Delhi liquor policy case: ED summons Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal for third time, asked to appear on January 3
Earlier on Monday, the Enforcement Directorate had issued second summon to Arvind Kejriwal for questioning on December 21 in the excise policy-linked money laundering case. But he had skipped it.
Gujarat allows alcohol consumption for GIFT City workers, visitors, residents
A Liquor Access Permit will be given to all the employees/owners working in the entire GIFT City.
Why Palestinians in East Jerusalem are losing their homes | Start Here
The space for Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem is shrinking. It’s happening through a process of evictions and demolitions. Sandra Gathmann went to East Jerusalem for #AJStartHere to explain what’s happening and why. This film was shot in August 2023, before the war on Gaza. Adblock test (Why?)
Last set of French troops exit Niger as Sahel sheds Parisian influence
The exit is the third time in 18 months that French troops have been sent packing from a country in the Sahel. The last French troops in Niger have withdrawn, marking an end to more than a decade of French operations to fight armed groups in West Africa’s Sahel region. “Today’s date … marks the end of the disengagement process of French forces in the Sahel,” Niger army Lieutenant Salim Ibrahim said on Friday. France said it would pull out its roughly 1,500 soldiers and pilots from its former colony after Niger’s military government demanded they depart after a coup on July 26. It was the third time in less than 18 months that French troops have been sent packing from a country in the Sahel. They were forced to leave fellow former colonies Mali last year and Burkina Faso earlier this year after recent military takeovers in those countries too. All three nations are battling rebel violence that erupted in northern Mali in 2012, later spreading to Niger and Burkina Faso. But a string of coups in the region since 2020 – and consequent rise in anti-French sentiments among the people – have seen relations nosedive with France and pivot towards greater rapprochement with Russia. The French exit from Niger leaves hundreds of United States military personnel and a number of Italian and German soldiers remaining in the country. Military leaders in Niamey this month said they would also end two European Union security and defence missions in the country. France’s withdrawal from Mali left a bitter aftertaste when the bases it once occupied in Menaka, Gossi and Timbuktu were rapidly taken over by Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group. In September, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the withdrawal of all French troops from Niger by the end of the year. The first contingent left in October. Most French soldiers in Niger were at an air base in Niamey. Smaller groups were deployed alongside Nigerien soldiers at the border with Mali and Burkina Faso, where armed groups linked to ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda are believed to operate. The withdrawal was a complex operation with convoys having to drive up to 1,700km (1,000 miles) on sometimes perilous desert routes to the French centre for Sahel operations in neighbouring Chad. The first French convoy of troops withdrawing from Niger arrived in Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, after 10 days on the road. From Chad, French troops can leave by air with their most sensitive equipment although most of the rest has to be moved by land and sea. A source told the Agence France-Presse news agency on the condition of anonymity that some of the French containers carrying equipment were to be driven from Chad to the port of Douala in Cameroon before they sailed to France. France’s former ally in Niger, overthrown President Mohamed Bazoum, remains under house arrest. A US official said in October that Washington was keeping about 1,000 military personnel in Niger but was no longer actively training or assisting Niger forces. The US said this month that it was ready to resume cooperation with Niger on the condition its military government committed to a rapid transition to civilian rule. Niger’s rulers want up to three years for a transition back to a civilian government. [embedded content] Adblock test (Why?)
