able to operate in both the physical and digital worlds, including the support of hybrid models where physical identity document and digital identity issuance and management coexist. This strategy is being adopted by the major suppliers of government identity and is exemplified by many of the M&A examples that I have discussed in this article including Toppan Gravity’s acquisition of HID’s Citizen Identity division in October 2024. HID’s Citizen Identity division was itself acquired from UK-based De La Rue in 2019. I worked for De La Rue at the turn of this century, as head of digital identity, with a brief of bringing the 200-year-old company into the 21st century with digital identity solutions to complement their document identity solutions. It was probably an exercise that was a little bit too early, pre-dating the availability of the modern mobile phone. It did provide me with much of the real-world experience that is so invaluable to my role as an analyst and futurist today.Companies are scaling their portfolio with acquisition to reflect the hybrid nature of government issued identity, supporting both traditional document-based identity with digital identity. Expect more of the same in 2025.Identity Verification (IDV) has been an amazing success story for supporting digital onboarding with double-digit year-on-year growth for suppliers in the market. Its success, and the desire to own IP, has meant that security and fraud management platform owners are looking to own this critical piece of technology.  In addition to Onfido’s acquisition by Entrust we also have LexisNexis Risk Solutions (LNRS) acquiring another leading IDV provider, IDVerse, a provider of AI-powered automated document authentication and fraud detection solutions. The acquisition was announced recently in December 2024 and comes off the back of the company acquiring behavioral biometrics specialist, BehavioSec in 2022.For 2025, I predict further consolidation and also an uptick in investment – something that has seen relatively low activity in the last two years as a result of the credit crunch.Businesses are definitely seeing the benefit of embedding biometric technology to support the customer / citizen journey and this will reflect in more M&A activity in 2025 to support biometric-powered digital platforms across all major sectors.I also expect greater interest and activity in coupling biometrics with digital wallets. All eyes are on the EU and its digital identity wallet. What happens in 2025 in the EU will have significant impact in digital wallets around the world.Biometrics is seen as a critical enabler of Verifiable Credentials (VCs) and if the industry can resolve some of its chicken and egg conundrums, then expect plenty of investment and M&A activity here.I am excited to see what 2025 brings us and expect a busy year for Goode Intelligence and Biometric Update.

India transforming public finance with digital identity and biometrics-Dec 24, 2024, 12:10 pm EST    | Ghulam Shabir Arain

India has implemented substantial digital initiatives to streamline pension verification and welfare benefit distribution. The digital life certificate system and Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) program produce measurable outcomes regarding efficiency and fraud reduction. The programs build on India’s better push for digital identity verification, which began with establishing the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and its biometric-based national ID system.The digital life certificate system permits pensioners to submit their life certificates using facial recognition technology on Android smartphones. Throughout November 2024, the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare implemented Campaign 3.0, expanding the initiative’s reach to 800 cities and towns across all districts. This implementation follows the successful deployment of facial recognition for pension verification in other countries, exemplifying a growing global trend of installing biometric technology for social security management.The CFO news reported that in the Finance Ministry Year Review 2024, the Indian Finance Ministry stressed how the DBT system, integrated with the Public Financial Management System (PFMS), contributes to the Digital India initiative. This IT-based infrastructure enables digital payments and receipts for ministries and departments across the federal and state governments, resulting in increased transparency and accountability.The PFMS is a key player that enables real-time tracking of fund disbursements, from release to credit to beneficiaries’ bank accounts. This technique significantly streamlines trust in timely cash transfers, especially for centrally funded and sector-specific initiatives. The system ensures that only genuine beneficiaries have access to welfare payments by implementing Aadhaar-linked biometric authentication, hence eliminating ghost accounts and fraudulent claims.Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated through her social media on X that more than $450 billion has been transferred through DBT in the last eight years. She ascribed this achievement to the elimination of middlemen, which resulted in savings of nearly $40 billion from possible pilferage. This achievement emphasizes the importance of integrating biometrics and Aadhaar-enabled digital identity into India’s digital public infrastructure.A paradigm shift in governance and financial inclusion-The DBT project demonstrates India’s commitment to promoting financial inclusion and improving governance through digital transformation. Beneficiaries of numerous schemes, such as subsidies, pensions, and scholarships, receive payments directly to their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts. This decreases delays and assures that funds reach their intended recipients without intermediaries.The Finance Minister of India further defined this project as a superb lesson in efficient governance, highlighting the importance of accounting for every rupee properly. With the integration of biometric technologies and digital identities, India’s digital public infrastructure establishes a global standard for transparency and effective fund administration, increasing trust in government services. India highlights how a strong digital public infrastructure can adjust lives, encourage accountability, and provide fair access to welfare services by utilizing biometrics and Aadhaar.Moreover, states like Karnataka are using the DBT framework, which is supported by Aadhaar biometric authentication, to innovate public distribution systems, such as cash transfers in place of food rations. The linking of ration cards to Aadhaar is also being pushed in places such as West Bengal to streamline access to food assistance and reduce leakages.

Scotland updates guidance on biometrics in schools-Emphasizes privacy, civil rights-Dec 24, 2024, 12:13 pm EST    | Anthony Kimery

Newly updated guidance on the use of biometric technology systems in Scottish schools serves as a critical document for education authorities that emphasizes the potential of biometric technologies while also underscoring significant privacy and civil rights concerns.Biometric systems are being considered for various school applications in Scotland, including managing attendance, enabling cashless transactions for meals, and automating library services. However, their implementation raises profound ethical, legal, and social questions that must be carefully addressed, the updated guidance says.Central to the debate over biometric systems in schools is the issue of privacy. These technologies process highly sensitive personal data, referred to as “special category data” under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). This data includes unique identifiers that, if misused or compromised, could have severe implications for the affected individuals.The guidance defines biometric data as any personal data derived from physical or behavioral traits that uniquely identify a person. This sensitivity necessitates stringent compliance with data protection laws, particularly the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK GDPR.The collection and processing of such sensitive data inherently carries risks. The potential for misuse, data breaches, or unauthorized surveillance poses significant threats to students’ privacy. Biometric systems, by design, collect and store information that is immutable – unlike a password or ID card, fingerprints or facial patterns cannot be changed if they are stolen or improperly accessed. This permanence intensifies the responsibility of education authorities to implement robust security measures, including encryption and strict access controls. Any failure to safeguard this data not only undermines trust but also exposes students to lifelong vulnerabilities.A crucial aspect of implementing biometric systems is ensuring the fairness and transparency of these processes, the updated guidance highlights, noting that schools must justify why they are adopting such intrusive technologies and assess whether less invasive alternatives, like smart cards, could achieve the same objectives. The principle of proportionality is central: biometric systems should only be used where the benefits significantly outweigh the privacy costs.For example, while a fingerprint-based system might streamline lunch payments, it raises the question of whether such convenience justifies the collection of sensitive biometric data. The guidance stresses the importance of conducting thorough assessments of necessity, ensuring that these systems are implemented only when absolutely required.The civil rights implications of biometric technology extend beyond privacy. The use of such systems must align with broader human rights frameworks, including the Human Rights Act 1998 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. These frameworks emphasize the importance of protecting children from undue intrusion and ensuring their autonomy and dignity are respected.The guidance emphasizes that transparency is a key component of fairness. Schools must clearly communicate with students and parents about how biometric data will be used, stored, and protected. This includes providing detailed privacy notices and ensuring that the information is accessible and comprehensible to all stakeholders, particularly children.Consent is another critical element in the implementation of biometric systems. Under the UK GDPR, consent must be freely given, informed, and specific. For students under the age of 12 or those deemed unable to provide informed consent, parental consent is required. However, the guidance also acknowledges the evolving capacity of children, stating that students aged 12 or older are presumed capable of exercising their data protection rights unless proven otherwise. Even with parental consent, schools must ensure that students are aware of their rights and can withdraw their consent at any time.The opt-out provisions for biometric systems are essential in safeguarding civil liberties. Students and parents who object to the use of biometric data must be offered alternative systems that provide equal access to school services. These alternatives, such as smart cards, must not disadvantage those who opt out, ensuring inclusivity and preventing discrimination. The guidance stresses that opting out must be a genuine choice, free from coercion or negative repercussions.Another significant issue is the potential for discriminatory outcomes stemming from the use of biometric technology. Schools must ensure that these systems do not inadvertently exclude or stigmatize students based on disabilities or other characteristics. For instance, students who cannot provide biometric data due to physical disabilities must have access to alternative systems that are equally efficient and non-intrusive. The Equality Act 2010 mandates that schools accommodate such needs, reinforcing the principle that no student should face discrimination in accessing educational services. The Equality Act 2010 is a UK law that protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in society. It replaced several anti-discrimination laws with a single act, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection.The guidance also touches on broader societal concerns, particularly the normalization of surveillance. Introducing biometric systems in schools risks acclimating children to intrusive monitoring from an early age, potentially eroding their expectations of privacy. This concern is amplified when considering systems like facial recognition, which have been criticized as disproportionately intrusive and unnecessary in educational contexts. The guidance advises against the use of facial recognition for routine school activities, citing its potential for overreach and the heightened risks it poses to students’ rights.To address these privacy and civil rights issues, the guidance outlines a rigorous framework for evaluating and implementing biometric systems. Education authorities are required to conduct Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) to identify and mitigate risks associated with the processing of biometric data. DPIAs are crucial tools for ensuring accountability and demonstrating that the adoption of biometric systems aligns with data protection laws and ethical standards. If a DPIA reveals high risks that cannot be mitigated, schools must consult with the Information Commissioner’s Office before proceeding.The role of Data Protection Officers (DPOs) is also emphasized in the guidance. DPOs play a critical role in monitoring compliance, advising on data protection obligations, and acting as a point of contact for students, parents, and regulatory authorities. Their involvement is essential in ensuring that biometric systems are deployed responsibly and in compliance with legal and ethical standards.Ultimately, the guidance on biometric systems in schools serves as both a roadmap and a cautionary tale. While these technologies offer undeniable benefits in terms of efficiency and convenience, they also pose significant challenges to privacy, inclusivity, and civil rights. The decision to implement biometric systems requires a careful balancing of the potential benefits against the risks and a commitment to protecting the rights and freedoms of students.In an era where digital technologies increasingly permeate every aspect of life, the introduction of biometric systems in schools serves as a litmus test for society’s commitment to upholding privacy and civil liberties. Schools and education authorities must navigate this complex landscape with transparency, accountability, and a focus on the best interests of the students they serve. The guidance provides a strong foundation for this effort, reminding all stakeholders that technological progress must never come at the expense of fundamental rights.

Sberbank aims to lead Russia’s biometrics sector in years to come-Dec 24, 2024, 12:01 pm EST    | Eugene Gerden

State-owned Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, is launching a range of new biometrics-based financial services in an effort to become one of the leading players in the Russian biometrics sector in the years to come.The more active use of biometric technologies is currently one of the priorities for the bank and its head German Gref.During Finopolis-2024, a event focused on financial innovation in Russia, Gref commented on how Russia has achieved significant progress in the development of biometrics. “We have developed entirely new payment methods that I have not seen anywhere else in the world. Currently, Russia offers a full range of options, and notably, biometric payment systems are rapidly gaining traction here, something not available in any other country.”Sberbank plans to introduce a number of new biometric-based financial services in 2025. Probably, one of the most important projects involves the development of the bank’s own biometric payment service “Pay with a smile”. The bank launched the service in 2023, while in recent months its popularity has significantly increased with more than 900,000 biometric terminals installed in stores, restaurants, metro stations and other businesses throughout Russia, and by the end of the year their number will grow to one million. The bank expects further development of biometric payments of age-restricted goods as well, particularly alcoholic  drinks and tobacco products.There are also plans for a single targeted solution for biometric payments for all Russian banks. Interbank bioacquiring is being developed by Sberbank and the National Payment Card System (NSPK) using Sberbank’s own infrastructure. This means that in 2025 face biometric payments will be available to clients of any bank whose cards are accepted in Russia.Oleg Yevseyev, director of the Biometrics division at Sberbank said, “We are striving to create a service in which a citizen of our country can pay for purchases with biometrics regardless of which bank he is a client of, and we will implement this opportunity by the end of the year. In parallel, NSPK is preparing to do the same and store a database of card links with biometrics. This is a phase that we will go through together. As a result, we will receive a single target solution for all banks in 2025.”As Dmitry Malykh, Sberbank’s senior vice-president earlier told Russian business paper Vedomosti, from its side Sberbank wants biometric payments to become routine.“We want the technology to stop being something new and fantastic, so that everyday purchases can be made with the help of biometrics and a habit can be formed,” explains Malykh. “So far, this payment method is used by innovators –  young people under 35. I believe that with the stable development of biometrics in the next 3-4 years, the use of this technology will reach a different level in cooperation with the market, NSPK and the Central Bank.”In general, the demand for biometrics and technologies based on it remains high in Russia at present. According to latest data, provided by Stanislav Korop, acting director of the financial technology department of the Russian Central Bank, since the beginning of the current year local financial and credit institutions have collected by 6 times more biometric data from Russian citizens than during the entire period of using biometrics in Russia.According to data of the Russian Central Bank, by the end of September local banks processed biometric data from about 1.7 million Russians, compared to only 270,000 as of the end of the first half of 2023. Data collection was carried out by 180 banks in 12,000 branches across the country.“We are actively continuing to collect data. Banks are launching various incentive programs for clients, showing how convenient this technology is,” says Korop. “Biometrics is being seamlessly integrated into services.”

ReportIn and CBP One: A tale of two biometric border apps-Considering the privacy and civil rights issues they pose-Dec 23, 2024, 7:14 pm EST    | Anthony Kimery

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has launched a new biometric border management app it calls ReportIn that allows permanent residents, foreign nationals, and refugee claimants to meet reporting obligations remotely. This includes individuals who must report to border agents while awaiting deportation or final decisions on their immigration status in Canada.CBSA’s ReportIn app is similar to U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) also relatively new CBP One app, in that both apps aim to enhance efficiency in immigration processes and overall border security. However, both apps also present strikingly similar privacy and civil rights concerns. Despite the differences in the two apps’ specific functionalities, the core concerns about the apps revolve around biometric, biographic and location data collection, storage, security, and their broader implications for individual freedoms and equity.The ReportIn app was developed to assist individuals with reporting conditions imposed by immigration authorities. These conditions often arise from the need for compliance monitoring where individuals are required to report regularly to the CBSA while residing in Canada. The app eliminates the need for frequent in-person visits by allowing users to fulfill their reporting obligations remotely. Through the app, users can confirm their identity and share their location with CBSA, providing a secure and efficient method of ensuring compliance. In contrast, the CBP One app is designed to address a broader range of needs for travelers, migrants, and others interacting with the U.S. immigration system.CBSA’s ReportIn app collects personal data, including photographs and GPS-based location information to ensure compliance with immigration conditions. This parallels the CBP One app, which also gathers sensitive information such as biometric data and geolocation information for purposes like identity verification and scheduling appointments. The extensive scope of data collected by both apps though raises questions about necessity and proportionality. Users of both platforms may be concerned about how their information is stored, how long it is retained, and whether it could be accessed by unauthorized parties or repurposed for broader surveillance efforts.Transparency is a shared challenge for both apps. While CBSA and CBP provide some information about data usage, many users remain uncertain about how their information is shared or cross-referenced with other government databases. In the case of the CBP One app, data could potentially be shared with law enforcement or international entities, while the ReportIn app’s lack of clarity about potential cross-referencing similarly undermines user trust. This opacity in data-sharing practices leads to significant accountability concerns.Data security is another critical issue. Both apps – by virtue of their digital nature – are exposed to the risk of cyberattacks. A breach of either platform could lead to identity theft, exposure of immigration status, or other significant consequences. These risks are particularly acute for vulnerable populations, such as asylum seekers and refugee claimants, who may already face precarious situations.Robust cybersecurity measures are essential for both platforms to protect the sensitive information they handle, yet the mere existence of such risks underscores the challenges of relying on digital systems for managing immigration compliance.The mandatory nature of the two apps further complicates the concept of consent. In both Canada and the United States, individuals subject to reporting conditions or seeking critical immigration services may feel compelled to use the respective apps without a clear understanding of their terms. This undermines the principle of informed consent and places users in a position where they must prioritize compliance over their privacy rights. The CBP One app’s use for asylum scheduling, for instance, creates an environment where migrants have no practical alternative but to engage with the system, while the ReportIn app similarly requires individuals to submit data as part of their reporting obligations.Civil rights concerns also emerge prominently in both contexts. The location tracking features of the ReportIn and CBP One apps can be perceived as intrusive, creating a sense of constant surveillance. For individuals not accused of criminal activity but simply awaiting decisions on their immigration status, this level of monitoring could be seen as infringing on their right to privacy and may negatively affect their mental health and personal freedom.The CBP One app’s reliance on biometric technology also introduces the potential for algorithmic bias, as many facial recognition systems have historically shown higher error rates for racial and ethnic minorities. The ReportIn app uses facial biometrics from Amazon to confirm the person’s identity and, although the app will be voluntary, questions have been raised about its algorithms, user consent model and the danger of bias. Its location tracking disproportionately affects groups like refugee claimants and foreign nationals who are already in vulnerable positions.Accessibility is another shared issue. Both apps require users to have smartphones and reliable internet access. This reliance on digital infrastructure creates barriers for economically disadvantaged individuals, particularly migrants and asylum seekers who may not have the necessary resources. The digital divide exacerbates existing inequities, leading to disparities in access to immigration services in both countries. Individuals unable to use these apps effectively may face delays or complications, further marginalizing already vulnerable populations.Freedom of movement also is indirectly impacted by both platforms. For users of the ReportIn app, concerns about location tracking may deter them from traveling within Canada, fearing that they might be flagged as non-compliant with reporting conditions. Similarly, the CBP One app’s surveillance potential could discourage migrants from exercising their rights to move freely within legal parameters. This chilling effect – where individuals alter their behavior out of fear of surveillance – is a significant concern in both cases.Despite these parallels, the apps reflect broader tensions between the goals of operational efficiency and the protection of individual rights. The CBSA ReportIn app’s focus on monitoring compliance contrasts with the CBP One app’s broader scope, which includes facilitating asylum scheduling and other border-related processes. Nevertheless, both systems highlight the risks of normalizing invasive monitoring tools in immigration contexts and potentially extending such practices to other areas of governance.Addressing these concerns requires concerted efforts from both the CBSA and CBP. Enhanced transparency about data collection and sharing practices is crucial to rebuilding trust and ensuring accountability. Limiting the type and amount of data collected to what is strictly necessary can mitigate privacy risks for users of both apps. Independent audits and oversight mechanisms could also be established to evaluate compliance with privacy laws and civil rights standards. Furthermore, robust cybersecurity measures are essential to protect personal information from potential breaches.Equity can be promoted by providing alternatives for individuals without access to smartphones or Internet connectivity. Both apps could prioritize fairness by addressing potential algorithmic biases in their systems and ensuring that all users are treated equitably, regardless of their demographic characteristics. Finally, giving users greater control over their data – including the ability to view, verify, and challenge information collected about them – would enhance both platforms’ accountability and user trust.The privacy and civil rights issues associated with the ReportIn and CBP One apps underscore the challenges of balancing technological efficiency with the protection of fundamental freedoms. While these tools offer practical solutions for managing immigration processes, their implications for individual rights and equity cannot be ignored. Both Canada and the United States should take proactive steps to address these concerns, ensuring that digital solutions serve their operational purposes without compromising the rights and dignity of the individuals they are designed to assist.

