TOP TECH NEWS: September 2020

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Dozens of earthquakes rattle Southern California near Mexico border, USGS says

The border towns were shaken relentlessly, data shows

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Hathras gang rape: India victim's death sparks outrage

The 19-year-old woman died after fighting for her life in a hospital for two weeks.

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Get the facts: Election ballots dumped in Sonoma County?

A Facebook post circulating the internet has led to claims of ‘ballot dumping’ in Sonoma County ahead of November’s Presidential Election. Someone snapped a photo of what they said were election ballots in a Sonoma County landfill, and then posted the photo to their social media page with the caption "This is why we can’t trust a mail-in election." The post led to many Sonoma County residents sharing the information online and accused the county of dumping election ballots and rigging the election. Get the full story in the video above.

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High road at Chilling: India builds Himalayan bridges and highways to match China

Ligen Eliyas deftly turns the excavator's hydraulic arm to push a huge boulder into the Zanskar river below in a cloud of dust, clearing another bit of land for a strategic highway that India is hurriedly building near the Chinese border. The construction site near the hamlet of Chilling in the Ladakh region is around 250 km (150 miles) west of the area where Indian and Chinese troops are locked in the most serious confrontation in decades.

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Crown prince becomes oil-rich Kuwait's new ruling emir

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Opinion: The next presidential debate needs a Trump timeout room

Tuesday's debate between Trump and Biden could have used a mom -- someone who knows how to exert some discipline over a heedless child.

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U.S. missile destroyer ship breaks Navy record for longest stint at sea

The USS Stout reached 208 days at sea Sept. 26 as the Navy has imposed restrictions on port visits to protect sailors from the coronavirus.

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Ohio could be Biden's best shot at keeping Trump from contesting the 2020 election

Over the last week, three separate polls have shown Joe Biden leading President Trump by as much as 5 percentage points in Ohio — a surprising turn of events after Hillary Clinton lost there by 8 points in 2016.

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Mitch McConnell ‘refusing to debate his election rival if there is a female moderator’

‘He continues to resist allowing women to host debates,’ said McConnell’s opponent in the Kentucky Senate race

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Justice Ginsburg buried at Arlington in private ceremony

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was buried Tuesday in a private ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, laid to rest beside her husband and near some of her former colleagues on the court. Washington last week honored the 87-year-old Ginsburg, who died Sept. 18, with two days where the public could view her casket at the top of the Supreme Court's steps and pay their respects. On Friday, the women's rights trailblazer and second woman to join the high court lay in state at the U.S. Capitol, the first woman to do so.

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Chinese rail stations and airports swamped during holiday, raising fears of fresh Covid outbreak

People have begun swarming into China’s rail stations and airports as the country where the coronavirus pandemic emerged enters into its first major public holiday week after lockdowns began easing, potentially raising the risk of new infections. Nearly half of the country’s 1.4 billion people are expected to hit the road during China’s “Golden Week,” kicking off on Oct 1 as the nation celebrates its founding anniversary. Chinese authorities have relaxed some travel restrictions as the number of daily infections have begun dropping significantly. About 30 people were confirmed with the coronavirus through Tuesday this week, a figure that could rise given increased movement of people over the holiday. As such pandemic precautions remain in place, including detailed contact tracing via mobile phone apps that allow users to flash a green, yellow or red code – a health contagion profile that determines whether someone might pose an infection risk.

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Zimbabwe: Elephants die from 'bacterial disease'

More than 30 elephants were found lying on their stomachs, according to wildlife officials.

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Trump admits greenhouse gases contribute to climate change 'to an extent'

For the first time in his presidency, Donald Trump acknowledged that human-generated greenhouse gases contributes to climate change.

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People with irregular or unusually long menstrual cycles may have a higher risk of dying young

Menstruation hormone disruptions may be linked to risk of dying from cardiovascular illness, higher chance of other health problems, says a new study

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Biden Staffer Suggests ‘Intolerant’ Views of Orthodox Catholics, Jews, Muslims Should Disqualify Them from Supreme Court

