On the Horn of Africa, a tiny 'country' has Congress' ear

FOREIGN POLICY

On the Horn of Africa, a tiny 'country' has Congress' ear

Somaliland's delegation swept through Washington, promising to support Taiwan and ditch China. All it wants is a little recognition.

By PHELIM KINE

12/21/2021 03:07 PM EST

As China floods Africa with billions of dollars in development aid, massive infrastructure investment and even talk of a new military base, a tiny East African “country” is offering the U.S. a deal that it says could counter China’s advance.

And Congress is listening.

Last month, a diplomatic delegation from the self-declared independent republic of Somaliland — which broke away from Somalia in 1991 but has no formal diplomatic ties with major developed nations — worked the halls of Capitol Hill seeking sit-downs with whomever would meet with them. The delegation presented itself to U.S. government agencies and lawmakers as an African ally insulated from the instability and China ties that define many of its neighbors.

Somaliland brought solid anti-China credentials to those meetings: it slammed the door on aid and cooperation with Beijing in July 2020 when it inked a diplomatic relations agreement with Taiwan.

That move infuriated the Chinese government because it marked a rare victory in Taiwan’s battle against Beijing’s diplomatic strangulation of the self-governing island.

Somaliland also has geostrategic potential: its location on the Gulf of Aden and deep-water port of Berbera, into which Dubai’s DP World has poured $442 million to build a new container cargo facility, would allow for naval power protection in the Middle East and East Africa. That’s a serious enticement given U.S. Africa Command’s security concerns about its base in neighboring Djibouti: a Chinese naval installation just a few miles away was stood up in 2017.

“We have come to the U.S. to show them that we have the same enemy, and our long-term strategy is we want to be closer to democracies and market economies like the U.S.,” said Bashir Goth, head of mission at Somaliland’s unofficial outpost in Alexandria, Va. “We are countering China [and] the Chinese influence in the Horn of Africa and we deserve [U.S. government] help.”

That pitch had impact — last week, the first-ever staff congressional delegation visited the territory, marking what the Somaliland Chronicle described as “the highest-level American delegation” in more than a decade. That fact-finding mission included staff members of Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The staffers returned home convinced of Somaliland’s value to the U.S. in countering China’s regional influence, said Piero Tozzi, senior foreign policy adviser for Smith.

“As China becomes more aggressive in pushing its debt trap model in Africa — the indebtedness of Djibouti and the transfer of control of Entebbe airport in Uganda provide it with political leverage in these countries — Somaliland becomes increasingly significant,” Tozzi said. “I would hope that the U.S. government will start to deal directly with the government in Hargeisa instead of going via Mogadishu, and join countries such as the United Kingdom, Ethiopia and the UAE in opening a representative office.”

In D.C., Somaliland’s delegation, which included Foreign Minister Essa Kayd Mohamoud and special envoy Edna Adan Ismail, made that same pitch for greater engagement and diplomatic relations when they visited congressional offices in November. They also want the U.S. government to remove Somaliland from its inclusion in the State Department’s “Level 4: Do not travel” classification for Somalia, which is wracked by political turmoil and violence from the al Qaeda-affiliated extremist group al-Shabab. That classification warns of hazards, including “car bombs, suicide bombers, individual attackers, and mortar fire” that are unknown in Somaliland.

“We are a safe country free of al-Shabab and al Qaeda terrorists,” Kayd said — an opinion echoed by the Lonely Planet travel guide company.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who serves on the Africa subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says he’s all-in — not least because of the potential for U.S. access to the Berbera port. The diplomatically isolated territory offers the U.S. a regional bulwark against “China’s efforts to bully its way into various economies,” Van Hollen said.

China's superpower status in Africa

That may be wishful thinking, given the level of China’s economic influence in Africa. Since 2000, the Chinese government has super-charged engagement through its Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. Chinese government data notes construction of “6,000 kilometers of railways and roads… nearly 20 ports and more than 80 large power plants” across the continent. And that’s not even counting the total investments of Chinese state-owned and private sector investments in African countries, which totaled $4.2 billion in 2020 alone. Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged in December 2021 to increase the value of African exports to China $300 billion annually within three years from a current level of around $200 billion.

Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative has also lavished hundreds of billions of dollars in loans for infrastructure development projects in 40 African states since 2013. Those loans prompted then-USAID Administrator Mark Green in 2019 to accuse the Chinese government of state-backed predatory lending practices, something Beijing denies. China has also expanded military links in Africa through its naval port in Djibouti, a new base planned for Equatorial Guinea and through a sharp increase in training programs for African military personnel since 2006.

“My view is that the United States should be more engaged with Somaliland [and] what we're looking at is the opening of an office in Somaliland that would include some diplomatic representation... possibly a military liaison,” said Van Hollen. “China's mercantilist approach to the continent, and the fact that they use their centralized economic levers to exact concessions from these countries [makes] this is an opportunity to expand U.S. diplomatic presence in the region.”

Goth and the Somaliland delegation also met with representatives of the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, State Department and USAID. In those meetings, the Somalilanders made the case that the self-declared republic, a former British protectorate with 530 miles of coastline on the Gulf of Aden wedged between Djibouti, Somalia and Ethiopia, should be the U.S. government’s newest best friend on the continent.

Kayd said that the delegation reached an agreement with U.S. officials “to establish a framework for U.S.-Somaliland cooperation.” That may include allowing USAID to operate regional foreign aid operations from Somaliland as well as a currently undefined U.S. government “presence” in the territory, he added.

USAID, State and DoD offered a more ambiguous account of those meetings. A USAID written statement didn’t disclose any possible plans to use Somaliland as a conduit to neighboring Ethiopia and other African states. State said that in its meeting with Essa, it “expressed a willingness to explore opportunities to cooperate with Somaliland on issues of mutual interest,” a sentiment echoed by DoD, a State Department spokesperson told POLITICO.

All three agencies referenced the diplomatic awkwardness of Somaliland’s strained relationship with Somalia, which still claims sovereignty over the breakaway state 30 years after it unilaterally seceded. They expressed support for the “territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia, which includes Somaliland” and urged a “mutually acceptable solution on the question of Somaliland’s status,” the spokesperson said. In those meetings, U.S. government agencies “did not discuss on-the-ground presence of U.S. military personnel or equipment” in Somaliland, a senior administration official told POLITICO.

That ambiguity reflects U.S. sensitivities to concerns that greater international engagement with Somaliland might inspire restive regions across the continent, including in Cameroon, Ghana and Tanzania, to redouble efforts to seek independence.

“It has a very strong case [for diplomatic recognition], but its practicalities which are keeping international recognition because the African Union is scared to death of promoting fragmentation of some of its major members,” said Tibor Nagy, former assistant secretary of State for African Affairs.

Turning to Taiwan

Somaliland’s answer to that diplomatic impasse is a risky geopolitical chess move: embrace Taiwan. In July 2020, Somaliland and Taiwan sealed a bilateral relations deal that opened the door for Taiwanese investment and assistance and allowed both territories to open representative offices in each other’s capitals. A furious Beijing, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, reportedly sought to derail that agreement by offering Somaliland’s government sweeteners, including investment in airport and road projects.

But Somaliland stood firm with Taiwan and its offer of less capital-intensive investments in “fisheries, agriculture, energy, mining, public health [and] education.”