FBI, DEA deployment of AI raises privacy, civil rights concerns-Dec 23, 2024, 9:54 am EST    | Anthony Kimery

A required audit of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) efforts to integrate AI such as biometric facial recognition and other emerging technology raises significant privacy and civil rights concerns that necessitate a careful examination of the two agencies’ initiatives.The 34-page audit report – which was mandated by the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act to be carried out by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) – found that the FBI and DEA’s integration of AI is fraught with ethical dilemmas, regulatory inadequacies, and potential impacts on individual liberties.The IG said the integration of AI into the DEA and FBI’s operations holds promise for enhancing intelligence capabilities, but it also brings unprecedented risks to privacy and civil rights.The two agencies’ nascent AI initiatives, as described in the IG’s audit, illustrate the tension between technological advancement and the safeguarding of individual liberties. As the FBI and DEA navigate these challenges, they must prioritize transparency, accountability, and ethical governance to ensure that AI serves the public good without compromising fundamental rights.While the DEA and FBI have begun to integrate AI and biometric identification into their intelligence collection and analysis processes, the IG report underscores that both agencies are in the nascent stages of this integration and face administrative, technical, and policy-related challenges. These difficulties not only slow down the integration of AI, but they also exacerbate concerns about ensuring the ethical use of AI, particularly regarding privacy and civil liberties.One of the foremost challenges is the lack of transparency associated with commercially available AI products. The IG report noted that vendors often embed AI capabilities within their software, creating a black-box scenario where users, including the FBI, lack visibility into how the algorithms function or make decisions. The absence of a software bill of materials (SBOM) — a comprehensive list of software components — compounds the problem, raising significant privacy concerns as sensitive data could be processed by opaque algorithms, potentially leading to misuse or unauthorized surveillance.“FBI personnel … stated that most commercially available AI products do not have adequate transparency of their software components,” the IG said, noting that “there is no way for the FBI to know with certainty whether such AI capabilities are in a product unless the FBI receives a SBOM.”The IG said “SBOMs remain uncommon” and that “undisclosed embedded AI tools could result in FBI personnel utilizing AI capabilities unknowingly and without such tools having been subjected to the FBI’s AI governance. Additionally, an FBI official expressed concern about the fact that vendors are not required to obtain independent testing of their products to verify the accuracy of data models used in embedded AI capabilities.”The FBI’s AI Ethics Council (AIEC), which was established to ensure compliance with ethical principles and federal laws, faces a substantial backlog in reviewing and approving AI use cases. This backlog, which averaged 170 days for pending reviews in 2024, highlights systemic inefficiencies that may delay safeguards against privacy violations. Furthermore, while the AIEC’s ethical framework aligns with guidelines from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the evolving policy landscape creates uncertainty, delaying critical decisions and leaving open the risk of non-compliance with emerging regulations.The deployment of AI in the context of national security also raises acute civil rights issues, particularly regarding the potential for racial or ethnic bias. Tools like facial recognition systems, often scrutinized for their propensity to misidentify individuals from marginalized communities, exemplify these risks. The FBI and DEA must navigate the dual mandate of national security and law enforcement, meaning that AI applications will often operate in contexts with high stakes for personal freedoms.Although the FBI has initiated steps to document AI use cases and develop an overarching governance policy, the incomplete integration of ethical considerations into operational workflows poses risks. Without robust oversight mechanisms and transparency, AI systems could facilitate unwarranted surveillance, eroding public trust and violating constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.The DEA’s use of AI further complicates the picture. With its sole AI tool sourced externally, the DEA relies heavily on other U.S. Intelligence Community elements, limiting its control over the tool’s design and implementation. Such reliance not only constrains accountability, but it also exposes DEA operations to the risks inherent in third-party AI systems, including biases that could unfairly target specific groups.Both agencies cited recruitment and retention challenges as significant barriers to adopting AI responsibly. The IG said the inability to attract technical talent, particularly individuals equipped to address AI’s ethical and legal implications, leaves gaps in the agencies’ capacity to mitigate risks. In addition, “many individuals with the right technical skills are unable to pass background investigations,” the IG reported.Budgetary constraints further hinder the acquisition and independent testing of AI tools, increasing reliance on commercially available systems with unknown biases or limitations.The IG said FBI personnel pointed out that “it can be challenging to test and deploy a new system without a research and development budget because it is difficult to justify using limited funds to test unproven technology when operations supporting the mission are so critical. This is in contrast to other intelligence agencies, which according to an FBI official, have research and development budgets that allow them to test and deploy new technology. FBI personnel have submitted proposals to ODNI when internal funding was not available, but those sources of funding are not guaranteed. ”Modernizing IT infrastructure is another critical hurdle. Legacy systems impede the integration of AI, and inadequate data architectures exacerbate issues related to data quality and security. Poorly managed data systems could inadvertently expose sensitive personal information to breaches or misuse, further endangering privacy and civil rights.“Due to limited resources and a lack of strategic planning, federal agencies often struggle to ensure that data architecture remains modern and instead use outdated information systems, even when those systems themselves require significant resources to maintain,” the IG’s report says. “Such systems can frustrate the move to AI because they can be difficult to integrate with newer technologies, lack features essential for modern data science tasks, struggle to handle today’s large and complex datasets, and often require more time and manual effort from their users. FBI personnel also noted that the movement of data and AI tools across classification levels is complicated and requires additional funding to address.”“Additionally,” the IG said, “capturing quality data is fundamental to allow an organization to utilize data for decisions by implementing processes to ensure that incoming data is accurate, consistent, and relevant.The IG highlighted a number of actions the FBI and DEA can take to address the concerns raised by the audit. For one thing, both agencies should evaluate how AI can be integrated ethically and effectively to improve intelligence collection while protecting individual rights. Also, strengthening the AIEC and similar mechanisms with sufficient resources to handle increased AI adoption is critical for upholding ethical standards.Mandating SBOMs and independent testing for all AI tools would ensure that the FBI and DEA – and other agencies – can verify the safety and legality of their applications. Also, the IG recommended implementing routine assessments to evaluate the potential impact of AI tools on civil liberties, particularly in surveillance contexts.

Israel keeps emergency biometrics measures in place, more than a year into Gaza war-Dec 23, 2024, 9:43 am EST    | Masha Borak

Last year, on October 7th, a Hamas attack on Israel plunged the country into a war against Gaza that would bring chaos to the region. But aside from death and destruction, the war has also brought unprecedented access to biometric data to the Israeli government, sparking fears over privacy violations for Israelis.Just one month after the attacks, the Knesset approved full access to the National Biometric Database for Israeli security forces using expedited legislation. The new access was not to be monitored by other government agencies. Since then, the Ministry of National Security has been regularly extending the temporary order despite the country’s regulators, legal experts and rights organizations arguing against its necessity.“This legislation was enacted under difficult conditions, time pressure, and uncertainty,” the country’s Biometric Commissioner Naama Ben Zvi told Israeli media outlet Calcalist.The database holds fingerprint and facial data of approximately 7 million Israelis. In the beginning, authorities argued that the biometric data was critical for identifying the deceased, kidnapped and missing during Hamas’s attack. Alongside the data access, the government also started mandating that citizens applying for an ID card or passport also submit fingerprint and facial biometrics.According to data from the Biometric Commissioner, however, the fingerprint data was not indispensable. The biometric database helped identify 106 people out of 1,205 casualties, around 11 percent. The individuals were also identified using methods such as DNA, dental records and Israeli Defense Force (IDF) biometric databases which hold records from military conscripts.“From a national perspective, fingerprints are not a significant game changer,” says Ben Zvi, who also heads the Identity and Biometric Applications Unit at the Israeli National Cyber Directorate. Citizens should be given a choice when submitting biometric data, she adds.“Taking fingerprints from the entire population infringes on privacy.”The Biometrics Commissioner is not the only one criticizing the government over privacy.The emergency regulation issued in November 2023 also allowed security agencies to access private security cameras without court approvals. At the same time, the government has been attempting to legalize sophisticated surveillance tools similar to NSO Group’s spyware Pegasus. According to non-profit organization Statwatch, the legislation is the latest step in the Israeli state’s plan to increase its access to data and surveillance tools.In April, more than ten human rights groups signed a letter protesting the European Union’s decision to continue personal data transfers between the bloc and Israel citing the country’s latest changes in security laws and surveillance practices.Israeli authorities have also faced criticism over the collection of biometrics from Palestinian residents and attempts to surveil the population through facial recognition, discovered by Amnesty International last year.Resistance from both outside and inside of Israel, however, has had limited results.Legal experts such as Gur Bligh, advisor to the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, have proposed to the Privacy Protection Authority the introduction of supervision of the biometric database and shortening the temporary order. The privacy watchdog has also objected to the continued collection of biometric data.In November, however, the Israeli Ministry of Public Security requested the extension of the temporary rule once again for another full year, citing intensifying battles on the northern front.This is despite the fact that most bodies of Israelis have already been identified, says the Israeli non-profit organization Digital Rights Movement. Missing persons are currently being identified using genetic information and not biometric data. Many of the bodies have already decomposed, rendering fingerprints and faces unusable for biometric identification, according to media outlet Shakuf.The final decision on extending the emergency regulation is still being considered by the Knesset. Interior Minister Moshe Arbel will play a significant role in the decision, according to Calcalist.Biometric Commissioner Ben Zvi believes that the police will want to continue to collect fingerprints to identify deceased individuals“The police are expected to identify quickly, so they want to use what they have, the more information, the better,” she says.Israel’s activists, however, are still recording some wins in the battle for biometric privacy. In September, attorney Haim Ravia won a suit against the Population and Immigration Authority over an unregulated biometric database that stored images of citizens passing through automatic border crossings.“Under the auspices of the war that broke out on October 7, the state is enacting more and more arrangements that violate the right to privacy beyond all measure,” says Ravia, according to a machine translation. “It is precisely under these circumstances that it is doubly important to enforce the right to privacy, which is a constitutional right in Israel.”

Advances in mDL standards set the stage for more rollouts and adoption in 2025-FaceTec and NIST SMEs provide guidance in Biometric Update webinar-Dec 20, 2024, 3:43 pm EST    | Chris Burt

The passage of the first draft of ISO/IEC 18013-7 in October was the crest of a wave in the standardization of verifiable digital identities and credentials.But understanding what the standard means for mobile driver’s licenses and mDocs, how to apply it and how it will continue to develop going forward is not yet clear to many businesses and issuers alike.To help them navigate the recent and coming changes, Biometric Update convened FaceTec VP of Global Standards Andrew Hughes, who is also a member of the working group responsible for the standard, ISO SC 17/WG 10, and NIST Identity Management Specialist Ryan Galluzzo who is a co-author of NIST SP 800-63, for the webinar “Exploring ISO 18013: Integration opportunities and interoperability challenges for mDLs and digital wallets” on Thursday.The discussion addressed how the ISO mDL standard draws on other standards and specifications, including from the OpenID Foundation, W3C and the FIDO Alliance, as well as an mDL use cases pilot consortium headed by NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE).A lively audience Q+A session followed, with questions touching on who is involved in formulating the ISO 18013 standard, the pace of progress and document revocation.Hughes and Galluzzo emphasized the importance of broad collaboration to the overall project, and urged organizations in both the public and private sector to actively engage in the pilots and preparations that are already underway.“Don’t wait for the next refresh cycle,” Galluzzo advises: “do it now.”A recording of the discussion is available to watch on-demand on YouTube.

INVENTION OF THE ATOMIC BOMB.

2 PETER 3:10-11
10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements (NUKES) shall melt with fervent heat,(BLAST) the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.(BUT ITS NO END OF THE WORLD HOGWASH)
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved,(BY NUKES INCLUDING 3 BILLION PEOPLE) what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,

NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED.

JESUS SHED HIS BLOOD FOR US THAT WE CAN BE SAVED FOREVER.AND DURING WW3 PEOPLES BLOOD WILL BE SHED AS A JUDGEMENT FOR HATING HIM AND ISRAEL.GOD IS NOT MOCKED.

ZEPHANIAH 1:2-3
2  I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the LORD.
3  I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumblingblocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the LORD.

PSALMS 97:3
3 A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.

EZEKIEL 5:15-17
15  So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the (ARAB/MUSLIM) nations that are round about thee,(ISRAEL) when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it.
16  When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread:
17  So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts,(WHEN RUSSIA/MUSLIMS GET DEFEATED THIER BODIES GET EATEN BY BIRDS,ANIMALS IN ISRAEL MIGRATION SEASON) and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee;(NUKES) and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the LORD have spoken it.

REVELATION 14:18-20
18 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the city,(JERUSALEM) and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.(200 MILES) (THE SIZE OF ISRAEL)

ISAIAH 66:15-18
15 For, behold, the LORD will come with fire,(NUKES) and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.
17 They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.
18 For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.

ISAIAH 26:21
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity:(GOD/ISRAEL HATE AND BRAKING OF HIS COMMANDMENTS) the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.(WW3,1/2 earths population die - 3 BILLION).

ISAIAH 13:6-13 KJV
6 Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:(FROM FRIGHT)
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
11 And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.

ISAIAH 24:17-23 KJV
17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
18 And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
22 And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.
23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.

2 TIMOTHY 3:1
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.

JOEL 2:3,30

ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)

EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.

ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.

MALACHI 4:1
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

REVELATION 8:7
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

REVELATION 9:18
18 By these three was the third part of men killed,(2 BILLION) by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(ATOMIC BOMBS)(RUSSIA CHINA DESTROYED BY ISRAELS ATOMIC BOMBS)

REVELATION 16:12-16
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates;(WERE WW3 STARTS IN IRAQ OR SYRIA OR TURKEY) and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon,(SATAN) and out of the mouth of the beast,(WORLD DICTATOR) and out of the mouth of the false prophet.(FALSE POPE)
14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.(WERE 2 BILLION DIE FROM NUKE WAR)
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.

PROOF HALF ON EARTH DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD (8 BILLION ON EARTH)

REVELATION 6:7-8 (8 BILLION- 2 BILLION = 6 BILLION)
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth,(2 BILLION) to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).

REVELATION 9:15,18 (6 BILLION - 2 BILLION = 4 BILLION)
15 And the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels were loosed,
18 By these three was the third part of men killed,(2 BILLION) by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMBS)

HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)

LUKE 17:34-37 (8 TOTAL BILLION - 4 BILLION DEAD IN TRIB = 4 BILLION TO JESUS KINGDOM) (HALF DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD JUST LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS)(GOD DOES NOT LIE)(AND NOTICE MOST DIE IN WAR AND DISEASES-NOT COMETS-ASTEROIDS-QUAKES OR TSUNAMIS)
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other shall be left.(half earths population 4 billion die in the 7 yr trib)
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten by the birds).THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES.BECAUSE NOT HALF OF PEOPLE ON EARTH ARE CHRISTIANS.AND THE CONTEXT IN LUKE 17 IS THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION OR 7 YR TREATY PERIOD.WHICH IS JUDGEMENT ON THE EARTH.NOT 50% RAPTURED TO HEAVEN.

