₦airaland Forum

OkpaNsukkaisBae:
You're welcome to the club

Igbo:
they did 😏

The United States has imposed sanctions on two China-based drone suppliers and their alleged Russian partners, the first time it has penalized Chinese companies for supplying complete weapons systems to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

Washington has long accused China of supporting Russia’s war effort by supplying dual-use goods and components that could be used in the manufacture of weapons, which Beijing denies. But in an announcement Thursday, the US Treasury Department accused the Chinese firms of direct involvement in arms supplies to Moscow.

The Chinese companies had collaborated with Russian defense firms in the production of Moscow’s “Garpiya series” long-range unmanned aerial vehicles, the department said in a statement. The drones were designed, developed and made in China before being sent to Russia for use in the battlefield, it said.

“The Garpiya has been deployed by Russia in its brutal war against Ukraine, destroying critical infrastructure and causing mass casualties,” it said.

“While the United States previously imposed sanctions on (Chinese) entities providing critical inputs to Russia’s military-industrial base, these are the first U.S. sanctions imposed on (Chinese) entities directly developing and producing complete weapons systems in partnership with Russian firms.”

When reached by phone by CNN Friday, a sales representative for the company denied it produced engines for Garpiya drones nor exported its products to Russia.

The US accused the other sanctioned Chinese company, Redlepus Vector Industry Shenzhen Co., of working with a Russian defense firm to facilitate the shipment of the drones to Russia.

The Treasury Department said Redlepus had also sent shipments to Russia of components that can be used in drones, including aircraft engines, parts of automatic data processing machines and electrical components through Russian defense firm TSK Vektor.

Redlepus hung up the phone when CNN called for comment.

The US also imposed punitive measures on the owner of TSK Vektor, a Russian national, and another company he owns. The US previously sanctioned TSK Vektor last December for helping Russia to acquire attack drones.

“We have seen for some time Chinese companies providing components to Russian companies that Russian companies then use to turn into machinery, weapons, other components that Russia could use in its war,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Thursday.

“This was the first time we actually saw a Chinese company manufacturing a weapon itself that then was used on the battlefield by Russia.”

‘Common views’

Beijing has previously denied supplying weaponry to Russia and maintains it keeps strict controls on such goods.

The Chinese embassy in Washington denied the latest accusations and said China was handling the export of military products responsibly, according to Reuters.

“The U.S. makes false accusations against China’s normal trade with Russia, just as it continues to pour unprecedented military aid into Ukraine,” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a statement, according to Reuters. “This is (the) typical double standard, and extremely hypocritical and irresponsible.”

China’s support for Russia as the Kremlin wages war in Ukraine has become a key point of tension between Washington and Beijing as they seek to stabilize rocky relations.

Beijing has claimed neutrality in the more than two-and-a-half-year long conflict even as it has deepened political, economic and military ties with Moscow. China has become Russia’s top trade partner, offering a crucial lifeline to its heavily sanctioned economy, and the two nuclear-armed neighbors have ramped up joint military exercises in recent months.

In the latest sign of their deepening alignment, Chinese and Russian defense officials vowed to strengthen their cooperation during meetings in Beijing last week.

The two countries have “common views, a common assessment of the situation, and a common understanding of what we need to do together,” defense chief Andrey Belousov told Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, according to Russian state-run news agency Tass.

African billionaire Aliko Dangote is wealthier than ever now that his long-awaited Nigerian oil refinery is up and running. But his mood suggests a man who just built his dream house only for the roof to start leaking.

The Dangote Refinery outside Lagos is the biggest single-train oil refinery in the world and one of the most complex, capable of processing most global crude types. It has the potential to transform Nigeria’s economy by making the country self-reliant for fuel. And it’s more than doubled his net worth to $27.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Sharingiscaring:
Unfortunately, the real American voters care more about their border security than you care about Trump's misdemeanors. Meanwhile, if he's a convicted felon, why is the US law letting him run for office?

Sharingiscaring:
Kamala will not win. Her support for abortion and her poor border policy are against her chances.

The longest-lived president in American history has voted again.

Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 on Oct. 1 and has been in hospice care since February 2023, submitted his absentee ballot on Wednesday, according to Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson.

Jason Carter, the chairman of the Carter Center, said in a text message on Wednesday that his grandfather’s ballot had been deposited at a drop box at a courthouse in Americus, Ga. In Georgia, a relative may return a completed absentee ballot for a voter.

