Ukraine launched one of its largest drone attacks on Moscow, as it presses on with a major incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Russian air defence forces shot down 11 drones over Moscow and its surrounding region. No damage or casualties were reported. Drone attacks on Moscow are rare. Ukraine’s latest attempt to target the Russian capital appeared to be larger than an attack in May 2023, when at least eight drones were intercepted.
Following the assault on Moscow, temporary restrictions were imposed overnight at Moscow’s Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports, but all three later returned to normal operations.
Source:
Ukraine targets Moscow in ‘one of largest ever’ drone attacks | Russia-Ukraine war News | Al Jazeera
Latvian National Extradited for Illegally Exporting Advanced US-Origin Aircraft Technology to Russia
Upgraded Tu-160M strategic bomber. (Photo: TASS)
Oleg Chistyakov AKA Olegs Čitsjakovs (55) was extradited from Latvia to a federal court in Kansas City, KS. Chistyakov allegedly conspired with US citizens Cyril Gregory Buyanovsky (61) and Douglas Edward Robertson (56) to facilitate the sale, repair and shipment of US-origin avionics equipment to customers in Russia and other countries that operate Russian-built aircraft. Buyanovksy and Robertson were charged and arrested in March 2023 and have both pleaded guilty. Buyanovsky is scheduled to be sentenced on 14 Nov; Robertson on 3 Oct.
Chistyakov is charged with conspiracy, Export Control Reform Act violations, smuggling, and money laundering. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and up to a $1 million fine.
A criminal complaint is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Source:
The War in Gaza Is Creating Thousands of Orphans as Polio Outbreak Looms
UN experts estimate that at least 19,000 children are now surviving with extended families, hospital staff, volunteers, or managing by themselves. Many of Gaza’s newly orphaned children are injured, traumatized, and haunted by memories of their parents. Medical staff say children are left to roam hospital hallways and fend for themselves. Hospitals label them “wounded child, no surviving family.” Neonatal units are caring for unclaimed babies and surgeons have amputated limbs from many orphans who said “they had no one to hold their hands or comfort them.”
Nearly all of the territory’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during the war. On top of all this abject misery, the UN reports an outbreak of the polio virus which was polio-free for 25 years. A supply chain of refrigeration units and unfettered access to the Gaza Strip would be necessary to contain this virus.
Abdullah Akeila (LF) and his brother Ahmed (R) in Gaza. The boys are aching to see their parents again and are convinced it will happen as soon as they can go home. (Photo: Bilal Shbair for the New York Times).
Sources:
War-battered Gaza Faces Uphill Battle Against Polio | IBTimes
The War in Gaza Is Making Thousands of Orphans – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Police Brutality in US Continues: South Carolina Deputy Charged with Killing Unarmed Man, Letting Police Dog Maul Another Innocent Man
Former deputy Treyvon Jonathan Sellers in an undated photo.
A deputy in South Carolina has been charged with voluntary manslaughter and assault after he shot an unarmed suspect five times, killing him, while letting his police dog maul a different, innocent person.
State agents arrested former Florence County deputy Treyvon Jonathan Sellers (29). He was on leave after the 26 May shooting and was fired in July after an arrest in an unrelated domestic violence case. Sellers was chasing 43-year-old William Dwayne Rankin when Rankin crashed into a tree and ran into a nearby home. Sellers went into the home through the back door unannounced with his unleashed police dog. The ex-deputy then ordered the dog to attack anyone in the house. The dog bit Johnny Cooper, the owner of the home, who wasn’t involved in the chase and didn’t know Sellers. While the dog attacked Mr. Cooper, Sellers shot Rankin five times as he lay on a couch.
Sellers failed to give the dog the right commands to stop attacking and the homeowner was mauled for approximately 87 seconds, suffering permanent injuries to his left arm and shoulder. Sellers was charged with voluntary manslaughter in Rankin’s death and faces two to 30 years in prison if convicted. He was also charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature in the dog’s attack and faces up to 20 years if convicted. The fate of the police dog is not yet known.
Source:
Mexico to Charge Drug Lord for Delivering Another Drug Lord to US
A plane believed to have carried Mexican drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez is seen on the tarmac of the Dona Ana County private airport, in Santa Teresa, NM, 25 July 2024.
The strange saga of how two Mexican drug lords were detained after landing in a plane in the US in July just got stranger. The Mexican government is bringing charges against Joaquín Guzmán López, the leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel founded by his father, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, because he kidnapped Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada — an older drug boss from a rival faction of the cartel — forcing him onto the plane and flying to an airport near El Paso, TX.
The younger Guzmán apparently intended to turn himself in to US authorities, but may have brought Zambada along as a prize to sweeten any plea deal. Zambada had trusted Guzmán and accompanied him to a meeting to help iron out a fierce rivalry between two Mexican politicians.