That’s been a win for both Taiwan as well as for Somaliland’s efforts to explicitly brand itself as Africa’s sole opponent to Chinese authoritarianism. “We have values and democracy and respect for human rights, and we want to run our government the way we want [so] we prefer to have Taiwan rather than China which is a dictatorship,” Kayd said.

Somaliland’s alliance with Taiwan is also strategic: it seeks to tap the self-governing island’s 50 years of experience in navigating international relations without a United Nations’ seat and with few — and often unreliable — diplomatic allies.

Taiwan’s value has grown in recent months as the U.S. has responded to intensifying military intimidation from China by boosting bilateral ties and inviting Taiwan representatives to President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy earlier this month. “The philosophy of the relationship between Taiwan and Somaliland is we’re in the same boat,” said Kayd. “We are both navigating together toward that goal of being countries that are free from China [influence].”

Taiwan sees a diplomatic foothold in Somaliland as an entry point for developing wider and deeper relations with other east African nations. Taiwan hopes such ties can provide some relief from Beijing’s efforts to diplomatically isolate the self-governing island. Taiwan’s diplomatic allies around the globe have shrunk to just 14 since Nicaragua switched ties to China on Dec. 9; its sole other ally on the continent is the monarchy of Eswatini in southern Africa, population 1.2 million.

The U.S. is unlikely to embrace Somaliland with full diplomatic recognition. But given the intensifying geostrategic competition between the U.S. and China in Africa — particularly for the mineral resources that will power the clean energy of the future — time is on Somaliland’s side.

“It took a while for people to realize the threat that China represents in Africa as we move into the 21st century … the United States is coming to this game late,” Nagy said.

© 2021 POLITICO LLC

HAPPY New Year 2022

Cyber Mercenaries’: How Israel’s Spyware Industry Is Getting Slammed Around the World

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'Cyber Mercenaries’: How Israel’s Spyware Industry Is Getting Slammed Around the World

U.S. blacklisting and scathing reports by Google and Facebook-owner Meta are only some of the steps being taken against Israeli firms that are not being properly supervised by agencies at home

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Sagi Cohen

21.12.2021 | 17:07 

At first glance, the Israeli startup Cobwebs Technologies seems like just another cybercompany. On its website, the firm proudly declares that it’s “a world leader in web intelligence.” In 2019, when it announced that it had raised $10 million, the company claimed to have developed a search engine for intelligence information and said it wanted to be the “Google for intelligence.”

Early in the coronavirus crisis, Cobwebs announced that it had developed a product that would predict the spread of the pandemic, and even boasted that it was working with the Defense Ministry’s Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure.

But the report released Thursday by Meta, Facebook’s parent company, exposes a more secretive element of the company’s activities. The report describes Cobwebs, three other Israeli companies and three outfits from India, China and North Macedonia as “cyber mercenaries.”

According to Meta, Cobwebs activates counterfeit accounts for its clients that conduct surveillance online, including on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter. For example, the clients can collect information on activists, politicians and government officials around the world.

The counterfeit accounts also join communities and forums, tricking people to reveal personal data and later hacking the targets’ phones or computers. Cobwebs has clients in the United States but also in Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

Meta’s report was anything but circumspect. It named the Israeli companies Cobwebs, Cognyte, Bluehawk and Black Cube, as well as North Macedonia’s Cytrox (which is apparently Israeli-owned), India-based firm BellTroX and “an unknown entity in China.” They are described as belonging to a “global surveillance-for-hire industry” whose methods are similar to that of the Israeli company NSO Group Technologies.

“Given the severity of their violations, we have banned them from our services,” Meta writes. “We also alerted around 50,000 people who we believe were targeted by these malicious activities worldwide, using the alert system we launched in 2015. We recently updated it to provide people with more granular details about the types of targeting and the actor behind it so they can take steps to protect their accounts, depending on the phase of the surveillance attack chain we detect in each case.

For the most part, the cybersecurity industry operates under the radar. While most companies don’t specialize in sophisticated hacking tools like NSO, the targets and methods are similar. These companies make sure they operate in a legally gray area and consider themselves legitimate intelligence-gathering firms.

Indeed, intelligence collection by countries and companies is done as a matter of course. Though some of the firms say their tools help fight terror or crime, Facebook is shining a spotlight on, for example, the hacking of devices of journalists, human rights activists and regime opponents in some 100 countries, including non-democracies.

Inthe report, Meta doesn’t discuss the clients’ motives, but these might include companies’ collecting intelligence on competitors, regimes surveilling their opponents, and people or organizations gathering intelligence for extortion or legal claims. “Find some dirt on him for me,” CEOs and politicians around the world might tell their people – who then contact the Israeli spyware purveyors.

Meta’s report is rare; the company hardly ever gets down to this level of detail. The cybersecurity companies gather intelligence by exploiting the platforms owned by Meta – WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. This lets Meta’s investigators identify the targets, clients and methods of operation. 

Inthe first stage, the counterfeit account makes contact with the target and persuades him or her to carry on a conversation and provide information such as contact details or passwords.

In the second stage, surveillance software is implanted in the target’s phone or computer; it can be a sophisticated cyberwarfare tool or merely an off-the-shelf product. Either way, it allows full surveillance of one’s digital life. The Israeli companies named by Meta either performed some or both of these stages.

Social engineering

Besides Cobwebs, Meta also named Cognyte, the firm headed by Elad Sharon that was spun off from Israeli company Verint in 2019. According to the report, Cognyte sells tools to manage counterfeit accounts on social media sites from Facebook to YouTube to Russia’s Vkontakte. The tools, Meta says, allow clients “to social-engineer people and collect data.”

In other words, they get the victim to, for example, reveal sensitive details or click on a malicious link. Cognyte’s clients are located in countries including Israel, Colombia, Kenya, Morocco, Jordan and Indonesia. Among the targets: journalists and politicians.

Black Cube, a corporate intelligence company headed by Dan Zorella, is already familiar with controversy. According to Meta, the company enables clients to pose as other people and acquire a person’s email address for the purpose of phishing attacks.

Targets have been identified in the medical industry, mining, energy and among nonprofit groups. Other targets have included Palestinian activists, people in the Russian media, and experts in academia, high tech and finance.

Bluehawk, headed by Guy Klisman, an alumnus of Israeli Military Intelligence’s research division, provides spyware options including the collecting of legal information and the management of counterfeit accounts designed to persuade people to install malware. One common practice is to pose as a journalist. Victims have included Emirati and Qatari politicians and business people. 

Another firm mentioned by Meta is North Macedonia-based Cytrox, which develops hacking tools similar to those of NSO. According to a report by Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto research group that focuses on abuses of surveillance technology, Cytrox has close ties with organizations and businesspeople in Israel. According to a 2019 article in Forbes, Cytrox was acquired by the Israeli Tal Dillian, a former commander of a Military Intelligence technology unit and now a cyberwarfare entrepreneur.

Meta attacking Israel?

Gathering information on users, of course, is at the heart of Meta’s business model, and the company controlled by Mark Zuckerberg has been implicated in its own surveillance and information-collection scandals such as the Cambridge Analytica affair. Facebook also bought the Israeli app Onavo that let Facebook gather data on its users’ actions.

Sources close to Cobwebs attack Meta. “Facebook first chose to go to the media and only later informed the companies. If they were truly concerned about their users’ well-being, they would have first approached the companies and not the media, as is customary,” one source said.