A staffer on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign on Monday suggested that Orthodox Catholics, Jews and Muslims should not be allowed to serve on the Supreme Court because of their “intolerant” beliefs.The comments came during a Twitter conversation between Biden campaign deputy data director Nikitha Rai and Brookings Institute senior fellow Shadi Hamid in which Rai attacked Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholic beliefs. A search for Rai's Twitter account now yields a message saying, "This account doesn't exist."Hamid had responded to a tweet that said Barrett was a trustee at a Catholic school that opposed same-sex marriage as homosexual acts are "at odds with Scripture." Hamid replied, “Wait, why is this news? Isn’t this the standard position for any orthodox Catholic?” “Unfortunately yes,” Rai said. When Hamid pointed out that Orthodox Muslims and Jews generally hold the same view, Rai said, “True. I’d heavily prefer views like that not be elevated to SCOTUS, but unfortunately our current culture is relatively intolerant. It will be awhile before those types of beliefs are so taboo that they’re disqualifiers.”> Here’s a @JoeBiden staffer saying that orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Judaism should be made “taboo” and driven from the public sphere. Beneath all the talk of “interfaith” and “pluralism,” this is what they really believe. pic.twitter.com/PrN8S1qaLG> > -- Jeremy McLellan (@JeremyMcLellan) September 29, 2020The former vice president often touts his Catholic faith on the campaign trail, though critics note that some of Biden’s positions — such as his support for abortion and same-sex marriage — stand in opposition to Catholic teachings.Barrett’s faith has been widely scrutinized in the media as “extreme” and cult-like since the president announced he would nominate the 48-year-old Notre Dame professor to fill the vacancy on the Court left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.Barrett, a former clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, has been attacked for her faith for years now, beginning with her 2017 confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee when Democrats questioned whether her Catholicism should disqualify her from being a judge.“Why is it that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling that dogma and law are two different things, and I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different,” Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) said at the time.“The conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you,” Feinstein added. “And that’s of concern.”

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Voters react to first 2020 presidential debate

The latest CBS News Battleground Tracker polls show how Americans are responding to the first presidential debate. CBS News Elections and Surveys Director Anthony Salvanto joined CBSN's Elaine Quijano on "Red and Blue" to discuss the results.

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The Trump Campaign Is Quietly Purging Brad Parscale From Their Website

President Donald Trump’s campaign still won’t clarify the status of its erstwhile campaign manager Brad Parscale, who was taken into custody by police outside of his Florida home over the weekend. But the campaign is quietly purging its website of Parscale’s presence.Since Tuesday, the campaign has removed a video of Parscale from the homepage of its “Army for Trump” election monitoring operation. It also deleted a page on the main campaign website featuring a video of Parscale and Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law and senior campaign adviser. The video of their discussion, billed as a Q&A on the state of the campaign, has also been removed from YouTube. Those deletions were first flagged on Twitter by the writer Jeryl Bier.One Trump campaign page discussing the event with Lara Trump remained online as of Wednesday morning. After The Daily Beast flagged it in a comment request sent to the campaign, that page was removed as well.The campaign did not respond to that comment request, which sought to clarify Parscale’s role with the Trump reelect and determine whether he remains an employee or consultant. He was Trump’s campaign manager until July, when he was replaced by former White House political director Bill Stepien. Parscale remained in a senior role for the campaign.The apparent effort to scrub Parscale from campaign web properties comes in the wake of a police incident outside his home on Sunday. According to the police report, Parscale’s wife called authorities to report that he was threatening to commit suicide, had loaded a firearm in front of her, and had physically assaulted her during a prior domestic dispute.Body camera footage showed police tackling and handcuffing Parscale as they detained him under a Florida law that allows authorities to involuntarily commit someone who is believed to be a danger to himself or others.The Trump campaign initially released a statement saying, “Our thoughts are with Brad and his family as we wait for all the facts to emerge.” It followed up with another statement that used the incident to criticize the president’s political opponents. “The disgusting, personal attacks from Democrats and disgruntled RINOs have gone too far, and they should be ashamed of themselves for what they’ve done to this man and his family,” Tim Murtaugh, the campaign’s communications director, said.The incident marked a dramatic downfall for a man widely credited with an instrumental role in Trump’s 2016 election victory. Parscale, a digital vendor from Texas, was plucked out of obscurity and installed as the campaign’s digital director. His profile was even high enough that the Trump campaign purchased about $340,000 in Facebook and Instagram ads that ran on Parscale’s own pages on those sites.But Parscale’s central role on the 2020 campaign in particular has also drawn criticism and scrutiny, particularly over tens of millions of dollars in funds spent through entities owned, run, or otherwise tied to Parscale. In June, the Trump campaign reportedly initiated an internal audit to determine whether he had mispent significant amounts of campaign money.That scrutiny has also targeted Parscale’s personal life and his increasingly lavish spending on homes, boats, and sports cars. Parscale and the campaign have consistently denied that he misspent campaign money or used it for personal gain.In the wake of his detention over the weekend, the Daily Mail reported that Parscale was “under investigation” for pocketing as much as $50 million from the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee. But the story did not specify who exactly was doing the investigating, and the campaign and the RNC both denied the report.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Father and son chase and shoot at two teens riding ATVs, Mississippi police say