MATTHEW 24:37-42 (THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-SURE NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
42 Watch therefore:(FOR THE LAST DAYS SIGNS HAPPENING) for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

There exists a people who want coexistence. They want peace' Damascus governor says new Syrian regime wants peace: ‘Our problem is not with Israel’Apparently speaking on behalf of al-Sharaa, official says they ‘don’t want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security,’ and Jerusalem’s concern over new regime is ‘natural’By ToI Staff and Agencies Today, 2:37 pm-DEC 27,24

In an interview with the US public broadcaster NPR, apparently on behalf of Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, the governor of Damascus said Thursday that the newly-installed government wants to have cordial relations with Israel.“We have no fear toward Israel, and our problem is not with Israel,” Maher Marwan told NPR, “There exists a people who want coexistence. They want peace. They don’t want disputes.”“And we don’t want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security or any other country’s security,” he said. “We want peace, and we cannot be an opponent to Israel or an opponent to anyone.”He added that Israel’s initial trepidation after the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad was “natural.”“Israel may have felt fear,” he said. “So it advanced a little, bombed a little, etc.”Earlier in December, after the rebels took control of Damascus in a lightning offensive, Israel launched a major operation to destroy Syria’s strategic military capabilities, including chemical weapons sites, missiles, air defenses, air force and navy targets, in a bid to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile elements.In a move that drew some international condemnation, Israel also entered a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights.Israel has said it will not become involved in the conflict in Syria and that its seizure of the buffer zone established in 1974 was a defensive move and a temporary one until it can guarantee security along the frontier.Israel has also signaled its desire to have “correct ties” with the new regime, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in early December, but “if this regime allows Iran to reestablish itself in Syria, or allows the transfer of Iranian weapons or any other weapons to Hezbollah, or attacks us, we will respond forcefully and we will exact a heavy price from it.”He warned the rebels that “whoever follows Assad’s footsteps will end up like Assad did. We won’t allow an extremist Islamic terror entity to act against Israel from beyond its borders… we will do anything to remove the threat.”Syria’s new de-facto leader al-Sharaa, also known by his nom de-guerre Abu Muhammad al-Julani, has said that his new regime is “committed to the 1974 agreement and we are prepared to return the UN [monitors],” referring to peacekeeping forces that manned the demilitarized zone alongside Syrian troops.“We do not want any conflict whether with Israel or anyone else and we will not let Syria be used as a launchpad for attacks. The Syrian people need a break, and the strikes must end and Israel has to pull back to its previous positions,” al-Sharaa told The Times of London earlier this month.Al-Sharaa also reiterated his position that Israel had a right to target Iranian-backed forces prior to the government’s fall earlier this month, but has no legitimate basis to keep operating in Syria.Israel and Syria do not have diplomatic relations and have formally been in a perpetual state of war since Israel declared independence in 1948.Syria was one of a number of Arab countries that attacked the newly born Jewish state, and despite an armistice agreement signed in 1949 that demarcated a border between the two countries, Syria has never formally recognized Israel’s existence.Syria also attacked during the 1967 Six Day War, before the IDF pounded Syrian forces and seized the Golan Heights, which Israel later annexed unilaterally. Syria attacked again in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War and was pushed back after a major advance into the Golan Heights, after which the 1974 disengagement agreement was signed between the states, marking the demilitarized zones on the Israel-Syrian border.While the fall of the Assad regime, which stood for over five decades, could provide a historic opportunity for recognition between Israel and its neighbor, the potential power vacuum in Syria could also lead to further chaos and serve as a breeding ground for a resurgence of terror in the region.Lazar Berman contributed to this report.

Syria’s Homs settles into uneasy calm after brief eruption of sectarian violence-Security forces flood major mixed city, patrolling and checking IDs, days after gunfire at protest by members of Alawite minority; Christians say new regime protecting churches-By ABBY SEWELL Today, 1:44 pm-DEC 27,24

HOMS, Syria (AP) — Syria’s new security forces checked IDs and searched cars in the central city of Homs on Thursday, a day after protests by members of the Alawite minority erupted in gunfire and stirred fears that the country’s fragile peace could break down.A tense calm prevailed after checkpoints were set up throughout the country’s third-largest city, which has a mixed population of Sunni and Shia Muslims, Alawites and Christians.The security forces are controlled by the former insurgent group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which led the charge that unseated former president Bashar al-Assad. On the road from Damascus, security teams at the checkpoints waved cars through perfunctorily, but in Homs, they checked IDs and opened the trunk of each car to look for weapons.Armed men blocked the road leading to the square formerly named for Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, where one foot was all that remained of a statue of him that once stood in the center of the traffic roundabout. The square has been renamed Freedom Square, although some call it “the donkey’s square,” referring to Assad.Protests erupted there Wednesday among Alawites — the minority sect to which the Assad family belongs — after a video circulated showing an Alawite shrine in Aleppo being vandalized. Government officials later issued a statement saying that the video was old.Wednesday’s protests began peacefully, said Alaa Amran, the newly installed police chief of Homs, but then “some suspicious parties… related to the former regime opened fire on both security forces and demonstrators, and there were some injuries.”Security forces flooded the area and imposed a curfew to restore order, he said.Mohammad Ali Hajj Younes, an electrician who has a shop next to the square, said the people who instigated the violence are “the same shabiha who used to come into my shop and rob me, and I couldn’t say anything,” using a term referring to pro-Assad militia members.The protests were part of a larger flare-up of violence Wednesday. Pro-Assad militants attacked members of the new security forces near the coastal town of Tartous, killing 14 and wounding 10, according to the Interior Ministry in the transitional government.In response, security forces launched raids “pursuing the remnants of Assad’s militias,” state media reported. The state-run SANA news agency reported late Thursday that clashes broke out in the village of Balqasa in a rural part of Homs province.The unrest left many people fearful that the relatively peaceful conditions that have prevailed since Assad’s fall could break down into sectarian fighting, as the country begins to recover following nearly 14 years of civil war.Those who instigated the violence “are supported by parties that may be external that want strife for Syria to return it to square one, the square of sectarianism,” Amran said.Ahmad al-Bayyaa, an Alawite in the al-Zahra neighborhood of Homs, said he and his wife and three daughters fled to the coastal town of Baniyas when insurgent forces first arrived, but came back a day later, after hearing from neighbors that the fighters had not harmed civilians.“We had been given the idea that there would be slaughter and killing based on our identity, and nothing like that happened,” he said. “We came back, and nobody asked to see my ID from the coast to Homs.”Before Assad’s fall, al-Bayyaa said, he spent 10 years in hiding to avoid a call-up for reserve army service and was afraid to cross a checkpoint in his own neighborhood. After the former Syrian army collapsed in the face of the HTS-led advance, residents of the neighborhood set up a fruit and vegetable stand on an abandoned tank in a gesture of mockery.In the predominantly Christian Homs suburb of Fayrouzeh, a group of teenage girls took each other’s pictures next to a giant cutout of Santa Claus with a Christmas tree in the town square.Residents of the area said their initial fears that the country’s new rulers would target religious minorities were quickly laid to rest. HTS was once aligned with al-Qaeda, but its leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, has cut ties with the group and since coming to power has preached religious coexistence.“We had a very beautiful holiday even though there was some anxiety before it,” said Fayrouzeh resident Sarab Kashi. “The guys from HTS volunteered and stood as guards on the door of the churches.The city’s Sunni majority, meanwhile, welcomed the new administration. Many of the young men now guarding its streets were originally from Homs and were evacuated to opposition-held Idlib when Assad’s forces solidified control of their areas years ago.“These guys were young boys when they took them in the green buses, and they were crying,” said Wardeh Mohammed, gesturing at a group of young men manning a checkpoint in front of a grocery store on one of the city’s main streets. “Thank God, they have come back as young men, as fighters who made us proud.”The country’s new rulers have scrambled to impose order after the initial anarchic days after Assad’s fall.The former police and security forces — widely known for corruption — were disbanded, and members of the police force in what was formerly a regional government headed by HTS in the opposition-held northwest were deployed to other areas.Amran, the police chief, said recruitment efforts are underway to build up the forces, but he acknowledged that the current numbers are “not sufficient to control security 100%.” The new security forces have also struggled to stem the proliferation of weapons in the hands of civilians or non-state groups, he said.Al-Sharaa has said that the country’s patchwork of former rebel groups will come together in one unified national army, but it remained unclear exactly how that would happen or whether the groups can avoid infighting.In Homs, it was clear that several different armed factions patrolled the streets, in a sometimes uneasy coordination. An HTS official hastened to explain that a handful of armed men wearing patches with an insignia sometimes associated with the Islamic State were not members of his group.Many feared another flare-up of violence.“From what happened yesterday, it’s clear that some people want to take the country backwards” to the worst days of the country’s civil war, al-Bayya said, “and no one wants to go back 14 years.”

WHO says UN crew member seriously hurt in IDF Yemen strike-Houthis fire another overnight ballistic missile at central Israel, triggering sirens-IDF says missile intercepted outside Israeli airspace, alerts sounded for fear of falling debris; Ben Gurion Airport arrivals halted for 30 minutes; 18 lightly hurt rushing to shelter By Emanuel Fabian and ToI Staff Today, 12:52 pm-DEC 27,24

For the fifth night in the last eight days, sirens sounded in large swathes of central Israel overnight Thursday-Friday, after another ballistic missile attack by Yemen’s Houthis.The Iran-backed group took responsibility for the attack, claiming to have targeted Ben Gurion Airport.The projectile was intercepted outside Israel’s airspace, and the alarms were activated out of fear of potential falling debris, the military said.The IDF added that there were no reports of impacts at the airport. Flight arrivals were reportedly halted for 30 minutes.The Magen David Adom ambulance service said 18 people were lightly hurt while rushing to a bomb shelter, and two people suffered acute anxiety attacks.The Houthis claimed that “the missile succeeded in reaching its target despite the enemy’s censorship, and the operation resulted in casualties and the cessation of navigation at the airport.”????Millions of Israelis are currently in shelter as Houthi terrorists in Yemen launched a missile attack, triggering sirens across Israel. pic.twitter.com/RvsSAGyvHG— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) December 27, 2024-Additionally, the Houthis claimed to have carried out a drone attack on a “vital target” in the Tel Aviv area. There were no reports of drones reaching Israel from Yemen in the past day.The Houthis also said that they had targeted a container ship in the Arabian Sea with several drones.The Iran-backed group vowed to continue their attacks on Israel “until the aggression on Gaza stops and the siege is lifted.”On Thursday, Israeli warplanes struck Houthi targets along Yemen’s western coast and deeper within the country, including “infrastructure used by the Houthi terror regime for its military activities” at Sanaa International Airport, and the Hezyaz power plant just outside the Houthi-controlled capital.The strikes followed days of increasingly bellicose threats from Israeli leaders vowing to decimate the Iran-backed terror group after near-daily attacks.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director-general, said the bombardment occurred as he was about to board a flight in Sanaa, injuring an aircrew member. The crew member suffered serious injuries but is now recovering in hospital, a WHO spokesperson said on Friday.The Houthis, a rebel group that is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and Jews, have launched more than 200 missiles and 170 drones at Israel in the past year, according to the IDF.The vast majority did not reach Israel or were intercepted by the military or Israel’s allies in the region, the army says.The Iran-backed group has also carried out repeated missile and drone attacks on some 100 merchant vessels attempting to traverse the Red Sea, forcing many carriers to avoid the key waterway and hamstringing global shipping. The Houthis initially said they were going to attack Israel-linked ships but few of the vessels targeted had ties to Israel.The Houthis have vowed to keep up the attacks until the end of the war in the Gaza Strip that began on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage to Gaza.

InterviewRebels are 'willing to sacrifice Yemen for the Palestinians'‘Houthis are simply insane’: In Tel Aviv, Yemeni activist explains current conflict-Luai Ahmed fled Yemen for Sweden after rebels rose to power, becoming an activist against Islamic fundamentalism; after Oct. 7, he joined the social media fray against antisemitism-Gianluca Pacchiani By Gianluca Pacchiani-Today, 9:57 am-DEC 27,24

Sweden-based Yemeni activist Luai Ahmed, 31, has become something of a celebrity in Israel. As he sits down for this interview in a Tel Aviv café, a woman at a nearby table gestures to attract his attention, pointing at her phone screen and exclaiming: “I was just looking at one of your videos!”An obligatory selfie follows.Ahmed’s fame stems from his prolific social media activity in support of the Jewish state after the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023. He has gained over 190,000 followers on Twitter, and many of his videos have gone viral.An October 2024 clip, in which he debated American college students on the war in Gaza while dressed in traditional Yemeni garb, garnered two million views on Twitter.Ahmed fled Yemen in 2014, shortly after the Iran-backed Houthi rebels – an extremist ethno-religious group from northern Yemen, affiliated with Shiite Islam – hijacked the pro-democracy Arab Spring revolution that had erupted in the country in 2011, toppled the government, and took over the capital, Sanaa.Today, the Houthis rule over northwestern Yemen, controlling approximately one-third of the country’s territory and two-thirds of its population of 34 million. Designated as a terrorist group by many in the West, they have condemned Yemen to international isolation, as the country is blacklisted from trading with much of the outside world and from receiving humanitarian aid.Already one of the poorest and least developed countries before the 2014 coup, Yemen appears to be sinking into a never-ending downward spiral.Arab Muslim Zionist Educates College Students on Israel and The War! @JustLuai #factsforpeace pic.twitter.com/edbK97z9pk— FactsForPeace (@Facts_For_Peace) October 18, 2024-Indifferent to the plight of civilians under their control, the rebels have for months been firing missiles and drones at Israel, claiming it as a campaign in support of Gaza during the ongoing war there against the Hamas terror group. They have recently stepped up the bombardment, launching five early-morning attacks on central Israel in eight days. On Thursday, the IDF launched a series of airstrikes in Yemen, targeting infrastructure used by the Houthis, including Sanaa International Airport, after several previous attacks on the country.After fleeing Sanaa in 2014, Ahmed, who is openly gay, received refugee status in Sweden and later acquired Swedish citizenship. His family still lives between Yemen and Egypt, and his mother, Amal Basha, is one of the most prominent women’s rights advocates in Yemen.In Sweden, he began working as a journalist for a local publication, writing about Islamic extremism, LGBTQ rights, and the challenges of integrating Muslim migrants into Swedish society.Following the October 7 onslaught, Ahmed was appalled at the celebratory messages among friends and family for the massacre that led to the deaths of some 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and the kidnapping of 251 people. He decided to start producing short clips denouncing Islamist violence and antisemitism.His content caught the attention of pro-Israel advocacy organizations. One such group, Sharaka, a nonprofit promoting people-to-people contact between Israel and the Arab world, invited him to Israel, where he has since become a regular visitor.He recently began collaborating with Builders of the Middle East, a nonprofit social media initiative that promotes tolerance and dialogue in the region.In his frequent interactions with Israelis, Ahmed has come to appreciate the Middle Eastern immediacy and warmth with which people approach him.“Coming from Scandinavia, where the culture is so cold and people are a bit like mummies, Israel feels very familiar to me. I trigger my Jewish friends when I tell them, ‘you guys are basically Arabs, with another religion.’ I say it in many of my videos: Arabs and Jews are cousins, or even brothers and sisters,” he said.In an interview with The Times of Israel on Wednesday, Ahmed discussed his life in Yemen prior to the Houthis’ takeover, the recent escalation with Israel, and his efforts to explain the Jewish state to the world. The interview was lightly edited for clarity and brevity.The Times of Israel: Early this morning, you and millions of others in central Israel were awakened by sirens triggered by a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis – the second night in a row and the fourth in less than a week. Forgive the facile sarcasm, but as a Yemeni in Tel Aviv, did you feel like you were receiving a souvenir from home?Luai Ahmed: [laughs] My Israeli friends are always making fun of me. They tell me, “You Yemenis woke us up again.”I feel the Houthis have become a bit of a joke in Israel, and for a long time, people underestimated them. But to Yemenis, it’s no laughing matter.They want to destroy Israel; that’s their main mission. Death and destruction are their motto.[The Houthi’s official banner reads: God is the greatest — Death to America – Death to Israel – Curse on the Jews – Victory to Islam]Last week, I made a video addressing the Houthis directly, highlighting how they betrayed the Arab Spring of 2011 by turning it into an Islamic revolution that sank Yemen further into poverty and isolated it internationally. My message was: You’re attacking Israel now, but soon, Israel will retaliate, and you will cry about it. Look at Gaza right now. Do you want to turn Yemen into Gaza?There are millions of Yemen children who are malnourished and living below the poverty line. People have no money, no food, no water, no gas. Instead of focusing on allocating resources to the most vulnerable, the Houthis hand them out to Hashemites, the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, and the rest is spent on throwing rockets at Israel to kill Jews. How is that going to help Yemen? But to them, it’s a religious war.[In 2020, the Houthi government passed a law based on a singular interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence that imposed a 20% tax on economic activities involving the extraction of natural resources, such as fishing and mining. The levied amounts were redirected to Hashemites, i.e., descendants of the Prophet Muhammad — a narrow segment of the population that includes the Houthi leadership. Ahmed’s mother is also a Hashemite, which has granted her immunity in her pro-women advocacy.]A letter from a Yemeni to the Houthis — from Israel!While the Houthis were sending balisitic missiles towards Israel, our host Luai was in Tel Aviv hiding in a shelter; he wrote a letter to the Houthis. pic.twitter.com/5eH5PP2PYe— buildersofmideast (@buildersmideast) December 20, 2024-So where does their obsession with Israel come from? Is it simply religious fervor?I always say that the religions of Yemen are Islam and Palestine. This predates the Houthi takeover. When I was growing up, the Palestinian flag was in every shop, every restaurant, everywhere. There were signs calling to save our Palestinian brothers and sisters, images of women in a hijab crying with their babies.That’s the psychology of Yemenis. Their hate is not only driven by Islam.Most people in Yemen don’t back the Houthis, because they took power by force and worsened the living conditions. However, after the war in Gaza broke out, the Houthis’ support base has expanded, because they attack Israel. People may still see them as a medieval terrorist organization that took over the country by a coup, but they are fighting the evil Jews, and they are the pride of Yemen.I see three reasons for their obsession with Israel. Firstly, they have nothing else going for them; they have not built an infrastructure and are unable to develop the country in any way, shape or form. The only thing they have accomplished is this religious war, and they know that by fighting it, they earn the admiration of much of the Arab world, which is obsessed with Palestine.Another reason is the sheer antisemitism in our society. I’ll give you two examples.There was an ancient Jewish village near the city of Taiz, where my grandmother lived, that had been abandoned after the Jews left Yemen. We were not allowed to come near that village. People believed evil Jewish spirits were still haunting that area.I remember that growing up in Sanaa, I would go to the mosque, and at the end of every prayer, we would recite a series of supplications to God that included, “May Allah destroy Israel, kill the Jews, make the Zionist orphans.” It was absolutely normal for us as children to repeat them.The third reason is that the Houthis are simply insane. They are an extremist religious group willing to sacrifice all of Yemen for the Palestinians and for the destruction of Israel, even though they’ve never met a Palestinian and don’t know anything about Israel.What was it like to grow up in Yemen as a gay man?I knew about myself, but I hid it. I’ll sum up the cultural attitude toward gay people with an anecdote. When I was about 16, before the Houthis took power, I decided to ask a Yemeni what he thought of homosexuals. We were sitting on a bus, and he was holding a gun – all Yemenis have guns. I told him I had a gay friend and asked him what I should do with him. He handed me his weapon and said, “Take this gun and kill him.”When I moved to Sweden, it was hard to explain to Swedish people these complexities. You can’t bring into your country someone from the Middle East and expect them to believe in gay rights and women’s rights. I’ve been writing a lot about these issues. I love Sweden, and I want to save it – to save Europe.So how did your activism for Israel come about?The first Israeli I ever met was in Sweden. One day, I was sitting in a room full of blonde people in a student dorm, and someone walked in, and he looked a bit like me. I went up to him and introduced myself, and he said he was Tal from Israel. My first immediate reaction was physical — I blacked out.Tal said he could make Yemeni food and that he would make me jachnun [a traditional Yemeni pastry eaten by Yemenite Jews on Shabbat]. I was sure he hated me and was just being a manipulative Jew, who would try to earn my trust and then tell the Swedes behind my back that I’m a Muslim terrorist. But he didn’t. Long story short, six months later, he was my favorite person in the student dorm.A Yemeni is going to dinner in Tel Aviv with Jews and Arabs. You won't see this on AlJazeera or CNN, but Arabs and Jews dine together all the time in Israel and all around the world. pic.twitter.com/KprlgVjQIO— buildersofmideast (@buildersmideast) November 14, 2024After October 7, I was so disillusioned by family and friends who hailed Hamas as freedom fighters that I took to uploading videos to my social media, asking: How dare you celebrate or excuse the murder of innocent human beings? One thing is to be critical toward the Israeli government, but this was different.However, the content I make is not your typical hasbara [pro-Israel public diplomacy]. I’ve made videos where I said I’m happy that Sweden recognized the state of Palestine, and I got a lot of backlash. My argument was: There needs to be a Palestinian state, but to get there, we need to deradicalize the mosques and schools so that the Palestinian cause is focused on creating a state for the Palestinians, not on destroying Israel.I’ve also made a video of a trip to the Bedouin town of Rahat in southern Israel and interviewed residents who criticized Israel for the discrimination they suffer in Israeli society. A lot of my followers said I should not have let them say that. But the videos I make with Builders of the Middle East are not hasbara – they are aimed at giving different perspectives.Do you have any hopes for a peaceful future in the Middle East?What I try to explain to Israelis and Jews about the Houthis, the Yemenis, and the Palestinians, is that we are brainwashed into hating Israelis and other groups of people. It starts in the schools and the mosques.I think Israel should do its best to improve its connections with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It’s important to gain the acceptance of the main key players in the region.In recent years, those two countries have done what the rest of the Middle East should do: Get rid of all the antisemitic rubbish in the textbooks, get rid of the extremism in schools and mosques.Today, at Friday prayers in mosques, imams in those countries get a script of what to read, and everything is about love and coexistence and how beautiful Islam is. If an imam says a single word that’s outside of the script, he goes to jail. It’s an enlightened dictatorship, but that’s what we need. It’s the only way to eliminate the toxicity that has taken over the region and the minds of the people.