"Cobwebs is a standard company; there are dozens like it around the world. Not one of its many competitors in the United States or Europe is mentioned in the report, which leads you to the conclusion that this is a well-orchestrated attack against Israeli companies in an attempt to show that Meta is protecting its users.”

Meanwhile, digital surveillance and spyware tools have become an extremely popular export sector for Israel. These companies exploit the abundance of information amassed over the years by the IDF in the cyber and intelligence fields and combine it with prowess in information analysis and digital advertising. Thus they’re strong technically, but sometimes ethically less so.

There is nothing new about Israeli high-tech firms operating in gray areas when it comes to violating privacy and acquiring data. For instance, the software company Glassbox got in trouble with Apple after it was revealed that it enabled apps to secretly record iPhone users’ actions.

Also, an add-on of the Israeli company Similarweb was blocked by Google’s Chrome browser because it tracked users’ web surfing, while a VPN add-on of the Israeli company Hola (of the outfit now known as Bright Data) has been repeatedly accused of violations of privacy and data security – until is was recently blocked and removed by Chrome.

But the companies named by Meta do espionage of an entirely different level. It’s very possible that these firms aren’t taking into account that the rules of the game are starting to change.

The Meta report is part of a wave of events showing that the technology sector’s patience with spyware companies is wearing thin. The tech giants may themselves be intelligence gathering empires, but they’re less conciliatory when it comes to Israeli third-party companies exploiting their platforms to conduct surveillance and collect data on their users.

Israel lacks supervision

Similarly, governments and regulatory agencies in the United States and Europe are beginning to realize that the phenomenon must be addressed. “It’s significant, because it shows this is not the problem of a single company or a handful of companies. It’s an industry-wide problem,” John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, told Bloomberg.

The evidence is what has happened in recent months to NSO. Despite its claims that it’s working against terror and crime, it has been sued by Facebook and Apple, with the U.S. administration slapping on sanctions (and on another Israeli cyberwarfare company, Candiru).

Last week, Google released a report with unprecedented detail on the methods of Pegasus, the hacking tool developed by NSO. According to foreign media reports, all this has gotten NSO to consider shutting down or selling its cyberwarfare operations.

Should this process worsen, the Israeli cyberwarfare and spyware industries, which still enjoy freedom of action, will have to show greater accountability, change the way they operate, become more transparent, alter their business models or maybe even close down. This wouldn’t be the first time; pressure from the technology giants once destroyed an entire industry that developed in Israel: invasive toolbars that took over people’s browsers and computers. A clutch of Israeli companies had to shut down or change direction.

Should this process worsen, the Israeli cyberwarfare and spyware industries, which still enjoy freedom of action, will have to show greater accountability, change the way they operate, become more transparent, alter their business models or maybe even close down. This wouldn’t be the first time; pressure from the technology giants once destroyed an entire industry that developed in Israel: invasive toolbars that took over people’s browsers and computers. A clutch of Israeli companies had to shut down or change direction.

Yet somehow all the pressure on Israeli companies is coming from foreign governments and corporations. Aside from the media and a few civil society groups, no government ministry, agency or regulator – not the departments that oversee exports at the economics and defense ministries, not the Privacy Protection Authority and not the National Cyber Directorate – have expressed any special interest in supervising or restricting use of dubious practices of Israeli spyware companies.

These companies offer their services to nondemocratic regimes, and this is happening even though most of these firms depend on the expertise of IDF veterans.

Black Cube said in a statement: “Black Cube does not engage in any phishing or hacking and does not operate in the cyberworld. Black Cube is a litigation support firm that uses legal human-intelligence investigation methods to obtain information for litigations and arbitrations. Black Cube works with the world’s leading law firms in proving bribery, uncovering corruption and recovering hundreds of millions in stolen assets. Black Cube obtains legal advice in every jurisdiction in which we operate in order to ensure that all our agents’ activities are fully compliant with local laws.”

Cobweb said: “Our products are based on open source data and we operate solely in accordance with the law and the strictest standards of privacy protection.”

Bluehawk said: “The Bluehawk company rejects the claims of Meta, whose representatives have never made contact with the company to clarify matters. The company operates in business information research and support for litigation procedures, and does not engage in any way in espionage or phishing, and is not close in its operations to the companies listed by Meta, because the research and collection is carried out solely from open sources.”

Cognyte did not immediately comment.

What does the Bible say about Negative ?Thinking100 Bible Verses aboutNegative Thinking

What does the Bible say about 

Negative Thinking

100 Bible Verses about

Negative Thinking

 

Habtamu_abino@aol.com 

Philippians 4:8-9 ESV / 388 helpful votes 

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

1 Peter 5:8 ESV / 339 helpful votes 

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Luke 6:37 ESV / 272 helpful votes 

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 ESV / 262 helpful votes 

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV / 261 helpful votes 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Isaiah 41:10 ESV / 234 helpful votes 

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Psalm 94:19 ESV / 213 helpful votes 

When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.

Isaiah 26:3 ESV / 198 helpful votes 

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

James 3:14-15 ESV / 164 helpful votes 

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

Proverbs 4:23 ESV / 163 helpful votes 

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Hebrews 4:12 ESV / 162 helpful votes 

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

1 John 1:9 ESV / 138 helpful votes 

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Psalm 37:1-40 ESV / 135 helpful votes 

Of David. Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. ...

Romans 12:1-2 ESV / 107 helpful votes 

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Revelation 21:4 ESV / 104 helpful votes 

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Psalm 23:1-6 ESV / 104 helpful votes 

A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. ...

2 Timothy 1:7 ESV / 100 helpful votes 

For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

Mark 11:23 ESV / 94 helpful votes 

Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

John 8:44 ESV / 83 helpful votes 

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Hebrews 11:6 ESV / 79 helpful votes 

And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Ephesians 6:17 ESV / 73 helpful votes 

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,

2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV / 72 helpful votes 

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

Galatians 5:21 ESV / 71 helpful votes 

Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Romans 10:4 ESV / 66 helpful votes 

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Philippians 2:5 ESV / 63 helpful votes 

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

1 Peter 3:18 ESV / 54 helpful votes 

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,

Luke 16:19-31 ESV / 54 helpful votes 

“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. ...

Isaiah 54:17 ESV / 53 helpful votes 

No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord.”

1 Peter 5:10 ESV / 52 helpful votes 

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

Proverbs 23:7 ESV / 48 helpful votes 

For he is like one who is inwardly calculating. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.

Galatians 5:22 ESV / 42 helpful votes 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

Matthew 6:23 ESV / 38 helpful votes 

But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Galatians 6:7 ESV / 35 helpful votes 

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

1 Corinthians 11:1-34 ESV / 35 helpful votes 

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. ...

1 Chronicles 16:11 ESV / 34 helpful votes 

Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!

1 Thessalonians 5:18 ESV / 33 helpful votes 

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Psalm 100:1-5 ESV / 33 helpful votes 

A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Luke 6:45 ESV / 30 helpful votes 

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Isaiah 49:24-26 ESV / 30 helpful votes 

Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? For thus says the Lord: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued, for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children. I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Proverbs 15:1 ESV / 30 helpful votes 

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Matthew 21:22 ESV / 28 helpful votes 

And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

1 John 4:4 ESV / 27 helpful votes 

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Matthew 15:11 ESV / 27 helpful votes 

It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”

Psalm 19:14 ESV / 27 helpful votes 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Romans 12:2 ESV / 24 helpful votes 

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

John 14:27 ESV / 24 helpful votes 

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Matthew 17:1-9 ESV / 24 helpful votes 

And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” ...

