🇺🇸🤝🇮🇱 Former President Donald Trump says the Palestinian people have not done a good job of utilizing their ocean-front views and that if Gaza is rebuilt the right way, it could become "one of the best places in the world."

"I've said it for years, when I've been there and it's rough, it's a rough place before all of the attacks and back and forth, what's happened over the last couple years. I said, 'Wow, look at this.' I mean, they have the back of a plant facing the ocean, you know," Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday. "They'd have, there was no ocean as far as that was concerned. They never took advantage of it. You know, as a developer, it could be the most beautiful place – the weather, the water, the whole thing, the climate."

🔗 https://archive.ph/iiRCb

🇨🇦 Canadian Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, lashes out at Canadian liberals for not condemning "antisemitic chants" in his October 7th address.

🔗 AF Post

🇺🇸☢️ US looks to resurrect more nuclear reactors, White House adviser says

The Biden administration is working on plans to bring additional decommissioned nuclear power reactors back online to help meet soaring demand for emissions-free electricity, White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi said on Monday.

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/us-looks-resurrect-more-nuclear-reactors-white-house-adviser-says-2024-10-07/

https://archive.ph/cAuWv

🇬🇧❌🇷🇺 Russia on mission to cause mayhem on UK streets, warns MI5

Russia's intelligence agency has been on a mission to generate "sustained mayhem on British and European streets", the head of MI5 has said, as he warned the UK faces the most "complex and interconnected" threat it has ever seen.

There have also been 20 Iran-backed plots since 2022, the director general Ken McCallum said.

He said the complex mix of terror-related threats and threats from nation states meant that MI5 had "one hell of a job on its hands".

A total of 43 late-stage plots to commit "mass murder" in the UK have been foiled since 2017, he said, involving firearms and explosives.

Mr McCallum said the security service's counter-terrorism work still mostly involved Islamic extremism, followed by "extreme right-wing terrorism".

But he added there was a "dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies" MI5 had to deal with.

"The first 20 years of my career here were crammed full of terrorist threats. We now face those alongside state-backed assassination and sabotage plots, against the backdrop of a major European land war," he said.

In a briefing at MI5’s counter-terrorism operations centre in London, Mr McCallum said in the past year, the number of state-threat investigations by MI5 had increased by 48%.
He also expressed concern over the number of young people being drawn into online extremism.

About 13% of those investigated for involvement in terrorism were under 18 - a threefold increase in the last three years, he added.

🔗 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8e15yr1gwo

🇺🇸🐣 The TFR (~children per woman) for Black women (1.54) in the USA has now almost completely converged with the TFR for White women (1.53).

The drop in Black TFR between 2020-YE Q2 2024 has been quite steep, dropping from 1.71 to 1.54, while the White TFR changed from 1.55 to 1.53.

🔗 Global Demographics

🇺🇸🇬🇧 Joe Biden threatened to destroy British-American relations if the UK didn’t give up the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

📝 Washington DC’s century old campaign to destroy the British Empire was brought to completion with the ceding of the Chagos Islands.

🔗 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/07/joe-biden-pushed-uk-to-surrender-chagos-islands/

🇷🇺❌🌐 — Social media platform Discord has been blocked in Russian Federation

➡️ The reason is a violation of legal requirements, Roskomnadzor (Russian communications regulator) reported.

THE best way to surge large amounts of hurricane relief are Army Watercraft & Logistics

Unfortunately
1) the Army HATES putting relief aid on their budget
2) MarkTEsper sold most at auction
3) they take time to arrive

They should be dispatched to FL NOW so they arrive in time

The Army refused to do this during hurricane Maria and instead the Navy tried resupplying the island via helicopter.

It didn’t work because helicopters don’t have enough load capacity.

Eventually DOTMARAD sent a civilian watercraft fleet to Puerto Rico but the delay killed many innocent civilians

@SecArmy @SecretaryPete this storm is intense so get the Army Watercraft and Ready Reserve underway NOW. You can always turn them around if they aren’t needed.

Read what happens if you don’t 👇👇

https://gcaptain.com/u-s-army-watercraft-lost-at-sea-opinion/

📎 JohnKonrad

🇺🇦❌🌐 — Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) banned Telegram for deputies and officials

➡️ Members of the Verkhovna Rada and parliamentary staff are banned from using Telegram on official and personal devices.

➡️ This decision, announced by Yaroslav Jurchyshyn, the Chairman of the Freedom of Speech Committee, follows recommendations from the National Security and Defense Council. Jurchyshyn noted that the ban follows previous incidents in which deputies’ data was leaked via the platform.

"I think that such security measures are quite logical. Unfortunately, there have already been examples of third parties obtaining data on state employees through Telegram," Yurchyshyn said.

🇰🇷 South Korea’s 4B Movement Lowers the Birth Rate in a Fight for Gender Equality

South Korea currently has the world’s lowest fertility rate, with women having less than one child on average. The drop in South Korea’s fertility rate over the past few years results from the “4B Movement,” with the B’s representing the Korean words bihon, bichulsan, biyeonae, and bisekseu for marriage, childbirth, dating, and sex respectively.

This movement is meant to combat South Korea’s alleged “patriarchal and misogynistic culture”. The “birth strike” and “marriage strike” have grown in popularity over the last several years – with the reduced fertility rate as a serious expected outcome.

Several factors contributing to the low birth and fertility rate are economic. These include South Korea’s high costs of raising children, unaffordable housing, poor job prospects, and long working hours.

Korean women’s engagement in the labor force is already low without considering the additional challenges that intersect with pregnant women and mothers. There is a prevalent issue of discrimination against hiring women which draws from the traditional gender roles expecting women to remain in the home.

Mothers struggle to re-enter the workforce both because of workplace discrimination and because of familial expectations that require them to also handle childcare and household responsibilities.

President Yoon Suk Yeol used men’s frustrations surrounding this issue as part of his political platform, blaming feminism for the low birth rate while simultaneously claiming that gender inequality is not an issue in South Korea. Part of Yoon’s domestic agenda is to abolish Korea’s Ministry of Gender Equality which has been active since 2001.

This announcement sparked backlash from feminists and resulted in protests demanding that the government advance rather than hinder women’s rights. The government has further reversed the progress of women’s rights in Korea by removing “gender equality” as a term in school textbooks.

There are valid concerns related to the plummeting birth and fertility rates namely the drastically changing demographic makeup of the country. As South Korea’s population ages, there is no younger generation to balance the population demographics. This trend is what led to the projection that over half of Korea’s population will be over the age of 65 by 2065.

Other countries have echoed South Korea’s “birth strike” – making it a transnational feminist movement. Women in China have started their own “four nos” movement, causing the population to start shrinking, and Japan is also experiencing a drastically lowered birth rate because of women’s reluctance to marry and have children.

🔗 https://www.iar-gwu.org/blog/iar-web/south-koreas-4b