Israel Strikes Syria’s Damascus Hour After Attack On Aleppo

A series of Israeli strikes hit the southeastern outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, late on August 31, just a hour after a similar attack on the northern city of Aleppo.

“At approximately 18:21 this evening, the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression with a number of missiles from the direction of Lake Tiberias in the north region of occupied Palestine, targeting some points southeast of the city of Damascus,” a military official said in a statement to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency.

The unnamed official added that Syrian air defenses “confronted the aggression’s missiles, shutting down some of them,” acknowledging that “the aggression led to some material losses.”

https://youtu.be/1lpvoji0hg8

Reports in the Arab media claimed that the strikes targeted one of the two main runways of Damascus International Airport. This is yet to be confirmed, however.

The strikes took place just an hour after an aerial attack that targeted Aleppo International Airport in northern Syria. According to unverified reports, the attack, which was launched from the Eastern Mediterranean, placed the airport out of service. Still, no casualties were reported

The last Israeli attack on Damascus International Airport was last June. The attack placed the airport out of service for more than two weeks. On the other hand, the last attack on Aleppo International Airport was all the way back in July of 2018.

Recently, Israel escalated its attacks on Syria under the pretext of preventing Iranian forces from establishing a permanent presence in the country and shipping advanced weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. None of these objectives have been achieved as of yet.

https://southfront.org/israel-strikes-syrias-damascus-hour-after-attack-on-aleppo-video/

Biden orders medals for all US troops in Afghanistan withdrawal, evacuation

President Joe Biden has ordered thousands of U.S. troops involved in the withdrawal and evacuation from Afghanistan last year to receive medals honoring their service, the Department of Defense announced Wednesday. Troops involved in resettling 80,000 Afghan refugees in the U.S. will also receive medals.

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A statement by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin provided to American Military News said Biden had directed “all units involved in the retrograde operation from Afghanistan, Operation Allies Refuge and Operation Allies Welcome” to be awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation “or its equivalent.”

Additionally, Austin said all units that participated in the two-week evacuation from Aug. 15, 2021 to Aug. 30, 2021 will be reviewed to “identify those units or individuals that meet the high standards of the Presidential Unit Citation or appropriate individual awards.”

The Presidential Unit Citation is awarded to recognize “the extraordinary heroism of military units in action against an armed enemy.”

At least 7,000 U.S. troops were involved in the efforts to evacuate more than 124,000 Afghans and thousands of Americans from Afghanistan. The chaotic efforts were marred by Taliban threats and violence, peaking with a suicide bomb attack that killed 13 U.S. troops and 170 Afghan people.

“I hope these awards serve as a reminder to each and every Service member who wears them of the lives they helped save and the thanks of the nation and Department of Defense they serve so well,” Austin said in his statement.

Biden made the decision to award the medals after consulting with Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, Austin said.

It was not immediately clear why Biden’s decision was made now more than a year after the withdrawal instead of an earlier date.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder was asked about the time it took to come to the decision. Ryder said only that the medals posed a “significant recognition for those who served in Afghanistan and participated in this very significant event,” adding that the medals are “meant to express the gratitude of the Department of the Defense and the nation.”

https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/08/biden-orders-medals-for-all-us-troops-in-afghanistan-withdrawal-evacuation/

These Are The Countries Most In Debt To China

According to World Bank data analyzed by Statista, countries heavily in debt to China are mostly located in Africa, but can also be found in Central Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. As Statista's Katharina Buchholz details below, as the new preferred lender to low-income countries, China now holds 37 percent of these nations' debt. Just 24 percent of the countries' bilateral debt comes from the rest of the world in 2022.

The "New Silk Road" project, which finances the construction of port, rail and land infrastructure across the globe, has created much debt to China for participating countries. At the end of 2020, of the 97 countries for which data was available, Pakistan ($77.3 billion of external debt to China), Angola (36.3 billion), Ethiopia (7.9 billion), Kenya (7.4 billion) and Sri Lanka (6.8 billion) held the biggest debts to China. The countries with the biggest debt burdens in relative terms were Djibouti and Angola, followed by the Maldives and Laos, which has just opened a debt-laden railway line to China. The President of the World Bank, David Malpass, called the level of debt many countries once again hold “unsustainable” in January.

The Paris Club used to hold the majority of low-income countries’ debt before it was restructured and largely forgiven after the turn of the millennium for qualifying, developing countries. Whether such a process will be available for Chinese debt is unclear. As of 2020, China had officially lent around $170 billion to low and middle-income countries, up from just around $40 billion in 2010.

Chinese loans have higher interest rates than those from international institutions like the International Monetary Fund or The World Bank or bilateral loans from Paris Club countries, and also have shorter repayment windows. Their setup is closer to commercial loans concerning their conditions of repayment, confidentiality as well as their objectives of funding specific infrastructure projects instead of pursuing development goals in general.

The Covid-19 pandemic has now complicated the already difficult repayment of Chinese loans even more. According to the Financial Times, the country had to renegotiate loans worth $52 billion in 2020 and 2021 - more than three times the amount that met this fate in the two previous years. One such case was Sri Lanka - also among China’s biggest debtors - which in May was the first Asian country in two decades to default on its debt.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/these-are-countries-most-debt-china