geneva_convenience

According to Joseph Fitsanakis, professor of intelligence and security studies at Coastal Carolina University, “Russian military production is currently outpacing that of the US and all of NATO member states combined. This may be hard to believe, but Russia is obligated to do it if it is going to outpace the support given to Ukraine.

“Such gargantuan spending has essentially created a war economy, which has prevented the onset of a major economic recession,” Fitsanakis told Al Jazeera.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has estimated that Russia has spent a total of $200bn on the Ukraine war alone.

At $1,341bn, NATO’s defence spending dwarfs Russia’s. Yet it seems ineffective in quickly turning spending power into firepower in a crisis.

European contractors do not benefit from increases in national defence budgets, in contrast to Russia, which produces its military equipment domestically and is working to onshore its supply chains.

France is a case in point. Its top defence performers suffered an 8.5 percent drop led by a 60 percent fall in Dassault Aviation’s order book for the Rafale multirole fighter, as European militaries pass it over in favour of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 as their next-generation jet.

In March 2011, after heavy lobbying from senior officials including Secretary Hillary Clinton, President Obama authorized a bombing campaign in support of the jihadist insurgency fighting the government of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Backed by NATO firepower, the rebels toppled Gaddafi and gruesomely murdered him in October.

Buoyed by their quick success in Libya, the Obama administration set their sights on Damascus, by then a top regime change target in Washington. According to former NATO commander Wesley Clark, the Assad regime – a key ally of U.S. foes Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia – was marked for overthrow alongside Iraq in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. A leaked 2006 U.S. Embassy in Damascus cable assessed that Assad's "vulnerabilities" included "the potential threat to the regime from the increasing presence of transiting Islamist extremists," and detailed how the U.S. could "improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising."

The outbreak of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011, coupled with the fall of Gaddafi, offered the U.S. a historic opportunity to exploit Syria's vulnerabilities. While the Arab Spring sparked peaceful Syrian protests against the ruling Ba'ath party's cronyism and repression, it also triggered a largely Sunni, rural-based revolt that took a sectarian and violent turn. The U.S. and its allies, namely Qatar and Turkey, capitalized by tapping the massive arsenal of the newly ousted Libyan government.

"During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the [Gaddafi] regime in October 2011," the Defense Intelligence Agency reported the following year, "…weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya, to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria."

In his memoir, senior Obama aide Ben Rhodes acknowledged that al-Nusra "was probably the strongest fighting force within the opposition." It was also clear, he wrote, that U.S.-backed insurgent groups were "fighting side by side with al-Nusra." For this reason, Rhodes recalled, he argued against the State Department's December 2012 designation of al-Nusra as a foreign terrorist organization. This move "would alienate the same people we want to help." (Asked about wanting to help an Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency, Rhodes did not respond).

Despite being privately aware of Nusra's dominance, Obama administration officials continued to publicly insist that the U.S. was only supporting Syria's "moderate opposition," as then-Deputy National Security Adviser Antony Blinken described it in September 2014.

But speaking to a Harvard audience days later, then-Vice President Biden blurted out the concealed reality. In the Syrian insurgency, "there was no moderate middle," Biden admitted. Instead, U.S. "allies" in Syria "poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad." Those weapons were supplied, Biden said, to "al-Nusra, and Al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world."

A Ukrainian outlet has released video footage purporting to show an interrogation of captured Wagner Group mercenaries by Ukrainian special forces in Sudan.

In the video, obtained by Kyiv Post, members of Timur, part of Ukraine's Military Intelligence Directorate (HUR), can be seen speaking to three bound and blindfolded men. Two of the men are African, while the third man can be heard speaking Russian.

The man, who admits to belonging to the Wagner Group, tells his interrogator that he and his men drove from the neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR) to Sudan in order to "overthrow the local government". The video cannot be independently verified by Middle East Eye.

Last year, Lt Gen Kyrylo Budanov, chief of Ukranian military intelligence, vowed to “destroy Russian war criminals anywhere in the world, wherever they are”.