Psalm 95:2 ESV / 22 helpful votes 

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

2 Corinthians 11:3 ESV / 20 helpful votes 

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

Psalm 27:13 ESV / 20 helpful votes 

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!

1 Samuel 30:6 ESV / 20 helpful votes 

And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.

Psalm 119:11 ESV / 19 helpful votes 

I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

Psalm 100:4 ESV / 19 helpful votes 

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!

Esther 5:1-14 ESV / 18 helpful votes 

On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king's palace, in front of the king's quarters, while the king was sitting on his royal throne inside the throne room opposite the entrance to the palace. And when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she won favor in his sight, and he held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. Then Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter. And the king said to her, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you, even to the half of my kingdom.” And Esther said, “If it please the king, let the king and Haman come today to a feast that I have prepared for the king.” Then the king said, “Bring Haman quickly, so that we may do as Esther has asked.” So the king and Haman came to the feast that Esther had prepared. ...

Ephesians 5:20 ESV / 17 helpful votes 

Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

1 Corinthians 4:5 ESV / 16 helpful votes 

Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

Daniel 11:14-12:13 ESV / 16 helpful votes 

“In those times many shall rise against the king of the south, and the violent among your own people shall lift themselves up in order to fulfill the vision, but they shall fail. Then the king of the north shall come and throw up siegeworks and take a well-fortified city. And the forces of the south shall not stand, or even his best troops, for there shall be no strength to stand. But he who comes against him shall do as he wills, and none shall stand before him. And he shall stand in the glorious land, with destruction in his hand. He shall set his face to come with the strength of his whole kingdom, and he shall bring terms of an agreement and perform them. He shall give him the daughter of women to destroy the kingdom, but it shall not stand or be to his advantage. Afterward he shall turn his face to the coastlands and shall capture many of them, but a commander shall put an end to his insolence. Indeed, he shall turn his insolence back upon him. ...

Psalm 139:17 ESV / 16 helpful votes 

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

James 1:2-4 ESV / 15 helpful votes 

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Romans 8:1-39 ESV / 15 helpful votes 

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ...

1 Peter 1:1-25 ESV / 14 helpful votes 

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ...

James 4:1-17 ESV / 14 helpful votes 

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? ...

James 3:11-18 ESV / 14 helpful votes 

Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. ...

Ephesians 4:1-32 ESV / 14 helpful votes 

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ...

Romans 1:28 ESV / 14 helpful votes 

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

Proverbs 17:13-28 ESV / 14 helpful votes 

If anyone returns evil for good, evil will not depart from his house. The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out. He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord. Why should a fool have money in his hand to buy wisdom when he has no sense? A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. ...

Joshua 1:9 ESV / 13 helpful votes 

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Philippians 4:1-23 ESV / 12 helpful votes 

Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; ...

Ephesians 4:25-6:12 ESV / 12 helpful votes 

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. ...

Jonah 2:1-10 ESV / 12 helpful votes 

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, saying, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’ The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head ...

Proverbs 17:22-18:12 ESV / 12 helpful votes 

A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. The wicked accepts a bribe in secret to pervert the ways of justice. The discerning sets his face toward wisdom, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth. A foolish son is a grief to his father and bitterness to her who bore him. To impose a fine on a righteous man is not good, nor to strike the noble for their uprightness. ...

Deuteronomy 6:1-25 ESV / 12 helpful votes 

“Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ...

Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV / 11 helpful votes 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

2 Timothy 2:11-12 ESV / 11 helpful votes 

The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;

Revelation 20:7-22:12 ESV / 10 helpful votes 

And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. ...

Revelation 1:1-20 ESV / 10 helpful votes 

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood ...

Hebrews 12:20-13:6 ESV / 10 helpful votes 

For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. ...

Colossians 3:1-4:18 ESV / 10 helpful votes 

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. ...

2 Corinthians 6:1-7:16 ESV / 10 helpful votes 

Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; ...

2 Corinthians 4:1-18 ESV / 10 helpful votes 

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. ...

Jeremiah 29:11-13 ESV / 10 helpful votes 

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Proverbs 18:14-21 ESV / 10 helpful votes 

A man's spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear? An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. A man's gift makes room for him and brings him before the great. The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him. The lot puts an end to quarrels and decides between powerful contenders. ...

Proverbs 16:1-33 ESV / 10 helpful votes 

The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished. ...

Proverbs 3:1-4:27 ESV / 10 helpful votes 

My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. ...

Psalm 119:28-50 ESV / 10 helpful votes 

My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word! Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law! I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me. I cling to your testimonies, O Lord; let me not be put to shame! I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart! ...

1 John 4:1-5:21 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. ...

Romans 8:28 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

John 16:13-33 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?” ...

Luke 10:1-11:54 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ ...

Matthew 14:23-36 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” ...

Matthew 12:34-45 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” ...

Matthew 2:12-23 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. ...

Daniel 1:1-2:49 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god. Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king's palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate, and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king. ...

Jeremiah 42:1-22 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

Then all the commanders of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least to the greatest, came near and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Let our plea for mercy come before you, and pray to the Lord your God for us, for all this remnant—because we are left with but a few, as your eyes see us— that the Lord your God may show us the way we should go, and the thing that we should do.” Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Behold, I will pray to the Lord your God according to your request, and whatever the Lord answers you I will tell you. I will keep nothing back from you.” Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the Lord your God sends you to us. ...

Isaiah 37:1-38:22 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

As soon as King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the Lord. And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz. They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the Lord your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’” When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, ...

Psalm 119:55-98 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law. This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts. The Lord is my portion; I promise to keep your words. I entreat your favor with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise. When I think on my ways, I turn my feet to your testimonies; ...

1 Samuel 5:1-6:21 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him. This is why the priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day. ...

1 Samuel 1:1-2:36 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

There was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, an Ephrathite. He had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. Now this man used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord. On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. ...

Deuteronomy 34:1-12 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the Valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. And the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, ...

Exodus 16:1-17:16 ESV / 8 helpful votes 

They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.” ...

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Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com. Cite this page: Editor: Stephen Smith. Publication date: Dec 18, 2021. Publisher: OpenBible.info.

SANA'A FORUM AGREEMENT

         Agreement Establishing
The Sana'a Forum for Cooperation

The Republic of the Sudan, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the Republic of Yemen, having decided to establish the Sana'a Forum for Cooperation;

Cognizant of the need to further enhance the materialization of economic, political, social and cultural development, integration ad prosperity of their peoples;

Convinced that the promotion and strengthening of close cooperation among the member countries will contribute to the promotion of peace, security and stability in the Horn of Africa and the Southern Red Sea;

Stressing the importance of maintaining and strengthening regular consultations and coordination on all matters of common concern;

Reaffirming the need to establish a framework for cooperative management and its implementation among the member countries;

Reiterating their full adherence to the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter, particularly the principles of respect for territorial integrity and political independence of all states and peaceful settlement of disputes;

Have agreed as follows:

Article I
Definitions
In this Agreement, unless the context means otherwise, the following words shall have the specified meanings:

"Agreement" shall mean the Agreement Establishing the Sana'a Forum for Cooperation;

"Forum" shall mean the Sana'a Forum for Cooperation established by this Agreement.