Police are looking into possible hate crime charges

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U.S. renews pressure on Europe to ditch Huawei in new networks

Telecoms company Huawei Technologies is part of China's surveillance state, complicit in human rights abuses, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday, as Washington renewed pressure on Europe to ban the company from fifth-generation (5G) networks. Keith Krach, the undersecretary of state for economic affairs, stepped up warnings as Germany and Italy consider their next-generation mobile networks, in his first tour of European capitals since the COVID-19 pandemic hindered travel in March. Huawei [HWT.UL] is "an arm of the CCP surveillance state and a tool for human rights abuse," Krach told a German Marshall Fund think-tank event, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

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McConnell shields Judge Amy Coney Barrett from questions about election outcome as she meets with senators

The Senate majority leader refused to answer if Ms Barrett should recuse herself from election-focused cases

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China Accelerates Its Crackdown on Foreign Journalists

These days, foreign journalists are facing unprecedented challenges in China.A March report from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) finds that in 2019, “82% of [foreign] reporters [in China] experienced interference or harassment or violence while reporting. . . . 43% said digital/physical surveillance affected reporting. And 70% reported interviews cancelled due to actions taken by Chinese authorities.” The FCCC also finds that Chinese authorities continue to restrict foreign journalists’ access to certain parts of China, including Xinjiang, where millions of Uighur Muslims languish in internment camps. The most striking finding of the report, however, is that not even a single foreign journalist said working conditions in China had improved from 2018 to 2019.It seems that this state of affairs has only gotten worse in 2020. Just this week, the Washington Post’s Anna Fifield published a story about the difficulties she’d faced as a foreign reporter in China. “Reporting in China increasingly feels like reporting in North Korea,” she tweeted. Beijing has expelled around 17 foreign journalists this year, including 15 Americans, and is threatening to expel more. Chinese authorities also continue to punish some foreign journalists by refusing to renew their visas.In August, Cheng Lei, an Australian citizen of Chinese descent who worked for the state-owned China Global Television Network (CGTN), was detained by Chinese authorities. No charges were filed, and Cheng simply “disappeared.” China's foreign ministry waited until early September to announce that she was suspected of “criminal activity endangering China's national security.” Her family and friends still do not know her whereabouts, and it is unclear if she has any legal representation.The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s announcement of Cheng’s detention came after the Australian government was forced to mount a frantic mission to extricate the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Bill Birtles and the Australian Financial Review’s (AFR) Mike Smith from the country. Both had been questioned by Chinese authorities regarding their dealings with Cheng, and both sought help from the Australian consulate. They were allowed to leave China only after a five-day diplomatic standoff. Birtles’s former boss, the ex-ABC China bureau chief Matthew Carney, recently disclosed the threats and interrogations that he and his family, including his 14-year-old daughter, had to endure from Chinese authorities back in 2018, which eventually led them to leave the country, too.Early this month, a Los Angeles Times reporter was detained by Chinese police in Inner Mongolia while investigating the central government’s push to teach Mongolian children key curriculums in Mandarin rather than Mongolian. Many parents and students have been protesting that effort, which they view as Beijing’s latest attempt to erase their cultural identity. The Times reporter said plainclothes men “took her to a police station, where she was interrogated and separated from her belongings, despite identifying herself as an accredited journalist. She was not allowed to call the U.S. Embassy; one officer grabbed her throat with both hands and pushed her into a cell.”Beijing’s treatment of foreign journalists is appalling. But surprisingly, this wasn’t always the case. In fact, for decades, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) welcomed foreign journalists when it found them to be of use in helping achieve its strategic policy goals.The most famous example of this phenomenon was American journalist Edgar Snow. In the 1930s, Snow visited the CCP’s stronghold in the Chinese countryside and interviewed its leaders, including Mao Zedong. Back then, the People’s Liberation Army was no more than a ragtag bunch of poorly fed, ill-equipped guerrilla fighters. Mao was dismissed by the ruling Nationalist Party as a “bandit,” and he was virtually unknown to the West. Mao recognized the help that Snow could provide in solving that problem. He granted Snow access that was unavailable to any Chinese journalist and charmed the American. Snow, who was somewhat naive and ideologically left-leaning, fell for Mao’s charisma. Mao asked that the texts of Snow’s interviews be translated from English back to Chinese so he could “correct any inaccuracies” prior to the publication, and Snow granted him his wish.The final output was Snow's 1937 book, Red Star Over China, which presented Mao as a great leader who was candid, thoughtful, and funny. It described the goal of the Communist revolution as the creation of a new China that would be egalitarian and democratic. Nowhere did it mention Mao’s brutal purge of a rival faction within the Communist Party, which ended with the arrest of over 100 party members and the execution of more than a dozen. The purge was an early indication of Mao’s ruthlessness in quashing dissent, and there would be many more like it to come.Unfortunately, the inaccurate portrait painted by Snow’s book cast Mao and the Communists in such a positive light that it won them many domestic and international supporters. This, in turn, set a precedent. Recognizing the propaganda value that Snow had provided, Mao invited him back to China several more times over the next three-plus decades. Each time, he manipulated Snow into serving as his mouthpiece for domestic and international audiences.After Mao’s death, a succession of Chinese Communist Party leaders followed the same template, welcoming foreign journalists to China as the regime launched its campaign of economic reform and opened up to the rest of the world. These leaders recognized that they needed the foreign press to tell stories about China, and sure enough, the resulting stories helped attract badly needed foreign investment and tourism to boost the country’s economy.In a country where corruption is rampant and justice is whatever local authorities say it is, many Chinese people have come to believe that the fastest way to get their grievances heard and resolved is through reporting by journalists, especially foreign journalists. As Yuan Yang, the Financial Times’s deputy Beijing bureau chief, has noted, “Sometimes it is not the coverage itself, but the mere appearance of a foreign journalist on the scene, that gets officials to start listening intently to their problems.”Sadly, even that means of getting authorities’ attention is increasingly being closed off by China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, who demands absolute loyalty from all corners of China including the media. Unlike his predecessors, Xi doesn't see foreign media as a friend or a useful tool, but rather as a threat to the narratives advanced by his propaganda and an obstacle to his goal of building a new, China-centric world order. Especially after the coronavirus outbreak, Xi has needed an obedient media to tell a story of Chinese success under his leadership, which has only increased his incentive to keep a tight leash on critical reporting.Xi seems to believe that China is now wealthy, powerful, and resourceful enough that it no longer needs the prestige that foreign media outlets once lent it; state media can tell the stories he wants told both at home and abroad. Since Xi doesn’t see foreign journalists as useful to his own strategic objectives, Chinese authorities have intensified their attacks on foreign journalists. If any informed observer had any remaining doubts about the true nature of the Chinese regime, this crackdown should have dispelled them.

