This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily Newsbrief for Thursday, February 9th, 2023… Happy Friday Jr. everyone!
 
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https://www.foxnews.com/world/china-wants-downed-spy-aircraft-back-does-not-belong-to-us
 
China wants its downed spy aircraft back, saying it 'does not belong to the US'
 
The People's Republic of China is requesting the return of its surveillance aircraft after the balloon was shot down over the continental United States on Saturday.
 
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning fielded questions Tuesday about the incident, which dominated news cycles and commanded attention from U.S. politicians.
 
Asked for additional information regarding the purpose of the spy balloon and reports of similar aircraft making routes through North American and South American airspace, Mao declined.
 
"The Chinese side has given information about the unmanned airship on several occasions. I don’t have anything to add at the moment," she stated.
 
The Pentagon said it "acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information" from the spy platform. But geopolitical experts said there is little reason to believe those efforts were successful as the balloon almost certainly transferred surveillance data over to China as it flew over several military bases.
 
Asked if China has requested that the debris from the destroyed aircraft be returned, Mao said Tuesday, "The airship does not belong to the U.S. It belongs to China."
 
Mao reiterated in her Tuesday press conference the Chinese Communist Party's claim that the balloon was civilian in nature and criticized the U.S. government for not acting in a "calm and professional manner."
 
https://contra.substack.com/p/us-led-west-opposed-peace-deal-in?r=lj90&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
 
U.S.-Led West Opposed Peace Deal in Ukraine
 
Naftali Bennett, then the prime minister of Israel, found himself praying aboard a cramped, decrepit plane last year as it sailed over Kazakhstan. The long flight, arranged with help from the Mossad, was bound for Moscow on a desperate mission: broker peace between Russia and Ukraine just after the two countries had gone to war.
 
According to Bennett, Russian President Vladimir Putin made two major concessions during their March 5 meeting. First, he renounced “denazification”—that is, regime change in Kiev. Second, he dropped his demand for Ukraine’s demilitarization. Bennett said President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to abandon Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership in exchange. Both Putin and Zelensky seemed eager to end the fighting. But the U.S. had other plans.
 
Bennett said a “decision by the West” was made “to keep striking Putin” through Ukraine. “They blocked it and I thought they were wrong,” he said. Bennett noted that the governments of Germany and France were pragmatic toward the idea compared to the U.S. and the U.K., which took a more belligerent attitude against Russia.
 
Considering the U.K. is little more than a neutered lapdog of D.C., it is more than likely that it was the U.S. who decided to keep the war going. Indeed, Bennett said he deferred “to America in this regard.”
 
In an interview with author and comedian Hanoch Daum, Bennett provided a behind-the-scenes look at his efforts to establish a ceasefire and how it initially showed promise until bei