For weeks, according to the Carter family, the former president was privately playing down becoming a centenarian. Instead, Mr. Carter’s relatives said, he was most eager about voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Under Georgia law, Oct. 7 was the first day that county registrars could distribute domestic absentee ballots. Elections officials began mailing military and overseas ballots last month. Georgia’s in-person early voting period began on Tuesday, and regulators reported record turnout.

Elections officials said they were not certain when Mr. Carter, who spent many days of his post-presidency on Carter Center election-monitoring missions around the world, first cast a ballot of his own. But in 1943, Georgia became the first state to lower its voting age to 18; when Georgia voters decided to amend the state Constitution, Mr. Carter was months away from his 19th birthday.

Soon enough, though, he was in elected office himself. In 1962, he won a seat in the State Senate, after a chaotic scandal in which Mr. Carter’s opponent initially benefited from a ballot-stuffing scheme. (Decades later, Mr. Carter would recall that he was such an unknown then that a Georgia newspaper identified him as “Jerry Carter from Plains.”)

Mr. Carter cited the episode as a reason that he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, who died last year, founded the Carter Center, a nongovernmental organization, after they left the White House in 1981. But before his defeat by Ronald Reagan, one of Mr. Carter’s earliest lobbying efforts as president focused on his ideas about voter registration and campaign finance.

State records show that Mr. Carter has been an especially reliable voter as a former president. He has routinely cast ballots in general elections, of course, but has also been a fixture of primary runoffs and special elections. For more than a decade, he has exclusively voted by mail in the elections tracked by the state.

Mr. Carter still lives in Plains — the tidy city in southwest Georgia that he turned into an outpost of presidential politics nearly a half-century ago — and votes in Sumter County, where plenty of people still know him as “Mr. Jimmy.” A Republican presidential nominee last carried Sumter in 2004, when George W. Bush won it by 126 votes.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. had a 586-vote margin of victory there in 2020.

The margins have come to matter in Georgia, one of the most closely contested states in presidential elections. Had Mr. Carter gotten his way in the 1970s, though, they would matter less: He recommended abolishing the Electoral College.

Adebisi444:
Let me ask you one question.. if Israel stop fighting and defending.. will Hezbollah stops firing rockets and attacking... Pls answer my question

Namaster:
Macron seems like the ONLY Western leader to call out the BULLSHIIIT of the genocidal Netanyahu.

The rest of them, especially the US, COMPLAIN about the ATROCITIES of Israel and Netanyahu and then furnish them with the WEAPONS to commit said attrocities.

Netanyahu wants to commit WAR CRIMES and be PRAISED for it.

JASONjnr:
This is going to take a different turn as Israel is daring France...

If this go beyond the banter to exchange it missiles.... Then we are looking at world war.....

And I hope Nigerians will take the opportunity to deal with the useless politicians they breed in that country.

France has banned Israeli defense companies from exhibiting at an upcoming naval arms trade show, the event's organizers revealed on Wednesday.

The ban comes as French President Emmanuel Macron’s administration expresses increasing discomfort over Israel’s military actions in Gaza and Lebanon.

The decision follows failed French-led efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, with Israeli airstrikes continuing in the region

Meanwhile, this is the second time this year that France has excluded Israeli firms from a major defense exhibition.

In May, French authorities barred Israeli participation in the Eurosatory military trade show, citing concerns over ongoing Israeli operations in Gaza, which President Emmanuel Macron has openly criticised.

Reuters reports that Euronaval, the organizer of an upcoming defense exhibition in Paris from November 4-7, announced that Israeli delegations would not be permitted to exhibit stands or display equipment, though they would still be allowed to attend.

This decision, according to the statement, was communicated by the French government and impacts seven Israeli firms.

Neither the Israeli embassy nor the French defense and foreign ministries provided comments in response to the announcement.

Meanwhile, Israeli military actions have escalated, with airstrikes and ground incursions against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon caused civilian casualties.

In response, Western allies, including France, have urged an immediate ceasefire.

Diplomatic tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and French President Emmanuel Macron have also heightened, particularly after a surprise Israeli strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, derailing a U.S.-France-brokered 21-day truce intended to pave the way for long-term negotiations.