 Inside story-Lev Tahor crumbling with leaders in jail, opponents say, as raid deals cult new blow-Amid Guatemalan crackdown, Jewish activists opposed to extremist group say dozens have left in the last year, crediting the prosecution of top members for kidnapping and abuse-By Luke Tress Today, 1:52 am-DEC 27,24

NEW YORK — On the seventh night of Hanukkah in 2018, three men parked a rental car outside a home in the town of Woodridge in upstate New York. At 2:56 a.m., one of the men made a phone call and two children exited the house and got into the car. The group drove to an airport in Pennsylvania, donned disguises, and boarded a flight, fleeing the US for Mexico.The boy and girl were the grandchildren of Shlomo Helbrans, the founder of Lev Tahor, an extremist Jewish cult. The kidnapping of the pair that night would end up sending most of the group’s leadership to prison and help unravel the tight-knit community’s infrastructure. Last week’s seizure of children from the group’s compound by authorities in Guatemala, where most Lev Tahor adherents live, over allegations of child abuse, served as yet another blow to the disintegrating group.“Most of the leadership are not there, so the cult is missing the main ingredient of a cult, which is that charismatic leader,” a member of an opposition group called Lev Tahor Survivors told The Times of Israel this week.A spokesperson for Lev Tahor denied allegations of abuse to the Times of Israel on Thursday and claimed the group was the victim of religious persecution orchestrated by Israel. He acknowledged the group was struggling, but contested it had little to do with the prosecution of its leaders.Founded by Helbrans in Jerusalem in the 1980s, Lev Tahor has been dogged by allegations of child abuse for years. The group jumped borders for years, under scrutiny from authorities, with members seeking refuge at various times in Canada, Iran, Bosnia, and Morocco, among other locations.They landed in Guatemala in the mid-2010s, setting up a closed compound near the town of Oratorio, close to the border with El Salvador.‘Pure heart’?Lev Tahor’s name translates to “pure heart,” but its moves, machinations, and plans are all murky and in 2017, an Israeli court described the group as a “dangerous cult.”The group adheres to an extreme, idiosyncratic interpretation of Judaism and kosher dietary laws that largely shield members from the outside world. The men spend most of their days in prayer and studying specific portions of the Torah, and women and girls are required to dress in black robes that completely cover their bodies.In 2017, Helbrans drowned in a Mexican river near the Guatemalan border, and his son Nachman took the reins of the group.After the takeover, Nachman Helbrans’s sister fled Lev Tahor with her children, and won custody in a New York court. The sister, who was not named in court documents because she was a victim, said Nachman Helbrans was more extreme than his father, that she had spoken out against growing extremism in the group, and had fled for her children’s safety, according to documents later filed by US federal prosecutors. The US attorney for the Southern District of New York court said Helbrans and his associates had “embraced several extreme practices, including child marriages and underage sex.”Nachman Helbrans orchestrated the children’s kidnapping to reunite his niece, then 14 years old, with her 20-year-old “husband,” the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York said. The pair had been wedded two years prior.US prosecutors later said that Lev Tahor leadership regularly married underage girls to adult men in marriages that were not legally recognized, characterizing the relationships as “child sexual exploitation.” The young brides were required to have sex with their husbands, to lie to outsiders about their marriages and their ages, and to deliver babies at home to conceal their ages, prosecutors said.A former member of the group, Mendy Levy, in a 2021 interview, described forced marriages between children and other abuses, including beatings, by the group’s leadership. Levy said he fled Lev Tahor as a teenager because the leaders arranged a marriage between him and his 12-year-old cousin that both opposed. He said he had been beaten with a belt and that the group’s leaders had denied his father medical care, leading to his death.A member of the group confirmed to local media this week that there were mothers in the group as young as 14 or 15.After kidnapping the children in 2018, Helbrans and his accomplices spirited them across the US to Mexico, where they were located weeks later, in a massive law enforcement operation.Helbrans and others were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in New York’s federal Southern District Court after drawn-out legal proceedings. The case wrapped up earlier this year with the imprisonment of three relatives, extradited from Guatemala, who were part of the group’s “hanhala,” or management, prosecutors said.Fleeing is difficult-According to Lev Tahor Survivors, a New York-based group made up of former cult members and some volunteers assisting in their efforts to monitor the sect and help escapees, dozens have left Lev Tahor in the past year. The group cited the jailing of Lev Tahor’s leaders for playing a role in the cult’s deterioration.“They definitely are weakened in a big way because a large part of the strong leadership, the ones that were actually smart and calculating and strategic, are in prison,” said Ezzie Schaffran, an activist with Lev Tahor Survivors, which has quietly worked against the cult for years. “The people that took over are really bottom of the barrel.”Fleeing the cult is difficult because of family bonds within the group, for instance, a husband wanting to leave while his wife does not.Demonstrating the fraught nature of ties within the cult, at Nachman Helbrans’ sentencing in 2022, the same sister whose children had been kidnapped pleaded with the judge for leniency.Still, the exodus has accelerated in recent months. Schaffran estimated that between 20 and 30 members have fled in the past year or so, usually leaving some family members behind. Officials in Guatemala estimated that the community is currently made up of roughly 50 families.Authorities move in-Some of those leaving the cult seemingly helped prompt the latest crackdown by authorities in Guatemala.Last month, four minors escaped from the community and alerted authorities to alleged human trafficking, according to The New York Times.On December 20, hundreds of police, soldiers, and other authorities raided Lev Tahor’s compound near Oratorio to remove the children and seize electronics for evidence. A police chief was also arrested for leaking confidential information to the group, possibly allowing them to prepare for previous police raids.Prosecutors said they were considering charges such as human trafficking, rape, and mistreatment of minors. The skeleton of a minor was found during the raid, the Prosecutor’s Office said.After the raid, local media showed a chaotic situation on the ground, with medics treating Lev Tahor members on the street, men from the group scuffling with armed police and blocking police vehicles, and locals providing food and blankets to members of the group gathered outside a shelter where the children and some women were being housed.Local officials said the children were refusing to speak with investigators and footage showed them struggling with authorities.Yaakov Flitchkin, who helped a family flee the cult around six years ago, went to Guatemala this week to aid the children who were taken into custody.He translated Yiddish for Guatemalan authorities at the scene and brought the children food that complies with their strict diet, such as vegetables and matzah, he said in an interview. The local Jewish community is also pitching in, he said.“I’m not here to break the cult. I’m here to save kids and victims,” he said.While the children were in custody, adults from Lev Tahor screamed instructions to them in Yiddish, telling the children to punch and bite the authorities who were holding them, Flitchkin said.A member of Lev Tahor Survivors said the children are “trained not to say a word and to just scream.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity, due to sensitivities dealing with the extremist group.“It would take a lot of detox to get them to start opening up to talk about what’s going on, to kind of reprogram them from the cult,” he said. “They’re in a highly toxic situation and living and breathing manipulation, so they just need some time to get down to sanity.”The adults also used knives to slash the tires of a bus that was used to transport the children. One of the cult members punched Flitchkin in the face, in an incident that was caught on video.Guatemala’s attorney general’s office initially said it had taken custody of 160 children and adolescents. Local media and a Lev Tahor spokesperson put the figure at around 200 and showed footage of children wearing the group’s black robes being loaded onto buses. Authorities later said cult members had managed to break some kids out of the compound, though most were recovered.It is unclear what will happen to the children; some have relatives outside of Lev Tahor who may take them in.“There are quite a number of families outside the cult that are trying to get an update about family members in the cult and they’re willing to take them in,” Schaffran said.Members of the group are citizens of different countries, including the US and Israel. The Israeli embassy in Guatemala said the raid on the compound had been the initiative of local authorities, who notified the embassy afterward.The embassy gave the Guatemalan authorities full support, called on Lev Tahor to refrain from violence and said the well-being of children was the top priority. The US embassy also gave the investigation its full support.The local Jewish community publicly distanced itself from the group, saying Lev Tahor “acts in complete opposition to our traditions and values.”‘Religious persecution’A Lev Tahor spokesperson, Uriel Goldman, told The Times of Israel on Thursday that the group was the target of religious and political persecution orchestrated by the Israeli government. He claimed Lev Tahor had angered Israel by seeking refugee status as an anti-Zionist group in Canada more than a decade ago, which hurt Israel’s image, he alleged.Goldman said the group’s members in custody were being held in “concentration camp” conditions without proper shelter, sharing a video of members of the group breaking out of custody.Goldman said authorities had repeatedly raided the compound, but had not found evidence of abuse, that the skeleton in the compound was part of a cemetery, and that the four members who complained of human trafficking to authorities had been bribed to lie. He acknowledged that children in the community married at a very young age, but said the marriages were legal and consensual.“We want justice. We’re not running away from justice. This is a lie. This is religious persecution and we know the State of Israel is behind it,” he said.He denied the imprisonment of the group’s leaders was behind Lev Tahor’s travails.“We are struggling because of persecution. We cannot work normally, we cannot have a normal life,” Goldman said.The group has mounted a campaign in local media and online to push its persecution claims. The group has posted videos on X portraying the government raid as a crackdown on “religious freedom and human rights.”Lev Tahor Survivors characterized the social media campaign as propaganda, warning that it had managed to generate some support in Guatemala.“They’ve actually had some luck in getting Guatemalan locals [to cry out] to the government that they should stop this,” a member of the group said. “There’s a lot of pressure now on the government because people are buying into their propaganda.”He expressed worries that the crackdown would backfire, noting that the detention of the children could “help their narrative of ‘the non-Jews are out to get us,'” he said.“This is amazing if [the authorities] do it right. If they do it wrong it could backfire and make [the cult] more resolved and make them stronger,” he said.

Verified footage shows apparent shrapnel damage to plane-El Al pausing flights to Moscow for week after Azeri passenger jet said downed by Russia-Airline suspends 5-times-a-week route; officials say Russian air defenses shot down Azerbaijan Airlines plane that diverted from an area frequently targeted by Ukrainian drones-By Sharon Wrobel,ToI Staff and Agencies 26 December 2024, 10:44 pm

Israel’s flagship carrier El Al said Thursday that it was suspending all of its flights from Tel Aviv to Moscow for the coming week, as Azeri officials said a passenger jet that crashed in Kazakhstan Wednesday had been downed by Russian air defenses.The Kan public broadcaster said the decision also stemmed from Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian airports. Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian defense ministry had reported the downing of 59 Ukrainian drones over several regions, it said.Citing “developments in Russia’s airspace,” El Al said it would assess over the next week whether to resume the route and would soon update passengers on developments.The airline, which flies the route five times a week, is one of the last Western airlines to fly to Moscow following sanctions over Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel is home to about 1.3 million Russian speakers — about 13 percent of the general population — many of whom are Russian citizens and have family in Russia.Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 came down near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 of some 70 people on board.The Embraer passenger jet had flown hundreds of miles off its scheduled route from Azerbaijan’s Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s southern Chechnya region, when it crashed on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea.Videos of the crash site posted on social media and verified by Reuters showed what appeared to be shrapnel damage to the wreckage of the tail section of the plane.????New video by Azerbaijani source Calibre from the crash site of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane. This hole does not appear to be caused by a bird #BREAKING pic.twitter.com/sKtdkNewIS — Vega (@Vega12991453) December 25, 2024-The plane had diverted from an area of Russia in which Moscow has used air defense systems against Ukrainian drone strikes in recent months.Aviation security firm Osprey Flight Solutions said in an alert to airlines on Wednesday that footage of the wreckage and the circumstances around the airspace in southwest Russia indicated the possibility that the airliner was hit by some form of anti-aircraft fire.Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said that preliminary information indicated that the pilots diverted to Aktau after a bird strike led to an emergency on board.However, Reuters on Thursday cited four sources in Azerbaijan with knowledge of the investigation as saying the plane was shot down by Russia’s air defenses.One of the Azerbaijani sources said preliminary results showed the plane was struck by a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system, and its communications were paralyzed by electronic warfare systems on the approach into Grozny“No one claims that it was done on purpose. However, taking into account the established facts, Baku expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft,” the source said.Moscow pushed back as experts claimed that evidence pointed to the plane having been hit by air defenses.“It would be wrong to make any hypotheses before the investigation’s conclusions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Houthis claim 6 killed; Israel said bracing for retaliation-Israeli jets hit Sanaa airport and Houthi sites along Yemen coast after missile attacks-IDF confirms strikes on capital, port infrastructure in response to recent assaults on Israel, as PM vows to keep up attacks; WHO chief, in the country, says he was nearly struck By Emanuel Fabian,Reuters and ToI Staff 26 December 2024, 8:58 pm

