China’s 17,200-ton offshore platform launched, to collect 24M tons of oil annually
The platform, weighing over 17,200 tons, ranks as one of the largest in the world. It is taller than a 24-story building and boasts a deck area equivalent to 15 basketball courts.
The platform was officially delivered after a 34-month construction period. At the end of August, it will set sail on a large transport ship to its designated installation area, some 6,400 nautical miles away.
The Marjan platform is an intricate offshore production facility comprising a sophisticated network of pipelines, advanced chemical treatment systems, and operational control systems.
This complex infrastructure is designed to efficiently gather and transport offshore oil and gas to onshore processing facilities.
As the main terminal for multiple offshore oilfields, the Marjan platform is crucial in extracting and transporting valuable energy resources.
The platform can collect and transport 24 million tons of crude oil and 7.4 billion cubic meters of gas annually, making it the leading capacity platform of its kind globally. ….
TikTok Algorithms Actively Suppress Criticism of Chinese Regime, Study Finds
China-owned video-sharing app TikTok is using its algorithms to suppress content exposing China’s human rights violations, in order to shape the views of its targeted users, according to a new study.
Researchers from Rutgers University and the school’s Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) found that TikTok’s algorithms “actively suppress content critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) while simultaneously boosting pro-China propaganda and promoting distracting, irrelevant content,” according to their study.
“Through the use of travel influencers, frontier lifestyle accounts, and other CCP-linked content creators, the platform systematically shouts down sensitive discussions about issues like ethnic genocide and human rights abuses.”
In recent years, TikTok has been facing scrutiny and accusations of being a threat to national security, as it exploits the minds of American teens and its China-based parent company, Bytedance, could be forced by the CCP to hand over data on U.S. users.
The U.S. National Security Agency has previously called the app the CCP’s “trojan horse” that threatens America’s long-term security due to the CCP’s anti-U.S. views, while some lawmakers have likened the app to a form of “digital fentanyl” that makes addicts of its users….
Rumble Cloud Partners with the Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium
Rumble, the video-sharing platform and cloud services provider (NASDAQ: RUM), announced today a partnership with the Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium to leverage infrastructure services from Rumble Cloud.
As Chris Pavlovski, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Rumble, commented, “I am thrilled that one of the NFL’s premier franchises, the Miami Dolphins, is adding Rumble Cloud to its infrastructure.
Onboarding such an established client to our platform is extremely validating as we continue to scale. We look forward to seeing their business operations exponentially grow and innovate with our cost-effective, high-performing cloud services.” …..
Rumble Reports Second Quarter 2024 Results
Q2 2024 Key Highlights and Key Items
- Revenue for the second quarter was $22.5 million, a sequential increase of 27% from $17.7 million in the first quarter of 2024 and compared to $25.0 million in the second quarter of 2023.
- Average global Monthly Active Users (“MAUs”) of 53 million in the second quarter of 2024, compared to 50 million in the first quarter of 2024. This represents the tenth consecutive quarter above 40 million average global MAUs on the platform. We believe that the increase from the first quarter of 2024 is attributable to an increased interest in political news in the second quarter of 2024. Of the 53 million MAUs, 37 million were based in the U.S. and Canada.
- Set a new record for concurrent live stream viewers in America on the Rumble platform during the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on June 27, 2024. According to Streams Charts, a third-party streaming analytics firm, Rumble hit a peak of 718,909 concurrent live viewers, a record for the platform. ……
Musk to Interview Trump on X: ‘No Limits on Subject Matter’
The live conversation is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET on Monday, Aug. 12, according to Musk.
It will be live-streamed on Trump’s X account @readlDonaldTrump.
“This is unscripted with no limits on subject matter, so should be highly entertaining!” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO wrote Sunday in a post on X, also telling viewers to post any questions or comments they have under the chat.
Musk, who has 193.8 million X followers, publicly endorsed the Republican presidential nominee after the latter survived an assassination attempt last month at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” Musk wrote in a post on July 13.
Musk also created a pro-Trump political action committee called America PAC, which is under investigation in Michigan for allegedly violating state laws on collecting voter information.