"Member State" shall mean a member State of the Forum

"Summit" shall mean the Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Forum.

"Executive Committee" shall mean the Committee of Foreign Ministers of the Member States.

"Specialized Committee" shall mean the committees of the Forum at the levels of Ministers, Ambassadors, heads of agencies or departments.

Article II
Establishment and Members of the Forum
1. The Sana'a Forum for Cooperation (SFC) is hereby established.

2. The founding Members of the Forum are the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the Republic of the Sudan and the Republic of Yemen.

3. Membership is open to any country of the Horn of Africa and the Southern Red Sea region that is committed to and recognizes the objectives of this Agreement.

4. New members are admitted by unanimous agreement of the founding Members of the Forum.

Article III
Objectives
The following shall be the objectives of the Forum;

1. Promotion of cooperation among the Member States to fulfill the aspirations of their peoples for economic, social and cultural development.

2. Maintenance of peace, security and stability for the Horn of Africa and the Southern Red Sea region ;

3. Promotion of cooperation among the Member States in areas of joint investment and smooth movement of capital and combating of all forms of smuggling;

4. Further strengthening of the historic, social and cultural relations that bind the peoples of the Horn of Africa and the Southern Red Sea;

5. Prevention and peaceful settlements of disputes; resolution of conflicts among the Members States of the sub-region through dialogue and by other peaceful means; and

6. Mutual assistance and coordination of regional efforts in the fight against international terrorism.

Article IV
Organs
1. The Organs of the Forum shall be:

1. The Summit:

2. The Executive Committee: and

3. The specialized Committees:

Political;

Peace and Security; and Economic and Trade.

2. The Executive Committee may, whenever it is deemed appropriate, establish additional Specialized-Committees.

Article V
The Summit
1. The Summit shall be the supreme organ of the Forum

2. The Summit shall oversee the implementation of the objectives of the Forum

Article VI
The Executive Committee
1. The Executive Committee shall be composed of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Member States.

2. The Executive Committee shall be responsible for the functioning and development of the Forum.

3. To this end, it shall :

a. make recommendation to the Summit on any action aimed at attaining the objectives of the Forum.

b. guide the activities of the Specialized Committees:

c. submit to the Summit proposals concerning programs of activities:

d. examines the reports it receives from the Specialized Committees and submit same to the Summit; and

e. carry out all other functions assigned thereto under this Agreement and exercise all powers designated to it by the Summit.

Article VII
The specialized Committees
1. The Specialized Committees shall comprise a representative or representatives of each Member State.
2. Each Specialized Committee within its area of competence :

a. prepares action plans of the Forum and submit same to the Executive Committee for approval ;

b. ensures the coordination, follow-up and evaluation of the implementation of decisions taken by the Executive Committee and / or the Summit;

c. ensures the coordination and harmonization of the activities of the Forum;

d. Submits to the Executive Committee, either on its own initiative or at the request of the Executive Committee, reports on its activities and recommendations on the implementation of the objectives of the Agreement; and

e. Carries out any other functions assigned to it by the Executive Committee.

Article VIII
Focal Point
Each Member State shall designate a relevant Government institution to serve as a focal point for the respective Organs of the Forum.

Article IX
Meetings and Decision Making
1. The Summit shall meet once a year in ordinary session. The Executive Committee and the Specialized Committees shall also hold their regular meetings at least every six months.

2. Any Member State may, where there arises a need, request the convening of an extraordinary meeting.

3. Unless otherwise agreed, the venue shall be by rotation.

4. The Executive Committee and the Specialized Committees shall prepare their respective rules of procedures and submit same to the Summit and the Executive Committee, respectively, for approval.

5. The hosting Member State shall serve as Chairperson of the Forum up the next Summit meeting.

6. All decisions shall be passed by consensus.

Article X
Amendments
1. Any Member State may submit proposals for the amendment of this Agreement
2. Proposal for amendments shall be submitted to, and examined by the Executive Committee, which shall submit same to the Summit for approval.

Article XI
Withdrawal
Any Member State wishing to withdraw from the Forum may do so by giving one-year notice in writing to the Chairperson of the Forum who will circulate it to the Member States within two months of receiving it. Upon the expiration of this period, that Member State shall, if the notice is not withdrawn, cease to be a member of the Forum.

Article XII
Entry into Force
This Agreement shall come into force the day when the last of the founding Member States inform the other two of the finalization of the legal process in accordance with its legislative requirements.

Signed this 29th Day of the Month of December 2003, in Addis Ababa, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, in Arabic, Amharic and English languages, all being equally authentic.

H.E. Omer Hassan Ahmed El bashir
President of the Republic
of the Sudan H.E. Ato Meles Zenawi
Prime Minister of the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
H.E. Mr. Ali Abdullah Saleh
President of the Republic of Yemen

That is why we call the PP government The Ortho-Amhara government.

ልብ በል ወገን አዲስ ድምፅ በተከታታይ ጠቅላዩ ጦርነቱን የሞት የሽረት ጉዳይ አድርገው እንዲሰሩበት እና ከእየ ክልሉ መሪዎች በተጨማሪም ከፋኖ፤ ከልዩ ሃይል እና ከመከላከያ መሪወች ጋር በጋራ በአንድ መድረክ እየቀረቡ ሁላችንንም እንዲያስተባብሩ ስንለምናቸው ከርመናል ፡ዛሬ  በከፊልም ቢሆን  ይህንኑ ለማድረግ ባህርዳር መግባታቸውን ሰምተናል ፡እንግዲህ ጦርነቱን በሚመጥነው መንገድ ብቸኛ ስራቸው አርገው ጊዜ እና እድል የሰጣቸውን የእምየን ወንበር በክብሩ ልክ አገር ለማዳን ሊጠቀሙበት ግድ ይላቸዋል፡፡

ምንም እንኳን በርካታ የጦር አዋቂወች እንዳሉን ብንጠረጥርም ፡ ህውሃት ጥይትም ምግብም ነዳጅም ከትግራ ማመላለስ እንዳለባት የሚያውቁት ጉዳይ ነው፡ ከትግራይ ወደ አማራ ክልል የሚያስገቡት መንገዶች ደግሞ የህውሃት የደም ስር መሆናቸው የታወቀ ነው፡እነዚህ መንገዶች ዘርፈው የሚወስዱባቸው እና በተለይ ለመግደል ሃይል የሚያመላልሱባቸው መንገዶች ብቻ ሳይሆኑ አጋሮቻቸውም ናቸው ፡እና የመጀመሪያው ስራ መውጫ መግቢያውን አየር ሃይላችን ቢቆጣጠረው መልካም ነው።

ከስድስት ሚሊወን የወጣ ሃይልን መሮቶ የሚያሸንፍ መሪ ካለ ከመቶ አስራ አራት ሚሊወን የሚወጣን ሃይል የሚመራ መሪ ከተሸነፈ መሪ አልነበረም ማለት ነው። ህውሃት በፍፁም ከአቅማችን በላይ  ሊሆን አይችልም  ፡፡አበበ በለው

Usain Bolt

BY Sieg Lindstrom Last Updated: Aug 17, 2021 | View Edit History

TOP QUESTIONS

How did Usain Bolt become famous?

What was Usain Bolt’s childhood like?