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Sonic boom heard in Paris and suburbs caused by fighter jet breaking sound barrier

A loud blast heard throughout Paris on Wednesday briefly caused panic as edgy residents feared a bombing five days after a terrorist attack outside the former offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. The noise was caused by a sonic boom as a military jet broke the speed of sound, police said. Pierre Duclos, who was in a café around the corner from the site of the attack on Friday when the explosion-like noise was heard, said: “Everyone looked at each other and a few people got up and went outside. For a while, we thought another terrorist attack was coming and we were all shocked. Some people asked the café owner to close and lock the door. I was here on Friday and frankly I was really worried again today.

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Hathras gang rape: India victim cremated 'without family's consent'

The woman's death after she was gang raped allegedly by upper-caste men has caused huge anger in India.

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Tuesday, September 29, 2020

White House announces major improvements in coronavirus testing (again)

“We are now at an inflection point in testing,” said Adm. Brett Giroir, a Department of Health and Human Services official who is in charge of testing on the White House coronavirus task force.

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CDC study on COVID-19 in kids bolsters case for elementary school reopening

The study adds nuance to prior findings that the risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, increases with age.

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Zimbabwe: Elephants die from 'bacterial disease'

More than 30 elephants were found lying on their stomachs, according to wildlife officials.

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Senate advances bill to fund government into December

A bill to fund the federal government cleared a key Senate procedural hurdle Tuesday as lawmakers sought to accomplish the bare minimum before they depart Washington to campaign — preventing a shutdown when the new fiscal year begins. A final vote on Wednesday would send the stopgap spending bill to President Donald Trump in time for his signature before the new budget year starts Thursday. The funding measure advanced while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made a last-ditch effort to strike an agreement on a separate COVID-19 rescue bill that has eluded them for weeks.

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'Like God has no sympathy': Crews struggle with deadly wildfires racing through Northern California, wine country

California fire crews battled two ferocious blazes, including one in wine country, that destroyed homes and forced at least 70,000 people to flee

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Amy Coney Barrett says she was offered a Supreme Court seat just 3 days after RBG died

President Trump didn't take long to settle on nominating Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.Trump formally nominated the conservative 7th Circuit judge to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Saturday. But in Barrett's Senate questionnaire released Tuesday, Barrett said she actually got the job days earlier.Ginsburg died on Friday, Sept. 18. The next day, Barrett got a call from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about the vacancy, she said in the questionnaire. She spoke to Cipollone and Meadows on Sunday, who invited her to Washington, D.C.; "President Trump later called to confirm the invitation," she said. And on Monday, Sept. 21, Barrett met with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Cipollone and Meadows in person. "The president offered me the nomination on that day, and I accepted," Barrett said. Trump didn't announce her nomination until Saturday out of respect for Ginsburg, he said.> NEW — Amy Coney Barrett’s formal questionnaire has been submitted to the Judiciary Committee. Below are details of her selection process for the nomination. It says she was offered the nomination by Trump on Monday, Sept 21 pic.twitter.com/J7quVa6Spw> > — Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) September 29, 2020While Barrett was reported to be a strong favorite to replace Ginsburg, 11th Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa and other conservatives also reportedly remained possible nominees throughout the week. But as Barrett tells it, she may have been the only candidate Trump ever seriously considered.More stories from theweek.com Trump reportedly made tens of millions in the Great Recession by partnering with multilevel marketing companies 'Sully' Sullenberger savages Trump's 'lethal lies and incompetence' in new Lincoln Project ad North Carolina senate candidate commits grievous sin: confusing grilling for barbecuing

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Joe Biden tweets joke mocking 'earpiece' and 'drug' allegations with photo of headphones and ice cream

"I’ve got my earpiece and performance enhancers ready," Biden wrote on Twitter with a photo of tangled earbuds and a pint of ice cream.

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Body camera footage shows Trump's former campaign manager Brad Parscale being tackled by police outside his Florida home

Candice Parscale called 911 on Sunday, saying her husband had loaded a firearm and threatened to hurt himself, according to a police report.

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Trump Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett puts years of gun safety progress at risk

Over 145,000 Americans have been killed by guns with Trump in office. If Barrett replaces Ginsburg, gun safety laws and more US lives are endangered

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Crown prince becomes oil-rich Kuwait's new ruling emir

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Turkey Sends ISIS Warlord to Azerbaijan to Face Off Against Putin’s Armenian Allies