Levin: What The Democrat Party Is Doing Is At War With The Middle Class
Mark Levin: “What I am trying to point out here with what the Democratic Party is doing is at war with the middle class. It’s at war with working Americans.”
SCIENTISTS SAY THEY’VE FIGURED OUT HOW TO REGENERATE KNEE CARTILAGE
Cartilage is the connective tissue that wraps around joints and bones, working to absorb shock, aid mobility, and protect against painful bone-on-bone friction. These are all tough — and important! — jobs, and yet cartilage doesn’t naturally regenerate on its own. As a result, those with worn-down or damaged cartilage often wind up turning to knee replacement surgery. While effective, that road can be expensive and generally requires a lengthy recovery period.
That’s where the goo might come in.
As the Northwestern researchers detail in their new study, published this week in the journal PNAS, they’ve invented a rubbery biomaterial that mimics the chemical structure of cartilage. When the biochemical goo was applied to human-like knee joints in sheep, the results were extraordinary: within six months, the study says, the scientists observed new cartilage growth in the animal subjects.
“Cartilage is a critical component in our joints,” said Samuel Stupp, Northwestern professor of chemistry and study leader, in a statement. “When cartilage becomes damaged or breaks down over time, it can have a great impact on people’s overall health and mobility.”….
Russia hits back at Ukraine incursion, missile kills two near Kyiv
Russia struck several regions of Ukraine overnight with four North Korean ballistic missiles and 57 Shahed drones, Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram. Explosions were heard from the nation’s west to east.
The KN-23 missiles were fired from the Voronezh region of Russia, Oleshchuk said, adding that Ukraine shot down 53 drones.
The U.S. and South Korea have accused North Korea of sending millions of rounds of munitions and scores of ballistic missiles to Russia to aid in the invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow and Pyongyang have denied despite evidence showing arms shipments taking place.
A residential building in the Brovary district east of the capital was destroyed in the overnight attack, killing a father and his four-year-old son and seriously injuring at least three others, regional authorities said…..
What’s really going on inside immigration detention centres | 60 Minutes Australia
Hamas kills one hostage and wounds two, terror group spokesman says
One hostage held by Hamas in Gaza has been killed by the Hamas terrorist assigned to guard him, and another two female hostages have been seriously injured, the spokesperson of the Hamas armed wing, Abu Obeida, announced on Telegram on Monday.
The terrorist group stated that a committee was formed to investigate the incident and will announce the details later.
The IDF has reported that it does not have the intelligence support to confirm or deny the Hamas claims and will continue to inspect the reliability of the messages and uncover more information.
Biden & Pelosi Reveal Why He REALLY Left the 2024 Race
Over the weekend, both President Biden and Rep. Nancy Pelosi more or less confirmed that Democrats pushed Biden out of the 2024 race.
The “pro-democracy” party “just took away the only part of democracy that we have,” Glenn says, by anointing Kamala Harris without the voters weighing in. Democratic elites have proved that to them, it’s all about winning, and the ends justify the means, even if it means staging a coup against a sitting president.
Glenn also discusses why the Harris/Walz ticket is anything but “moderate” and “middle America.”
Israel-US to face Iran & proxies; Berlin-Paris-London urge Tehran to deescalate TV7Israel News 12.08
1) Israel continues to prepare for defensive and offensive contingencies versus Iran and its proxies.
2) Defense Minister Gallant voices hope that Iran won’t miscalculate Israel’s resolve.
3) U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris urges Israel to avoid civilian casualties in the war on Hamas in Gaza.
China’s Aircraft Carrier Moves Into Pacific To Challenge US Primacy
The Joint Staff Office under Japan‘s Defense Ministry reported on Monday that it had detected the movements of the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong and three escorts in the Philippine Sea.
The Shandong is China first domestically built aircraft carrier and the second in service with the Chinese navy. The 70,000-ton ship is homeported in Sanya in Hainan, an island province facing the contested South China Sea.