Usain Bolt was the son of grocers in Jamaica’s rural Trelawny parish. He excelled as a cricket fast bowler in his preteen years and developed a deep affection for the European football (soccer) teams Real Madrid and Manchester United.

What did Usain Bolt accomplish?

FULL ARTICLE

Usain Bolt, in full Usain St. Leo Bolt, (born August 21, 1986, Montego Bay, Jamaica), Jamaican sprinter who won gold medals in the 100-metre and 200-metre races in an unprecedented three straight Olympic Games and is widely considered the greatest sprinter of all time.

Usain Bolt

Usain Bolt

Born: August 21, 1986 (age 35) Montego Bay Jamaica

Awards And Honors: Olympic Games

Bolt, the son of grocers in Jamaica’s rural Trelawny parish, excelled as a cricket fast bowler in his preteen years. He developed a deep affection for the European football (soccer) teams Real Madrid and Manchester United, but his school coaches steered him toward track and field. Bolt first marked himself as a track prodigy at the 2002 world junior championships. In that meet, racing before a crowd of 36,000 in Jamaica’s National Stadium in Kingston, Bolt—just 15 years old at the time—won gold in the 200 metres, becoming the youngest-ever male world junior champion in any event. At age 16 Bolt cut the junior (age 19 and under) 200-metre world record to 20.13 sec, and at 17 he ran the event in 19.93 sec, becoming the first teenager to break 20 seconds in the race. However, hampered by a hamstring injury, he failed to advance beyond the 200-metre heats at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and placed last in the 2005 world track-and-field championships final.

At 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 metres), Bolt defied the conventional wisdom that very tall sprinters are disadvantaged as fast starters. In 2007 he appeared newly dedicated to his training and earned a silver medal in the 200 metres at the world championships. He also persuaded his coach to let him try the 100 metres, and he ran 10.03 sec in his first professional race at the distance. On May 3, 2008, he lowered his best time to 9.76 sec, then the world’s second fastest mark. Four weeks later in New York City, Bolt broke the world record, running 9.72 sec to defeat world champion Tyson Gay.

At the 2008 Olympic Games, Bolt became the first man since American Carl Lewis in 1984 to win the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4 × 100-metre relay in a single Olympics and the first ever to set world records (9.69 sec, 19.30 sec, and 37.10 sec, respectively) in all three events. (However, a failed drug test by one of his 4 × 100 teammates led to Bolt’s having his gold medal in that event stripped.) His 0.66-sec winning margin in the 200-metre race was the largest in Olympic history, and his 0.20-sec edge over the second-place finisher in the 100 metres, despite beginning his victory celebration about 80 metres into the race, was the largest since Lewis won by the same margin. At the 2009 world championships, Bolt shattered his 100-metre record, winning the event final in 9.58 sec. Four days later he broke his own 200-metre record by the same 0.11-sec margin to win a second gold medal at the world championships.

Bolt was the heavy favourite in the sprint events heading into the 2011 world championships, but a false start disqualified him from the 100-metre final. Despite failing to medal in his signature race, Bolt recovered to capture golds in the 200 metres and the 4 × 100-metre relay, helping to set a new world record in the latter event. At the 2012 Olympics in London, Bolt defended his titles in the 100-metre and 200-metre events (setting an Olympic record in the former) to become the first person to win both races in consecutive Olympiads. In 2013 he won three gold medals at the world championships (100 metres, 200 metres, and 4 × 100-metre relay).

At the 2015 world championships Bolt again won gold medals in his three signature events (100 metres, 200 metres, and 4 × 100-metre relay), and his fourth career 200-metre gold extended his record for most wins in that race at the world championships. He cemented his role as the best sprinter in history at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games, where he captured golds in the 100-metre, 200-metre, and 4 × 100-metre relay events, becoming the first person to win golds in the two individual sprints in three straight Olympics. He retired from athletics after the 2017 world championships, where he won a bronze medal in the 100-metre sprint and finished in eighth place as a member of the 4 × 100-metre relay team after injuring a hamstring during the final.

Sprint, also called dash, in athletics (track and field), a footrace over a short distance with an all-out or nearly all-out burst of speed, the chief distances being 100, 200, and 400 metres and 100, 220, and 440 yards.

Start of a women's 100-metre sprint

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Key People: Jesse Owens Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Shirley Strickland de la Hunty Charley Paddock Marie-José Pérec

Related Topics: Running 100-metre race 200-metre race

The course for sprint races is usually marked off in lanes within which each runner must remain for the entire race. Originally sprinters used a standing start, but after 1884 sprinters started from a crouched position using a device called a starting block (legalized in the 1930s) to brace their feet (see photograph). Races are begun by a pistol shot; at 55 to 65 metres (60 to 70 yards), top sprinters attain maximum speed, more than 40 km per hour (25 miles per hour). After the 65-metre mark the runner begins to lose speed through fatigue.

Bob Beamon (U.S.) breaking the world record in the long jump at 8.90 metres (29.2 feet) during the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.

READ MORE ON THIS TOPIC

athletics: The sprints

The relatively short sprint distances, ranging up to 400 metres, require a sustained top speed. Originally...

All important international races at 200 metres and 220 yards, as well as 400 metres and 440 yards, are run on an oval track. The starts are staggered (the lanes farther from the centre begin progressively farther forward on the track) so that each runner will cover an equal distance. As a result, the competitors, particularly in the 400 metres and 440 yards, have no exact knowledge of their respective positions until they have completed the final turn. Great emphasis is therefore placed on an athlete’s ability to judge his own pace, as well as upon his speed and endurance.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

Bob Beamon (U.S.) breaking the world record in the long jump at 8.90 metres (29.2 feet) during the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.

athletics: The sprints

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“Armed Hezbollah” in America, Call for a Coup, and Augmented Political Warfare against Ethiopia

Geopolitics Press

From Basma to Ethiopia – How C2FC is Using Lethal Journalism to Conduct Information Warfare and Lawfare against Ethiopia

Project Basma enabled intelligence operations to be cloaked as humanitarian activism, which allowed for covert priming of Syria for regime change. C2FC is using Project Basma’s scheme to attack Ethiopia’s will for survival as a sovereign nation-state, besides priming it for either regime attenuation or regime change. Upcoming narratives will call on rebel coalition to execute regime change so as to stabilize Ethiopia as a Federal Republic, or non-belligerently break it up, while enabling the trial of Abiy Ahmed Ali in an international court.

PublishedJuly 27, 2021By GP Editor

On November 10, 2020, a 7-page report that discussed the potential unraveling of Ethiopia – due to outbreak of war between the Federal Military and TPLF – was concluded and forwarded to a carefully selected team of EU officials, who would then present it to the EU council. The scenario considered in the report was a potential deluge of refugees into Europe from a disturbed region, the Horn of Africa (HoA). The report cautiously analyzed the then 7-day-long armed conflict between ENDF and an alliance of Tigray armed groups, including Tigray Regional Forces and Special Police, and expressed concern about the cohesion of ENDF and possibility of spill-over of the conflict into Oromia region.

The report also cautioned against the tripartite alliance of Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea, and Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed of Somalia. Additionally, the report noted the concerns of Saudi Arabia, which feared the crisis could negatively impact the Gulf region – a concern shared by United Arabs Emirate. Another notable prospect raised by the report was cutting off of the Ethiopia-Djibouti terrestrial transport corridor should the conflict continue unabated (ibid). In May 2021, Goitom Gebreluel opinionated that the HoA is falling under an axis of tyranny led by the 3 aforementioned leaders, and that the tripartite alliance was destabilizing the region.