ISTANBUL, Turkey—On Sunday afternoon, a video depicting a large convoy of Islamist Syrian rebel fighters yelling enthusiastically as they drove off to war circulated widely on Arabic social media. Fighters in the packed trucks, driving quickly past the group of children filming with their phones, could be heard yelling “Allahu Akbar!” and, “Our leader, 'til the end of time, is our master, Muhammad!”However, what shocked those watching the video weren’t the shouts of the Syrian fighters but rather those of the children filming, who yelled back at the soldiers in a language unfamiliar to most Syrians following their country’s nine-year war. “That’s not Kurdish, right?” said one user in an online group where the video emerged. “If they were Kurds, you think they’d be cheering them on?” responded another with a laugh out loud emoji.Over the next several hours, rumors swirled that the video was shot in Azerbaijan, a small Turkic-speaking nation lodged between Iran and Russia, and that the Syrian rebel fighters had been sent there to prop up the Azeri government in its war against neighboring Armenia that had begun that day. According to high-ranking Syrian rebel sources that spoke to The Daily Beast, these rumors are true. The fighters that appeared in the circulated video were part of a group of 1,000 Syrian rebel soldiers sent in two batches from Turkey on September 22 and 24.“500 Hamza Brigade fighters were flown last Tuesday from southern Turkey to the Azeri airbase at Sumqayit [30 kilometers north of the Azeri capital of Baku]”, according to a source within the Syrian National Army (SNA) rebel outfit who requested anonymity. “Two days later, on Thursday, another 500 fighters from the Sultan Murad brigades rebel faction were similarly flown out to Azerbaijan.”These claims were echoed by the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Syrian opposition body that monitors human rights violations in the country. SOHR sources suggest more batches of Syrian rebel fighters are preparing to be deployed to Azerbaijan.The Hamza and Sultan Murad brigades are known within Syrian rebel circles as factions that enjoy especially close relations with Turkey, the last remaining patron of the Syrian opposition. Sayf Balud, commander of the Hamza brigades, however, is also known for his checkered past, in particular, as a former commander within the radical jihadist group ISIS.An ethnic Syrian Turkman from the town of Biza’a in Aleppo city’s northern countryside, Balud originally joined the Abu Bakr Sadiq brigades, a moderate rebel faction near his hometown that received widespread support from Gulf states in the early years of the conflict. However, coming from a small, relatively unknown family, Balud failed to climb the ranks of Syria’s rebel movement as quickly as he would have liked, and as others from more prominent backgrounds regularly did. By early 2013, Balud had joined ISIS, whose ranks were staffed mostly by foreigners who couldn't have cared less about the social status of their Syrian recruits.In July 2013, Balud appeared in an ISIS propaganda video shot in the border town of Tal Abyad after the group successfully captured the city from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). In the video, Sayf appears next to an Egyptian foreign fighter addressing a room full of two dozen captured YPG soldiers, who were assembled before an ISIS camera crew to officially repent for having joined an armed faction that ISIS’ leadership described as being “at war with God.”Over the next several years, Balud’s star continued to rise, as the commander attained a level of status within ISIS that would have been unattainable in other rebel groups. Despite the large-scale defeat of ISIS across northern Syria at the hands of the YPG in 2016 and 2017, the cunning commander was able to leverage his history of fighting against Kurds to re-invent himself as a valuable client for another foreign patron: Turkey.By January 2018, when Turkish backed rebel forces launched “Operation Olive Branch” to take over the Kurdish canton of Afrin located in Syria’s uppermost northwest corner, Balud regularly appeared in the group’s propaganda videos as the official commander of the newly formed Hamza brigades. His status as an ethnic Turkman, a small minority within Syria whose likeness to their Turkish kinsmen across the border has pushed Ankara to grant many coveted privileges such as Turkish citizenship and sensitive leadership positions, further endeared Balud to his new patrons.According to SNA sources, Syrian rebel units now being sent to Azerbaijan by Turkey are almost exclusively led by ethnic Syrian Turkmen. “Sayf Balud is a Turkman. The Sultan Murad brigade’s commander, Fahim Aissa, is a Syrian Turkman, like Balud. Turkey only trusts factions led by Syrian Turkman to carry out these missions. These are sensitive for Turkey politically, and they don’t trust Syrian Arabs to lead them.”Turkey’s intervention in Azerbaijan is indeed sensitive. After a four-year lull in fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, fighting between the two countries erupted anew on Sunday in fighting that killed two-dozen fighters.Historically the Nagorno-Karabakh region has been internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. But in 1991 Armenian factions within the region declared themselves independent. Three years of war over the disputed territory ended in 1994 with a Russian brokered ceasefire. The newly declared Nagorno-Karabakh republic was soon occupied by Armenia, which has since maintained de facto control of the area. With the exception of four days of fighting in April 2016, Sunday’s clashes were the first major instance of renewed combat between both countries over the status of the area. Both sides accuse the other of having initiated the fighting on Sunday.Clashes continue, with dozens more casualties reported. Fighting alongside the Azeri regular forces were 1,000 Syrian rebel fighters, among them former jihadists led by ex-ISIS commander Sayf Balud. All About the OilTurkey's move to send Syrian rebels to face-off against Armenia, a longtime rival of Turkey, is just the latest in a long string of neo-Ottoman foreign adventures undertaken by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over the last 6 months. Ankara has deployed both its armed forces and Syrian proxies to crack down on Kurdish PKK and YPG forces in northern Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan throughout 2020.Turkey has also intervened in western Libya and waters throughout the eastern Mediterranean where its navy has threatened NATO allies France and Greece in an attempt to strongarm both countries and lay claim to gas reserves located within Greece's maritime borders.In Azerbaijan, Turkey is looking to demonstrate loyalty and prop up an oil-rich regime with which it has maintained close military ties since the 1994 ceasefire. Since 2005, they have launched numerous lucrative oil and gas initiatives including a pipeline that exports 1.2 million barrels of Azeri oil per day to the European Union (EU), earning Turkey upwards of $200 million in annual transit fees. In 2006, this cooperation expanded following the launch of the South Caucasus natural gas pipeline that annually exports 8.8 billion cubic meters of much needed Azeri gas to the Turkish market, a net importer of energy.In 2011, Turkey began work on an expansive natural gas production network called the Trans Anatolian Pipeline, which is projected to export 31 billion cubic meters of Azeri gas to the EU by 2026. Turkish shareholders, who own a 30 percent stake in the project, stand to make huge profits.Turkey’s push to transform Azerbaijan into a lucrative oil and gas export hub is also motivated by Ankara’s desire to come out from under Russia’s shadow. Turkey depends on Russia for 40 percent of its fossil fuels, a reliance that has forced Ankara to treat Russia as a friendly nation despite the fact that the two countries share almost no common interests.The “Southern Gas Corridor,” a term referring to the various pipelines emerging out of Azerbaijan, has been heavily cheered on by the EU, which also wants to break its dependence on Russian gas. No surprise then that Russia is on the other side in the ongoing dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.Nagorno-Karabakh is now the third theater where Russia and Turkey find themselves supporting opposite sides in an active Middle East conflict zone. In Syria, Russian support for dictator Bashar al-Assad and Turkey’s support for the country’s rebels such as Sayf Bulad and others led to direct conflict between both countries’ armies earlier this year, resulting in the death of dozens of Turkish soldiers. In Libya, the situation is reversed, with Turkey supporting Libya’s government and Russia supporting Khalifa Haftar, a renegade general and rebel leader who has sought to seize control of Libya’s lucrative oil sector and capture the capital of Tripoli.In both conflicts, Sayf Bulad and the Hamza brigades have proven extremely useful to Turkey. Thousands of the group’s fighters, including Sayf Bulad, were deployed to Libya last summer to help repel a major assault launched by Russian-backed Khalifa Haftar and in the bargain reclaim territory previously captured by the general. The Turkish backed authority in Tripoli is now safely guarded against external threats, while Turkish companies are set to gain lucrative contracts in Libya’s oil and gas and reconstruction sectors.Within this context of great power struggles, Syria's rebels, once idealistic and seeking to liberate their country from dictator Bashar al-Assad, have found themselves reduced to pawns compelled to serve as mercenaries and shock troops used by Turkey to advance its foreign policy in a world where Ankara finds itself increasingly isolated. In doing so, they find themselves led by and mixed with fighters from the most vicious jihadist group the world has ever seen.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Swaggering Trump goes into first Biden debate eager to fight