Four Indian soldiers killed in Kashmir amid uptick in attacks on troops
Thursday’s attack is the latest in a series of incidents in which armed fighters have killed Indian soldiers. Four Indian soldiers were killed, and three others were wounded after suspected rebels ambushed Indian military vehicles in the southernmost border district of Rajouri in Indian-administered Kashmir, officials said on Friday. An Indian army official told Al Jazeera that the attack took place on Thursday afternoon when two army vehicles – a mini-truck and a gypsy – carrying nine soldiers were moving to a site where a search operation was under way to find the suspected rebels in Rajouri. In a statement on Thursday evening, the Indian army said that their “troops immediately retaliated”. Following the attack, the Indian army launched a major operation in the area to nab the attackers who are believed to be hiding in the dense forest area. Nearby areas were also cordoned off. So far, however, the army has not declared any casualties among the armed rebels. Rajouri and Poonch districts are the hilly areas close to the Line of Control (LoC), a demarcation line between the Indian and Pakistan-administered parts of Kashmir. The armed rebellion in Kashmir, which is claimed in full by both India and Pakistan, but ruled in parts by the two neighbours, has been continuing since the 1990s against Indian rule. India accuses Pakistan of financing and arming the rebellion. New Delhi has struggled for decades to completely suppress anti-India sentiments in Kashmir. In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stripped the region of its semi-autonomous status, guaranteed under the Indian constitution when the former king of Kashmir acceded to the Indian Union in 1948. Earlier this week, the Indian Supreme Court upheld the Modi government’s decision. India has also divided what was a full-fledged state into two federally ruled territories — Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. While the Kashmir region has been a hotbed for dissent for decades, since 2021 districts like Rajouri and Poonch in the Jammu region have witnessed an uptick in the rebel attacks against Indian soldiers, and 2023 has been particularly deadly for Indian soldiers. In all, 34 Indian soldiers have been killed in Kashmir since 2021,19 since April. A little-known rebel outfit, Peoples Anti-Fascist Front, which officials have said is the proxy of Pakistan-based armed group Jaish-e-Muhammad, has claimed responsibility for the attacks, including the latest one. The renewed attacks, observers said, have become a new challenge to the government in New Delhi which has claimed that its controversial policies have improved the security landscape in the region. In November, five soldiers including two army captains were killed in an operation in the same district in Kalakote, Rajouri. In September, four army personnel were killed in a gunfight in the forests of Kokernag near Anantnag district. In April and May this year, 10 soldiers were killed in the two districts. ‘Safe haven’ A senior security official in the southern city of Jammu, who was not authorised to speak to the media, told Al Jazeera that the tough terrain of southern Kashmir is a safe haven for armed fighters to launch such kind of attacks. “Forests give enemies anonymity, space to operate and conceal themselves to outfox the security dragnet,” he said. Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in Delhi, told Al Jazeera, that most of the recent killings of army soldiers had occurred in army-initiated operations. “This seems the pattern that has been followed by most of the recent incidents in which security forces have lost their lives,” Sahni said. When asked about the claims of the government about normalcy in Kashmir amid the uptick in attacks on the soldiers, Sahni said “I don’t believe that normalcy has returned after Article 370 abrogation,” referring to the Constitutional provision that gave Jammu and Kashmir greater autonomy than other states. “What is normalcy? This [Kashmir] is a theatre which has seen up to 4000 deaths in a single year in 2001,” Sahni said. “So, to expect no incidents to occur, it’s unrealistic. The government has made extremely unrealistic projections and claims about the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. “ Adblock test (Why?)
Bihar: 14-year-old girl beaten to death for plucking gram leaves in Kaimur
She had gone to the farmland with her cousin to pluck gram leaves.
Rand Paul’s ‘Festivus Report’ exposes $900B in government squander
FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., released his annual Christmas “Festivus” report Friday for the ninth year in a row, outlining $900 billion in government waste. Among notable instances, the National Institutes of Health allocated funds to study Russian cats on treadmills, photos of Barbies were utilized as identification to obtain COVID relief funds, the Department of Defense lost $169 million of outdoor-stored military gear, $6 million went towards tourism in Egypt by the United States Agency for International Development, and the Small Business Administration provided over $200 million to “struggling” music artists such as Post Malone, Chris Brown, and Lil Wayne. Up from $30 trillion in debt in 2022, this year’s debt amounts to $34 trillion, the report also highlights. “Who’s to blame for our crushing level of debt? Everybody,” Paul wrote in the report. “This year, members of both parties in Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling, which empowered the government to borrow an unlimited amount of money until 2024. As Congress spends to reward its favored industries and pet projects, the American taxpayers are forced to pay the price through record–high inflation and crippling interest rates.” He added: “The same big spenders teamed up, yet again, to continue sending Americans’ hard-earned money to foreign countries and funding endless wars, all while ignoring our porous southern border.” RAND PAUL’S 2022 ‘FESTIVUS