Fighting in Sudan has been ongoing since 15 April, with more than 12,000 people killed and seven million displaced, according to the United Nations.

Hezbollah said Monday it fired a warning strike in response to repeated “Israeli” violations of the ceasefire agreement that came into effect last Wednesday.

“The strike targeting the Roueisat Al-Alam military site in the occupied Lebanese hills of Kfar Shuba,” the statement by the Lebanese group said.

It added that the “Israeli” violations of the ceasefire included “gunfire on civilians, airstrikes across various parts of Lebanon leading to civilian casualties and injuries, and continuous breaches of Lebanese airspace by Israeli aircraft reaching the capital, Beirut” which prompted this action.

“Despite multiple appeals to relevant authorities to halt these aggressions, no resolution was achieved.”

Two people were killed and an army soldier was injured in three Israeli attacks in Lebanon on Monday despite a cease-fire deal between the two countries, local media said.

An Israeli drone fired two missiles into a motorcycle in Jdaidet Marjeyoun area in southern Lebanon, leaving one person dead, the state news agency NNA reported.

The Lebanese State Security Directorate said that a security personnel was killed in a drone strike in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon.

In a statement, the directorate called the attack “a blatant violation of the cease-fire agreement,” and “a dangerous escalation.”

An army soldier was also injured when another drone strike targeted a Lebanese bulldozer while carrying out some work inside the Abbara military site in the Hosh Sayyed Ali-Hermel area in eastern Lebanon, NNA said.

The attacks came shortly after the army said that the body of a Lebanese officer who had been unaccounted for since Nov. 26 after an Israeli airstrike was found in Naqoura town in southern Lebanon

Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, for his part, asked the committee supervising the cease-fire with Israel to oblige Tel Aviv to stop its violations of the deal and withdraw from the Lebanese territories.

PARIS (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Michel Barnier on Monday made another major concession to Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party, dropping planned cuts to medication reimbursements in a last-minute bid to get his 2025 budget bill over the line.

It was not immediately clear if that would be enough to save his fragile coalition from being toppled this week, with an RN spokesman telling Reuters there were other key demands ahead of a crunch parliamentary vote at 3:00 p.m. (1400 GMT).

It is at least the third time Barnier has given in to RN demands after he scrapped an electricity price hike worth some 3 billion euros last week and agreed to reduce free medical help to illegal migrants.

Dec 2 (Reuters) - Intel (INTC.O) Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger has stepped down less than four years after taking the helm of the company, handing control to two lieutenants as the faltering American chipmaking icon searches for a permanent replacement. Gelsinger, who resigned on Dec. 1, left the company before the completion of an ambitious and costly four-year plan to restore the company's lead in making the fastest and smallest computer chips, a crown it lost to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (2330.TW) which makes chips for Intel rivals such as Nvidia (NVDA.O) While Gelsinger has assured both investors and U.S. officials, who are subsidizing Intel's turnaround, that his manufacturing plans remain on track, the full results will not be known until next year, when the company aims to bring a flagship laptop chip back into its own factories.

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — At least 56 people, including children, have died after fans at a soccer game in Guinea allegedly clashed over a disputed call by the referee, authorities said Monday.

The stampede broke out on Sunday afternoon at the stadium in the city of Nzerekore during the final of a local tournament between the Labe and Nzerekore teams in honor of Guinea’s military leader, Mamadi Doumbouya.

“During the stampede, victims were recorded,” Guinea’s Prime Minister Amadou Oury Bah said on the X platform, without giving details. The regional authorities are working to restore calm in the area, he added.

Local media reports said security forces had tried to use tear gas to restore calm after the chaos that followed a disputed penalty call.

“This (the disputed penalty call) angered supporters who threw stones. This is how the security services used tear gas,” Media Guinea, a local news website, reported. It said several of those killed were children while some of the injured being treated at a regional hospital are in critical condition.

Videos that appeared to be from the scene showed fans in a section of the stadium shouting and protesting the refereeing before clashes broke out as people poured onto the field. People were running as they tried to escape from the stadium, many of them jumping the high fence.