The carrier strike group included the Type 055 destroyer Yan’an, the Type 052D destroyer Zhanjiang and Type 054A frigate Yuncheng. The Japanese report said the Shandong was conducting flight operations with carrier-based fighter jets and helicopters while underway in the area.
Miyako forms part of the so-called first island chain, a series of islands connecting the Japanese archipelago in the north through Taiwan and the Philippines in the south. The Cold War defense concept was aimed at containing Chinese naval activity in wartime, but the Unites States and treaty ally Japan have watched Beijing’s fleet expand its peacetime operations far beyond the region’s choke points.
Open-source satellite imagery captured early last week showed the Shandong still pierside in Sanya. By Friday, however, the carrier appeared to have moved……
A Pentagon Official Saw Her Ties to an Iranian Influence Network Exposed—Then Visited the Biden-Harris White House 8 Times
The Biden-Harris White House hosted a Pentagon official at the center of an Iranian government influence operation eight times—after her ties to Tehran’s hardline regime were exposed, raising further questions about the official’s ongoing access to classified information.
Senior Department of Defense official Ariane Tabatabai participated in multiple meetings organized by the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office, which is responsible for recruiting and vetting scores of nominees across the government, visitor logs reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.
Tabatabai was at the White House just two months after Semafor revealed she was a key member of a secretive Iranian influence group, the Iran Experts Initiative, that reported back to Tehran’s foreign ministry, according to the logs. She participated in at least seven other White House gatherings throughout the end of 2023 and into April 2024, mixing with officials from a range of cabinet-level agencies.
Tabatabai’s access to the White House is driving renewed scrutiny in the wake of an investigation by Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) into her relationship with vice president Kamala Harris’s national security adviser, Phil Gordon. Tabatabai and Gordon coauthored at least three opinion pieces that argued against sanctions on the Iranian regime.
Tabatabai continues to serve as the chief of staff for the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, a position that grants her access to top secret information…..
NYC migrants — including illegal alien convicted of sex assault — raped woman at knifepoint in front of boyfriend: police sources
Two migrants were arrested for a knifepoint rape in Coney Island – including one who illegally crossed into the US at the southern border in 2022 and was then busted four months later on rape charges in Brooklyn, law-enforcement sources said Monday.
David Davon-Bonilla, 24, a Nicaraguan migrant, allegedly grabbed the 46-year-old woman and threw her to the ground before raping her while holding a knife to her throat at Surf Avenue and 16th Street around 9 p.m. Sunday, cops and the sources said.
His alleged accomplice, identified as Mexican migrant Leovando Moreno, 37, is accused of striking the woman’s 34-year-old boyfriend with a pipe when he tried to stop the vicious assault, the sources said.
The horrific attack took place outside a hotel housing asylum seekers.
Sources said Davon-Bonilla entered the US illegally through Texas in December 2022 and pleaded guilty last year to a vicious sexual assault of a 34-year-old woman at the La Quinta.
That victim was raped and sodomized inside the hotel on April 23, 2023. It’s not clear why Bonilla was allowed to remain in the US after he was released from jail in that case.
The victim in the Sunday night attack is from out of state and appears to be homeless, living in an encampment under the boardwalk near where she was raped, according to the sources…..
Disney Exec Is Major Harris Donor, Raising Debate Conflict Questions
The co-chair of ABC News’ parent company is a longtime, personal friend and campaign donor of Vice President Kamala Harris, whose upcoming debate with former President Donald Trump will be hosted by the network.
Dana Walden, co-chair of Disney Entertainment, has known Harris since 1994. Their husbands, Matt Walden and Doug Emhoff, have known each other since the 1980s, according to The New York Times.
Trump, on the other hand, recently sued ABC News for defamation.
Still, the network insists Harris, the Democrat presidential nominee, won’t have any advantage when she debates Republican nominee Trump on Sept. 10.
Walden and her husband have donated money to Harris’ political campaigns since at least 2003, when Harris ran for district attorney in San Francisco.