REPORT’ AIRS $482 BILLION WORTH OF FEDERAL WASTE Rand’s report highlighted government spending that included accepting Barbie doll photos to obtain COVID relief funds from a portion of an $800 billion allocation in Paycheck Protection Program funds. Other expenses highlighted were $659 billion for national debt interest, $33.2 million for transgender monkey research, $6 million for boosting Egyptian tourism, and an unknown cost for USDA’s dog-walking research in summer. “Researchers found the Labradors’ fur color did not affect their body temperatures after a hot summer’s walk. That’s it. That’s the taxpayerfunded, cutting-edge study,” Paul wrote. “The Agricultural Research Service at the USDA, which funded the study at Southern Illinois University, gets $1.7 billion a year from Congress, but it’s unknown how much the hot dog study cost the taxpayer.” Under Dr. Fauci’s leadership, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) funded a study using $477,121 to force-feminize male rhesus macaques in a Florida lab, the report found. The experiment involved administering female hormones to these male monkeys to investigate potential vulnerabilities to HIV, even though critics argue monkeys are not susceptible to HIV. RAND PAUL ANNOUNCES ‘OFFICIAL CRIMINAL REFERRAL,’ SAYS EMAIL SHOWS FAUCI COVID TESTIMONY ‘ABSOLUTELY A LIE’ “The lab worked to make male lab monkeys ‘transgender’ to address ‘social injustices’ suffered by ‘transgender persons’ such as ‘transgender women (TGW)-individuals who were assigned a male set at birth but express their gender along a female spectrum,’” the report read. Additionally, there were undisclosed expenses for training Department of Homeland Security employees, studying Russian cats on treadmills and meth-head monkeys from a portion of $2.7 million, creating graphic novels on disinformation, and exploring COVID-19 “misinformation” in black and rural communities totaling $3.8 million. SEN. RAND PAUL SAYS CRTICISM OF UKRAINE FUNDING IS A ‘GROWING MOVEMENT’ IN WASHINGTON Costs for ruining military equipment totaled $169 million, while expenses for entertainment and studies involving gambling monkeys, transgender monkeys, and improper federal payments accumulated to $236 billion. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts a staggering increase in national debt, estimating an average addition of $2 trillion annually for the coming decade. This translates to over $5 billion in debt daily over the next 10 years. “As always, taking the path to fiscal responsibility is often a lonely journey, but, as I’ve done in years past, I will continue my fight against government waste this holiday season,” Paul wrote. Last year, Paul’s report broke down $482 billion in wasteful spending, from the billions spent giving COVID relief funds to ineligible people to a $118,000 study on whether Marvel movie villain Thanos would really be able to snap his fingers while wearing the Infinity Gauntlet.
Biden team’s central 2024 message paints Trump as ‘threat to democracy’: report
President Biden’s re-election campaign will push former President Trump as being a “threat to democracy” as a primary component of the 2024 presidential election, according to a report. Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said the president’s camp would attempt to frame the election as having drastically high stakes with the “fate of American democracy” on the line. “We are treating this election like it will determine the fate of American democracy – because it will,” Chavez Rodriguez said in a campaign memo, according to Bloomberg. “The threat Donald Trump posed in 2020 to American democracy has only grown more dire since then,” Chavez Rodriquez added. “He is running a campaign on revenge and retribution – and at the expense of Americans’ freedoms.” CHAIRS OF GROUP THAT LED EFFORT TO BOOT TRUMP FROM COLORADO BALLOT DONATED TO BIDEN The strategy is nothing new, as Biden and Democrats have been pushing the statement for some time now. However, it exemplifies how they plan to further lean into it for what they appear to view as a likely rematch with Trump. Several prominent Republicans have started to push back against the claim and told Fox News Digital this week that it is Biden’s party that is working overtime to undermine the vote. They pointed to Democrats’ efforts to keep Trump off the ballot, imprison him, stifle free speech on social media and rewrite election laws while fighting measures designed to protect ballot integrity. The ongoing efforts, they said, are a much more significant threat to democracy than the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot Biden and Democrats frequently cite. DEM-APPOINTED COLORADO JUSTICE SAYS TRUMP BALLOT BAN UNDERMINES ‘BEDROCK’ OF AMERICA IN FIERY DISSENT Democrats have most recently thrown their weight behind state-level legal efforts to prevent Trump from appearing on 2024 presidential ballots, including in Colorado, where the state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 this week that the former president violated the Constitution’s 14th Amendment when he “engaged in insurrection” concerning Jan. 6, and should be disqualified. “Democrats cynically used the COVID-19 pandemic to radically undermine long-standing election laws on the fly and then started pushing for non-citizens to vote in U.S. elections,” Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told Fox News Digital. “Now the left is working to remove political opponents from the ballot in a shocking display of disregard for the American people’s right to choose their candidates.” “These attacks on the democratic process drive down voter confidence and trust in the electoral system. Meanwhile, the RNC and our partners are fighting to make sure the American people choose their presidential candidates, not the courts,” she said, adding that the RNC was trying to protect election integrity by fighting for policies to ensure only American citizens vote in elections. The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.