Israeli warplanes struck Houthi forces in Yemen Thursday in response to repeated ballistic missile and drone attacks on Israel which have ramped up in recent weeks, the military said.The strikes — a mission that dozens of Israeli Air Force fighter jets took part in, alongside refuelers and spy planes — followed days of increasingly bellicose threats from Israeli leaders vowing to decimate the Iran-backed terror group after near-daily attacks.Following Thursday’s strikes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz promised to keep pounding the group and “hunt down” its leaders.“We are determined to cut off this terror arm of the Iranian axis of evil. We will persist in this until we complete the job,” Netanyahu said in a pre-recorded statement.The Israel Defense Forces said that during the sortie, fighter jets struck Houthi targets along Yemen’s western coast and deeper within the country.The targets included “infrastructure used by the Houthi terror regime for its military activities” at Sanaa International Airport, and the Hezyaz power plant just outside the Houthi-controlled capital. Planes also hit infrastructure at the Hodeida, Salif and Ras Qantib ports on the coast, including another power plant.“These infrastructures were used by the Houthi terror regime to transfer Iranian weapons to the region and for the entry of senior Iranian officials,” the IDF said.The Houthi-controlled Saba news agency said that six people were killed in the strikes — three at the airport and three in Hodeida — while 40 others were wounded in the attacks.Video published by Houthi-run Al Masirah TV showed extensive damage to the airport, including windows blown out in terminals and blood on the floor. The control tower appeared to have been reduced to a concrete shell. — قناة المسيرة (@TvAlmasirah) December 26, 2024-The strikes came as Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi gave a televised speech.Later on Thursday, the Houthis said they were ready to respond quickly to the attack and meet “escalation with escalation,” Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported.Houthi official Hezam al-Asad tweeted that Israel’s strikes “reflect the state of weakness and bankruptcy that afflicts this defeated entity.”The Houthi leadership has stepped up attacks in recent weeks following the exit of fellow Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah from the battlefield.Following the strikes, several Israeli reports said air defenses were being put on high alert in anticipation of a potential Houthi retaliation within hours.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director-general, said the bombardment occurred as he was about to board a flight in Sanaa, injuring a crew member.“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged,” he said on X, adding that he and WHO colleagues were safe. “We will need to wait for the damage to the airport to be repaired before we can leave.”Our mission to negotiate the release of @UN staff detainees and to assess the health and humanitarian situation in #Yemen concluded today. We continue to call for the detainees' immediate release.As we were about to board our flight from Sana’a, about two hours ago, the airport… pic.twitter.com/riZayWHkvf— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) December 26, 2024-The military said the airstrikes were approved by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, as well as by Netanyahu and Katz. According to Channel 12 news, Jerusalem updated the United States ahead of time on the targets it was about to hit.“We saw precise action by the Israeli Air Force, hitting strategic Houthi targets in Yemen, at the airport and at the port,” Katz said in a pre-recorded message from the IAF’s underground command center at the military headquarters in Tel Aviv.“As we said, whoever strikes Israel, we will strike them. We will also hunt down all the Houthi leaders, hit them as we have done elsewhere,” he added.Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar told officers at the IAF’s underground command center: “We have just seen a tangible demonstration of what we are capable of, and we are capable of much more.”Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the strikes as a “violation” of peace and security.“These aggressions are a clear violation of international peace and security and an undeniable crime against the heroic and noble people of Yemen, who have not spared any effort to support the oppressed people of Palestine against the occupation and genocide,” said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei in a statement.UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres claimed Thursday’s airstrikes were “especially alarming” after “a year of escalatory actions by the Houthis,” according a UN spokesperson.Guterres is concerned about the risk of further escalation, and is calling for all parties concerned to cease military actions and exercise utmost restraint, the spokesperson said, adding: “He also warns that airstrikes on Red Sea ports and Sanaa airport pose grave risks to humanitarian operations at a time when millions of people are in need of life-saving assistance.”Thursday’s strikes marked the fourth time Israeli jets have attacked the Houthis in Yemen. It came nearly a week after Israeli jets carried out intense strikes along the Yemen coast and hit Sanaa for the first time.Since December 16, the Houthis have launched five ballistic missiles and at least five drones at Israel, in what the terror group says is a campaign in support of Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing war there against the Hamas terror group. Many of the attacks occurred in the middle of the night, forcing millions in the Tel Aviv area to rush for shelter. A number of people have suffered injuries while trying to reach safety.The Houthis, a rebel group that is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and Jews, have launched more than 200 missiles and 170 drones at Israel in the past year, according to the IDF.The vast majority did not reach Israel or were intercepted by the military or Israel’s allies in the region, the army says.On Saturday, air defenses failed to stop a Houthi missile that struck a park in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, lightly injuring 16 people in surrounding buildings. Days earlier, a ballistic missile fired toward Tel Aviv hit a school in the suburb of Ramat Gan, destroying it. The building was empty at the time.The Iran-backed group has also carried out repeated missile and drone attacks on some 100 merchant vessels attempting to traverse the Red Sea, forcing many carriers to avoid the key waterway and hamstringing global shipping. The Houthis initially said they were going to attack Israel-linked ships but few of the vessels targeted had ties to Israel.The Houthis have vowed to keep up the attacks until the end of the war in the Gaza Strip that began on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage to Gaza. Israel is battling to destroy Hamas in Gaza and save the hostages.The US military has recently targeted the Houthis in Yemen.Reports in Israel in recent days have indicated widespread pessimism among defense officials and others that the strikes will have an effect on halting the Houthi attacks without joint action from the US or other major allies. According to several reports, Mossad chief David Barnea and other senior security officials have pushed in recent meetings for Israel to instead strike Iran, which supplies the Houthis with weapons and other support.

Azerbaijan plane was likely downed by Russian air defenses, sources say-Experts and officials with knowledge of probe say evidence points to passenger jet being hit by Pantsir system before crash that killed 38; Moscow warns against premature ‘hypotheses’By Reuters and AP 26 December 2024, 8:30 pm

An Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 people, was downed by a Russian air defense system, four sources in Azerbaijan with knowledge of the investigation told Reuters.Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 came down near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from an area of Russia in which Moscow has used air defense systems against Ukrainian drone strikes in recent months.The Embraer passenger jet had flown hundreds of miles off its scheduled route from Azerbaijan’s Baku to Grozny, in Russia’s southern Chechnya region, when it crashed on the opposite shore of the Caspian Sea. Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said that preliminary information indicated that the pilots diverted to Aktau after a bird strike led to an emergency on board.Officials did not explain why it had crossed the sea, but the crash happened after Ukrainian drone strikes this month hit Chechnya. The nearest Russian airport on the plane’s flight path was closed on Wednesday morning.One of the Azerbaijani sources familiar with the Azerbaijani investigation into the crash told Reuters that preliminary results showed the plane was struck by a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system, and its communications were paralyzed by electronic warfare systems on the approach into Grozny.“No one claims that it was done on purpose. However, taking into account the established facts, Baku expects the Russian side to confess to the shooting down of the Azerbaijani aircraft,” the source said.Moscow pushed back as experts claimed that evidence pointed to the plane having been hit by air defenses.“It would be wrong to make any hypotheses before the investigation’s conclusions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.Kazakhstan’s parliamentary Speaker Maulen Ashimbayev also warned against rushing to conclusions based on pictures of the plane’s fragments, describing the allegations of air defense fire as unfounded and “unethical.”Other officials in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have similarly avoided comment on a possible cause of the crash, saying it will be up to investigators to determine it.Videos of the crash site posted on social media and verified by Reuters showed what appeared to be shrapnel damage to the wreckage of the tail section of the plane.Aviation security firm Osprey Flight Solutions said in an alert to airlines on Wednesday that footage of the wreckage and the circumstances around the air space in southwest Russia indicated the possibility that the airliner was hit by some form of anti-aircraft fire.Osprey CEO Andrew Nicholson said that the company had issued more than 200 alerts regarding drone attacks and air defense systems in Russia during the war.“This incident is a stark reminder of why we do what we do,” Nicholson wrote online. “It is painful to know that despite our efforts, lives were lost in a way that could have been avoided.”Russia’s Dagestan and Chechnya regions have been targeted by Ukrainian weaponized military drones this month, with Russian air defenses activated in response, Osprey said.Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian defense ministry had reported the downing of 59 Ukrainian drones over several regions, it said.Some were reportedly downed in closed air space over regions bordering Ukraine, including the Sea of Azov. Flight operations were reportedly temporarily suspended at Russia’s Kazan Airport due to the activity.In addition, publicly available ADS-B flight tracking data shows that the aircraft experienced GPS jamming throughout its flight over southwest Russia, the alert said.Mark Zee of OPSGroup, which monitors the world’s airspace and airports for risks, said that the analysis of the fragments of the crashed plane indicate with a 90-99% probability that it was hit by a surface-to-air missile.According to Kazakh officials, those aboard the plane included 42 Azerbaijani citizens, 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhs and three Kyrgyzstan nationals. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry on Thursday flew nine Russian survivors to Moscow for treatment.In Brussels, NATO called for a full investigation into the cause of the crash.“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and victims of Azerbaijan Airlines flight J28243,” NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said on X.“We wish those injured in the crash a speedy recovery and call for a full investigation.”

New Syrian regime declares crackdown in coastal region after 14 policemen killed-Security forces launch operation in Alawite-majority Tartus region, erstwhile stronghold of fallen Assad government, after attack on police blamed on Assad supporters By Reuters 26 December 2024, 4:52 pm

DAMASCUS — Syria’s new authorities on Thursday launched a security crackdown in a coastal region where 14 policemen were killed a day before, vowing to pursue “remnants” of the ousted Bashar al-Assad government accused of the attack, state media reported.The violence in Tartus province, part of the coastal region that is home to many members of Assad’s Alawite sect, has marked the deadliest challenge yet to the Sunni Islamist-led authorities that swept him from power on December 8.The new administration’s security forces launched the operation to “control security, stability, and civil peace and to pursue the remnants of Assad’s militias in the woods and hills” in Tartus’s rural areas, state news agency SANA reported.Members of the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shia Islam, wielded huge sway in Assad-led Syria, dominating security forces he used against his opponents during the 13-year-long civil war as well as to crush dissent during decades of bloody oppression by his police state.Reflecting tensions with a sectarian edge, protesters chanted “Oh Ali!” during a rally outside local government headquarters in Tartus, images posted on social media Wednesday showed. Reuters verified the location of the images.The chant was a reference to Ali ibn Abi Talib, a cousin of the Prophet Mohammed who is revered by Muslims but held in especially high regard by Alawites and Shiites, who believe Ali and his descendants should have led the Islamic community.Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the former al-Qaeda affiliate that led the rebel campaign that toppled Assad, has repeatedly vowed to protect minority religious groups, who fear the new rulers could seek to impose a conservative form of Islamist government.SANA reported that Mohammed Othman, the newly appointed governor of the coastal Latakia region that adjoins the Tartus area, met Alawite sheikhs to “encourage community cohesion and civil peace on the Syrian coast.”Unrest in Homs-The Syrian information ministry declared a ban on what it described as “the circulation or publication of any media content or news with a sectarian tone aimed at spreading division” among Syrians.The Syrian civil war took on sectarian dimensions as Assad drew on Shiite militias from across the Middle East, mobilized by his ally Iran, to battle the insurgency dominated by members of the Sunni Muslim majority, many of them Islamists.Dissent has also surfaced in the city of Homs, 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Damascus. State media reported that police imposed an overnight curfew on Wednesday night, following unrest linked to demonstrations that residents said were led by members of the Alawite and Shiite religious communities.Footage posted on social media on Wednesday from Homs showed a crowd of people scattering and some of them running as gunfire was heard. Reuters verified the location. It was not clear who was firing.Assad’s longtime Shiite regional ally Iran has criticized the course of events in Syria in recent days.On Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Syrian youth to “stand with firm determination against those who have orchestrated and brought about this insecurity.”Khamenei forecast “that a strong and honorable group will also emerge in Syria because today Syrian youth have nothing to lose,” calling the country unsafe.Syria’s newly appointed foreign minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, said in a social media post on Tuesday that Iran must respect the will of the Syrian people and Syria’s sovereignty and security.“We warn them against spreading chaos in Syria and we hold them accountable for the repercussions of the latest remarks,” he said.Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having good neighborly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group played a major role in propping up Assad during the civil war, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war it initiated with Israel — a redeployment that weakened Syrian government lines.UN force decries ‘continuing destruction’ by IDF in Lebanon, urges faster withdrawal-UNIFIL says Israel violating Resolution 1701, as IDF continues to operate in south Lebanon ahead of mandated withdrawal at end of January that was agreed to in November ceasefire By AFP and ToI Staff 26 December 2024, 3:14 pm

The United Nations’ peacekeeping force in Lebanon expressed concern on Thursday over the “continuing” damage done by Israeli forces in the country’s south despite a ceasefire in the war against the Hezbollah terror group.The truce went into effect on November 27, about two months after Israel stepped up its bombing campaign and later sent troops into Lebanon, almost a year after the Iranian proxy started attacking Israeli communities with rockets and drones on October 8, 2023, a day after its ally Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza.The warring sides have since traded accusations of violating the truce. The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that at least 44 Hezbollah operatives have been killed by the IDF since the ceasefire was reached, arguing they had violated the ceasefire by operating in southern Lebanon or at sites affiliated with Hezbollah.As part of the truce agreement, the Lebanese army and United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers will deploy in southern Lebanon, as the Israeli army pulls out over a period of 60 days.The IDF under the ceasefire agreement has until late January to withdraw from southern Lebanon, and, in the meantime, it continues to operate against and destroy Hezbollah infrastructure.UNIFIL said in a statement on Thursday that “there is concern at continuing destruction by the IDF in residential areas, agricultural land and road networks in south Lebanon.”The statement added that “this is in violation of Resolution 1701,” which was adopted by the UN Security Council and ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006.The UN force also reiterated its call for “the timely withdrawal” of Israeli troops from Lebanon, and “the full implementation of Resolution 1701.”The resolution states that Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only forces in southern Lebanon, and also calls for Israeli troops to withdraw from Lebanese territory.The agreement was not enforced following its passage in 2006, allowing a years-long buildup of Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon that paved the way for the recent war.“Any actions that risk the fragile cessation of hostilities must cease,” UNIFIL said on Thursday.On Monday the force urged “accelerated progress” in the Israeli military’s withdrawal.Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday “extensive” operations by Israeli forces in the south.It said residents of Qantara fled to a nearby village “following an incursion by Israeli enemy forces into their town.”On Wednesday the NNA said Israeli aircraft struck the eastern Baalbek region, far from the border.

IDF strike kills five staffers of Islamic Jihad-affiliated TV station in Gaza Strip-Military says strike in central Gaza’s Nuseirat hit PIJ terror cell; baby dies of hypothermia in humanitarian zone, said to be third within days By Emanuel Fabian and Agencies 26 December 2024, 10:24 am

The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday morning that an airstrike in the vicinity of Al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza’s Nuseirat had targeted “a vehicle with an Islamic Jihad terror cell inside,” following overnight reports from Hamas-run Gaza health authorities that said five people had been killed there.Palestinian media had said that the five people killed were journalists, and that the vehicle was marked as a media van and was used by journalists to report from inside the hospital and the Nuseirat refugee camp.The Palestinian TV channel Al-Quds Today, which is affiliated with the Islamic Jihad terror group, identified those killed in the airstrike as its staffers Faisal Abu Al-Qumsan, Ayman Al-Jadi, Ibrahim Al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna and Mohammed Al-Lada’a.They were killed “while performing their journalistic and humanitarian duty,” the outlet’s statement said, adding, “We affirm our commitment to continue our resistant media message.”In a statement, the IDF said that prior to the strike it had taken “numerous steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, adding, “The IDF will continue to operate against Hamas in defense of the citizens of Israel.”Israel has repeatedly documented members of terror groups in Gaza working under the cover of journalists.Hamas-affiliated medics also said at least 10 people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in separate strikes in the early morning.The medics said that five people were killed and 20 wounded in a strike on a house in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood. They warned that many people remain trapped under the rubble.The dead according to Al Quds Today. pic.twitter.com/jFUSeLSWps— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) December 26, 2024-On Thursday, a group of Hamas operatives in Gaza City who were planning to carry out a drone attack on Israeli were targeted in an airstrike, the IDF said.The military said in a statement that the operatives were struck by an Israeli Air Force helicopter, following intelligence provided by the Military Intelligence Directorate, Shin Bet security agency, and the IDF’s 990th Reserve Artillery Regiment.Palestinian media reported three dead in the strike.“The terrorists used a civilian area to plan and carry out a terror attack with explosive-laden drones against IDF troops,” the military said, describing the attack as imminent.The IDF said it had taken steps to mitigate civilian harm in the strike.Baby dies of hypothermia-A baby girl died of hypothermia overnight Wednesday-Thursday in a Gaza tent camp, her family and doctors said, and two other infants also died of cold in recent days.The father of 3-week-old Sila, Mahmoud al-Faseeh, wrapped her in a blanket to try and keep her warm in their tent in the al-Mawasi area outside Khan Younis, but it wasn’t enough, he told The Associated Press.He said the tent was not sealed from the wind and the ground was cold, as temperatures Tuesday night dropped to 9 degrees Celsius (48 degrees Fahrenheit) in the coastal area that Israel set aside as a humanitarian zone.“It was very cold overnight and as adults we couldn’t even take it. We couldn’t stay warm,” he said. Sila woke up crying three times overnight and in the morning they found her unresponsive, her body stiff, he recalled.“She was like wood,” said al-Faseeh. Doctors at a field hospital tried to revive her, but her lungs had already deteriorated. Images of Sila taken by the AP showed the little girl with purple lips, her pale skin blotchy.Ahmed al-Farra, director of the children’s ward at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, confirmed that the baby died of hypothermia. He said two other babies – one 3 days old, the other a month old – had been brought to the hospital over the past 48 hours after dying of hypothermia.Israel has been fighting the Hamas terror group in Gaza since October 7, 2023, when thousands of terrorists led by the organization invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, starting an ongoing multi-front war.Israel says it regrets harm to civilians amid the fighting, blaming Hamas for fighting in populated areas and in effect using civilians as human shields, and causing mass displacements, but aid groups and others say Israel must do more to protect Gazans from hunger, cold and violence.We need to go head-on against Iran,' Barnea quoted saying.

