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  US President Donald Trump displays his veto in response to the congressional rebuke on border emergency at the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, March 15, 2019.  ©  AFP /  Nicholas Kamm Billions in foreign aid & racehorse tax breaks: Trump urged to veto Covid-19 relief bill over under-the-radar provisions Supporters of President Donald Trump are urging him to veto the long-awaited Covid-19 relief bill, taking issue with it being tied to foreign aid, the amount of in-person payments and some provisions unrelated to the pandemic. After the House and the Senate sealed the deal on a $900 billion plan on Monday night, some US conservatives took to Twitter, highlighting the legal details they found questionable. A hefty amount of outrage was caused by the stimulus bill being tied to billions in foreign and military spending, as both were part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act. Online commenters were dismayed at the US government being ready to sp...

  The Preaching of St. John the Baptist,  Rembrandt, ca. 1634. Wikimedia John the Baptist – A Jewish Preacher Recast as the Herald of Jesus Prof.Tamás Visi The historical John, יוחנן, was a thoroughly Jewish religious preacher, who had little if any relation to Jesus and his movement. Here is the story of how John and his central rite, baptism, became part of Christianity. In the third and fourth decade of the first century C.E., a charismatic Jewish teacher in the Jordan Valley took on the mantle of prophecy, and attracted the attention of a sizable audience. The preacher’s name was יוחנן, Yohannan, transliterated in Latin as “Johannes,” hence the English name “John.” People referred to him as “the immerser” or “the baptizer” since he requested people to immerse in the water of the Jordan as a sign of repentance and conversion to God. John the Baptist plays an important role in Christian historiography, but it is important to remember that John was not Christian—there was no ...

 Ex-intel official listed among spooks rejecting Hunter Biden scandal as Russian disinfo NEVER SIGNED that letter by aletho RT | December 18, 2020 An ex-intelligence official listed on a letter suggesting that allegations of influence peddling by Joe Biden’s family stemmed from Russian disinformation told the National Review that he had never seen nor signed the document. The news outlet discovered the discrepancy as it sought comments from the 51 people listed on the letter as to whether their assessment had changed in light of confirmation that Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, had been under FBI investigation for more than a year. National Review said that when it contacted Gregory Treverton, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, he apparently misunderstood the query, saying, “This is the first I've seen of this, but happy to sign.” When the newspaper clarified that he had already been named as a signatory, he said that he had never seen the letter but would have signed...

  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, with Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of Sudan's ruling sovereign council, in Khartoum in this August 25, 2020 photo [Sudanese Cabinet via AP] US removes Sudan from ‘state sponsors of terror’ list: Embassy Washington’s decision to remove Sudan from a list of ‘state sponsors of terrorism’ comes into effect on Monday. The United States has formally removed Sudan’s designation as a “state sponsor of terrorism”, 27 years after putting the country on its blacklist. The announcement was made by the US embassy in Khartoum and comes into effect on Monday. “The congressional notification period of 45 days has lapsed and the Secretary of State has signed a notification stating rescission of Sudan’s State Sponsor of Terrorism designation is effective as of today [December 14], to be published in the Federal Register,” the US embassy said on Facebook. The removal from the list was a top priority for Sudan’s transitional government, which has been in power si...

  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, with Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of Sudan's ruling sovereign council, in Khartoum in this August 25, 2020 photo [Sudanese Cabinet via AP] Removing Sudan from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism - opportunities and challenges. Hatem Babiker Awad Al-Karim  It may be appropriate, at the outset, to determine why the United States of America imposed sanctions on Sudan and included it in the list of states sponsoring terrorism, or what we call here "the historical dilemma" as a description of the state of dispersion and deterioration that resulted from the US blockade. It is common for the sanctions to come as a result of the political behavior of the former regime that threatens international peace and security. This initial description lacks accuracy and objectivity. The sanctions began when the transitional government refused in 1985 to pay interest on the “debts” loans borrowed by the “May regime” in order to implement some de...