• 

  CREDIT: Adel El-Adawy

• 

  CREDIT: Adel El-Adawy

Members of the Tigray Special Police. They have been fighting ENDF since November 4, 2020, as part of a rebel alliance called the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF). Kjetil Tronvoll stated that TPLF attacked the Northern Command of ENDF on November 3, 2020 – the act which initiated the current war.

Among the issues discussed in the West concerning the future of Ethiopia are if Ethiopia can be peacefully broken up if a rebel coalition takes power in Addis Ababa, and then allows the ethno-regional states to use referendum to vote for secession, which the central government will accept. This is to avoid the Somaliland-like limbo where the semi-autonomous state cannot gain full recognition as a republic unless the national government in Mogadishu consents to its secession. For USG and its European Allies, this will allow for a peaceful version of Yugoslavia-like breakup, while enabling the trial of Abiy Ahmed Ali for crimes against humanity in an international court just as it happened to the second last President of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic.

If Ethiopia accepts regime attenuation, then there will be need for a national dialogue supervised by a Government of National Unity that includes the TPLF (and even excludes Abiy Ahmed), which will oversee a constitutional review that will strengthen decentralization. So far, there has been no assessment of whether Abiy Ahmed can develop a strong personality or valor like Xi Jinping who defeated enhanced political warfare, or if Abiy can take bold decisive actions to survive political warfare. It also overlooks the fact that the Ethiopian people have not shown strong dislike for the government. Even so, popular perception can be changed using witful narrative management that is tailored to drive a wedge between the people and GoE.

Relatedly, how is the USG-EU alliance going to manage the crisis in Ethiopia, while promoting their agenda for Ethiopia?

…this will allow for a peaceful Yugoslavia-like breakup, while enabling the trial of Abiy Ahmed Ali for crimes against humanity in an international court just as it happened to the last President of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic

Geopolitics.Press

Command and Control Fusion Center (C2FC) Running a Basma-like Campaign on Ethiopia

In a previous post, it was reported that C2FC “has delegated some of its tasks to disparate subsidiary fusion cells that enjoy some degree of operational autonomy but organizational dependence on the fusion center”. So, what are the functions of C2FC and who staffs these fusion cells?

The key functions of C2FC can be summarized as advisory, facilitation, capacitation, and intelligence operations. This post focuses on the information capacitance function of the C2FC and some intelligence operations of its allied military and intelligence organizations. The other functions of C2FC will be discussed in later posts.

Information Capacitance

Information capacitance is key to any propaganda campaign, and in the Ethiopian crisis, it involves moderating and controlling media coverage of the war in Tigray – and armed rebellion in Oromia – in a way that disadvantages GoE. This managed media coverage is quite helpful for fusion cells located in Kenya where they work with anti-Abiy elements in the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) and National Intelligence Service (NIS) to shape public opinion in favor of supporting TPLF and Oromo secessionists. This clique in KDF and NIS has partnered with other national intelligence agencies and private intelligence firms to train media activists and promote the idea of 2 parallel governments-in-exile – the Oromia Regional National Transitional Government and the Government of the National State of Tigray.

As will be explained later, the current information capacitance operation uses methods and techniques developed in Project Basma, which was a regime change campaign conducted against the government of Syria. The same methods and techniques were then used against Xi Jinping as part of an enhanced political warfare campaign to weaken the Communist Party of China.

Fusion Cells

The staffs of these fusion cells are made up of popular media personalities, journalists, university-educated intellectuals, lawyers, democracy activists, humanitarian aid workers (HAW), private intelligence firms, non-governmental organizations (including the Europe External Programme with Africa [EEPA]), and researchers affiliated with Western humanitarian aid agencies and research institutions. The current conjecture by Geopolitics.Press is that Stratfor and Janes Information Group – which is owned by Montagu Private Equity – do aid the operations of these cells. Among the democracy activists working in, or with, these fusion cells are prominent democracy activists from Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Uganda; as well as democracy activists based in Europe, Oceania, and North America.

The staff help to create narratives, repurpose description of events, and find ways to deny GoE media publicity. The narrative created by these cells is processed by C2FC before being issued to “media actors” for amplification. The most prized media actors are the multinational media agencies that have a global network of influence which can be leveraged in information warfare campaigns. Consider Reuters with its global network of about 4,000 journalists, and one can get an idea of how a created narrative can be popularized worldwide by these journalists, and even be made the vogue narrative. This was evident during the execution of Project Basma.

Project Basma

In 2014, it was revealed that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), Department for International Development (DfID), and Ministry of Defence – which are all part of the Government of the United Kingdom (GUK) – have been running a joint program to capacitate information campaigns and kinetic operations in Syria. This joint program used the methods of “strategic communications, research, monitoring and evaluation, and operational support to Syrian opposition entities” to achieve its goals. The revelations also showed that FCO favored building of “local independent media platforms” to outbid the government in narrative management. This joint program is now known as Project Basma, and it fronted an entity called Basma (after which the project is named).

Basma was cloaked as a civil society group that provided a citizen journalism platform. This can be related to the obtuse civil society organization called Civil Society Reference Group, which is a front for the anti-Abiy clique in KDF and NIS to lobby the Kenyan government to support rebels fighting against GoE.

As a citizen journalism platform, Basma was able to plant stories in international media outlets and run a network of journalists who doubled as intelligence agents. It is still not clear if the Integrity Initiative and Institute for Statecraft played any roles in Project Basma.

Basma Program for Regime Change

In September 2020, leaked documents – which were later acknowledged – revealed that GUK has been funding a propaganda campaign to promote regime change in Syria, as well as buy public sympathy for the armed opposition to Bashar al-Assad’s regime. To cultivate media activists who would serve as stringers in Syria, GUK used the Basma program to train these activists and deploy them to the field. These activists were paired with public relation (PR) firms, which edited and modified their reports before forwarding them to mainstream media outlets as journalistic pieces. The media agencies named in the expose are BBC, Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, and Orient TV.

Private intelligence contractors that were involved in this Syrian campaign include The Global Strategy Network (TGSN), Albany, Analysis Research Knowledge (ARK), and Innovative Communication & Strategies (InCoStrat). InCoStrat and Albany helped the armed opposition to handle media relations. Albany even admitted that its core task was defined as “collecting and organising stories and content that support and reinforce the core narrative”.

Basma was able to plant stories in international media outlets and run a network of journalists who doubled as intelligence agents.

Geopolitics.Press

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The Dubai-based ARK describes itself as a humanitarian NGO that has worked with the State Department, FCO, European Union, United Nations, and the Governments of Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands. TGSN prides itself of having Richard Barrett among its directors. Richard Barrett is the former director of global counter-terrorism for the Secret Intelligence Service (popularly known as Military Intelligence Section 6 or MI6). This implies that he knew that some of their Syrian allies had ties – either direct or indirect – to AlQaeda. ARK, which describes some of its functions as “developing civil defence capabilities”, “preventing and countering violent extremism” and “promoting accountability for war crimes“, boasts of having operational presence in Kenya and Somalia.

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  Bashar Hafez al-Assad, President of the Syria. PHOTO CREDIT: Wikipedia.

• 

  ARK. PHOTO CREDIT: Official Website.