-Report: Mossad chief believes Israel should target Iran to get at Houthis; PM disagrees-At Hanukkah candle-lighting, Netanyahu vows rebel group will suffer same fate as other enemies in region; officials said doubtful Israel can stop Houthis without help of US-By ToI Staff and Lazar Berman 26 December 2024, 3:10 am

Mossad chief David Barnea has been pushing Israel’s leadership to concentrate on attacking Iran as a way to stem attacks from the Houthi rebels, according to reports Wednesday, as senior officials hinted that strikes against the Iran-backed Yemeni group were set to escalate in the near future.The stance reportedly adopted by Barnea stands in contrast to the opinion of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, who prefer to keep carrying out strikes against the Houthis themselves rather than against Iran.According to the Haaretz newspaper, Barnea raised the option during a series of discussions on the lack of results from three earlier rounds of strikes in Yemen. The report stated that the Mossad chief believes it would be more effective to go after Iran, which funds and arms the Shiite rebel group.“We need to go head-on against Iran,” he told security officials, according to Channel 13. “If we only attack the Houthis, it’s not certain that we’ll be able to stop them.”There was no immediate confirmation or response to the reports, which cited unnamed sources with knowledge of the discussions.Netanyahu, according to Channel 13, disagreed with Barnea’s assessment, and instead determined that Iran was “a different issue, which will be dealt with at the appropriate time.”Netanyahu’s estimation was shared by senior members of the security establishment, Channel 13 reported, without providing further details.Over the past 10 days, the Houthis have launched five ballistic missiles and at least five drones at Israel, in what the terror group says is a campaign in support of Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing war there against the Hamas terror group.On Wednesday evening, at a Hanukkah candle-lighting for Prime Minister’s Office employees in Jerusalem, Netanyahu vowed that the Houthis would suffer the same fate as Israel’s other enemies in the region.“Today we are lighting the first candle of Hanukkah to commemorate the victory of the Maccabees of that time and the victory of the Maccabees of today,” he said. “Like we did then, we land blows at the oppressors and those who thought they would cut the thread of our life here, and this will apply to everyone.”“The Houthis will also learn what Hamas and Hezbollah and the Assad regime and others learned, and even if it takes time, this lesson will be learned throughout the Middle East,” he promised.Netanyahu was joined for the ceremony by Ronen and Orna Neutra, the parents of slain Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra.Also hinting at increased action against the Houthis in the near future was Israeli Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar, who said Wednesday that the Air Force will “act forcefully wherever we are required.”“We have struck the Houthis in Yemen three times. We will continue and increase the pace and intensity of the attacks as much as necessary,” he said during a graduation ceremony for pilots.While an increasing number of officials appear to be gearing up to deliver a substantive blow to the Iran-backed group, the Ynet news site reported Wednesday that there was little hope in Jerusalem that any such attack would halt the missile and drone strikes aimed at Israel.Israel has carried out three rounds of strikes against the Houthis and has vowed to continue pounding them, without significant results. Analysts have said Israel’s distance from Yemen poses an operational challenge that could be overcome with support from the US or other Western powers.Israeli officials have discussed plans to escalate strikes with their US counterparts, whom the report said were on board.Yet the news site quoted unnamed sources as saying that Israel would be able to intensify its attacks to the level needed to beat back the Houthis only once US President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20.“The Houthis will pay a heavy price, there will be a ratcheting up of Israeli attacks,” an unnamed source was quoted as saying. “But it’s nothing compared to what will happen once Trump enters office. The Americans are planning to impose an embargo on them and sanctions.”According to the report, Israel sees the Houthis as a “hard nut to crack.”Unlike other Iran-backed Shiite groups, which have largely been cowed by Israel’s campaigns against them, the Houthis are high on the hog thanks to their success in imposing themselves as a major player in world affairs, according to an Israeli assessment cited by Ynet.Former defense minister Yoav Gallant threw his support behind the idea of Israel working with the US against the Houthis, as he estimated that it would pave the way for joint action against Iran — something he predicted would take place soon.He made the comments while visiting a school in Ramat Gan that was destroyed last week by a Houthi missile.“We need to do more against the Houthis, their leaders and their missile array,” said Gallant, a Likud MK who has made few public speeches since Israel Katz replaced him as defense minister last month.According to the former general, joint action between Israel and the US against the Houthis “will have a practical effect within a short time.”“With the American effort and joint Israeli-US operations against the Houthis we can have an impact on the battlefield — and it will act as preparation for what will be done against Iran,” he said. “It will be preparation for future operations which must be done within a short time frame against Iran.”A ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthis was intercepted by Israeli air defenses early Wednesday morning, marking the second night in a row — and the fourth in less than a week — that the Iran-backed group has fired at Israel’s center in what has recently become a near-nightly occurrence.Later in the day, a drone launched by the Houthis was said by the IDF to have crashed in an open area near the southern city of Ashkelon.The Houthis were quick to take responsibility for the attack, and claimed that they had launched two drones, one at a “vital and sensitive target” in the Tel Aviv area, and the other at Ashkelon’s industrial zone.There were no reports of injuries or major damage in the attack as sirens sounded in Ashkelon and some Gaza border communities. There were no reports of impacts in the Tel Aviv area.On Saturday, attempted interceptions failed to stop a Houthi missile that struck a park in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, lightly injuring 16 people in surrounding buildings.The Houthis have vowed to keep attacking Israel until the end of the war in the Gaza Strip that began on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage to Gaza. Israel is battling to destroy Hamas in Gaza and save the hostages.The Houthis have launched more than 200 missiles and 170 drones at Israel in the past year. According to the IDF, the vast majority did not reach Israel or were intercepted by the military and Israeli allies in the region.Israel has carried out airstrikes against Houthi targets three times in response to the group’s attacks, the latest on Thursday.The Iran-backed group has also carried out repeated missile and drone attacks on some 100 merchant vessels attempting to traverse the Red Sea, forcing many carriers to avoid the key waterway and hamstringing global shipping. The Houthis initially said they were going to attack Israel-linked ships but few of the vessels targeted had ties to Israel.

Bethlehem marks second subdued Christmas, amid pall of ongoing war-Latin patriarch, after visiting Catholics in Gaza, urges faithful in West Bank city to ‘not give up,’ as pope in Vatican laments ‘bombs on schools and hospitals’By AFP and ToI Staff 25 December 2024, 5:50 pm

Christians gathered at the Church of the Nativity in the holy city of Bethlehem on Tuesday to mark a solemn Christmas overshadowed by war, as Pope Francis led mass in the Vatican.In Bethlehem, in the West Bank, festive decorations were missing for a second consecutive year.The crowd of several hundred paled in comparison to the throngs of tourists and pilgrims of Christmases past — a reflection of the somber mood as the multifront war in the region churns on, over a year after it started on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating terror attack on Israel.At St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis urged the faithful to think “of the wars, of the machine-gunned children, of the bombs on schools or hospitals,” days after he reiterated his condemnation of the “cruelty” of Israeli strikes, prompting objections from Israeli diplomats who accused him of ignoring the cruelty of the Hamas attack during which terrorists committed widespread atrocities and abducted 251 people — including children — who were taken as hostages to Gaza. Of those, 96 are still in captivity.At Manger Square, the heart of the Palestinian city dominated by the revered church that marks the site where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born, a group of scouts held a parade that broke the morning’s silence.“Our children want to play and laugh,” read a sign carried by one of them, as his friends whistled and cheered.Traditionally in Bethlehem, a grand Christmas tree would light up Manger Square, but local authorities opted against elaborate celebrations for a second year.“This year we limited our joy,” Bethlehem Mayor Anton Salman told AFP.Prayers, including the church’s famed midnight mass, will still be held in the presence of the Catholic Church’s Latin patriarch, but the festivities will be of a more strictly religious nature.The patriarch, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, told a crowd in Bethlehem he had just returned from Gaza, where he “saw everything destroyed, poverty, disaster.”“But I also saw life — they don’t give up. So you should not give up either. Never.”Despite the gloomy mood, some Christians in the Holy Land — who number about 185,000 in Israel and 47,000 in the Palestinian territories — were finding refuge in prayer.“Christmas is a feast of faith… We’re going to pray and ask God to end our suffering,” Salman said.In a message to Christians all over the world, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked them for supporting Israel’s fight against the “forces of evil.”My dear Christian friends, as you gather with your family and friends this Christmas, I wish the Christian community in Israel and around the world blessings for a Merry Christmas from the Holy Land. pic.twitter.com/2wm3taKfXZ — Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) December 24, 2024-Christians in Syria-In war-ravaged Gaza, which is separated from the West Bank by Israeli territory, hundreds of Christians gathered at a church to pray for an end to the war.“This Christmas carries the stench of death and destruction,” said George al-Sayegh, who for weeks has sought refuge in the 12th-century Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City.“There is no joy, no festive spirit. We don’t even know who will survive until the next holiday.”Elsewhere in the Middle East, hundreds of people took to the streets in Christian areas of Damascus to protest the burning of a Christmas tree in a Syrian town, just over two weeks after Islamist-led rebels ousted president Bashar al-Assad.“If we’re not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as we used to, then we don’t belong here anymore,” said a demonstrator who gave his name as Georges.Syria’s new rulers have vowed to protect the country’s religious minorities, including Christians.But some Syrian Christians, including longtime secular opponents to Assad’s rule, fear the new leadership’s Islamist ideology will mean their community’s aspirations and those of other minorities will not be taken into account in the transition.Tracking Santa-In Germany, Christmas was overshadowed by a deadly attack at a market, prompting President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to issue a message of healing.“Hatred and violence must not have the final word,” he said.Pope Francis marked Christmas Eve on Tuesday with a special ceremony launching Jubilee 2025, a year of Catholic celebrations set to draw more than 30 million pilgrims to Rome.The pope, who in recent days has made strong remarks condemning Israel’s military actions in Gaza, opened the “Holy Door” of St Peter’s Basilica before presiding over the Christmas Eve mass. The Vatican earlier this month removed a seasonal nativity scene depicting the baby Jesus lying on a keffiyeh in the traditional design used by Palestinians as a national symbol, after backlash over the display.Among the groups registered to participate in the Jubilee, which has the motto “Pilgrims of Hope,” is Italian LGBTQ group La Tenda di Gionata, reflecting the pope’s call for the Church to be open to all.There were many moments of joy on Christmas Eve, as families around the world gathered for meals and gift-giving.#NORAD tracking aircraft, the E-3 Sentry has confirmed Santa is travelling South from Alaska. The Airborne early warning and control (AWACS) aircraft can detect all aircraft within its operating range. #NoradTracksSanta pic.twitter.com/2pg05WebYw— NORAD Tracks Santa (@NoradSanta) December 25, 2024-As an annual tradition of “tracking” Santa Claus swung into action, a US Air Force general said there was no need to worry that recent mystery drone sightings might affect deliveries.General Gregory Guillot’s reassurances came as the joint US-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command reported that Santa and his reindeer were making stops across Asia, including Japan and North Korea.“Of course, we are concerned about drones and anything else in the air,” NORAD commander Guillot told Fox News. “But I don’t foresee any difficulty at all with drones for Santa this year.”And in Paris, worshipers gathered at the Notre Dame cathedral for the first Christmas mass since its reopening following a devastating fire in 2019.“We got here early to attend 4:00 pm mass, and to get a good spot. It’s a superb monument,” said Julien Violle, a 40-year-old engineer who traveled to Paris from Switzerland along with his two children.Notre Dame officially reopened on December 7 in a ceremony attended by world leaders, including incoming US president Donald Trump.

Conservatives to move non-confidence motion against Liberal government in the new year-MPs in the House could vote on motion of non-confidence as early as Jan. 30-Racy Rafique · CBC News · Posted: Dec 27, 2024 11:01 AM EST | Last Updated: 27 minutes ago

The Conservatives say they will move a motion of non-confidence in the federal Liberal government in the new year.If all goes according to the Conservatives' plan, MPs in the House of Commons could be voting on a motion of non-confidence in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government as early as Jan. 30.In a letter posted to X on Friday, Conservative MP John Williamson, who chairs the standing committee on public accounts, said the committee will meet on Jan. 7 to consider a motion of non-confidence in the government. Williamson said he will introduce the result of the committee's non-confidence vote to the House on Jan. 27, when Parliament returns from its six-week winter break.In a news release on Friday, the Conservative Party said it will also move a "simple and straightforward motion" once the House returns, stating that the committee report to the House will make the following recommendation: that the House has no confidence in the prime minister and the Liberal government.Liberal government survives third Conservative non-confidence vote-If the motion passes, this opens the door for all MPs to debate a non-confidence motion in the House as early as Jan. 30."The Government no longer commands the confidence of Parliament," Williamson wrote on Friday.He went on to say that parliamentary committees "are a microcosm of the House of Commons," making it appropriate for its members to begin these non-confidence deliberations while Parliament is adjourned.Should the Liberal members of the committee attempt to filibuster and delay the passage of the non-confidence motion, Williamson said he is prepared to schedule committee meetings throughout January. Opposition parties ready to topple government-Three non-confidence motions brought by the Conservatives failed in the fall.However, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh now says he is ready to bring down the government in such a vote, following former deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland's surprise resignation from cabinet on Dec. 16.In an open letter last week, Singh vowed to bring forward a motion of non-confidence to take down the Liberal government in the new year. It's not clear when that would happen or if he would support one of the other opposition parties' motions.Shortly after, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters that the House shouldn't wait until it comes back from the winter break in January.He shared a letter he sent to Governor General Mary Simon asking her to "urgently reconvene Parliament and require a non-confidence vote so the prime minister can judge whether he stays in power."It's unlikely that Simon can do what Poilievre is asking her to do. The House currently stands adjourned but is still in session.According to House of Commons rules, it's up to the Speaker to recall MPs when the House is adjourned. The Governor General also has no authority to dictate the House of Commons' agenda.But with all three of the main opposition parties now saying they want the government to fall, the Liberals are almost certain to lose the nextconfidence vote.Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said a confidence vote must happen as soon as possible in order to trigger an election in early 2025."It must be understood that there is no scenario in which Justin Trudeau's Liberal government ... will survive budgets, throne speeches or opposition days," he wrote in a French social media post.Some Liberal MPs call for leadership change-As the pressure mounts on the Liberals, some MPs are making public their calls for Trudeau to step down as leader. To date, more than 20 Liberal MPs have publicly urged Trudeau to resign — with most coming forward after Freeland's shock resignation from cabinet.Last week at a virtual meeting of the Ontario Liberal caucus, more than 50 Ontario Liberal MPs came to a consensus that Trudeau needs to step down as party leader, multiple sources told CBC News.On Friday, Alberta Liberal MP George Chahal sent two emails — one to the entire Liberal caucus calling for Trudeau to step down immediately and another to the Liberal Party president to begin planning for a leadership change. Sources confirmed to CBC News that the emails are authentic.Since the sudden resignation of former deputy prime minister and finance minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday, 21 Liberal MPs have called for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign. Power & Politics speaks to four MPs who have joined these calls."As we are in the final year prior to a fixed election date, in a minority situation where the other parties have indicated they may defeat the government, I would urge the LPC board to immediately plan for a leadership regardless of [Trudeau's] formal resignation," Chahal wrote to Liberal Party president Sachit Mehra."It is my view that it would be political negligence by the LPC board not to plan for the race. It is clear now the Leader of the Liberal Party no longer has the confidence of his parliamentary caucus and the vast majority of Canadians."CBC News reached out to Chahal for comment but did not immediately hear back.Party needs 'real leadership race'Whispers of who would be Trudeau's successor as Liberal leader have been growing louder in recent weeks since Freeland's resignation as deputy prime minister and finance minister.A small number of Liberal MPs have publicly thrown their support behind Freeland as party leader. Names such as newly appointed Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney have also been floating around political circles."By design or by circumstance, her time of resignation has put her into the spotlight. And she appears to be the person around whom the caucus members can rally behind," Ontario Liberal MP Chandra Arya told CBC's Power & Politics last week.Gerald Butts, Trudeau's former principal secretary, said the next election will probably come sooner rather than later next year — and he doesn't think Trudeau will be leading the party into it.In a Substack post on Friday, he wrote that the turmoil in the Liberal government makes it even more likely that the Conservatives will form a majority government.A close associate of Carney, Butts argues that capitalizing on the "sensation" brought by Freeland's resignation and defaulting to her as the next party leader is "bad strategy" and that the only way forward for the Liberals is "a real leadership race.""Competitions create better competitors. In politics, leadership campaigns make for better general election campaign teams," Butts wrote.With an imminent motion of non-confidence, growing pressure from within Trudeau's own caucus to resign and an election that must take place on or before Oct. 20, 2025, the new year holds more questions than answers about the future of the Liberal Party.