Zambada was known for eluding capture for decades because of his incredibly tight, loyal, and sophisticated personal security apparatus. Joaquin Guzman Lopez may be charged with treason. According to Mexico’s criminal code, treason is committed “by those who illegally abduct a person in Mexico in order to hand them over to authorities of another country.”
These Mexican drug cartels smuggle millions of doses of the deadly opioid fentanyl into the US, causing about 70,000 overdose deaths each year.
Source:
Mexico to charge drug lord for delivering another drug lord to US (voanews.com)
ACLU Sues Medford, Oregon for Spying on Activists
0n 1 Jun 2020 Chris Luz, the mayor of the neighboring town of Phoenix, drove through a crowd of BLM protesters in Medford, OR. He was accused of intentionally hitting at least one woman with his car. Neither he nor the protestor were charged. (Imagery: The UK Daily Mail)
The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon has sued the city of Medford, accusing the Police Department of “illegally spying” on “progressive political activists.”
The ACLU filed the lawsuit claiming the department “illegally collected information on individuals and groups engaged in racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive justice, housing justice, harm reduction, decriminalization, government transparency and environmental advocacy, when no crime had been committed. Police surveillance of protected political activities is not only unlawful; it is incompatible with life in a free society.”
The complaint, filed on behalf of Rogue Valley Pepper Shakers, Stabbin Wagon and Melissa Jones, claims police collected intelligence from social media accounts on progressive groups and events, including a Juneteenth drive-in movie at the YMCA and in 2022 before the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and federal abortion rights.
Oregon state law bans police from “collecting or maintaining information about the political, religious, or social views and associations or activities of people who are not reasonably suspected of criminal activity.”
This unwarranted police surveillance is right out of Belarussian Supremo Alexander Lukashenko’s playbook or J. Edgar Hoover’s notorious COINTELPRO and has no place whatsoever in American society.
Sources:
ACLU sues Medford, Ore.; accuses police of ‘spying’ on activists – UPI.com
City of Medford Names New Police Chief City of Medford (medfordoregon.gov)
New York Man Arrested for Operating as an Illegal Agent of the Chinese Government in the US
Yuanjun Tang (67), a naturalized citizen of the US and resident of Queens, NY, was charged with being an unregistered agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and making materially false statements to the FBI.
Tang is a former PRC citizen who was imprisoned in China for his activities as a dissident opposing the one-party authoritarian political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). On or about 2002, Tang defected to Taiwan and was subsequently granted political asylum in the US and moved to NYC. Tang regularly participated in events with fellow PRC dissidents and lead a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting democracy in China. But Tang was secretly reporting to the Ministry of State Security (MSS) on these dissidents and had at least three face-to-face meetings with his handlers. The FBI recovered photographs, videos, and documents that Tang collected or created for transmission to the MSS from numerous electronic devices and computer accounts.
Yuanjun Tang is charged with several counts and faces between five to 20 years incarceration if he is convicted.
A criminal complaint is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Source:
Draconian Security Services Impacting US and German Interests in China
This girl is one of 15,000 people the Chinese authorities arrested in 2015 for “jeopardizing Internet security.” (Undated imagery).
Intelligence and security services are causing difficulties for the US and Germany. American diplomatic efforts to conduct people-to-people contacts and cultural exchanges are being stifled. German commercial interests in the pharmaceutical industry are also being hampered in China.
The US State Department has been arranging for Chinese students to study in the US. In 2023, 105,000 student visas were issued and approximately 300,000 Chinese students are expected to be studying at American universities by the end of 2024. But the Chinese Communist Party’s security services, including agents of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), have been discouraging these students from going. Their tactics include interrogation, intimidation, and threats of expulsion from Chinese institutions. In some cases, parents of the students have been threatened by security personnel to dissuade their children from studying abroad.
In addition, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) shut down American-sponsored educational exchange programs in Shenyang, Wuhan, Guangzhou, and Shanghai. The security services have also blocked the US Embassy in Beijing from hiring a single Chinese national for the past three years, impeding basic American diplomatic operations.
China’s emboldened police state affects Germany as well. The German pharmaceutical industry warns of possible drug shortages from China as four out of Germany’s 16 states have suspended trips by their quality-control inspectors over tightened espionage laws. The states say they can no longer guarantee the safety of their inspectors on visits to Chinese pharmaceutical factories.
Germany imports almost 90 percent of its antibiotics from China. Europe also imports a high number of active pharmaceutical ingredients and antibiotics from China, which is one of the world’s largest suppliers.
With the emergence of new diseases thanks to global climate change, a drug shortage would be catastrophic. Moreover, unscrupulous actors would take advantage of a shortfall by producing and marketing counterfeit and ineffective drugs in the West.
Sources:
German pharmaceutical industry warns of possible drug shortages from China | Euronews
https://www.csoonline.com/article/552509/china-arrests-15-000-for-internet-related-crimes.html
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