In 2023, Walden donated $20,000 to support President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, according to public filings……
The Top-Secret World War II Mission That Killed Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the Heir Apparent to the Political Dynasty
On a more personal level, Joe Jr.’s death at age 29 dealt a staggering blow to his father’s grand dreams for the future. Groomed for the presidency since his birth, Joe Jr. had served as a delegate at the 1940 Democratic National Convention, with plans to run for Congress after the war.
Upon hearing the news of his brother’s demise, John F. Kennedy, the family’s second-oldest son, reportedly remarked, “Now the burden falls on me.”
Previously “considered too ‘sloppy,’ fun-loving and physically unhealthy” for a career in politics, in the words of the London Times, John secured seats in the House of Representative and the Senate before narrowly winning the 1960 presidential election, becoming the first Irish Catholic commander in chief and the youngest person elected to the nation’s highest office to date.
“Just as I went into politics because Joe died,” John later said in an eerily prescient remark, “if anything happened to me tomorrow, my brother Bobby would run. … And if Bobby died, Teddy would take over for him.
The press, the Navy, and friends and family alike praised John as a hero. But while Joe Jr. was certainly glad that his younger brother had escaped death, he felt overshadowed and was eager to prove himself.
“Colleagues commented later on his intense preoccupation with putting himself in harm’s way, and thus on the path to publicly recognized heroism,” wrote Edward J. Renehan Jr. in The Kennedys at War: 1937-1945. As fellow pilot Louis Papas later recalled, “There was never an occasion for a mission that meant extra hazard that Joe did not volunteer. He had everybody’s unlimited admiration and respect for his courage, zeal and willingness to undertake the most dangerous missions.”
In the summer of 1944, Joe Jr. volunteered first for Operation Cork, an air patrol connected to the Allied invasion of France, and then for Operation Aphrodite and its Navy counterpart, Operation Anvil.
The top-secret project was aimed at taking down the Nazis’ steel-reinforced concrete bunkers in occupied France, from which the Germans were launching their devastating V-1 cruise missiles and V-2 ballistic missiles. Uncrewed, gyro-controlled jets packed with explosives, the projectiles offered a low-risk way of terrorizing the British from afar…..
Joe Concha: ‘This is an absolute embarrassment’
Fox News contributor Joe Concha on Biden’s admission that he was pushed out by Democrats and Kamala Harris’ lack of media engagement.
Planned Parenthood Caught Selling Baby Body Parts? | Live Action News Now
GOP rep accuses Biden admin of ‘burying’ Iran’s threats against Trump
Former Trump Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland discusses Rep. Michael Waltz’s accusation, the ongoing war in Israel, Venezuela’s Maduro reportedly being offered amnesty by the U.S. if he cedes power and the latest development in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Norway to purchase HIMARS from Lockheed Martin, snubbing Hanwha
Norway has requested to buy 16 of Lockheed Martin’s M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS — as well as associated equipment and ammunition — in a deal worth as much as $580 million, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced Friday.
The request includes 15 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System pods, or GMLRS, with each pod containing six rockets featuring fragmentation warheads; 15 GMLRS pods with high-explosive warheads; and 100 M57 Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, long-range missiles.
Norway’s pick of HIMARS is a setback for Hanwha Aerospace, which had been eyeing orders for its K239 Chunmoo rocket artillery system in Norway and neighboring Sweden. The South Korean company in June signed an agreement with Norwegian firm Kongsberg to jointly offer defense equipment, such as the Chunmoo system, in the home markets of both firms.
“The proposed sale will improve Norway’s capability to meet current and future threats and enhance its interoperability with U.S. and other allied forces,” the DSCA release said. “It will also enhance Norway’s artillery and mid-range fire capability.”….
Dr. Navarro: The Severe Consequences Of Biden-Harris Policies Can Destroy Kamala’s Electoral Chances
Dr. Peter Navarro: President Trump Must Expose Kamala’s Combination Of Radicalness And Inexperience
US sends missile submarine to Middle East | LiveNOW from FOX
Elon Musk agrees with Maria’s interview with Nigel Farage: ‘True’
Musk agreed with Farage’s statement that the U.K.’s police commissioner is a grave threat to free speech
Tera Dahl Dishes On The UK Attack On Free Speech
Another UK stabbing: 11-year-old girl and woman, 34, wounded in London attack; male arrested
Amid Monday’s stabbing, a security guard told the Guardian he “jumped on” and took a knife from a male he said stabbed the child.