India alleges Canadian colleges linked to trafficking foreign students over Canada-U.S. border-Indian officials say they launched investigation after death of family near Manitoba-U.S. border-The Canadian Press · Posted: Dec 26, 2024 7:34 PM EST | Last Updated: December 26

Indian law enforcement agencies say they are investigating alleged links between dozens of colleges in Canada and two "entities" in Mumbai accused of illegally ferrying students across the Canada-U.S. border.A news release Tuesday from India's Enforcement Directorate — a multi-disciplinary organization that investigates money laundering and foreign exchange laws — said a multi-city search has revealed "incriminating" evidence of "human trafficking."The allegations have not been tested in court. The federal government, the RCMP, the Indian high commission in Ottawa and multiple Canadian college officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The U.S. Embassy said Thursday it had no comment.Indian officials say they launched their investigation after Jagdish Baldevbhai Patel, 39, was found dead along with his wife and two children near a border crossing between Manitoba and the United States on Jan. 19, 2022.A family poses for a photo.Indian family Jagdish Baldevbhai Patel, Dharmik Jagdishkumar Patel, Vaishaliben Jagdishkumar Patel and Vihangi Jagdishkumar Patel, left to right, shown in an undated photo, froze to death in Manitoba in 2022 while trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border into Minnesota. (Amritbhai Vakil/The Canadian Press)-Last month, a Minnesota jury found Steve Shand of Florida and Harshkumar Patel, an Indian national arrested in Chicago, guilty of four counts related to bringing unauthorized people into the U.S., transporting them and profiting from it.Patel is a common name in India and the family was not related to the accused. Prosecutors said Harshkumar Patel co-ordinated a sophisticated operation while Shand was a driver who was supposed to pick up 11 Indian migrants on the Minnesota side of the border. Only seven survived the foot crossing. Canadian authorities found the Patel family later that morning, dead from the cold.Harshkumar Patel and Shand have not yet been sentenced and might appeal.A Minnesota jury has found Steve Shand and Harshkumar Patel guilty on all charges related to human smuggling after a family from India froze to death in Manitoba trying to walk across the Canada-U.S. border in 2022.India alleges man arranged admission to Canadian schools-The Tuesday news release said officials launched an investigation following a report filed against Bhavesh Ashokbhai Patel, who allegedly arranged the family's travel.Each member of the family was allegedly charged the equivalent of between $93,000 and $102,000 to cross into the United States from Canada, the directorate claimed. The incident has been called the Dingucha case in India, named after the village in the Gujarat state of western India from which the family originated.The Enforcement Directorate said it searched eight places last week in Mumbai, Nagpur in Maharashtra state, and Gandhinagar and Vadodara in Gujarat.It also claims that Bhavesh Ashokbhai Patel allegedly arranged people to get admissions to Canadian colleges, which helped in getting student visas.The news release did not specify the schools alleged to be involved.Directorate claims over 100 colleges in Canada involved-"Once the individuals or students reach Canada, instead of joining the college, they illegally crossed the U.S.-Canada Border and never joined college[s] in Canada," it said.The fee paid toward college admission was then returned, according to the Enforcement Directorate.The release claimed that the search found that about 25,000 students were referred by one entity, with over 10,000 students referred by another entity to various colleges outside India every year. A poster on the exterior wall of a store advertises working and study visas.The network has about 1,700 agents in Gujarat and around 3,500 across India, of which 800 are active, authorities alleged.The release claims that "around 112 colleges based in Canada" have entered into an agreement with one entity, while "more than 150" colleges have done so with another entity.It is unclear from the release whether any colleges have ties to both entities. Police investigated documents used by students-Anil Pratham, a former high-ranking police official in Gujaratwho has since retired, was involved in investigating the case as farback as January 2022, when the Patel family died.He told The Canadian Press his team looked at paperwork, such as certificates and documents used by students to apply to colleges and universities abroad.Police then contacted villagers through various societies, asking them for help."We conveyed to the villagers that you should come out and tell [us] who are the victims and who are the agents who live there," he said in an interview from Gujarat. "This helped us in our investigation."The process took nearly three years because the first step is to establish the crime, charge, investigate and finalize those charges, he said, noting that police in Gujarat got help from their counterparts in Canada and New York.He also advises those who want to go abroad to study or work to take the legal route. "There is a legal way of going from India to whichever country one wants," he said.News of the Indian investigation comes amid tensions with the U.S. over border security, a federal rethink of international student policy, and diplomatic tensions with India over New Delhi's alleged targeting of Sikh activists in Canada.U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian goods if Ottawa does not sufficiently crack down on migrants and drugs crossing into the U.S. illegally, leading Ottawa to earmark $1.3 billion over six years to address border security.Canada's new finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc, and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly travelled to Florida on Thursday to talk about border security and trade with the incoming U.S. president.Before that, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats in October, over allegations they used their position to collect information on Canadians and then passed it on to criminal gangs who targeted the individuals directly.At the time, Canada also alleged India's home affairs minister ordered intelligence-gathering operations against Sikh separatists who advocate for an independent country called Khalistan to be carved out of India. New Delhi rejects Ottawa's claims.

Bots and Indian TV push fake news about Canada in wake of Hindu temple clashes-CBC News discovered hundreds of suspicious accounts boosting misleading information from Canadian influencers-Jonathan Montpetit, Saloni Bhugra, Ivan Angelovski · CBC News · Posted: Dec 18, 2024 4:00 AM EST | Last Updated: December 18

A CBC News investigation reviewed hundreds of posts on X – some of which are believed to be from bot accounts – circulating misinformation about Sikh Canadians and the Khalistan movement.A wave of misinformation about Canadian institutions is being amplified by suspected bot accounts on social media and by pro-Modi news outlets in India, raising concerns it could imperil relations between Sikhs and Hindus in Canada. CBC News reviewed hundreds of posts on X and dozens of hours of footage streamed on YouTube in the days before and after clashes outside Hindu temples in Surrey, B.C., and Brampton, Ont., in November.The analysis identified several posts containing misleading and inflammatory comments about the Khalistan movement — which advocates for an independent state for Sikhs — and Sikh Canadians in general that were recirculated by suspicious accounts. Some of these claims were then repeated on Indian media outlets sympathetic to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.A parallel analysis of pro-Khalistan accounts also revealed numerous unverified claims, but only marginal amplification by suspected bots.Even before last month's clashes, the media monitoring unit at Global Affairs Canada had reported "Modi-aligned" media outlets in India were pushing "often heated" narratives claiming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government is beholden to Khalistani extremists.The steadfast opposition to the Khalistan movement is an integral part of a Hindu nationalist ideology the Modi government has been pushing both domestically and abroad, said Ward Elcock, a former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)."The violence of those demonstrations [in Brampton and Surrey] suggests that that agenda has been pushed in [Canada] a good deal more than any of us realized," Elcock said. Sense of insecurity following clashes-Sikh separatists have been demonstrating outside consular events at Hindu temples since Trudeau alleged the Indian government was involved in the 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Khalistan activist, in Surrey.These demonstrations, though small, are often held near the temple entrance and can feature provocative slogans, such as "Who supports Nijjar's killers: Hindu temple."Last month, demonstrations in Surrey and Brampton were met by counter-protesters. A series of confrontations ensued over a 48-hour period, resulting in several arrests and condemnation from politicians across the spectrum."Virtually everybody who has been here for 10, 15 or 20 years were of the view that they never had to confront such a situation," said Balwinder Singh, who hosts a Punjabi-language call-in radio show from the basement of his home in Brampton. "They never thought …  they would feel unsafe in Canada."In the days following the demonstrations, social media was awash in unverified claims about retaliatory violence, government infiltration and police corruption.CBC News examined the activity of six accounts on X during the first two weeks of November: three belonging to prominent Canadian influencers often critical of the Khalistan movement and three belonging to prominent Canadian advocates of the Khalistani cause.Using publicly available data, CBC News counted the number of times a given post was reposted by an account that had the characteristics of a bot. The Digital Forensic Research Lab at the D.C.-based Atlantic Council defines a suspicious account as one that posts more than 72 times per day.This type of analysis does not determine who is controlling the bots or if they are co-ordinating with each other.A group of protestors holding large yellow flags stand on the side of a road.Sikh separatists have been demonstrating outside consular events at Hindu temples since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged the Indian government was involved in the 2023 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Khalistan activist, in Surrey, B.C. (Saloni Bhugra/CBC)The pro-Khalistan accounts in the sample have posted unverified claims about Indian diplomats using places of worship to build a spy network. But there was little evidence these posts were being boosted in a significant way by suspected bots.The account belonging to Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a leading Khalistan advocate, only has 3,600 followers. CBC News detected 13 suspected bots pushing his content in early November; content from the two other pro-Khalistan accounts in the sample was amplified by fewer than 10 bots.Suspected bot accounts push misinformation-Posts by critics of the Khalistan movement, on the other hand, showed evidence of significant amplification by suspected bots.Two of the accounts received retweets from more than 1,000 different suspected bots, while the third had more than 500.Daniel Bordman, a Toronto-based journalist with a right-wing publication called The National Telegraph who has 70,000 followers on X, had the most bot engagement in our sample, receiving nearly 6,000 retweets from nearly 1,800 suspicious accounts when we expanded the analysis to include the whole month of November.Three men have been arrested after a series of violent demonstrations outside a Hindu temple and Sikh gurdwara in the Toronto area over the weekend. Similar clashes occurred in Surrey, B.C., and come during heightened tensions between Canada and India.In at least two instances, these suspected bots amplified misleading information posted by Bordman.On Nov. 13, for example, Bordman posted a video of a gathering in Surrey in which yellow Khalistan flags can be seen. "Khalistanis march around Surrey BC and claim 'we are the owners of Canada' and 'white people should go back to Europe and Israel,'" Bordman wrote, adding an offensive term and implying Khalistanis shape Canadian foreign policy. Bordman's post has received nearly 1.5 million views and 16,000 likes and has been reposted more than 5,000 times. CBC News found that, as of last week, 469 of those reposts were from suspected bot accounts.Bordman's post was cited in reports of the incident by NDTV, one of India's most popular television networks, and by Mint, a Delhi-based financial publication. Other major Indian media outlets covered the incident as well.But contrary to Bordman's description, the video shows Sikhs singing hymns during a processional religious ceremony called Nagar Kirtan.The voice in the original video saying "we are the owners of Canada" and "white people should go back to Europe and Israel" belongs to Inderjit Singh Jaswal, a local vlogger who livestreamed the ceremony. In a Nov. 17 Instagram post, Jaswal said he is not "Khalistani" and that his statements in the video were directed at people who were making racist comments in the livestream chat."Thousands of racist people came there [in the comment section] and were abusing our gods, our culture, our values," he said in the video, while displaying the racist comments he received during the livestream. Indian media coverage of Nagar Kirtan."Why did Daniel [Bordman] hide the comments? I was replying to racist people," Jaswal says in his video. He posted a separate video in Punjabi offering a similar explanation. Bordman later appeared on a podcast to discuss Jaswal's explanation. He ridiculed and mimicked Jaswal's accent and called him a "mentally deficient Khalistani." In another post, boosted by more than 370 suspected bot accounts, Bordman claimed a video of two Surrey police officers performing Gatka, a Sikh martial art, at a religious festival showed "Khalistani cops preparing for the next attack on a Hindu temple in Surrey BC."Bordman added: "Can we trust these two to be honest arbitrators of justice?"A day later, NewsXLive, a pro-Modi news channel based in Delhi, ran a segment about the Surrey video, asking if the officers "can be trusted as impartial enforcers of justice."Pro-Modi media has size advantage, Ottawa says -Press freedom in India has dropped significantly since Modi took power in 2014, according to Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index.Many of the country's largest media outlets are owned and operated by Modi loyalists, and their coverage is often sympathetic to the government's goals, said Reporters Without Borders in a 2023 report.The size of their audience, which includes diaspora communities, means Modi-aligned outlets have a "distinct advantage in amplifying negative narratives about Canada," Global Affairs Canada said in a September report.A young person taking part in a march kicks a car after it honked at members of Brampton’s Hindu community, who were blocking traffic, near the Hindu Sabha temple on Nov. 4, 2024.Bordman has given multiple interviews to Indian media over the past year, including ANI, known for its pro-Modi slant and for spreading misinformation.In an interview with CBC News, Bordman said some of those media appearances were paid, but he declined to specify which ones. "I'd never take money from the Indian government," he said.Bordman said it was not unexpected that bots would repost some of his content, given the size of his following on X. "Do some bots retweet me? Sure," he said. "But I don't think bots are that significant in the outreach they have."'The new normal' The presence of artificial social media activity in online discussions of Sikh-Hindu relations in Canada is not novel. Researchers with the Media Ecosystem Observatory, based at McGill University in Montreal, detected the remnants of a bot farm that issued identical anti-Canada messages in mid-October, just after the RCMP linked agents of the Indian government to homicides and other acts of violence in Canada.Earlier this year, the social media company Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram) announced it had dismantled a cluster of fake accounts behind a fictitious pro-Sikh activist movement called Operation K.The company said the network running the accounts was based in China, and that the campaign was directed at Sikhs around the world, including in Canada. "This is the new normal," said Aengus Bridgman, who heads the Media Ecosystem Observatory, about the proliferation of bot activity on sites like X. He said policy-makers and social media users should expect some degree of manipulation "to occur with every issue."As Singh wrapped up another broadcast of his radio show Sargam (which means harmony in both Punjab and Hindi), he said he was worried the flow of misinformation is driving a wedge between two communities that once co-existed peacefully."A narrative has been created" that aims to make Hindus and Sikhs fear each other, he said. "I think that is very, very dangerous."With files from CBC Vancouver

Jeremiah 6:14
14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

Isaiah 57:21
21 There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.

1 Thessalonians 5:3
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

Ephesians 2:2
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

Report: 1st phase to include 2 Russian men, 2 male US citizens-Report: Israeli, US officials say low odds of a hostage deal before Trump’s return-Hamas official tells Qatari newspaper terror group can’t provide list of living hostages amid fighting, but Netanyahu reported to say no agreement can be made until list presented By ToI Staff and Lazar Berman-Today, 8:53 am-DEC 27,24

American and Israeli officials said Thursday that the chances of reaching a hostage-ceasefire deal with the Hamas terror group before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump on January 20 are low, the Walla news site reported.The comments came as Israel and the terror group traded blame for yet another failure to reach an agreement after a burst of renewed negotiations, more than 14 months since Hamas-led terrorists took 251 people hostage during its October 7, 2023 attack, of whom 96 — including 34 confirmed dead — remain in captivity in the Gaza Strip.It was not immediately clear what was expected to change with the US president-elect’s return to the White House, though Trump vowed at the start of this month that there would be “all hell to pay” for terror groups who continued to hold hostages upon his entry.On Wednesday, Israeli officials charged that Hamas had backed away from a softened stance that could have enabled a deal, and instead returned to a position that is holding up progress. The allegation came after the terror group accused Israel of making new demands in the negotiations and causing a delay.An unnamed Hamas official told the Qatari-owned Al-Araby Al-Jadeed outlet on Thursday that Hamas has provided a partial list of living hostages to negotiators, but is unable to communicate with all the groups holding captives.The terror group will be in a better position to provide information on the hostages once a ceasefire has begun and communication in Gaza becomes easier, he said.The newspaper also claimed that the first stage of a proposed ceasefire would see the release of two male soldiers holding American citizenship, as well as two men holding Russian citizenship.It was unclear whether the Americans referred to were serving IDF troops, as Hamas classifies all men of fighting age as troops.The report also said there has been some disagreement over the classification of humanitarian cases, with Hamas unwilling to include soldiers wounded during fighting within that category.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week told aides, meanwhile, that he will not agree to any hostage deal with Hamas without receiving a list of the names of living abductees, Walla reported Thursday, citing two sources familiar with the details.The report said Netanyahu told a meeting this week — following the return of negotiators from talks in Qatar — that “we can’t get any names out of Hamas, and I’m not prepared to enter a deal without knowing what I’m making a deal over and who I’m getting in return.”Far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu drew outrage on Thursday when he said that firing Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara — a longtime goal of many in the government — is the most important action the government can take, including freeing the hostages.“Those who care about the hostages must understand that now more than ever, an unequivocal clarification is needed on the issue of the powers of the attorney general, military prosecutors and the state prosecutors,” he told Channel 12.It is believed that 96 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 38 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.

