NEWS SUMMARY-INTELLIGENCE REPORT MONDAY 12/9/2019

(LIMITED SERVICE WHEN ABLE THROUGH LATE MONDAY)

"....last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report's conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened..."

That is part of the statement of Special Counsel John Durham in response to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on the origins of the Russian collusion probe of President Trump and his campaign in 2016.

Durham conducting a criminal investigation into how the investigation got started and he was joined by the Attorney General William Barr in expressing disagreement with the Inspector General's report.

CNN published this story about the matter.....LINK

The political drama in Washington is at the House Judiciary Committee where the controlling Democrats are moving forward with articles of impeachment against President Trump.

The word tonight is that they will be "abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress".

The final act of the show is the full House vote on impeachment which is anticipated Saturday December 21st right before Hanukkah and Christmas.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky face to face discussing the future of Ukraine in Paris today.

Also in the room with them French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The conflict in Ukraine began in early 2014 when the pro-Russian government was overthrown during the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Russia and Ukraine agreed to full ceasefire by the end of this month and to work towards the withdrawal of forces from three disputed areas of eastern Ukraine by March of 2020.

French President Emmanuel Macron says further talks will be held in four months.

THE CHILEAN AIR FORCE SAYS ITS LOST CONTACT WITH A PLANE BOUND FOR ANTARCTICA CARRYING 38 PEOPLE.    CONTACT LOST AN HOUR AND 18 MINUTES AFTER TAKEOFF THIS EVENING.   

Five are dead after a volcanic eruption on New Zealand's White Island.      Eight others are missing and there are 18 injured survivors, some of them in critical condition with severe burns.

The eruption occurred at 211 pm Monday afternoon in New Zealand (811 pm Sunday night in the Eastern US).

New Zealand authorities say local and foreign tourists were on the island when the "moderate" eruption occurred.

And the authorities say this regarding the missing that there are no signs of life coming from the island.

Now its Tuesday in New Zealand and the focus will be on recovery of the bodies of the eight others believed to be dead on the island.

"One News Now" in New Zealand has summarized Monday's events in a blog......LINK

RUSSIA BANNED FROM MAJOR SPORTING EVENTS BY THE WORLD ANTI-DOPING AGENCY.

THE DECISION BANS RUSSIA FROM THE OLYMPICS IN 2020 AND THE WORLD CUP  OF SOCCER IN 2022.

WADA DECLARING RUSSIA NON-COMPLIANT SAYING IT MANIPULATED TESTING DATA.

RUSSIA CHALLENGING THE RULING AT THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF ARBITRATION.   

MORE FROM TASS NEWS AGENCY IN RUSSIA.....LINK    THE BBC ALSO REPORTS......LINK

A top North Korean official says his country has "nothing to lose".     That's the word Monday from Kim Yong Chol, who is close to ruler Kim Jong-un.     He adds that President Trump is in his words "abnormal and irrational".

The statement today responds to President Trump's tweet yesterday where the President urged North Korea not to move away from denuclearization talks and escalate tensions saying that Kim Jong-un has "too much to lose" if he acts in a "hostile way".

The general strike continued in France today led by railway workers with most rail service suspended in the country.    Some 20 percent of airline service inside France also affected.

Workers protesting pension reform plans of President Emmanuel Macron with union leadership calling for a more intense strike mobilization tomorrow ahead of the government's plan to announce its pension reform on Wednesday.

The leader of France's left-wing "France Insubordinate" party Jean-Luc Melenchon, given a three month suspended prison sentence and fined around 7,200 hundred US dollars by a French court today.

The sentence in connection with a search of party offices by authorities investigating its finances.   During the search Melenchon shoved a police officer and attempted to enter the building.   He was convicted by the court of intimidation of the officials conducting the probe.

IN IRAQ TODAY FOUR ROCKETS STRIKING A MILITARY BASE NEXT TO BAGHDAD'S INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT WOUNDING SIX MEMBERS OF IRAQ'S COUNTER-TERRORISM SERVICE.   TWO OF THEM REPORTED IN CRITICAL CONDITION.

THE US TRAINED COUNTER-TERRORISM SERVICE HAS BEEN USED TO SUPPRESS DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST IRAQ'S GOVERNMENT IN RECENT WEEKS.

US FORCES ARE ALSO PRESENT AT THE BASE AND THE US IS CONSIDERING SENDING MORE MILITARY FORCES TO THE REGION TO COUNTER WHAT IS SAID TO BE AN IRANIAN THREAT.

IRAQ CALLED IN THE AMBASSADORS OF FOUR WESTERN NATIONS TO ITS FOREIGN MINISTRY.     THE BRITISH, CANADIAN, FRENCH AND GERMAN DIPLOMATS REPRIMANDED OVER INTERFERENCE IN IRAQ'S INTERNAL AFFAIRS.

THE FOUR AMBASSADORS HAVE SUPPORTED DEMONSTRATIONS IN THE STREETS OF IRAQ AND CONDEMNED THE TACTICS OF IRAQ'S SECURITY FORCES USED AGAINST THEM.

A meeting in Washington tomorrow between Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.    He is coming to Washington at the invitation of Pompeo.

Issues like Syria and Ukraine said to be topics that will be discussed.

More from the Russian news agency Tass....LINK....It is being reported by Tass today that there are expectations of Mr. Lavrov meeting President Trump tomorrow as well.    

IRAN'S FOREIGN MINISTER JAVAD ZARIF SAYS HIS COUNTRY IS READY FOR A COMPREHENSIVE PRISONER EXCHANGE WITH THE US.    THIS FOLLOWS THE PRISONER EXCHANGE ON SATURDAY THAT INVOLVED AN AMERICAN BEING FREED BY IRAN AND AND IRANIAN BY THE UNITED STATES.

A genocide trial before the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands this week.    Myanmar accused in its treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority.    Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled the country to neighboring Bangladesh following a government crackdown.

Myanmar says that its treatment of the Rohingya is based on its response to terrorist activity launched by the Rohingya.

The de-facto leader of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi is appearing before the ICJ for the trial with the United Nations judges expected to urge her to impose "provisional measures" to protect the Rohingya before the trial proceeds forward.

From the probe into the attack that killed three and wounded eight at the Pensacola Naval Air Station Friday we are being told this.

The Saudi military officer-aviation student responsible for what many outside the highest levels of government consider a terrorist attack was given a "derogatory nickname" by one of his instructors.

The name......

"PORN STASH"

described as a reference to the kind of moustache that a porn actor would have.

(COMMENT:   "Porn Stash" could also be considered a personal collection of porn.    Child pornography was found in a computer linked to the Charlie Hebdo terrorists in France of January 2015.     That prompted the then Mayor of London now British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to refer to the terrorists as "porn addicted losers")

The "New York Times" story that reported about the "derogatory name" matter.......LINK

And a reflection on that Friday attack at the Pensacola Naval Air Station. 

Retired Army colonel Pat Lang, former Arabic instructor at West Point and military attache to Saudi Arabia among other things, says this in part:

"Saudi Arabia was created by the conquest of the Arabian Peninsula after 1900 by tribes loyal to an extreme form of Wahabbi fanatic Islam based on the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam as reinforced by the extremist medieval scholar Ibn Taimmiya.  For him the only good non-Muslims were either slaves or corpses whose women had been taken as booty and distributed among the true Muslims.

This Saudi pseudo state remains largely motivated by the same ideas....."

More from Colonel Lang at this link to his "Sic Semper Tyrannis" blog.....LINK

And for now that's the way it really is Monday December 9th, 2019.