Donald Trump always fancied himself streetwise, a real tough guy, and at the first presidential debate with Joe Biden on Tuesday he'll be wearing the verbal brass knuckles.

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High road at Chilling: India builds Himalayan bridges and highways to match China

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State of emergency in 3 California counties as fire scorches wine country

Large pieces of ash rained down on Napa Valley early Tuesday and a bright orange glow was visible in the hills above the city.

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Nigeria's Boko Haram crisis: 'Bomb on donkey' used to ambush Borno governor

Militants from an Islamic State-linked group strapped the animal with explosives in Borno state.

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Trump ex-campaign boss hospitalized amid threat to harm self

President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale has been hospitalized after he threatened to harm himself, according to Florida police and campaign officials. Police officers talked Parscale out of his Fort Lauderdale home after his wife called police to say that he had multiple firearms and was threatening to hurt himself when he was hospitalized Sunday under the state’s Baker Act. “Brad Parscale is a member of our family and we love him,” said Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh.

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Breonna Taylor case grand juror: We weren’t given the option of indicting the two cops who shot her

Grand juror said AG Daniel Cameron misrepresented the deliberations. Cameron agreed to release grand jury recording

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A 3-Michelin star restaurant in Napa has burned down in California's latest wildfire

The Restaurant at Meadowood was engulfed by Napa Valley's Glass Fire on Monday morning and couldn't be saved.

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Amnesty International to halt India operations

The human rights watchdog tells the BBC that the move comes due to reprisal from the government.

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Opinion: Trump's reality distortion machine is in overdrive for his debate with Biden

The Trump team, like the president himself, is working aggressively to make voters disbelieve what they see and hear from Joe Biden at the first debate.