Lebanon hopes for neighborly relations in first message to new Syria government-Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib speaks by phone with his Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani By Reuters and ToI Staff 26 December 2024, 3:16 pm

DUBAI — Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighborly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib passed the message to his Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, in a phone call, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said on X.Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group played a major part in propping up Syria’s ousted president Bashar al-Assad through years of war, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war it initiated with Israel — a redeployment that weakened the Syrian government lines.Under Assad, Hezbollah used Syria to bring in weapons and other military equipment from Iran, through Iraq and Syria, and into Lebanon. But on December 6, anti-Assad fighters seized the border with Iraq and cut off that route, and two days later, Islamist rebels captured the capital Damascus.The rebels’ lightning sweep across Syria came shortly after a ceasefire in November halted the war between Israel and Hezbollah. Hezbollah began attacking across Israel’s northern border in support of Gaza the day after October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating attack on Israel that opened the still-ongoing war in Gaza.The northern conflict spiraled into open war by September after which Israel decimated Hezbollah’s leaders and and its weapons stockpiles until the fragile ceasefire was reached. However, Hezbollah remains a major military and political force in Lebanon.Syria’s new Islamist de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders after toppling Assad.Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month that he wants “correct” ties with Syria and that Israel has no intention of getting involved in the country’s internal affairs.“But we certainly do intend to do what is necessary to ensure our security,” Netanyahu said at the time.Following Assad’s fall, Israel moved to destroy Syrian regime weapons sites before they could fall into the hands of hostile elements amid the chaotic takeover by rebel groups, many of which were originally formally linked with al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups.Netanyahu said at the time that the Israeli Air Force was bombing “military strategic capabilities” left by the military of the ousted Assad regime, “so that they won’t fall into the hands of the jihadists.”Israel has also moved into a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights that was established at the end of the Yom Kippur War in 1973.The Assad regime was an ally of Iran and a part of the latter’s so-called Axis of Resistance against Israel.Israel and Syria do not have diplomatic relations and have been in a perpetual state of war, albeit a relatively quiet one, since Israel declared independence in 1948.While the fall of the Assad regime, which stood for over five decades, could provide a historic opportunity for recognition between Israel and its neighbor, the potential power vacuum in Syria could also provide an opportunity for further chaos and serve as a breeding ground for a resurgence of terror in the region.

Ben Gvir says he prayed on Temple Mount, PM quickly says status quo hasn’t changed-Hamas calls for escalation of violence over national security minister’s visit to holy site, where Jews are banned from praying but lately have done so increasingly openlyBy ToI Staff 26 December 2024, 2:53 pm

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Thursday that he’d visited the flashpoint Temple Mount in the morning and prayed there, whereupon the Prime Minister’s Office swiftly said in a statement that the longstanding status quo — according to which Jews are not allowed to pray atop the mount — had not changed.“I went up this morning to the place of our holy temple, to pray for the safety of our soldiers, the speedy return of the hostages, and total victory, with the help of God,” Ben Gvir wrote on X, with a photo of himself walking at the site with the Dome of the Rock visible in the background.In response to Ben Gvir’s announcement, the Prime Minister’s Office quickly issued a statement saying, “The status quo on the Temple Mount has not changed.”Changes to the status quo on the Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam, evoke strong emotions and are frequently cited as a Muslim motivation for religious violence.The visit was condemned by Knesset member Mansour Abbas, of the Islamist Ra’am party, who said the far-right minister was “desecrating the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” referring to the Muslim place of worship atop the mount.The Hamas terror group — which gave the name “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” to its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel in which invading gunmen killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostage — responded to Ben Gvir’s visit in a statement calling on “our nation [the Palestinians] to confront the occupation and to escalate the situation.”Jews are not officially allowed to pray at the Temple Mount — the holiest place in Judaism, which served as the focal point of religious life in ancient Israel — but the Israel Police, which comes under the purview of Ben Gvir’s ministry, has increasingly tolerated limited prayer there.It was unclear whether Ben Gvir prayed openly, rather than doing so silently. He has in the past expressed support for a synagogue being placed atop the Temple Mount.The status quo governing the compound allows Muslims to pray and generally enter with few restrictions, while non-Muslims, including Jews, can visit only during limited time slots and may not pray.With police turning a blind eye, Jewish worshipers who in years past would have been removed by Israeli security forces for merely silently mouthing a prayer have also begun prostrating themselves on the mount.Last Wednesday in a meeting on “Temple Mount studies,” the Knesset’s Education Committee called for changing the public school system’s courses about the holy site from elective to compulsory, but rejected the idea of taking students for visits there.The committee is chaired by MK Yosef Taieb of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, which opposes visits by Jews to the Temple Mount, citing religious concerns over ritual purity.At the hearing, MK Limor Son Har-Melech, of Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, said, “In fourth grade, I transferred to a religious school, and until then, I hadn’t learned about the Temple. In this war, we have to raise Israel’s children to understand what we’re fighting for, and what our vision is — the Temple Mount.“I thank Minister Ben Gvir for the fact that today Jews can pray and prostrate themselves on the Temple Mount,” Har-Melech added.Ben Gvir has publicized multiple visits to the Temple Mount since taking office in December 2022.He has said repeatedly in recent months that his policy is to allow Jewish prayer there, drawing rebukes from US and international officials, as well as warnings from the security establishment that renewed conflict over the site could pose a risk to national security.The far-right minister has rebuffed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated subsequent insistence that the decades-old status quo remains in force.In September, Netanyahu told ministers any visits to the site must be coordinated with him ahead of time. It was not clear whether Ben Gvir had done so before his visit on Thursday.

‘Capacity for faith is light of the Jewish people’: Biden marks start of Hanukkah President cites quote from former UK chief rabbi Sacks that a people who can ‘walk through a valley of shadow of death’ and still can rejoice cannot be defeated by force or fear-By ToI Staff 26 December 2024, 12:14 pm

US President Joe Biden marked the start of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah on Wednesday with a quote from former British chief rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks in a post to his official account on social media platform X.“Rabbi Sacks said: A people that can walk through a valley of shadow of death and still rejoice is a people that cannot be defeated by any force or fear,” he writes.“That capacity for faith is the light of the Jewish people. As Hanukkah begins, may it shine from menorahs around the world,” he added.Hanukkah, which this year began on the same day as Christmas, comes as Israel is still fighting against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in a war that started on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group led a massive attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people.Last week Biden hosted his final White House Hanukkah party as president.He used the occasion to declare his determination, even during his last weeks in office, to keep working for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip who were abducted from Israel during the Hamas assault.“I’ve gotten over 100 hostages out. I will not stop until I get every single one of them home,” Biden said to cheers from hundreds in the audience.Biden reiterated his belief that you don’t have to be Jewish to be a Zionist.“And I’m a Zionist,” he said to applause." I'm a Zionist, and so i learned a long time ago, you don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist." Joe Biden-At the White House Hanukkah reception.2024 pic.twitter.com/DualOA0Sdb — Dyor (@Powerfulmindx) December 20, 2024-Speaking before Biden was Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who has led the administration’s efforts to combat antisemitism.“Tonight, I am rededicating myself to fighting antisemitism and hatred of all kinds,” Emhoff said, pledging to continue his efforts after the administration’s term ends in less than a month.On the menu at the Hanukkah party were latkes, pareve sour cream and thin cuts of beef tenderloin, along with jelly- and chocolate-filled donuts.

Water desalination quietly returns to Gaza, after work by Israel and PA-Repair of Deir al-Balah plant, connected to Israel’s power grid, seen as potential roadmap for Palestinian Authority’s involvement in postwar Gaza-By AFP 26 December 2024, 11:35 am

The quiet resumption of operations at a desalination plant in the Gaza Strip last month marked a small but significant step toward restoring public services in the Palestinian territory ravaged by more than 14 months of war.The process of restarting the plant in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, involved both Israeli and Palestinian stakeholders who could have a hand in the territory’s future, especially amid renewed hopes for a ceasefire-hostage deal in recent days.While its reopening has had a limited tangible impact so far, diplomats close to the project suggest it could offer a tentative roadmap for Gaza’s postwar administration.Since being reconnected to Israel’s electricity grid, the station has been producing approximately 16,000 cubic meters of water per day, according to UNICEF.It serves more than 600,000 Gaza residents through tankers or the networks of Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis governorates in central and southern Gaza, respectively.“Its production capacity remains limited in the face of immense needs,” an official within the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority (PENRA) told AFP.Residents of the devastated Palestinian territory have struggled since the early days of the war between Israel and the Hamas terror group to secure even basic necessities, including food and clean water.Human Rights Watch last week accused Israel of committing “acts of genocide” in Gaza by restricting water access — a claim denied by Israeli authorities.The WASH Cluster, which brings together humanitarian organizations in the water sector, reports that distribution of water has become very complex in Gaza.The pipelines transporting water have been damaged, leaving Gazans — many of whom are living in makeshift shelters after being displaced by bombardments — without any means of storing the essential resource.The plant is one of three such seawater processing facilities in the Gaza Strip, which before the war met around 15 percent of the 2 million-plus residents’ needs.In the months following the outbreak of war, sparked by the shock Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, in which thousands of terrorists killed 1,200 people and abducted 251, the plant operated at minimal capacity, relying on solar panels and generators amid a persistent scarcity of fuel in Gaza.It could fully resume operations only after reconnecting to one of the power lines supplied by Israel, which charges the Palestinian Authority for the electricity.Practical solutions-UNICEF, which provides technical support for the Deir el-Balah plant, indicated in late June that it had reached an agreement with Israel to restore electricity to the plant.Subsequently, the Israel Defense Forces’ Coordinated Office for Government Activity in the Territories (COGAT), overseeing civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, announced that the desalination plant had been reconnected to the Israeli grid.But the line meant to supply the plant was heavily damaged.“It took five months to repair the line from Kissufim” in Israel, said Mohammed Thabet, spokesman for Gaza’s electricity company. “These are emergency, temporary solutions.”Several diplomatic sources told AFP that the episode showed the Palestinian Authority had proven it was in a position to have a hand in the future governance of Gaza, as its institutions were fixing the electricity line on the ground, coordinating with all actors.The PA aims to play a central role in postwar Gaza, seeking to strengthen its influence in the territory after it was ousted when Hamas violently took control in 2007.An Israeli security source told AFP that the Israeli partners involved had acted on “instructions from the political echelons,” and that the project was part of an effort to prevent an outbreak of disease, which could endanger the lives of hostages still held in Gaza.Ninety-six of the people taken hostage by Hamas-led terrorists last year are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.Israel “facilitated the connection of the electric line specifically to the desalination plant,” the source said, adding that a mechanism was in place to track usage to “prevent electricity from being stolen.”In October and November, Israel worked with a UN-led polio vaccination drive in Gaza, pausing its bombing campaign against Hamas in areas where children were receiving the doses.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

A FALSE PROPHET COMES FROM THE VATICAN ALSO AT THIS TIME.

ISAIAH 23:15-17
15  And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as an harlot.
16  Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered.
17  And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.(COULD THIS BE 70 YEARS AFTER ISRAEL BECAME A NATION IN 1948)(IF SO THIS SATANIC ONE WORLD WHORE CHURCH WILL MINGLE TOGETHER BY 2018)(AND NOW ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY AND ALL RELIGIONS ARE MINGLING AS ONE PEACE-LOVE-JOY-GET ALONG RELIGION LEAD BY THE VATICAN RIGHT NOW 4 YEARS FROM THE 70 YEAR TIME WHEN ISRAEL BECAME A NATION).AND IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM.

REVELATION 13:11-18
11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth;(FALSE VATICAN POPE) and he had two horns like a lamb,(JESUS IS THE LAMB OF GOD) and he spake as a dragon.(HES SATANICALLY INSPIRED,HES A CHRISTIAN DEFECTOR FROM THE FAITH)
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him,(WORLD DICTATOR) and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.(THE WORLD DICTATOR CREATES A FALSE RESURRECTION AND IS CROWNED LEADER OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER).
13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

REVELATION 17:1-18
1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication,(VATICAN IN POLITICS) and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
4 And the woman (FALSE CHURCH) was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour,(VATICAN COLOURS)(ANOTHER REASON WE KNOW THE FALSE POPE COMES FROM THE VATICAN) and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:(THE VATICAN GOES AGAINST A PRIEST MARRING A WOMAN-LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS-AND WHATS AN ABOMINATION AGAINST GOD-HOMOSEXUALITY AND PEDOPHILIA JUST LIKE THIS SCRIPTURE SAYS-FORNICATION IS THE SINGLE HOMOSEXUAL PRIESTS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAVING UNMARRIED FORNICATION OR SEX WITH SINGLES-IN THIS CASE ITS SEX WITH CHILDREN OR PEDOPHILIA)
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.(THE VATICAN IS BUILT ON 7 HILLS OR MOUNTAINS)
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen,(1-ASSYRIA,2-EGYPT,3-BABYLON,4-MEDO-PERSIA,5-GREECE) and one is,(IN POWER IN JOHNS AND JESUS DAY-6-ROME) and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.(7TH-REVIVED ROMAN EMPIRE OR THE EUROPEAN UNION TODAY AND THE SHORT SPACE IS-THE EUROPEAN UNION WILL HAVE WORLD CONTROL FOR THE LAST 3 1/2 YEARS.BUT WILL HAVE ITS MIGHTY WORLD POWER FOR THE FULL 7 YEARS OF THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION PERIOD.AND THE WORLD DICTATOR WILL BE THE BEAST FROM THE EU.AND THE VATICAN POPE WILL BE THE WHORE THAT RIDES THE EUROPEAN UNION TO POWER.AND THE 2 EUROPEAN UNION POWER FREAKS WILL CONTROL AND DECIEVE THE WHOLE EARTH INTO THEIR DESTRUCTION.IF YOU ARE NOT SAVED BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS.YOU WILL BE DECIEVED BY THESE TWO.THE WORLD POLITICIAN-THE EUROPEAN UNION DICTATOR.AND THE FALSE PROPHET THAT DEFECTS CHRISTIANITY-THE FALSE VATICAN POPE.
11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.
15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.(VATICAN-CATHOLICS ALL AROUND THE WORLD OVER 1 BILLION)
16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast,(WORLD DICTATOR) these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.(GOD HIMSELF GIVES THE OK TO NUKE THE VATICAN)
17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.(VATICAN)

On Christmas, Pope Francis calls for Gaza hostage-truce deal, Ukraine peace talks-As Hannukah and Christmas coincide, pontiff uses his annual ‘Urbi et Orbi’ address to urge ‘all peoples and nations… to silence the sound of arms and overcome divisions’By Agencies and ToI Staff 25 December 2024, 3:26 pm

Pope Francis delivered a Christmas message Wednesday that renewed his call for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas, while also urging talks between Ukraine and Russia to end the war that followed Moscow’s full-scale invasion two years ago.In his Christmas Day “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and world) address, Francis, who has recently grown more critical of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, describing it last week as “cruelty,” called the humanitarian in Gaza “extremely grave” and asked for “the doors of dialogue and peace [to] be flung open.”The pope’s remarks earlier this week prompted a sharp response from Israel’s Foreign Ministry, which said his comments were “particularly disappointing as they are disconnected from the true and factual context of Israel’s fight against jihadist terrorism — a multifront war that was forced upon it starting on October 7 [2023].”“ Enough with the double standards and the singling out of the Jewish state and its people,” the foreign ministry statement said at the time.In his Christmas Day address, Francis also mentioned the Ukraine conflict directly and called for “the boldness needed to open the door to negotiation.”Speaking from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to thousands of people in the square below, the pope said: “May the sound of arms be silenced in war-torn Ukraine!” He also called for “gestures of dialogue and encounter, in order to achieve a just and lasting peace.”Francis, who has been pope since 2013, was criticized by Ukrainian officials this year when he said the country should have the courage of the “white flag” to negotiate an end to the war with Russia.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had previously ruled out engaging in peace talks without the restoration of Ukraine’s prewar borders. But Zelensky has shown an increasing willingness in the weeks since Donald Trump’s reelection as US president to enter negotiations.The 88-year-old Francis, celebrating the 12th Christmas of his pontificate, called for an end to conflicts — political, social or military — in places including Lebanon, Mali, Mozambique, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua.Francis opens Jubilee year of peace, forgiveness and pardon-Francis also opened a Holy Year for the global Catholic Church on Tuesday evening, Christmas Eve, which will run through January 6, 2026. A Catholic Holy Year, also known as a Jubilee, is considered a time of peace, forgiveness and pardon.On Wednesday, the pope said the Jubilee year should be a time for “every individual, and all peoples and nations… to become pilgrims of hope, to silence the sound of arms and overcome divisions.”Francis also said it should be a time “to tear down all walls of separation.”He called for a “mutually agreed solution” to bring down the border wall that has divided the Mediterranean island of Cyprus between the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus — recognized only by Turkey — since 1974.Chrismukkah convergence-Hanukkah, Judaism’s eight-day Festival of Lights, begins this year on Christmas Day, which has only happened four times since 1900.The calendar confluence has inspired some religious leaders to host interfaith gatherings, such as a Chicanukah party hosted last week by several US Jewish organizations in Houston, Texas, bringing together members of the city’s Latino and Jewish communities for latkes, the traditional potato pancake eaten on Hanukkah, topped with guacamole and salsa.While Hanukkah is intended as an upbeat, celebratory holiday, rabbis note that it’s taking place this year as wars rage in the Middle East and fears rise over widespread incidents of antisemitism.The holidays overlap infrequently because the Jewish calendar is based on lunar cycles and is not in sync with the Gregorian calendar, which sets Christmas on December 25. The last time Hanukkah began on Christmas Day was in 2005.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.