White House unveils strict hydrogen regulations in victory for environmentalists
The White House unveiled highly anticipated guidance placing significant restrictions on the type of hydrogen power development eligible for generous federal tax credits. The proposed guidance, released Friday morning in a joint announcement by the White House, Treasury Department and Department of Energy, tethers the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) highest production credit of $3 per kilogram of hydrogen produced to tight green energy standards. The restrictions had been supported by environmentalists and some green energy companies but opposed by business and clean power industry groups. “The Inflation Reduction Act’s hydrogen tax credit will help build a clean hydrogen industry that will be critical in reducing emissions from harder-to-decarbonize sectors like heavy industry and heavy transportation,” John Podesta, President Biden’s clean energy czar, said in a statement. GOP REPORT HIGHLIGHTS 2023 ENERGY, OVERSIGHT WINS OVER ‘UNREALISTIC CLIMATE AGENDA’ “Today’s announcement will further unprecedented investments in a new, American-led industry as we aim to lead and propel the global clean energy transition,” added Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. “Hydrogen has the potential to clean up America’s manufacturing industry, power the transportation sector and shore up our energy security all while delivering good-paying jobs and new economic opportunity to communities in every pocket of America.” Hydrogen has been widely pegged as a key technology for reducing future greenhouse gas emissions, especially in hard-to-decarbonize sectors like shipping, heavy trucking and cement and steel manufacturing. The transportation and industrial sectors account for nearly 60% of U.S. end-use emissions. Overall, the hydrogen production tax credits are some of the most generous clean energy incentives earmarked under the IRA, Democrats’ massive climate and tax bill President Biden signed in August 2022, and are worth up to $100 billion. The legislation marked the nation’s most ambitious effort yet to spur the growth of hydrogen generation, which remains a nascent technology requiring billions of dollars in investment to achieve large-scale production. BIDEN ADMIN AIMS TO PUSH TOWNS, CITIES TO ADOPT GREEN ENERGY BUILDING CODES: ‘VERY SUSPICIOUS’ However, the formulation of the tax credits has sparked an intense debate in recent months, leading to delays in issuing Friday’s guidance, as a result of the potential carbon emissions produced in the production of hydrogen. The credits will be available for 10 years, starting on the date a hydrogen production facility is placed into service for projects that begin construction before 2033. The IRA includes four tiers of credits, ranging from $0.60 per kilogram to $3 per tier, which are determined based on the carbon intensity of that production. A common pathway for hydrogen production, for example, is electrolysis, a process by which hydrogen is split from water using an electric current. While the only emissions from that process are hydrogen and oxygen, environmentalists have argued that hydrogen reliance could be rendered pointless if the electricity is generated from fossil fuel-fired sources. “The Clean Hydrogen Production Credit aims to make production of clean hydrogen with minimal climate pollution more economically competitive and accelerate development of the U.S. clean hydrogen industry,” the Treasury Department said Friday. “Today’s proposed regulations advance those goals and will support the development of a robust U.S. clean hydrogen industry that creates good-paying jobs, while also reducing carbon emissions.” Under the guidance, hydrogen producers are only eligible for the highest tax credit if electricity is generated from a green energy source, such as wind and solar, that came online within three years of a new facility being placed into service. That provision means a facility fueled by green energy that has been operational for more than three years is ineligible for the credit. In addition, the guidance requires that, beginning in 2028, hydrogen developers’ electricity generation is sourced from a clean source on an hourly basis, the most stringent timescale. In other words, the electricity generated for electrolysis must be produced within an hour of hydrogen production from that electricity. BIDEN ADMIN HIT WITH LEGAL CHALLENGE OVER GAS APPLIANCE CRACKDOWN And the final key provision for hydrogen produced using electricity mandates clean energy is sourced from a project in the same region. “The proposed 45V rules represent a major