Netanyahu has refused a ceasefire that does not address Hezbollah’s rearming, while Macron has expressed frustration, especially as U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon have been caught in Israeli crossfire.

Macron has also called for a halt to the supply of offensive weapons to Israel, citing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid the ongoing conflict with Hamas militants.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Macron, addressing his cabinet, reminded Netanyahu that Israel’s creation was based on a U.N. decision, a remark later clarified by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot as a general statement on respecting the U.N. charter.

In response, Netanyahu’s office countered by emphasizing that Israel was borne out of its War of Independence, fought by survivors of the Holocaust, including those from the Vichy regime in France.

seunowa:
Yes, you are not the same in rationality. But the major problem with you is that you don't read your Bible so you don't know what it says.....

140 Victims Of Jigawa Tanker Explosion Buried, 90 In Hospitals

A mass burial of 140 persons who were victims of a tanker explosion in Majiya Town, Taura Local Government Area, Jigawa State is underway in the community

90 others are in various hospitals across the state.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza within the next 30 days or it could risk losing access to U.S. weapons funding.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned their Israeli counterparts in a letter dated Sunday that the changes must occur. The letter, which restates U.S. policy toward humanitarian aid and arms transfers, was sent amid deteriorating conditions in northern Gaza and reports Israel had conducted a strike on a hospital tent site in central Gaza that killed at least four people and ignited a fire that left more than two dozen with severe burns.

A senior defense official said Tuesday that Blinken and Austin sent a letter to their Israeli counterparts as they saw a recent decrease in assistance reaching Gaza. The official said a similar letter sent by Blinken in April triggered a constructive response and “concrete measures from the Israelis.”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the latest letter was a way to similarly address the problem.

For Israel to continue qualifying for foreign military financing, the level of aid getting into Gaza must increase to at least 350 trucks a day, Israel must institute additional humanitarian pauses and provide increased security for humanitarian sites, Austin and Blinken said. They said Israel had 30 days to respond to the requirements.

An Israeli official confirmed a letter had been delivered but did not discuss the contents. That official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a diplomatic matter, confirmed the U.S. had raised “humanitarian concerns” and was putting pressure on Israel to speed up the flow of aid into Gaza.

The letter, which an Axios reporter posted a copy of online, was sent during a period of growing frustration in the administration that despite repeated and increasingly vocal requests to scale back offensive operations, Israel’s bombardment has led to unnecessary civilian deaths and risks plunging the region into a much wider war.

We are particularly concerned that recent actions by the Israeli government, including halting commercial imports, denying or impeding 90 percent of humanitarian movements” and other restrictions have kept aid from flowing, Blinken and Austin said.

The Biden administration is increasing its calls for its ally and biggest recipient of U.S. military aid to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza while assuring that America’s support for Israel is unwavering just before the U.S. presidential election in three weeks.

Funding for Israel has long carried weight in U.S. politics, and Biden said this month that “no administration has helped Israel more than I have.”

Humanitarian aid groups fear that Israeli leaders may approve a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Hamas, which could trap hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who are unwilling or unable to leave their homes without food, water, medicine and fuel.

U.N. humanitarian officials said last week that aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months. About 80 trucks carrying aid have entered through crossings in Gaza’s north since Oct. 1, down from roughly 60 trucks a day previously, according to the U.N. website tracking deliveries.

COGAT, the Israeli body facilitating aid crossings into Gaza, denied that crossings to the north have been closed.

U.S. officials said the letter was sent to remind Israel of both its obligations under international humanitarian law and of the Biden administration’s legal obligation to ensure that the delivery of American humanitarian assistance should not be hindered, diverted or held up by a recipient of U.S. military aid.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas has killed nearly 42,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The Hamas attacks that launched the war killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and militants abducted another 250.


The United States has spent a record total of at least $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began and led to escalating conflict around the Middle East, according to a report for Brown University’s Costs of War project.

That aid has enabled Israel to purchase billions of dollars worth of munitions it has used in its operations against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. However many of those strikes also have killed civilians in both areas.

Nursepepeye:
don't start crying yet, you will have enough time to cry ocean just be patient

Righteousness2:
Hell fire is a place for people who see evil and call it good.

Your hate for ISRAEL is irrelevant.
Go amd check history! All who Hate ISRAEL end up the same way! Desolation, Death and Destruction!!

Ask the likes of Nasarallah and the Ayotollahs!!