ARK started its anti-Assad operations in 2011, but the desired end goal of ousting President Bashar al-Assad was never achieved.

ARK started developing the political narrative for the opposition in 2011 while still in Gaziantep, Turkey; and later partnered with TGSN to run “97 video stringers, 23 writers, 49 distributors, 23 photographers, 19 in-country trainers, eight training centers, three media offices, and 32 research officers”. ARK was tasked with rebranding the public image of Salafi jihadi rebels, and their civil front (or civilian-facing front). Benjamin Norton states that “ARK ran the social media accounts of the White Helmets, and helped turn the Western-funded group into a key propaganda weapon of the Syrian opposition”.

ARK has boasted of providing “regular branded and unbranded content” to “well-established contacts”, which included top media outlets like “Reuters, the New York Times, CNN, the BBC, The Guardian, the Financial Times, The Times, Al Jazeera, Sky News Arabic, Orient TV, and Al Arabiya”. It also sent dozens of articles to be published by Al Hayat and Asharq Al-Awsat (ibid).

When the Supreme Military Council (SMC) of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was globally denounced for working with violent Salafi mujahideen, ARK was mandated “to establish the image of (SMC and FSA as) a functioning, inclusive, disciplined and professional military body”. A similar situation is ongoing in Ethiopia where TPLF and TDF are being presented in mainstream media outlets as “ functioning, inclusive, disciplined and professional” political party and military body respectively.

TDF field commanders have enjoyed laudatory coverage in mainstream media, with Lieutenant-General Tsadkan Gebretensae of TDF giving an interview to Kenya’s The Elephant in July 2021, where he marketed TDF as the armed military force of the Government of Tigray, not the armed wing of TPLF. In the Interview, Tsadkan presented an image of TDF that is a functioning, disciplined, and professional military body (ibid).

TPLF recently, in an error of judgement, paraded armed children, an act that led to condemnation in Ethiopia.

PHOTO SOURCE: Jeff Pearce.

TPLF has also been accused of trying to achieve moral equivalence by dressing children in Tigray with flags of the Amhara regional State and giving them rifles. Still, the public image of TDF can be softened using clever narrative management and media framing.

ARK is known for “softening the image” of armed groups that Westerners may find troubling as is evidenced in these photographed stickers that it made for the AlQaeda-laced Free Syrian Army.

PHOTO CREDIT: The Grayzone.

Fusion Cells for Intelligence Activities and Lethal Journalism

Understanding the functions and methods of Project Basma makes it easier to understand how C2FC works, and why it chooses the methods it uses to achieve its goals. As mentioned, C2FC’s tasks are delegated to fusion cells.

These fusion cells collect and collate raw information about the state of affairs in Ethiopia. This information is obtained through social media posts, direct communication with TPLF cadre, and testimonies of HAW and Tigray diaspora who had spoken with their kin in Tigray.

Also, these cells work with C2FC to fast-track verification of social media accounts of their political and military allies. This explains why the Twitter handle of Getachew Reda, which was started in September 2020, was quickly verified in the second quarter of 2021. Apart from helping its allies and assets dominate the social media space, they also work to stifle the presence (and voice) of their opponents in social media.

Pro-ENDF Facebook Accounts Suspended enmasse just before TDF’s Offensive

The fusion cells work to identify social media accounts that are operated by, or affiliated with, their targeted organizations and persons. In the second quarter of 2021, these cells identified social media accounts that are operated by, or affiliated with, the Ethiopian Information Network Security Agency (INSA), and compiled them before forwarding them to their American aids, who then pressured US-based social media companies to suspend the accounts.

On June 16, 2021, Facebook announced that “it had removed a network of fake accounts in Ethiopia targeting domestic users”, and that these accounts were associated with INSA. This reduced the ability of GoE to control social media messaging inside Ethiopia, while biasing social media parity between TPLF and GoE in favor of the former. Two days later, an alliance of Tigray armed groups, who had consolidated themselves under the umbrella of the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF), launched an offensive called Operation Alula.

TDF is probably named-so to imply its character as a military organization that aspires to be a national military just like the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) or Rwanda Defence Force (RDF).

Lethal Journalism

Richard Landes identified 3 forms of partisan war journalism. They are patriotic war journalism (e.g GoE insisting that Ethiopian media should not describe TDF as a military force but instead use TPLF to describe both TPLF and TDF), lethal war journalism (e.g foreign media reports TPLF’s propaganda as authentic news), and own-goal war journalism (where Ethiopian media reports TPLF’s propaganda as authentic news). The latter two forms of war journalism are what constitutes lethal journalism, whose aim is to de-energize the will of the target polity to resist the messaging and acts of C2FC.

In June 2021, GoE punished Addis Standard, an Ethiopian Media, for own-goal war journalism; an act which was condemned by the West using carefully scripted words, which reveals the influence of C2FC.

Professor Landes identifies lethal war journalism as prone to promoting narratives, and this is exactly what happens in Ethiopia. Starting from November 2020, GoE has been described as an ego-bloated, incapable, and cruel belligerent fighting to destroy the Tigray people, and this makes TPLF’s armed opposition a moral obligation that the world should support. The coordinated and synchronized delivery of this narrative by Western mainstream media reveals that C2FC manages the media scripting.

As Landes notes, lethal journalism works to promote a narrative using stories and claims of events, and “when (these) claims (are) disproven…these news outlets (do) nothing to correct their errors“. This was evident in July 2021 when Amnesty International purposely misguided its audience by using photographs – taken by Amanuel Sileshi – of Ethiopians being frisked, before entering a polling station, to condemn GoE for ethnic profiling in Addis Ababa.

Lethal journalism can be augmented by tweaking the algorithms of search engines. This can allow C2FC to exploit search engine algorithms so as to bias internet search results, with the goal being to improve the ranking of any article that sheds positive information about TPLF. This helps achieve information dominance, where the information provided by a specific actor dominates the reporting by mass media and social media.

Information capacitance as applied to lethal journalism allows for deployment of a legally-sound, short-term media strategy that is laden with propaganda value and good optics. This explains why almost the same message against the Ethiopian government has been released by supposedly different Western governments, aid agencies, journalists, reports (published by research institutions), and social media personalities.

Lawfare

In 2011, ARK partnered with Tsamota to develop a subproject within Basma called the Syrian Commission for Justice and Accountability. This name was later changed in 2014 to the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA). CIJA used seed fund provided by the Conflict Pool of GUK to build a transitional justice architecture to execute lawfare against the Assad government should the plan for regime change fail. The goal was to bring cases against top Syrian government officials in international courts, and then use these cases to justify specified narratives, as well as call for sanctions to be imposed on Syria.

During the Ethiopian crisis, there have been coordinated calls by pro-TPLF intellectuals, lawyers, democracy activists, NGOs, and private intelligence firms for Abiy Ahmed to be tried in an international court for crimes against humanity. In February 2021, the National Interest published a post with a self-revelatory title: Abiy Ahmed: The First Nobel Laureate On Trial at the International Criminal Court? The author, Michael Rubin, called for Abiy to “face war crimes charges”. However, this trial can only happen if Abiy is removed from power, failure of which, the calls for his prosecution will be used to justify sanctions against GoE and its top officials. This can result in sanctions being imposed on the Ethiopian people.

Feature image shows children waiting in a line. PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay.

An excerpt of this post has been published in our Medium blog.

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