milestone in determining tax credits on a technology neutral basis, ensuring the life cycle emissions analysis required by statute will be accurate, account for system-wide impacts and avoid wasteful subsidies for electrolytic hydrogen projects that are purportedly clean but actually use dirty electricity,” said Mike Kaercher, the director of the Climate Tax Project at the Tax Law Center at NYU Law. “Experts have estimated that lax rules could have locked in hundreds of millions of additional tons of carbon emissions in the long run.” However, the proposal is facing significant pushback from industry groups and hydrogen companies that have argued for the federal government to begin implementation of the IRA tax credits with lax guidance to incentivize greater investment and development in the near term. Groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association (FCHEA) and the Clean Hydrogen Future Coalition, in addition to hydropower and nuclear groups, have argued strict regulations like those unveiled Friday will deter investment, increase the cost of hydrogen, lead to fewer projects in the coming years and discriminate against existing low-carbon power sources. MAINE FORCED TO DELAY VOTE ON EV MANDATE AMID WIDESPREAD POWER OUTAGES “The guidance announced today by the Biden-Harris administration will place unnecessary burdens on the still nascent clean hydrogen industry,” FCHEA President and CEO Frank Wolak said Friday. “The nation needs commonsense solutions for this tax credit that are aligned with the congressional intent to spur robust economic development and create jobs while reducing carbon emissions. “Congress intended the tax credit to spur domestic clean hydrogen production and allow the United States to maintain an international competitive advantage, not to be an inadvertent backdoor to regulate use of the electric utility grid,” he added. “The United States cannot achieve its climate goals without clean hydrogen, and these proposed regulations and requirements will unnecessarily hold back our domestic industry, driving investment, manufacturing and technology leadership
Biden commutes sentences for 11 convicted of drug crimes, targeting ‘unjustified disparities’
President Biden is granting clemency to 11 drug dealers convicted of non-violent crimes, as well as rolling back anti-drug laws on federal land. The White House announced Biden’s decision via a statement Friday in which the president offered his reasoning for approving the sudden release of nearly a dozen drug-related offenders. “First, I am commuting the sentences of 11 people who are serving disproportionately long sentences for non-violent drug offenses,” Biden announced in a press statement. “All of them would have been eligible to receive significantly lower sentences if they were charged with the same offense today.” In the same announcement, the president went a step further — revealing a proclamation that will also pardon further marijuana-related crimes on federal land. FORMER PROSECUTOR ACCUSE OF LIMITING QUESTIONS ABOUT JOE BIDEN, DENIES POLITICS PLAYED A ROLE IN HUNTER PROBE “Second, following my pardon of prior federal and D.C. offenses of simple possession of marijuana, I am issuing a Proclamation that will pardon additional offenses of simple possession and use of marijuana under federal and D.C. law,” the president said. Biden said the law enforcement reforms are meant to curb and rethink the country’s “failed approach to marijuana.” BIDEN ‘EXPRESSING DEEP FRUSTRATION’ WITH SLOW PROGRESS OF HIS INFRASTRUCTURE LAW: REPORT Biden said, “Criminal records for marijuana use and possession have imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities. Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. It’s time that we right these wrongs.” The president is also urging governors across the country to adopt similar policies to walk back the legal impact marijuana-related crimes have on offenders’ lives. “Just as no one should be in a federal prison solely due to the use or possession of marijuana, no one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason, either,” Biden said. “That’s why I continue to urge governors to do the same with regard to state offenses and applaud those who have since taken action.” “I have exercised my clemency power more than any recent predecessor has at this point in their presidency,” Biden boasted. He continued, “And while today’s announcement marks important progress, my Administration will continue to review clemency petitions and deliver reforms that advance equal justice, address racial disparities, strengthen public safety, and enhance the wellbeing of all Americans.”