The paper added that the guard by the name of Abdullah, 29, told the PA news agency:
“I heard a scream. At that moment I saw there was one person, roughly [in their] mid-30s or early 30s, and he was like stabbing a kid. I jumped on him, held the hand in which he was [carrying] a knife, and just put him down on the floor and just held him and took the knife away from him. Then a couple of more people joined as well, and we just held him until the police came; it took maybe three to four minutes for the police to arrive, and then they just took him into custody.”
You can view a video report about the incident here; it includes a clip of officers holding the apparent suspect — with his face blurred — as well as an interview with the security guard……
Russia Evacuates Second Border Region as Ukrainians Reportedly Build Trenches
Russian state media reportedly indicated that as many as 11,000 people in Belgorod will have to abandon their homes at least temporarily as Ukrainian troops reinforce their presence in neighboring Kursk, where Russian strongman Vladimir Putin denounced a “major provocation” by Ukrainian forces on August 6.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not directly addressed his push into Russia in detail, but suggested in recent comments that Russia must “feel war” to understand the gravity of its invasion of Ukraine and conceded that Kyiv was putting “pressure on the aggressive” in vague comments on Saturday.
“In the interest of public health and safety, we’re starting to move people who live in Krasnoyaruzhsky to safer locations,” Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov of Belgorod announced on Monday in a statement on the encrypted messaging application Telegram.
The Moscow Times, which translated the message, estimated that over 76,000 people have been evacuated from both Bolgorod and Kursk, where active hostilities between Ukrainian and Russian forces are believed to be underway at press time. Leaders in Kursk have also expanded already existing evacuation provisions….
Mr. ‘Steele Dossier’ is Back Again, Now Slinging Russian Mud at Nigel Farage
Britain’s foreign intelligence agency MI6 will look “very carefully” at Reform UK leader, Brexit boss, and Member of Parliament Nigel Farage after he challenged the government on the official narrative around the Southport stabbings, a former top spy has said.
Christopher Steele, the former Russia station chief for MI6, is best known now for the notorious and now “discredited” Steele Dossier, which alleged that President Trump had conspired with the Russian government to influence the 2016 U.S. election.
A report in the British newspaper of record, The Times, revealing Steele’s new comments damning Mr Farage with association and implication, did not mention Steele’s most famous ‘intelligence’ claims, however.
Linking Farage, the riots, and Russia, Steel said: “I think the security service will be looking very carefully at the instigators of these activities, including people like Tommy Robinson, even conceivably Nigel Farage, who incidentally said that we were being misinformed by the government about Southport.”….
Trump to sue DOJ for $100M over Mar-a-Lago raid, alleging ‘political persecution’
Fox News has obtained Trump’s memo claiming “tortious conduct by the United States against President Trump.”
Trump attorney Daniel Epstein filed the notice to sue the Justice Department. The Justice Department has 180 days from the date of receipt to respond to Epstein’s notice and come to a resolution. If no resolution is made, Trump’s case will move to federal court in the Southern District of Florida.
“What President Trump is doing here is not just standing up for himself – he is standing up for all Americans who believe in the rule of law and believe that you should hold the government accountable when it wrongs you,” Trump attorney Daniel Epstein told Fox Business’ Lydia Hu.
Epstein’s filing states that the “tortious acts against the president are rooted in intrusion upon seclusion, malicious prosecution, and abuse of process resulting from the August 8, 2022 raid of his and his family’s home at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach Florida.” Epstein added that the decisions made by the DOJ and FBI regarding that raid were “inconsistent with protocols requiring the consent of an investigative target, disclosure to that individual’s attorneys, and the use of the local U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
Epstein argues the decisions made by Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray were not grounded in “social, economic, and political policy” but instead, in “clear dereliction of constitutional principles, inconsistent standards as applied to” Trump and a “clear intent to engage in political persecution – not to advance good law enforcement practices.” …..
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